Chapter 11: Battle of the Clones

Place: Mystic Ruins, Tails Workshop

Time: 4:45pm

Everyone was gathered around Shadow. He was resting and using Chaos sense to find the next emerald.

"It's been 10 minutes. He must have found it by now" said Sonic.

"It's not that easy" said Knuckles.

"What would you know Echidna?" said Rouge.

Knuckles scowled at Rouge.

"I can't believe that the yellow emerald was a fake" said Amy.

"How did Neo-M make a fake emerald? And why would he want the emeralds?" said Cream.

"We have to think that someone else is behind this" said Tails.

"Who?" said Knuckles.

"Eggman" said Sonic.

"Of course! It makes perfect sense!" said Tails, "Who could build a Metallix and set it up in the base"

"Before we deal with Eggman we need to deal with Cheq" said Knuckles.

Shadow stood up from a kneeling position.

"I can't find the emerald" said Shadow.

"What?!" said Tails.

"It isn't on the this planet. It must be on another or in space"

"How do we find it then?" said Rouge.

Shadow turned to Knuckles.

"Knuckles. You must use the Master Emerald"

"How? I locked it away with the chaos seal I built" he followed.

"All you have to do is place your hand on the seal and use Chaos sense. This will search the entire universe" said Shadow.

"But I don't know Chaos sense"

Shadow placed his hand on Knuckles shoulder. Knuckles felt a sudden surge of energy into his body from Shadow and then it stopped. Sonic and the rest of the group hadn't noticed anything but Shadow knew he had succeeded.

"Use Chaos sense to find that emerald"

Knuckles nodded.

"Take the Tornado" said Tails throwing Knuckles the keys.

"I'll go too" said Rouge.

"You!" said Knuckles.

"You'll need someone to watch you're back" she said, before walking into the hanger.

Knuckles waved bye to everyone and followed Rouge. Just after Knuckles, there was a knock at the door. Sonic went up and answered it. Stood on the plateau was Conis, Whips, Thorn, Iluminum and Milk.

"Guys" said Sonic calmly.

Everyone went outside and joined Sonic. They headed down to the plateau and faced their counterparts.

"What do you guys want?" asked Sonic.

"To fight you" said Conis.

"You know you'll lose" said Tails.

"Please" said Whips.

"We know Chaos moves as well" shouted Amy.

"That's not enough" said Thorn.

"Oh yes it is!" shouted Cream.

"We can beat you easily" said Milk.

"You're just trying to stop us searching aren't you?" asked Shadow.

"You are powerful" said Iluminum.

"You don't want to fight us. You're just buying time" said Sonic.

"Time already spent" said Shadow, pointing to the Tornado flying past with Knuckles and Rouge.

"We have to stop them!" said Whips, about to fly off.

"Stop Whips! We will end this now. One -on-one. Each versus their own" said Conis.

"Sounds fair" said Sonic.

Everyone broke off facing their clone in their own arena of the plateau. Conis and Sonic faced each other in the centre.

"We both now we are as fast as each other so lets fight differently" said Conis.

"What do you suggest?" he asked.

Conis created a chaos sword next to him.

"Catch my drift?"

Sonic created a Chaos sword as well.

"I'm impressed. But you need technique as well as power"

"Then show me your power" said Sonic.

Together they both charged and collided their swords. Sonic threw a slash at Conis feet but he jumped and then slashed downwards. Sonic rolled left and lashed out at Conis ribs. The sword slightly connected but drew no blood. Conis, now angered, brought his sword to Sonics feet at which Sonic leapt and jumped of the sword before coming down with a downward thrust. Conis side-stepped and attacked with his sword at Sonics shoulder. This attack hit Sonic and he rolled down onto the floor, bleeding from the wound. Sonic wiped it clean before standing and facing his opponent.

"Not giving up?" asked Conis.

"Why should I?" said Sonic.

Sonic then ran in to begin the next round.

Tails and Whips had begun their fight almost immediately. They were both flying up higher and higher to beat each other and claim the advantage of height but they were as good as each other. When they had gone above the clouds they stopped and began the real fight.

Tails began to hurl kicks at Whips who dodged them expertly before giving one of his own which Tails grabbed and then threw Whips away. He recovered and charged for Tails who punched him down through the clouds. Whips didn't come back up for a while and then suddenly he charged upwards and punched Tails before retreating to the clouds. Tails realised he had given Whips the advantage.

Tails began to head under the clouds to find Whips but again he shot up and smashed Tails back into the air and away from the clouds. Tails tried again and only received a fist. Tails now tried a different tactic. He waited for Whips to strike. When Whips shot upwards tails slid to the side and grabbed Whips tails and got dragged under the clouds with him. Whips noticed Tails was on him and shook him off.

Tails then carried on the fight, now below the clouds.

Amy and Thorn faced each other near the edge of the plateau.

"I can't believe I was based on you" said Thorn.

"Do you think I'm thrilled?" said Amy.

Thorn pulled out her mallet and Amy pulled out her hammer. They begun the fight with Thorn jumping in the air and slamming down hard creating a shockwave of earth aimed at Amy. Amy jumped this and then formed one of her own which was dodged by Thorn. Amy leapt forward and whisked her hammer at Thorns head. Thorn blocked it and swung her mallet towards Amys ribs. This attack hit and Amy was flung off the edge of the plateau to the bottom. She turned and began to run back up.

