Disclaimer: Sonic The Hedgehog and all related characters are copyright to SEGA. Lemon the Echidna, Tenchi the Hedgehog and all related characters that don't belong to SEGA belong to me, Zeldafreak-Vikki and my friend, Alyssa the Bat!
Sorry 'bout the wait (again). Something big's been happening with my family and all that kinda stuff but now that I'm starting to pull myself together, I can forget about all that stress with my writing! I hope this satisfies you readers, I hope you're not disappointed or anything. And thanks to Yersi Fanel for publishing my fic! That was super nice of you! Gracias! :p And this story's gonna get a little bit gory, just a little warning there. Chapter 10 is already half typed out and should be done in a few days.
Also, a little explanation of the names: Tenchi(Japanese): Heaven, Arashi(Japanese): Storm, Neo(Greek): New, Kitsune(Japanese): Fox, Ojiisan(Japanese): Grandpa, Jigoku(Japanese): Hell. Now enjoy, CHAPTER 9!!!
CHAPTER NINE - PIECES OF THE PUZZLE
Amy yelled as her, Sonic and Tails were hurled out of the space transporter and sent head-first into the cold hard floor. Lucky for her, she landed on top of them. Sonic blushed as he lightly threw her off. Amy landed lightly on her hands and knees and was about to yell, "What's the big idea!" when she realized her foot was touching something solid. She looked back and her green eyes widened.
"AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!" she screamed. She got up and ran to behind Sonic, who had just climbed to his feet. The blue hedgehog looked back to her, puzzled. "Amy, what's-?"
He never finished his question.
Lying before the three friends was an injured hedgehog. His hand was outstretched beside him, as if he had been reaching out to something. The other was lying by his side, his fist clenched. His face was pointed towards them, his yellow eyes unfocused and his mouth still open. It was Arashi.
Sonic gasped and ran to the fallen hedgehog. He feel to his knees and quickly checked for a pulse. Tails came to beside him while Amy stayed where she was, frozen with fear. The fox felt for a heartbeat.
"Wow, he's freezing! His heart's still beating though!"
Sonic glared into Arashi's eyes. "Arashi...? C'mon, answer me..."
While Sonic was mumbling, Tails looked around the room in shock. There was a broken tank at one end of the room, with scorch marks all around it. All of the walls were dented and in one place, even broken in. It was the same with the floor, which was also covered in blood. There had definitely been a fight here.
"Sonic, what's going on?" he asked, his voice quivering.
Sonic shook his head. "That's what I wanna know! HEY!! OLD GUY!!"
At that, Arashi's eyes widened and focused in on Sonic. His mouth closed as he swallowed and the hand Sonic was still holding shivered. Using his telepathic voice, Arashi said, "There you are..."
Sonic blinked a few times in confusion. Was he dreaming or was this seriously happening?!
Arashi, noticing Sonic's confusion, tried to make his telepathic voice as strong as he could. "I know you don't understand any of this, but we'll have to leave the questions for later. Now is the time to act. I know you have the poison running through your veins and you will die soon. We must prevent this."
Amy growled and came up behind Tails, her arms crossed. "Well, of course we have to prevent it, you old fogey! Quit statin' the obvious and tell us where that antidote it!" Tails cringed at her anger but Sonic ignored her, blushing a little.
"Wh-Where is it?" he asked, his voice faltering. He was starting to feel a little dizzy.
Arashi's telepathic voice continued. "You will find the ingredients and instructions in the back area of Laboratory Number Three. You must hurry, two projects are battling and one will die if we do not interfere soon..."
Tails's ears twitched in recognition. "Projects? You mean like the Ultimate Life Form?!"
Sonic looked to the kitsune in amazement. He should've known the kid would know something of it.
"I'll explain once I remember. C'mon, Tails. Arashi, we'll come back for you!" With that, the three of them left. Arashi watched them go and his heart sank deeper.
"Don't die, Neo."
