(I do not own Sonic X, etc.)

Flip card 2;

Name: Behemoth

Description: Metal Sonic's flagship

It was more then just the threat that made them all work together so flawlessly Cosmo had realized. She could see it in the way they walked, talked and even sat still. She could almost taste it in the air onboard the ship. She could even sense it from that utter grouch Eggman.

Amongst the data Chuck had been able to acquire from the Metal X general Leviathan, included a set of coordinates for the laboratory at which the Machine Federation had been conducted experiments in Chaos Emerald cloning. According to the map Chuck had the Typhoon's master computer constantly calculating, the base lay far to the west beyond the ice, along the coast of a tropical area.

None of them were exactly sure what they'd find there, but they were all pretty sure they'd been facing another of the Metal X generals guarding the place. They'd managed to take two chaos emeralds from each of the two general's they'd already defeated, bringing their grand total up to five, excluding the Master Emerald. This boast of power in the energy chamber had enabled Eggman to repair a lot of the ships systems that had been knocked offline during the fall.

Now, all the engines apart from the ones that enabled the jump drive were up and running and they could engage the holo-camouflage for longer without something burning out

"I can't tell you how good a hot shower feels after a whole day of freezing to death in the snow." Sam remarked, coming onto the bridge still with a towel drying his hair. Now back on the ship, all the Thorndyke's had taken advantage of some of the luxuries on board. Chuck had a proper bandage around his injury and Chris had taken a change of clothes. All of them had stuffed themselves to satisfy their hunger after a day of fasting. Sonic's mind was else ware.

It wasn't on their mission or the impending doom Metal Sonic could bestow on them with an unlimited supply of Chaos Emeralds. He was more concerned for the safety of the others, Okida, Topaz, Bean, Bark, Hare, Tikal and Shadow. Rouge had already informed them that Bean, Bark and Hare had been captured by Metal X. As for Shadow and the other three, none of those onboard had any idea where they were.

Shadow was not someone easy to take alive and if he had escaped Metal X, he would have found a way to get back to the ship by now.

"So what's the centre of Maginaryworld like?" Tails ended up asked as he and Cosmo sat looking out a porthole window. The two of them sat in the kitchen area. The icy Martian landscape lay outside and through that, they could see more of the unexplainable presence of herds of Mammoth.

"The buildings are grown." The green haired girl replied with a short smile. "The people of this dimension build their homes. We grow ours." Tails found the idea of growing a crystal house absolutely fascinating. For hours they sat there discussing the culture of Maginaryworld, and in return Tails told her about his world. Cosmo was amazed to find that the Earth they had left behind was a fused world. That was a rare, in any reality.

"It's happened before?" Tails asked, catching that hint. Comso nodded.

"Occasionally, when two dimensions are so alike they blur and eventually begin to merge into one." Tails sat there silently, contemplating something for a second.

"Maybe Earth and Mobius were meant to join into one; Chaos Control simply sped up the process." So that theory of Chuck's had been correct. Earth and Mobius would have come together on their own eventually, but since Doctor Eggman's machine backfired and fired a massive Chaos Control warp, the energy released acted as a catalyst for the dimensional joining. "How many dimensions have your people seen?" The young fox asked.

"Quite a few." Cosmo replied. "I've never seen them myself, yet the records claim to have reports from over then thousand different worlds." In that instant, Tails was given a brief glimpse at the utter size of reality. Cosmo's people had seen thousands of different cultures and ideas, believes and faiths. Not just across the universe, but from different dimensions as well. Compared to all of that, their fused planet was less than nothing. Even so, Cosmo wanted to know all about it. Tails didn't claim to know absolutely everything about the world, but he tried to answer the girls' questions to the best of his ability.

What interested her most were the multitudes of conflicting cultures and religions present on Earth. She had never heard of a civilisation so divided on itself, and over some of the most trivial things.

"Well that's us for you." Tails stated with a goofy grin.

The air around them rappelled, filled with a blue haze, a door at the far end of the room and then closed again.

"What was that?" Cosmo asked, looking around.

"Ah Sonic's just restless again." Tails replied, leaning on the table. An instant later the door at the far end of the room opened and Amy came in.

"Have you seen…?" She began. Cosmo and Tails just pointed to the open door at the other side.

"He went that way." The two of them said at the same time.

"Oh thanks."

"How does he run that fast?" Cosmo asked as Amy left after the speeding blue hedgehog.

"How does Knuckles punch so hard? How does Shadow throw golden energy bolts?" Tails asked in reply. "And why do I have an extra tail?" He added, gesturing behind him. "Those are just some questions I guess that'll never get answered. Not even Sonic knows now he gets to run so fast. He just runs. Knuckles just throw's strong punches, and I just fly." That caught Cosmo's attention.

