Part 3

"Whenever you light shines,

I can always find,

Something more of life,

Whenever you break through,

Take me somewhere new,

Deeper into you…"

"Lifelight"--Andy Hunter ©2005

Chapter 11: The Flight

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If the Law of Inertia was never proven before, the poor Möbians aboard the en route space shuttle were experiencing it full force. Everyone was pinned into their seats, and Sonic was sure for a moment that he had left something behind.

Cream couldn't stand the stress and simply fainted. Amy had screamed all she could, but was barely heard over the roar of the engines.

The whole thing seemed like hours, but suddenly, there was a clank and all the sudden, they could breathe again. They lurched forwards as they breathed, and all heard Tails shout breathlessly, "Thrusters have been ejected. The fuel tank is next to go. Hang on!"

There was a few moments of nothing save the roar of the engines, then a very deep clank that shook the shuttle. "The fuel tank's gone!" A pause. "It says we can unbuckle now."

The roar relaxed and everyone else unbuckled. Dash went flying out of Sonic's arms and smacked into the wall in front of him.

"Well, that was kinda weird…" Dash said, rubbing his face.

Sonic swam through the non-gravity to Dash. "Are you all right?"

Dash nodded, and saw everyone else was out and about. Frosty was flipping around from the cockpit and was trying to figure out how to stop spinning. Sally stopped her before Frosty became permanently busy. Knuckles came in and looked crazy due to his dreadlocks floating around.

Amy was trying desperately to keep her hair down but it wasn't working, much to her dismay.

Cream had woken up and had unbuckled. Interestingly enough, she wasn't bothered by the lack of gravity, since she had the ability to fly with her ears and was used to being airborne.

"Boy, I wonder how they play chess during a space mission…" Dash said, a smile taking over his face.

Sonic laughed at the mental picture of a knight and a queen gyrating around like nothing at all.

The whole flight was a good four hours long. All the while, the crew amused themselves with different activities that would've been quite impossible to do back on the planet.

"Look at this! I made a water bubble!" Dash said, watching the water float out of one of the water bottles that the crew brought.

"This is so cool…" Sonic said.

"If it wasn't for the ARK, this would be a pleasant experience," Sally said, watching as Frosty was trying to slurp the water bubble unsuccessfully and was more getting it up her nose then anything else.

Sonic tried it, but just opened his mouth to drink it, but was a bit more disastrous, as it floated all around in his mouth and throat, causing him to sputter and send lots of small water droplets everywhere.

No one knew that water was such a fun tool to play with. Tails and Dash had a bubble between them and blew strongly at it at the same time and in opposite directions, causing the bubble to burst and water droplets fly everywhere.

Everyone had a turn in this fun, when a few hours into the flight, Tails looked out the window and saw the ARK.

"Look!"

Everyone floated towards the window and saw the ARK quite a distance away. "There it is!" Knuckles said.

"Wow, that's a big space station…"

That was the understatement of the year. As the shuttle came closer, they saw that it was very large, almost as big as a small moon. Tails guessed that it was at least 15 miles wide. The spire from which the Eclipse Cannon was hidden was about equal to half the diameter of the ARK.

Some time later, they realized a new danger.

"Hey, what are all those floating around the space station?" Amy asked.

Sonic peered, and suddenly gasped. "Asteroids!"

"What?" Sally shouted, a sudden fright grabbing hold of her.

"We're bound to crash into one of those!" Knuckles said.

Tails dove for the cockpit (which wasn't too hard considering the lack of gravity) and buckled in. Sonic swam in. "What the heck are you doing?"

"I'm hoping to try to get this out of autopilot. If I can get a control of this, I may have a chance!" Tails gripped the steering wheel. "Help me!"

Sonic was unsure which one to push. What if he pressed a self-destruct button or something? He pressed a random button. Nothing. He pressed another. Nothing.

