To clear up a few things, I did not take the name Cynaclon from a Japanese anime show, I pulled it out of the air, SO STOP E-MAILING ME! And since more information has come into the light about this alien race, I'll follow and change it to The Black Arms.

Chris belongs to chaogirl, but I'm going to drop the tmnt relation for this story, sorry.

The Writing's On the Wall

Chapter 5: Familiar Places and Faces

----------

When I came to, I was still feeling extremely weak. I felt a lot of air blowing through my hair. Looking down, all I could see was a pair of blurred feet. I passed out again.

----------

'How's he doing?' Asked a voice.

'Not well.' Said another, this one was sounding concerned. 'Like Rouge said, he's lost a lot of blood due to the gunshot.'

'Small contusion, scrapes and a torn muscle.' Said a new voice

I opened my eyes.

We weren't in the same base as we had before; this one looked more like a modern hospital than anything. I then remembered the voice and looked up; I couldn't believe my eyes.

'T… Turbo?'

'You better believe it.' He said.

Even though his voice was nothing like I had imagined it, he was otherwise exactly like I had imagined him. A six-foot tall fox, he looked exactly like Tails, with wings coming out of his back. He was tossing up and down the purple Chaos Emerald.

'How ya doing Prower?' He asked.

'Brilliant.' I said. 'I just lost half my weight in blood, can't complain.' I attempted to sit up, but again, Tails was weighing me down.

'Would you please get off?'

'Nope.' He said. He seemed to be enjoying the up and down ride of my breathing.

'You seem to like cheating death.' Said Knuckles. 'You almost died there.'

'How did you get here?' I asked Turbo Tails.

'I came here with the others.' He said. There were traces of surprise in his face. 'I've known these guys for a while.'

'Ever since I created you anyway.' I muttered to myself.

There was a pause, before…

'Nice legs Prower.' Said another voice.

'I looked around and saw Rouge and Amy enter the room. Rouge was in a wheelchair and her leg was wrapped in a cast.

'What? I…'

I looked down to see that I was completely naked other than a thin sheet that covered me.

'What the hell happened to my clothes?'

The men were looking a little surprised. Evidently, clothes had not been a big issue for them. Only the girls looked understanding as Amy went off to find my clothes so we could continue.

'So what happened?' I asked.

'We have information that Eggman's 18th precinct is receiving information from the Black Arms. Some shit about peace and joining forces.' Knuckles sat down on the bed beside me.

'When do we leave?' I asked. I had always looked for more excitement in my life. Now that I knew I was going to be okay, I thought this was a great chance.

'Well, WE leave at 9.'

'What do you mean WE?'

'Your not coming.' Said Turbo. 'Your safety is the most important mission here.' He got on his knees to look at me, eye-to-eye. 'We found out that you might be the key to this war and if Eggman gets you, he could win this war.'

'Damnit! For the last time! It's not supposed to be me, it's Shadow! And to do what anyway?'

'It's a specific trait in someone's soul that allows us to tap into the Chaos Emeralds.'

'That's also something we want you to do.' Said Amy. 'Practice.'

'Practice?' I never really liked to practice anything.

'Yes.' Said Tails. 'We'd better get going guys.' He checked his watch. 'It's 8:20.'

'You're not just going to leave me here?'

'Just watch us.' Said Rouge.

They all left.

Practice? They wanted me to practice Chaos Control? Who did they think I was? Apparently someone they though could solve this war. I looked around and grabbed my clothes. It was 8:48 by the time I was finished getting my clothes on judging by the clock on the wall. It was hard due to the fact that I couldn't get up or move my leg too much. I saw yet another familiar glow from my bedside table. The red Chaos Emerald was sitting there. I took the emerald and began to examine it. Now that I looked at it properly, I could finally appreciate how beautiful it was. Flawless.

I was beginning to loose hope in my mission when I glanced to the window right beside my bed, sitting there on the outside window was…

'Hey!'

The figure fell off the window to the ground. I propped myself up and opened the window. The shadowy figure with incredible agility; jumped up the two stories and flipped through the window.

'Who the hell are you? Where you spying on me?'

He, or she, was wearing all black clothing and a veil over its face, I tried to look at… it, properly, it would shift around, trying to keep its face concealed.

It moved towards the end of my bed and placed its hand on my leg. I could feel a fast tingling seeping up my leg. After about a minute, it released its hand.

I spun my legs off the right side of the bad to the floor; I gingerly put some weight on my leg, and found that the pain had disappeared.

'Thanks.' I said as I looked up. 'I was beginning to think…'

The person was gone. I saw the door slam at the end of the ward. I quickly got up and ran out into the hall.

'Hey! Wait up! Who are you?'

