Oh well, this chapter is rather short, but the next one will be much longer, I promise. Let's just say that this is an interlude and a stepping stone for the events to come in later chapters. Do enjoy and leave a review, mates.
Hope
While Blaze and the others were still standing inside the ruined chamber and waited, faraway in the heavens above, two super beings were still locked in a raging battle for survival.
Both Super Sonic and Arzazel exchanged countless shots of Chaos Spears and elemental spheres, but the attacks always managed to cancel out each other upon impact, resulting in huge explosions that could probably be seen and heard by those living as far as the other side of the world. The collision of the force possessed by the two transcendent beings was more than enough to call forth a huge storm that would soon ravage the entire Sol dimension, causing uproars everywhere in its wake.
Super Sonic, now in possession of new abilities gained from seven Chaos Emeralds, constantly and relentlessly flew around Arzazel in unpredictable and complex patterns at a speed more or less rivaling that of light. Truth to be told, the transformed hedgehog was moving so fast that, even to the eyes of the mighty god, he looked almost like a destructive gold comet.
After a while of trying to distract Arzazel with various aerial maneuvers, Sonic then flew behind him and quickly hurled himself toward his opponent's undefended back. If his target had been one of Eggman's robots, no matter how powerful, Sonic would have already smashed it to smithereens by now. Unfortunately, the enemy he was challenging this time was an eldritch god of immense power; thus, his attack did not achieve the desirable effect he had been hoping for.
Truth to be told, Sonic's charge never made contact with Arzazel at all.
Long before Sonic was near, the leader of the ancient beings had whipped his body around and shot an extremely large dark sphere at the approaching gold hedgehog, who effortlessly dodged the attack.
However, it was not Arzazel's magical sphere that stopped Sonic, it was its property that did the seemingly impossible trick. Right after Sonic evaded the huge projectile, the sphere of darkness suddenly expanded behind his back, growing much larger than its original size, and turned into a powerful black hole that pulled Sonic toward it.
Even with his improved speed and power, Super Sonic still had to begrudgingly acknowledge the fact that the power of Arzazel's conjured dark hole was incredibly immense, as it greatly reduced his speed to the point that the super hedgehog couldn't even feel himself moving forward at all.
'Dang it! What's the deal with this guy and his crazy magic?' Sonic thought in irritation as he desperately tried to resist being swallowed whole by the deadly dark hole behind him. The effect of the black hole lasted for a rather long time before the infinite void dissipated on its own, much to Sonic's relief.
"Got you now, mortal," sounded the Arzazel's suave yet malicious voice.
Out of the blue, the crimson-winged fallen angel warped in front of the bewildered Sonic and, with a scorching sphere of light surrounding one arm to augment his strike, delivered a powerful punch that injured and sent the invulnerable hedgehog pummeling toward the ocean below at an impressive speed.
…
From where the others were standing, Sonic's falling form resembled a meteor, which was about to collide into the violent ocean below. The gold light hit the restless surface a second later, causing huge tidal waves. Blaze and Tails gasped in horror when they laid eyes on that sight, while the others grunted in irritation and powerlessness, feeling useless for being unable to do anything more than stand still and watch as their friend risked his own life to fight against the most dangerous of enemies.
A moment later, they saw, to their relief, the same gold ray of light shoot up from the waters and charged at the single dot of crimson in the darkened sky, slamming directly into it with a mighty force. Another loud explosion was heard after that attack, which caused thunders to erupt and darks clouds gather, and the same battle between two titans continued to rage.
…
"Darn it! Sonic's up there fighting against an enemy that can resist him even when he's at his best, and we're stuck down here being virtually useless" Knuckles growled as he sunk his fist into the hard wall of the god's chamber, reducing it to pebbles.
"It's not that we're doing nothing," Tails said sadly, stoically looking down at his feet and feeling disheartened, "It's more like we can't do anything at all. They are too far away, and I'll even bet my lab it was Sonic's idea to lure Arzazel toward the sky and away from us…"
"It doesn't look like he can win against Arzazel, even when he's greatly powered up by the Emeralds," Espio commented when he saw Sonic's golden aura once again being blown away from Arzazel's crimson one. However, Sonic quickly bounced back and charged right at the god, evading his various dark holes and sun spheres, and delivered yet another a thunderous strike to the god's stomach, the force of which knocked him back a good few miles.