A large asteroid, the size of a small car was careening straight towards them. Tails froze and Sonic saw his short life flash through his eyes.

Suddenly, a computer voice said "Point-defense initiated," and a purple laser beam flashed out of nowhere and destroyed the asteroid.

"Whoa!" Sonic shouted. "I didn't know these shuttles could do that!"

"I didn't either," Tails mumbled, his fear melting away.

The point-defense fired more bolts of energy at more asteroids that the computer "thought" to be a threat to the shuttle. It was like a video game on demo, Sonic later put it as.

As the shuttle neared the ARK, everyone could see the details more. Out of the metal face of the ARK rose different, much smaller spires and several different antennas. Different slots were there for receiving and shipping supplies. All in all, if it wasn't for the actual style of the face, it would be very impressive to look at. Still, they thought they never saw a more amazing technological splendor.

All of the sudden, Knuckles let out a word that turned everyone's heads, and then they understood Knuckles' reaction. There was an asteroid floating nearby that was nearly 20 times as big as the shuttle. The point-defense mechanism was already firing at it, but it looked like that it wasn't doing much good.

"We're gonna crash!" Sonic yelped, and there was a humongous crash!

Everyone expected the top to rip open and they'd be sucked out, but fortune or whatever deity was smiling on them that day; the shuttle's rear was the part that smacked into the ship. Only the cargo decks were breached but they were quickly sealed off.

"Cargo Bays 1, 2 and 5 have been breached, but are being sealed off," Tails said, sighing a breath of relief. "We're safe."

"Bay…5?" Knuckles suddenly looked like something zapped him and he flew to the nearest window. "The Emeralds!"

"What?" Sonic asked.

"I put the Master Emerald shards in there, and now they're gone!" Knuckles pressed against the window.

"Crap!" Sonic felt Knuckles' pain. "That's just bad luck…"

"I need to get out there."

"Wait until we land!" Tails said. "It would just suck if you opened the pressure doors now that were so close."

"I'll lend you the belt when we land," Sonic said. "I'll be much better then finding something else to do it."

"Well…make it snappy…" Knuckles was still unhappy.

They soon entered the former half of the ARK, and all the sudden, everyone fell to the floor.

"Whoa!" Sonic picked himself up, but found that he felt extremely heavy. "What happened?"

"We must've entered the gravity field of the ARK," Tails moaned.

"I feel like I wanna throw up," Dash groaned.

"Don't; please…don't," Amy said, pale and nauseous.

-----

Robotnik was grouchy.

He had just come from monitoring the shuttle and was frustrated that they nearly lost it. That would've been a grievous lost. Also that Rouge and Shadow still haven't found the Emerald, and the delay coming from Metal-Sonic made him uneasy.

Rouge on the other hand had been studying the printouts she stole more and thought about something that could endanger her life.

She would ask Shadow.

She had been wandering through ARK looking for Shadow, and on the way, she ran into a grumpy Robotnik. Since the cause of his attitude was inconsequential to what she was doing, she just plain ignored him.

After some searching, she found Shadow, sitting in a room that looked like at one time was a living quarter. The lone hedgehog was doing what seemed to be the only thing he ever did. He stood stock still, staring into nothing, and always had his back to anyone who would talk to him or was with him.

Rouge was about to open her mouth, when Shadow suddenly growled deeply, "What are you doing here?"

Rouge paused a second. "Well, I was exploring the ARK and I found you here, that's all."

Shadow made no noise for a long time. Finally, he said "Leave. You've seen enough."

Rouge felt it to obey, for despite Shadow's masked look, he was angry, and she knew better then to interfere now. She'd find a much better opportunity within the time.

She was well down the hall when something on her belt beeped. It was the Chaos-energy tracker. Surprised and excited, she took it out and hooked onto the energy source. It was located on an asteroid outside the ARK, in an asteroid. The only thing was that it didn't have the same signature as the Chaos Emeralds did, and if she didn't throw her mark amiss…

"Ah, looks like the jewels are coming to me now…"

She took off down the hall, eager to find anything to get that jewel.

