Chapter 13: Cannon Countdown

Liftoff was successful. The spaceship successfully broke Earth's atmosphere, leaving the heroes in space. Sonic, Knuckles, and Amy made their way to the cockpit, where Tails had gotten off of his Cyclone and was now manning the flight controls.

"Didn't take ya long to figure out this thing, huh, buddy?" Sonic asked his best friend, slapping him on the shoulder as he sat.

"Absolutely not, Sonic!" Tails said, still with a tone of exaggerated enthusiasm. He left the shuttle in autopilot and got up to face the others. "We should be good for the rest of the trip." Now turning to Sonic, he said, "By the way, I never got to fully show you my Cyclone." Sonic feigned interest in this and followed Tails to the mech.

"So this is my Cyclone…right here in the front is my Volkan Cannon. I've upgraded it with a bazooka so I can shoot through metal barriers…see the attachment on the back? That fires missiles; I can lock-on to 10 things at once and fire missiles at all of them at the same time!" Amy started to roll her eyes. "I've also got Jet Boosters right along the legs, see? It can sorta fly. It's more like a hover, really…Do you like it? You can sit it in it if you want. I've been working on this nonstop for months!"

Upon overhearing this, Knuckles shifted his attention to the best friends' conversation. "Wait, did you just say that you've been working on this thing 'nonstop' for months?" he asked Tails. Sonic and Amy gave Tails looks of concern, but Tails didn't notice them.

"Yeah, why?" Tails asked.

"So this is all you've been doing and nothing else?" Knuckles asked.

"Pretty much, is there a problem?" Tails responded.

The echidna now looked furious. "You said…you were at airplane conventions…that's why you couldn't come with me to the desert…"

Tails responded with a look of shock and fear. "Well yeah, of course." He stammered. "I mean, that's obviously what I meant," he added, flashing a nervous smile.

Knuckles began to throw a punch at the fox, but Sonic stepped in front of him and held him back. Tails jumped back and fell on his back, causing Amy to run over and kneel over him in concern. He swore that he was never more scared in his entire life. Knuckles, his friend, had just tried to hurt him.

"Whoa, buddy, you've gotta chill," said Sonic as he jostled with Knuckles. Saying this only seemed to anger Knuckles more.

"And YOU!" he screamed to Sonic, as he finally succeeded in pushing the hedgehog off of him. "What's your excuse, pretty boy?"

"Pretty boy? That's low, dude," Sonic replied, genuinely hurt. "Listen. Knux. Just let us explain—"

"I don't think I need explaining!" Knuckles yelled and started throwing punches at Sonic, who dodged them by cartwheeling off to the side. "I was out there, in the blazing hot desert, and you couldn't even find it in yourself to at least keep me company?" He threw more punches at Sonic and missed.

Amy had now gotten up from the ground and had tried to get in between Sonic and Knuckles. "Guys, please don't fight!" she pleaded. "Please don't hurt Sonic, Knuckles, please!"

"And what's your story?" he now was asking Amy. "You'd do anything to cover for your precious Sonic, wouldn't you? Should've known. Should've known you wouldn't really have wanted to spend any of your time with me."

"That's not true!" she shouted, struggling to keep up a tough demeanor.

"All right, Knuckles, don't take it out on Amy!" Sonic interrupted. "She was only trying to help. She was trying to help everyone here. That's the only reason why she's here in this space shuttle with us right now! She only wants to help!" She was beginning to beam at him, and he pretended not to notice.

Just as Knuckles was about to respond to this, they heard a loud crash and felt the shuttle rock. They all lost their balance and found themselves on the ground when the rocking stopped. The ship's controls had now started to alarm; the ship had taken on some damage. Tails got up first and started looking at the front window. He realized that the shuttle had run into some space rocks. The space rocks had gotten there after being blown from the ARK to reveal the Eclipse Cannon.

"Is everyone all right?" Tails asked. The others nodded yes.

Knuckles got up and looked out a side window to see what had caused the crash. Smoke appeared to be shooting out of the front of the shuttle. When he turned his head to look at the rear end of the shuttle, he caught a glint of green flashing near the corner of the window. He realized what it was: a Master Emerald shard.

"Oh no, the Master Emerald pieces!" Knuckles cried out in anguish. "They're flying away all over the place! The crash must've opened up the hatch door, that's where they were!"

"Listen now, let's not panic, Knuckles," said Sonic calmly, but Knuckles couldn't make himself relax.

"What do you mean, 'let's not panic'? The Master Emerald pieces! My entire life revolves around that Emerald, and I worked so hard to find those pieces!" He started to eye the controls before strutting over to them. "I'm turning this ship around, step aside!"

Tails now got up and tried to block the controls. "No, Knuckles, you don't know what you're doing," he told him. "We're really close to landing by the looks of it. We've just gotta land first and then you can go look for the Emerald pieces." But Knuckles had already completely lost his patience. He wasn't going to have any of this. He started to grab at the controls. "Wait—Knuckles, stop! Wait, not that lever, don't touch that one, we'll crash!"

