Blaze did not like this world, that was apparent from the moment she had first set foot in it. The air was stale with the emissions from countless factories and automobiles, the water stung her mouth with the taste of metallic zinc and the noise produced by their revolting cities was deafening. But what upset her the most, what really got her anger ablaze was the fact that without this heretical pollution this world was a damn sight more beautiful than her own.
Her own sun was a dying red giant while that of the Apes still had at least a billion years left in it. Her world strained to shrug off the pestilence of the Dragon Blood while theirs remained untouched. Her world was dead, while theirs was still very much alive; and they way they treated it sickened her.
Sitting in a state of torpor Blaze meditated by herself away from the rest of the pack, his arms and legs crossed in front of her. She sat quietly on the end of a support beam that jutted out from the wall of the half collapsed warehouse on the outside of Central City they had taken up as their temporary nest. The felines numbered ten in all, a pitiful third of what she had wanted to take with her, but lacked the strength necessary. Dimensional realm travel was not an easy thing to do, for any mage. It required immense concentration and energy and with the Arcanum lost to them, her own magic had not been enough. They gave her some space, sitting on the ground floor from distance away; keeping out of the light cast in from the hole in the roof. Some was cleaning their blades while others had taken to resting to converse their strength. They were all silent, but the mood was very stale as not many of them had eaten in some time.
Her trance was disturbed by the return of her first officer, a loud thud spreading across the sky playing testament to his sudden presence. Slowly Blaze opened her eyes before standing up. Racing across the collapsed ruins of the warehouse was a large bulky form that moved with immense acrobatic grace despite the mass. It stopped a short distance away on the ground floor, heaved the large bundle it was carrying over it's shoulders up and dumped it onto the floor. The smell of blood was thick in the air instantly and at once his bundle was surrounded by feline warriors. None of them had fed for two days and the contribution of a successful hunt was welcome.
Silently Blaze slid down to the ground and approached as the kill was torn up into shares. The prey was an animal she was unfamiliar with, short and fluffy with white wool all over it's body.
Jack her first officer licked the blood off his claws before bowing in the presence of his commanding general. He was larger than the rest of them as could be expected from his breed. His fur was mostly white with big fat patches of raven black directly over the top of his head, down his back and his tail. What set him apart mostly from the rest of them were his eyes, one of them a brilliant gold and the other sea blue.
"What creature is this?" She asked sniffing at it as the hot flesh went it's separate ways.
"The apes breed them in the farmland to the north for the meat, fur and sometimes their milk." Jack replied. "They call them sheep."
"Breeding pray?" She pondered out load helping herself to her share of the kill. "No hunting? What a dull concept." The fresh meat was a welcome change from what they'd been forced to scavenge over the last month. The cooked food the Apes forced down their throats had had all the flavour bled out of it and was pumped full of chemicals and other poisons to try and improve it. This meat was as nature intended. Soft, dripping with blood and warm to the touch.
"Any news?" Jack asked giving the red jewel on her forehead a glance. Blaze angrily tore off a hunk of meat from the carcass with her canines and chewed it nosily. "I'll take that as a no." With a flick of her head Blaze tossed another hunk of meat into the air and snapped at it, severing it in half with her sharp teeth and swallowing it whole.
"Nothing for a day now." She replied standing up, wiping the blood off her fur with the back of her sleeve.
"They could have gone to silent running to conserve energy." Jack pondered out load. By now their comrades had torn the carcass to a near skeletal state, a few hunks of fat left on the bones.
"Perhaps." Blaze replied. "Or maybe the energy drain has gotten so low they can't contact us anymore."
"Only one way to find out." He stated. Blaze had considered it during meditation. The stone could be used for any number of things, location, transportation even long range communication but it's energy supply was limited when separated from the Arcanum. The stone was only to be used to aid them in their quest.
"No." She stated. "We find the Arcanum first, then we call." As the dominate female what she said went.
"As you wish." Jack replied turning away. "And when we find it?"
"What I said from the beginning." Blaze sighed, her face suddenly adopting a very serious expression. "We kill the one who has it."
-
Since the first Eggman Empire robot set foot on Earth, the Government's military put acquiring advanced technology for themselves as a top priority. All current military robotics systems were the product of that endeavour. Mechs, guard robots and even Giant Wing itself had all been made possible by salvage operations made to retrieve advanced hardware.