The person dived out the window and took off into the night. I ran to the window, from what I could see, it might as well be some coal miners in a blackout, I couldn't see beyond the ground beneath the window.

'Ooookay… Strange.' I looked down at my leg. I jumped up and down a few times on it, just to make sure that it was mended.

Now, to get to the precinct. I thought of using Chaos Control to warp there. I was about to do so when I thought that if I was to suddenly warp into a heavily guarded institution, was like painting a giant bull's-eye on my apparently valuable ass.

This place most definitely was a hospital of some type. More wards branched off to the left and right. The ground had begun to shake as I slipped out the front door and looked around.

This place… I searched around in my memory for something to remind me what this place was… I remembered searching the web, and I came up with this picture… Westopolis. It was exactly the same as in the picture, an extremely large city, but, it was under attack, huge lasers were being unleashed from clouds above, and I could hear gunshot echoing in the jet-black darkness.

I searched around the grounds of this hospital and I saw the Tornado.

'If Tails is really smart.' I thought as a studied the hull of the plane. 'He'd put a secret compartment here somewhere.' I pressed down on a portion of the plane and it sprang up, revealing a small stash of weapons. I helped myself to a few of Tails' new inventions. A Walter, a gun with the word MKII printed on the side, a few small bead objects, and an odd looking staff which shrunk with the press of a button.

I was still looking about the compartment to see if I had missed any weapons when I felt a large heat on my back. Looking up, I could see a storm cloud forming, a rumble of thunder and a massive light. It had taken my by surprise so I had no time to react, I closed my eyes and braced for the impact of the laser.

I felt a rushing sensation and a boom, I thought I was dead. I opened my eyes to see that I was safe, on the ground next to the doors of the hospital. I looked around to see what had happened and my eyes lay upon the wreckage of the Tornado.

A black figure zoomed past my gaze; I looked around in surprise and saw that black figure zooming off towards the city. Otherwise having nothing else to do, I gave chase.

As I ran across the dewy grass in the park across the street from the hospital, I looked up at the skyscrapers, many of them had large chunks taken out of them, and others were completely demolished. All of a sudden, I heard that noise again, and instinctively, I changed directions just in time to miss being hit by another laser. My heart was pumping like crazy as I sprinted down the street and the stitch in my side was hurting like a bitch, this street looked like it had just been through World War III, discarded weapons were laying on the ground like someone's twisted idea of confetti, bodies lay here and there. Men and women in uniforms with the words GUN sewn onto their vests. Not just dead humans were here too; I also saw the bodies of strange creatures who were definitely a part of The Black Arms.

I scanned the horizon and I spotted the black figure running around a corner 50 yards ahead. When I rounded the corner, I came face-to-face with a large panicked crowd of civilians, I jumped left and right to avoid being trampled by this mob. When they dispersed, I could finally see what they were running from: a large, fat, winged… thing, was hovering down at the end of the long street. And just below it, two small figures appeared to be fighting it, one black, one blue.

I began to run, and as I did, a trio of Flying Dogs soared over my head and I had to cover my ears to block out the piercing screech of the engines. One by one, the Flying Dogs crashed to the ground as this thing swiped at them. Sonic ran up front to confront the creature and Shadow snuck around the back, I could plainly see that Sonic was distracting the creature and Shadow was up to something. After about a minute, the creature gave out a horrible shriek as if fell to the ground, Shadow stood over it's body, holding a rocket launcher, he had apparently hit a glowing boil n the creatures back which was probably its weak spot. Shadow helped Sonic off the ground and they ran off. I finally reached the creatures body; I crawled on top of it to have a better look at its weak spot. It looked like some sort of nerve center, I pushed down hard on it and its limbs began to shake. And as I did so, people were starting to emerge from buildings to my left and right.

'Hey kid, did you do this?' Asked a man, awestruck.

'No.' I said. If this thing was still alive, I had to get everyone out of here and fast.

'Whoa, this guy's packin!' Shouted another.

'What?' I looked down at my hands; I was holding my MKII for protection.

'Holy shit, how'd you take down something 15 stories high?' A freckled teenage boy of 17 asked.

'I didn't it was…' I scanned the deep crimson horizon but Sonic and Shadow were nowhere to be found. 'Listen, we've got to get out of here.'

'Why? This thing's dead.'

The crowd began to cheer.

'No! It's not! It's just…!'

But no one would listen. I looked about desperately for something to clear the crowd as the creature below my feet began to shake more violently. I searched my pockets and pulled out my finds from the Tornado. I paused as I ran my hands over the small bead objects, taking a handful; I hurled them into the crowd. Small explosions emitted seconds after they hit the ground and a dark grey smoke began to hover over the crowd as they coughed and scattered. I jumped off the creature and began to run in the direction I had seen Sonic and Shadow take off. I looked back once I had run a block; the crowd was gone from sight. I turned to keep running when I heard a tremendous earsplitting roar from behind me, I looked back again dreading the sight, the creature had taken flight again, and, since I was the only one around, it began to chase me.

