Chapter 12: Emerald in the stars

Place: ARK

Time: 5:15pm

Sonic and friends disembarked the shuttle and Sonic wobbled to the side and stopped himself falling with the wall.

"What's wrong Sonic?" asked Tails.

"I know I said this last time but that is the last time I let Knuckles drive!" he said.

"It wasn't that bad" said Knuckles.

"You ever been on a roller coaster?" said Rouge.

Knuckles cast a look at Rouge who just winked back. This surprised Knuckles. Tails had been stood in the centre of the room for a few minutes when his device let out a whir.

"I've found the emerald! It's back in the cannons core"

"At least we know where we're going" said Sonic.

"I don't" said Amy, confused.

"Just follow us" said Knuckles who began the trek to the core.

Place: ARK, cannons core

Time: 5:30pm

Cheq and the rest had been walking for a while now. Down each passage there had been tricks and traps that had been easily dis-armed. Cheq had been the only one doing anything though and Conis was getting impatient.

"Why does he think he can do everything?" said Conis.

"Because he can" said Iluminum.

"He creates us and then he should use our power right? Not the other way round".

"I agree" said Whips.

"Me to" said Thorn.

Milk stopped and blocked the passage.

"You are all inferior being who must serve whatever master calls you. You don't have a choice" she said.

"Well I don't think you know anything.." began Conis.

"Stop Conis. Let's just carry on" said Thorn.

Conis, Whips and Thorn pushed past Milk and carried on.

A few seconds later the group came to a open room with a ring around the centre and yellow liquid flowing around it. The group climbed down the stairs to the ring and stopped.

"That hole leads to the core" said Cheq.

"Let's go then!" said Conis and stepped forward.

"...Feel my loss and despair!!!"

"What the..?"

Suddenly lots of pictures of an old man charged towards them. Everyone jumped into their fighting stances. Then, a bright flash appeared and formed a lizard. It was extremely long with a red light on its back. Its body was completely metal and shone in the light of the chamber.

"This must be another security system" said Cheq calmly.

"I'm not letting you get this one!" shouted Conis running forward.

Whips joined Conis along with Thorn but Milk and Iluminum stayed behind Cheq. Conis fired a sword at the face of the metal lizard and it blinded him and then Whips followed up with a hail storm onto top of the robot and tried to hit the red light. One stone clattered the light but did no damage. Thorn was climbing up the robots tail and heading for the light. Conis and Whips were now dodging the balls of black energy coming from the robots mouth. Whips was dodging well until he flipped the wrong way and got hit by a energy ball. He fell to the ground in pain. Thorn now hovered over the light and swung her mallet down but it bounced back and flung her off the beast.

Conis was dodging effectively but stopped when the robot did. The lizard then created lots of red spots and fired them at Conis. Conis received all off them and fell down. The robot leered over him and was about to strike when it yelled out in pain. Cheq had been inside the robot and removed the major circuits. The robot crashed down and Conis had to roll to the side to dodge the head of the beast.

Cheq walked towards the door and Whips and Thorn followed. Conis ran up and faced Cheq head on.

"I could have had him!" he yelled.

"I saved you because I need you. I have no need for your personality but I need your power" said Cheq, calmly.

Cheq pushed past Conis and carried on.

"Don't bother trying" said Whips.

"He could beat you" said Thorn.

"Well at least I'd battle fairly" said Conis.

The tiny group followed Cheq. If only because they had to.

On the other side of the core, Sonic and friends were walking towards the core and had yet to see and traps. Shadow was beginning to feel the chaos building in the next chamber.

"The emerald's in the next chamber" he said.

"Well, there's no traps in sight" said Sonic.

"Is that good or bad?" asked Cream.

"Probably bad" said Rouge.

On the whim of Rouges words the wall to her left burst open and in walked two figures. On had the head of a dog and an eagle with a tail of a snake and the other had the body of a gorilla with the head of a cat. They charged towards the group. Sonic decided to take charge and ran into one with his spikes and homing attacked the other. The chimera like one attacked Sonic from behind but Amy fired a bolt at it and it caught it in the hip. He fell and the other was subdued by an attack from Knuckles and his fists.

Shadow, however had just stood there while all this was happening. He knew these monstrosities. He ran in and stopped Sonic attacking the creatures again.

"Stop!" he yelled.

"Get out of my way Shadow!" shouted Sonic back.

"Sha..do..w"

The beast that had a cat head spoke.

"It's all right. I'm here" Shadow said before kneeling by his side and helping him up to sit against the wall. The other had enough strength to do this himself.

"You..are ...Sh...adow" he spoke.

"Why do you attack?" asked Shadow.

"We are the alarm for the emerald" said the chimera.

"Who set you?"

"No idea but we were released to destroy the intruders but..."

"But what" asked Sonic, in an confused tone.

"We sent the metal lizard after the other intruders" said the chimera.

"That must be Cheq!" shouted Knuckles.

"We have to go get the emerald before them" said Cream.

Sonic walked up behind Shadow.

"Are you coming?" he asked.

"I'll wait here and help these two. You go on ahead" he replied.

Sonic nodded and the group headed off leaving Shadow to tend to his friends.

Sonic and the gang, minus Shadow, entered and saw Cheq and his minions about to set off up the stairs to the emerald.

