(I do not own Sonic X, etc.) Romance alert!
Flip Card 2:
Name: Illumina
Age: Eons
Sex: Female
Description: Queen Illumina is the ruler of the dimensional plain called Maginary world and Guardian of a precious jewel called the precious stone.
Where there was two Hedgehog's one now remained, with upturned jagged quills like Super Sonic and green eyes like the original but nearly completely white, giving out a glow close to the radiance of the sun.
The Egg Carrier finally reached full power and with a rocketing boom it fired, a destructive beam of red energy tearing through space straight towards Illumina, disintegrating anything that got caught in it's way, even the Doctor's own flying Dreadnaughts.
Nazo disappeared and then in that same instant was right between Illumina and the destructive force. Calmly he put his arms forward and that next second the destruction reaches him. With a tremendous sound that could be heard from the planet below the white hedgehog formed a shield around him which began absorbing the energy as soon as it came within three feet of his body.
The more the Egg Carrier poured into it the more Nazo managed to capture, his shield growing bigger and bigger as it ate, but the strain on the white hedgehog it seemed was immense.
The shield was devouring the energy and was quickly becoming hard to control, even for him. It was expanding far beyond his ability to quell its appetite and Eggman's ship just kept feeding it more.
His energy nearly drained, Nazo went for one last big push to end the stalemate. Began spinning, throwing his weight over himself again and again under he achieved the momentum he need, becoming a raging ball. The shield instantly shrank to nothing and all the energy being directed was transferred directly to his body. His glow ranged from white to a blood red, radiating light away from him like the brightest star. Now instead of power being pushed out of the Egg Carrier's cannon, power was being drawn out of it. Nazo's entire body was acting like a magnet to it, sucking it dry.
Eggman saw what was happened and desperately tried to shut off the power. It was too late, he was no longer in control of the weapon, Nazo was. With one last push, Nazo stopped spinning, throwing his arms and legs out in one blast that shook the entire ARK. All the energy he had collected on himself was forced back along the beam and directly into the Egg Carrier's cannon.
For the second time, Eggman was forced to watch as one of his best weapons was torn apart from the inside, large chunks of molten metal forced off into space as implosions shook the entire ship. But that wasn't the end of it though.
Illumina narrowed her blue eyes and raised one of her hands; an invisible forced taking hold of the Egg Carrier from within, tearing both its wings off with unimaginable strength, what was left of the ship smacked violently down towards the planet itself. As if to add one for luck, Nazo raised his hands one last time gathering energy, before throwing them forward firing a culminated version of both Shadow and Sonic's attacks: Chaos Spear and Sonic Wind.
This one final blast sent what was left of the Egg Carrier out of a free fall and into a plummet, spiralling out of control as it hit the atmosphere. His energy spent, Nazo's face adopted a dazed expression before he began to slowly float towards the Ark, drawn in by its gravity. As he began to separate into the two Hedgehog's who made him, Void extended a hand and engulfed them both in a shield that protected their bodies from the vacuum of space.
Eggman was thrown from his seat and violently to the floor as the ship lost its low orbit and began to fall into the atmosphere, a thick red glow surrounding the ship as it began its fall.
"We're loosing the ship sir, all system below thirty percent and falling." Becoe told him before an explosion at his console sent him flying backwards. All control had now been lost. He ship was going down and there was nothing anyone on board could do to stop it.
"We're going to crash!" Decoe yelled before scrambling for the exit.
"Get back here you coward!" Eggman told him so sharply his words could have sliced through him like a hot knife through butter. "If we don't get control of our decent we're going to burn up on re-entry!" Without even waiting, Eggman pushed his way towards the command console and took control himself. This was his ship and he'd be damned if he was going to let it becoming some shooting star.
Gently, Void descended back to the ARK, back within a breathable atmosphere, the small imp like creature put them both back down on stable ground.
"Are you happy now?" Lumina asked, floating down next to him. The small imp like creature didn't even look up; even though he was perfectly aware of her presence. "You've shattered the faith of our people."
"They'll get over it. Illumina was just too impressed by her own holiness." He replied with a eventual flat glare. She glared at him, before a faint blush touched her cheeks. She wanted to ask, but was almost afraid to.
"Void…." She began slowly, as if unsure of herself. The small imp like creature looked up. "Did you mean what you said, that…" She broke off under his stare.
Void remained perfectly silent. Whatever thoughts running through his head remaining masked by that emotionless face had had born ever since he first started to rebel. An empty stare, devoid of feel, his eyes as unreadable as ever. Lumina looked away, feeling foolish.