But it was too late. Knuckles pulled the overdrive lever, sending the shuttle zooming across space just outside the ARK and throwing the four heroes to the shuttle's floor. Although the shuttle was fortunate enough not to hit anything, it had passed the ARK's loading dock and was now going in the opposite direction of the Master Emerald pieces. This move hadn't been beneficial for any of the four.

"Hi, doctor. How's it going down there?" Rouge asked Robotnik over a cell phone from the central control room in the ARK.

"Well…not good," responded the doctor. "You see—how do I explain this? They, erm, escaped."

Rouge was initially alarmed at this, asking him, "What do you mean they escaped?" She realized, however, that this shouldn't have been too unexpected. After all, he had never been successful in defeating his adversaries in the past.

"Well, Rouge, I did everything in my power. I made the base nearly impossible to penetrate. I let ghosts into the base to scare any intruders who made their way in too far. Then, as a last resort, I built a gigantic Egg Golem that I thought for sure would crush them, but it didn't! Then they hijacked my spaceship and they're heading your way now! None of my blasted ideas to stop those beasts ever work!" His voice became angrier with each sentence.

"Doctor, doctor, please. It's okay. I've got it under control. I will personally go after them," she said in an almost hypnotizing tone. He didn't respond to this, so she couldn't be sure of his reaction. "Now doctor, it would really help me if you told me the password for the computer in the central control room, so I can set up the defenses here."

He sighed. "Okay, Rouge. But you must stop them! The password is Maria. I won't take long to get up there myself, so do your best for the time being."

"Thanks doctor, I'll get right on it!" she said eagerly and hung up. "Tricking that old doctor is just too easy," she said proudly to herself.

She walked over to the computer in the middle of the room and studied it for a bit. When active, it buzzes and all kinds of lights start flashing. At that point, it was doing nothing. The console behind the computer contained six of the seven shimmering Chaos Emeralds. She set herself up right in front the computer, which was asking for a username and password.

"Okay, username G. Robotnik, password Maria," she typed quickly. She paused suddenly in thought. "Maria…where have I heard that name before? Oh well, guess it doesn't matter much." The computer started to click and whir before it had fully booted up. She began to type again. "All right, Shadow. Let's find out who you really are."

She searched the space colony's archives to try and find any information on the mysterious hedgehog. She looked through research logs and a specific folder for projects before encountering what she had been looking for: Research Project Shadow. "Well, this looks promising! Research Project Shadow, the Ultimate Life Form!" she said gleefully to herself. She pulled up the project's records and skimmed through them. She found herself shocked at what she had just read.

"What—this can't be right!" she screamed at herself, perhaps hoping she would prove herself wrong. She looked through the details more carefully. There was no question about it. This was the project that produced the Ultimate Life Form. "But if this is it," she said to herself, "then what in the world is Shadow?"

Before she could think too deeply about her discovery, an alert came up on the computer. A video had flashed up onto the screen; a camera had just caught Sonic, Tails, and Amy milling about at the loading docks. They had just landed. What about the echidna? That's suspicious, she thought to herself. She brought up a map of the surrounding area of the colony on the computer and had it find any locations where high amounts of energy were emanating. She found some on some nearby space rocks.

"Master Emerald pieces," she gasped. She already had a few shards from the desert and now more had just popped up seemingly right on her doorstep. "I think the doctor won't mind if I let him take care of his hedgehog problem," she said deviously and made her way out of the control room, heading for the space rocks. Unfortunately for her, she didn't make sure she everything with her before she left. Her walkie-talkie, which was her primary means of communication with the government, lay on its own on the control panel.

"KNUCKLES, THAT STUPID IDIOT!" Sonic yelled furiously at the top of his lungs. "What in the world did he think he was doing? Trying to take control of the darn shuttle! I'll rip him to shreds when I find him!"

While Sonic was incensed, at the very least, he was in no physical distress. Tails and Amy, on the other hand, were both woozy from the shuttle having suddenly been thrust into overdrive. Knuckles was nowhere to be found. The others assumed he bailed at some point before they docked.

"Sonnnicc, relaaax," Tails grumbled dizzily. "He's gone nooow…we might as well rest ourselves uuuup…focus on the task at haaand…"

"Awww, my fur is such a mess," Amy groaned. "Gosh, do you think there's anywhere here where I could wash up or something? It's so dusty in here."

"Well, this place was shut down around 50 years ago due to a terrible accident, so that would explain the dust," Tails said. "Back in the day, it was the most advanced research facility in the world. A lot of the stuff I've seen is pretty outdated, though, and we haven't even been here long."

"So they just completely abandoned this place?" Amy asked.

"It looks like it," Tails replied. "Whatever that accident was 50 years ago, the government saw it fit to get everyone out of here. Must have been devastating."

Sonic now started to pay attention to the other two. He shouted, "All right, we don't have much time left, we still need to find out how we're going to destroy that cannon!"

