Chapter 4
By RocketDarkness
A/N: Wow, I think last chapter dragged on too long. Ah well.
And '______' is thought.
Sonic eyed the Chaos warily. Despite the smoke, he could see clearly. Despite the heat, he could feel nothing. He was Super Sonic. In an instant, he blasted through the center of the Chaos, creating a gaping hole where his yellow energy was able to eat away at the Chaos. He darted towards it again. This time, the Chaos opened a passage for him, causing him miss the entity entirely. He tried again and again, but the Chaos was able to simply open more passageways, always shifting form. It learned. In the back of his mind, he wished he knew how to use the power of the emeralds in such a way. All he had ever been able to do was to transform into a more powerful state, but that required rings. Perhaps...perhaps the rings were the key to unlocking the full potential! Sonic thought back a few days, when he realized that he could use the emeralds to concentrate the wind into a specialized attack, and even stop time itself. Wait...that was it! Concentrating, he shouted out those two words: CHAOS CONTROL!
In an instant, everything ground to a halt. The Chaos held perfectly still. Energy itself was frozen. Not one to waste this opportunity, he blasted in and out of the Chaos, rapidly destroying much of its energy. He watched as his energy began to decay the green power. Then, his energy stopped too. The being of Chaos began to glow brighter, and a blast of hot emerald-green light engulfed the Hidden Palace. Sonic fell to the ground. The Chaos stopped the power of the emeralds. "Aw man, I'm back to blue!" After his quick observation, he had to peel out before the Chaos attempted to engulf him. While he couldn't afford to stop, the blue blur shouted out to Knuckles. "Knux, I have an idea! Use the Master Emerald to recharge the Chaos Emeralds! And hurry!" Sonic took a flying leap, and landed next to one of the Chaos Emeralds, picked it out of its shrine, and dashed away. The ruby red emerald lay dormant, no longer emitting its soft glow. Knuckles shouted at him, but he was already out of distance.
"Hmm...I've got a better idea!" Sonic hurled the emerald at the Chaos with as much strength as he could muster. As it traveled through, the infinite amounts of energy began to permeate into the Emerald. It began to grow larger, and glow brighter. Sonic, waiting on the other end, caught the sizeably larger jewel. Putting it down, he dashed over, and grabbed the remaining six. The Chaos, however, would not allow itself to be used as some battery recharger, and granted the emeralds safe passage through, to clatter down, still useless, on the other side. "What am I supposed to do with one Super Emerald?" he said, annoyed that despite the fact he could finally have access to the Super Emeralds, he couldn't transform into Hyper form. He stared at its transparent-red surface as he casually avoided the Chaos's every move. Through it, everything appeared deep red, the color of heat and anger. In fact...by simply looking at it, he realized the very essence of the gem felt different from the light-blue emerald he had been using during the times he used his self-titled Sonic Wind.
"Well...might as well give it a shot," he said dubiously, feeling as if he was really scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of ideas this time. 'Hmm...what should I say...it's red, like fire...perhaps something lame? Sonic Fire? Nah...erm...Flaming Hedgehog. Hah! Sure, why not?' He held the emerald up dramatically, and shouted. "Flaming Hedgehogs!"
--
"Did he just shout out 'Flaming Hedgehog'?" Rouge asked incredulously to Knuckles. He shrugged.
--
From within, Sonic felt several of his rings disappearing as a flaming incarnation of him appeared from the jewel. It faded away, useless. Sonic growled, and then ran full speed at the Chaos, again shouting "Flaming Hedgehog!"
--
Knuckles nodded, scratching his head curiously. "Yep, he said 'Flaming Hedgehog'." Tails heard none of this, still busying himself with the machine attached to the emerald.
--
Moving at full speed, and willing all of his Rings into it, the flaming projection of himself shot out in a blaze of fire. The Chaos, ready to absorb the defenseless blue animal, was caught off-guard as a giant flaming creature shot out from the small jewel, burning through the Chaos. This created a gap for Sonic to finish running through to reach the rest of his friends, not willing to continue fighting without any of his Rings. His fiery creation didn't simply create a gap, the burning energy ate through the Chaos as if it were firewood. Slowly but surely, the Chaos was destroyed. Sonic sat, exhausted, on top of the Super Emerald that he placed back into its shrine. His feelings of fatigue did not slow down his mouth, however.
Sonic rambled on imcomprehensibly about the battle, looking as though he was about to drop dead from fatigue. The island was liberated. G.U.N. was gone. Rouge, however, had two words that burst Sonic's bubble: "Not quite..."
He leapt to his feet, standing on the Super Emerald still. "There's MORE of them?"
"Don't worry, it shouldn't be a problem. Just a few technicians and maybe guards. I'm sure any one of us could take care of them singlehandedly," she said, not wanting to spoil Sonic's victory.
"Oh, ok. Hey buddy, you still tinkering with that machine?" Sonic said lightheartedly, walking over to the machine and resting his elbow on it. "C'mon, what's the worst it could do?"
"Explode, killing all of us," Tails replied matter-of-factly, not missing a beat.
Sonic gulped. "Well, then I'm really glad you're still here."
"Sonic, I don't think there's very much I can do about it though. The siphons are still gathering energy at a tremendous rate, and to cut through them would probably be disasterous. But if we don't do anything, the reactor will go critical!" Knuckles and Rouge came over, alarmed. Tails continued to pull levers and push buttons, now at a much faster rate.
