"See I told you this would be faster" Fang snickered as they sat in his vehicle "Marvelous Queen has never let me down before, this baby has even gone toe to toe with Sonic the hedgehog" He said lovingly slapping the dashboard.
"Considering you apparently know the Echidna I suppose it's not much of a stretch that you know Sonic" She replied honestly "What's the story behind that?"
"Well as we established last night, I'm a merc for hire, one of my employers had quite a price on the blue blur" He explained eyes locked on the road but spoke in a cheeky tone.
"And him being a world saving hero didn't mean anything?" She asked Earnestly.
"This was awhile back before all that crazy world ending stuff, but even then a gig's a gig. Though Robotnik Screwed me out of a lot of money. Which is why I went to the fighting tournament for a chance to pummel him for what I was promised and I crossed paths with the hedgehog again and the red guy" He explained further as the car gently bumped over the rocks and snow.
"What's his name away? I remember seeing him before but never caught his name?" Tiara Asked.
"He's the kind of guy to stay out of the spotlight, his name was something stupid sounding like Fingers or something, Fists?" He asked out loud despite knowing the other did not have the information to supply the correct answer. "I don't know, it's been awhile."
"So you worked for Robotnik?" she asked and the tension become thick, both knowing the Doctors impact on the world.
"As I said before a gigs a gig. If I couldn't handle the heat I wouldn't be a merc" he looks to the chaos shard bumping on his dash board as the car drove over the bumpy terrain. biting his tongue about her judgemental gaze. "We are almost at the Mystic Jungle"
The giant crystalised hawk flew towards the emerald as Knuckles exited the hidden palace zone. Quick on his feet he dove straight into a upper cut knocking it off it's path for the Emerald. Chaos shot water at it from the other side. He looked at Knuckles with a serious nod. Looks like this fight was going to be serious.
Chaos splashed water towards the bird as it dive bombed towards him, it's razor sharp talons outstretched to tear into the water creature. But Knuckles flew into it fists digging in the hawk. The beast screeches and shakes the echidna off, forcing his body to slam into a near by pillar. The monster looms over him, wings outstretched to attach with it's peak.
But water splashes against it causing it to look back at Chaos before in a swift motion picking the Echidna up in it's talon and taking off. It's claw hands wrapped around his torso causing him to yelp in pain before the bird let go dropping him crashing into the ground below.
Chaos quick to react slides up to him on a bridge made of water, cascading into the air. He shoots water arrows at the bird as they slide back down to the ground. "Thanks for the save" Knuckles remarked as he stood beside water god. "Now he's made me mad, let's so this guy what an Emerald Guardian is made off" he wiped face with his thumb and smirked and Chaos merely nodded.
Knuckles ran up to it Fists up as he jumped to reach the flying monster. Chaos forming thick watery steps that he jumped from before hitting the bird square in the chest causing it to descend back first into the ground with him riding on it. As Chaos formed water chains around it. It was then that Knuckles noticed the familiar glow of the chaos energy from a small shard on it's chest.
He reached out and touched it, pulling it as the creature com-pulsed beneath him making loud screeching sounds till it proofed into nothing but a small flicky. He looked over the shard, yep it was defiantly a chaos emerald piece, he's put the master emerald back together enough times to know the energy. Which just left one question, what has happened? And who behind it?
"What happened?" Shadow asked as he found himself waking up in a strange bed, he looks up and sees pictures of the familiar moustache man littering wall.
"Hey look he's awake" the familiar cube drone of the doctor stated.
"I'll alert the Doctor at once he is eager to learn of his status, Keep him company Cubot" the spherical robot replied.
"Would you like some Eggs and Toast?" The Cube robot asked the very confused Black hedgehog.
Eggman, Rouge and Omega walked into the room looking at the hedgehog who sat on the bed eating. "Good to see your awake, terrible that your eating Cubots cooking, how burnt is it?" Eggman asked seriously as he looked at him.
"It's like eating a brick." Shadow said taking another bite with a very audible crunch "Mind filling me in? I feel like I got hit with a Semi" he said rubbing his temple tiredly.
"PERMISSION TO DESTROY EGG-MAN ROBOTS FOR MAKING A BAD QUALITY MEAL?" Omega asked guns pointing at Orbot who jumped into Cubot's arms in fright.
"Please say no!" Cubot whined.
"For the last time Omega, no, we need the doctor on our side if we are gonna fix this mess" Rouge sighed in frustration.