Yet despite this their possible greatest prize, the Battle station Armageddon, had been vaporised before it could be studied. Hexagon officials were very put out about that, but even so it hadn't been a total lose. Rare fragments of the Station had survived the explosion and the fall through the atmosphere to land in various locations around the globe.
Studies of the salvage had already given Hexagon revolutionary Nano-technology. It was still a long way from perfection but once controllable it would bring about a second renaissance in the medical industries perhaps even the cures of diseases once thought terminal. But that was going to stay in the lab for a good while. No point in getting the public exited or alert rival companies. All useful technology would be used in the military until further notice, at least that was the order from the board of directors.
But all that was nothing compared to the secret they uncovered from a hunk of the battle station they hauled out of the red sea about three months ago. Technology unlike anything they'd ever seen.
President Jones, who also happened to be one of Hexagon's top board of directors, was the first to disembark from the chopper as it landed on the landing pad on the far end of Area 99's runway. His face was a pit of darkness as he walked for he was here to find out exactly why about two hours ago a level ten alert had been triggered on a base that was not supposed to need one.
After the Eggman Empire attacked the G.U.N headquarters, power had been divided into several places to prevent G.U.N's head from being cut off completely. The flying fortress Giant Wing, the White House and here. But this was also where they kept the various artefacts and objects they felt too precious for the public to be allowed to know about.
"What went wrong?" The President asked as the general in charge of the base greeted him and his escorting soldiers.
"We still don't know sir." The General admitted, showing them through an entrance into the base interior. Two robot Laser Hunter guards stood to attention on either side, saluting as they passed. "The infestation occurred so quickly we had to seal the blast doors to keep it inside. We have the entire area quarantined behind three teen foot thick sheets of metal. Not even air molecules are getting in or out."
"And that leaves an entire three floors between us and leap gate." The President snarled angrily. "This is a completely unacceptable situation. Are you still keeping watch with the security cameras?" He asked as they marched into a control room. The terminals around the outer edge were all occupied by men in white coats, all talking to each other in a never ending murmur of frightened conversation. Screens varying in size huge around the walls. They were all buzzing with static.
"Well we where, but one by one the cameras were destroyed from the inside." The general replied. "By what we don't know, but we managed to catch something on film." He gestured to one of the technicians. "Play the 9-5-0 footage." There was a faint buzzing and on the large main screen the last moments of film captured by a security camera rolled. It showed something of considerable size scrapping down a corridor. A colossal pair of wings on either side trying to flap but the room was restricting it. The beast barley seemed small enough to squeeze through the corridor. A screech escaped a mouth on the end of a long scaly neck before something lashed out and struck the camera. It was then the footage ended.
"What in the name of all that is holy was that?" The President demanded with his face slowly turning white.
"We don't know." The general replied after a moment of uncertain silence.
"You don't know?" Jones repeated fixing the general a glare. "You have the entire lab section of your base infested with unknown life forms and you don't even know what the hell they are?"
"Yes sir." Silence endured for a moment longer.
"There aren't any words in the English language to tell you how god damn unacceptable that is." The president nearly shouted. "Is any part of the lab operational from the outside?"
"Only the emergency lock down system." The general replied. "And we can't release that, not without breaking the quarantine and releasing whatever the hell those things are."
"Leap gate must be retaken at all costs." That was not statement or a suggestion, that was an order. "Creatures or not, having it out of reach is out of the question. You have princely twenty four hours to come up with a practical solution or I'm sending in the Creeper Mechs."
"Creepers?" The General nearly gagged on his repeat. "Sir with respect that'll be a complete disaster!"
"They passed the latest screening tests, and frankly this utter fiasco is the perfect time to test them." The President jabbed a finger at him. "Twenty four hours, and then I send the Mech's in. In the meantime, I don't want a single member of the public to know about this little breech of security. Level ten information lock down. Is that clear?" The general silenced a cursing reply just as it was about to escape his throat.
"Yes sir." He replied after a brief hostile silence.
-
Sun, surf and sand. Vector's three new favourite words. So far his vacation had lasted sixth months with no signs of ending. Espio of course had voiced concerns about exactly when they were planning to go back to work, but for the moment at least most of the agency were ignoring him. They were all having too much fun.
