Chapter 9: Base of tricks

Place: Desert

Time: 3:00pm

The sun shone down on the desert as Sonic climbed to the top of a sand dune. Knuckles followed along with Shadow. Shadow stood and faced the pyramid that lie about a mile away.

"Are you sure it's there?" asked Knuckles.

"Positive" said Shadow.

"That's Eggmans old base! We know that place like the back of our hands" boasted Sonic.

"But can you get there before me?" asked Shadow.

"You're on!" said Sonic speeding away.

Shadow chased after Sonic at speed and Knuckles also followed, trying his best to keep up.

Place: Pyramid

Time: 3:02pm

Sonic arrived just before Shadow with Knuckles following about 30 seconds later.

"Told you I could beat you!" said Sonic.

"I'm out of shape. That's all" replied Shadow.

"Wow. This place has gone under" said Knuckles.

The pyramid was now derelict. Spiders had grown their webs between the rafters and Scorpions adorned the floor before scuttling away from the heroes. Sonic lead Shadow and Knuckles into the pyramid.

"Where did Eggman go after ARK?" asked Shadow.

"No one knows" said Knuckles.

"Good riddance I say" said Sonic.

"Here, here" replied both Knuckles and Shadow.

Shadow suddenly stopped in his tracks. Sonic and Knuckles turned and faced him.

"What's wrong?" asked Knuckles.

"I sense Chaos. Near." said Shadow.

"It better not be those idiots again" said Sonic.

"I could do with a fight" said Knuckles.

As if they were activated by Knuckles words, A small platoon of robots awakened from the walls. The cobwebs have covered them so well that they took the group completely by surprise. Shadow was the first to react; throwing a strong punch into the nearest robot and ripping out his control panel. Knuckles grabbed the leg of one of the robots and swung it into the others, knocking most of them down. Sonic was busy with a stronger robot but easily smashed him by ramming into his head. The last few robots noticed that they were losing and retreated. Sonic was puzzled.

"Have you ever seen Eggmans robots retreat?" said Sonic.

"No. But at least we don't waste any more time with them" said Shadow.

Everyone agreed and they carried on. A few more dusty corridors later Shadow shook his head and nearly fainted.

"Shadow!" yelled Sonic and grabbed him before he fell.

"Are you alright?" said Knuckles.

"Fine. The chaos is stronger though" said Shadow.

"Shall we keep going?" said Sonic.

"Yes" replied Shadow standing up.

Together, they carried on until they saw three robots. The remains of the small ambush.

"Hey you!" yelled Sonic.

Sonic chased one of the robots into another corridor and the blast door slammed behind him.

"Sonic!" shouted Knuckles who began to bang on the door.

"Quick! Down this corridor. We might meet him!" said Shadow.

Knuckles and Shadow headed down the remaining corridor but Shadow hit some loose ground and fell down a pit.

"ARGGHHH!" yelled Shadow.

"Shadow!"

Knuckles reached out for Shadow but missed his arm and then watched him fall into the dark pit. Knuckles lowered his head. Both of his friends lost. Knuckles, unfazed, decided to carry on to the center of the base.

Sonic ran down the hallway. He had heard the doors slam behind him so he decided to carry on. After a few minutes Sonic reached an open pathway that reminded him of a past race he had taken.

"This reminds me of something.." said a puzzled Sonic.

He took a few steps forward and suddenly lasers shot down behind him from an eggman pod and moved forward. Sonic then remembered what this was.

"This is starlight speedway!" he yelled.

Sonic made a start straight away and began to run. The laser sped up and followed closely behind. Sonic kept going and leapt over the spikes that zoomed past. He then reached a chasm and homing attack across the gap using the strategically placed robots. The Sonic went round a loop and his head spun. It had been a while since he last did this. The final obstacle in his way was a huge chasm with no robots. Sonic increased his speed and flew across the gap. The pod had reached the end of the line and dropped into the chasm before exploding in an array of colors. Sonic slowed down but kept going along the hall, hoping to meet his friends.

Knuckles walked along the corridor. So far he had meet three dead ends and a chasm all which blocked his path. This new corridor was different but ended the same way. Dead-end. Knuckles was getting tired now. He wasn't sure if he had been one way or the other. Left, right, left, dead end. Right, left, right, dead end. Knuckles began to quicken his pace. He had to escape, find a way out, anything. Knuckles felt the walls close in but his imagination was tricking him. Another dead-end, another increase of speed. Knuckles were in a state now and were panicking. He eventually snapped and screamed:

"CHAOS HAIL!"

Hail flew all around and smashed the walls to pieces. Knuckles walked through the hall and found a corridor with the word 'exit' placed in it. Knuckles breathed a sigh of relief and carried on.

Shadow awoke to find himself deep in a pit, which looked like a coliseum. In front of him was a robotic clone of Sonic. Its blue metal and red eyes glowed furiously with the light from the spotlight. Shadow got ready for an attack. Shadows guess was correct as the robot rushed forward and punched Shadow. Shadow got hit but punched the robot in the head. The robot swung left dodging it and began to speed round the room. Shadow smiled and began to chase.

The robot was ahead of Shadow and fired two plasma rounds from his arm but Shadow jumped and flipped mid air dodging the two blasts and landing in front of the robot.

"Dodge this! Chaos Strike!"

The sword appeared but the strong robot grabbed the sword and snapped it in half before rugby tackling Shadow to the ground. The robot was about to strike when Shadow grabbed the head of the sword and rammed it through the robot body where the neck should have been. The robot dropped like a stone as the door in the back opened. Shadow stood up and brushed himself off before leaving. Before he left the robot spoke:

"We are the Metallix. We will destroy y....o..u"

Shadow ignored this and headed down the dim hall.

Shadow appeared on one side of a junk pile. Sonic and Knuckles had already met and saw Shadow.

"You're alive!" said Knuckles.

"Yeah. But I just met this robot..." said Shadow.

"I was in a maze" said Knuckles.

"I just re-ran Starlight Speedway" said Sonic.

"This place is weird" followed Knuckles.

"We agree"

The group turned round to see Conis, Whips and Thorn stood there. Sonic ran forward.

"Amy! What are you doing here and why is you fur orange?"

"I'm Thorn. Not your weakling girlfriend" said Thorn.

Sonic retreated.

"Why are you here!?" asked Shadow.

"To get the emerald. Same as you" shouted Conis.

"Then let's fight!" yelled Knuckles.

Everyone turned to their battle stances and was about to attack when suddenly a giant Sonic robot burst from the junk pile. It glowed a bright yellow and its eyes glowed a bright red. Its claws were like branches and the jet pack was along his back. Inside the panel on his front was the yellow emerald.

"I AM NEO-METALLIX. WELCOME TO YOUR GRAVE!"

End of Chapter 9