The last thing she expected as for Void to gently cup her face with on hand. Looking up, she saw that he had removed that mask and so the first time in decades she could see something she never thought she would see in him.
Without another word, he gently kissed her. It was a soft touch of their lips, hardly passionate, but neon the less Lumina felt a great deal of electricity pass through her body. Without even thinking about it, she kissed back.
"I won't have left you Lumina unless I didn't have any other choice." He told her through telepathy, his dark eyes now filled with a strange light she had never noticed there before. "You remember the day I turned on Illumina?" How could see forget. That day had been etched into her mind for more than forty years.
Before his rebellion, Void had been a Templar like Lumina and most of the others. As devoted to Illumina as any of them had ever been. He was a role model for the others to look up to and respect.
He had Lumina had been good friends and nothing could have prepared her for the grief she had to endure when he turned on the mistress. As if someone had thrown a switch, Void's attitude towards her changed. Her confronted her openly, challenging her. Lumina could see that he was about to call to a Tribunal, a court of law. Before he could utter the words however, Illumina banished him into the pocket dimension Radiant Emerald. "I knew what her plans would be, so I had to confront her. If I thought there was any other way, I would have taken it. I didn't want to be separate from you." His words almost made her melt.
"You don't have to be any more." She told him.
A door serving as one of the Ark's maintenance opened up and Amy, still with her hammer in her grasp came running out, still with her hammer in her grasp. Knuckles and Rouge quickly following.
"Are you ok?" The pink hedgehog demanded as Sonic pushed himself groggily to a sitting position.
"Did someone get the number of that bus?" He demanded, shaking the grogginess out of his head.
"He's fine." Rouge stated with a giggle. Sonic didn't feel physically weak, but for some strange reason his mind was telling him that he'd run across the entire word eight times. He fell back onto his back, putting his arms behind his head.
"I thought you guys didn't know how to merge into Nazo." Amy began looking puzzled. Sonic sat up and stared at her with sceptical eyes.
"What are you talking about? He asked with a genuinely surprised look on his face and he scratched the side of his head. "We didn't merge."
"Oh yes you did." Knuckles began wearily. "We saw it all from the ARK." The blue hedgehog just levelled his eyes.
"Shadow, you any clue what their talking about?" He asked.
The black and red hedgehog didn't reply. He simply stood up, brushing himself off, a characteristic annoyed look on his face.
"Ok, we stopped Eggman, cleared this mess up and saved the ARK." Knuckles began with more than a swift edge to hic voice. "Can we please go home now?"
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So far, this venture was becoming interesting. Both interesting and disturbing could more accurate. Chuck was still trying to figure out what was going on here, but with little to no luck. On his way back to the excavation sight with Chris, it began to rain so he brought up the hood of their jeep to keep it off them.
"Get anything out of that Andre?" His grandson asked from the back seat.
"Not much that made sense." Chuck admitted as they rounded a corner. "He didn't want to talk to me at all. He simple took the note I brought him and gave me another one." Reminded, he glanced down at the coded note in his left pocket. Several times he had tried to deceiver it over the night with no success. This one piece of paper might tell him exactly what was going on here, so long as he could understand what it was talking about.
"Oh no." He began slowly when he saw an ambulance parked just outside the entrance to the excavation sight, along with two police cars. Approaching, they saw a small group of people gathering just behind the vehicle. Two of paramedics lifted up a stretcher between them and an Italian police man zipped up a black body bag. Before he did so, Chuck managed to see the face of the one inside. It was Toriyama, the man they'd been speaking with les than a day ago. He was completely white with a good deal of blood staining his shirt and soon he disappeared inside the back of the ambulance.
Parking the jeep, the two of them made their through the small crowd.
"Sorry, can't allow anyone inside until we've finished our investigation." One of the policeman at the gate told Chuck as they neared the gate into the dig site. From here they could see that all the crates had disappeared overnight, in fact most of the place was empty. A good deal of police tape riddled the area and other Italian police were down there combing the area and others taking pictures. Exactly what had happened here in their absence?
"What happened?" Chuck asked the cop, who was short man with a large thick black moustache and a cap a size too large so it hid his eyes.
