Chapter 7: New Ally

Sonic blasted through the forest, stopping at every clearing or large rock formation, looking for a cave or anything to hide in. But as the distance between him and the clearing grew, his hopes for finding shelter shrunk.

"How am I supposed to find something around here… It all looks the same!" He snarled at no one. He spotted a large rabbit—or normal sized rabbit; he was just smaller—to his right and absentmindedly moved away from it. A bird's cry from somewhere above startled him and he stopped to look around.

He didn't see the bird, so he was about to begin his search again. But then he spotted a tiny red speck in the darkening sky. At first, he passed it off as a far away bird or maybe even a bug. But as the flying thing got closer, he could see that it was nothing of the sort.

It was a creature of some sort, he realized. A creature that, for some reason, looked a lot like Summer. Its fur was a bright red color. In fact, that red fur covered its entire body, except for one spot on its chest, where there was a strange upside-down crescent-shaped patch of white fur. Bright red dreadlocks flailed in the wind and the creature was close enough for Sonic to nearly see the color of his eyes.

Sonic backed up a step, fear washing over him in waves. The creature landed now and he could finally make out its full details. Intelligent, blue eyes studied Sonic and then locked on his own emerald green eyes. His white gloves had two spikes of some sort jutting out viciously. They looked sharp enough to run someone through. The creature's muzzle resembled Summer's. The creature looked remarkably a lot like her, yet there were some major differences. The main one being in Summer's quills. This creature didn't have any.

"Who are you?" Sonic demanded, beginning bend down slightly so he could have a better running start if he was forced to flee. The creature didn't reply, but instead just watched Sonic with interest in its eyes.

"Come on, answer! Answer the freaking question!" Sonic pressed, clenching his fists. The red creature started chuckled in a strong-sounding voice. Yet, Sonic heard something else in that voice. Excitement. Anxiousness. Uncertainty.

Finally, the red foe answered. "Calm down." He said calmly, leaning against a tree branch. His eyes still shone with an unknown excitement. "I'm not here to hurt you."

Sonic relaxed about a hair.

"Fine. Don't trust me." The red one said with a dramatic sigh. "But, if you want to avoid becoming one waterlogged hedgehog, I'd round up your gang and follow me."

Sonic didn't answer, but glared at the other person menacingly.

The red one sighed. "Listen. Drop the bad boy attitude. You're terrified. But, you're in luck. There's nothing to be scared of. Not unless you decide to pick a fight with me." He grinned, showing sharp, bright white teeth. He seemed interested in his spikes and brought them close to his face. Sonic knew he was showing off his weapons.

"Yeah, they're real." He suddenly said, changing the subject. And then slammed them into a tree, causing the wood to splinter and birds all around to scatter noisily.

If Sonic could, he would have paled. Finally, he spoke. "What's your name?"

The creature grinned again and showed his spikes again. "Knuckles. Knuckles the Echidna. And I already know you're name, Eddie. Or is it Sonic?"

Sonic grit his teeth. "Hey, I don't know who the heck you are, but you'd better start explaining!" Knuckles grinned and turned around, walking towards the direction of the clearing.

"I'll explain when we have everyone rounded up. I don't feel like explaining myself twice." He said, nonchalantly. Sonic quickly ran to the spot in front of him, blocking Knuckle from making any other steps.

"Take another step…" Sonic said threateningly.

"And what? You'll stop me? I already told you, I'm not here to—" And then Sonic cut him off by punching him square in the jaw. Knuckles' eyes flared in anger and he backed up a step.

"I'm sick of that! I don't trust you and until I get some answers, you aren't even going near them!" Sonic said, raising his fist to make his point. Knuckles was mildly impressed. He had been expecting this response.

"You don't get it, do you? I've ripped entire trees out of the ground before, roots and all. I can fly too." He lifted off the ground slightly. "I could fold you into a ball before you could even think about fighting back! Now, unless you have a death wish, I suggest you cut me some slack. I'm here to help. I can take you to some shelter."

Sonic never stopped glaring at Knuckles.

"Fine. If it's a fight you want, you got it. I'm a little bored anyway." Knuckles said, his voice rising slightly with excitement. He was a fighter by nature, but ever since his sparring opponents—his brothers—died… He shook those thoughts off and returned to the present.

Sonic went into a sprint, crossing the distance between them in the blink of an eye. He went straight from Knuckles' face, trying to punch him, but Knuckles dodged the blow and landed his own punch right in Sonic's gut, making sure not to impale him with his knuckles in the process.

Sonic stumbled back and tripped on a tree branch, falling backward. The single punch had completely knocked the breath out of him and he was gasping for air. But regardless of that, he rose slowly to his feet, holding his chest in pain, and steeled himself for another attack.

"You'll… You'll pay for that…" He said weakly, in between gasps.