"You're right, Sonic, let's get on it!" nodded Tails affirmatively. "Come on over and take a look at this!" From a compartment in his Cyclone, he pulled out a small silver briefcase and set it off to the side. He pulled up a sketch of the colony that he had made on his Cyclone's computer and gestured to the other two to come take a look. "From what I've seen about that cannon is that it seems to be impervious to outside attacks. So it seems our only shot would be to break it down from the inside." He started to point at the briefcase. "You can go and open that up now, Sonic."

Sonic did as he was told. The briefcase was holding a yellow Chaos Emerald. "Nice, Tails! What are we gonna do with it?" he asked. Considering how upset Tails was when he interfered with his last plan, Sonic decided to give his best friend free rein on this one.

"What we need to do is to get to the central control room and place that Emerald with all the other Emeralds that are currently powering the cannon," Tails said.

Sonic and Amy looked at each other in confusion. "Wouldn't that just make the cannon stronger?" asked Amy.

"Aha, it would!" Tails said with a wry grin. "Only that this Emerald isn't the real thing! It's a fake!" While the other two still eyed each other confusedly, Tails pulled out another, identical yellow Emerald from his Cyclone and flashed it at them. They both gasped.

"Wow, Tails, you're a genius!" Amy shouted, causing Tails to blush a little. "They look exactly alike!"

"Thanks Amy," he replied just loudly enough. "Well you see, I created that fake Emerald after researching this real one. I made that fake with the exact same wavelength and properties as the real one although it's not as strong. What it'll do is, it'll make the other six Chaos Emeralds already in the cannon reverse in polarity, causing the cannon to blow up! It's foolproof, I had it tested! Not even a machine will be able to tell the difference!"

He smiled proudly and the other two applauded. "Can't see how this'll go wrong, buddy!" Sonic said, genuinely proud of his young sidekick. "Earth will be safe again in no time!"

"All right, Sonic, you know what to do now!" Tails said. "I'll go try and cut down the colony's power supply. Good luck!"

"Wait Tails, what about me?" Amy asked, wide-eyed. Tails started to feel really bad now. He was just now starting to appreciate all that Amy had been trying to do to help them. The least he could have done was include her in the plan, but there was nothing she could do with the way the plan was currently formulated.

"Sorry, Ames, you're just gonna have to wait up until we're done," Sonic said, frowning, unknowingly saving Tails from having to say something himself.

"Ugh, you guys always have all the fun," she said disgustedly. The other two just looked at each other awkwardly. "Well, what are you waiting for? Save the world, already!" She strutted off angrily. Tails looked guilty, but Sonic just shrugged it off and made his way to the control room, this time somewhat trusting that his best friend would get his job done.

Back at the base, Robotnik was in his computer room, lamenting his huge failure in trying to stop Sonic and his friends once and for all, when Shadow walked in.

"Oh, hi Shadow, you're here!" Robotnik said embarrassedly, as he had been pouting and close to crying when the hedgehog walked in.

"I heard they got away, doctor," the hedgehog said without a trace of emotion in his voice, making it hard to tell if he was disappointed or not.

"Yes. Yes they did. But that's okay. Rouge is getting ready to stop them. They'll be out of our hair in no time."

"You trusted Rouge with defense?" Shadow asked, causing Robotnik's face to flush.

"She's the only one up there, so…oh no, this was a huge mistake!" the doctor screamed with a tone of desperation and slammed a control panel. Shadow could see huge veins in the back of the doctor's head pulsating. Robotnik swallowed and tried to catch his breath. "All right, this is okay, we're okay! We just need a plan." He went over to his computer and brought up a map of the ARK on the monitor. He started to look for Chaos Emeralds by searching for areas with abnormally high energy readings. He saw three such areas in the ARK, which was strange. One of these was the control room with the six Chaos Emeralds, but that meant that there had to be at least two other Emeralds in the ARK. So where were two other Emeralds coming from if there are only seven in existence?

"Shadow, do you see that too?" he asked.

Shadow took a look at the screen, his facial expression not changing. "Yes. It says there are eight Chaos Emeralds in the colony."

Robotnik began to scratch at his mustache as he thought about why this was the case. It didn't take him long to figure out what was going on. "Unless there is a secret eighth Chaos Emerald that I'm not aware of, then it's obvious what they're doing." He turned and smiled at Shadow. "That clever fox. One of the Emeralds is a fake."

Shadow continued looking at the screen, nodding and accepting this. "Yes, I think you're right, doctor." He looked at Robotnik with a serious look on his face now. "Only problem is, we don't know which one's the fake." Robotnik stopped smiling when he heard this. Shadow continued to look at him intently and said, "I'm ready for whatever you need me to do."

"That's very honorable of you, Shadow, but I believe that I should be the one to tell them the end is near," Shadow was surprised at this, but decided to concede and let the doctor call the shots. Robotnik began to cackle. "It's time to put an end to all of this once and for all!"