Chapter 12: The ARK

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5:27 PM

3 hours, 3 minutes till fire

The shuttle had been admitted into an airlock, docked and the passengers were already out and about, suffering from a little anti-gravity shock. Sonic felt like someone added about 30 pounds to his head, and felt sluggish. Everyone else felt pretty much the same.

"Well, that was good…" Tails said, who was feeling dizzy and leaning against the Cyclone.

Dash and Frosty were hugging the floor, feeling like the world was tilting.

"Well, I'm going out to find the Master Emerald."

"Gotcha, Knux," Sonic said, unbuckling his belt. "Here you go."

Knuckles took the belt and clasped it around his waist. "You'd better find the cannon and get it destroyed. I'll catch up to you as soon as I can.

Knuckles ran down a hall, an Echidna on a mission.

"Well, you heard him. We only have three hours until the next fire," Tails said, straightening up, although he still felt like someone shoved a bowling ball into his head.

Tails led the precession, Sonic was at the end. Everyone else was in between.

"This place looks old and dusty too…" Amy said, quietly.

"This place is over sixty years old, and it was empty for fifty of them." Tails looked something up on the onboard computer. "ARK was the first Bernoulli sphere space station built by the Overlanders. It was self-sufficient and had a gravity field outside of the station itself. The gravity's strong enough to hold an artificial atmosphere mixed with nitrogen and oxygen, just like the atmosphere of Möbius."

"Breathable air outside of the ARK?" Sally inquired.

"That what this says," Tails replied. "It was the latest piece of technology of that time, but looking at it now…"

"It's an abandoned ARK, now…" Amy finished.

"You couldn't have said it any better, Ames," Sonic said from behind.

"Ah, here's a terminal. Now I can get a map of the ARK," Tails plugged wires in from the Cyclone into the terminal. "It'll be a few seconds…"

Everyone else busied themselves for the wait. Amy and Cream were talking in low whispers. Sally was making sure that her laser pistol was fully charged. Cheese and Frosty were trying to play Rock, Scissors, Paper. Dash was just plain looking around.

Normally no one would've cared, but it was the way Dash was looking around that alerted Sonic. It wasn't the look of curiosity, but alerted fear, as if he had heard an enemy but couldn't see him.

"Dash, what's wrong?" Sonic asked.

"I dunno. Can you feel it?"

Sonic waited a second. "Heck, no. All I can feel is that it feels colder then back near the shuttle."

"That's it. It's cold, but not cold as in hot-cold, but…bad. Very bad."

Sonic lifted his head and waited, trying to sense what Dash was feeling. "You know, yeah. It feels like my blood's gonna chill from something. What's up with this?"

"There," Tails announced. "Got the map. Now we can get out battle strategy going…"

Everyone gathered around the Cyclone and listened to what Tails gathered.

"The weapon itself has strong defenses in about five different spots. It's not necessary that we destroy them, but if Eggman's expecting us, it'll distract him long enough for Sonic to get into the control room, use this Emerald and get the rest out when the controls shut down." Tails opened the box where he kept his ingenious fake and handed it to Sonic.

"Is that a Chaos Emerald?" Amy asked.

"It looks like it, doesn't it? It's actually a fake one Knuckles helped me make. It had the same wave-lengths and properties as the real one, but if it absorbs too much energy--as it will when in the control room--it'll overload and blow up. The Chaos energy discharge should damage whatever the computers and machines around, so Sonic, I suggest getting behind a wall to protect yourself. You never know what'll happen if a Chaos Emerald explodes."

Sonic fondled the Emerald. "Piece of cake. Gotta run! Let's go, Dash."

Sonic picked up the chao and took off down the dark hallways.

"This'll be too dangerous for the rest of us. We'll stay in one of these quarters until you get back." Sally ushered Cream and Cheese into a nearby room, which had several windows on the wall and on the floor, so you could see the planet all the time.