"Why don't you just quit this stupid attitude now, before you really get hurt?" Knuckles asked, interested at Sonic's unwillingness to give up. "I told you, I'm—"

He was cut off as Sonic blasted forward again. He leaped over Knuckles and tried to hit him from behind, but Knuckles swung around quickly and backhanded Sonic in the jaw, causing the blue foe to fly to the side and crash into a tree.

Already, Sonic was battling unconsciousness and his voice was slurring slightly. A light amount of blood seeped into his blue fur from a small cut opened up from the latest hit. Another cut had opened up on his head, where he hit the tree.

Knuckles glided over to him and pulled Sonic to his feet, letting the blue teenager rest on his shoulders. "Sorry, 'bout that. But I warned you…" Before Knuckles could say anymore, Sonic lashed out, elbowing him in the gut. Knuckles dropped Sonic to the ground and glared at him.

"You just never give up, do you? Fine. If I tell you about myself, will you calm down?" Sonic slowly sat up, his eyes drooping a bit from disorientation.

In a weak voice, he replied, "It depends on whether or not I like you after the story."

Knuckles smirked. "Fine. I am part of an ancient race of Demihumans. Part animal, part human, you could say. Although, we aren't mutants. We're just another race of creatures on this planet.

"Many years ago, before humans even began making civilizations and such, we existed and prospered. We had a written law code and had technology unlike that of human beings at the time. We were the lords of the earth.

"But as time went on, humans prospered and pushed the Demihumans out of the picture. They started killing us out of greed and fear. We were forced to run into hiding." Knuckles continued the story, leaving out one important detail—the prophecy.

"My family was entrusted to guard the Chaos Emeralds. And when given that task, we split the Emeralds up, putting them at different corners of the world. However, off of each Emerald, we cut a sliver off of it and graphed it into a ring or a bracelet." Sonic looked at the ring on his finger intensely when he realized what Knuckles was talking about.

"Yes, you wear one of those very rings. The reason why we did so, if you're wondering, is so we could find the Emeralds later, if they were ever needed. Each of the Emerald pieces will search their larger counterparts out until they're finally joined with the Emeralds again."

Knuckles brought his wrist to his face and showed a golden bracelet with a bright red Emerald in it. "I have one. You have one. And each of your friends has one."

Sonic got up slowly and looked at his ring once more. "So… how would this ring search out the bigger ones?"

Knuckles smirked and pulled off his bracelet. He held it up into the air and suddenly a thin red beam of light shot from the small gem and flew in a northeastern direction. After a few seconds, he put the bracelet back on and the beam disappeared.

"Let me guess, that showed the way to get to the emerald?"

"Exactly. But don't ever bother trying to get the emerald yourself. It's guarded by… certain creatures of the old world."

"Certain creatures?"

"Let me put it this way. Most people believe that the dinosaurs have all died out. For the most part, that is true. But certain dinosaurs may still live. They're just in hiding."

Sonic's eyes widened. "Are you telling me that dinosaurs guard the emeralds!?"

"Amongst other things." Knuckles said with an air of confidence.

"What are the other things?"

Knuckles shrugged. "I have no idea. My family hid the emeralds generations ago. I actually only know that two of the emeralds hold a dinosaur. The others might, but may not."

"That's comforting." Sonic replied.

"Well, we'll hopefully never have to seek them out."

"Well, I hoped to live a normal life. Look at me now." The hedgehog said bitterly.

Knuckles patted him on the shoulder and replied with, "Welcome to my life."

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The F-16x landed on the runway at their headquarters in an Air Force Base nearby easily and seconds later, Jason jumped out of the cockpit. He waited momentarily to make sure the members of his squadron had landed and then took off towards the office building that held his superiors.

He navigated the hallways quickly and came to a door. The words on the door said Brig. General Stryker. He walked in unannounced. Inside, the aging General sat behind his desk, working on depleting a mountain of paperwork.

"Sir." Jason said softly and Stryker looked up at him.

"Yes? What is it…" He looked at Jason's nametag and finished, "Lieutenant Powers?"

"Sir, I bring news from the Mobius front."

Stryker sat up straight and gave his white mustache a tug. "Go on, go on. Wait, have a seat first. You look tired."

Jason said down and breathed deeply. He wiped the sweat from his brow before continuing. "It was… a massacre waiting to happen, Sir. The robots were far more advanced than we had expected."

"Casualties?"

"Just one—Major Leon was killed by enemy fire."

Stryker cursed and leaned against his chair. "And I suppose the reason you're here is because you are now the highest ranking officer in the squadron."

"Yes, Sir."

"Very well, describe the battlefield for me."

"A wasteland, Sir."

"Knock off the 'sir's. Just tell me."

