Legend of ChaosJedi-- Eye of the Storm, Part 2
by Ryan Carroll
The storm was building strength. I knew that there wasn't much time before the entire continuum tore apart.
"Mecha, how stable can you keep yourself in that vortex?"
The blue robotic clone gave me a sideways glance. "Not very stable, but enough that I can navigate through the storm."
"In other words, better than I can." I turned to Tails and Serena. "You guys think you can hold on?"
Tails grabbed Mecha's back, and Serena had a death grip on my neck. "Refresh my memory," the violet hedgehog cut in. "Why aren't we neutralizing the vortex first?"
I turned my head partway to answer her. "We need to get everyone else out of the dimensions they're in first, then we have to enlist everyone's help in those other dimensions to close off the vortex openings that have emerged. THEN we neutralize the storm."
"Oh. That makes sense. So where are we going now?"
"Wherever the storm takes us," I replied, lifting off toward the vortex.
----------------------------------------------------
"Now this is a weird book," Knuckles commented as he sat on the dock of Myst Island by the sunken ship. Slasher had perched herself in the crow's nest of the ship, casting an occasional wary glance into the sky at that dimensional vortex, which seemed to be getting larger with each passing moment.
"What about it?" the raptor asked, taking yet another glance at the vortex.
"Well the words in the book are in some odd language, but there's a picture in the back of the book. This thing looks so real I feel like I could touch it and--"
The echidna's words were punctuated by an abrupt silence, followed by a splash. Slasher's head whipped around to observe the book Knux had been reading sinking to the bottom of the bay, with the echidna nowhere to be found.
The raptor quickly retrieved the book from the water, then attempted to look at the page Knux had been looking at. Rather than a crystal clear picture, the page showed only a box of static.
The roar of jet engines caught Slasher's attention. She narrowed her eyes as she recognized the source.
---------------------------------------------------
"Well, I can see Slasher, but I don't see anyone else nearby-- Oh, no."
"Is there a problem, CJ?"
I freaked when Mecha used my pseudo-nickname. He'd never called me by name before. Shoot, I don't even know if he'd referred to me in third person before. I quickly regained my composure and responded, "I recognize this place. It's Myst Island. The library is home to several books that link to other worlds. You're not careful and you could be stuck here for a long time."
"Uh, oh," Tails interjected from his perch on Mecha's back.
"What?" I replied, trying to figure out what Tails was looking at.
"If that's what I think is in Slasher's hands, she may be here for a long time."
I zeroed in on the book the raptor was holding. "Slash! Don't touch that book!"
Startled, she dropped the book on the dock as Mecha and I landed and our passengers disembarked. "Have you seen Knux?"
"Have WE seen him? We just got here."
"Well he was holding this book, then he was just gone."
Fearing the worst, I picked up the book, which was still dripping wet. Flipping to the back, I saw that the linking image had dissolved into static. Peeling some of the other pages apart, I saw that the sea water the book had been dumped into had totally obliterated the ink that had forged the link. "Lovely," I muttered.
"You know what happened to him?"
"The good news is, yes, I know what happened to him. The bad news is that I don't know if we can get him back."
----------------------------------------------------
I gathered what clues I could from the ruined linking book. The cover featured waves of water. That didn't help much, since both the Stoneship and Mechanical ages were both surrounded by water. I was betting on Stoneship, which didn't make me feel any better about going after Knux. I had played Myst on my PC, but I'd never managed to complete Stoneship. I guess I could also include Channelwood in the water category...
I heard footsteps approaching and looked to see Mecha entering the library where I had set up my research. "What is it?" I asked the robot.
"I would like to know when we are going to leave this place. The isolation is starting to wear on my circuits."
"Sorry, Mecha, but I'm not leaving until I can rescue Knux."
"Then allow me to accompany the raptor and the others to search for the remaining missing persons. I have no use here, and the salt water is beginning to rust my joints."
I sighed. Mecha had a good point. "All right, but be careful. I'd hate for you to wind up in a bad situation just because I couldn't watch you."
The red eyes studied me for a second. "Why do you take responsibility for me like this? I have only refrained from harming you because I need to return to Mobius."
"Because you've got potential, Mecha. You could be one of the good guys. ...Ah, why am I even trying? You've probably heard all the arguments before."
"Actually... I have not." With that Mecha paced out of the room. Soon after I could hear the echoes of his jets as he took off towards the vortex...
Echoes. Sound waves. Microphones. I leaped for the bookshelf and began tearing through it, hoping to come across the book I was looking for. I found the Selenitic journal, but there was no linking book. Since I knew that there were two linking books for each age, the remaining one must be in the proper place...
Flipping through the journal again, I made notes of the proper sequence of keys, then bolted for the spaceship on the northwest corner of the island, stopping only to flip the power switch that ran electricity to the equipment inside.