Sprawled out on a deck chair on a half deserted beach Vector had lain their for hours simply letting his cold blood absorb the heat. This environment was naturally much better for a lizard. Hot in the mornings and cool in the evenings, just what the doctor ordered. This vacation had been long overdo. Of course the warm bloods on the agency, Rei and Beck for instance found the place so sweltering they had taken to swimming every day just to keep their body temperature down. By now they knew the islands like the back of their hands and had even started giving tours around in a boat to make a few ends meet. Vanilla, Cream and their robot Emerl had rented a small hut on the waters edge for their home. She and Vector would meet three of four times a week for walks down the beach in the sunset. Cream was alarmed at the prospect of having Vector for a future step father and most of Chaotix were making jokes behind his back but frankly Vector himself was on cloud nine.
"Can I help you?" The crocodile asked opening one eye to see it was Espio blocking his sunlight.
"Sure those detective skills you boast about aren't going to waste here?" The chameleon asked with his hands resting against his hips.
"Now way, I'm still as sharp as a hatchet." The crocodile replied closing his eyes and getting himself comfortable, putting his hands behind his head and taking deep breaths of the sea air. "Now can you move? You're blocking my shine." Espio forged a very unimpressed frown.
"Then maybe you can figure out why there are a dozen squad cars outside our apartment building." Vector's eyes shot wide open. "And why one of them is marked 'Coroner's Office'?" Vector nearly fell off his deck hair and onto the sand as he scrambled up, getting his tail trapped in the folding metal.
"Ooh, Ooh Vector!" Charmycalled over as the two reptiles made their way up from the beach. The bee was hovering in the air with crossed legs. "The police won't let anyone in and I really need ta go!" Ignoring him Vector pushed past some of the crowd that had gathered around the entrance until he came to a plastic barrier. Several squad cards stood between the crowds and the entrance of the flats as well, several uniformed officers standing in place to keep the gathering people away.
"Alright, shows over folks! Move along!" A cop called over to the crowd as two paramedics brought something in a large black plastic bag out on a stretcher and two more cops ushered them into the back of an ambulance.
"Oh that is seriously bad karma." Vector muttered to himself as they closed the back doors of the vehicle.
"Sure you don't know anything about it?" Espio asked giving the crocodile a side glance.
"Exactly what are you implying?" Vector asked narrowing one eye at the chameleon.
"When the police get involved around us, it's usually got something to do with you." Espio replied flatly folding his arms. There was a brief moment of silence, two hostile glares battling for supremacy in the air.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." Vector finally replied turning away. Charmy buzzed around him.
"He said… 'USUALLY WHEN THE'…" The crocodile clamped a large hand over the bee's mouth in passing.
"Ok nothing to see…" A cop began and then saw who it was. "Oh it's you." He finished sloughing his shoulders as Vector stood on the other side of the police barricade. "Yes get lost lizard."
"Temper temper." Vector replied flatly. "Care to explain this?"
"Quite frankly no." Was the cop's reply.
"Oh come on, you telling me the police aren't going to let me know what goes on in my own apartment building?"
"Hell yes, now say back behind the line unless ya want a tazer in the face." With that the cop was gone.
"Dude, you actually saw the body?" Espio looked back over his shoulder towards some teenage boys standing in the crowd behind him. Several of them had surfboards tucked under their arms.
"Saw it? I nearly barfed over it." Another announced almost proudly. "It was all bent outta shape and everythin'."
"Mangled huh?" Someone asked trying to dig around for more gory details. "Chopped up, blood everywhere?"
"Nah, worse then that." The second replied. "It was like, warped. All grown out of proportions."
"Wanna run that by us again?" Another asked sceptically.
"It was like cancer gone mad." Espio snuck closer so he could hear the exact conversation over the murmurings of the crowd. Getting within a reasonable distance he turned invisible so none of them would know he was eavesdropping. "The arms, legs and neck had all grown, man. It even had a tail."
"A what?"
"A tail dude, like a lizard or something." Silenced endured through the small group for a moment.
"Sure it wasn't a mobian body?" One of them asked eventually.
"No way." Their witness replied. "It was a freak, but it had been human not too long ago."