"All right. It was a wasteland. Most of the buildings were completely leveled. Robots crawled the streets and they were equipped with rocket launchers and lasers. He also had flying robots, which matched our standard surveillance and dog-fighting speed. At full speed we outran them though. They also had lasers and rockets."

"Anything that looked like a good strategic target?"

"There were certain buildings left standing. Most of them were warehouses, but I noticed that there was quite a bit more guards around them. It also looked as if he was building some factories. But the most noticeable building was in the middle of the city. It hadn't been fully built yet. In fact, it's far from it. But he's got robots working on it. It looks like it will be a skyscraper. I bet it'll be his headquarters."

"Very well. Your squadron did their job as well as to be expected. Take your jets to maintenance if you need any repairs. You're finished for today." Jason stood to his feet and saluted.

"And Captain Powers." Jason froze at the rank that the General had applied to him. "Tell your men to be ready. I don't know when, but you can bet there will be a battle for that city."

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Summer shivered and put an arm around Miles, pulling him close. The rain was coming down harder now and the two were already drenched. "Come on, Eddie…" She said softly.

And as if on cue, Eddie, in all his blue glory, burst from the forest and landed right in front of Summer. Miles cried out in surprise and Summer screamed. "Hey! Calm down, it's just me!"

Summer relaxed and resisted the urge to hug him. "Did you find a shelter, Eddie?"

"Um… In a way."

"What do you mean?" Summer asked. Miles shivered as the rain beat down on them and Summer squeezed him.

"Well…" Eddie began as Knuckles stepped out of the forest behind him.

"Eddie, look out!" Summer cried, pointing at the red echidna. Eddie held up a hand to calm her.

"Summer, it's okay. He's a friend!"

"But—"

"Trust me on this one, okay? He's on our side. His name's Knuckles." Summer stared at Knuckles warily and stayed a bit closer to Eddie. She hugged Miles a bit tighter too. All the while, the water still came down, now in torrents.

"Eddie, what's going on?" Summer asked, raising her voice to be heard over the rain.

"I'll explain soon enough. Right now, we have to go! We'll all get sick if we don't!"

Summer nodded slowly. Eddie looked at two and smiled. "Told you I'd find us something."

"Actually, you seemed content to just ignore my offer of shelter and attack me." Knuckles added before walking off back into the forest. Eddie glared at his back and then turned back to the others.

"He's probably not going to wait for us, so let's hurry." And the trio took off after their new ally.

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"How hard is it to find a single person!?" Robotnik snarled. He crashed his fists on the armrests to his hover chair. The force of the blow made the floating chair shudder slightly, but he ignored it.

"Emperor, the blue hedgehog is very fast. And he escaped into the forest, where we had decided not to put surveillance equipment."

A blunder… Robotnik said to himself. He would have never said it aloud though, not even to a stupid robot. And speaking of stupid robots…

"Get out into that forest and find him!" He bellowed, leaving a thin film of saliva on the robot that stood a mere foot or two away from him. The mechanical being didn't flinch—after all, Robotnik didn't design it to.

"Yes, Emperor. Do you specify a starting point?"

"Surround the forest. Go at him from all sides!"

"Negative, Emperor." The robot started. Robotnik's nostrils flared in anger. "That would take us into the city limits of the neighboring city. That is against our initial programming."

Robotnik wasn't happy about this. Snarling, he took out his laser gun and blasted the robot in the chest, causing a chain reaction that destroyed the entire robot.

He quickly caused the chair to zoom towards a large console. This was the console he used to control individual robots or control them as a whole. Entering in a series of commands, he changed their programming to allow them to go into the next town. It was about time for his next conquest anyway.

"Once you've obliterated the town, set the forest on fire. Create a ring of fire that will close in on those accursed animals!" He snarled, entering in the commands as he spoke. "Show them that nobody challenges Robotnik and lives!"

Long wait… Sorry about the long wait, my multitudes of fans! ::A cricket chirps:: Erm… Anyway, I'm really sorry about the long wait. I hope that the next chapter will come out faster, but that also depends on how many hours at work I get, how tough my school this year gets, and whether or not I get another bad case of writer's block!

Alrighty… ::Cracks knuckles:: Time to reply to my one review with enough stuff in it worth making out a reply to.

And that review belongs to… Drum roll, please… Red Sonic!

Anyway, thanks for the great complements. I've been working hard on making the characters as they should be and I guess the hard work's paying off!

As for bringing Sally in… I've thought about it. And I've thought about it some more. And I'm still thinking about it. I actually have another love triangle planned for Sonic, Summer, and another character that I refuse to reveal just yet!

But Sally is a possibility. I'm not ruling her out just yet. And the only reason I would really consider not doing it is because it's been virtually forever since I watched SatAM or read one of the Archie Comics.

Anyway tune in next time! It's gonna be good!

Oh and because I didn't do it earlier, I don't own Sonic or any of its characters. I own Summer though!

--Ben