Seven Masters Too Much

By now Knuckles could tell for sure they were heading in the right direction. With every step, it felt more like walking into the Temple of Chaos, or into the Emerald chamber at Hidden Palace back when it still served as the place to keep the powerful gems. The air he breathed and the very ground under his feet were brimming with chaos energy, vibrating with the random fluxes of the field.

Knuckles was no stranger to chaos energy. The opposite even, he'd grown up in the Master Emerald's presence and all his senses were atoned to it. It was a part of him, always there, a force that acted as constantly on him as gravity. Also other chaos objects, like the Chaos Emeralds or the golden rings, fell in with the tone, the frequency and melody of the Master Emerald. It was the balancing pole of the entire system; the Master's rule was control, a chaotic one, but reasonable to Knuckles. In the chaos sort of way it was logical. He could read it, feel it, breathe it. He knew in a way Sonic could too, any Chaos Controller could.

What he felt right now was different. In spite of their chaotic nature, the Master and Chaos Emeralds, even the weaker golden rings, contained patterns that were distinguishable in their frequencies, in the way their fields would grow stronger and ebb away again, in the way the powers bounced off each other or multiplied a compatible force. The echoes of chaos power that flowed all around him now showed no pattern, no inner logic, not even a color.

Knuckles was used to the chaos energy being made of seven colors, seven forms, like the colors of the rainbow are all contained in white light. Like sending light through a prism and splitting it into its rainbow components, also chaos energy could be split if you concentrated. The seven Chaos Emeralds were splits, each color, each power included in a separate Emerald. The Master Emerald's energy, while its light was green, contained all the seven forms of chaos, also the golden rings did. If you knew to access the power, you could split it yourself, see the seven colors. It wasn't possible here, whatever the power really was. It wasn't normal chaos energy. It was something more chaotic, as ridiculous as that sounded, something Knuckles had never seen before, and he was scared of it.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Sonic spoke up at Knuckles' side, the sudden words tearing the echidna out of his thoughts.

"I know what you mean," he mumbled, shooting a look at his blue friend. Sonic's ears were perked in alert and his quills seemed to stand up a little. Maybe he too could feel them prickling with this weird, distorted form of chaos energy around.

Sonic tugged at his bandages. Knuckles suspected they had tightened on drying and felt uncomfortable to him now, but in light of the fight that was probably to be expected when they finally found Metal Sonic, Knuckles supposed it was better they stayed on and offered some protection to the healing wounds underneath. The echidna cleared his throat and Sonic stopped pulling on the bandages. "What do you think he's got? I mean, there's chaos energy everywhere!"

Knuckles shook his head. "I've got no idea. I've rarely ever felt a chaos field that strong. Or that unbalanced and out of focus. Whatever it is, it's very unstable."

A frown slipped over Sonic's brow. "So, it's not just me trying not to listen to my gut feeling that tells me to turn around and get the hell outta here as fast as I can."

Knuckles raised a brow at him. "No." For a short moment, the guardian was stricken by the odd sense that it maybe was the first time his and Sonic's gut feelings agreed on anything.

If the hedgehog had realized the exact same thing wasn't clear to Knuckles, but he grimaced and huffed out a "Great."

Another minute passed in silence as they walked on, then they stood in front of another door. It opened with a switch and the two friends entered another one of the giant dome-like rooms. Having gotten on a higher level after the incident with the flooding room, they ended up on a half-round balcony of sorts that was overlooking the room.

Knuckles stopped right after walking through the door. He felt like he'd run head-first into a solid wall, so strong was the wave of chaos power that pounded him right in the face. For a second he saw stars, his sensitive senses only slowly growing used to the intensity the field had in here, like one's eyes have to adapt to the light after coming from a darker to a much brighter place, and when the moment of dizziness passed and the red echidna could see clearly again, he still stayed rooted where he was, eyes wide open and unable to do anything but stare into the room below.

In the middle of it, a force field surrounded seven glowing large gemstones that in looks, size and the color of light they gave out so closely resembled the Master Emerald Knuckles didn't believe his eyes. On first look, he would have almost believed he saw seven Master Emeralds. On second look however, he realized the differences. There was something very… Master Emerald-ish about those things, but at the same time, they were something totally different. The energy that flooded over the entire room almost was Master Emerald energy, but not quite… A little like Chaos Emeralds, too, minus the giant size, but the thrum of energy was more Master than Chaos Emerald, though a very strange, distorted form of it.