A loud screeching broke Espio's concentration and glaring back, he watched the crowd move off. The ambulance driving off seemed to have lost control of itself, swerving all over the road before finally slamming into the side of a building. The front caught fire as the two drivers and leapt from the front, screaming like mad men running as fast as they could away from the vehicle. Before anyone could even react, something slammed hard into the back doors of the ambulance from inside. Then again, a large dent bending outwards. There was a moment of silence before the doors broke open and the most bizarre looking creature any member of Chaotix had ever seen lumbered out.
Trailing around the spikes and horns protruding from its back were torn piece of black plastic from the body bag it had been confined inside. A long scaled tail protruding over the back end of a pair of torn jeans. It looked mostly human, but quickly it was loosing any familiar features. A scream escaped its lips as it began changing, the arms spreading out wider; each linger thinning out and spreading.
With a sickening tear the arms spread out to change complete into leathery wings, their span well over four meters in each direction. What was left of the tattered clothes tearing as the new creature began spreading itself out, beating the few wings as the skin was still spreading down either side of its two bent scaly legs to the tail behind it.
"Cool; a Dragon!" Charmy proclaimed hovering over Vector's shoulder. The creature screeched again into the sky as the transformation completed itself, the hair from the top of the head falling away to replaced by thick scales. Then to finish up in a sudden flare of colour, the skin turned pale brown with pale green and black streaks running down either side of the wings.
"No…freakin'…way." Espio began with wide eyes, his mouth hung open as the beast beat its wings several times.
"What the hell are you waiting for? Shoot it!" Someone yelled and instantly bullets began flying from the cops. Several of them hit the creature in the hind legs and it cried out in pain. In retaliation it swung its body around towards them and arched its neck. The frill underneath vibrated angrily and out of its open mouth several projectiles when flying. One of them hit the nearly police officer, who looked down to see his shirt covered in a sticky pale yellow residue.
"Eww…" The bee proclaimed hovering a little closer to Vector. Suddenly the slime like substance on the cop ignited, reacting with the oxygen in the air around it and combusting. The guy started screaming, trying to quench the flames with his arms. He only succeeded in spreading the fire and very quickly his whole shirt was covered in flames. Espio acting on instinct tore a shuriken from his glove and tossed it straight towards a fire hydrant. Metal tore through metal and water sprayed out, hitting the flaming cop head on.
The dragon like creature arched its neck preparing to fire another projectile again. Recognising the procedure now, the cops ducked back behind their squad cars to avoid being hit. That strange yellow goo splattered everywhere, on car winds and tyres across the ground and even onto the sidewalk. Wherever it landed fire sprang up burning out of control.
"Get that damn SWAT team down here NOW!" One of them called into the radio in their car. The crowd behind them started running for their lives as the creature turned towards them, two red reptilian eyes glaring out across their numbers.
"I'll take care of this." Espio announced wielding his katana blade.
"Wait!" Vector called out but his cry of warning was on deaf ears. Espio darted forward with his sword in one hand and another shuriken in the other. He bounded past the cops defence line and made for the creature. Despite his silent footsteps it sensed him coming and spread its wings out wide. With only a small jump it took to the air. The chameleon leapt after it and caught hold of its tail as it rose up into the air. "That stupid moron!" Vector muttered angrily pushed its way past startled police after him.
Lashing out the crocodile grabbed Espio's own tail. The chameleon yelled out and looked back. Vector was using his own weight to keep the Dragon down. It couldn't fly any higher with so much extra baggage. Angrily it hissed at them with a forked tongue and lashed out with talon ridden hind legs, trying to get a clear shot from it's mouth so it could strike them with it's burning chemicals while not harming itself. Espio parried off the swipes before tossing his shuriken up into the creatures thigh.
Using the confusion of the momentary pain the beast was in, Vector used whatever strength he could summon and took hold off the dragon's tail with his free hand. With a sharp tug he tore the beast from its attempt to fly away and slammed it back into the road with a loud thud.
Furious the beast struggled flapping its wings against the ground. Eventually it got its head and long neck free from under the tangled heap and turned, its mouth already wide open to spit another fire producing glob at Vector. It reared back its head ready o fire, when Charmy flew in at the last second and smashed a short kick directly into the back of the neck.