Thorn, seeing this, tried to stop Amt by slamming down her mallet and creating mounds of earth that shot out of the ground. Amy dodged left to right and managed to avoid the mounds. Amy charged off the ramp and brought down her hammer hard on Thorns head which knocked her off balance and Amy followed up with a smash to the ribs which flung Thorn across the plateau edge.

"Think you can handle me!" shouted Amy.

Thorn stood up and began her rough attack at Amy.

Cream and Milk had drawn their violin and viola respectively and had begun to play a melody. This melody began slow but had begun to speed up over the last few bars of the melody. The melody created two things. It created a shield over them and also fired powerful musical notes at each other. If either of them failed to produce the correct note they would lose the duel and probably receive major damage.

Cream was going well. She was playing confidently and fairly. Her fingers and hand seemed to blur as the melody played. Milk was going from strength to strength and had not dropped a single note. As the music got faster, the shields got bigger and bigger and the musical notes got stronger and stronger.

Cream was beginning to feel the strain as the melody got faster and more complicated. Milk seemed to be fine though. Cream knew she couldn't let her friends down. She played faster to keep up with the beat and hoped for more power to play the melody.

Shadow and Iluminum were having a talk before they fought.

"So, the story continues to be the same" said Shadow.

"You know more then the others. Why haven't you shared this information with your friends?" asked Iluminum.

"If they knew they would lose they wouldn't bother fighting"

"Very true"

"But this story has a different ending"

"Why?"

"Because I know the story and I can change it" said Shadow defiantly.

"You can't change destiny"

"I can try"

Shadow rolled forward and punched Iluminum in the chest. Iluminum wasn't ready for this and was thrown backwards by the force but Iluminum was ready for it and received low damage from the attack. He then began his comeback by kicking at Shadow repeatedly all of which Shadow blocked before using a downwards kick which Iluminum dodged the attack by flipping backwards. Shadow ran forward and continued to attack.

Knuckles and Rouge dismounted the Tornado and ran towards the Master Emeralds alter. Knuckles ran to the seal and placed his hand on the seal. Rouge followed and saw Knuckles concentrating.

"You know what you're doing?" asked Rouge.

Knuckles ignored her.

"Fine don't answer" she replied to the silence.

After a few minutes of silence, Rouge began to get bored. She kicked a stone at one of the columns and it bounced back at her. She spun round with her roundhouse kick and smashed the stone into tiny bits. She smiled.

"I've still got it!"

Knuckles stood up and ran back towards the Tornado. Rouge caught up with him.

"You know where the emerald is then?" she asked.

"Yep. But we need to save Sonic and the others first"

Rouge agreed and they boarded the Tornado and took off to save their friends.

Sonic was feeling slightly faint from the loss of blood during the battle. Along with his shoulder his knee and face were cut and bleeding. The shoulder was the worst blow he had received. Conis had a few cuts as well and was starting to feel fatigued. Sonic leapt forward and lashed out again with his sword and Conis blocked it and threw it round in a circle. Conis trusted forward but Sonic bent his body to the left and dodged the blow.

Tails and Whips were still fighting fiercely above the group. Whips was now using his tails to lash at Tails and Tails was trying to dodge them effectively. Whips threw one tail after another and Tails kept dodging. He then saw his chance and grabbed one of the tails and swung Whips round and let go aiming him at the floor. Whips was taken aback by this and nearly hit the floor but stopped just short and returned to the height of the battle.

Amy was doing well against Thorn and had already knocked her down twice. Thorn had begun to create sticks of earth at Amy and she was dodging them with expert timing. She spun to dodge another mound and then fired off a whirlwind which lifted Thorn off the plateau and over the edge. Thorn began to run back up and dodged the rocks that Amy was sending down.

Cream had fallen to her knees form the power of the melody. Her fingers were now chaffed and bleeding. Milk was none the batter and she was on one knee bearing the force of the rhythm. Sooner or later one of the would fail to produce the correct note and that would be it.

Shadow and Iluminum were still in their fist fight. Shadow was the least damage but only because he had got more attacks in. Iluminum was ready to fight again when he stopped. He then turned and looked to see the tornado coming back.

"Watch your last hope go up in smoke" said Iluminum.

Shadow didn't wait for Iluminum to finish his attack and smashed himself into the back of Iluminum and knocked him to the ground.

Knuckles was in shouting range now.

"Guys! Jump on the plane! Now!" he shouted.

Everyone heard and at once went for the nearest point they could intercept the plane. Shadow saw that Cream couldn't move and so ran towards her and swept her up before the notes slammed into her and killed her. Tails punched Whips one more time and picked up Amy from the ground. He flew them onto the plane. Shadow and Cream jumped on from the floor. Sonic was chasing after the plane. The minions were also following. Sonic jumped at the last second before the cliff ended and just managed to grab the edge of the wing. Shadow helped him up.

Conis spat at the floor in disgust.

"They got away!" he yelled.

"No matter. They won't get to the next emerald before us" said Iluminum.

"Cheq wants us" said Whips calmly.

The minions disappeared.

The group waited anxiously to hear the destination of the next emerald.

"Where are we going then?" asked Tails while nursing cream.

"We're going to catch a spaceship" said Knuckles.

"What?" said Amy.

"We're off back to ARK"

End of Chapter 11