Chapter Twenty-Five: G.U.N.'s Ultimate Weapon
Nohvelon gets up and calls to the muscular High General.
"Brolaine! Let's go!" Nohvelon shouts. The muscular High General, Brolaine, nods and follows Nohvelon.
As the two flee the fight scene, the Hybrid grabs Maria and jumps. The drop thirty storeys to the ground, but the Hybrid slows their descent as they near the floor and touch down light as a cat. He is still holding the blade to Maria's throat. The girl looks extremely frightened.
"Hey now!" Eggman calls, still slumped in the corner, "Don't you harm her!" The Hybrid narrows his eyes and let's go of Maria.
It happens faster than anyone can follow. As soon as he releases Maria, the Hybrid disappears and the whole group feel a small, sharp stab in their arm. The cuts draw blood and before Maria is even halfway to the ground, the Hybrid is back, holding Maria up in one hand, a vial filled with blood in the other. An evil grin crosses the hedgehog's face as he shakes the vial. The entire thing had happened in less than two seconds.
Shadow's eyes will with dread. The Hybrid's speed is beyond unreal. Faster than Sonic and Shadow combined. Shadow can't imagine anything being that fast.
We have to fight THAT?! Shadow thinks hopelessly to himself. Omega is destroyed. Rouge is unconscious. Sonic is barely able to fight, still recovering from when Chrome Sonic almost strangled him to death. Knuckles knows how to handles opponents faster than he is, but not on this kind of level. The Hybrid's speed had been such that it is almost instant. And now he has a vial filled with a mixture of everyone's blood, he would absorb it and become practically unstoppable.
The Hybrid laughs and tosses the vial into the air. He allows the glass to break over his head. The blood is absorbed by his skin instantly. The effect is immediate. Dropping Maria to the floor, the Hybrid bulges outward a moment while letting out a monstrous roar loud enough for the entire base to hear. The Hybrid returns to normal size after a moment but then charges occur to his body.
The colour of Shadow's fur fades on the Hybrid as it turns to a midnight blue. The eyes turn pure black, and the iris turns blood red. The red corners in Shadow's eyes turn white on the Hybrid. Two white lines appear down the Hybrid's head, ending in arrowhead shaped points on the Hybrid's brow between his eyes.
The Hybrid's hands swell out to form hands like Knuckles'. The groups' eyes widen as they witness the transformation. White glowing lines appear n the Hybrids' arms and legs, ending in white circles on his palms similar to Silvers'. White tips appear on the top of each of the Hybrid's spines, similar to Shadow's red. His spines point downward like Sonic's.
The Hybrid lets out another loud roar of triumph and laughs.
"You'll lose this battle before it's even begun." the Hybrid jeers at Shadow. The black hedgehog grits his teeth. He takes a step towards Maria but is swept flying off his feet by the Hybrid, almost invisible from his speed. Shadow crashes to the ground and the Hybrid reappears behind the fallen Maria.
"Another step to the girl and she dies, Shadow the Hedgehog." the Hybrid snarls. His voice seems to have an echo, as if more than one voice is speaking at once. His gloves and socks are orange and his shoes are plain except a stripe on the top from toe to the top of the foot and three spikes on the toes in a row travelling up the stripe.
Shadow hates the power in the Hybrid's voice. It brings a sense of hopelessness to anyone who hears him speak.
"We need to get everyone up." Shadow says to the group through gritted teeth. Sonic is struggling to get to his feet. Rouge remains motionless and all that's left of Omega is a mess of scrap metal and a single arm. Tails rushes to help Sonic up, but the Hybrid strikes him with his speed and sends Tails flying away. Knuckles helps Sonic to his feet whilst Tails had distracted the Hybrid however and Sonic manages to stay on his feet. Knuckles goes to Rouge but again, the Hybrid attacks. Knuckles tries swinging a punch at the Hybrid the moment he sees him disappear but it doesn't work - the Hybrid is too fast.