"Bad Dragon, down boy." The bee told the swaying creature wagging a finger at it. The neck arched around again and a mouth full of teeth soured towards him. "Yipe!" The insect flew up narrowly avoiding becoming a bite size snack.
"I've got him!" Vector announced grabbing the creature by the neck and pinning it down to the ground. The dragon flapped its colossal wings in furious rage beating up winds that bent trees along the roadside, desperately trying to get the smaller creature off it. But Vector was holding the thing out of its line of sight meaning it couldn't strike him with either talons or its specialised chemical weapon.
Espio was on it in an instant, gliding through the air with his sword held aloft. With one swipe the chameleon stabbed the blade through the flying lizard's head. The creature convulsed, before collapsing to the ground; one last sigh escaping its lips before it went as limp as a rag doll in Vector's bear hug.
"That…that thing… was a corpse only a few minutes ago." A cop breathed in utter disbelief as they began climbing out from behind their cars. The burning stuff around them was still going strong. A tyre exploded as heat seared through the rubber and the paint had been melted off the force emblem on the car door. "Mangeled, by still a dead body."
"Well it is now." Vector announced pushing himself up. Espio drew his blade out of the creatures head, finding the blood inside the beast had turned yellow.
"What the hell!" He exclaimed dropping the blade as the blood on the metallic surface hissed at him, boiling and spitting steam into the air. Within seconds the katana had been eaten away.
"Would you look at that…" Vector asked looking at the small puddle on the ground that had once been a weapon, spreading out across the road like water.
"Lookie lookie." Charmy began, hovering close holding the shredded remains of a white coat with him.
"What's this?" Vector asked as the young insect handed it to him.
"I found it with those clothes it was wearing." Charmy replied as the crocodile began to inspect it. There wasn't much of it left, half of it had been torn clean off at the bottom. From what remains Vector could see it was a laboratory coat of some kind, the kind scientists wear in clean environments.
"Hello." He said to himself finding a small plastic object strapped to the inside pocket. The crocodile removed it and flipped it over to see what it was. It turned out to be an ID card of some kind. It had a humans picture on it as well as other details, but at the top it said very clearly; Hexagon Industries.
"So this thing used to be a Hexagon employee?" Espio asked giving the dead dragon a glance as the police edged closer as if afraid it would come back to life.
"Henry Patterson." Vector replied reading the name of the tag. "Age 38, blood type B." He paused and flipped the thing over to ready what it said on the back. "Hey, this guy had level 5 security clearance to something." The crocodile paused to look down at the creature on the ground. It looked like some giant snake with legs and a pair of wings. And this had once been the man described on the card? It was too incredible to believe. "At the risk of sounding cliché…" Vector began. "Looks like we've got another mystery on our hands."
-
The energy from the ring was being to slip away and Sonic's legs were once more feeling like lead weights. Dragging himself through the corridors to his room Sonic found he could hardly keep his eyes open. It was only six in the afternoon and already he was pining for a nice soft bed. His only hope was that Shadow didn't get back with another training session for him. As much as he agreed with the black and red hedgehog about improving for when the Confederates got here, Sonic needed downtime as well. The blue hedgehog remembered reading somewhere that muscles strengthened during rest AFTER exercise. Continuous strain was not only bad for you in some case's it could be lethal. Sure Shadow could go for that long; they designed him to be that resilient. Other people needed a break now and then.
Right now, Sonic was praising Chuck for his various addons around the ship; including rooms for each of them. As Doctor Eggman had been a co-designer of the vessel, it lacked various essentials such as living space for the crew. Tails had tried to make improvements while they had been out in space, but with him and Cosmo now gone; Chuck had taken over the job for him. Now the Blue Typhoon had the luxuries of a large cruise ship, each and every person onboard with their own private living space. Reaching a door, Sonic smacked his hand down on the panel next to it and the door shunted open. The blue hedgehog nearly fell in trying to reach his bed.