Amy however wasn't so resilient to obey. "Aw, c'mon! Why should they leave me behind and have all the fun?"

Sally crossed her arms. "Because you are simply not experienced. Tails has much more and can take care of himself."

Tails jumped inside. He usually never did a mission by himself and was never acknowledged to do something like that on his own, but Sally had faith in him.

"I can take care of myself!" Amy argued.

"Amy, if I hear one more argument from you, you are going to get it. Get in the room," Sally said, clenching his fists.

Amy pouted, but complied. She sulkingly tromped into the other room.

"Thank you, Sally. I'll try my best," Tails said.

"Better get going, and be careful…"

Tails smiled and drove his mech down the hall, wondering why it was so cold…

-----

Robotnik was studying even more documents about the ARK when something rapped on the door. "Enter."

The door opened and in stepped Metal-Sonic. The human knew that something was wrong, despite the lack of wear and tear on Mecha's metal surface.

"Doctor, the hedgehog and his friends are here. They escaped me back on the base…"

Robotnik made a sound as if he was not surprised. "Thank you, Mecha. I have a feeling that it was for the better. Who was with Sonic?"

Mecha listed off the names of the Möbians, and when he said Amy's and Sally's, Eggman smiled unpleasantly.

"Ah, they're here….This makes things even more perfect for my plan. Mecha, scan that circle in the middle of this room. What is it?"

Metal-Sonic scanned the lonely and seemingly inconspicuous circle in the middle of the room. "It's an escape pod module. It ships out Plexiglas-strengthened pods towards the planet. I should not need to tell you for what reason…"

"No…" Robotnik was fingering his moustache. "Mecha, come with me." Robotnik climbed into the Eggwalker he had always conveniently nearby. "We have some work to do…"

-----

Sonic and Dash were looking at a map console which was constantly active in the ARK. The console displayed a 3D hologram of the ARK.

"It appears the control room is right here," Sonic said, his finger piercing through the hologram towards the center of the ARK. "Looks official enough."

"Yeah," Dash looked behind Sonic's shoulder, as if expecting something.

"Will you cut that out? You act like Shadow himself will jump out of the halls…"

"I can't help feeling that we're not alone! There's something evil here…I can't explain it!"

"Well, it's freaking me out. So try to chill out, okay?"

Dash looked over the hedgehog's shoulder a thousandth time. "I'll try…"

They walked through a dozen more halls until they came to a place where there was a great pit that sank into darkness. Sonic took a look down, and he felt a rush of cold down his back. Funny, he was never afraid of heights, but why all the sudden did he not like this particular height?

Dash noticed Sonic's tense posture. "You feel it too, do you?"

"I think so…let's double back. I think we made a wrong turn…"

As Sonic turned again and walked back down the hall, he began to wonder if Tails and Frosty were feeling the same thing.

-----

"I hate this place," Frosty said, peering out of the Cyclone. "All the lights may be on, but it feels so dark!"

"You're just nervous because were deep in Eggman's territory," Tails said, half gulping. He too began to feel unnaturally cold, as if the blood in his back had turned into ice.

Tails had shot down every camera he laid his eyes on. He kept telling himself that he was just a bit nervous about being on his own, but he had been in Eggman's bases a dozen times over, but why did he feel this way?

He too came to a place where the drop seemingly went into eternity, and the same wave of coldness swept over him and Frosty, and it felt like the Cyclone faltered too.

-----

"Should we detain them or not?" Shadow said, who had observed Sonic and his chao advancing down the halls. He was talking to Eggman through the communicator.

"I don't think it'll be necessary," Robotnik sounded unusually calm. "Metal-Sonic and I are about to detain his companions. Do whatever you care to. I don't have need of you now."

