Okay, before you all get mad at me for not posting this sooner, hear me out. Weird stuff prevented me from posting earlier.
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First, the site kept giving me an error message when I tried to log in, then my computer started freezing up every time I tried to log onto the Internet, and finally the power went out of my house for five hours!
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Think somebody's trying to tell me something?
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Disclaimer: See previous chapters, O unbeliever you
Claimer: Ditto on above
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0-With assistance from Sonic - as well as the bemused help of Raven - all three of them easily escaped the pursuit of the Perfect Chaos apparition.
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Although Knuckles was annoyed to be dragged along like a rag doll by Sonic, the two hedgehogs were going at almost full speed and he didn't want to be left on his own again in this dark version of the Fount of Light.
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Not to mention that Sonic completely refused to slow down even a bit, wanting very much to find the others and get the heck out of this twisted dimension before something else they knew reared its head and attempted to kill them.
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"So, anybody know which direction we should go?" Sonic asked over his shoulder."When this was the ARK, the layout was obvious," Raven mentioned unhelpfully.
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"Okay," Sonic replied, apparently taking the stance that any info is useful info, "In that case, if I was a big an' nasty space booger, where would my brain be?"
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"Well," Knuckles said, managing to sound collected despite how he was being dragged along by his arm at hundreds of miles per hour, "Some parts look lighter, but only probably because they're there to create false hope, and other parts look darker, but probably are the places we really don't want to go to."
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"Man, Red, ever think about dumping that perky-happy attitude for something a little more realistic?" Sonic shot back sarcastically.
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"Still," the blue hedgehog added, "I wouldn't mind being able to find Shadow and Tails, at least…"
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There was a minute of silence, as he and Knuckles wracked their brains for any ideas. Even a Chaos Emerald or something like that might have been at least a little bit useful, and Sonic made a point of mentioning that out loud, in order to break the deafening silence and spookiness of their current location.
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Another side effect of Eclipse's meddling was that you couldn't keep yourself from feeling upset, they were discovering. (Well, Sonic and Knuckles had noticed this, at least. If Raven was actually feeling at all upset, he was hiding it super well.)
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Knowing it wasn't at all helpful and trying not to antagonize two of the more dangerous people he was acquainted with, Sonic deliberately internalized his stream of complaints.
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If they only had a Chaos Emerald - mentally moaned Sonic - then it would be easy to find the others, with Chaos Control. But no, they were stuck inside a stupid living dimension of Chaos power, which was apparently located inside eight power gems - the Master and the seven Chaos - and had absolutely no hope of reaching the outside world…
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…Part of that last bit niggled at Sonic, even though he tried to ignore it, until finally he spotted the answer. And then it seemed so completely OBVIOUS that he wondered why they hadn't thought of it SO much earlier than this!
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"I GOT IT!" Sonic bellowed, skidding to a sneaker-shrieking halt.
"GAH!" Knuckles screamed, as his ample forward momentum sent him sailing ahead extremely fast.
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Raven, who couldn't stop on a dime like Sonic because of his air jets, ended up being the echidna's landing pad - several meters away.
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"ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME OR SOMETHING?" Knuckles yelled, clambering off the totally stunned white hedgehog.
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"Eh heh heh…sorry, Knux, forgot you were back there," Sonic said sheepishly, "But hear me out! I just figured out how to get right to where the others are!"
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"Oh really?" Knuckles replied, still looking a bit ticked off.
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"Yeah," Sonic continued, "I mean, we're sort of inside the Chaos Emeralds right now, so I figure we can do Chaos Control!"
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"You mean you can do Chaos Control," Knuckles corrected, but he looked interested.
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"It won't work," Raven said - he had recovered and was picking himself off the ground as he spoke.
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"Why not? What makes you so sure?" Sonic shot back
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"The Chaos Energy here isn't focused enough to utilize for anything as powerful as a teleport," the white hedgehog explained dryly, "It takes a certain level of a concentration of Chaos Energy for any sort of manipulation to work - otherwise the naturally-occurring ambient Chaos Energy corrects the perceived alterations before anything actually happens in the point of view of our 3-dimensionally based linear timeframe…and even then, it takes more energy from the user to make any such alterations if the focus is weak."
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"…I only understood about half of that," Knuckles admitted after a moment of hard thinking.
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"Way less over here," Sonic added, "And if there's some scientific explanation for Chaos Control, why didn't Shadow mention it when we asked him about it?"
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Raven broke his somber expression for one of slight self-satisfaction.
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"Shadow probably didn't tell you because he most likely never learned to fine-tune his control, like I did," the white and silver Ultimate Life Form replied, "Gerald wanted to use that energy for medical-type purposes, after all…so naturally he needed to know exactly how it all worked.
"In layman's terms," Raven added, "We can't use Chaos Control in here because we need the same amount and type of energy as a Chaos Emerald, which we do not have."
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Knuckles sighed and looked disappointed. Sonic, however, was remembering something.
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"…Okay…but what if we had something with the same type of energy, but that wasn't as strong as a real Chaos Emerald?" Sonic asked Raven, "Could you still use it for Chaos Control?"
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Raven thought about it for a bit.
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"…I suppose it's theoretically possible…" he allowed.
"Hah HAH! And nuts to the theory-dealie part, 'cuz I already did it!" Sonic grinned, "Knuckles, you remember! On ARK? With Tails' fake Chaos Emerald? Big flash of light?"
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"…I also remember you fainted," Knuckles agreed, "But we don't have any fake Emeralds here…do we?"
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"Nah," Sonic shrugged, "But I figure a bunch of those Chaos Blades mashed together is the next best thing!"
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Raven blinked, stared at Sonic as if hoping he was kidding - he wasn't - and then turned to Knuckles.
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"Is…he always this…spontaneous?"
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Knuckles shrugged.
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"I always figured it was because of his infinitesimally microscopic attention span," the echidna replied.
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While Sonic blinked, figured out he was being insulted, and good-naturally elbowed Knuckles in the ribs for the remark, and while Knuckles replied to that elbowing with a good-natured punch to Sonic's shoulder of slightly greater force, Raven worked on making a tight enough focus of Chaos Energy for Sonic to use in Chaos Control.
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Even though it was Raven's stored energy, he couldn't hold it in place and teleport at the same time. Plus Sonic, having done this before, was more than willing to engineer it again, whereas Raven, even during his most crazed moments, had never been much on suicide.
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When the time came for the great experiment to take place, Sonic reached out to touch the vibrant yellow - not to mention throbbing - bundle of energy Raven was focusing between his cupped hands. Knuckles held onto Sonic's shoulder and Raven's arm, making certain none of them would be left behind.
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"Who should I aim for, Shadow or Tails?" Sonic asked.
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"Shadow," Knuckles answered, "In case we need to do this again and Raven runs out of power."
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"Which is highly likely," Raven added.
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"Okie-dokie," Sonic said, his enthusiasm only slightly forced, "Here we go! Chaos…Control!"