Rouge watched the fox work, admiring how technologically adept he was. With her acute sense of hearing, she barely made out the sound of thudding footsteps on the metal floor in time. Whirling around, she saw things were much worse off than she had made them out to be. Those "few technicians" had apparently called on G.U.N. to send an entire batallion of their finest combat-trained humans (A/N: Like the ones that arrested Sonic after his battle with the Bigfoot Mech). Jumping into the air, Rouge opened fire, managing to strike a few of the troops that decided to foolishly let their guard down. As they began to level their guns at her, she flapped her wings in a burst of energy, boosting herself up to the highest reaches of the Hidden Palace. She could only hope Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles would take the window of opportunity she created to get themselves off the island.
Then came the gunfire. A hail of bullets came flying at her, passing in all directions. She winced as one grazed her left shoulder, the bloodstained bullet traveling onwards. She knew if her wings were hit, she was done for. Folding her wings, she dove back down towards the mass of faceless humans. As if some divine entity were smiling down on her, Sonic and Knuckles chose that moment to intervene. Their speed alone drew their attention, but the real distraction began when Sonic barreled into the crowd at high speed, sending a lone man flying across the room and crashing into the wall, dying on impact. Knuckles, after entering the mob, uncurled, and unleashed a flurry of punches, knocking out and wounding anything that got in his way. Picking a suitable landing spot, Rouge entered the fray feet first, wings extended to slow her fall. Touching down, she immediately went into a rising kick, sending one man crashing down next to Tails, who was now frantically activating, deactivating, switching, and adjusting the machine, in some odd sort of grace that only the brink of death could create. No time to worry though. For now, they would have to rely on Tails' technical prowess to save them all.
--
Tails' eyes clouded with tears, as he pounded his gloved paws on the Emerald Siphon angrily. He had tried everything, yet it all came out the same. There was no way to stop the inevitable. Only one option: escape. Now. Sending his twin tails into a spinning blur, he took to the air. Above the battlefield, he hesitated long enough to shout out a single word. "BOMB!"
Tails' outburst caught everyone's attention. Friend and foe alike paused to contemplate the meaning of the word. Sonic, however, got the point across: "RUN!" Instantly the fight stopped, and a stampede of shoes ran back the way they came. In seconds, the room was devoid of life.
Seconds later, a red blur tore across the room towards the Emerald Shrine, followed by a blue and orange streak. Knuckles tore at the siphons, trying desperately to dislodge the Master Emerald from its own shrine. "Sonic! Help me! I need to protect the Master Emerald!"
"Knuckles, we have to get out of here now! There's no time!" Tails shouted, angry with his echidna friend at his willingness to throw away his life for a rock. Knuckles ignored him, completely focused on his rescue attempt. Sonic grabbed him by the shoulder roughly, trying to pull him away. At his touch, Knuckles spun around and swung his fist, forcing Sonic to step back before Knuckles could release another punch. Sonic looked to Tails, nodding, and then they both grabbed one of his arms, restraining him.
"Let me GO!" Knuckles struggled with all his might, twisting and turning as Sonic and Tails began to drag him back towards the entrance. "I can't leave the Master Emerald!" With all his struggling, Sonic and Tails were barely able to hold onto him.
"You knock him out, Tails."
"No! You do it!"
"No, you!"
"You!"
Their arguing was put to a stop by Rouge, as she deftly clotted the incoherent echidna over the head with her boot. "Um...thanks, Rouge, but what are you still doing here?"
"I'm a treasure-hunter first and foremost. Remember that," she said, her fang glinting in the light. After contemplating her message for a few brief seconds, Sonic and Tails took off after her, towards the surface.
--
By the time they reached the topside of the island, the entire planet seemed ready to fall apart. Uprooted trees covered any semblance of a path. The tremors were so bad that Sonic was forced to the ground while still trying to carry Knuckles' unconscious body. "Tails! Follow Rouge, and airlift Knuckles out of here!"
"Sonic, what about you?"
"You can't carry two people at once! Just go! As soon as you get there, take off! I'll be fine!" Tails took hold of under Knuckles' arms, and began to fly after Rouge, who had a minor benefit with actual wings. Sonic began to follow on the ground, being extra careful not to trip on any of the fallen debris. He picked up speed, nearly catching up to his airborne company, when a glint of ocean-blue light caught his eye. Deep down inside, something, for the first time, told him to stop. Grinding his feet into the ground, Sonic came to a stop. Knowing he didn't have much time to be dabbling around the island, he quickly got down on his knees and searched the underbrush with his gloved hands.
"Ow!" Sonic retracted his right hand quickly. Examining the wound, he realized he had jabbed his finger onto a particularly large and pointy thorn. He winced, looking down into the small pool of blood. "Aha!" He stuck his uninjured hand inside the bush and plucked out the dark-blue Chaos Emerald triumphantly. At that moment, another massive tremor broke loose, throwing Sonic into the ground face-first. What the Emerald was doing there, he didn't know. But he was glad that he had it. As he looked back towards the path he came, his mouth opened in silent horror as a beam of searing green light broke through the surface, scarring the very sky with its intensity.
"Not again...CHAOS CONTROL!" Sonic looked around, annoyed. "Man, how many times is Shadow gonna end up saving my ass in the future?" And then he was gone.
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A/N: Slow chapter...maybe it has to do with the amount of reviews I get. Actually, I just feel less motivated with less reviews. Not saying more reviews are going to get me to finish any faster, but they will help me from growing disinterested in writing each chapter. Whatever. And here's a RANDOM FACT! The story was based off a Sonic RPG (as in game, not actual Roleplaying) I thought up one day while bored in school. Again, let me know how the characters seem to be doing in terms of staying in-character. And sorry about the fact this chapter sort of sucks.