"Fly?" She asked. Tails blinked, remembering that Cosmo; being new to their group did not know the ability his second tail gave him. Smiling, he wound his tails around each other and began hovering in the air. The green haired girl just stared in wonder. A few people of her world could fly by mastering energy output, but she had never seen a none winged species do it without aid from technology. Tails reached down to offer her a hand. Cosmo hesitated, before taking it.

Tails gently lifted her up into the air.

"I first learned how to do it when I fell out of a tree." He told her. "Ever since then, it's been as natural to me as walking." The two of them hovered over the room several times, each and every time Cosmo looked stunned and amazed.

"I wish I could fly like this." She remarked. Tails sighed.

"You don't want a second limb." He told her. "It bought me a bit of grief from bigots who thought me a freak." Cosmo just grinned at him.

"Forget them Tails. It's a gift and you were given it for a reason." Tails looked down coyly at her.

"More of that destiny stuffed." She nodded, not catching his near sarcastic tone.

"Sonic can run fast, Knuckles can hit hard and you can fly for a good reason. You'll have to do something and you'll need those gifts to accomplish it I'm sure. Things rarely happen by coincidences."

Suddenly and without warning, the entire ship shook violently. Tails hit his head on the ceiling and the two of them fell to the floor in a big heap.

"What the hell was that?" Eggman demanded. He got his answer as a large shadow passed over the bridge and the form of a giant ship, bearing the icon of the MetalX Machine Federation on the side passed overhead. Following by another, and another, and then another. Within minutes, the Typhoon was surrounded by a small fleet of Metal X ships. A second later, a loud screeching filled the air and souring past all the ships came a metallic beast with colossal wings and a long neck and tail. Standing on the tip of its triangular head was a metal figure, with its arms crossed and blaring yellow eyes staring down at them.

"It's Lancelot!" Knuckles declared, recognising the second general of the Machine Federation from their last meeting, even with the new edition; a pair of dragon like wings to it's back.

"Not only him." Sonic added, rushing onto the bridge. Everyone followed his gaze upwards and let theirmouths hang open as an even bigger ship past by, smaller than the Behemoth but large enough to rival the Blue Typhoon in size. An entire forest of turrets ran down either side of its long sides, under which was the familiar Metal X icon. The ship itself was triangular in shape, with a large back housing colossal engines. The wings were long and the edges were shaped like the feathers on a bird of prey. Standing on the deck watching them in the same menacing manner as Lancelot as another they were all familiar with.

A tall robot with purple, samurai type armour and one large green eye, a scimitar like blade already clad in one hand, the sword gleaming brightly in the sunlight.

"Dark Oak!" Eggman stuttered, staggering back. The most powerful of Metal Sonic's generals, it was he who brought the Blue Typhoon done, and with only one attack. He stood there now as confident as ever, his double cape flapping around his shoulders in the wind.

"If we succeed, Lord Metal Sonic will be angry. We are defying his direct orders as to how Sonic was to be confronted." Lancelot reminded his superior over a com-link. Dark Oak stood looked down at the Blue Typhoon contemptuously.

"He puts too much effort into making these organics suffer; pursing a vendetta and wastes valuable resources in the process." Was his reply, a view shared by many officers within the Federation. "For the good of the Machine Federation, we must kill them now."

"Agreed." Lancelot added with a slightly nod of his head. "Let us destroy them together."

Every ship surrounding the Blue Typhoon opened fire all at once. Eggman barley had the Egg shield back up in time to deflect the laser fire that filled the air. Even so a few lucky shots got through, striking hard against the ship itself. Metal X ships were everywhere, encircling their own vessel like a noose. And that noose got tighter and tighter.

As if squeezing them like a constricting snake, the room the Typhoon had to manoeuvre around the worst of the attack began to lessen.

Lancelot's mechanical Dragon soured around the front of the assault, repeatedly smashing it's whip like tail against the side of the shield, trying to break it open. It almost succeeded, but Eggman managed to adapt the shield for greater durability in time.

This gave Tails the opportunity to get back into control of the weapons systems. The Typhoon's own turrets rose out of their positions and with a satisfying click, the targeting sensors locked onto their targets. Returning fire, the air was thick with laser and missile fire.

Ships began falling out of the sky, but the assault on the Typhoon did not stop. Dark Oak raised his sword high into the air, calling forth more of the chaos energy had endowed in him, his blade sparking with power. Lancelot's Dragon shot into position and reared it's head back, energy sparking between it's teeth as it also prepared to fire.

The combined assault of the two General's attacks was catastrophic. The shield shattered with a earth shattering boom, and the multitude of the firepower concerned by the small fleet passed through.

