Chapter 20: Atonement

The Eclipse Cannon's core itself looked more like the ruins of an ancient civilization than a research facility. The walls were made of cracked limestone and the floors of aged brick. The floor that Sonic and Knuckles stood on was a raised platform that jutted out above some of the amber-colored fluid that Knuckles had become just well-acquainted with. There were two sections of the platform which mirrored each other: one on the left and another on the right. They might have been connected at one time, but a stream of the amber fluid ran between them now. The two sections of bridge initially ran straight and parallel to each other but both branched out to form half-circles about halfway down before continuing on straight again. Most striking to Sonic and Knuckles were the structures at the far end of the room, at the end of the bridge.

"It looks just like the shrine of the Master Emerald," remarked Knuckles to the hedgehog, referring to the structure on the ground.

The other structure hung from the ceiling and appeared more modern. It was metallic and funnel-shaped, with the smaller end of the funnel pointing towards the top of the replicated shrine. It seemed to be connected to something else in a room above the ceiling. Sonic recognized this pulsating mechanism as part of the machine that he had seen in the central control room of the Eclipse Cannon.

"They must have designed that thing to look like the shrine to fully harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds," Sonic said. He took a glance at Knuckles and said, "That's gotta be where we have to take the Master Emerald."

The echidna nodded at him and they both proceeded to sprint across the bridge, getting to the half-circular section before they fell to ground screaming in pain while covering their ears. A deafening sound of a voice had come from above. It was a voice they had heard before.

"All of you ungrateful people on Earth, all of you, who have taken everything that I have known and loved away from me will know the pain that I feel," said the voice of Gerald Robotnik, exactly as he had in his earlier video.

Bolts of electricity shot in the air above them immediately following the end of this message.

"What's going on now?" Knuckles shouted as he stood up and uncovered his ears.

"I'm not sure, but something's definitely coming!" Sonic called back, standing as well.

The numerous bolts of electricity came together after a brief moment and caused an explosion of blinding light, causing Sonic and Knuckles to fall onto the floor once again. When the two of them found the strength to try and look into the light, they witnessed a gigantic beast of a creature floating in the air in front of them. It looked like an enlarged lizard, but with several tubes and mechanical objects protruding from its body. It fell to the circular portion of fluid between the half-circles of the two bridges and growled in front of them; its mouth appeared to be wide enough to swallow the two of them whole all at once.

"Oh no," Knuckles groaned.

"I know, seriously, we still have to get past this thing?" Sonic shouted to the echidna.

"I just swam in that thing's urine," Knuckles moaned, now looking very sick. Sonic shot him an incredulous look. "Hey, you weren't the one under there, it was awful!" Knuckles fired back.

Deciding to let the matter lie, Sonic looked back and examined the creature. "This must the prototype of the Ultimate Life Form," he said. "But it's supposed to be encapsulated! How did it manage to get down here?"

"Don't worry, I'll take care of it," said a voice from behind them.

Shadow the Hedgehog had appeared onto the scene. He strutted in the direction of the prototype. Every step he took was confident yet ferocious.

"Wait, what?" Sonic exclaimed. "What are you doing here and what do you think you're about to do?"

Shadow now stood in front of Sonic and Knuckles. At first, he didn't respond to Sonic, but eventually he turned and did. "I'll take care of the Biolizard. You two make your way to the shrine!"

Sonic and Knuckles looked at each other in disbelief. Shadow had been working against them the whole time.

"Can we trust him?" Knuckles asked Sonic.

Sonic took a look at Shadow. Something about his facial expression said something different about him. This was a Shadow that he had never seen before. Sonic turned back to Knuckles and said, "Yeah. Yeah, we can trust him."

Knuckles took a deep breath as he still was unsure. But he nodded, signaling that he was following Sonic's lead.

Taking this as permission to proceed, Shadow again faced the Biolizard. This was to be a date with destiny. The prototype roared once again and turned its head towards Shadow's. Shadow stared back at it, not flinching in the slightest.

"Go!" he suddenly yelled and dashed off to his right, over the stream of the Biolizard's amber-colored waste and to the portion of the bridge on the right side of the room. The Biolizard turned its head in Shadow's direction, leaving the path in front of Sonic and Knuckles uncovered. The two gave a nod to one another and proceeded along as the Biolizard went after Shadow.

Shadow ran along the right half-circle until he almost ran into the stream of liquid which would have pushed him to his death. He skidded to a stop and turned around to find the Biolizard's mouth about to chomp at his head. Shadow dove to the ground to avoid it while maintaining his balance, still trying to avoid falling into the stream. He rolled across the floor, avoiding the Biolizard as if it were a bird trying to peck him. At one point, the prototype smashed its mouth into the ground, and it looked upwards and roared in pain. While seated, Shadow noticed that attached to the side of the Biolizard's mouth was a metal pipe. Without putting much thought into it, Shadow leapt up and tried grinding on the pipe. It worked, and he skated along the pipe, which led to the circular apparatus that protruded from the prototype's abdomen. In the middle of the apparatus looked like a glowing red sore. As he reached the pipe's end, Shadow leapt off and drove the punch straight to the sore.