"One of archaeologists fell down into that big hole in the night, broke in neck when he hit the bottom." He answered before taking a sip of his coffee from a plastic mug. "It looks like it may have been a suicide though so we're keeping the area off limits for now." Chuck frowned. Suicide his foot, the timing was too coincidental for that. A man desperate for his life told them something he shouldn't have and less than a day later he was dead? There was clearly something nefarious going on here, something someone didn't want anyone to find out about. The big question was still however, what? "You're a friend of his; you may want to follow the ambulance down to the coroners to pay some final respects." The policeman added before wandering off.
"Someone pushed him." Chris told his grandfather as they made their way back to the jeep.
"Or threw him off the edge." Chuck added sitting back in the driver's seat. "Either way, we're going to find out what happened here." Chris climbed into the back seat as Chuck turned the keys.
"How we gonna do that?" He asked as they drove off.
"Simple." Chuck began, putting his shades back on. "I'm going to have another talk with that Andre' guy. This time I'm going to get more answers out of him than I did the last time."
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"So that was all this was about?" Sonic asked rhetorically looking a little dumbstruck. "You were stuck in Radiant Emerald because you didn't go along with Illumina?" The Icarus, after being pulled out of the wreckage on the ARK was steadily making its way back towards the Earth. Tails' patch job had been enough to hold them together and get them back down, but it was probably best if they avoided any fights with the Egg Carrier from now on. Void had stayed behind in this dimension long enough because Shadow insisted he explain just why the black hedgehog had been working for him.
"It's a little more complex than that but sort of yes." The small creature replied. "Illumina is a creature of light, she has never known anything else but light so the dark temptations of evil can not possibly sway her. Unfortunately she doesn't recognise the need for others to choose between good and evil." He carried on, trying to explain his motivations to a hedgehog whose attention span was incredibly short. "She planed to spread her light to all beings, destroying any dark intentions in sentience." Sonic scratched the top of his head looking a little confused.
"What's wrong with that?" He asked, barley grasping any of the concepts Void was trying to explain. Void rolled his eyes, trying to think of a way of putting it in words that the blue hedgehog would understand.
"Let's put it this way: all people are born innocent aren't they?" Sonic nodded slowly. "Well, during their lives every person in existence chooses their path in life, whether it leads down the path of good or evil. You yourself chose good and Eggman chose evil. And then there are people like Shadow, who hover in-between." The black hedgehog who was sitting within ear shot gave them a sideways glance. "They weren't born like that; they made the decision during their life times." Sonic just nodded again rather than even try to explain he was struggling. "Illumina wanted to remove the choice, forcing everyone to accept the light. When that happens, she would inadvertently remove free-will." Sonic, who was far more comfortable with the concept of good guys and bad guys was finding all this talk about concepts and points of view very confusing but he managed to hang onto it, at least in outline.
"Well that explains what you were doing." Rouge began wearily. "But you still haven't told us why Shadow was doing your dirty work." Shadow snorted loudly.
"I do not do anyone's dirty work!" He snapped angrily, narrowing his eyes at her. "I merely owed him a favour."
"I rescued Shadow from an unstable Chaos Control warp." Void carried on. "In return, he agreed to help me in my work." Sonic sat up.
"Well that about covers everything…only what happens now you've revealing Illumina's intentions to all other those angel dudes?" Void suddenly looked thoughtful, as if he hadn't actually thought this far ahead.
"To be honest I don't know." He admitted eventually. "I suppose I'll have to answer for war crimes." Strangely he did not look too concerned when he added that last part, in fact it looked like it was the last thing on his mind. There was a bright flash as the dimension fabric was interrupted and Lumina Flowlight emerged through another of the portholes. She had changed out of her battle outfit into something more free and flowing, hanging around her ankles with a white haze. "That time already?" Void asked looking up, until he finally sighted her. She was even more beautiful than he had counted on. Her soft blue eyes gazed in his with a detached sadness that forced a pit into his stomach.
"Yes." She replied. "Illumina arranged a trail as soon as she got back to Maginary World."
"I had a feeling she would." Void sighed, floating up still with his legs crossed. "This is the first time her plans have ever been stopped; it's natural for her to feel threatened." Lumina involuntarily shuddered.
"Void please. These last few hours has nearly destroyed the faith of our world, I'm still not comfortable with you talking about her like that." Void didn't say anything more about it.
"I'm confused." Sonic admitted with his usual dumbfounded expression on his face. Knuckles sighed, folding his arms.
"Nothing new there."