"Stop right there!" yelled Sonic.

"Damn you blue spike! I see you've grouped together a little band but they can't help you" Cheq said back.

"I want this one Cheq" said Conis, "he's mine"

Cheq agreed with Conis for the first time as he began to climb the stairs. Knuckles ran forward and leapt in front of Cheq and punched him hard in the face. Cheq wiped his mouth where some trace of blood had appeared. He released a small laugh.

"You'll regret that" said Cheq, moving into his stance.

The battle in space had begun.

Cheq and Knuckles locked into a dangerous battle of fists that had begun in the museum which seemed so long ago. Everyone had split off again and faced their own demons and shadows of themselves. Conis and Sonic were again fighting with swords. Sonic, now knowing his own fair share of sword techniques was beginning to beat Conis. Sonic was relentless with his sword and all Conis could do was block and hope for an opening.

Thorn and Amy decided to let rip with their own projectile attacks. Thorn drew her own weapon, a dark purple bow that was loosely decorated with black roses. She and Amy had begun firing arrows and took cover from each other behind nearby boxes. Tails and Whips had returned to the sky and were fighting hand-to-hand on the rafters. Cream and Milk had also returned to basics and were fighting hand-to-hand. Rouge had no one to battle as well as Iluminum. They joined each other in battle. Rouge jumped over Iluminum and flew mid-air. She beckoned him and again he attacked and missed. This continued throughout.

Cheq and Knuckles were fighting bravely against each other. Knuckles was looking through any pain and Cheq was just laughing with madness. Knuckles looked into his eyes and saw the five colours of the emeralds he had absorbed. This made Knuckles fight even harder.

Suddenly, as if they came by some invisible signal, Shadow and 10 prototypes bared in and began to attack the minions as well as Cheq.

"I brought help!" yelled Shadow.

Sonic gave Shadow the thumbs up and beckoned to everyone to follow him to the emerald. Sonic was at the top of the stairs when he saw the emerald. His hand was nearly touching it when a metal hand shot out and smashed him in the face and knocked him over. Neo-M had arrived. He clasped the emerald and opened the front of his face to show where he had kept the yellow emerald before. He placed in the red emerald and closed his face again.

"EMERALD RECOVERED. PREPARING TO DESTROY ANY LIFEFORMS IN WAY"

"Come on then!" said Sonic now on his feet with everyone behind him.

Sonic ran forward and began to attack. Neo slapped him aside again and then began to tussle with Knuckles while Amy creped up behind him. Cream began to play her tune to see if she could calm down Neo but to no effect. Neo fired a round of plasma at her and she hit the ground. Tails kept his eye on the fight below. Shadow and the protos were winning. He couldn't see Cheq though. The Tails felt a

hard hit on the back of the head and fell down. Knuckles had held Neos attention for long enough and Amy flung herself onto Neo-ms head and tried to opened the compartment. Neo shook her off into Sonic and smashed Knuckles into the pedestal that had held the emerald.

"ESCAPE"

"No. You are not"

Neo spun and saw Cheqs hand reaching forward. Cheq grabbed Neos head and ripped it from his metal body.

"FAIlur..e"

The limp body dropped to the floor. Cheq ripped open the door on the head and removed the emerald. Rouge, who had been helping Shadow, ran up the stairs and saw the scene laid before her.

"Put that down!" she yelled.

"Ok"

Cheq absorbed the emerald then and there before dropping it. He then moved his hand and fired it forward. A bright red X appeared in front of him before fading into the air and creating a female bat with blood red fur and a yellow breast plate and black hearts on her white boots.

"Dodge, deal with her"

"Of course master"

Dodge ran forward and began to punch out. Rouge dodged them and jumped over her before kicking her in the back. Dodge spun and lashed out with her kick and Rouge grabbed it and spun her into the ground before putting the boot into her again.

"First is best!" remarked Rouge, "Remember that"

Cheq and his other minions had gathered below and were holding back Shadow and helpers. Cheq motioned and they all disappeared, including Dodge, leaving everyone.

Shadow ran up the stairs and saw everyone returning to their feet along with Rouge helping them up.

"Did he get it?" asked Shadow.

"Yep" said Rouge.

"He needs one more" said the chimera.

"Where is the nearest space shuttle docked?" asked Shadow.

"Next door" said the chimera.

"Let's go" said Sonic, now on his feet.

Everyone nodded and they left. Shadow gave a last longing look at the prototypes. He smiled and they did to. Shadow left to head back to Earth and find Chaos.

Sonic and the gang entered the shuttle and began to sit down. Knuckles, who was behind, was to late to get a seat.

"There is only five seats" said Amy.

"Don't worry, there's a egg pod next to us. Use that" said Tails.

Knuckles agreed and the shuttled doors shut while he went to the pod. When the shuttle was in space Eggman appeared on the screen in front of them.

"EGGMAN!" everyone shouted.

"I hope you enjoy your little sleep" he laughed.

Gas began to fill the room and everyone began to go under. As Tails fell asleep, the auto-pilot took over and began to guide them to the Egg carrier. Knuckles, also noticed his pod was on auto-pilot and began to take him to the Egg carrier to meet a similar fate.

End of Chapter 12