The old man known as Matt Haruna adjusted his glasses as he watched his computer screen. Displayed there was a digital map of Space Colony ARK. Three little dots were headed for Laboratory Number Three but only one was colored green while the other two were blue. Green meant that the life form had characteristics matching those found in projects originally from ARK. The blue dots were simply outsiders. On the other side of the colony, moving very fast, were two green dots battling each other. Matt could tell the smaller one was losing. Back near the space transporter, a green dot which was Arashi was kneeling before a computer in the space transporter room. Matt guessed he was on the same system, watching the same map. It had been years since he had seen or heard from any of the projects6 and the very thought of talking to them made his heart beat two times faster. He gulped and pressed the button to open up the communications link.
Up on ARK, Arashi gasped as he noticed the computer was beeping. Five seconds later, the beeping stopped and a voice came through. The tired hedgehog cringed at the sound; it was an old human, the kind he was afraid of.
"Arashi? Arashi, is that you?!"
Arashi paused, then forced himself to speak out loud, something he seldom did. "Who is there?"
"My God... It's Matt. Matt Haruna. I don't know if you remember m-"
"I remember you," cut in Arashi. "You want to know what's going on, right?"
Matt grinned. "You may be half-dead, but you're still clever, aren't you? Yeah, I want to know what's going on up there."
Arashi didn't smile. "Project Shadow, the clone, Jigoku and myself are all here. Something is wrong with Shadow though. He's only beginning to remember who he is and I'm afraid he won't last long against Jigoku."
Matt leaned back in his chair, his brow furrowed. "So, the little guy and Jigoku are fighting. What's the clone doing there? He's not remembering, is he?"
"He has been poisoned. He is simply here to retreive the antidote. He does not remember everything yet."
Matt sighed with relief. "Well, that's good. Let's hope he gets that antidote in time. We can't have one of the projects dying."
With that, Matt shut off the communication. He knew Arashi couldn't care less, as he was lacking the emotion to care. He continued to watch the map as a young blonde woman with sapphire eyes walked in.
"Who were you talking to?" she asked, her voice strong yet sweet.
"Arashi. Four of the projects are on the ARK."
The girl frowned. "Only four, huh? I guess I'll have to pay the others a visit." A great sadness took her in that moment as she thought of the consequences of interfering.
'Forgive me, Shadow. You'll have to wait a little longer before seeing me again.'
Sonic groaned as the sickness began to take him again. Amy was leaning him back against the wall and whispering words of comfort to him. He was thankful that she was there. Usually he found her annoying but at times like these, she was really nice to have around. At the same time, Amy's mind was full of worry, even though she hid how she felt. Standing a little ways from the two of them, Tails was standing at an ancient computer.
The little genius looked up, one of his ears bent with frustration.
"What the heck is this supposed to mean!"
Amy walked to him. "What's up?" she asked, too scared to go into hysterics.
"The list of ingredients is here and I pulled them out while I was reading through it... but it's missing something! And all that it has about that last ingredient is a riddle! So the antidote I have now is useless!"
Sonic wasn't even listening. His conciousness was beginning to waver. He realized he had indeed heard about that riddle before. But that was a long, long time ago. Even so, he still remembered how it went. And he knew the answer, of course. Maybe he should say something... Coming out of these numb thoughts, Sonic tried to speak but found that he could barely move! But that meant-that meant-...
His time was up. It was then that his heart stopped. He clenched his teeth as he struggled to fight it. But dark water was beggining to rise up around him. It was so cold, his body became too frozen to fight back. He opened his mouth just as it engulfed the last of him. "Amy..."
Amy looked back in time to see Sonic pass out and ran to him, panicked. "Oh! Tails! Hurry! Sonic just blacked out!"
Tails tried not to look back at his fallen friend. He'd be much too distracted if he did. He read the riddle out loud, trying to understand it.
"The final ingredient which you seek, Comes from a project that reached its peak, It runs through a stream, just like a fish, And you may extract it if you wish.
This project, its mind is said to be pure, Although it may seem as black as his fur, Once he was lost, but now he is whole, He is awake in both mind and soul, Remember this riddle, for it may reply, To the question if you live or die."
