As Rouge and Amy ran through the security doors; they heard a rumbling roar of pain, which seemed to shake most of the Colony. The din vaguely resembled the cry of a big cat of some sort.
"What was that?" Amy whimpered.
"That 'shadow' impostor creature?" Rouge suggested. They heard the real Shadow's voice yell something to Sonic, and that sent them running the rest of the way down the tunnel. It ended abruptly, opening out into the huge room beyond. The girls knelt on the edge and stared down.
Sonic, Shadow and Knuckles were dodging balls of lightening, which a creature, apparently housing the main power source in the middle of its back fired at them. It was a gargantuan lizard-like form, red-orange with a dark teal underbelly and markings. It resembled a cross between an iguana and a salamander, and had four stout and stubby legs with webbed toes. As Amy and Rouge watched it thrashing about, attempting to defend itself, they noticed that its feet where malformed and misshapen.
The creature had a large flat head, roughly trapezium shaped with three dark green pipes leading from either side of its mouth and the top of its head, back to the mechanical structure on its back. The visible part of this consisted of a row of metal boxes, piping and wires. In the middle there was a glowing red ball of light. The creature's tail was at least as long as the rest of its body; most of the thrashing was caused by the effort of lashing this appendage at the attackers. It rested in a pool of yellow water, which had splashed everywhere during the struggle. The main block of equipment on its back appeared to be coming loose, and the red light in the middle was dimming.
"Chaos Control!" Shadow yelled, holding his emerald aloft. Blue light flashed all over the creature and it froze. Sonic fired at the creature's mechanical backpack from mid-air, while Knuckles sat astride the creature's tail, hacking at the machinery with his spiked gloves. As Shadow leapt to attack, the blue emerald energies fled and the creature's body curved as it prepared another powerful lash of its tail. Knuckles leapt from his precarious perch and glided to safety, while Shadow's leap sent him crashing into the heart of the machinery as a tiny black spiked ball.
"Shadow!" Sonic wailed, fearing that the creature's mechanics might explode. Everyone covered their ears seconds later, when Shadow struck and the creature screamed as though in agony. The anxious watchers lost sight of Shadow as the creature flailed madly, the light on its back mostly diminished. The creature wailed again and...vanished... It appeared to sink into the pool and disappear without a trace. Shadow was revealed on the far side of the pool, getting painfully to his feet.
"Where'd it go? Amy wondered, loudly. The three below glanced up at her voice.
"Amy! How long have you been up there?" Sonic called up.
"Not long," Rouge replied. Knuckles was peering anxiously into the depths of the pool.
"Where is it?" he grumbled. "It must still be alive because we're still moving."
'Oxygen and gravity levels severely depleted in exterior sectors one through forty-three! Life support in interior areas thirteen through forty-one un-operational. Locking entrances.'
"Shut it!" Sonic snapped irritably in the direction of a flashing red warning light.
"You guys...you guys, you'd better come here right now and see this," said the receiver in Tails' Cyclone. The kitsune sounded terribly afraid.
"Tails? What is it, buddy?" Sonic asked, sounding worried.
"Just...just come to the shuttle bay...NOW," Tails replied, fearfully. "There's a creature...look, just hurry!"
"It's after Tails!" Sonic concluded angrily, already flying up to join Amy and Rouge, without stopping to wonder what the creature could want with a young kitsune whom it'd never met. "Guys, c'm on!"
When he had first reached the shuttle bay, Tails had found the remains of two shuttles, which Robotnik had obviously found first. Still, with the reassuring presence of the purple and green mechanical rings outside, Tails had ventured out optimistically to attempt repairs. By now the best fix-up job he could do with his limited resources was nearly complete. Tails was unsure it would survive re-entering the Mobius's atmosphere, but since Amy had told him about the space transporter being destroyed by Eggman, this would have to do.
Moments before he had called Sonic from up here, the ground under his feet had vibrated violently like an earthquake. From the far end of the runway where the main platform tapered to a point, a long mechanical pole extended and lengthened out into space. Tails had rushed to the tapered point of the runway to watch. With a sticky sliding noise, the head and neck of a lizard had melted out from the end of the pole, dripping with yellow liquid. Tails had starred, horrified for a few moments, watching the creature trashing its head and snapping its jaws at passing meteors before he had called Sonic. They were still headed towards Mobius.