-----

Knuckles, glowing different colors and zipping to different asteroids, had a much easier time then anyone inside. He was not inside the ARK and didn't have any "emotional" trouble as everyone else had been feeling. All he was concentrated on was finding the precious bag that contained most of the Master Emerald.

Despite his current invincibility, energized by Sonic's borrowed Super Emerald belt, he felt tired from zipping back and forth the great distances from one asteroid to another. They seemed close enough, but some were almost a mile away.

The glare from the sun's reflection off the ARK's metal surface hurt his eyes too. Thankfully, the sun would sink behind the blue planet below soon now.

A signal. He heard a faint but shrill sound of Chaos energy. It's got to be the Master Emerald shards.

He zipped to three different asteroids until finding his pack filled with the Master Emerald shards, caught in the rough rocks on the asteroid. Finally…

He snatched up the backpack and zoomed towards the towers where an entrance was.

He found one nestled pretty far away from the center, and had to wait a bit until some doors opened to let out junk. Just like Eggman, always the anti-environmentalist.

He snuck in and when he decided it was safe, he decharged the emerald belt. Being Hyper for a long period of time did have its toll: he felt heavier and had to lean against something until his strength returned.

After a good fifteen minutes, he got up and ventured farther into the ARK. Not too deep in, he began to feel like something was with him, watching him. He also felt like something was pressing on him, as if he was in a high-pressure environment. He first thought it was a problem with the mechanics of the ARK, but as he ventured deeper into the ARK, he began to change his mind.

He came to a place where several support beams were exposed and extended up to about 40 feet high, and something came along that he felt later he should've expected.

"Hey, big guy?"

Knuckles looked up to see something white and pink hanging from a support beam. Upon closer examination, Knuckles could see it was a bat.

Rouge.

Rouge did a flip in the air and landed on the ground about fifteen feet in front of Knuckles. "Long time, no see, treasure hunter…"

Knuckles was instantly on guard. "Get out of my way…"

"Hmm, aren't you the tough one… Aren't you after the Chaos Emeralds too?"

"If I was, I wouldn't tell you in the world…"

Knuckles head was clearing. There was another resonance ring, and it was very close. It only took the Echidna a few seconds to find the location.

"So YOU have the last of the Master Emerald…"

"The what?" Rouge asked, as if not knowing anything. "Oh, you mean your lovely Emerald."

Knuckles was fed up. "Give them up and I won't hurt you." The impulse for saying "much" afterwards was almost too much for Knuckles to resist, but Rouge spoke next.

"You'd hurt me? Shame on you!"

"Watch me…" Knuckles growled.

Knuckles lashed out a steel-reinforced fist. Rouge flipped back and counterattacked with her steel-edged boots. There was a metal ring as metal met metal as Knuckles and Rouge struck at each other; Knuckles with his punches, and Rouge with her kicks.

The fight came close to one of the vertical beams, and when Knuckles struck at one of Rouge's legs, the bat did the unexpected. She flipped upwards, and grasped the bar. She began climbing up with great speed. Knuckles cursed as his fists struck the bar, but shook it off as he climbed up after her.

"I must admit, you are full of surprises…" Rouge said when she had reached a horizontal bar.

"You haven't seen anything yet," Knuckles swung up onto the same bar, but just as his feet met the metal, Rouge stretched out her wings and flew over. Knuckles jumped into space after her and glided across.

Rouge however was not impressed. Just as Knuckles reached the bar, Rouge spun about like a whirlwind and dealt Knuckles a blow to the chin which downed him. Luckily, he had enough sense to grab the bar and pull himself up.

Knuckles was now raging. He didn't really want to hurt Rouge, her being a woman, but that blow changed his mind. He began to throw punches that could nearly break the jaw.

Rouge dodged as many as she could, but one connected on her arm which made her cry out in pain. Knuckles rolled back, feeling remorse as well as satisfied.

"I didn't want to hurt you, but you made me…" Knuckles said through his teeth.

