Ultra Sonic 11

Tiresome Aftermath

The first thing Knuckles noticed was that it was raining. It was a very light rain, but rain none-the-less. His eyes, still heavy, wouldn't open, so instead he started to remember what had happened to close them in the first place. Soon flashes of the fight with Ultra Sonic flashed through his head. He then remembered the large explosion that had taken place before everything went black.

The second thing Knuckles noticed was that although it was raining, he wasn't getting wet.

Finally gaining the strength to open his eyes, Knuckles first saw a wooden roof. Looking around, he saw he was in Tails' workshop. Amy was there, looking out the window, while Tails was in a corner, working on his Tornado. It looked like it had gotten beaten up pretty bad from the explosion. It was a wonder to Knuckles how Tails had gotten it to get them all here.

Knuckles also realized that there were bandages here and there on the two of them. Looking down at himself, he could see he had more than the other two combined.

The sound of Knuckles' quills moving as he looked around alerted Amy and she looked towards him. "Knuckles! You're awake!" She exclaimed, rushing over to his side. Tails continued working without even a flinch.

"Amy...what happened after...?" Knuckles slowly asked. He then realized how incredibly weak he felt.

"After the explosion...?" Amy asked. Knuckles slowly nodded. "Well, Tails was the first one of us to wake up. The first thing he did was get the Tornado II into some form of functioning and pile the two of us into it, and then he got it to drive us all the way here. On the way here I woke up."

"What about...Sonic?" Knuckles asked weakly. He noticed that the mentioning of Sonic caused Tails to slightly flinch, but he continued working as if nothing happened.

"Oh...Tails said that when he woke up, Sonic was gone, along with Shadow and Rouge. There was no sight of anything for miles, and nearly everything appeared to have been flattened, except for a rock or slab that had covered each of us."

Knuckles found himself looking towards Tails. He was curious to why he wouldn't speak.

"What's wrong with him...?" Knuckles said in a low whisper only Amy could hear.

Before responding, Amy looked over towards Tails herself. "It's from Sonic. He's blaming himself for what happened, for letting Sonic go in alone. He kept saying the whole way here that he had a bad feeling, but didn't mention anything and ignored it. Now it's too late and he's blaming himself completely."

Knuckles felt a pang of guilt. He knew how much Tails cared for Sonic. They were best friends. Looking over towards Amy once more, he noticed sadness in her eyes too. She cared for Sonic just as much as Tails. To see him fight so viciously against his very friends must have been hard for them to watch.

Knuckles turned again and looked back up at the ceiling in order to think. He had to figure out what had happened, but he already had a fearful hunch. While fighting Ultra Sonic he felt more than just the Chaos Emeralds within him, but also the power of the Master Emerald. Along with that, it was as if the very essence of Chaos, the same beast that they had all fought before during the incident at Station Square, was within Sonic as well.

Continuing to think about what to do brought nothing to Knuckles' mind, and soon his fatigue from the battle came back and slowly pulled him off to sleep once more.

Amy, seeing the echidna before her fall back to sleep, got up and went back to her seat by the window. And once more the scene within Tails' workshop returned to just how it was five minutes ago.

Eggman sat by his computer, contemplating the turn of events. Ultra Sonic was surprisingly devastating, but now he had to figure what to do next.

Around him thunder could be heard as his ship flew through a passing thunderstorm.

His largest obstacle was the fact that when he came back, everyone was gone, including Sonic. Without Sonic, he could not fully harness the power of the Ultima Emerald. He wasn't about to try hooking up any of his machines to it, because he knew that the amount of energy that would be taken could cause even his entire ship to explode.

So now, he had to find Sonic, wherever he had gone, and then figure out where he should attack next.

But whatever he did, finding was his major concern, and therefore, his top priority.

"Metal Sonic, Silica, report here at once." Eggman said into an intercom.

Minutes later the two robots appeared before their creator.

"I want the two of you to try and find Sonic again, and use whatever means necessary to bring him back here. I need him in order for my plan to work. Do you understand?"

"Yes, doctor." Both robots answered at once.

"Ok then, now go." The two robots turned and soon left at once.

Soon Sonic shall be in his grasp once more.

