Chapter 8: Sixth Flux

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Sonic was a timezone away from home, and in the mountains it was dark. The road was a pair of tracks through grass, and was so seldom travelled that it was nearly overgrown. It looped back and forth across the mountain and the hills below, and was not the best sort of road to traverse at high speeds.

When it grew too dark to see, Sonic reluctantly made a bed for himself in the dry weeds on the roadside. It made a rustly, scratchy sort of mattress, and Sonic lay on his back, thinking of all the insects that he would attract. The sky was clear. He watched the stars, wide awake and ready to run for hours more. The fluxes had not been the same distance apart--chaos never repeated itself--so he had no idea when the next one would come. What would it be? There had been a fog, and that weird teleport ... maybe those had been the green and white emeralds. The other two had happened at the same time, but he would not know what they had done until he got home. He hoped Knuckles hadn't died. Or what if he had killed someone?

He propped himself up on one elbow and peered into the tree-filled darkness to the west. It was too dark to leave. He lay back down and returned to his worries.

Gradually he became aware that the darkness was less. He must have dozed despite his restlessness, for when he looked at the sky, the moons were lifting above the eastern ridge behind him. They were full and shed plenty of light.

The hedgehog abandoned his bed and galloped down the road.

* * *

Slasher, too, was travelling, but her night-vision was better than Sonic's. The velociraptor had left the marshland behind and ran through the forested upland like a ghost. She knew there were creatures in these woods that would view her as easy prey, but nothing attacked her. She smelled many tracks, and once hid herself as something large and clawed stalked by, but on the whole she made good time.

Metal Sonic's words kept ringing in her ears. "The next flux involves electricity." What would it be, a colossal lightning storm? Knowing that the last flux had been fog, that was a good guess. Where was he getting his information? Who knew that much about the Chaos Emeralds? Knuckles, maybe. But Knuckles wouldn't give data to Mecha.

Slasher slowed to a walk, panting. Time to catch her breath, then another sprint. She was hungry and tempted to hunt, but knew that she must be far from this place by morning.

The point was to get home.

* * *

Tails worked over his invention, double-checking wires, connections and voltage with a small device hooked to a dial. Power came from a generator outside. He was aware of Twilight and Beast's eyes boring into his back. They were giving him no more chances, not after they had left him and he had made for the Cyclone's radio set. Now he was tired and wanted to lie down, but Twilight wanted the machine done tonight.

He rubbed his eyes with the back of one hand and watched the dancing needle on the dial. The final connection was tested. Moving slowly and wearily, he lifted the casing, set it around the machine, and began to screw it down.

"Is it done?" came Twilight's soft, irritated voice.

"Yeah." Tails didn't look up. He heard Twilight step forward, and the click of Beast's claws as the dinosaur moved off to stand guard. Twilight stood there until Tails had tightened the final screw. "Can I go to bed now?" asked Tails.

"Not yet," said Twilight, turning the device so its screen faced him. "I want you to be here when I test it."

"I've already tested it," replied Tails, cross enough to disagree. "It didn't do anything."

"Of course not," said Twilight, flipping the power switch. The screen flashed blue. "It needs the master touch." He reached into his black gauntlet sleeve and pulled out a black plastic stick like an antenna. He touched it to a metal port in the device's top, and images blinked onto the screen.

Tails watched as Twilight adjusted the antenna. "Good reception," muttered the hedgehog.

"What--what is it?" Tails asked. It was showing random images, some blurry, some crystal clear. As Twilight adjusted it, it showed bolts of lightning plunging from the sky and blasting the ground.

"How interesting," said Twilight. "The next flux will be violet."

Tails' stomach heaved. He whirled away and knelt on the floor, fighting waves of nausea. The violet emerald had been his own, after a fashion. Pilot, his chao, had used it, and it had granted her the power to launch a devastating lightning melee. He had not thought of what would happen when his emerald fluxed. The idea of Pilot's lightning storm magnified a trillion times threatened to make him throw up.

"You can go to bed now," came Twilight's cool, amused voice. "And try not to puke until you reach the bathroom."

Tails clutched his stomach and ran. At the same time, he knew there was something horribly disturbing about Twilight.

* * *

It came an hour before dawn.

The moons had set in the west, leaving a dim yellow glow along the horizon. Sonic had run most of the night, stopping occassionally for water. The road vanished and reappeared as it wound its way over the ridges Sonic knew as the Dark Mountains. There were no trees, for the soil was rocky and only a little dry scrub flourished in the cracks. Sonic wished for his emerald belt in its drawer in Knothole, as he stumbled over the rough ground in the dark. If he had his Super Emeralds, he could fly home in a minute or two instead of busting his legs on the rocks.

At last the road sloped down into forest, and the sound of crickets arose to meet the panting hedgehog. The rocks abated, and he could see the path, winding away like a silver ribbon into the darkness under the trees. Further down, past outlying hills and slopes, he saw a solid mass he knew was the Great Forest. He was nearly home.

Close as he was, Sonic had the wit to gauge his own strength and realize he needed to rest. He had come several hundred miles in eight hours, and his iron constitution was weary. He followed the path off the ridge and into the forest for half a mile, looking for water. The night was darker now that the moons had set, and the stars looked heavy and bright. Morning was near.