"Made you?" Rouge was equally as furious. "Have you no sense of courtesy at all?"

"If I didn't, you'd be a bloody mass down below by now."

"I stole these Emeralds fair and square!" Rouge fluttered up to climb another beam. Knuckles was hot on her tail.

Rouge reached the top, and flew across again. Knuckles followed in suit, but angled it so he wouldn't land so close to Rouge, for the bruise forming on his chin was too much of a reminder.

The battle resumed furiously, as much as two lions fighting for territorial rights. The blows came so fast and furious that it seemed impossible for either to not receive very serious wounds. They did receive some battle wounds, but not as serious as one could expect in witnessing such a brawl. Knuckles got a chop to the knee, which started bleeding some, and Rouge's ankle was hit by Knuckles' chops to the feet.

After a good ten minutes of straight fighting, the two had parted as space and stood to catch their breaths. Knuckles was trying to stop the bleeding with an old piece of cloth that he kept handy in a side pocket in case of an emergency dealing with serious cuts or snakebite. Rouge was massaging her ankle, which was turning into an off-blue.

The two panted nearly in unison, but despite their fatigue and battle wounds, neither had given up their spirit.

"Stop playing around, and give back my Emeralds…" Knuckles growled first.

"You call yourself a hunter, and you attack a lady? Shame on you!" Rouge had stood up.

Knuckles stood up tall, ignoring the soreness in the knee, ready for whatever Rouge had to give. "What kind of lady steals other people's jewels anyway? I need this Master Emerald for my Island, and you wanted it for bucks!"

"That jewel is mine!" Rouge stepped forward to fight again, but her ankle wasn't as sturdy with her injury, and it buckled. Rouge cried out in surprise as it collapsed under her, and she began to plummet to the hard floor below.

Knuckles dived forward, half-gliding and grasped Rouge's foot, which was just in reach.

Rouge grunted from the sudden stop, and realized what had happened. She was saved from a very nasty fall by Knuckles, who was pulling her up gently.

Knuckles grasped Rouge's hand to help her stand up. The two looked at each other for a split second when Rouge's realized the Echidna was holding her hand. Rouge recoiled as if she touched something hot, but was astonished at the same time.

"Take your hand off of me!" Rouge cried out.

Knuckles stood tall. "Well, is that the way to treat someone who just saved you from a fall like that?" He motioned to the floor below.

"Saved me?" The bat said, but allowed a smile to control her face. "Don't think I owe you one. You just wanted to hold my hand, didn't you? You're such a creep…" Rouge blinked her jade eyes at Knuckles affectionately.

Knuckles was in no mood. "This isn't a joke! Think of it whatever, but I was saving the Emeralds you have."

Rouge glanced at Knuckles disbelieving. There was more to that, she knew as well as Knuckles. Rouge sighed, "No matter what you say, this sound's crazy, but…"

Knuckles saw the bat withdraw two large Emerald shards from her belt and toss them at his feet. Knuckles' eyes widened in disbelief. "Huh?"

"Just take them. They stink like Echidnas do…"

Knuckles mumbled, but couldn't help smiling as he scooped up the shards. "If that's what you thought, you should've given them up a long time ago." Knuckles stood up and stuffed the last shards into his backpack, and barely breathed the word "finally."

He turned to leave, but noticed Rouge rubbing her sore ankle. She noticed his glance and straightened up. "What?" Rouge said.

Knuckles growled deeply, as the still inner voice in his heart told him what to do to her. "I'm…sorry…that I hurt you…"

Knuckles took off, blushing. Rouge watched him glide to the floor and run off into the shadows. Rouge felt something grow inside her heart as she turned to leave. She was beginning to like Knuckles…

A lot.

Chapter 13: A Hitch in the Plan

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6:57 PM

1 hour and 33 minutes to next fire

Tails and Frosty in the Cyclone had advanced far into the ARK, and the dread and fear that was haunting them had grown nearly ten fold. Tails was jumping at the slightest sound that did not come from the Cyclone. Frosty had stopped talking a while before and took to hiding in the bottommost part of the cockpit.