The Hybrid knocks Shadow down again.
"Fighting is useless." he says, "You will not win. Not now, not ever. Drop this fight and surrender before I get serious."
Knuckles's eyes almost pop out of their sockets. The Hybrid is playing with them. That's how hopelessly outmatched they are.
"Now then, let's start playing with my new toys." the Hybrid chuckles and lifts a hand. Silver yells in pain as he's elevated into the air by the Hybrids telekinesis, which he'd gained from Silver's blood.
"Not so fun when you're on the receiving end, eh hedgehog?" the Hybrid laughs. Quake goes to attack the Hybrid, but a lightning fast flick of his wrist and the Hybrid knocks Quake flying. He'd amassed not only the speed of Sonic and Shadow, but also the strength of Knuckles and Quake.
"You fail to realise what I can do." the Hybrid says, looking over slowly at the incapacitated Quake, "I have your strength. I have Knuckles's strength. I have Sonic's and Shadow's speed combined with my own. I can see in the dark thanks to Rouge. I can twist anything in this room with my mind thanks to Silver. I CAN BURN EVERYONE IN MY PATH WITH BLAZE'S POWER! I HAVE THE GENIUS MINDS OF YOU AND TAILS! AND YOU THINK YOU CAN STOP ME?!"
As the Hybrid yells at Quake, Silver struggles in his telekinetic bonds. He uses his own powers to try and break free. It succeeds somewhat, but the Hybrid's powerful mind quickly cages Silver again. Silver uses his circlet Tails has made him but to no avail - the Hybrid, with the minds of Silver himself, a technological genius like Tails and Quake, who has the clever mind of his ancestors thanks to his links with the Nocturnas Clan, the Hybrid is unstoppable.
The Hybrid walks over to Quake and lifts him off the ground physically with one hand. Quake throws a punch but the Hybrid catches it with his mind. Quake fights against the psychic powers with his strength. He emits energy from his body and gloves and detonates it in the Hybrid's face. The room fills with light and smoke. Silver is released from his psychic bonds, so he flies back to the rest of the group. Quake runs out of the smoke a moment later, joining the group.
The smoke clears and the Hybrid is perfectly fine. Not so much as a scratch is visible on his body. It seems he'd released Silver and Quake on purpose.
"It was a clever trick Quake, but I'm afraid it won't work on me." the Hybrid says, "Nothing you have will work." he zips over to the group. In quick succession, he kicks Knuckles and Quake skywards using both feet, punches Blaze and Tails across the room with his echidna fists and fires a psychic blast at the rest of them sending them flying in various directions.
The Hybrid zips between them in mid-air, kicking or punching them to the ground or into the wall. He finishes by grabbing Shadow around the neck and grabbing Maria by the back of hers.
"You two know each other, don't you?" the Hybrid grins evilly as he forces Shadow and Maria to look at each other.
"Ma...Mariaa...aaaa" Shadow moans.
"Sh-Shadow" Maria cries, tears in her eyes.
"Ah, forgotten love." the Hybrid jeers, "Such an emotional reunion." he throws Shadow into the floor, his strength being such that Shadow makes a small crater in the floor the size of his body as he connects with it. The Hybrid stands on Shadow's chest, stamping down on him. Shadow cries in pain and Maria cries out for the Hybrid not to harm Shadow.
"Such a sweet little thing, that she cares for you Shadow." the Hybrid taunts, "You've neglected her all these many years."
Shadow grits his teeth and forces himself against the Hybrid in a bid to free himself.
"We have to get Maria away from the Hybrid." Silver whispers to the others.
"How exactly to we do that?" Sonic asks. Knuckles and Quake return to the ground after being kicked upwards by the Hybrid. They both crash to the ground and take a moment to get back up. Tails and Blaze rejoin the group as well.
"Sonic, you have the Chaos Emeralds." Silver mutters under his breath. Sonic nods.
"I still don't think it's time to use them yet." Sonic whispers back.