All at once the stars winked out. Sonic froze and stared at the sky. The dark night was becoming darker, as if clouds had materialized and were coiling together in the upper airs. Sonic groped sideways into the woods. He felt the smooth trunk of a tree and crouched at its foot, wondering if this was a flux, and what color it was.

The lightning began without warning. One second the world was cloaked in blackness--the next instant the night was torn with bolts of blinding light. Thunder crashed into Sonic's eardrums. He saw every blade of grass beneath him outlined in white light, knife-edged with black shadows. He saw his own soiled gloves, and the texture of the tree's trunk above him. Then he looked at the sky and stared in hypnotized fascination.

The sky had become a mass of writhing, interlacing chain lightning. It leaped from cloud to cloud, tinted pink, gold and green, then stabbed earthward in tongues of flame. The clouds themselves looked like congealed smoke, for they rolled and boiled and belched out electricity. It was as if something had twisted the weather into doing something so unnatural that the very sky was in pain.

Sonic was unaware of his danger until lightning split a tree a hundred paces from where he sat. The ground vibrated, and the crack nearly deafened him. Every survival guide he had ever read came back to him: sitting under a tree in a storm was like sticking a lightning rod on his head. The hedgehog scrambled to his feet and ran down the path.

Lightning was striking everywhere. It looked like long white legs were stalking across the mountains. If only he could find proper shelter--but what could protect anyone from such celestial fury? He had never seen lightning do so many things. It danced among the treetops and bolted back up into the sky, or formed spheres of flame and bounced down the path ahead of him.

Sonic felt his spines bristle with static electricity. Before he could think of what this meant, a lightning bolt struck a juniper six feet to his right.

He came to several hours later. He was lying face down on the path, and there was a pounding in his head as if echoes of thunder had not yet died away. He slowly sat up, blinking. It was daylight and the lightning had stopped, but the sky was overcast and sullen. Sonic rubbed his forehead, disoriented. Where was he? He looked around and saw the burned stump of the tree that had been the cause of his blackout. Oh yeah, there had been a flux. And he was almost home!

He stood up and jogged stiffly down the trail, the thought of getting home giving his weary body new strength.

* * *

The lightning storm struck Riverbase with the same fury it had unleashed on the mountains. Twilight and Beast paced from window to window, watching with pleasure. Tails sat in the floor in his tiny work area, staring at his shoes, trying to ignore the flashes and thunderclaps. He hated storms, especially at night. The fact that it was 4 AM made no difference.

Beast stood at one window and peered out, then gave a loud chirp. Twilight raced to the dinosaur's side and followed its gaze. The lightning danced and shivered outside. "Catch it," said Twilight.

His voice was quiet, but the storm had abated for a second, and Tails heard him. The fox lifted his head and watched Beast whisk for the door, wondering what the raptor had been ordered to catch. And how could it stand to go outside in that storm?

Tails rested his forehead on his knees and covered his ears as thunder cracked, rattling the factory building. He wanted it to stop, he wanted to go home, and he regretted building the contraption for Twilight.

The outer door opened, and Beast entered, carrying something in its forepaws. "Master!" it called, as lightning threw it into silhouette. "Look who it is!"

Tails leaped to his feet and stared in stark silence. Not only could Beast talk, but a pair of wings were half-opened above its back, bat-like skin stretched between long bony fingers. As Tails watched it folded these to its sides, and they lay so flat that he had not noticed them before. He watched as Twilight ran to the raptor, and suddenly he understood why Twilight had always made him uneasy. Of course! It was the leap of logic that had taken him so long. The fur on his back rose in waves.

Twilight and Beast walked to him, the near-constant lightning lighting their way. Beast was carrying a ball of feathers, and only the tiny jerks of its head showed Tails it was alive. "Hello, Tachyon," Twilight said with a smirk as Beast dropped the falcon on the floor beside Tails. "Fancy meeting you here. What were you doing out in a storm like this?"

Tachyon adjusted his wings and fixed one cold eye on Twilight.

"Not inclined to talk, eh?" said Twilight, clasping his hands behind his back. "You'll talk to Tails, won't you? Yes, we'll all await the final flux, and you can give Tails all the news you like."

"Don't say anything!" hissed Tails. "I know who they are!"

Twilight's attention turned to Tails, and his eyes lit up. "So, the boy genius has figured it out, has he? Do you see now why I have made no move to harm you?"

"No," said Tails, "but it doesn't matter. You'll never get the emeralds."

"Who said I was after the emeralds?" said Twilight, still smiling. "I don't need Chaos Emeralds to achieve immortality. All I need is Sonic."

* * *

It was a gray, gloomy sort of morning as Sonic rocketed into the Knothole camp, tired, hungry and anxious. The first person he met was Sally, as she stepped out of her tent. "Sally!" he said.

She froze and stared, mouth dropping open. "Sonic!" She flew to him and they exchanged hugs. "Oh Sonic, I was afraid you weren't coming back," she whispered, pulling away and looking at him again.

