Chapter 36: Metal Sonic and the Space Colony ARK
It was dark, deep, and hard. Everything that an abyss should be. There was no telling how far they had fallen, or how they were still alive. Luigi held out his hand and a green light began to illuminate the area. Around him were the unconscious Young Link and Pichu. Luigi rushed to their side and saw that they were still breathing and there were no serious wounds on them just minor cuts and scrapes. He wondered how they survived the fall; by all natural logic they should be dead. But Luigi knew he was still alive. Somehow... He tried summoning his Weapon of Heart and it appeared in front of him, the glorious shield. For a moment he wondered if you could still summon Weapons of Heart when you were dead. But odds were no one living knew the answer to that one, and likely never would. "Well let's get out of this hole." Luigi said picking up Young Link and Pichu. He placed Pichu on his head and carried Young Link on his back. Slowly he began to walk forwards not knowing which way was the exit.
"All of the chaos emeralds are on the ARK once again." Black Doom laughed talking through Shadow.
"No I won't let things go the way you plan!" Sonic shouted. "Shadow you can fight his control!"
"Fight?" Shadow said confused. "I will only fight those who wish to harm Maria!"
"Tails did you bring the fake emerald?" Sonic asked.
Tails pulled out a small box and opened it sitting in there was a yellow jewel he took it out and threw it at Sonic who caught it.
"That won't work." Black Doom laughed once again. "Metal Sonic is now in control of the ARK and this room is now fused with the ARK, the best part is any Chaos Energy given off will fuel the ARK's cannon. Your friends are down on that planet aren't they?"
"How dirty!" Peach said.
"Surrender and you may live." Black Doom said.
"Never!" Ness shouted out.
"Well then good bye. You will be killed and this weapon will be a glorious gift for the Dark Lord! Shadow will now take care of you!" With that Shadow fell down signalling that Black Doom was no longer controlling him.
Shadow just got up off of the ground and stared at everyone with a rather vacant look in his eyes. "You won't stop me from getting to Maria! Chaos Spear!" Yellow beams of energy rushed towards everyone. To quickly avoid it they jumped back. "Disappear!" Shadow shouted. The yellow chaos spears didn't stop. Eventually everyone was cornered.
"Sonic Wind!" Sonic shouted causing a blue gust of wind to protect everyone. The Chaos Spear hit against the Sonic Wind and the two attacks cancelled each other out.
Mr. Game and Watch rushed towards Shadow. However before hitting him Shadow teleported behind Mr. Game and Watch and kicked him aside.
"He teleported!" Ness said shocked.
"No it's Chaos Control!" Sonic replied. "He uses the Chaos Emerald to move faster."
Knuckles quickly rushed for Shadow in order to tackle him to the ground. Shadow however disappeared once again using Chaos Control. The next moment Knuckles was sent flying. Everyone else, except for Peach, was knocked aside. Shadow then appeared in front of Peach. "Maria," Shadow said. "I'll save your life." The Chaos emerald began to transform into pure energy. He was about to put the energy into Peach when Sonic kicked Shadow aside.
"Are you okay?" Sonic asked.
"A little shaken." Peach replied.
"Maria, you are going to kill Maria!" Shadow shouted outraged.
"Hey Maria." Sonic said to Peach. "You better stop him."
Peach stepped towards Shadow. "Shadow please stop. I'm fine." Her voice was trembling, after all she was afraid. "Its all right I'm cured."
A look of happiness crossed Shadow's face. "Maria." He was slowly getting back to reality.
"Its all right Shadow." Peach said. Suddenly Metal Sonic appeared behind Peach. He had created a mechanical copy that he was controlling from deeper in the ark to keep everyone occupied while he continued to fuse with the ARK.
"This doesn't go into our plans!" Metal Sonic hissed. Metal Sonic quickly grabbed Peach, he then pointed his hand towards Shadow. A burst of Chaos energy rushed towards Shadow and when it hit him it caused the Chaos Emerald to go haywire. "If you can defeat me you might be able to save her!" Metal Sonic said. The next second he stabbed Peach causing her to fall to the ground and lie in a pool of blood. Before Shadow could tell that it was actually Metal Sonic who did it and not Sonic, Metal Sonic had disappeared.