"Eggman what are you doing?" Chuck asked as he same Eggman take hold of the jump engine controls. There was a short whirring sound and a metal pedestal with a big red button in the centre rose up through a square hole.

"Trust to luck!" He declared, smacking his fat hand down on the red button. Forced online by the last resort program the Doctor has installed, the jump engines almost literally tore a hole open in space and the Blue Typhoon was sucked right through, along with several of the Metal X ships. As soon as the back end of the ship was through, the hole closed and those left outside were hit with a very powerful backlash as the air re-stabilized. Only the ships belonging to Dark oak were left unharmed by the sudden blast. Those destroyed were that of the Machine Federation air force, Lancelot's clan.

"What was that?" Okida asked as the shockwaves that had knocked their ship of course subsidized. On the horizon, a blue glow with the intensity of a second sun

"The jump drive!" Topaz gasped. "They used the jump engines!"

-

Shadow would not wake up. It was as if he had used whatever energy had left to teleport them out of Metal X clutches and now had none left for himself. Tikal sat beside him in the cave their group had taken shelter in It was Hare who first spotted her hiding hole in a cliff wall. Quickly they had gotten undercover as a thundercloud passed overhead and nearly instantly it began raining heavily, forks of lightning zapping across the heavens.

"I never thought I'd be glad to have fur in the middle of summer." Hare remarked, shivering slightly. The small cave wasn't exactly element proof and a good deal of the cold was getting in.

"I don't know what you're complaining about really." Bean remarked, standing at the entrance in the rain, looking up towards the sky. Personally, he loved the rain. He couldn't see what others found so depressing about it. There was something poetic about a thunder storm.

"It's all very well for you." The mobian rabbit told him, shaking his drenched brown fur. "You've got feathers, water rolls of you like…" He hesitated. "Like water of a ducks' back." Hare added with a grin. Bean groaned and slapped the end of his beak. Bark, who sat comfortably warm under a thick layer of fur and fat had said nothing for a while now.

If anything, it was a little hot for him. He'd prowled through frozen wastes before and felt quite content, so a little drizzle was nothing to him. Tikal however, who's fur was too thin to ward off the cold of a downpour sat shivering next to Shadow, hugging her knees.

"Here." Bean began, passing her his woolly hat and scarf. She mouthed a thank you before wrapping them around herself. They had placed Shadow in a sitting position next to her; his head flopped lifelessly against the cave wall. His chest was rising and falling, proving that he was still alive.

Tikal was beginning to worry. Shadow had taken worse beatings than this before and had recovered easily. Something else had to be affecting him other than the effects of the stasis Metal X had put him in to keep him under control.

She placed a hand on his forehead and let her senses radiate down from his finger tips, trying to breech that block of mental ice the black hedgehog had surrounded his soul with. The ice was still there, yet it had thawed slightly around the edges. Perhaps her own doing, but what was coming through the cracks were not what she expected. Thin streams of anguish, bent up rage and frustration followed like rivers out towards her and she could feel them as they were own emotions.

Every negative emotion in existence was flowing to extremes behind that dam and if that was where Shadow had been forced to retreat to while help captive by The Machine Federation, she feared for what it might do to him.

"Shadow…Shadow can you hear me?" She called past the ice, trying to reach them. As if she were seeing it, a faint glimmer of light began to materialize beyond the barrier. It flickered on and off, as if beckoning her to come closer. Tikal hesitated. She knew a lot about Shadow's past, but everything he had every experienced was inside there, growing stagnant and intensified feeling.

Reaching out, she gently brushed with her own mind along that wall.

"MARIA!" The words shot through the being, screamed with emotion so intense Tikal was literally flung away from the unconscious black and red hedgehog. What had coursed through her body then had been like thousands of volts of electricity in its strength, yet comprised of nothing but pure grief. She had never sensed anger and pent up rage that strong, not even from Chaos.

"What was that?" Hare asked, looking back. Tikal put a hand over her face, trying to force the memory of that overwhelming surge out of her head.

"Nothing." She replied. "Just fell over."

He she accomplished anything? Shadow's rage had not degreased as she'd hoped, and now he was trapped inside with it. She had to get to him before his inward rage destroyed him.

Quickly Tikal sat up and placed her hand on Shadow's forehead. This time she was not subtle, she stormed down and crashed into his defences. If a brush with that wall hurt, then a direct clash was enough to make her dreadlocks stand on end. All she was doing was touching the wall, an d she could literally feel the horror beyond it.

"SHADOW!" She screamed into his head as loud as he could. There was no reply, only the sounds of battle emanating from within were the only signs of anything going on in there.

With one last push, she forced her way through and emerged into the projected landscape created by Shadow's own mind.