The Biolizard reacted in intense pain to the attack, jumping upwards as a result. This knocked Shadow from the prototype's body, causing him to fall face-first back onto the bridge. The prototype crashed back down to the ground and roared angrily. It again turned quickly back towards Shadow, who quickly noticed this, got up, and ran in the opposite direction.

"Wow, look at Shadow go!" Knuckles yelled to Sonic on the other side of the bridge. Sonic was about to turn and glance in that direction but noticed the prototype's tail crashing down about to flatten the two of them.

"Tail! Move!" Sonic shouted, and ran in the direction of Knuckles.

"Tails isn't here, Sonic—" Knuckles tried to respond before he was cut off by Sonic tackling him to get him out of the way. The two got up and Knuckles took a look at what came crashing down beside them. "You could have told me we were about to get impaled by that thing!" he screamed at Sonic, who responded with a flabbergasted look.

Meanwhile, Shadow continued his assault. He attempted to get close enough to the piping coming from the Biolizard's face, but it responded by shooting out what looked like a black orb of energy from its mouth.

"What is this?" Shadow shouted to himself as he jumped over the orb. He watched the orb zoom past him and explode against a wall. He turned back towards the Biolizard but had to hit the ground to avoid getting hit by another orb. It tried shooting one more orb at him, but it didn't appear to have the energy to. Smoke started to come out of its mouth as if it were tired and coughing. Shadow jumped back up and quickly got back atop the piping and used it to get another punch in at the Biolizard's sore.

The Biolizard reacted to this blow similarly to how it reacted the first time. Its body leapt up in reaction to the pain, once again flinging Shadow to the bridge before he could inflict any more damage. Starting to get infuriated, the Biolizard then began firing more black orbs at Shadow, but at a higher quantity and a faster rate. The orbs were too easy for Shadow to dodge, however, and he made his way back towards the piping along prototype's side. He rode up the piping and again gave the sore a whack, leaving the Biolizard reeling in pain and causing himself to be thrown back to the bridge. Seeing that this strategy wasn't working, the Biolizard decided to summon smaller pink orbs which came from the side of its body. They began to hover around the Biolizard and would throw themselves toward Shadow if he tried to made his way back to the Biolizard's mouth.

"Wow, this prototype sure means business," Knuckles said, now at the base of the shrine.

Sonic, who had already been halfway up the stairs, called back, "Will you stop getting distracted and get up here?"

Shadow found out that dodging these smaller orbs proved to be much more of a hassle than the larger ones. Not only were there more of the smaller orbs, but they moved faster and homed in towards him, unlike the slower, larger orbs that only moved in one direction. After spinning around to avoid a few of the orbs, Shadow leapt up and felt another one graze against his shoe, knocking him to the ground, where he had to start rolling on his side to avoid getting hit.

"Now what do I do?" Shadow grunted to himself. He got up, only to nearly slip on a non-functioning pink orb which had just been lying idly on the ground next to him. That's when it hit him: "These orbs don't explode!"

He looked up and saw another wave of orbs coming his way. He jumped up and on top of the closest one to him and immediately jumped off of that one and to another orb. He effectively used the orbs as stairs to get himself closer to the prototype's sore. Once he saw an opening, Shadow dove for the sore and gave it another punch.

The Biolizard flinched more and roared in pain more loudly than it ever had previously. Shadow again was thrown from its body, but having expected it this time, was able to land on his feet. He prepped himself to deliver the final blow to the beaten prototype, but it had one more trick up its sleeve.

Sonic and Knuckles by that time had already made their way to the top of the shrine. There was a blinking red symbol in the middle of the floor there. Knuckles took out the Master Emerald and moved to place it on the symbol.

Just then, however, the Biolizard unleashed its final attempt at defense. With a roar, more pink orbs came from its body, but that wasn't all. Shadow started to feel as light as a feather, and before he knew it, he was floating. Somehow, the Biolizard was able to alter the gravity in the room.

As this was happening, Knuckles was still fumbling around with the Master Emerald. He panicked as it nearly eluded its grasp as the gravity started to shift, but he was just able to grab ahold of it. He turned to where Sonic was and saw that he had taken hold of one of the shrine's pillars to avoid from being taken to the room's ceiling. He pushed his way towards him and grabbed Sonic's outreached hand as they both hung on for dear life.

Shadow, on the other hand, did not have the luxury of being able to grab onto anything and was pressed with the task of taking out the Biolizard right then and there if he wanted to survive. He swam his way towards the prototype's sore, spinning and rolling in the air as necessary to elude the waves of pink orbs that were thrown in his way. But he couldn't move fast enough. There were too many orbs to avoid and he didn't have the speed to do so. He was able to make his way past a few orbs but was hit in the chest by another one, pushing him back a good distance away from his target. He tried again, flailing his arms and legs as fast as possible, but again he was knocked away by an orb before he was able to get close enough.

He grunted in frustration. There was no way he could get close enough to deliver the final blow. He waited as a few more orbs came his way. He dodged them all, but did not dare to get closer. He took another glance at his surroundings. What was he missing? There had to be some way around all of this.