I skidded to a halt in front of the organ. After pressing the proper combination of keys and listening carefully to the pitch each key made, I turned and input those frequencies into the console behind me.
Success! The image of a book faded into view on the small screen above the console. I reached out to touch the book...
--------------------------------------------------------
"We really appreciate this, Dr. Brown," Christine told the inventor as she and Jason got into the DeLorean.
"It's nothing, really. You need it more than I do. And please, call me Doc."
"Well, Doc, we really appreciate this. We'll try to bring the car back in good shape."
"If I were you I wouldn't bother with trying to bring it back. Just be careful you don't activate the time circuits accidentally!"
As the car took off towards the portal, Marty turned to Doc. "Are you sure that was such a good idea? I mean, what if they try to change history?"
"I have a feeling they won't bother with something as minute as that, considering what they're facing."
--------------------------------------------------------
Knuckles had no idea where the heck he was, but he didn't like it one bit.
The thick fog settled oppresively over the barren wasteland, only adding to the dismal mood the echidna was in. He had no idea how he was going to get home, and he didn't know if he would ever see his friends again.
He thought of Sonic's cocksure attitude, of Tails' contagious laugh, of Talon's habit of calling him "sir", of Ryan's voice...
Ryan's voice? Was his mind playing tricks on him? He waited silently, wishing his heart and lungs would quiet down so he could hear.
--------------------------------------------------------
"Knuckles! Hey, ya big lug, if you can hear me shout back already!"
My biggest fear was that the echidna had figured out the point of the microphones and had already managed to reach the railcar, in which case I'd never catch up with him. Suddenly, through the thick fog, a voice called, "Ryan? Is that you?"
"Of course, it's me! Who else would be crazy enough to come after you? Hey, keep talking so I can find you!"
Knuckles talked for a good five minutes while I discerned his location to the point where I could see him through the cloudbank that had settled over the plain.
"Now what?" he asked as I drifted to him out of the fog.
"Now we get out of here. Come on, I know the way to the linking book..."
--------------------------------------------------------
Despite the swirling winds, Slasher managed to maintain her equilibrium in the storm quite well. Mecha's internal gyroscope had finally gotten used the constantly shifting forces of the rip, and was holding his own against the storm. Tails and Serena clung to the raptor's back as tightly as was physically possible. All seemed to be going well...
That's when the DeLorean came careening out of a portal, heading directly for the party.
Jason saw them first and swerved wildly, yanking the steering wheel around in an attempt to get clear. Chris, startled by the abrupt change in direction, screamed. The scream alerted Slasher, whose reflexes acted, jerking her away from the oncoming car. Tails lost his grip on Slasher and slipped off. Mecha noticed and swooped in to grab the fox. Finally everyone was safely on the other side of a portal.
"Brilliant driving skills, mi amigo," Chris shot at Jason, voice dripping with sarcasm.
"So I've never dealt with a third dimension before while driving! Excuuuuuuse me!"
"Save it for later," Slasher cut in, stepping between the two. "We've got other things to worry about. Such as where we are."
"Hey, what's that sound?" Serena added.
Everyone stopped and listened. A faint scream could be heard...
"... ... ... ...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--OOMPH!"
------------------------------------------------------
The pain was nearly unbearable. For once in my life I sympathized with that cartoon coyote...
"Ryan! You ok?"
No, I wasn't ok. What a stupid question to ask. Still face down in the sand, I felt my hand give the thumbs-up signal. I was going to have to have a nice talk with my subconscious when this was over.
I felt more than heard Knux land nearby. Slasher asked what had happened, so Knux explained that after getting out of Myst, we'd gotten zapped by an electrical discharge in the storm. My brain had shorted out to the point that I didn't have the mental capacity to activate my Gravity Stone. Hence, cartoon-like impact. I ever so slowly pulled myself out of the sand pit I'd created.
"Ouch," I muttered before passing out.
-----------------------------------------------------
Sally, now in possession of six of the seven Chaos Emeralds, decided to check up on Chaos8's progress. Nicole patched into the Robotropolis computer, only to get kicked out immediately.
"Unable to connect to the network, Sally."
"Huh? Why?"
"The mainframe is under emergency lockdown. Robotropolis is under attack."
"WHAT? By whom?"
"Robotnik."
-----------------------------------------------------
Sonic stared up at the hole in the sky. He thought he had seen some figures fall out of it earlier that day, but had since chalked it up to hallucination. No one even knew he was here. Who would even know to look here?
And what about this Rob guy? He seemed so familiar, and yet Sonic couldn't place the memory anywhere. It was almost as if he'd met the guy on several occasions, but he just couldn't remember...
Sonic drifted to sleep, unaware of the battle for destiny going on ever so close to home, not to mention the search party less than two miles away... ...