"It appears Sonic and Arzazel are equal in terms of brute strength" Shadow said as he studied the battle intently, "However, Arzazel, being a god, clearly has a definite advantage. I doubt Faker can hold his super form for a prolonged period of time."
"Sonic…" Tails muttered as he once again directed his clouded and teary sapphire eyes toward the ashen sky, silently praying for the safe return of his best friend.
Metal Sonic, on the other hand, remained still and said nothing. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on the thunderous battle above, trying to collect and analyze as much data regarding the deity as his electronic brain could possibly take in. Likewise, Blaze also directed her amber orbs toward the raging heaven above, watching everything that unfolded while mentally cursing her own inability to do anything.
All of the sudden, the distraught princess felt the strong hand of a fellow guardian on her shoulder, prompting her to look back down and turn her head at Knuckles.
"Don't be too hard on yourself, Blaze," started the echidna in a soothing tone, "I know you want to do something to help Sonic, but burning the place down is not going to do us any good."
Now that Blaze had snapped out of her trance, she could see that Knuckles was right. In her own self-directed frustration, she had unintentionally set her hands and feet on fire, causing everyone around her to jump back in order to avoid getting accidentally burned to a crisp.
"I'm…I'm so sorry," Blaze gasped in horror and hastily put out the flames and calmed down. The last thing she wanted was to let her power run wild and seriously injure someone in a time like this.
"It's just that…I can't just stand here and watch while Sonic is up there, fighting that monster alone. If only I could use the power of all seven Sol Emeralds to transform, I could do something to help him" the cat continued as she gripped the lifeless emerald tightly in her hand and stared at it in defeat.
Suddenly, her eyes caught the sight of the thing that she had been ignoring for a while due to her negative feelings of anger and hopelessness. Now that the cat had dramatically calmed down from all of her frustration, the fiery princess could now see, with perfect clarity, the single speck of light shinning strongly within the pitch-black gem.
'What is this?' she wondered with great curiosity and held up the emerald to inspect it further.
"What's wrong Blaze?" asked Knuckles, trying to break the cat out of her latest trance.
"No, it's just…there's something inside the last Sol Emerald…a tiny speck of light, so it seems" replied Blaze as she held out the lifeless gem for everyone to see.
"That is curious, indeed," Tails remarked as he immediately opened a lid on his wristwatch and attempted to study the mysterious light inside the mystic gem. "According to my readings, this 'light' possesses the same power and properties as the ones possessed by a Sol Emerald, but to a much, much lesser extent."
"The same as a Sol Emerald? Are you sure, Tails?" Blaze asked, surprised by her friend's findings.
"Yup, based on what I have here, I'm pretty sure I'm sure."
"Do you remember what Sir Zagan told us on Southern Island?" Espio began, "He said that the goddess Sol helped the guardian of that time forge the seven Sol Emeralds in order to contain the gods of destruction…So do you think this could be the last of her power?"
"Very likely," Blaze replied, "Arzazel is the most powerful among the seven deities, probably even more powerful than all the other six combined based on what I've seen so far, so the benevolent goddess of Light might have put more power into forging his personal prison…"
"So, can you use that power to transform?" Shadow asked.
"Unfortunately, I can't," Blaze said sadly with a disappointed shake of her head, "Like Tails said, this speck of light is not even a fraction of the power of a real Sol Emerald. I don't know what I can do with it."
"You know, we actually ran into a very similar situation back home, too" Tails said after a while of thinking in silence.
"What?" exclaimed everyone, save for Metal Sonic, in unison, making the fox flinch slightly in surprise, but he quickly recovered and continued with his speech, all the while trying not to let his discomfort at having everyone stare at him show.
"Knuckles, do you remember the incident with Perfect Chaos?" the fox continued.