"Chaos Emeralds?" the Hybrid laughs, causing them to gasp, "You have them? That's excellent news, Sonic."
In response to their stunned faces, the Hybrid taps his ears.
"You know, bats have a remarkably acute sense of hearing. Once again, I have you to thank, Rouge." The bat growls.
The Hybrid laughs. He drops Maria and zips over to Sonic, punching him, hard, in the stomach. Sonic cries out and kneels over in pain. He is unable to breathe as the Hybrid knocked the wind out of him.
"Now why don't you hand those Chaos Emeralds over?" the Hybrid asks. Sonic grits his teeth and shakes his head in a no. The Hybrid kicks him upward and he soars through the roof high above. The Hybrid vanishes and reappears above Sonic, slamming him back down to the ground. He vanishes again, reappearing next to Knuckles, where Sonic is going to fall. He punches Knuckles flying out of the way, then jumps and swings a kick into Sonic as the blue hedgehog reaches him, sending him flying into the wall.
"I'll have those Emeralds sooner or later, hedgehog." the Hybrid says in a dark tone. He turns his attention to the rest of the group, who'd surrounded him looking furious. The Hybrid laughs.
"You want to play? Fine." he says. He darts forward, grabbing Tails. Before anyone can react, he turns and throws Tails into Knuckles, then moves to punch them both into the floor. Tails manages to grab Knuckles and fly upward before he can though. Both Tails and Knuckles are breathing heavily. The Hybrid observes them a moment, then grins and vanishes. Tails tenses, and flies as fast as he can. The Hybrid appears an instant later where Tails had been but, seeing Tails flying away, zips over with instant speed and slams fox and echidna into the ground.
He laughs in mid air, floating above the ground. Silver tries swinging him away with telekinesis but the Hybrid blocks it with his own psychic powers and knocks Silver flying backwards. Blaze throws a blast of fire at him, which circles around him without the Hybrid moving and is thrown back twice as hard at Blaze. With no time to dodge, Blaze cries out as she takes her own attack and it knocks her to the ground.
Shadow yells and throws Chaos Spears at the Hybrid, who zips around them, laughs again and raises a hand into the air. Shadow's eyes widen as the Hybrid throws his own Chaos Spears, already glowing orange, at Shadow. The black hedgehog takes the attack as it connects and explodes, sending Shadow sprawling across the ground, smoke coming from his body. Shadow doesn't move.
Quake throws a powerful fireball, which the Hybrid reflects back at Quake. Quake is expecting this however, and punches the ball back at the Hybrid. The Hybrid dodges but Quake redirects the fireball and it connects with the Hybrid in an explosion. Blaze rushes over to grab Maria but the Hybrid has already recovered and sends her spinning away with a swat of his hand. He grabs Maria and holds a hand, flat like a blade, to her throat. With his phenomenal strength, he could cut Maria's head clean off using only his hand. The group stop attacking him.
He has them in a bind - none of them can move fast enough to reach the Hybrid before he kills Maria and he's too strong to battle. Simply too strong, with everyone's powers.
He laughs and presses his hand tighter against Maria's throat. Eggman yells out as Maria cries in pain. her cry is somewhat strangled by the Hybrid as his hand slowly restricts her breathing.
"Sh...Sha...doo..owwww..." she moans. Shadow grits his teeth, tears pouring down his cheeks. He is still lying on the floor, lightly smoking from the Hybrid's Chaos Spear. he is reaching a hand out to Maria, fighting to keep his eyes open.
"Maria! I'll save you! Just hang tight!" he yells. The Hybrid laughs and he draws his hand back to kill Maria. Shadow yells at the top of his lungs for him to stop.
"Stop! Please! Don't hurt her!" he cries. Eggman is yelling, swearing vengeance on the Hybrid if Maria is harmed but Shadow is more emotional. The Hybrid grins - he's not listening to either of them. He draws his hand back higher and brings it forward, at normal speed so Shadow can watch, towards Maria's throat.