He grinned his old carefree grin. "Of course I'd come back, Sal. I'll always come back."

Sally opened her mouth to say something, changed her mind and hugged him again.

"Okay, so you missed me," he laughed. He pushed her away and asked, "What's happened here? Did Tails come back?"

"No," said Sally, sobering. "There's good news and bad news about him."

"Bad news first," said Sonic.

Sally drew a breath. "The bad news is that he's been kidnapped by Twilight."

"I guessed that," said Sonic.

"Oh?" said Sally, looking relieved. "The good news is that we know where they are."

"You do?" Sonic's eyes widened. "Where?"

"Riverbase. But Twilight's using him as bait, Tachyon said. Tails is okay, and he built some machine for them."

"Tachyon found him, eh?" said Sonic. "You mean Slasher hasn't come back?"

"No." Sally looked down. "That's not the worst of it. Knuckles found some information on the flux ..."

"No more," said Sonic, holding up both hands. "Don't tell me any more. I can't take this on an empty stomach."

"You want breakfast?"

"Yeah, and the strongest dose of caffeine we have. I'm gonna need it."

Twenty minutes later found Sonic eating everything Sally put in front of him, from cold rations to last night's leftovers to a hastily heated chilidog. He washed it down with coffee so black that Sally had been going to pour it out. "Nothing like caffeine to brace you up for a fight," he commented between bites. "Where's Knux? I need a briefing."

Sally left, and a little later Knuckles entered, looking grim and carrying a knapsack over one shoulder. He dropped this and a notebook in front of Sonic and sat down in a vacant chair beside the hedgehog. "Hi Sonic, glad you're back, we're in serious trouble."

"That's quite a greeting," commented Sonic. "Like duh, we're in trouble. There's only one flux left, right?"

"Two," said Knuckles, opening his notebook. "The amber emerald, then all seven will flux together."

Sonic peered at him. "Were you involved in a flux?"

Knuckles avoided his gaze. "Yes, but there's no time for the story now. Read this."

Sonic drank another cup of coffee as he read Knuckles' untidy scrawl. Gradually he pushed the cup aside and gripped the notebook, eyes widening. When he finished, he looked at the crimson echidna. "This has happened before."

Knuckles nodded. "It was directed out into space. You'll have to do the same thing." When Sonic said nothing, the echidna went on, "Chaos levels have been rising for a long time, and we didn't know it. It's only been recently that it's been noticeable. Chaos broke out of the Master Emerald. Serena's suddenly become a seer. Leviathan was actually built. The thing with the Thunderbird. Robotnik found out about Shadow."

Sonic stirred and looked up. "And Shadow survived?"

"I didn't say that," said Knuckles quietly. "And remember when the campfire exploded? Rising Chaos Levels again."

"But you just proved that the impossible could happen," argued Sonic. "Shadow could be alive." He stood up and opened the knapsack, which contained the six remaining Chaos Emeralds. They were all flickering.

After a moment Sonic asked, without turning, "Knuckles, about the guy who did the flux before. What happened to him?"

Knuckles didn't answer. Sonic turned and saw his friend tracing a pattern on the table top. "Knux, you must know."

After a long moment, the echidna muttered, "He died."

"But he was inexperienced."

"Yeah." Knuckles cleared his throat. "He had only mastered three emerald uses: See, Timestop, and Chaos Control."

Sonic returned his gaze to the flickering Chaos Emeralds. "So this might kill me."

"Yeah."

Sonic forced a smile. "It might just give me a high or something."

"Yeah." Knuckles' voice was devoid of emotion. He rose and faced the hedgehog. "Try to get Tails clear. They're in some factory on the east side of Riverbase."

"Yeah, Sally told me."

They faced each other over the emeralds, and it dawned on them that they might never see each other again. Sonic held out a hand, and Knuckles shook it. "Look after Knothole while I'm gone, okay?"

"I will, Sonic. Be careful."

They looked at each other a second longer, not knowing what to say, then Sonic hoisted the knapsack onto his shoulder and walked out.

* * *

An hour after Sonic left, Slasher entered the village, limping on worn and bloody feet. "Has Sonic been back?" she asked Sally, having hunted down the squirrel, who looked as if she had been crying.

"He's come and gone," said Sally, bandaging the velociraptor's feet. "Tails and Twilight are in Riverbase, and he's gone to stop the flux."

"Great," muttered Slasher, propped up on her elbows. "And you let him go alone?"

"Yes."

"Great!" the raptor repeated. "Sonic's going to meet up with some maniac black hedgehog who is probably a killer in disguise!"

"You're not going after him, are you?"

"You bet I am!" snapped the raptor. "He's probably there by now, being strung up by that Twilight fiend, but I'm going after him."

"Slasher--"

"Sally, Twilight has another raptor with him. Do you think ... I'm ..." Slasher trailed off, her eyes widening. "You don't think ..."

"What?" Sally looked at her, but the raptor was staring off into space. "Could it be possible ...?"

Slasher leaped to her feet. "Sal, I gotta go. I'll be back when this is over!" She sprinted off into the trees.

Sally watched her go, forlorn. "Please bring him back," she whispered.