"Before I go." Void added, holding his some object he was holding towards Sonic. "You might as well have this; I was using it to power my device. I don't need it anymore." Sonic's eyes widened as Void passed him the grey Chaos Emerald gently sparkling with the chaos energy trapped within. "If this world remains as troublesome as it first appeared, you'll be needing it." Before Sonic could ask him what he meant by that both he and Lumina vanished through the porthole and back into Maginary World. There was a short rippling affect and the hole in the dimension fabric disappeared.
Tikal watched them both go. How many times had she seen lives destroyed and ruined by misguided faith? Her own people perished because of their devotion to Krish and Void became hunted by his own people because he fell ill with their deity. Why was religion so often turned into an excuse for violence?
"Don't be so melancholy." Maria's voice told her within the depths of her own mind, speaking across the width of an entire dimension. "Faith in a higher power's not a bad thing; it's just a few bad guys who turn it into an excuse to bash each other's heads in." Tikal sighed and nodded.
"I think I'll be remaining here for a while." She told Maria with her thoughts, keeping their conversation separate for Shadow's sake. "To keep an eye on Shadow." The female Echidna could almost feel Maria's disbelieving smile.
"And I suppose the fact you find him attractive has absolutely nothing to do with your decision." Tikal blushed involuntarily, an awkward smile passing on her lips. "Shadow's the closest thing I have to a brother so I suppose I should object. But if you can get him to so much as crack a smile he's all yours." Then she was gone.
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"Who am I?" Lost in darkness, identity meant nothing and all the consciousness knew was a very still emptiness.
"You are the greatest battle machine to ever exist." Came the reply from the abyss, it's sound echoed off the solid substance, adding a brief outline for the sentience spirit to inhabit. "Created for destruction, out grew its creator and achieving god-hood." It added, the outline becoming more and more distinctive.
"Then…I am a god?" The nothingness asked.
"You where, at one point. But at the height of your glory you fell, the victory stealing the power from you." Into that outline, memories began to spill, a chaotic splash of colour and imagery that spit the stillness in two. Briefly through some clear eyes he saw a blue face with emerald green eyes staring down at it. "Beaten, then infected so you lost perceptive of the world and reduced to a mere tool." More memories flooded in and now the entire form was filled, giving the consciousness an actual body. A body that moved and twitched to the minds bidding. A body of metal.
"What am I now?" It asked; hungry for more identity. The darkness was silent for a moment.
"Reborn." Was the flat reply. "Reborn to achieve that power again." The chaos solidified as finally, like flowing river, a unique perspective was granted.
"I am…." It began, lifting an arm up to its face, seeing the serrated metallic claws that served as fingers. Its semi circular eyes were glowing bright red, the glow reflected on the polish metal surface. "I am…" The body moved forward, the feet forcing the form off a platform of some kind any onto a cold concrete floor, almost clumsily at first as it grew used to the weight the movements were far more fluid. "I am Metal Sonic." Identity restored and power elevated.
It began, lifting an arm up to its face, seeing the serrated metallic claws that served as fingers. Its semi circular eyes were glowing bright red, the glow reflected on the polish metal surface. The body moved forward, the feet forcing the form off a platform of some kind any onto a cold concrete floor, almost clumsily at first as it grew used to the weight the movements were far more fluid. Identity restored and power elevated."Yes, Metal Sonic. Created by Doctor Eggman to destroy his most hated enemy, the speedster. Sonic the Hedgehog." That name, it rang bells. Metal bowed his head, a deep feeling welling up at the mere mention of it .What was it? What is fear? No, not that. What it anger? No, but close.
Then it realized what it was. Hatred. He hated Sonic the Hedgehog. He hated him with a passion. That hate intensified itself, burning like a thousand suns. A fire that could not possibly be extinguished. A hate that was barley containable. As if sensing the aw emotion, the voice spoke again.
"Why disappoint your creator if hate is all you feel for Sonic?" The logic was sound and the emotional backlash intoxicating. Kill him, voices from the darkness whispered to him one after the other. "But wait. He overpowered you once before, why take a chance?" Memories returned in blazing fire and Metal Sonic remembered. Remembered how with the power of the Master Emerald pulsing from his heart, Sonic had still defeated him. Yes, power was what he need. More than he had had before. "The strength you need can be unlocked." How. How could it be unlocked. He must know, he must have the power necessary to kill Sonic the Hedgehog.
"How?" He demanded, finding his own voice. "Tell me how I can kill him!"
He demanded, finding his own voice.(In Chris' voice)
That was confusing but the dangers not over yet! Sonic's about to get a shock, see what happens next time on Sonic X: The New Big Bad Guy! Don't miss it!