To Be Continued...
by Ryan Carroll
The storm was building strength. I knew that there wasn't much time before the entire continuum tore apart.
"Mecha, how stable can you keep yourself in that vortex?"
The blue robotic clone gave me a sideways glance. "Not very stable, but enough that I can navigate through the storm."
"In other words, better than I can." I turned to Tails and Serena. "You guys think you can hold on?"
Tails grabbed Mecha's back, and Serena had a death grip on my neck. "Refresh my memory," the violet hedgehog cut in. "Why aren't we neutralizing the vortex first?"
I turned my head partway to answer her. "We need to get everyone else out of the dimensions they're in first, then we have to enlist everyone's help in those other dimensions to close off the vortex openings that have emerged. THEN we neutralize the storm."
"Oh. That makes sense. So where are we going now?"
"Wherever the storm takes us," I replied, lifting off toward the vortex.
----------------------------------------------------
"Now this is a weird book," Knuckles commented as he sat on the dock of Myst Island by the sunken ship. Slasher had perched herself in the crow's nest of the ship, casting an occasional wary glance into the sky at that dimensional vortex, which seemed to be getting larger with each passing moment.
"What about it?" the raptor asked, taking yet another glance at the vortex.
"Well the words in the book are in some odd language, but there's a picture in the back of the book. This thing looks so real I feel like I could touch it and--"
The echidna's words were punctuated by an abrupt silence, followed by a splash. Slasher's head whipped around to observe the book Knux had been reading sinking to the bottom of the bay, with the echidna nowhere to be found.
The raptor quickly retrieved the book from the water, then attempted to look at the page Knux had been looking at. Rather than a crystal clear picture, the page showed only a box of static.
The roar of jet engines caught Slasher's attention. She narrowed her eyes as she recognized the source.
---------------------------------------------------
"Well, I can see Slasher, but I don't see anyone else nearby-- Oh, no."
"Is there a problem, CJ?"
I freaked when Mecha used my pseudo-nickname. He'd never called me by name before. Shoot, I don't even know if he'd referred to me in third person before. I quickly regained my composure and responded, "I recognize this place. It's Myst Island. The library is home to several books that link to other worlds. You're not careful and you could be stuck here for a long time."
"Uh, oh," Tails interjected from his perch on Mecha's back.
"What?" I replied, trying to figure out what Tails was looking at.
"If that's what I think is in Slasher's hands, she may be here for a long time."
I zeroed in on the book the raptor was holding. "Slash! Don't touch that book!"
Startled, she dropped the book on the dock as Mecha and I landed and our passengers disembarked. "Have you seen Knux?"
"Have WE seen him? We just got here."
"Well he was holding this book, then he was just gone."
Fearing the worst, I picked up the book, which was still dripping wet. Flipping to the back, I saw that the linking image had dissolved into static. Peeling some of the other pages apart, I saw that the sea water the book had been dumped into had totally obliterated the ink that had forged the link. "Lovely," I muttered.
"You know what happened to him?"
"The good news is, yes, I know what happened to him. The bad news is that I don't know if we can get him back."
----------------------------------------------------
I gathered what clues I could from the ruined linking book. The cover featured waves of water. That didn't help much, since both the Stoneship and Mechanical ages were both surrounded by water. I was betting on Stoneship, which didn't make me feel any better about going after Knux. I had played Myst on my PC, but I'd never managed to complete Stoneship. I guess I could also include Channelwood in the water category...
I heard footsteps approaching and looked to see Mecha entering the library where I had set up my research. "What is it?" I asked the robot.
"I would like to know when we are going to leave this place. The isolation is starting to wear on my circuits."
"Sorry, Mecha, but I'm not leaving until I can rescue Knux."
"Then allow me to accompany the raptor and the others to search for the remaining missing persons. I have no use here, and the salt water is beginning to rust my joints."
I sighed. Mecha had a good point. "All right, but be careful. I'd hate for you to wind up in a bad situation just because I couldn't watch you."
The red eyes studied me for a second. "Why do you take responsibility for me like this? I have only refrained from harming you because I need to return to Mobius."
"Because you've got potential, Mecha. You could be one of the good guys. ...Ah, why am I even trying? You've probably heard all the arguments before."
"Actually... I have not." With that Mecha paced out of the room. Soon after I could hear the echoes of his jets as he took off towards the vortex...
Echoes. Sound waves. Microphones. I leaped for the bookshelf and began tearing through it, hoping to come across the book I was looking for. I found the Selenitic journal, but there was no linking book. Since I knew that there were two linking books for each age, the remaining one must be in the proper place...
Flipping through the journal again, I made notes of the proper sequence of keys, then bolted for the spaceship on the northwest corner of the island, stopping only to flip the power switch that ran electricity to the equipment inside.