"Black as his fur?" repeated Amy, from where she was with Sonic. "Didn't Sha-"
She was cut off as one of the metal doors slammed open. A grey hedgehog ran in, turned around with astonishing speed and shut the door, locking it and gasping for air. Tails watched in wonder as the hedgehog hurried towards them and the kitsune's heart missed a few beats as he realized the hedgehog's right arm was bleeding without stop. He came to Tails, a crimson trail as dark as his eyes left behind him.
"T-Tails," he gasped, his voice very low and calm. "You guys need to get out of here right now!"
Tails shook his head stubbornly, fighting back the urge to cry. "I need to get Sonic the antidote but I need one more ingredient! We can't leave yet!"
The hedgehog paused, glancing towards Sonic and Amy. "The...antidote..."
Reminding Tails of a child trying to remember a spelling word in school, the pale hedgehog inched towards the computer. After looking at it for a few seconds, he hurriedly grabbed the antidote and held his open arm over it, letting some of the blood drip down into it. Tails watched curiously.
"Uh... Wh-What're you doing?" he asked timidly.
The hedgehog kept his eyes on the bottle of liquid and his arm as he spoke. "This should work. Once he wakes up, get outta here."
Tails stared as the hedgehog handed the antidote to him, speechless. His mind had just had the craziest idea of this hedgehog's identity... He chose his words carefully, then spoke in a somewhat cheerful voice. "Thanks, Tenchi! This'll help alot!"
"You're welcome," replied the hedgehog politely. Then he stopped dead, realizing the kitsune had just tricked him into giving himself away. "Uh...I mean..."
"Ha! I knew it!! Tenchi, you're Shadow, aren't you?" said the fox- boy triumphantly.
Shadow stared in shock. How did this kid know him? And how did he know so much?! Argh, if only he could remember!
His thoughts were cut-off when they heard something smash into the door, attempting to break it open. Shadow stared wide-eyed, a sense of foreboding making his flesh crawl.
"Jigoku!" He turned back to Tails urgently. "We can talk later, kid! Help Sonic and then get yourselves away from here!"
Tails gulped, his whole body tensed up. "Right!" He ran back to Sonic and Amy while Shadow charged at the door. He may not have remembered meeting them but deep down, Shadow knew he had to protect his friends.
Sorry 'bout the wait (again). Something big's been happening with my family and all that kinda stuff but now that I'm starting to pull myself together, I can forget about all that stress with my writing! I hope this satisfies you readers, I hope you're not disappointed or anything. And thanks to Yersi Fanel for publishing my fic! That was super nice of you! Gracias! :p And this story's gonna get a little bit gory, just a little warning there. Chapter 10 is already half typed out and should be done in a few days.
Also, a little explanation of the names: Tenchi(Japanese): Heaven, Arashi(Japanese): Storm, Neo(Greek): New, Kitsune(Japanese): Fox, Ojiisan(Japanese): Grandpa, Jigoku(Japanese): Hell. Now enjoy, CHAPTER 9!!!
CHAPTER NINE - PIECES OF THE PUZZLE
Amy yelled as her, Sonic and Tails were hurled out of the space transporter and sent head-first into the cold hard floor. Lucky for her, she landed on top of them. Sonic blushed as he lightly threw her off. Amy landed lightly on her hands and knees and was about to yell, "What's the big idea!" when she realized her foot was touching something solid. She looked back and her green eyes widened.
"AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!" she screamed. She got up and ran to behind Sonic, who had just climbed to his feet. The blue hedgehog looked back to her, puzzled. "Amy, what's-?"
He never finished his question.
Lying before the three friends was an injured hedgehog. His hand was outstretched beside him, as if he had been reaching out to something. The other was lying by his side, his fist clenched. His face was pointed towards them, his yellow eyes unfocused and his mouth still open. It was Arashi.
Sonic gasped and ran to the fallen hedgehog. He feel to his knees and quickly checked for a pulse. Tails came to beside him while Amy stayed where she was, frozen with fear. The fox felt for a heartbeat.
"Wow, he's freezing! His heart's still beating though!"
Sonic glared into Arashi's eyes. "Arashi...? C'mon, answer me..."
