By RocketDarkness
Chapter 6
A/N: Wow, summer's been over. So much work to do in school...ah well, can't let the story simply die off now, can I?
'Well, at least he smiled once...' Rouge thought as she followed Knuckles through the jungle, jogging slightly to keep up with him. After that, however, Knuckles returned to his state of brooding. That stupid brown sack was banging on the side of her leg, annoying her. She looked down. "Hey, Knuckles, come here for a sec. I got something to show you." She hoped this would cheer him up at least a little bit.
--
"Sonic, what's in that bag that Rouge gave to you?" Tails asked, as they boarded the empty train heading towards the Mystic Ruins.
"Good question. Let's find a seat, then we'll open the bag." Sonic surveyed the interior of the train, looking for the perfect spot to relax a bit. He decided on one particularly long seat. He dropped down on it, stretching and yawning. Tails took a seat on the opposite side of the walkway, and swung his legs lazily. Sonic, propping himself up on one elbow, took out the sack and undid the loosely tied knot of string. Turning the sack upside down and shaking it, he was not prepared for what landed in his hand.
"Chaos Emeralds!? How!?" Sonic could not believe it, but there they were. The blue and teal Emeralds glittered in his hands, glowing faintly.
--
"The Chaos Emeralds!?" Knuckles shouted, shocked at the announcement from Rouge.
"What, you think I went back down to the chamber to save you? I went back for the Emeralds, you should know that."
"Is the...Master Emerald....in there?" Knuckles asked hesitantly, fearing the answer. She shook her head no, shrugging apologetically. "Give them to me."
Rouge handed the sack over to Knuckles, and watched as he emptied the contents into his palm. "Here's the purple one, the orange one, and hey...it's the red Super Emerald!" He weighed it in his hand while he eyed it. "Where are the other four?"
"I gave Sonic the two blue jewels."
"And the last two?"
"With the Master Emerald. In other words, at the bottom of the ocean."
"Great. We can't even pool the emeralds to become Super."
"Sonic didn't seem to have much of a problem taking advantage of a single Super Emerald."
"That reminds me. How did he do that?" He tossed her the purple emerald. "Keep it." He then quickly added to his command. "For now, at least. You may need it in a tight spot. Assuming either you or I can figure out how to get them to work."
Rouge snapped her fingers sarcastically. "And I was hoping it would fetch a decent price on the market." She eyed the jewels as Knuckles did, then knelt down and pulled off her left boot.
"You're going to keep it in your boot?"
She looked up. "Yes."
"Won't that be a bit uncomfortable?"
She responded by deftly flipping open a small compartment hatch on the back of the heel. She stuck the purple gem into a holder, and snapped the heel closed. Finally, she responded to his question. "No."
Knuckles raised an eyebrow, with a questioning look upon his face. "What did you expect? I'm a spy."
--
Sonic followed Tails silently as he dashed up the grassy hill towards his workshop. He had to quicken his pace as they neared the door, Tails seeming ready to burst with excitement. He punched in a few numbers into a keypad he installed next to the door, and the door locks snapped open mechanically. Pulling the door open, Tails dashed inside, and down a flight of stairs, spinning tails sending all the papers he had lying around into the air. Echoing up the stairwell came Tails' voice. "I thought you were the fastest thing alive!"
The next few seconds Tails spend picking himself up, as the Sonic boom created had knocked him to the floor. "So, Tails, what did you want to show me?"
Dusting himself off, he walked over to the nearby wall and triumphantly pulled open a hidden cabinet. Then, without warning, he crawled inside and disappeared. "Lil' buddy? Where'dya go?" Sonic looked down the path Tails had disappeared on, and realized that there was another room on the other side of the wall.
"C'mon through!"
"Okay..." Sonic hesitantly squeezed through the tunnel, and dropped down on the other side, landing on his side. Looking up, he wasn't prepared for what he witnessed. He was in a large, white room, square in shape. Niches in the wall housed various machinery that, Sonic surmised, had been developed by Tails. "Wow."
Tails smiled at Sonic, and gave him a thumbs up, as if asking what he thought. Sonic returned the thumbs up, still looking around. While Sonic continued to gape, Tails flew up to a higher part of the room, then came back down with several gadgets and doohickeys in his arms. "Time to get to work."
--
The night air was cool, and a light wind blew. The stars above shone down upon the forest floor, casting shadows everywhere. Rouge had fallen asleep, having lost interest in watching Knuckles try to harness the red Super Emerald's power as Sonic had back on the Floating Island. He grasped the Emerald tightly in his right hand, and held a ring in his left. His eyes closed, he concentrated on the Emerald. Finally, he opened his eyes to glare at the jewel. "Stupid jewel! Why don't you just light yourself on fire!?" The Emerald was only too happy to oblige. "OW!"
His loud shout of pain awoke Rouge to a pleasantly amusing sight. Knuckles waved his glove around, whimpering, while simultaneously stomping on the smoldering leaves on the forest floor. The emerald's glowing was subsiding. "Smart. Very smart."
Knuckles picked up the gem, scowled at it quickly, then stuck it back in the sack with the other one. "C'mon, we should continue moving. How far away are we from the nearest G.U.N. facility, anyways?"
"I'd say a few miles. I recall seeing one when I flew to the Floating Island. Gratuitously escorted, of course."
"Great! Let's keep moving, then." Without saying anything else, he continued along the path.
"Knuckles! Why are you in such a hurry?"
"I have my work cut out for me."
"You're tired, Knuckles. You can't just keep pushing on, or you won't be able to do anything if you ever get there."
"Just watch me."
"Fine! Go on ahead, I'm going to go back to sleep. It's late, and I'm tired."
"Fine!" He turned around, and continued down the path, clutching the bag of emeralds closely. Rouge rolled onto her side. The cool night air was beginning to get to her. She curled up, shivering. She closed her eyes, and began to drift off into slumber.
*************
A/N: Yeah, it's short. Yeah, it's late. Yeah, I'm still busy in school. But rest assured. Yeah, I'm going to finish this fic one way or another. Reviews extremely welcome. I'm also fooling around in Adobe Photoshop, making a crude sprite comic adaptation that you'll probably never see. And yes, I changed the title.