Shadow just held out his hand and the Chaos Emerald transformed into pure energy. The energy was swirling uncontrollably in his right hand. Sonic just looked at Shadow. "As long as I hold this Chaos Emerald I will defeat you!" Shadow screamed in anger. "For what you have done to Maria I'll make sure not even a spec of your planet survives!" First he stepped towards the wounded Peach. Using the Chaos Emerald on Peach's wound Shadow was able to heal it. "You'll be safe Maria." Shadow whispered.
"How did you heal the wound?" Peach asked.
"I used Chaos Control to reverse time." Shadow said. "Please stay out of this now I have to defeat him for what he has done." With that Shadow created a barrier of Chaos Energy around Peach. "Maria, please forgive me for what I'm about to do!"
Shadow got up and faced Sonic. "Your inside the belly of the beast! " Shadow sent his hand to the wall and the Chaos control began to spread. "And once the final emerald is in place you can say good bye to your pathetic world!"
"Don't you think you're going a bit overboard?" Sonic asked. "She's fine. And you're caught in some state of illusion!"
"I'm perfectly fine Sonic!" Shadow shouted. He ran towards Sonic and began to punch him rapidly.
"Sonic! You have to use the fake emerald now!" Tails weakly shouted. "Its the only way to neutralize the normal chaos control, and all of the others!" Sonic looked at the yellow emerald in his hand. Slowly the emerald began to turn into energy just like it did for Shadow. "I have remade this fake emerald so that it holds the equivalent energy to all 7 of the chaos emeralds!"
"I didn't want to fight you Shadow... but you leave me with no choice!" Sonic's body began to glow a golden color. Then in a blink of an eye sonic disappeared. The next second Shadow was on the ground and above him was Sonic.
"Heh... so you finally decide to fight against me..." Shadow laughed. Both Sonic and Shadow disappeared. They reappeared for a brief second, "But it's too late!"
The Smashers, Tails and Knuckles were watching the battle. "Knuckles, you should know the side effects of the chaos emeralds, better than Eggman himself!" Tails began. "Are we in danger from this battle?"
Knuckles closed his eyes. "I don't think we are in any danger. But Shadow is using the powers of the chaos emerald carelessly, draining it perhaps eventually to the point where it might shatter, meanwhile, Sonic is using the fake emerald. Although it has the same wavelengths and properties of the real chaos emeralds, it isn't tested for Sonic to go super. It could give him more power than his hyper form, but destroy him eventually! Or make him insane! There are too many and possibilities to weigh in!"
"So it's a double edged sword." Ness muttered. "I don't think that bodes well for us. Sonic better finish this quickly then..."
Shadow began to rapidly fire chaos spears at Sonic who let the attacks hit him. Since he was in his super form it was rather pointless and did no visible damage. The attacks just hit the barrier of Chaos Energy in front of him. Suddenly Sonic grabbed his arm as though a sharp pain went through it. Shadow began to fire even though it was pointless. However with each attack Sonic continued to act weirder.
Shadow shot another blast at Sonic. This one he swatted out of the way. Suddenly Sonic began to grab onto his head and scream out.
"Something's wrong with Sonic!" Tails shouted.
"You think?" Ness said sarcastically. Suddenly Ness grabbed his head in pain. He had felt a rather sharp jolt go through it. "This room, I can feel Chaos Energy being emitted everywhere!"
"Metal Sonic is one with this room and the whole ark." Tails said. "He might have been emitting wavelengths of Chaos Energy that made the Emeralds go haywire!"
Sonic rushed towards Shadow and grabbed onto him. He then began to spin Shadow around and threw him towards the wall. Both Knuckles and Tails jumped out of the way. The chaos emerald fell down on to the ground. Slowly Sonic walked towards Shadow, he picked up the emerald, and grabbed Shadow by the neck. "Sonic he's down! We have his Chaos Emerald!" Tails pleaded. Sonic held out his other hand and a golden sphere appeared around Tails, stopping every single one of his movements.
"SHUT THE HELL UP!" Sonic shouted causing chaos energy to crush Tails.
