12/15/07: Wow, I am on a roll. I've had chapters three days in a row. Well, I'll just leave it at that.

I don't own the Sonic the Hedgehog series, and this story has nothing to do with the storyline of the Sonic the Hedgehog series; this story is of my own imagination. But all of the characters besides Sonic and Shadow that appear in this story are of my own creation and can not be used without my permission. I will never and have never tried to copy someone else's character and plot line for any of my stories or chapters so if there is another story with character and/or plot line similarities my guess is that it's a coincidence or you/they are coping me.

Chapter twenty-six – Apocalypse gems

Blue then told them all, "Now, about Shanoc. You see, after the explosion all that remained was the remains of the lab and Shanoc. You see, it would be quiet foolish for it to have risked itself, the program included a subconscious. It was merely to protect itself and reactivate its consciousness. You see, why would it go against both of those, merely to punish people for their violent behavior?"

Snowy then said in a more of quiet and wondering voice, "I did always find it curious that the scientists would have their greatest creation destroy itself so willingly."

Blue continued as if Snowy said nothing, "What happened, was that it wanted to seem to be destroyed, because it's known existence was creating such violent behavior, so, it thought, what if it wasn't known? What if it was believed to be destroyed? So, it gave everyone enough time to get away, before creating the explosion, this threw everyone off, and made them think that it destroyed itself. This was suppose to be known as a ruse by the scientists, but after the explosion, the subconscious looked everywhere for the scientists, to get reactivated. Upon not being able to find them, it searched everywhere, in hopes of getting reactivated, but you see no one had that ability. To reactivate Shanoc, you had to say a specific word."

Miranda then asked, "And you know this all how?"

Blue chuckled a little, to him, Pink, and Green, that answer seemed a little ridiculous, "On the day of the explosion, Pink, Green, and I where all on a cliff overlooking the lab, after the explosion faded, we saw that there was still something there. So, we marked and made a copy of its energy signature. It took three whole years, but I finally deciphered it, and was able to figure out what exactly the program was. You see the fusion experiment was secretly named project Shanoc, for whatever reason. Now, upon figuring out all the conscious programming, quiet difficult might I add…"

Shanoc interrupted, "May I be excused? It's a little creepy hearing you talk about how obsessed you where about me." Shanoc then looked around, expecting a comment from Green, he was sadly disappointed. He now knew what it was to be like Green before he came along.

Blue said, "Very well, you've already heard everything that you need to hear. Pink, could you take Shanoc to go and get the first apocalypse gem?"

Pink nodded, and then went into the room with the elevator, Shanoc followed. A swish could be heard, and then Blue continued, "Then, it was rather simple to get him on my side to accomplish our shared goal…"

"Peace," Snowy finished.

Miranda continued, "And not that false peace that Nekron wants."

It wasn't very bright; the sun was just rising, Pink lead Shanoc across the streets, passing by a few people every so often. Shanoc eventually asked, "So, do you know where Green is?"

Pink didn't reply for about a minute, then she stopped, and answered, "Right about… there." She then pointed to a church, and it could be seen that Green was walking out.

Shanoc then called out, "Gre-"

Shanoc was interrupted by Pink's hand covering his mouth, "He has other tasks to attend to, if we need him, Blue will send him."

Pink then proceeded to lead Shanoc out of the town, and to a cliff. Shanoc looked below, there seemed to be a mist down below. Shanoc saw a small rock nearby, so he kicked it. It took a minute or so then he heard a faint thump. Shanoc turned around; Pink had been dusting off something behind him the whole time. Shanoc had to ask, "What are you doing?"

Pink didn't answer at first, and then she stopped dusting it, stood straight up, and took a step back. She then answered, "I'll show you." Pink held her right hand back, with her left behind it, she then thrust them both forward in front of her, and a giant gust of wind that nearly threw Shanoc off the cliff blew by. When it was done, where Pink had been dusting off, was a strange platform that let off a bright white glow. There was some strange marking on it Shanoc stepped on it to inspect the marking. As he did, Pink stepped on the platform as well. Shanoc could then feel a wind coming from the strange marking. The marking looked like three wavy lines. Shanoc then heard Pink say, "Step on it."

