A/N: It's the final chapter of the story. It's more of an epilouge than anything else. I'm glad I got this up before Christmas, although with it being less than two hours before midnight, it's more like a Christmas present for the rest of you. Anyway, keep on the look out for my next story, which should appear in a few weeks. It's possible I'll have a preview of it up in my forums in a week or two. Keep your eyes peeled.
Ultra Sonic 21
Final Night
Super Sonic stood tall above Metal Sonic and Silica, his golden light penetrating the entire room.
"Sonic, this isn't over yet!" Eggman yelled before slamming his fest down on the activation button for the Ultima Cannon.
The Ultima Cannon quickly started up and started glowing, but Sonic made no move to try and dodge.
"Sonic, your super form will offer you no protection against this beam! If anything, you should know that the Chaos Emeralds act as a catalyst for your transformation into Ultra Sonic! Prepare to be my slave forever!"
Finally, just as the cannon was about to fire, it exploded. Pieces scattered everywhere, and Super Sonic had to fly in between them and Shadow and Amy to act as a shield to his friends. Some of the pieces even flew up and shattered the window to the observatory holding Eggman. Another piece went over and smashed the case that held the Master Emerald in the middle of the room. Eggman paid no notice however as first and foremost came the thought of what had happened to his machine.
"SONIC! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY ULTIMA CANNON?" Eggman roared from above. The three hedgehogs below all winced from the intensity of the rage in the scientist's voice.
Sonic simply gave a grin as a response before saying, "Tails, you can come out now."
Eggman looked up surprised as he saw one of the panels to a console nearby him suddenly pop open. Out from the machine came Tails, holding a toolbox in one of his hands. Quickly rushing across the room he grabbed the Master Emerald that had rolled into a corner, and then he jumped out of a hole in the window. Twirling his tails as he fell, he made a soft landing before holding out the Master Emerald to the other three.
"TAILS!" Eggman roared again. "HOW DARE YOU SHORT CIRCUIT MY MACHINES?"
"Well guys," Sonic started saying as he turned around, his fur already turning from gold back to blue, "I guess it's finally over." Sonic finished turning and held up the Ultima Emerald to the others. They had recovered everything.
An explosion took that moment to rock the entire ship. A computer voice rang out "Warning! Power Failure! Power Failure! Crash Landing Imminent!"
"Looks like I spoke too soon," Sonic said sarcastically. "Tails, we need a way out of here."
"Just follow me to the Tornado!" Tails called out as the four rushed out of the room, leaving an angry but defeated Eggman.
Meanwhile, in a far off forest...
Knuckles dashed through the forest, around trees and under large roots, smashing whatever rock may unluckily be in his way and swinging on any low hanging vine that came by. Rouge was with him, but up above, using branches like springboards to glide from one to the next as quickly as she could.
"How long do you think until we make it to the ruins of that city?" Rouge called out from above.
"At least a day, unless they suddenly start moving off in our direction" Knuckles responded before taking the chance to swing off another vine and ahead of Rouge.
"This is going to take forever..." Rouge said with a sigh as Knuckles pulled ahead. She landed on another branch and started running across it. Reaching the end she pushed down to get ready to jump, but as the branch pushed back, her heel got stuck for a moment and flung her off balance.
The branch finally let go, but that moment of off-balance sent Rouge upside down and towards the ground, her wings folded underneath her and unable to help more than opening a parachute with you above it.
"Aaah!" Rouge screamed. It seemed like the end to her, and Knuckles by now was another mile away. She could watched as the tree that had snagged her grew taller and taller faster and faster. She started to feel faint. Her eyes slowly closed as the ground grew closer, although she could have sworn there was a flash of red right before she closed her eyes. But it was probably a bird...
The next time she opened her eyes she closed them quickly again from the sunlight. Rolling over a little she looked off to the side and opened her eyes slowly this time, squinting at first as her vision settled slowly. The first thing that she saw was a gigantic waterfall before. She watched as rocks all through it bounced water all around, the drops cascading down wonderfully into a large mist, and the sunlight filtered through the trees at just the right angle and strength to create a large rainbow through it all. It was breathtaking.
That's when Rouge recalled the events that brought her to here. Quickly looking around, she scanned the area. She was alone in a clearing, in the center of it actually, with the trees all arched over as if to cover the area from direct sunlight. Looking down, she saw that she was lying on a bed of leaves. They were of a different kind than the leaves in the clearing, extra soft and of more exotic colors than just green, like red, blue, and orange. Like she was herself lying on a rainbow.
