Dreams, memories and… spirits?

Hmmm that took longer than I thought it would… anyway here's the next chapter! And on a lighter note I've decided to change my name again. Oh and if your reading Pata Hikari then thanks for putting up the war of chaos, my stupid dad won't allow me to buy a dreamcast or game cube until i have my year 11 exams.

Disclaimer: I don't own sonic or any other sonic related products, sadly.

X

I slowly started to come round after what felt like an eternity. I never remember my head hurting so much before and I couldn't focus my mind on anything properly. Whenever I tried to reach an image in my mind it always seemed to melt away before I could grasp it.

My nose twitched slightly by the smell of the fresh grass beneath me. Wait, I don't remember any grass…

"Ugh my head feels like I got the chaotic team having a party in there!" I groaned mentally as my mind slowly cleared. I hadn't opened My eyes wouldn't open yet but I could make out the sound of crickets chirping and flickering… torches? Wait that can't be right…

my eyes snapped open and talk about a sudden change of background…

I could tell I was in the marble gardens by the grass and rock. There was a giant hole in the wall behind me where moonlight was streaming in and I could hear very faint voices coming from there. The room itself had a giant dark blue in the centre which was giving off a weird light and it also had four giant stone pillars on each corner of it. All in all, it was really creepy and it looked like no one had been here for a while.

My eyes focus on the bright light coming from the circle. It looks like the light which came from the teleporter's gives off when it teleports someone.

-Finally I'm free…-

a calm voice filled with relief rang through out my mind. Great I'm going insane…

-hehe, trust me you are the least thing from insane, then again you aren't what I would call perfectly sane.- hey!

Suddenly the light coming from the circle started to collect together, slowly forming the outline of someone really spiky.

-Relax, I mean you no harm, sonic the hedgehog.-

It was a male hedgehog like me.

He was slightly taller than me with a deeper blue fur than mine with yellowy gold stripes on his spikes. He had Deep Ocean blue eyes and was wearing ancient looking sandals with a blue cape and a few arm bracelets like shadow. He looked like an ancient combination between me and shadow due to the golden stripes down his spines.

I couldn't help but feel bawfled by his sudden appearance. "Who are you and how did you know my name?… And where are we?"

"My name is Atem Lightningbolt or lightning for short. I can only stay in this form for a little while for now and explaining would take to long." He told me without moving his mouth one-inch, as if he was speaking directly into my mind. "But I can show you some of my story."

A blinding white curtain of light appeared in front of me and then, nothing.

X

Normal POV:

"I'll never get used to that…" sonic mumbled lifted himself off the floor as the last of the white light disappeared around him. The first basic thing he realised that it was around midday. And that he was in some kind of ancient stone city.

They all had weird markings on them and he was walking down a street. Oh and there where other echidna's there too.

"woaw… what a weird city." Sonic mumbled to himself in awe as he began to wandered around not looking where he was going, receiving confused looks from passing by echidna's and accidentally bumping into one. "Sorry!"

"That's okay." The echidna said as he regained his balance and sent him a confused look. "What are you doing down here Hedgehog? The meeting point is up there." He pointed towards a ridge at the far end of the marble garden.

"er… I forgot, thanks." Sonic mumbled in confusion as he began to walk in the direction the echidna pointed out while taking in all the echidna's weird clothing and building designs while dodging the huge crowd of echidna's. Maybe Lightning will be there…

They all wore clothing he had on seen on the drawing in the sandropolis zone and the buildings were all designed like the one in sandropolis to. Pretty soon he could hear voices.

"Tell me Moria, why do you want to speak with me?" sonic rushed towards the source of the old man voice and found quite a large group actually. They were on a flat plain, there was a group of echidna's standing one side, which included Tikal, and from what sonic guessed her father. On the other side though there was four people, two where wearing cloaks so sonic couldn't tell what species they were and two hedgehogs, one was the hedgehog he just talked to.

"We have reason to believe that you plan to take the master emerald for your own and plan to use for war." A purple female hedgehog told the old man who gave her a startled and confused look and let's out a smirk. "We have our ways of knowing Prumearic. (is that how you spell it? I don't know.")

She was slightly taller than sonic and had a deep purple fur with greeny-bluey eyes. She wore a green dress which went slight past her knees and it had strange markings and stars all over it. A pair of sandals with and a green headband.