"Are those… Master Emeralds?" Sonic too seemed to experience definite problems closing his mouth.

Knuckles was only able to slowly, disbelievingly shake his head. "No. Yes. I… don't know. They're almost like the Master. But they're… dark…"

Sonic didn't seem to mind that even Knuckles himself thought what he'd just said didn't sound very to the point. The hedgehog also still stared at the giant gemstones, at the green light everywhere around. "Metal made… copies. Of the Master Emerald. That's what he needed it for."

The guardian nodded numbly. "I guess… But… they aren't really copies. They aren't Master Emeralds. But they aren't something else either…" Even as he spoke, Knuckles was aware his statements were lacking sense.

"Maybe…" Sonic shrugged. "Maybe you can't copy something like the Master Emerald. Tails once copied a Chaos Emerald, you remember? I could use it to cause Chaos Control, but it was a lot weaker than a normal Emerald. And it was… very different, in an odd way I can't describe."

Knuckles shook his head again. He couldn't stop. "I just can't believe he did that. This is just so… wrong. The whole balance of chaos is in danger. It's based on seven Chaos Emeralds and one Master. Having seven Master Emeralds more, let alone in one place… It's like putting tons of weight on one side of the scales and hardly anything on the other."

Sonic's hands curled into fists. "Yeah. That's something Metal must have inherited from Eggman. He never thinks of the consequences of what he does either."

"But how, Sonic? How did he make seven fake Master Emeralds?"

The blue hedgehog's eyes narrowed and for the few seconds he looked grim his face bore a striking resemblance to Shadow. "That's what he needed Tails for. That's why he kidnapped him, why he sealed me away to have me out of the way. Tails can make a fake Chaos Emerald. Metal must have forced him to make those fake Master Emeralds for him."

"He shouldn't have done that! He could have refused! How -!"

"Knuckles!" Sonic turned to him, grabbing hard at his arms, and gave him a shake. "He's a child! He was alone, and scared, and he doesn't have a chance against Metal Sonic on his own! He would have killed him! He didn't have a choice!"

Knuckles blinked. Of course, Sonic was right. Nothing of this was Tails' fault. He was just a victim. A victim they'd come to save… The echidna sighed. "You're right, of course. I'm sorry… this is just…"

"Too much, I know." Sonic let go of him and turned back to the room below. "We have to find him."

Knuckles nodded. "Yes. And we have to destroy those fake Emeralds. Imagine what'll happen when they come close to a Chaos Emerald. I know it can happen that Chaos Emeralds explode when they get too unstable."

Sonic stared. "All that energy…"

Knuckles nodded. "Yes. We should do all we can to keep that from happening."

For a moment Sonic looked between Knuckles and the fake Emeralds. "What if… what if we destroy these things? They aren't Chaos Emeralds. Will they explode as badly?"

"The heck, Sonic, I don't know!", Knuckles snapped.

Sonic took at step back at the glare shot at him. "Chill it, okay?!"

Knuckles forced himself to take a deep breath. "Sorry… I… I don't think they'll explode like a Chaos Emerald. They would probably explode, yes. But a lot about them is like the Master Emerald. When the Master Emerald sustains damage, it breaks apart. But looking at how unstable these things are… I guess we'd better prepare for the worst."

"So, we better see we aren't around anymore when they blow up, right?" Sonic tried a grin.

For a moment, Knuckles looked at him. It wouldn't work like that. Someone had to destroy the fake Emeralds. Someone had to be around when it happened. The guardian was entirely aware that he was the only one remotely capable of containing and controlling this out-of-control power. He had to stay, but he would make sure his friends were a safe distance away when it happened.

He forced himself to smile at Sonic. "Yeah, we better do that."

Sonic's attention had already returned to the room below, but he wasn't looking at the artificial Master Emeralds. "Look! There's Tails!"

Knuckles quickly followed the hedgehog's outstretched arm. Down below, one of the doors to the room had opened and Metal Sonic was striding in, pulling a distressed looking Tails harshly by the arm. Knuckles ground his teeth. "That monster is hurting him!"

Sonic was already halfway through jumping down right away to attack. "Not if I can help it!"

Knuckles seized at Sonic's arm, holding him down. "Wait. We're endangering Tails if we just jump Metal Sonic while he's holding him like that!"