I ran and weaved through the maze of streets, having no idea where I was going. I was getting really tired. When I was running down another derelict sidewalk, I ran past an alley and something pulled me in and covered my mouth forcibly.

'Hey! What do you think your…?' I started before the shadowed figure covered my mouth again.

'Look, If you want to, I can let you go get killed by that mutated son of a bitch.' Said the figure, it was still shrouded in the alley's darkness. It finally let go of my mouth and stepped back into the light. It was that strange person in black who had healed my leg and led me here. Its face was still covered so I couldn't tell if they were male or female. The voice didn't distinguish it either; it was an un-normally low voice for a human.

'But if you want to live.' It continued, he, or she walked to the other end of the alley and waited for me to follow. 'Lead it down that street.' It pointed down the street, I squinted, but I couldn't make out the other end, I sort of disappeared over a grayish horizon. 'Find the canyon and when you reach a tall stone wall at the end, sit and wait at the base. And the most important thing: don't move from there.'

'But that thing's gonna kill…'

'I said don't move.'

And without a word, there was a loud crack, and the figure vanished.

I stood there and wondered what I should do, I had already left the safety of the hospital, and so it looked like this was my only option.

I poked my head out of the alley; I didn't see the creature anywhere. But as soon as I put one foot on the street, I heard a great crashing sound and the creature came tearing around the corner. I broke into a run down the street in the direction the figure had indicated. Even though the creature could fly, it was so fat, I could outrun it fairly easily. I kept running down the street, occasionally looking over my shoulder to make sure it was still following me. After a quarter of an hour, I could see a distinct change in the size of the buildings, they were getting smaller, and the open areas more numerous. The building's soon disappeared and gave way to that all too familiar desert landscape. It was Glyphic Canyon, the desert ruin landscape I had first seen when I first came to this strange and new world. I didn't dare stop running for the fear that that thing was going to catch up with me. After another few minutes, I ran down a narrow canyon, it looked just wide enough for that creature to fit, but canyon parameters were the last thing on my mind. After a little while longer, I hit a dead end. Damn, If I knew this was going to happen, why didn't a take a detour? I spun 180 and watched as the creature bounded forwards, the closer and closer it can, I could feel the wind it was generating in its wake. By the time it was within 100 feet of me, I had collapsed to the ground both in terror and exhaustion due to over half an hour of non-stop running. I closed my eyes and prepared for the worst as the creature drew closer.

'Alex.' Came a voice.

'What?' I opened my eyes; it was the same voice as that black figure I had seen in Westopolis.

'Quick, roll under the creature and wait for my signal.'

It took me a few moments to realize that these words were not being spoken out loud, but in my head.

I didn't hesitate, as soon as the creature towered over me and opened its mouth, I stood up, ran and rolled under its body and squeezed through to the other side. The creature looked about dumbly as if wondering who had taken its lunch money.

'DUCK!' Came that same voice from behind me.

I quickly ducked as several boulders when zooming over my head; they hit the creature one by one. It stumbled about and it fell flat on its face against the wall, buried in boulders

'Aim for its weak spot!' Shouted the voice again. I looked up and back to see who had shouted. Once again, it was that black figure; it was standing on one side of the cliff above. It had its arms thrown out as if it was trying to hold something back. I just stood there for a few moments looking at the sight of the creature on the ground, and the figure above.

'WHAT? YOU THINK I CAN KEEP THIS UP ALL DAY CAN YOU? SHOOT IT!' Shouted the figure again, it seemed to be straining as if something was trying to push it back.

I looked back at the unconscious creature on the ground, except that it was not unconscious anymore. If was trying to free itself from under the boulders. I pulled out my MKII from its leg holster and took aim at the same boil on the creature's back. Energy surged all over the gun and it emitted a large ball of energy from its tip, I was not ready for the recoil so I was blown off my feet onto the grey dust of the canyon floor. The energy blast flew towards the creature and hit its target on the nose. The boil burst in a brilliant flash of red light and the creature slumped to the ground under the boulders, finally dead.

I lowered my weapon and looked down at it, I could have never imagined that one of Tails inventions could pack such a punch.

'Nice job Prower.' Came the same voice.

I looked up; the figure was standing on the cliff's edge 50 feet above. With even more incredible agility, it jumped gracefully down into the canyon where I was standing.

'You sure know your way around a weapon.' It said. And, seeing the look of curiosity on my face, it pulled down the veil that covered its face. It was certainly not who I was expecting, a young looking girl of 13 stood before me. 'I'm Chris.' She said. 'Let's say we go find your friends?'