"How? I've been planning this for only 3 weeks and word it would at least take you 2 to get up here Moria." Prumearic asked. "And besides, what right do you have to meddle in echidnan business?"

"Let's just say word travels fast Prumearic and I'm not, were simply here to warn you that you'll regret it if you do." Moria explained to him calmly as Prumearic rolled his eyes.

"puhh, I've already talked this over with my daughter a few hours ago and the answer is no!"

"Then your daughter understands the chaos gems more than you do, you will be putting yourselves in great danger if you disturb them." Lightning put in as Tikal sent him a thankful glance.

"But we need those emeralds to survive the future!"

"Do you? You've managed to kick everyone else off the island without them so far but why now?." Moria added in.

"You cannot change my decision! You are lucky that you left before my attack on the other tribes began! And besides how do I know you're not going to take them for your own!" Prumearic roared as Tikal shook her head.

"Because you know we wouldn't do that. But please reconsider your decision, for the fate of your kind." Moria basically pleaded with him.

"No! My decision stands as it is! This conversation is over." He said while storming back towards the city with all his guards in tow, leaving an embarrassed Tikal.

"I'm sorry about that guys, my father is a bit of a hot head." Tikal said while bowing to them.

"ah don't worry about it Tikal." Lightning said sending her a warm smile. "But seriously sis, what do we do?"

"I don't know." Moria sighed. "Arg! When will echidnas learn not to tamper with things that shouldn't be tampered with!… No affiance Tikal."

"None taken."

"Man, chaos is really going to be angry when they do attack." The cloaked person on the left mumbled as everyone sighed in agreement

White light replaced everything for sonic again.

X

Sonic woke up on the floor (again.) near one of the edge of the blue circle. "Okay that is really starting to get annoying…" sonic mumbled bitterly to himself as he got up and faced the hedgehog who was floating in the centre like a super would, with his arms crossed. "Look whoever you are that didn't explain anything! I've now got more questions than before!" he whined.

"That is for part 2 of my story. But first I must give you something." He says to him as he closes his eyes, looking like he's trying to focus on something.

"And what might that be?" sonic asked impatiently. Personally he just wanted some machine-butt kicking action and didn't really care about all this.

"This!" he exclaimed as he suddenly dissolved into the air leaving a gem floating in his place.

But what a gem to! It could have rivalled a chaos gem by the amount of power coming from it but instead of one colour it had all of the colours of the chaos gems. (Red, white, blue etc.)

"What… what is this?" sonic asked slowly as he held it in the palm of his hand, staring at it in disbelief. It looked like there was now 8 chaos gems.

"the soul gem." Sonic heard the hedgehog's voice ring inside of his head. "Like a chaos gem it has special powers but you cannot stop time or teloport with it.

"awww, I bet it's abilities suck then." Sonic assumed as he heard the hedgehog chuckle.

"Actually no, combined with another chaos gem it allows you to control the element of that gem to a certain extent. However it's main ability is to call out the true potential of the user. That's where it got the name soul gem." He explained as sonic developed a blank look on his face.

"Where has this gem been all the time then? I've never even heard of it!" sonic asked as another thought came to him. "What would happen if it was combined with all the of the chaos gems though?"

"All record of it was destroyed when chaos attacked the echidna civilisation and I've been holding onto it since then." He explained then added. "And I don't know, I've never been able to try. Anyway, I think it's about time I sent you back." And…

Sonic blacked out…

X

"Hey I think he's coming round!"

"Finally, he's been out for at least twenty minutes!"

Sonic found himself lying on the floor in an alleyway with a relieved tails leaning over him and shadow with omega standing near by. "Tails! What happened?" he asked the fox in confusion then turned to shadow. "And where did you come from shadow?"

"Well after you fainted…" Shadow snickers in the background. "Robotnik attacked us with his new machine! Lucky for you shadow managed to get you out of there just before Robotnik destroyed the balcony we where standing on. Now where currently hiding from Robotnik inside an alley." Tails explained as sonic let out a groan. Shadow had saved him? He would never be able to live this down…

"Oh how the mighty have fallen." Shadow chuckled from his leaning position against the wall as sonic let out a growl.

"Very funny shadow." Sonic grumbled as he got up from the floor and dusted himself off. "And if I've been out for twenty minutes why didn't you try to wake me?"

"We did, except you sleep like a log." Shadow commented from the wall. We tried cold water, shaking you for five minutes, and you know what? Nothing worked!"