While Sonic was mumbling, Tails looked around the room in shock. There was a broken tank at one end of the room, with scorch marks all around it. All of the walls were dented and in one place, even broken in. It was the same with the floor, which was also covered in blood. There had definitely been a fight here.
"Sonic, what's going on?" he asked, his voice quivering.
Sonic shook his head. "That's what I wanna know! HEY!! OLD GUY!!"
At that, Arashi's eyes widened and focused in on Sonic. His mouth closed as he swallowed and the hand Sonic was still holding shivered. Using his telepathic voice, Arashi said, "There you are..."
Sonic blinked a few times in confusion. Was he dreaming or was this seriously happening?!
Arashi, noticing Sonic's confusion, tried to make his telepathic voice as strong as he could. "I know you don't understand any of this, but we'll have to leave the questions for later. Now is the time to act. I know you have the poison running through your veins and you will die soon. We must prevent this."
Amy growled and came up behind Tails, her arms crossed. "Well, of course we have to prevent it, you old fogey! Quit statin' the obvious and tell us where that antidote it!" Tails cringed at her anger but Sonic ignored her, blushing a little.
"Wh-Where is it?" he asked, his voice faltering. He was starting to feel a little dizzy.
Arashi's telepathic voice continued. "You will find the ingredients and instructions in the back area of Laboratory Number Three. You must hurry, two projects are battling and one will die if we do not interfere soon..."
Tails's ears twitched in recognition. "Projects? You mean like the Ultimate Life Form?!"
Sonic looked to the kitsune in amazement. He should've known the kid would know something of it.
"I'll explain once I remember. C'mon, Tails. Arashi, we'll come back for you!" With that, the three of them left. Arashi watched them go and his heart sank deeper.
"Don't die, Neo."
The old man known as Matt Haruna adjusted his glasses as he watched his computer screen. Displayed there was a digital map of Space Colony ARK. Three little dots were headed for Laboratory Number Three but only one was colored green while the other two were blue. Green meant that the life form had characteristics matching those found in projects originally from ARK. The blue dots were simply outsiders. On the other side of the colony, moving very fast, were two green dots battling each other. Matt could tell the smaller one was losing. Back near the space transporter, a green dot which was Arashi was kneeling before a computer in the space transporter room. Matt guessed he was on the same system, watching the same map. It had been years since he had seen or heard from any of the projects6 and the very thought of talking to them made his heart beat two times faster. He gulped and pressed the button to open up the communications link.
Up on ARK, Arashi gasped as he noticed the computer was beeping. Five seconds later, the beeping stopped and a voice came through. The tired hedgehog cringed at the sound; it was an old human, the kind he was afraid of.
"Arashi? Arashi, is that you?!"
Arashi paused, then forced himself to speak out loud, something he seldom did. "Who is there?"
"My God... It's Matt. Matt Haruna. I don't know if you remember m-"
"I remember you," cut in Arashi. "You want to know what's going on, right?"
Matt grinned. "You may be half-dead, but you're still clever, aren't you? Yeah, I want to know what's going on up there."
Arashi didn't smile. "Project Shadow, the clone, Jigoku and myself are all here. Something is wrong with Shadow though. He's only beginning to remember who he is and I'm afraid he won't last long against Jigoku."
Matt leaned back in his chair, his brow furrowed. "So, the little guy and Jigoku are fighting. What's the clone doing there? He's not remembering, is he?"
"He has been poisoned. He is simply here to retreive the antidote. He does not remember everything yet."
Matt sighed with relief. "Well, that's good. Let's hope he gets that antidote in time. We can't have one of the projects dying."
With that, Matt shut off the communication. He knew Arashi couldn't care less, as he was lacking the emotion to care. He continued to watch the map as a young blonde woman with sapphire eyes walked in.
"Who were you talking to?" she asked, her voice strong yet sweet.
"Arashi. Four of the projects are on the ARK."
The girl frowned. "Only four, huh? I guess I'll have to pay the others a visit." A great sadness took her in that moment as she thought of the consequences of interfering.
'Forgive me, Shadow. You'll have to wait a little longer before seeing me again.'