His friends found him on the runway, still staring over at the creature. They joined him. Mobius seemed so near now, they were afraid they were about to crash into it.
"Is that what I think it is?" Tails asked. Of course he had seen a rough sketch of the creature in the files he'd stolen.
"The creature at the power source? Yeah, we were fighting it. We thought it was nearly defeated, but then it disappeared...and showed up out here," said Sonic.
"I think it's trying to keep the Colony moving towards Mobius," said Tails. "At the rate we've moving we'll be...there soon..."
"Then I have to kill it now!" Shadow exclaimed, glaring hatefully at the creature.
"Knuckles...could he please use your Master Emerald?" Tails pleaded. "The Eclipse Cannon worked with the master replacing the seventh...so I hoped it might work for-" Knuckles caught his drift.
"No," he interrupted.
"KNUX!" Sonic shouted, unable to believe the echidna's selfishness. "You really think your duties as Guardian of that gem allow you to stand by and watch a whole planet destroyed on the off chance it might survive? Who are you protecting it for? Have you seen the size of this Colony? If we hit Mobius there won't be anyone left!"
"I...I can't trust him...not with the master, it's much more powerful than a normal emerald," Knuckles said solemnly. Shadow turned his scowling glare to Knuckles, while the others stared at the echidna, with wide frightened eyes.
"I'll go with him then-we can share the power. I'll look after the emerald for you, I swear...Knux...you've got to let us use it. You know you do! Stop wasting time!" Sonic pleaded.
"Sonic...uh...I don't think that's such a good idea..." Tails said nervously. "I think you're still infected by the energies of the fake chaos emerald, and that's what made you sick...and I made the fake to react against the chaos emeralds."
"You'll have to go then," Sonic said to Knuckles. "Since you won't trust Shadow on his own."
"If we don't do something fast we'll enter the Mobius's gravity field, and we'll be pulled in even without the Colony's power," Tails worried. "Knux-" The echidna sighed, admitting defeat. He pulled out his emerald.
"I'm coming with you though," he told Shadow. Tails handed him the emeralds from his tool bag, and Knuckles gathered them together muttering an incantation. He threw the emeralds up and they flashed brightly, charging with power. As he absorbed their power, his fur began to glow as well. Before the spell was complete, he grabbed Shadow's wrist so the glow surrounded him too. The emeralds flashed again, and Shadow's black fur was bleached white, though his red markings remained. The emeralds orbited around the pair, and Knuckles released his grip.
"Don't try to use a single emerald for an attack like you did before, or you'll break the connection and the power will fade. We have to rely on our own strength, but charged with all seven emerald energies, we are stronger and invulnerable to harm...so long as the connection is not broken. Understand?"
"Yeah..." Shadow said, staring curiously at his shimmering white fur.
"We'd better wait for you inside the shuttle," said Tails. "I don't know how much longer the oxygen will last out here.
"Luck, guys. The whole world's counting on yah. Finish this fast," Sonic said to Shadow and Knuckles.
Since the creature had been in control of the Colony, it seemed they'd been travelling faster, somehow. Knuckles attacked the creature from the mechanical pole, which attached it to the Colony, but Shadow leapt onto some of the railing marking the edge of the Colony, and skated across this to reach their target, showing off, but gaining more speed and hitting the creature harder than Knuckles could, all the same. They aimed for the red sphere on the creature's back again, but after the creature had taken several hits the light was only the slightest bit dimmer than before.
"We're taking too long!" Knuckles shouted out to Shadow, who was skating along the railing towards the creature. He leapt and landed in front Knuckles riding on the creature's back. "If it carries on like this any longer we'll enter the Mobius's gravity field, if we haven't already..." Shadow turned to face the Mobius silently. Knuckles stared at him, wondering how he could remain so openly calm.
"There's only one way to finish this fast enough," Shadow said slowly. "The time has come, Maria. Finally you shall have vengeance. The legacy of Gerald Robotnik will blight the world no more." He reached up and ceased the shrunken master emerald.
"NO!" Knuckles screamed at him, but Shadow ignored him.
"Chaos Spear!" he yelled.