A small rabbit hopped up to her in her daze, and looked nervously towards her. She smiled and held back a giggle as she saw a whole group of them half hiding behind a tree, as their leader appeared to make friends. She offered the rabbit that had come up to her one of the leaves she had been laying on, and the rabbit quickly bit into it. It seemed to be a wonderful delight to him. Immediately a whole swarm of rabbits came across and started eating up all the leaves of Rouge's makeshift bed, and Rouge was forced to open her wings and lift herself up and outside the group of rabbits.
Leaving the rabbits to their meal, Rouge slowly walked towards the large pool of water created by the waterfall. Reaching the edge, she sat down on her knees and reached her hands into the pool for water and washed her face. The water was quite cold and refreshing. After a moment, she reached in for another handful and this time brought it to her lips. It tasted sweet and pure.
She heard the echidna's footsteps long before he reached her. She could now recognize the heavy sound of his metal-laced shoes. She always wondered how they could be so large, and yet have every footstep sound gentle and soft, as if barely touching the ground from the fear of damaging it. She knew then that the forest was where he grew up, and where he most belonged.
Knuckles didn't say a word once he was beside her, but opted to sit down himself before the waterfall. Rouge didn't look at him, but continued looking at the waterfall until a peach blocked her vision. It was being offered by Knuckles.
She accepted the peach by taking it into her hands without a sound. She slowly brought it to her lips and bit softly, savoring the taste of the juice and flesh. Closing her eyes, a soft wind passed by, rustling a few leaves along with her wings. It was perfect.
Knuckles started eating a piece of fruit himself as he looked into the blue of the water, watching as the fish swam in circles all around, their scales glistening from the sun. Another moment of silence passed.
Chirping was heard. Both echidna and bat looked up to see two birds happily chirping their heads off. One was blue and the other was pink, and it was obvious to see that they were together, and happy, flapping all around and in circles around each other. Both Knuckles and Rouge smiled.
"Knuckles..." Rouge said softly. Knuckles didn't move nor make a sound, but continued watching the birds. "Knuckles... about the other day..." The birds finally flew from view, but Knuckles still showed no response. "It was because of Shadow that I did what I did. It was just that... he needed someone he could trust... and Eggman was offering information on his past, you know how desperate Shadow is to find out of his past... If, if I had known what would have happened to Sonic I never would have done... and neither would have Shadow... Shadow was just so alone, and beside himself... You just can't understand what it feels like to be all alone with no knowledge of your past..."
"Don't I?" Knuckles said softly. There wasn't a hint of anger in his voice, but those words hurt more than anything he had ever said to her. Rouge was reminded of just a few days ago, of what he said to her... no... of what he shared with her...
The two both sensed it at the same time. The same energy force that comprised the power of Ultra Sonic, but different. Not only was it not too far off, but it also felt like it was coming this way.
"Time to go." Knuckles said, getting up. He then noticed that in his other hand he held the Night Emerald. It had stayed with him from the ruins without Knuckles' knowledge. It was if the emerald knew that after what happened with Shade he would not have brought it with him willingly. Whatever the reason behind that, he didn't know, but he did know that the emerald had appeared because of the energy source. They were connected, somehow important, that he could sense.
Knuckles and Rouge quickly rushed through the trees, this time Knuckles leading on the ground with Rouge following in his wake. The two followed their senses to the source of the energy until they came across a large canyon, just as the shadow of a large cloud appeared.
"It's not down there." Rouge said as she looked over the edge.
"But it's around here, somewhere. Really close." Knuckles said.
The two looked around but still couldn't see any sign of what would possibly be Ultra Sonic, but nothing could be found.
"Do you think we should go down?" Rouge asked.
"Wait, something doesn't feel right..." Knuckles answered. He kept looking all around, into the forest, into the canyon, on the canyon walls, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary under the shadow of that cloud.
Then again, for a cloud to suddenly pass over the sun, its shadow was lingering for quite a while. In fact, it even seemed like the shadow was getting bigger...
"Knuckles, look up!" Rouge yelled. Knuckles quickly moved his eyes towards the sky as the large hulk of the Egg Port zoomed right past him and Rouge and into the canyon below them.
"That was...sudden..." Knuckles commented.
"Yeah...it was..." Rouge agreed.
"Knuckles, Rouge, up here!" A familiar voice came from above.
Knuckles and Rouge looked up once more to see the Tornado 2 flying above and coming in for a landing with Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Shadow all aboard.
Once the plane landed, everyone ran out to meet and greet each other and catch up on everything that had happened, although Knuckles chose not to mention the incident with Shade.
"So Sonic, where's the Master Emerald?" Knuckles asked.