"So how are you feeling sonic?" tails asked him as sonic began to sulk. "You've been mumbling a lot in your sleep."

"Let's just say I had a really freaky dream…" sonic mumbled quietly as he sent Tails a gloomy look.

"Cheer up sonic, at least we managed to get away from Robotnik." Tails said.

"Actually you haven't."

"wha?… Metal Knuckles!" Sonic exclaimed as the gang got into there fighting posses facing M K who had just appeared.

"Relax, I'm not here to fight you, I'm just bring you a message from my master." He told them rather dully.

"Well? What is it?" shadow asked impatiently with his arms crossed.

"This." He mumbled as he threw something on the ground, producing an image of Robotnik.

"Greeting pests! I bet you weren't expecting me now? Anyway, I'm going to make this simple enough even for your small brains to understand. if you come out from your hiding place I'll leave station square alone. However if you don't, you'll leave me with no choice but to level this place to the ground!" the message ends here leaving the four heroes (or anti-hereos.) in silence.

"Well? I don't have all day." M K said impatiently then added quietly. "Not that I have anything else to do."

"… I guess we have no choice, let's go guys." Sonic finally said as the others nodded there heads in agreement slowly.

"Follow me then." Metal Knuckles beckoned them to follow him as he began to walk in silence towards the centre of the city.

"So… what is Robotnik newest machine?" sonic asked after 5 minutes of walking in silence, tring to strike up some kind of conversation.

"I'm not at liberty to tell you everything about it but it's true name is Chaos Destroyer 3000orthe Egg Destroyer." Metal knuckles mumbled as they started to walk down a slope. Metal Knuckles was actually hoping in secret that they would destroy it. Because if they didn't it would mean another 2 hours of polishing it for him…

"So shadow, what are you and omega doing here?" sonic asked him as they continued down the slope. He'd been meaning to ask this sooner but hadn't beengiven the chance before.

"I'll explain later." He mumbled as he turned his attention back to Metal Knuckles. "Where is Robotnik? I don't see him or his precious machinery anywhere."

M K stops here and looks up. "Up there." He pointed towards a huge machine that was coming to the ground fast. "Brace yourselves."

SMASH!

"Muwhahah! Hello pests!" Robotnik grawfed from the top of his machine. "Get up here Metal!"

Metal just nodded as he flew up to Robotnik's side. "Well someone been busy haven't they?" shadow sneered while looking at the gleaming Robot.

"You'd better believe it!" he pointed to them. "Now prepare to die!"

"Yeah right, you say that every time and guess what? You always lose!" Sonic Countered while letting out his infamous smirk. It always got on Robotnik's nerves. "And besides are we meant to be threatened by a walking egg?"

"grrr… E.G. prepare attack mode!" Robotnik roared as the thing shot them a gaze with it's glowing red eyes.

Primary target found: sonic the hedgehog.

Secondary target found: Shadow the hedgehog.

Objective: Destroy.

"Oh look he going to attack us, whatever shall we do guys?" Sonic said mocking Robotnik then spotted the Dark blue chaos gem in the centre of the robot. "Hey that's mine you thief!"

"That's right, while you where busy annoying each over I crept into your room and stole it!" Robotnik sneered then added. "it takes up a lot less than the 8 chaos drives I originally installed to power this."

"I surpose it is a little bit impressive." Shadow said dually while secretly admiring the machine. It was a lot bigger than most of Robotnik usually machines and it looked like it could at least destroy a sky scrapper. However he didn't know that Robotnik had installed spikes all over the body since they were hidden well.

"I surpose it is better than a ball and chain." Sonic said midly in a thinking positionthen added quickly. "Or a spike, or four lifts or…

"Okay I get the point!" Robotnik said quickly with rage as shadow sent him a confused look. Robotnik had sounded really desperate then… "Now where was I… are yes, charge!"

X

Sorry to leave it at another cliff hanger any one who is reading this but I really didn't want to write anymore than nine pages. Anyway the next chapter will have the fight and shadow reason for wanting sonic's help. Also the next chapter might take longer than the other one's since I'm beginning another story. and one over thing to straighten things out before I go…

The soul gem: forged when the Time and chaos gem where destroyed. It was made from the centres of both of the gems. Allows the user to access there true potential and combined with another chaos gem the user can control the element of that emerald.