It was not a pretty picture. It was desolate wasteland, a brown scare place. This was a world where Shadow's thoughts, emotions and desires were manifested in physical form.Down before her across a never ending expanse of plain was a maze, a maze forged out of stone statues. Stone statues of Maria, all depicting some of his most fondest memories. Thundering above were storm clouds. From those Tikal could feel the rage, all the negative emotion Shadow had built up.

Walking through them, Tikal got a first hand glimpse at the events that transpired on the Space Colony, but told from Shadow's point of view. When he had first been created, Shadow had the mental age of an infant. Maria and her grandfather were the only people there who didn't treat him like some sort of experiment. He attached to them, as and his development proceeded he grew very foundof them.

Then the event took place and Tikal couldn't bring herself to look upon those images. It was then the ice wall emerged around him and he'd left nothing in or out since. Apart from quick burst of rage, Shadow had remained completely emotionless.

Looking up, she saw the tallest statue of all towering over them all; a giant rendering of Prof. Gerald Robotnik himself. As tall as a mountain, it made all the others seemed insignificant.

But that wasn't what drew her attention. A soft light was steadily pulsating a little distance to the left of this colossal shape. Hurrying through the statues, she found the source of the light. Growing out of the lifeless dirt was a single white rose, completely out of place amongst the wasteland.

Tikal knew instantly what this meant and she smiled. This flower hadn't been here before. It represented something new, something fresh. Something that had passed through the ice to get here. Only a kind thought, idea or word would have spawned something like that in this place.

She knelt down and gently touched a petal with the tip of her finger. She almost burst out laughing, realizing what had created this thing. It was when she had managed to get him to play tag back when the Icarus crash landed on a deserted island. For the first time in a while, he had had some fun.

She knew what the problem was then, what had been keeping him from healing himself. It wasn't the rage, as she'd thought. That was simply a cover, like the ice, for what lay deep within at the core.

It was worry.

After suffering silently for so long, Shadow had finally found people he might actually call a family. Amy, Tails, Rouge, Cosmo, Knuckles, Cream and even herself. He cared for them all and intense fear was gripping his soul. What would happen if the same thing happened to this new family as it did to his last one? What would he do then?

"There's no need to worry Shadow." She told the flower. "We're not going anywhere."

Without warning, the thunder clouds above intensified and a mocking laughter rang out amongst the bolts of lightning. Tikal looked up in surprise as the lining of the clouds turned green.

"One flower of hope, opposed to an entire storm of anger and despair. You waste your time." A voice, filled with malice announced on the wind.

"You!" Tikal declared, looking up towards the sky of Shadow's mind. "How can you be here?" The disembodied voice seemed amused.

"My reach is longer than you realize, Echidna. The dreams and subconscious thoughts of lower creatures are free for me to traverse." A loud rumbling shook the ground and staring up, Tikal watched a shape solidified before her. A towering dar shape made up of thunder clouds, a well build humanoid figure with bony spikes jutting out along the other edge of the arms and along the shoulders. Horns curved upwards from the top of the head and a pair of insect like pincers lashed out where the mouth should be. Engulfing the body were flames, all a sickly green. "You know what is inevitable."

"Nothing is pre-destined." Tikal replied. "I know your intentions. You'll never succeed."

"Spare me your sermons." The over powering presence told her. "That event will take place and you, and the rest of your kind are going to die."

The over powering presence told her.

Tikal opened her eyes, finally back in the real world. A cold sweat was running down her forehead as her worst fears had been confirmed.

Krish had not be defeated. He was still very much active.

-

Despite everything, The Blue Typhoon had thankfully not crashed when they came hurling out of Eggman hastily activated warp. That wasn't to say that their landing had been perfect either. Presently, the Typhoon lay half submerged in water off the coast of some tropical island. The computer remained online long enough to tell them that they were still on Mars, which was a mixed blessing as it meant they hadn't been shot to some planet on the other side of the universe.

"I have good news and bad news." Eggman remarked, looking up from his work at the console.

"Bad news first." Sonic told him, his arms hanging by his sides. "That way I've something to look forward to."

"While the ship didn't suffer any significant damage, the backlash from the jump drive knocked the engines completely offline. It'll be a while before I can get her back in the air again." Those on the bridge started groaning.

"And good news?" Tails asked. Eggman forged a grin that none of them looked found of. It was the kind of grin they had only ever see him use when he was about to do something particularly nasty.

"The good news is, my calculations were correct when I made the jump We're arrived precisely two miles away from the location we were heading for."

-

(In Chris' voice)

Sonic and the others encounter the Machine Federation's greatest project, cloned Chaos Emeralds! Can they take down this Chaos Emerald production facility, or will the Metal X fleet hunting them put a dent in their plans? Find out what happens next time on Sonic X, The Chaos Emerald Factory! Don't miss it!