Knuckles dashed at Sonic punching at him, but only hit the golden barrier and knocked back. "Calm down!" Knuckles shouted.
"Yeah!" Falco replied getting ready to fight. Yoshi, Ness, and Mr. Game and Watch also got ready to fight.
They rushed towards Sonic but he disappeared. A moment later all of them were on the ground, except Ness who saw the attack coming and dodged. Ness then had to continuously dodge the attacks, eventually he slipped up and was knocked aside. Peach was banging against the Chaos barrier but nothing she did to it could cause it to break.
Everyone slowly stood up and looked at Sonic. He had a rather crazed look and was ready to kill them.
Eggman, and Black Doom were watching the battle when suddenly from the wall the figure of Metal Sonic appeared outlined in the wall.
"We have an important matter to discuss!" He said panicking. "Sonic has gone out of control, and at the moment is threatening every last life on board. We might have to fight him! Not only that he may damage the Eclipse Cannon."
"We no longer need the eclipse canon." Dr. Eggman said holding a disk. "I have the blue prints right here and Smithy can use his power, Architect, to instantly create another one."
"Very well!" Black Doom laughed, as though he was amused by the very idea. "This place was getting too dusty for my tastes. I've released Shadow from my control. With any luck they will all destroy each other."
"If they snap Sonic out of this trance, you know what you have to do!" Eggman barked to Metal Sonic. "We are going to look for the few Smashers that are down on the surface! Along with powering up the Emeralds!"
"Understood." Metal Sonic said.
"And what about me?" A young masculine voice asked. Standing there was a man wearing a black cloak with red clouds over it, a member of Akatsuki, Itachi Uchiha.
"Your illusion has served its purpose. Please return to the Dark Lord with this disk." Dr. Eggman said. Itachi just took the disk and began to walk away. Underneath his feet then appeared a portal that Itachi slowly descended into.
Knuckles' red fur began to turn into a green color, and his dreadlocks were becoming slightly longer. He had gone beyond Hyper Knuckles, he was now Master Knuckles. A form he had obtained after absorbing enough radiation from the Master Emerald. "Enough is enough!" He shouted pointing his hand at Sonic, a green beam of light shot at Sonic. The golden hedgehog put up a barrier.
"Chaos blast!" Shadow shouted, as red energy began to emerge from his body. The two attacks hit Sonic's barrier, however they couldn't pierce it. "Damn even together we still are unable to hurt it!"
"With out the 7 chaos emeralds neither of us stands a chance!" Knuckles shouted. "Even in this form where I am a living and breathing Master Emerald..."
"Doesn't the Master Emerald have dominion over the Chaos emeralds?" Tails asked.
"That's right!" Knuckles shouted in shock.
Tails looked at Knuckles in shock. "Please don't tell me you forgot..." Tails muttered.
"If you can cover me for a few minutes I should be able to cancel out Sonic's power."
"I'll do my best." Shadow said.
"And we will help too." Ness said.
"Be careful then Ness... You don't want Giygas to escape."
"That won't be much of a problem." Ness said. For the past while he had been singing a song to repress Giygas' powers. It had worked in the past, but due to the sheer amount of chaos energy and insanity being let off at the moment it wasn't as effective. Ness figured he had about 10 minutes before he would have to sing another verse of the song again.
Falco had quickly scanned Sonic and quickly changed the frequency of his blaster. He shot several shots towards Sonic who just stood there with a cocky smile. However the shots went through the barrier and hit him, stunning him. Yoshi rushed towards Sonic and summoned his first Weapon of Heart, the Egg Bazooka. With that he fired it at point blank. Sonic went rocketing backwards and hit the wall of the Space Colney ARK. Suddenly from the wall several wires appeared trying to constrict Sonic's movement. Metal Sonic appeared in the room. Everyone stared at him rather shocked.
"The fool would destroy the whole ARK like this." Metal Sonic said.
Everyone however wasn't too trusting of Metal Sonic. Knuckles finally had prepared the attack. With Sonic constricted and unable to move he fired the attack. It was a green energy ball that rocketed towards Sonic. The attack consumed Sonic. A moment later the green light vanished and Sonic fell on the floor unconscious, reverting back to his blue color. The fake chaos emerald began to float up and shake violently. Eventually it began to expel energy and take a physical form, the new form looked exactly like Sonic.
