Anger and Hatred Fan the fires of chaos
Kir awoke with a feeling of dread; his dreams had taken a nightmarish turn involving the mutants from the tomb, one of whom had a chaos emerald imbedded in his forehead.After a quick breakfast he stood before the green emerald, sinking down into the order within the chaos, and gave it a command, "show me the red emerald, and its bearer," he said, opening his eyes to see a picture forming within the green gem. It was Flare, skating along a path, Kir looked and recognised the scenery, Flare was in the Marble Garden ruins but he seemed to be on the far side of the ruined city, far from 'The Camp'.
Now that Kir knew where Flare was he could reach him, so he took off towards Marble Gardens, running past Miira, just as she was about to ask him about climbing Ice Cap. He sped off down what used to be the main road through the city, hoping to meet Flare halfway through.
Flare was looking about him, taking in the scenery of the ruined city, Kir had told him a bit about it, but not why it had become ruined. He could see the square courtyard that the city spread out from right in front of him, he was halfway through, and he should get back to the camp by nightfall. His stomach growled, maybe if he got back fast enough he would be home by dinner.
He was looking about him at what had been a market enclosure when he saw something fly overhead. It resembled some form of bird, but it had hideously mutated, gaining bat-like wings and long talons instead of claws. Flare stared at the monstrosity, then realised that it was heading towards 'The Camp' and he didn't think its intentions were friendly. He skated after the bird-thing, hoping he reached 'The Camp' before it. He didn't notice that the red emerald had found its way into his burnt hand, and it was glowing slightly. Flare sped up.
Kir didn't think he'd meet Flare halfway after all; Flare could skate faster than Kir could run and Flare had an emerald, if he could use it he could go faster than he normally would, big if though.
Kir spotted something in the distance, at first he thought it was Flare, but then he saw it was too high off the ground, Flare floated, he didn't fly. The silhouette resolved itself into a creature, a bird with bat-like wings and huge talons, Kir recognised it as one of the mutants from the tomb, one of the ones he hadn't freed, maybe this is what had been praying on people in Mystic Ruins.
The Bird-thing landed in front of Kir, looking intently at him, then it spoke in a screechy voice,
"You are test 01, you are the destroyer. Self is experiment 00319, 'Talons', the masters shall be avenged" with that he swiped at Kir with the long talons, his beak snapping shut as he bit at the Echidna as he tried to dodge.
Kir was confused, he was a Test? He had thought that the Mutants were at the lower end of the experimentation, before any flaws in the system had been ironed out, and this creature was number 319, how many were there? Kir fought back, leaping towards the creature's head and slashing with his knuckle-claws, he didn't connect with his target, a taloned hand on the wing joint batted him away, sending him crashing into a tree, dazed and groaning.
Talons pulled one taloned hand back, closed it, but left one finger extended, and snapped his hand forwards in a slashing motion. The talon on the finger snapped off at the base and scythed through the air, flying straight towards Kir's head.
Kir saw the talon just before it hit him, snapping into mistform, but feeling the talon slash his face, had he been a second slower he would have been impaled. He looked at the experiment as a new talon began growing in place of the one now lodged in the tree. Talons had been gifted with both extremely fast regeneration and such minute control of his body that he could stop his talons growing any longer that was needed, and could weaken the base of them to send them flying at his foes. He brought his hand back, all his fingers spread, and slashed forwards, five talons scything off towards Kir.
"Noooooooooooooooo!!!" came a yell, and a fireball crashed into Talons' side, he whirled and saw Flare standing there.
Flare had arrived just in time to see the first talon fly into Kir's head, he had gripped the red emerald, his rage growing, he began drawing on the power of the emerald, he was attuned to it, he knew instinctively how to use it and sank into the one patch of order within it, drawing on more and more power, the emerald itself becoming chaos energy, sank into his hand, a shining crystal grew out of the back of Flare's hand, his airspace became an aura of chaos fire, he floated 5 feet from the ground, his spines stood up, charged with chaos energy and his eyes filled with red, chaos fore wreathing his vision.
"Noooooooooooooooo!!!" he yelled and threw a ball of chaos fire at the creature, forcing his power into his aura he blasted towards Talons at the speed of a bullet, albeit a bullet wreathed in flames of chaotic energy.
Flare began punching and kicking the experiment, his fists and feet burning with every touch, Talons began to heal each wound a few seconds after he received them, he backed off and launched a talon at Flare, Flare focused is aura and the talon melted upon contact. Flare threw more fireballs and Talons sent more talons scything off towards the floating hedgehog, they then dashed towards each other, trading punches and kicks and slashed and bites, Flare warping his aura to shield him, Talons healing his wounds.
Flare could see this wasn't working and blasted straight into Talons, forcing him to the ground and pinning him there, he stared into the creature's terrified face, Talons gazing into the pulsating red eyes of the chaos fuelled monster pinning him to the floor.
Flare grinned and uttered a single word into the experiment's face as he drew on massive amounts of chaos energy, "BURN"
Flare's chaos flame aura exploded with massive amounts of heat, expanding and burning everything within a 5 metre radius, the grass burned, the marble cracked and melted, the molten marble flowed into the depression left by the miniature inferno, and Talons' body began to melt, his blood evaporating as his liquid body mixed with the marble and all the while Flare was laughing maniacally as the world burned around him.
He let go of the power; it flowed back into the emerald now imbedded in the back of his hand and the flames lowered, the ground cooling and Flare's spines falling back down and his eyes returning to normal as he turned and walked over to the tree Kir had been hiding behind, his friend stared at him with terror,
"Hi Kir, what've you been doing since I last saw you?" he said offering his hand and pulling Kir up
"L…L…looking for y…you" he said wary of his friend, he had heard Flare's laugh as 00319 'Talons' melted, it had scared him more than the Masters had.
"Well, lets get back to 'The Camp', and you can tell me what the hell that thing was and why it attacked you" Flare said, grinning mischievously as he added, "I'll race ya"
Kir raced after the departing hedgehog, arriving about a minute after him at 'The Camp'
Later that night, after Kir had told Flare, and Miira, everything about the tomb, his capture and the mutants he decided that enough was enough, the Tomb had been the cause of so many problems, and it should be removed from existence.
Flare and Kir teleported off of the island, arriving outside the Tomb, they had come with only one purpose,
Destruction