Sonic groaned as the sickness began to take him again. Amy was leaning him back against the wall and whispering words of comfort to him. He was thankful that she was there. Usually he found her annoying but at times like these, she was really nice to have around. At the same time, Amy's mind was full of worry, even though she hid how she felt. Standing a little ways from the two of them, Tails was standing at an ancient computer.
The little genius looked up, one of his ears bent with frustration.
"What the heck is this supposed to mean!"
Amy walked to him. "What's up?" she asked, too scared to go into hysterics.
"The list of ingredients is here and I pulled them out while I was reading through it... but it's missing something! And all that it has about that last ingredient is a riddle! So the antidote I have now is useless!"
Sonic wasn't even listening. His conciousness was beginning to waver. He realized he had indeed heard about that riddle before. But that was a long, long time ago. Even so, he still remembered how it went. And he knew the answer, of course. Maybe he should say something... Coming out of these numb thoughts, Sonic tried to speak but found that he could barely move! But that meant-that meant-...
His time was up. It was then that his heart stopped. He clenched his teeth as he struggled to fight it. But dark water was beggining to rise up around him. It was so cold, his body became too frozen to fight back. He opened his mouth just as it engulfed the last of him. "Amy..."
Amy looked back in time to see Sonic pass out and ran to him, panicked. "Oh! Tails! Hurry! Sonic just blacked out!"
Tails tried not to look back at his fallen friend. He'd be much too distracted if he did. He read the riddle out loud, trying to understand it.
"The final ingredient which you seek, Comes from a project that reached its peak, It runs through a stream, just like a fish, And you may extract it if you wish.
This project, its mind is said to be pure, Although it may seem as black as his fur, Once he was lost, but now he is whole, He is awake in both mind and soul, Remember this riddle, for it may reply, To the question if you live or die."
"Black as his fur?" repeated Amy, from where she was with Sonic. "Didn't Sha-"
She was cut off as one of the metal doors slammed open. A grey hedgehog ran in, turned around with astonishing speed and shut the door, locking it and gasping for air. Tails watched in wonder as the hedgehog hurried towards them and the kitsune's heart missed a few beats as he realized the hedgehog's right arm was bleeding without stop. He came to Tails, a crimson trail as dark as his eyes left behind him.
"T-Tails," he gasped, his voice very low and calm. "You guys need to get out of here right now!"
Tails shook his head stubbornly, fighting back the urge to cry. "I need to get Sonic the antidote but I need one more ingredient! We can't leave yet!"
The hedgehog paused, glancing towards Sonic and Amy. "The...antidote..."
Reminding Tails of a child trying to remember a spelling word in school, the pale hedgehog inched towards the computer. After looking at it for a few seconds, he hurriedly grabbed the antidote and held his open arm over it, letting some of the blood drip down into it. Tails watched curiously.
"Uh... Wh-What're you doing?" he asked timidly.
The hedgehog kept his eyes on the bottle of liquid and his arm as he spoke. "This should work. Once he wakes up, get outta here."
Tails stared as the hedgehog handed the antidote to him, speechless. His mind had just had the craziest idea of this hedgehog's identity... He chose his words carefully, then spoke in a somewhat cheerful voice. "Thanks, Tenchi! This'll help alot!"
"You're welcome," replied the hedgehog politely. Then he stopped dead, realizing the kitsune had just tricked him into giving himself away. "Uh...I mean..."
"Ha! I knew it!! Tenchi, you're Shadow, aren't you?" said the fox- boy triumphantly.
Shadow stared in shock. How did this kid know him? And how did he know so much?! Argh, if only he could remember!
His thoughts were cut-off when they heard something smash into the door, attempting to break it open. Shadow stared wide-eyed, a sense of foreboding making his flesh crawl.
"Jigoku!" He turned back to Tails urgently. "We can talk later, kid! Help Sonic and then get yourselves away from here!"
Tails gulped, his whole body tensed up. "Right!" He ran back to Sonic and Amy while Shadow charged at the door. He may not have remembered meeting them but deep down, Shadow knew he had to protect his friends.