"What the?" Metal Sonic shouted surprised.
"This is definitely weird..." Tails said. "Never in my studies of the Chaos Emeralds has this happened before."
"Well then I'll just have to use another attack!" Knuckles said.
However the Sonic clone appeared behind Knuckles and swiftly knocked him out. Metal Sonic rushed towards the Sonic clone becoming a liquid and covering him from head to toe. The Sonic clone just began to spin really fast so that the liquid metal got off of him.
Shadow appeared behind the Sonic clone and was about to grab him when the clone entered Chaos Control. The next moment everyone was on the ground. The clone exited Chaos Control and walked towards the original Sonic. As he was about to deliver the final attack several wires rushed towards him and grabbed him once again stopping his movement.
"I will be the one to kill Sonic!" Metal Sonic hissed. His voice booming through out the space colony ARK. "You are just pure chaos energy! I'll absorb you!" Suddenly the sonic clone began to go transparent. However a smile just crossed his face.
"I will take over the Ark!" He laughed as he disappeared. The next moment several wires rushed towards Metal Sonic and constricted him.
"This shouldn't be happening. The Chaos Emeralds can't be sentient. Not even a fake emerald should be able to do this!" Metal Sonic muttered. He looked at Ness. "Boy, its your fault."
"Mine?" Ness asked puzzled.
"You are releasing a strange energy." Metal Sonic replied.
"Giygas..." Ness muttered. Even the song that he had been singing wasn't stopping him. "The Chaos Energy must have caused him to be released and his influence created that. I was too late with the Eight Melodies…"
Metal Sonic just turned into a liquid metal and disappeared. A door suddenly opened. "My control over the ark is limited. I will trust that you will destroy that guy." Metal Sonic then used Chaos Control to heal everyone's wounds. Shadow rushed over to Peach and released her from the barrier.
"What just happened?" Peach asked being only able to watch the fight from inside the barrier and unable to hear anything.
"I was being controlled by someone and stuck in a state of illusion." Shadow said.
"Giygas gave the fake chaos emerald intelligence." Ness explained. "And the fake chaos emerald created a copy of Sonic, followed by the copy took over the ARK. At least that's what it seems like, since it now seems that everything is collapsing upon itself."
"Then we better hurry up and destroy that copy." Sonic said getting up off of the ground. With that they began to run through the ARK. Shadow, Sonic, Knuckles and Tails led the way having been in the ARK before. Eventually they came to a large room. "He is in this room! I can sense him!" Sonic said.
In the middle of the room was a platform with all of the Chaos Emeralds put into a reactor. Knuckles charged up some of his chaos energy and shot it towards the reactor however a burst of Chaos Energy cancelled Knuckles' attack out.
"You thought I would let you destroy me that easily?" The Sonic clone said appearing out of thin air. "I have defeated Metal Sonic! I am now in control of the ARK and your lives!"
"We have to disrupt the chaos energy flow!" Knuckles shouted. With that he rushed towards the Sonic clone who was just floated in mid air.
"You will never be able to defeat me!" The clone laughed. Knuckles however placed his hand on the clone's forehead. The clone then began to revert back to the fake chaos emerald, which promptly shattered.
"So now what?" Peach asked.
"We better get back down to the planet... Dr. Eggman is down there." Shadow said.
"And we have a big problem." Ness said. Everyone stared at him. "Metal Sonic is now back in control fusing with the ARK, and he has all seven of the Chaos Emeralds."
"What could this mean?" Yoshi wondered.
"Trouble." Knuckles replied. "With the ARK he will be a lot stronger..."
Metal Sonic appeared in front of the Chaos Emeralds along with a hologram of Dr. Eggman. "And I thank all of you idiots for that." Dr. Eggman laughed. "Now to make sure that you don't screw up the transformation!"
"Chaos Control!" Metal Sonic shouted.
Suddenly they were teleported out of the ARK to the surface of the planet. "What's going on?" Peach wondered.
"Did Metal Sonic do that?" Knuckles wondered.