"YOU WIN THIS TIME PATHETIC HUMAN" He stated to his creator.
"Always nice to hear from you Omega" Eggman deadpanned "and the reason you feel like that is because we just got hit with a global chaos anomaly, that has reversed the flow of chaos energy into weak immature forms causing all kind of strange events that have most likely only just started to occur" he explained seriously.
"What caused it?" Shadow asked in concern. Chaos energy was a force that doesn't simply vanish it is in tuned with the very planet itself.
"I don't know, being a genius doesn't mean I know every thing that goes into the world, but if you work with me I might be able to fix it" He stated to the small group before him.
"And why should we trust you?" Shadow asked sceptically
"Well for one you would off incinerated your little friends like Cubot incinerated those eggs and two, I'm the only one who can help with your energy problem you would be too stubborn to admit you currently have." He replied with a smirk that made Shadow give him a mean stare.
"Help how?" he questioned.
"Well when you almost destroyed my whole base with that uncontrolled chaos blast, I manged to store that Chaos energy into a battery. And you currently need that energy because the way your body was designed, Chaos energy is both your greatest strength and weakest link. With my help I can keep you running for a bit longer if you agree to help me" he said with a devilish grin on his face.
"Looks like I don't have much of a choice. Rouge?" Shadow asked to his partner.
"I'm willing to put up with his antics if he is on our side for once" She replied tiredly.
"AFFIRMATIVE" Omega stated.
"That's odd" Eggman said out loud to himself looking at the watch like device on his wrist.
"What's odd?" Rouge asked the large man.
"It seems something is starting to attack my base" he simply replied.
"Sonic?" She questioned.
"I said odd" He clarified the blue menace was the opposite of odd he was the usual "Take a look for yourself" he pointed to a monitor that switched itself on, which his gesture.
"What is that?" Rouge asked looking at the large bear like crystallised beast.
"You've got me, but if I had to hazard a guess, it has something to do with our mysterious Chaos manipulator behind the scenes. Now why don't you make yourselves useful and take care of that...thing. That shard isn't going to analyse it's self" Eggman guessed but sounded pretty sure of himself.
"I WILL DESTROY THE TARGET BUT NOT BECAUSE OF YOUR ORDER" Omega clarified still in defiance of his creator.
"What ever helps you recharge at night" Eggman merely Scoffed in reply.
"You up for it Shadow?" Rouge asked in masked concern.
"Of course" he replied not wanting to even consider being put out of commission.
"Well you'll need this" Eggman tossed it too him "Cling it too your inhibitor ring and you'll function fine, just keep your fancy light show of chaos energy to a minimum your on a bit of a limit till that runs out" he explained.
Shadow easily caught the device in one hand and nodded to the doctor, clipping the little battery looking device to the cuff of his ring "Understood"
"Oh. My. Chaos." Tiara exclaimed as soon as she saw it "Do you know what this is?!" She pointed in excitement to the glowing red orb with rings surrounding it.
"Some magical teleport-or thing?" he deadpanned, already knowing what it did.
"It's a permanent warp ring, This must be as old as Ring smiting itself! As no one has been able to reduplicate it!" she geeked out and Fang merely sighed but gave a small smile at her happiness.
"You coming?" he asked getting up on the warp orb and vanishing into a fade of white.
Tiara tried her best to contain her excitement, this was like a dream come true. She quickly jumped up on the warp vanishing like Fang did.
"Did you hear something Tails?" Sonic asked to his little bro who merely shook his head.
"No? I can't really hear much over the wind!" Tails yelled back as the plane slashed through the wind over the ocean. Till Sonic heard it once again, a massive splash sounded below them.
"That!" He exclaimed looking below, to see only the tail of a creature crashing down into the waves "Oh great Whales" he gulped.
"We're over the ocean of course there are whal-" Tails was stopped as the large whale like beast jumped into the ship knocking it as the Tornado's warning alarms went off. Tails wrestled the controls to steady it.
"Whales like that?!" Sonic shouted upon seeing the crystalline monster whale "Bring the plane up!" he shouted seeing the water below bubble as it was surfacing again.
Sonic let out a sigh of relief wiping the sweat off his brow. It seemed like he wouldn't have to fall into the cruel blue mistress of a sea at least that was until "They can fly now?!" he shouted as the Whale flew behind them mouth open wide to engulf the plane "Step on that accelerator bro!" he yelled to the yellow fox in the cockpit.
"On it!" he yelled back as the Tornado shot off at an intense speed breaking the sound barrier.