Just then, an orb came whizzing past him over his head and in the direction of the prototype. He remembered: these orbs don't explode. He turned around and saw a few of the orbs that he had previously dodged. One of them came flying directly towards him. Instead of completely dodging it, he leapt up and grabbed ahold of it. He now was hitching a ride on the orb straight at the Biolizard's sore. He waited until he was close enough and so that there weren't any other orbs that would block his path. Then he took the final leap and smashed into the sore full-force with his entire body.

The hulking lizard creature turned its neck up screaming in excruciating pain once again. This time, though, when it brought itself back down, it stayed down. It was defeated.

The Biolizard's defeat restored the normal gravity inside the core. An exhausted Shadow began to make his way towards the shrine where Sonic and Knuckles were on the ground again. The echidna was already restarting the process of harnessing the Master Emerald's powers.

"Okay, let's try this again," Knuckles said as he placed the Emerald on the flashing red symbol in the middle of the shrine's floor. He began to recite the prayer that had been passed down to him from generations before.

"The servers are the seven Chaos. Chaos is power, power is enriched by the heart. The controller is the one that unifies the Chaos.

"The Chaos Emeralds must be stopped! Only you can do this!"

The Emerald began to spin at a remarkable speed. Once again, the energy produced by this action caused bolts of electricity to be summoned around them, which culminated in a bright light engulfing the room.

Shadow had just made his way up the stairs of the shrine when the bright light had been emitted, but he had to stop and turn around when he heard another roar. The Biolizard wasn't quite through yet. Roaring now with more of a viciousness than ever before, the Biolizard curled its neck upwards and soon began to stand on its high legs. It too began to be engulfed in a bright light and soon after that it had disappeared.

"Shadow, I thought you had taken it out!" Sonic yelled.

"I did too," he responded quietly.

"Well, it's probably gone now, right?" Knuckles asked. "And we just stopped the Chaos Emeralds. So we probably don't have anything to worry about."

Then the three started to feel more vibrations coming from under them. These vibrations, however, were much stronger than the ones they had experienced previously and they were strong enough to knock the three to the ground.

Once the vibrations had ceased, Knuckles remarked, "Okay, now I'm confused. We take out the prototype and stop the Chaos Emeralds, but we're still set to crash into the Earth?"

"The prototype is still alive," said Robotnik's voice from Sonic's walkie-talkie. Sonic and Knuckles let out a groan. Shadow's expression had not changed. The doctor continued, "I'm not sure how to explain this…it's as if it and the colony have become one. It's literally pulling the colony towards the Earth!"

"It must have been Chaos Control," Shadow murmured to himself. "That's how it got here and now that's how it got outside."

Knuckles smacked his palm against his face. "Well, I'm all of ideas," he said. "Do you two have a plan B?"

Sonic examined his surroundings. What did they have there that they could use? "Chaos Emeralds," he said. "Chaos Emeralds!"

"What about Chaos Emeralds?" asked Shadow.

"We have seven Chaos Emeralds upstairs," Sonic said. "Shadow, please tell me you can turn super."

"Turn super?" Shadow asked, having clearly never heard of the phrase before.

"We can turn all super," Sonic said to the other two. "And we can get outside and take care of the prototype once and for all!"

"Okay, but there's only one problem," Knuckles pointed out. "Do we have time to get upstairs, fetch the Chaos Emeralds, turn super, and then take down the prototype?"

Having forgotten that time was an issue, Sonic pulled out his walkie-talkie and asked Robotnik, "Doc, how much time 'til impact?"

"About five minutes," he answered. "Hurry up!"

"Darn!" Sonic screamed, almost throwing his walkie-talkie to the ground, but deciding not to let go of it. He looked as frustrated as ever. "I guess we have to time to lose, then, guys."

Seeing that this was their only way, the three attempted to make their way down the shrine and back to the central control room before yet again, another flash of light brightened up the room.

"Now what?" Sonic shouted. They looked up at the light. It was unbelievable. Glimmering from the light and zooming towards them were the seven Chaos Emeralds. They had made their way towards them, almost as if they had known they were needed.

"Well, would you look at that," Knuckles remarked.

All seven of the Emeralds took flight and surrounded the three of them. They started spinning in a circle, slowly gaining speed. The three reached their hands up towards them, believing that this would aid them in harnessing their power. In a vibrant flash of light, they could feel the energy rushing through their veins. Their fur turned upwards and began to shine golden. Even the colors of their eyes began to change. Shadow marveled at this feeling. He felt a billion times stronger and unstoppable.

Breaking up this triumphant moment was Knuckles who said, "Well…this is awkward." Sonic and Shadow looked towards him. He hadn't turned super.

"What happened?" Sonic asked. "Do we need to try again?"

"No, just go," Knuckles said, and not enviously like Sonic and Shadow might have expected. "These things have minds of their own, this must have happened for a reason. You two are clearly the ones that need to take this thing down, not me. Just go!"

As much as they would have wanted to reflect upon what had just happened, Super Sonic and Super Shadow knew they couldn't afford another moment of hesitation. They nodded to one another, looked skywards and disappeared to outer space where their destinies awaited them.