The remaining six chaos emeralds fell back onto the runway. Space filled with brilliant white-green light. Knuckles scowled, half shielding his eyes with his paws, but still attempting to see what had happened. The light began to grow increasingly hotter. He panicked, gathered up the emeralds, and ran back towards the runway, hearing the screams of both Shadow and the creature. Looking down at his hands, he saw that his fur and the emeralds were glowing with an emerald green aura, and he could no longer feel the rising heat. The master emerald was floating over his head, enveloping them both in the aura. It was protecting him. Once he had reached the relative safety of the runway, his eyes went wide with horror when turned and saw a blazing fire where Shadow had stood on the creature's neck and initiated the attack. The white-green light surrounded the mechanical pole in a spherical shape, and the metal was beginning to melt with the heat. Without his master emerald protecting him, he would surely be ablaze as well. The creature was dead now, it had to be, but Shadow had sacrificed his own life to defeat it.
Later on, when Knuckles remembered the anger he had felt, watching Shadow grab his emerald, he felt ashamed. Shadow was right; it had been the only way. He had ceased that one chance to have everything he had ever dreamed for, since the day the military came to shut down the Ark. It had been a truly awesome act of selflessness, and Knuckles had been the sole witness, only due to anger and mistrust. But for now, in the present, he simply stood there, sadly watching the fire blaze.
Three giant spears appeared from the centre of the inferno and struck the edge of the runway, breaking off the pole structure. The fire went out as it floated away from the Colony with ripped wires hanging loosely from one end, and the opposite end charred and melted. Knuckles turned his head upwards and gazed in awe at the master emerald, floating majestically above him. Somehow they had switched roles. All his life he had patiently guarded this gem, as his duties as a guardian dictated that he must. But at the instant of his greatest need, the emerald had guarded him. As he gazed at it, he saw it as more than an inanimate object. He saw the gem sacred and cherished by generations of echidnas, which had saved his life.
A soft vibration below his feet interrupted his thoughts. The Colony's power had finally failed; the lights had flicked off almost like someone had tripped a switch. It snapped Knuckles back to reality, and he realised that they were still moving. Of course, the Colony wouldn't stop instantly without power; it would slow down gradually to a stop. But what if it reached the Mobius before it slowed down enough? And it must have entered the Mobius's gravity by now anyway, since the planet seemed so awfully close. Knuckles racked his mind for something to do...it couldn't end like this, not after Shadow's desperate sacrifice. There had to be something!
Ultimately, it was this thought of Shadow that gave him the answer. Knuckles remembered how he had used that 'chaos control' attack to freeze enemies, making them easier to target. With a regular chaos emerald, the effect hadn't been permanent...but the master emerald made 'chaos sphere' far more powerful. Perhaps it could freeze the Colony permanently...
Grasping the emerald, he held it aloft, trying to remember everything Shadow did. Right. He thrust the emerald forwards in the direction of the Colony...but he wasn't doing it right, he could sense it somehow...
"C-chaos control?" he asked, loudly. Nothing happened. He glared at the emerald. He could almost imagine it sniggering. He knew he must look absurd up there, glowing green, dancing around, holding an emerald in the air, and yelling things. No one had seen...only the emeralds...and the stars, of course, twinkling up there like a million eyes winking away tears of laughter. They wouldn't forget a good joke like this for a thousand millennia. Knuckles scowled at them. He was embarrassed and angry. And that made him more determined to do it right this time, more than ever. He leapt back into stance, and thrust the emerald forward as though he really meant it.
"CHAOS CONTROL!" he bellowed. The emerald appeared to erupt in green light. The flash spread over the Colony with a liquid like quality. It seeped smoothly from the emerald almost as though it were bleeding. It flowed with a smooth but urgent pace, coating every part of the space Colony, welding it into a timeless halt in space. The glow remained, even after the light had winked out of the emerald. It lay in his paws now, instead of floating like before. 'It's exhausted' Knuckles thought, even though the idea sounded absurd. It wasn't tired; it had simply used up what power it had to spare for now. Knuckles noticed he was still glowing like the Colony. It had saved something it needed to help him. He cradled it in his paws, surveying the scene. They had stopped...though he hadn't doubted that they had. The Colony seemed somehow peaceful now. Its power was gone, but it rested, bathing in a gentle green glow. It was safe. The world was safe. It was over at last. Knuckles headed for the shuttle.