"How can I ever forget that!" the echidna replied as he crossed his hands, looking rather annoyed that his friend thought his memory was that bad.
"What is this incident that you're referring to?" asked Shadow out of curiosity.
"Oh right, you were still sleeping inside GUN's lab at that time, so you don't know" Tails said, earning himself a hard glare that conveyed a silent death threat from the dark hedgehog, much to his dismay.
"Basically," the young fox said hastily, "Chaos, an ancient god of water and destruction sealed inside the Master Emerald a long time ago, was released by Eggman and went berserk. He then absorbed all of the negative power of the Chaos Emeralds in order to become a gigantic water creature known as Perfect Chaos. After that transformation, all seven emeralds were left powerless and dead, much like what happened to their Sol counterparts."
"Long story short, Sonic was able to channel the remaining positive energy inside the seemingly powerless Chaos Emeralds and assume his super transformation. I suppose you can already guess the result of the fight."
Blaze listened to Tails' every word and thought silently to herself, her hand rubbing her chin thoughtfully. After a while, she looked up and looked at the two-tailed fox in understanding.
"So, what you're trying to say is that this situation is similar to the situation back in your world?" she asked, and Tails simply nodded in agreement.
Blaze looked down and was once again consumed by her own thoughts. Now that she thought about it, she had been doing nothing but letting the desire to save the world consume her, to the point of snapping at Espio once. Additionally, just a while ago, she was busy cursing her own powerlessness, resigning herself to her frustration and almost hurting her friends.
At that moment, Blaze remembered, in perfect clarity, all the things that Sonic had done and all the encouragements he had said to her back when they first met, when they rendezvoused once again in the Sol Dimension in search of the missing Jeweled Scepter, and during the entire trip on the Forbidden Island.
'No more' Blaze thought to herself as she slowly looked up and directed her composed and determined gaze toward the sky, where the two beings of immense power were still locked in combat. The gold and crimson auras repeatedly slammed into one another at an impressive speed, engulfing the sky with the biggest explosion yet.
'No more will I doubt myself. No more will I curse myself for being helpless. No more will I let anger get the better of me. No more!"
All of the sudden, the six revived Sol Emeralds emerged on their own. Before the princess could say anything, they started to glow up and began to circle the lifeless gem. Blaze, now with renewed determination and resolve, promptly stepped forward and held out her hands, trying to channel the positive power inside the Sol Emeralds.
A moment later, the six surrounding gems began to shoot out rays of blinding light that immediately entered the darkened one, making the tiny speck of light within it grow larger and larger, until it burst into a veil of pure light, forcing Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Espio and Metal Sonic to cover their eyes momentarily.
…
Once the five opened their eyes again to see what had happened, they saw, to their surprise that instantly converted into delight, the burning form of the lavender feline, now surrounded entirely by her sacred flames, as well as all seven Sol Emerald, with the once dark gem now shinning with a bright and cleansing color of pure white, not its usual shade of gray.
"Yes!" Tails cheered as he looked at now his super-powered friend hovering in the air with power flowing out of her body. "You did it, Blaze! Congrats!"
"Way to go, Blaze," Knuckles said in amazement, "You look hot…I mean not that kind of hot…I mean, it's not that I'm saying you're not pretty, you are, but what I meant to say was…"
"I understand what you mean, Knuckles. Thank you" Blaze chuckled, stopping the echidna from making a bigger fool out of himself with his rambling. Out of the bashful echidna's earshot, Shadow mumbled the word 'idiot' and shook his head slowly.
"Alright, now if you'll all excuse me" the fiery princess said as she turned her resolved gaze toward the sky again, where multiple explosions and flashes of gold and black could be seen from miles away. "I have to go and help Sonic put an end to this war."
With that, Burning Blaze took off and shot herself toward the direction of the explosions like a bullet, scorching the air as she flew past. With her new powers, Blaze was confident that she and Sonic could now put an end to the reign of madness wrought by the deadly deities of catastrophe.
Next time: Super Sonic and Burning Blaze team up against Arzazel and all hell breaks loose. Don't miss it.