"I've got it!" Tails answered, handing it over.
"And this is the Ultima Emerald. Knuckles, I think you should look over it." Sonic said, pulling the emerald out.
"Ok then..." Knuckles said before trailing off, as when reached for the emerald, the Night Emerald reappeared in his hand, the hand reaching for the Ultima Emerald. Before he could stop himself, the two emeralds touched each other and then both flashed with a giant flash of light, one pure white and one pure black.
The lights eventually faded away to show two figures standing right in the middle of Sonic and the gang. One was an echidna similar to Knuckles, except his fur was pure white, with a small indent on his chest where Knuckles' crescent moon was. He was also slightly taller, quills slightly longer, showing that he was older, and there was a ferocity to his face that made him look as if he was almost always mad. His eyes shone through the loudest, as they were the only part of his body that wasn't white, instead being a cloudy yet bright gray. His shoes were large and metallic like Knuckles', with a dark gray pin lining surrounding a pattern of white and light gray across the sneakers.
"Is that...?" Shadow whispered to Sonic.
"Yes, that's Ultra." Sonic said, sensing the same kind of power from him that flowed through him while he was Ultra Sonic.
The second figure was a hedgehog in all black, quills long and flowing past the waist, longer than Sonic's, and wearing a large robe that was as thin as a nightgown, but unlike her black fur the robe was a dark purple. It was barely distinguishable from the rest of the hedgehog, but you could still see it there. Her eyes were a dark violet, matching the color of the robe she wore.
"You're Night, aren't you?" Knuckles asked the black hedgehog.
"Yes, I was the one that got rid of my sister Shade for you." Night said to Knuckles. Her voice was soft, strong, and mature. There was a part of her voice that made her sound like someone that could always be trusted. Someone that could do no harm.
"Night! What is going on here! I've been having dreams that I've been a hedgehog. Nothing has made any sense recently." Ultra started yelling. His voice sounded even fiercer than his gaze, it was like an even angrier version of Knuckles when he was mad. "First I sense the Chaos Emeralds, then I become a hedgehog originally named Sonic, suddenly I'm asleep again, and then once again I awaken after sensing the Chaos Emeralds!"
"Calm down Ultra, you had accidentally possessed someone while in your emerald prison and didn't realize it. You caused trouble for this hedgehog, you know." Night said, pointing towards Sonic.
"In that case I apologize," Ultra said, bowing towards Sonic, "but tell me what has happened!" Ultra yelled quickly.
"I'll explain it all to you Ultra, in due time, but first, let me thank you all, and give you a warning."
"A warning, a warning of what?" Sonic said. The group assembled around him as they all watched the mysterious hedgehog and echidna before them.
"You have all done well to recover the emeralds and working together so well, but there will be many more trials for each of you. Especially you, current guardian of the Master Emerald."
"He's a guardian!" Ultra yelled.
"Calm down Ultra! Times have changed. I'll tell you everything once we leave."
"Fine, hurry up then."
"As I was saying, trouble is brewing. You have not seen the last of Shade, or others like her. Be careful. That is all that I can say for now as Ultra and I must go. We shall see each other again, however."
With that, the two entities started glowing, one white and the other black. The two then launched into the sky, and soon were gone in another brilliance of light.
"So...what do you think that was all about?" Amy asked.
"I don't know, except that new adventures are probably around the corner." Sonic said.
The heroes looked around, glad that they had made it through the last few days, but already bracing themselves towards new adventures. They weren't Sonic heroes for nothing, now were they?
"Anyway, Shadow, where are you off to?" Sonic asked.
"My memory is still missing. All I can do is to continue to search for it." Shadow said. Finished, he turned and started to walk away.
"Knuckles, what're you off to?" Sonic asked.
"The appearance of Night, Ultra, and the ruins over the past few days...It appears there's more to my past and I'm going to get to the bottom of it. I'm sorry, but I probably won't be seeing you or the others for a while as I'll be on Angel Island, and it won't be found again anytime soon..." Knuckles said, that last part directed at Rouge. He too then turned and walked off.
Rouge stood left between the black hedgehog and the echidna as they walked off different paths. She looked at each before saying anything.
"Sonic...if you see Knuckles again anytime soon, tell him I'm sorry." With that, she turned and ran after Shadow into the forest.
"I guess it's just the three of us again guys." Sonic said to Amy and Tails.
"It's not like I mind Sonic." Amy said, leaping over and hugging Sonic close.
"How about we get back to the Tornado and head to my workshop?" Tails suggested.
"Great idea, let's go!" Sonic responded.
And with that, our heroes went our separate ways. Until they meet again.
Fin.