Sonic looked between Knuckles, Metal Sonic and his hostage, the fake Emeralds, Knuckles again. "Okay, but I'm not waiting for long," he announced, muscles relaxing slightly but his quills stayed ridged.

Knuckles pointed at where Metal Sonic had by now pushed Tails rudely onto a chair and was tying him to it. "You don't have to. Metal Sonic is up to something; we just wait until he's busy."

Sonic nodded, apparently able to live with that. A trace of interest lay in his green eyes as he watched the robot. "What's he up to?"

Knuckles shrugged. "No idea…"

A stage lower, Metal Sonic had finished tying up his prisoner and stood before Tails, making a wide gesture towards the shining artificial gemstones that remotely reminded Knuckles of the crazed scientist that had once created Metal Sonic. "You should feel honored, fox unit. You are the only biological to watch my completion to ultimate power!"

"That's… great, really. Awesome!" Tails' double namesakes nervously twirled behind his back, straining against the bonds.

"Watch carefully. Perfection will take only a few minutes to form..." Metal Sonic made a sound remotely resembling a wicked laugh, walking away from Tails, towards a terminal next to the force field containing the gems. He turned back to Tails, eyes glowing a deep, hostile red, then he extended a hand and fit his claws into a part of the console taking it in like a plug. The robot froze in that position, but the wave that ran through the chaos field in the room told Knuckles even more precisely than the increasing shine the gemstones gave out what was happening. They were too late. Why had he told Sonic to stop? To save Tails' life, just to have something started that would probably end their all lives? Knuckles sadly shook his head to himself. Why did he wait?

The seven fake Master Emeralds were beginning to glow even brighter and gradually an eighth source of blinding green light was added as an aura of chaos energy started to surround the charging Metal Sonic.

"He's using them to power up!", Sonic exclaimed, finally catching up as well. "Knuckles, we have to stop him!"

"We're too late for that," the echidna noticed darkly.

"But… What if he really powers himself up with all that energy? He's gonna –"

"He can't," Knuckles interrupted his anxious friend. "Think, Sonic! You've been super with the seven Chaos Emeralds. I've been super with the Master Emerald. ONE Master Emerald. More energy than that… nobody could take it."

"Well, in case you haven't noticed smart-ass, he's a freaking robot!" Sonic didn't look reassured at all.

"It doesn't have anything to do with that. There's a physical limit that has nothing to do with pain tolerances or the bigger durability of a robot. There's a point where there's so much chaos energy it burns you away, and it doesn't matter if you're made of living flesh and blood or metal and oil." Knuckles warily watched the fake gems and the shining robot. So far, Metal Sonic stood still. The charging process needed time… "I suppose he'll power up to a certain point and then let the energy stay at that level by constantly drawing it from those fake Emeralds." That was what he did whenever he'd use the Master Emerald for a transformation.

Sonic frowned, but something lit up in his green eyes. "You mean he'll have to return for recharging and plug himself in again?"

Knuckles shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Those fake Master Emeralds are unstable, too much energy in one place to put it simply. The field is less unstable since he started drawing power from it; all that energy needs an outlet and it has found one. Now it's like… when you have water flowing a certain way, all water that comes later will stick to that way, too. It's a little like that with the energy. It's found a way to flow and it's gonna keep doing it until…"

"Until what?", Sonic urged, impatiently flicking his pointy ears.

"Until either Metal Sonic or the Emeralds are destroyed."

"Ah." Sonic bit his lip. "Any ideas on how we'll destroy Metal Sonic? Can we break his control of the energy? Like you did on me, when I first came to your island?"

The guardian shook his head. "No. That –" He pointed down into the hall. "That is chaos. Nothing more, nothing less. Control requires a mind, a heart bonding with the power."

Sonic nodded. "Now is that good or bad?"

Knuckles shrugged, aware of the grim look on his face. "If you ask me, the sane thing would be to get Tails and then run away as fast and far as we can while we still can."

The hedgehog next to him suddenly grinned. "I've rarely ever been accused of doing sane things. What do we have to do?"

"You, take Tails and get out of here. I, destroy the Emeralds. Anything else doesn't matter. If they stay, they'll corrupt the whole system of chaos in our world. I can feel it, it's already beginning." Knuckles brushed one of his long dreadlock-spikes over his shoulder.

"No way. We started this together and we'll end this together." Sonic's green eyes were looking firmly into Knuckles' face now. "I suggest we free Tails first and ask him for ideas to cut Metal' energy supply. After all, I suppose Tails built those fake Emeralds, that machine Metal Sonic is using and he knows more about robots than either of us."