"Hey there." A voice greeted him. Opening an eye, Sonic looked around his room for the speaker. It was more of an apartment than a room, a single large living space with a sofa and a large screen TV at one end and a kitchen area behind some cabinets at the other. This in itself showed that Chuck had built this room with someone else in mind. Sonic was a terrible cook. A door at the far end lead into a small room with his bed, the object of his tired desire, ready for him. None of this was what drew his immediate attention. Sitting on the sofa in an oversized tea shirt was Amy. She had let her quills out of their usual style by removing her red head band and now they flowed past her neck and onto her shoulders. Reading the situation Sonic nearly smacked his head on the wall by standing up too quickly with his face turning bright red. "Easy there, I just got you something to eat that's all." The pink hedgehog added quickly, lifting something on a plate into view. Sonic was too tired to see it clearly but whatever it was it smelled good. His stomach growled enthusiastically, reminding him that his training sessions with Shadow had left him little time for real food.
"I owe you one Amy." He stated accepting the plate as he sat down beside her, too exhausted to care even if this was an obvious attempt on her half to wriggle her way into his heart. Now it was directly under his nose Sonic could tell it was a Chinese of some kind. Fast food was more to his taste but he dived into it any way.
"One what?" Amy asked giving him an almost seductive stare. Sonic shot her a brief glare before he carried on eating. "Once Shadow gets back, he and I are going to frank discussion about this workout routine he has you stuck to." She added.
"Get him to agree to leave me alone and I'll do anything you want." Sonic replied looking up briefly.
"I'll hold you to that." Amy added, sitting cross legged beside him. Finally noticing that all Amy was dressed in as an oversized tea-shirt and panties, he coughed and looked away. Amy only smiled at him. "Oh please. Most guy mobians go around in nothing but gloves and shoes."
"We can manage it." Sonic replied trying not to let his vision be attracted to anything inappropriate. "Girls…er…"
"Have more to hide?" Amy asked finishing his sentence for him. She leaned closer to him, resting her chin on his shoulder. You know; you're about as insecure in female company as Knuckles is. At least he has an excuse. He knew never learned how to act around us." Sonic paused, realizing that despite her attempts to seduce him she was right. Like Knuckles, the blue hedgehog had never exactly known how to act around girls. Of course, he wasn't going to fall into this obvious little trap Amy was trying to weave around him.
"Thanks for the snack." He stated changing the subject. Amy's face adopted a disappointed look as she realized he had stumbled across her ruse.
"That's ok." She stated leaning back into the sofa. "You were so busy trying to stay awake you forgot all the little things." She smiled suddenly. "Like combing your quills." Sonic made a quizzical sound with a mouth full of rice before glancing up. His blue quills were a completely mess, one of them so out of place it was falling over his forehead. He'd been so tired he'd barley been able to notice it. "Nice Mohawk." The pink hedgehog chuckled as he hurried to correct himself.
Sonic muttered something under his breath running his fingers back through the fused blue quills until finally they resembled their usual style.
"I've them like this for a reason." He hissed to himself as several refused to be bent back. "There." He shook himself several times and finally they slid back into their original places. "How I look?"
"Good as ever." She replied with a soft smile. Feeling slightly insecure Sonic coughed and picking up the food again. "I was going to cook something, but in the end I had to settle for something instant." The pink hedgehog added.
"Why was that?" The pink hedgehog hesitated at the question, the faint recollection of something unpleasant passing before her.
As Chuck descended from the flight of stairs into the kitchen, all he'd wanted to get was some milk to drink before he went to bed. What he got instead was a full on surprise. A large pillar of smoke was bellowing out from the galley quickly expanding over the ceiling. A second later Okida came bundling out the door beating back a torrent of flames with his wings while Topaz charged in carrying bucket of weather, their clothes horribly scorched.
"Never mind about that." Amy replied with a nervous smile. Sonic chewed thoughtfully on his meal and let his mind wander a little. "Sonic…" The blue hedgehog looked down to see Amy cuddling up to him. "Do you ever think about Tails and Cosmo?" A very long silence followed. Yes, he'd thought about them. He'd thought about them every night since the day they disappeared. The event kept playing over and over again in his mind. Krish, the Destroyer towering over them; the green fire burning all around. The original Eclipse Cannon was about to fire and once it did, Earth was history. Shadow and Metal Sonic were done, unable to get any closer as the fire licking at them from all directions scolded their skin. Then out of the darkness a shaft of light pierced the heart of the enemy, running him through before falling softly upon them; their strength returned in an instant.