"Well, uh, I learned my lesson from last time, remember? Anyway, you never showed me how to make the Master Emerald smaller before." Rouge asked.

"That's easy, you just touch it and ask it to become smaller." Knuckles answered.

"Ask it? You talk as if that thing is a living thing."

"In a way, it is actually. The Master Emerald has to be I guess, as it controls so much power, and balances the power of the Chaos Emeralds. Well, at least that's what I think..."

Rouge's eyes snapped wide open all of a sudden. Looking around, she soon realized that she was being carried over somebody's shoulder. Her first thought was that somebody was kidnapping her.

"Hey! Idiot that decided to pick me up, let me go now! I demand to be put down!" Rouge yelled in anger.

"As you wish." Came the cool voice of Shadow. The next thing Rouge knew her face was rushing towards the ground before it inevitably collided, and she soon flipped over to see Shadow walking away as if he had just dropped a bag of trash.

"So you're just going to leave me here to die?" Rouge asked angrily at the turned hedgehog.

"You're the one that wanted to be put down. So I figure you can walk, can't you?"

Rouge kept herself from yelling some form of obscenity as she quickly stood up to go after Shadow. As soon as she was standing straight on her two feet, however, she nearly fell right over. She felt incredibly weak and one of her legs was hurt so she couldn't put too much wait on it. Oh, and all over she felt like crap.

Slowly limping over towards Shadow as fast as she could, she noticed two things. First, Shadow, in all his ultimate life form glory, was limping too. Second, over Shadow's other shoulder lay Sonic the Hedgehog.

Rouge's mind then flashed with images from the fight she had mere hours ago. The main thoughts that constantly crossed her mind were that of the power of Ultra Sonic and how easily he was able to take on the three of them, despite the few good hits they got on him.

"What are you doing carrying him? Don't you realize that he could possibly transform and kill us all any minute!" Rouge yelled at Shadow.

"He won't." Shadow said without emotion.

"And how are you so sure about that?" Rouge asked incredulously

"Because whatever beam Eggman fired at him before the explosion was created to take away the chaos power. So now Eggman has that power within his grasp, and as long as we keep Sonic away from him, Eggman won't be able to transform him."

Rouge angrily gave up her argument and caught up to Shadow as quickly as she could. "So where are we going now?"

"A safe house. I remember finding it during our last adventure. We can use it to hide out and read whatever data you have on your disk on whatever Eggman found to be able to do this."

Rouge had nearly forgotten about the disk. Quickly checking her pocket, she could see that the disk was still there, along with another one. The second disk, she remembered, contained data on Shadow.

Looking from the disk to the hedgehog, Rouge realized that Shadow couldn't have forgotten about it. Which meant that he was putting Sonic's current situation over his own.

How these people could put so much trust into that blue hedgehog, Rouge could only wonder. Her own lifestyle had taught her not to trust other people as much as she could help it. There had been two people she found she could fully trust at this point in her life, and one of them was Shadow.

Continuing to walk, they soon found the safe house that they had been looking for and quickly decided to rest, at least for the night. A storm was passing over soon and Rouge could hear the drops begin to fall as she finally doze off...

"In a way, it is actually. The Master Emerald has to be I guess, as it controls so much power, and balances the power of the Chaos Emeralds. Well, at least that's what I think."

"I see..." Rouge said, starting to walk back up the stairs. Knuckles followed her. The two found themselves at the top of the shrine, once again looking at the Master Emerald.

"The view of up here is great you know. I can never get tired of it." Knuckles said, looking around.

"Huh?" Rouge asked. She had been staring at the emerald the whole time.

"From up here, you can almost see the entire island."

"Oh." Rouge said, turning to see what he meant. She found herself speechless as she looked around. The golden sand radiated from the desert, followed by the greens of a magical looking forest with mushrooms for trees. Next to that you could see the snow capped mountains, and then another area of ruins which tiny figures of echidnas could be seen.

A light wind soon came and rustled Knuckles' spines. Rouge thought about how the whole place seemed perfect and full of magic. It was a wonderful feeling, the kind she got whenever a beautiful jewel fell into her possession. That's when she felt a light touch on her hand, and realized that it was Knuckles'. She slowly grabbed it with her own hand and then couldn't help but lean on his shoulder as the two watched the sight.