"Um... Guys we have a small problem... actually small may be a bad word to choose how about LARGE, or huge..." Falco said. Everyone looked at Falco and then up into the sky. There slowly moving towards them was Eggman's Armada.
"Greetings Smashers," Eggman's voice shouted out excited. "And Sonic, and Knucklehead, and freak of nature fox." His voice immediately became very bored. "I have ordered Metal Sonic to teleport you back down to here, so that you don't screw up our operation! He will fuse with the ARK and then go back to the Dark Lord where he will be a weapon to serve under him."
Luigi was carrying Young Link and Pichu, they weren't exactly heavy... well Pichu wasn't exactly heavy it was Young Link that was. Anyways Young Link began to stir regaining conciousness along with Pichu.
"Where am I?" Young Link moaned.
"We're underground..." Luigi said slowing down and placing the two of them on the ground.
"I see..." Pichu moaned. "Why are we here?"
"Well we fell... and somehow survived falling a few thousand feet..."
"Greeting Smashers!" Eggman's voice shouted from the surface. It echoed in the caves.
"We better get going up there." Luigi said now thinking that their trek might be a little bit faster now that they were conscious.
"Metal Sonic is currently becoming the ultimate battle mecha by rearranging himself with the Space Colony ARK!" Eggman laughed. "I also thank you for destroying that fake emerald. It was too much of a hindrance. Now watch as I destroy the rest of this planet."
"Not today!" Sonic shouted. "We're taking you down!"
"Well then bring it on!" Eggman laughed.
Everyone jumped up onto a battle ship that was intentionally flying low so that they could get on. It then joined the fleet.
Falco, Yoshi, Mr. Game and Watch, Ness, Peach, Tails, Sonic, Knuckles, and Shadow quickly got ready as though they were expecting a large ambush. None however came. Falco grabbed his blaster and readied himself. "We have to take down every single one of these ships?" He said annoyed.
"Yeah..." Sonic replied. "Should be easy enough..."
"No, this whole place is a trap!" Ness shouted, he pointed to several explosives that were onboard the ship with a timer set for 30 minutes. "Every ship except for the one Eggman is on is probably filled to the brim with explosives. We have to get to that ship!" Quickly everyone began to run away to the ship that Eggman was on. But each of the ships proved to be a lot larger than they thought. It also wasn't easy either since the ship was guarded with several hundred robots. But it didn't matter. Suddenly a loud deafening roar pierced through the air. Descending from the sky was a now transformed Metal Sonic.
Metal Sonic was now in his Metal Overlord form, with his right arm being the Colony ARK's giant cannon. Dr. Eggman just laughed as the Metal Sonic approached the ship they were on. Metal Sonic's left arm came down and Dr. Eggman walked onto his left hand from his ship. "Good bye Smashers!" Dr. Eggman laughed. He snapped his fingers and all of the ships began to explode including the one that Dr. Eggman was previously on. Metal Sonic raised his cannon and pointed it at the ship that the Smashers were on. A second later he fired. Ness quickly grabbed on to everyone and teleported away down to the surface. Where it was safe for now...
"Smashers if you want to try and stop me the next place I'm going is the Master Emerald Shrine to power up these Chaos Emeralds!" Dr. Eggman laughed.
"No!" Knuckles shouted. "If they have the Super Emeralds we will be unable to stop him..."
"Oh ho ho ho!" Dr. Eggman laughed. "Or, at least that was my original plan! I found something even more interesting; my radar is picking up seven Super Emeralds all ready there! I don't know how this happened, but 14 Super Emeralds never hurt anybody."
Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles were all shocked at this news. "There are all ready seven Super Emeralds there?"
"That's impossible!" Knuckles said. "What the hell is going on?"
To be continued...
Note: Someone said that Chaos Control just causes teleporting. I'd like to remind them, that no matter how hard they want to forget about Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 (and believe me we all want to), it was stated that it manipulated Time and Space (and can even be used to travel through time. Basically it appears that their power is whatever the writers want, this also allows for the Sonic X interpretation of allowing the characters to move through dimensions).
If that isn't good enough for you we will go back further to the first time Chaos Control is used. Where Shadow runs past Sonic using Chaos Control. It is shown in that cut scene.