Chapter 3
By RocketDarkness
A/N: Wow, I got my first criticism, if you can call it that. I guess that means people actually care about the story enough to yell and scream incoherently at me. I feel so loved. Anyways, if a little thing like Rouge beating Sonic in an aerial fight (despite the fact Sonic easily beat her on the ground, plus he can't fly naturally) bothers you, then you won't like what will happen later on. If you wish to contact me, email is rocketdarkness@yahoo.com (still). Oh yeah, and the names for all the G.U.N. robots from this point forward are from the Green Hill Zone, at http://www.emulationzone.org/fanfare/ghz .
Sonic recoiled, pulling back from the horrifying sight before him and snapping out of his state of shock. He looked over to Knuckles, prepared to offer his condolences. However, his glance revealed that Knuckles was standing on the railing of the floating platform. And then he was gone from sight. "Damn." It was suicide for him to go alone. "Hey Tails, it's time to save the world!" With that, Sonic propelled himself off the platform, Tails following closely behind, prepared to slow Sonic's descent.
Knuckles, meanwhile, was gliding downwards in a blind fury. While he may have a slight crush on Rouge, it didn't mean he'd let her destroy his home. All he could think about was knocking the snot out of her, and quickly. Nothing else mattered. He cocked his fist, ready to strike her in the back of the head as soon as he could. The only warning sound he gave was the swift rushing of air through his dreadlocks. He urged himself to drop faster. He concentrated on the back of her head as it grew closer, and closer, and then, at the last second, she turned around. Knuckles could hear her gasp in surprise, and she began to pull her pistol up to shoot. Too late. Knuckles swung, and she was lucky enough to step back far enough to avoid being hit full-on by his sharp knuckles. Nevertheless, she still received the brunt of the attack, and was knocked to the ground roughly as Knuckles collided with her, knocking her hard to the ground. The pistol discharged, causing the young kitsune to yelp in pain as the bullet found an alternate target. His tails stopped twirling, causing both him and Sonic to fall to the cool steel floor.
"Man, today is not my day..." Sonic decided woozily, then realized his best buddy was injured. Tails was crying weakly, holding one of his bushy, and now somewhat bloody, tails in his hand. Sonic crouched at his side. "You okay? Let me look at that..." He took the injured tail in his hands, careful not to get blood on his white gloves. He parted the fur, and looked in. To his immense relief, the bullet had just barely grazed the tip of the tail. Tails looked on, just as relieved as Sonic.
Knuckles, meanwhile, had securely pinned Rouge's shoulders to the floor and was now glaring icely into her eyes. Rouge, for once, shrunk back, genuinely scared. "You...you did this! Change...it...back...right...now!" Knuckles pronounced the words slowly, and with great force.
"Knuckles...I...I can't. I'm sorry about this, I really am. But you have to understand--"
"No! YOU understand that if you can't fix this, I'll fix you!"
"I didn't want this to happen, but I didn't have any say in the matter. It's all G.U.N.!"
"Tell those...those things...to fix it!"
"They aren't under my control...there's nothing I can do. I didn't want to have any part in this..." Rouge avoided Knuckles gaze as best she could as she spoke softly. Her eyelids dropped, realizing she probably wasn't going to convince the echidna otherwise. She watched him draw back his fist, and then closed her eyes as she imagined that fist being driven into her face, the sharp spikes puncturing her soft skin...and the force...she shuddered at the thought. Not to mention that--her thoughts were interrupted rudely by the sound of the alarm blaring. Knuckles looked up, momentarily confused. This was all the delay she needed. Quickly,she pushed off hard from the ground. Her legs, temporarily being pinned down by Knuckles, provided enough energy to soundly fling him off of her. Following through, she landed deftly back on her feet. She scooped up her discarded weapon.
The echinda, meanwhile, found himself in a tangle of wires that broke his fall. Throwing himself into a spin, he made short work of the flimsy siphons. "Sonic! We've got company!"
"Tails, ready to fight?" Sonic shouted unnecessarily loud, as was custom.
"Yeah, but what about Rouge?"
"Knux can take care of it, right?"
"Hey!" Rouge interrupted. "What makes you think he can succeed where you failed?" Knuckles and Tails looked to Sonic questioningly. At that moment, Hunter robots of all types flooded into the Emerald Chamber.
"Err..." Sonic grinned widely, embarassed. "Not now, busy!" He jumped into a Sonic Spin and began to tear through the robots with great zeal. Tails, not one to be left behind, quickly followed suit. The robots opened fire. Unfortunately, the two blurs continued to trash their ranks, not even noticing the potentially dangerous laser barrage.Their parade of robotic destruction was put to a stop when a familiar sound was heard. Sonic immediately grabbed Tails' hand and dashed away, just as the payload of a Hornet-9 exploded where they had been milliseconds earlier. More Hunter-9s flooded in.
"Tails! On my command, spin your tails as fast as possible!" Instantly, Sonic jumped onto a nearby wall, his superheated footwear causing him to slide slowly down the wall, holding Tails up with his hands. He eyed the 'bots tensely, waiting. Ching. The bombs were detached. Here they come...with an explosive burst of speed, he pushed off the wall, right past the bombs as he shouted. "Now!" Sonic's speed, combined with the rapid twirling of the tails, created a temporary vortex. The bombs were sucked behind them at high speed. He landed right in front of a few Hunters. They leveled their guns downwards, to his forehead. "Shame there's no time to pull the trigger!" The resulting explosion destroyed everything near. Sonic, naturally, was nowhere to be seen.