Knuckles stared back at Sonic. This wasn't what he'd planned. He'd wanted the others out of danger, although he'd never admit that aloud to anyone. He was the guardian, dealing with something as horrible as fake Master Emeralds was clearly his job, and his job alone. But hearing Sonic's words, the firm determined tone in them and looking into his decided eyes, Knuckles found he couldn't contradict, and in the very back of his mind it felt good to know he wouldn't have to do things alone. "… Okay."

Sonic grinned. "Let's rock and roll, then, shall we?"

Knuckles nodded, feeling a smirk tug on the corners of his mouth in spite of himself. "We try from two sides. I glide over there, you try from here."

Sonic nodded back, and bounded down. Knuckles watched for just a second before jumping clear off the ledge and gliding towards the other side of the big room. As he neared the fake Emeralds, he could feel the energy prickling on his skin, making his fur stand on end. This was almost too much…

The guardian let himself drop behind the shelter of a big kind of machine. There were several weird automatons all over the room and while Knuckles had no idea what they were good for, they offered good chances to hide, get closer unnoticed… and first of all get used to the sizzling Emerald heat everywhere.

Sonic's feet softly feathered his jump down to the floor of the huge round room. From the corner of his eyes he saw Knuckles glide past overhead and land behind a big machine for obscure purposes. He threw a wary look at Metal Sonic, but the robot was standing still. The charging was still not over.

Quickly the blue hedgehog crossed the room. Tails was looking at him from the chair he was tied on. "Sonic! But… how'd you get out of the Master Emerald? Metal Sonic didn't really put you in there, right?"

Sonic smiled. "Yes he did. Knux got me out. He's somewhere over there." He gestured across the room. "We came to get you out… and solve the rest of this mess." Having reached Tails' side, Sonic began trying to loosen the bonds.

"I have to tell Knuckles how sorry I am! I didn't want to make fake Master Emeralds, not even one!" Tails' ears lay flat.

"Shh. I know you didn't and Knuckles knows it too. We didn't know about the fake Emeralds when we came here. We came here just to save you, bud." The first of the bonds fell to the floor, freeing Tails' left hand.

"Really? Knuckles came to save me?"

"Of course! You better believe it." Sonic chuckled, freeing also Tails' right hand and kneeling down to untie his feet. "Great to see you, little bro." He smiled up at the fox.

Tails was smiling too and it wiped some of the tension off his face and seemed to reduce the weight of the shadows under his eyes. "Great to see you, too! I was so worried about you!"

Sonic playfully frowned. "You? Were worried about me? Nah, I was worried about you!"

Tails gave a short laugh, massaging his sore wrists. "Alright." His blue eyes took in the hedgehog more accurately and worry returned to his face. He pointed at the bandage around his friend's shoulder. "Sonic, what happened to you?!"

"Metal Sonic happened." Sonic fumbled to untie Tails' feet. "Long story. Knuckles patched me up; it's really not too bad. I've survived worse. Really. Like almost drowning on the way here…"

"Drowning? You didn't swim here, did you? The base has at least a dozen tunnels to the shore!"

Sonic twisted a knot, trying to figure out in which direction to pull on it. This would be so much better if he had a realistic chance to just slice through these things with a spin without running the risk of taking Tails' limbs off... "We came through the same tunnel we used last time. Turned out a room decided to flood while I was still in it." He grimaced. "We got held up a little because of that. Sorry we're so late, bro."

"Nonono! I'm glad you're here."

"Same." Sonic smiled. "But looking at the mess we got ourselves in, I think we're all going to regret being here. Do you think you can cut off Metal Sonic's energy supply? We need to defeat him..."

Tails' blue eyes widened. "Sonic, you can't defeat him! Not like that! He's too powerful. And he wants to kill you! You just can't fight him like that!"

Finally the knots gave and Sonic stood in front of Tails. "I have to fight him, Tails. Knuckles says we have to destroy the Emeralds and to do that we have to defeat Metal Sonic. And I need your help. Cut off his energy supply for me. Think you can do that?"

Tails' bit his lip, but he nodded. "I'll try my best. I need to get over there and –"

The fox was cut off when a bolt of green shot across the room and grabbed him. Sonic whirled around. Just a few meters away, shining like a little green sun, stood Metal Sonic, but with the glow and aura only the shape and the deep red eyes really told Sonic who he was looking at.