I skidded to a halt in front of the organ. After pressing the proper combination of keys and listening carefully to the pitch each key made, I turned and input those frequencies into the console behind me.
Success! The image of a book faded into view on the small screen above the console. I reached out to touch the book...
--------------------------------------------------------
"We really appreciate this, Dr. Brown," Christine told the inventor as she and Jason got into the DeLorean.
"It's nothing, really. You need it more than I do. And please, call me Doc."
"Well, Doc, we really appreciate this. We'll try to bring the car back in good shape."
"If I were you I wouldn't bother with trying to bring it back. Just be careful you don't activate the time circuits accidentally!"
As the car took off towards the portal, Marty turned to Doc. "Are you sure that was such a good idea? I mean, what if they try to change history?"
"I have a feeling they won't bother with something as minute as that, considering what they're facing."
--------------------------------------------------------
Knuckles had no idea where the heck he was, but he didn't like it one bit.
The thick fog settled oppresively over the barren wasteland, only adding to the dismal mood the echidna was in. He had no idea how he was going to get home, and he didn't know if he would ever see his friends again.
He thought of Sonic's cocksure attitude, of Tails' contagious laugh, of Talon's habit of calling him "sir", of Ryan's voice...
Ryan's voice? Was his mind playing tricks on him? He waited silently, wishing his heart and lungs would quiet down so he could hear.
--------------------------------------------------------
"Knuckles! Hey, ya big lug, if you can hear me shout back already!"
My biggest fear was that the echidna had figured out the point of the microphones and had already managed to reach the railcar, in which case I'd never catch up with him. Suddenly, through the thick fog, a voice called, "Ryan? Is that you?"
"Of course, it's me! Who else would be crazy enough to come after you? Hey, keep talking so I can find you!"
Knuckles talked for a good five minutes while I discerned his location to the point where I could see him through the cloudbank that had settled over the plain.
"Now what?" he asked as I drifted to him out of the fog.
"Now we get out of here. Come on, I know the way to the linking book..."
--------------------------------------------------------
Despite the swirling winds, Slasher managed to maintain her equilibrium in the storm quite well. Mecha's internal gyroscope had finally gotten used the constantly shifting forces of the rip, and was holding his own against the storm. Tails and Serena clung to the raptor's back as tightly as was physically possible. All seemed to be going well...
That's when the DeLorean came careening out of a portal, heading directly for the party.
Jason saw them first and swerved wildly, yanking the steering wheel around in an attempt to get clear. Chris, startled by the abrupt change in direction, screamed. The scream alerted Slasher, whose reflexes acted, jerking her away from the oncoming car. Tails lost his grip on Slasher and slipped off. Mecha noticed and swooped in to grab the fox. Finally everyone was safely on the other side of a portal.
"Brilliant driving skills, mi amigo," Chris shot at Jason, voice dripping with sarcasm.
"So I've never dealt with a third dimension before while driving! Excuuuuuuse me!"
"Save it for later," Slasher cut in, stepping between the two. "We've got other things to worry about. Such as where we are."
"Hey, what's that sound?" Serena added.
Everyone stopped and listened. A faint scream could be heard...
"... ... ... ...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--OOMPH!"
------------------------------------------------------
The pain was nearly unbearable. For once in my life I sympathized with that cartoon coyote...
"Ryan! You ok?"
No, I wasn't ok. What a stupid question to ask. Still face down in the sand, I felt my hand give the thumbs-up signal. I was going to have to have a nice talk with my subconscious when this was over.
I felt more than heard Knux land nearby. Slasher asked what had happened, so Knux explained that after getting out of Myst, we'd gotten zapped by an electrical discharge in the storm. My brain had shorted out to the point that I didn't have the mental capacity to activate my Gravity Stone. Hence, cartoon-like impact. I ever so slowly pulled myself out of the sand pit I'd created.
"Ouch," I muttered before passing out.
-----------------------------------------------------
Sally, now in possession of six of the seven Chaos Emeralds, decided to check up on Chaos8's progress. Nicole patched into the Robotropolis computer, only to get kicked out immediately.
"Unable to connect to the network, Sally."
"Huh? Why?"
"The mainframe is under emergency lockdown. Robotropolis is under attack."
"WHAT? By whom?"
"Robotnik."
-----------------------------------------------------
Sonic stared up at the hole in the sky. He thought he had seen some figures fall out of it earlier that day, but had since chalked it up to hallucination. No one even knew he was here. Who would even know to look here?
And what about this Rob guy? He seemed so familiar, and yet Sonic couldn't place the memory anywhere. It was almost as if he'd met the guy on several occasions, but he just couldn't remember...
Sonic drifted to sleep, unaware of the battle for destiny going on ever so close to home, not to mention the search party less than two miles away... ...
To Be Continued...