--
While Sonic and Tails engaged the robots, Knuckles had more important matters to attend to. "All right, bat, what's going on here? And why is that machine hooked up to the Master Emerald?"
"It's a long story...I'll tell you later. What matters now is that the machine is analyzing your green rock, and is trying to figure out how to harness its power. Is that good enough for you?"
"Harness its power? They think they can harness the power of the Master Emerald?" Knuckles chuckled, despite the grim situation. "Even a small sample of its power could..." Rouge gasped.
"G.U.N. doesn't know that the emerald is limitless! Help me stop the machine!" Rouge hastily grabbed Knuckles' hand and flew them to the top pedestal of the Emerald Shrine, where the Master Emerald lay as its power was being slowly collected. Knuckles stood, staring. "Well, you gonna do something?"
"They're your machines."
"Well, I don't know what to do!" She thought quickly, then shouted. "TAILS!" Immediately, both Sonic and Tails appeared next to them. "Wow, you guys are faster than I give you credit for."
"You called?" Sonic asked quizzically.
"Yes."
"We didn't hear anything." Sonic said quickly, then jumped down from the platform, ready to take out any straggling 'bots.
"Yeah, we came because we need to get out of here, quick! The entire Palace is swarming with 'bots of all shapes and sizes!" Tails chipped in.
"Tails, think you can do something about this mess?" Rouge asked, pointing to the wires. Tails looked down.
"Do what?"
"Y'know...make it not work." She said, for lack of words. Tails began his tails, then flew along, following the cables to a small machine, full of activity. Gauges and meters of all varieties were continually monitoring the emerald's output. Tails quickly scanned the machine, obviously understanding what it all meant. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
Finally, he remarked, "It seems to have an overflow of energy. If it doesn't have some sort of outlet, it could very well explode. However, I'm not sure what this does." He pointed to a small apparatus sticking out of the backside of the machine. "I'd think it's some kind of outlet, but I don't know how it operates. It must be automated, so--uh oh, guys, it's reached critical condition!"
Rouge turned to Knuckles, irritated. "Can't you do anything?"
"Unfortunately, there isn't a Master Emerald for the Master Emerald!" Knuckles retorted.
Sonic zoomed into appearance. "Not a good time to argue!" As if to accentuate the point, laser fire began to assail them. "Knuckles, come with me! Rouge and Tails, figure out how we're gonna survive this!" Into the robot swarm they went, yet every time a robot was destroyed, a new one seemed to appear somewhere else. Tails, engrossed in this mysterious machine, began to push buttons, pull levers, and twist knobs.
"Hmm, maybe if I do this...no, I should probably release the--wait, I need to deactivate this first!" Rouge watched, gun held at her side. Smart kid. "Grr...I need to...wait! NO! DON'T RELEASE THE ENERGY! NOT WITHOUT AN INLET, THAT'LL--Rouge, get down!" Tails knocked Rouge to the ground as a beam of pure green energy pierced the air, colliding with a G.U.N. Shield Hunter. The arcane green energy coursed through the robot, causing it to twitch sporadically, then explode in a green flash.
--
Sonic coughed, heavy smoke obscuring his vision. "Well, one less robot." The explosion had come from out of the blue. He waved his hands in irritation, trying to clear the thick gray smoke clouding his eyes and causing them to water. Dimly, he saw a green glow up ahead. Sonic ran towards it, trying to get clear of the smoke. In mid stride, he threw himself into a spin when he realized the green light emanated from the blasted 'bot. His razor-sharp spines hit the 'bot full force, yet he passed through without even phasing the 'bot. However, his entire body felt like it was on fire. "How am I supposed to destroy it if I can't even touch it!?" The crystalline robot turned towards him, and cocked its head. Sonic was shocked. It responded as if it understood...could the Master Emerald's power go so far as to enable sentience? The robot pointed its weaponless arm at the hedgehog, and he gulped. In an instant, the entire arm morphed into a neon green sword. In an instant, Sonic disappeared, not wanting to fight a being made out of pure energy. Not without a plan...
The green entity watched, as its solid, mindless brethren walked and flew by. It realized that it had once been like that. Taking aim with his now-distorted laser, it opened fire on an overhead Bomb Beetle. The green energy again coursed through the metal, and then the explosion. Success. The beetle, now sentient, began to drop its emerald payloads onto the ground in waves transforming the robots into their glowing counterparts.
"The emeralds must have fried their circuits or something! They're attacking each other." Knuckles commented.
"I think they're doing it on purpose. G.U.N.bots are programmed explicitly to not shoot each other. The emerald must have something to--" Rouge was cut off as Sonic came to a jarring stop.
"They're sentient!"
--
Finally, they were compleat. Each robot was now stripped of their clunky metal bodies, and had become comprised of pure energy. They realized that there was strength in numbers. Their outlines became distorted among the smoke, fading in and out of reality as they began to merge together. Their energy scalded the very air as the joined together, fusing into a mass of pure chaos. Yet one being did not merge. It stood to the side, arms folded across its chest. The figure pulsed yellow, his red eyes piercing the inky shroud of smoke. It was then the Chaos learned the meaning of fear.
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A/N: Yay, it's done! I had originally intended for this and the next chapter to be one, but I realized it was getting too long and I didn't want to make my small number of readers wait too long. If you have any questions, just post them as part of your review. Also, I'd appreciate if you'd determine how accurately I'm capturing their attitudes. I don't want to drift too far out of character. Thanks, and enjoy! ~RocketDarkness