The robot tilted his head, holding Tails by the back of his neck in the left one of his claws. "Well, well, if that isn't Sonic, my loathsome copy."

Sonic had to put in a lot of efforts to look casual. "Heya Metal. Long time no see!"

Metal balled his right claw into a fist and a visible wave of energy rippled out from it. "I thought I had locked you away forever!"

Sonic shrugged. "You know, I can't stand staying at the same place for long. I had a look around, chilled a bit and then went to see what's going on elsewhere. You found yourself a nice, uh, house here…"

"Enough of this! I can't stand your puny voice. I will make you shut up now…" He shook Tails harshly, but the fox didn't dare struggle much.

The hedgehog forced himself to look into the robot's glooming red eyes. "Do with me whatever you want, but let Tails go."

To his surprise, Metal let out a weird laugh. "Take him. He is no longer of use to me. The real Sonic doesn't need any sidekicks."

Metal Sonic was still shining like a tiny green sun when he released Tails and threw him over to Sonic. The blue hedgehog jumped just in time to catch his little brother before he could hit the floor and helped him up.

"You okay, little buddy?"

Tails' eyes were glassy, but he nodded. "I'm okay."

"And now," Metal Sonic boomed, "I am going to prove I'm your superior by destroying both Sonic the Hedgehog and his little sidekick… in one blow." The anyway almost blinding glow around the robot intensified at his middle as the chaos energy fed into his laser cannon.

Sonic held one hand around Tails' wrist, standing in front of the fox and warily watching the glowing robot. There would be just one chance to jump, just one chance to escape this beam of doom. And given the time Metal took charging it, it'd be a real blast…

But before the robot could launch it at Sonic and Tails, something else got his attention. Unnoticed by everyone else, Knuckles had snuck around the room and was now standing in front of the force field surrounding the seven Master Emerald copies, trying to break though the shield with an array of fiery punches.

Metal's red eyes fixed on the echidna. "You cannot pass through this shield, worm."

If Knuckles was scared of the supercharged Metal Sonic, he did a good job of showing nothing of it. "This is a chaos barrier. I will get through it sooner or later," he remarked, a fierce challenge in his tone.

Metal Sonic almost lazily waved a clawed hand. "You are annoying me," he snarled and turned around to face the echidna.

Sonic realized an instant too late what he was going to do. He pushed Tails behind the nearest large machine and braced himself to jump his robot counterpart from behind. He came too late.

The beam that shot out of Metal's chest laser was the same intense green as the glow from the fake Emeralds and seemed to take a slight zigzag path. Nonetheless, it was faster than anyone in the room. Faster than Sonic could possibly get to Metal Sonic to prevent it… and faster than Knuckles could move to get out of the way of it.

It seemed surreal to Sonic that he was the one who screamed when the shot hit home. Knuckles himself didn't utter a single sound as the beam smashed against his chest and sent him flying through half of the room until he collided with a wall. The echidna slid down against the wall and landed in a limp heap on the floor.

"Knux, no!" The second he'd been too slow to save his friend, Sonic stopped in mid-run, feeling as if he'd run into a wall. He stared at the unmoving body, at the glowing Emeralds, at Metal Sonic's shining form, but all just for a second. Then, suddenly, he wasn't so scared of him anymore. Suddenly he was too angry to be scared. "First Tails, now Knuckles... You're going to pay for everything you did," he muttered, green eyes fixed on Metal's spiked shape.

Metal Sonic seemed but amused. He'd turned back around, not dignifying the fallen echidna with another look. "Now to you again, my loathsome copy. Now there's just the two of us left."

Sonic's eyes narrowed, his quills standing sharp and ridged on his back. "Bring it on, Metal," he growled, jumping to home attack the robot.

It was a pathetic attack, fuelled by anger and desperation. With his chaos infused super speed, Metal Sonic sidestepped the attack with ease and Sonic crashed into a sort of table instead that splintered with a loud noise. Dazed and dizzy from the impact and his shoulder painfully protesting against the hit it had taken, the hedgehog struggled to pick himself up from the wreckage. He'd barely gotten on all fours when Metal was already standing over him, his red eyes glowing a deep red and the laser charging another shot of green energy. "Say farewell to your little life, Sonic."

Sonic had never heard so much hatred in the mere sound of his name as when Metal Sonic said it. If this sound and the glow of the laser were anything to go by, he was done for.