Cosmo had offered up her place in their dimension to allow the union of three powers, the Master Emeralds, The Chaos Emeralds and the Precious Stone of Maginary world; all three culminating together and filling Shadow and Sonic with power they had never before felt.
When this happened, she was catapulted out of their realm and into god-knows-where. Tails refused to let her go alone, jumping after her at the last second and allowing himself to be absorbing by the resulting warp with her. The energy released had given Sonic, Shadow and Nazo the boast they needed to put the Destroyer down once and for all but; Sonic himself couldn't help but wonder if there was something he could have done, anything that would result in the two of them still standing there with them. Nothing he could put together given what he had to work with at the time could have produced that result, but he tried to think of a way anyway. Part of his mind refused to accept that their leaving with no way to return had been the only way it could have been done.
"Wonder what they're up to out there?" He asked in return, casting a glimpse out his window to the coming night sky, the first twinkling stars reaching through the dusk. They could be anywhere, across the galaxy, in another universe altogether; perhaps not even in reality as they knew it. When it came to dimensional properties, Sonic's own knowledge was not even enough to draw an educated guess from.
"Void's still looking for them." Amy reminded him. The small imp like creature from Maginaryworld had promised before he left that he would do everything within his power to locate the dimensional realm Cosmo's warp had taken them. It would take a lot of time as the number of universes there were stretched on for seemingly infinity. They could have landed in any one. "He'll find them."
"Yeah…" Sonic breathed sighing out-load realizing something. This was a rite of passage trail. The Tails that had left had been little more than a kid, a kid who accepted this new journey when he fell in love with Cosmo. Sonic felt incredibly guilty that he couldn't help him, but somehow fate had given both of them a task. Someone had to defend the Earth from the Confederates and another had to take care of Cosmo out there. Tails was far better suited to the latter job. The blue hedgehog groaned leaning back into the sofa. "Yeah he'll find them." A sudden large and almost evil smirk crossed his lips. "He'd better!"
-
The stale air beyond the door hissed out angry as the air tight seal broke. The tunnel beyond had been sealed for over fifty years and the door seemed now reluctant to move after all that time. The moisture collecting behind it for so long had caused it to rust in places and as finally it moved back to allow entry it protected loudly; sparks flying out into the darkness. The light from the entrance barely penetrated the road beyond, leaving whatever lay at the end far out of sight.
Shadow felt a cold sense of foreboding creep over him and quickly he shrugged it off. If anywhere, the answers he sought lay beyond the dark and he would not fear it. There could be no light without darkness after all. Without saying a word to those around him, he left his left hand aloft and called the beginnings of a chaos spear into it. The golden energy glowed brightly, illuminating the tunnel for a distance before the shadows maintained their veil.
"At the end of this tunnel lies destiny." Eggman remarked with a thick grin on his face before striding forward. "And power reserved for those worthy enough to inherit it." With that he strode into the darkness and vanished. Becoe and Decoe glanced at each other before following after their creator. Shadow stood there as silent as ever, his face the very picture of uncertainty. Thus far nothing in his life had remained solid, reality as he knew it in a state of constant flux. He felt something tough his hand and he glanced to the side. Tikal's smiling face as there, her fingers entwined with his. A strange emotional tingle came over him and without even realizing it he smiled back.
He turned back armed with newfound strength and saw his fear for what it was. Gerald's past few messages from beyond the grave had been doomsday prophesies, he really wasn't ready for anyone one.
Fear of the unknown, fear of change in his already chaotic life. But now that he new what it was, he would fear it no more. Slowly at first, he advanced into the darkness; the light contained within his fingers lighting his way.
"Why me?" He found he couldn't help asking out load. "Why did it open for me?" Of all the palm prints in the world, why had Gerald chosen his to unlock the door?
"Perhaps he has something down here he only wants you to see." Tikal answered in passing thought. Shadow had been thinking along the same lines, and that thought wasn't altogether a pleasant one. What more pieces to the puzzle had Gerald lined up to throw at him this time?
The tunnel continued on for quite a distance, thick traces of algae, moss and vines that had wound their way down through from the plant life above lined the ceiling and walls like wallpaper; inching towards any source of moisture. Judging by far they had to walk, Shadow guessed that they had cleared the house by now. By his best guess they were probably under the far end of the estate to the east. What did Gerald have to hide here that he felt compelled to go to such extreme measures to conceal it? He and Tikal caught up to Eggman and his robots a short time later and the would-be conqueror had his own theory to offer.