Shanoc looked confused at first he then did as he was told. He then looked back at the cliff, when he heard a soft kind of ping sound. He then saw a pathway, a pathway that wasn't there before. Shanoc walked over to it, and cautiously stepped onto the pathway. Shanoc hit what seemed like ground he then stepped on the pathway with his other leg, again, something like ground. Shanoc turned to Pink, and she gestured for him to go the pathway. Shanoc then said, "Alright, but if I die, I'm blaming you," ignoring that if he died then he couldn't blame anyone. Shanoc followed the pathway, for whatever reason, it seemed to have twists and turns to it, which was odd he thought, either make it straight, make it turn, but don't make it zigzag, all that did was waste the energy of whoever walked the pathway. None the less, the pathway eventually connected to a floating piece of land. Yeah, real original, like that hasn't been done in just about everywhere. Shanoc saw a temple like structure, so he walked in. When he did, he was greeted by extremely bright lights, Shanoc had to squint and cover his eyes just to help a little. After his eyes adjusted, he saw a stone hand, holding a red jewel that shined like a million. Shanoc couldn't help but say, "Ooh, shiny." Shanoc then walked to the jewel as if in a trance, and picked it up. He then began admiring the jewel and it's… shininess.

After awhile, Shanoc walked out of the temple, and down the pathway. Shanoc made his way to Pink and asked, "I found the gem of unlimited shininess, are we done yet?"

Pink sighed, but what more can she expect? Shanoc is just like Green, stupid and in it for the kicks. She then answered, with a sigh, "Yes, well, close enough."

Shanoc then threw the gem to Pink, thinking that she was going to take it. Pink made sure not to make any physical contact with the gem. Shanoc saw it and asked, "Don't you want it? I went through no trouble at all in order to get it!"

Pink ignored Shanoc's second comment, and answered, "This is an apocalypse gem, if anyone but you makes physical contact with it, they'll die a very gruesome death."

Shanoc then made his way over to where the gem landed, and picked it off the now dead grass, while saying, "Yeah, yeah, I had Blue the first time."

Pink then lead Shanoc back through the town. It was as boring as the first time through; until, Verzeck fell from the sky, landing on the ground fist first, creating a shockwave that blew the two backwards, and even made Shanoc drop the apocalypse gem. Xun and Senka fell from the sky shortly after. If Shanoc or Pink had been looking up though, they would have seen that the three of them had really jumped from rooftops. Shanoc ran to recover the apocalypse gem, but in his path fell Ulrich, from a rooftop as well. Adeliade and Nekron followed him shortly. "Well, well, well. Look who we have here, good old Pink, and look, she brought the robot!" Nekron said walking in front of his team.

"Great! I've wanted to crush that thing for quite some time now!" Verzeck added, getting ready to attack something.

Shanoc asked confused, "Whoa, aren't you two suppose to be at one each other's throats?" Shanoc then thought, Wait, since when did I know about that? I don't remember ever being told of that.

Nekron said, "What? You mean you haven't been told? Well, like your team joined forces with Blue, Snowy, and Miranda, we joined forces as well, neither one of our teams individually could take on the six of you, especially since you are the fusion experiment."

Shanoc then opened his mouth, and Pink tried to stop him, but she didn't act soon enough, "Wait, so you guys know?"

Verzeck replied, "We do now!" He then charged at Shanoc.

Green was happy, he finally repaid his debt, and all he had to do was tell his story, add work with some people to specifically raise their spirits, and take care of the confessionals for awhile, and before he knew it, it was daybreak already. Green had never been happier, he made his way to the base, and he could have sworn that he saw Pink and Shanoc for a second, but when he looked again they where gone, probably just his imagination working up. When Green made it back to the base, Blue told him, "Pink and Shanoc have headed off for the ruby; I need you to go and discover the passage to the emerald."

Green thought for a second then he asked, "Do you know why the gems of our corresponding colors are only accessible with our elements?"

Blue sighed, he had been asked this before, but it was Green's nature to ask multiple times, in due to both his religion and curiosity made him ask every few weeks, "No Green, I don't."

Green then asked, "Well, anyways, where do I start looking?"

Blue then answered, "South end of town left of the boulder. I think the door is hidden under sand."

Green went back to the elevator room, waved Blue goodbye and told him, "See you when I find the door."

As Green left for the elevator, Snowy and Miranda came into the room, Blue then told them, "Snowy, you'll be put in charge of computer stability and upgrades, so you'll have the ability to do anything dealing with the programming like I am, but you won't be limited to messing with passwords or anything. You have a single password and you can edit your log in anyway you choose, but you'll be granted all other privileges password free. Miranda, you'll be in charge of information, your account set up will be like Snowy's only yours will deal with information instead. You both are above Pink, and while I'm editing these accounts, would either of you like me to put you above the other?"

The two looked at each other, and then said simultaneously, "No."

End of Chapter

Okay, so yeah, as far as I can tell, that's a back-step, but I like where everything ended up. I'll work on everything that I have to do in real life and then write as much as I can, or feel like. So yeah, oh, and I found out that the website address on my profile was for a forum that we tried to switch too, but turned out to be too unreliable so we moved back. If you look at my profile now, you might see that I've changed it. Any updates to the profile from now on, I'll change more then just that, so that it'll be more obvious. Well there, that's all that I can think of, so bye.