"This must be where my grandfather stashed all the Black Arm technology he collected from the Armageddon." He stated with the ends of his moustache curling in excitement, the eyes behind the spectacles gleaming evilly at the sheer thought. "Think of might lie at the end of this tunnel! Hardware so advanced I'll finally have that hedgehog quaking in his boots."
"Firstly, Sonic wears sneakers not boots." Tikal commented without even looking up.
"And lastly even if there is any technology here you aren't laying any grubby fingers on it." Shadow finished, the glow form his chaos spear increasingly brightly for a single moment. Eggman shot them both a hostile glare, a pair of beady eyes squinting at them from behind the spectacles.
"I'm not sure which one scare's me more, Shadow or the Doctor." Decoe muttered quietly to Becoe.
Their path came to an abrupt stop when they found another door barring their way. While this new one was large and had the Project Shadow emblem on it, it seemed completely different to the first one; with several large outer locks and a missing palm print panel. Shadow walked up to it and wiped away the dust with his hand. This was another blast door, designed specifically to be highly impact tolerant. No way they could force it down without brining the sheet of bedrock above down on their heads and teleporting over to the other side was far too risky. For all he knew he could end up teleporting inside a solid object, resulting in instant death.
"Ah ha!" Eggman proclaimed, finding a small computer terminal projecting out off the wall on the left hand side of the door. It was rusted around the edges and one or two of the keys were missing but it seemed operational. "Looks like a simple password inscription." He raised a finger. "And we all know my Grandfather's favourite word." The doctor hands danced over the panel, the outdated machinery squeaking in protest. "M….A….R….I….A; Maria." To his utter disappointment he was met by an error message accompanied by a loud bleeping. "What! Incorrect password!" Eggman demanded looking puzzled.
"That password's known to the military." Shadow said without looking around. "He wouldn't risk using it here."
"Then what the hell is the 'magic word' then?" The doctor demanded angrily, before slamming an infuriated fist against the wall.
"It would have to be something only you would know." Tikal muttered to Shadow, ignoring Eggman's ranting. That made sense, so Shadow began rummaging through what he could recall of his time on ARK for a memory he shaded with Prof. Robotnik but came up with nothing. As Eggman began cursing into the air, Shadow paced back and forth thinking quietly. Silently his gaze fell upon the icon of Project Shadow above the sealed door. There he stayed, simply looking at it for a moment; before a memory came slamming back into him like a meteor shower.
"Tulip." He stated suddenly.
"What?" Eggman asked looking up.
"T…U…L…I…P." The scientist and his robots cast each other a puzzled look but without having any other idea what it could be, typed it in anyway. As soon as the last letter was entered, a loud churning of decades old locks coming undone began resonating from behind the door.
"Tulip?" Tikal asked sceptically as the door began to slowly pull open.
"It's my first word." Shadow replied simply before turning to look directly at the door as inch by agonizing inch it began to open.
It was his first memory as well, sitting in the enclosed space with the scientists that worked on the project behind a sheet of glass watching him from afar. He was only four weeks old with the body of a ten year old and hadn't said a word. He grasped puzzles and advanced equations easy enough, but so far he hadn't said a single word. Gerald had tried everything he could think off to get him to say something and nothing had worked thus far.
Just when they were beginning to think they had made a mistake with the speech centre of Shadow's brain, one of the woman scientists walked in with a flower sticking up out of her pocket, a gift from her boyfriend. Shadow recognised the variety out of the books they had brought him; simply raised a finger at it and stated; 'Tulip.'
"At last!" Eggman proclaimed in utter glee, rubbing his hands together with relish as finally the door pulled open enough for his large bulk to squeeze through. "Grandfather, don't disappoint me!" With that he thrust a fist into the air and 'Yahoo'd' before he hurried inside, vanishing into the darkness. His two robots were not far behind. Shadow hesitated again, fear spreading through him. What lay beyond this door? Would it aid him, or destroy him? Anything was possible when Gerlad was concerned. He shot Tikal a glance. Her face was emotionless before she smiled playfully at him. He sighed out-load before turning and with her hand in his they advanced into the next chamber.