Tails' felt like he was carrying a rack of ice cubes on his back, and was always looking behind himself. But nothing had happened to confirm his fears so he was puzzled underneath the fear that was threatening to devour him.

Shadow watched the fox as he drove the Cyclone down the halls. He couldn't figure out what the fox was so afraid of. He had stalked the fox for quite some time, trying to find out if he had the last Chaos Emerald, but neither the chao nor the fox had spoken for the past ten minutes.

Shadow eventually gave up on them, for their fear had given their senses a power boost, and Shadow knew that his presence would not go long unnoticed, so he gave back. He also left the Emerald he had back in the control room, so Chaos Controlling was out of the question.

Tails never knew that Shadow had been stalking him, therefore hadn't noticed him give back.

Tails was distracted from the com clicking on. Tails was thankful to have something momentarily distract him, for he felt like that a black mist would soon appear and envelop him in darkness.

"Yeah?"

"Kid? It's Sonic. I'm outside the control room…"

"Good, this is what you should do…"

-----

"Why did they have to leave us behind?" Amy whined, again.

"I told you a thousand times before--" Sally answered.

"I know, I know, we don't have enough experience, but how can we get experience if we can't get out there?" Amy complained.

Both were in a heat of argument and didn't notice an enemy presence. Cream and Cheese were too occupied with looking out the window and trying to calm down; the fear was taking her heart as well.

"Well, well, well, is there something that we can help you with?" growled a very familiar voice.

All jumped to see Dr. Robotnik in his mech standing in the doorway, brandishing a monstrous weapon, with an appropriately sized eyescope.

"Dr. Eggman!" Amy squealed in fear.

Sally had already brandished her laser pistol and pointed it at Eggman (although in the back of her mind she knew that it would mean little against a gun of that size let alone the walker).

"If you think that will stop me, Princess Acorn, you are gravely mistaken."

Out of the shadows beside the mech, Metal-Sonic flashed in, snatched the pistol from Sally (knocking her down at the same time) and crushed it in his steel grip. Metal-Sonic stood tall, claws flexed ready to slice at anyone who would try to hinder him.

"As you see, you are now weaponless," Robotnik began, a cruel smile contorting his features. "If you value your life, you will tell me where Sonic and Tails are, now…"

Sally had a quick glance around the room, and found that they were trapped. They had no choice, really. "On the way to the center of the ARK."

"Obviously to the Eclipse Cannon," Metal-Sonic added. "No doubt the fox discovered the protected energy cells around the shaft of the Cannon and is out to damage them."

"But they won't…Mecha, take them to the science lab, room 201. I have some tapping to do…" Robotnik said, just as Mecha began leading them to the science bay, Robotnik in the rear, still brandishing the gun.

-----

"Here's the control room…" Sonic said, peering in, Dash following suit.

"And there's the Emeralds!" Dash said, pointing to six points of light above the computer screens. "Let's go…"

"Gotta call Tails first." Sonic punched a few buttons on his wrist communicator. Tails replied first. "Yeah?" He sounded breathless.

"Kid, it's Sonic. I'm outside the control room." Sonic stalked into the room, casting a glance down into the darkness below, but headed straight towards the six Emeralds.

"Good, this is what you should do: Put that fake Emeralds into the..." Tails words faded into static.

"Tails?...Tails?" Sonic tapped on the communicator. "You still with me?"

There was more static, then the signal came back, but a different voice erupted. "Tell Sonic this, Tails. You and Sonic best move over to the Science Bay, room 201 and bring the Emerald. Otherwise, I'll send your precious girls into the vacuum of space! Mwah ha ha…"

Sonic scowled at the communicator on his wrist, and Tails' voice came back. "Did you hear that, Sonic? Eggman got Sally, Amy and Cream!"

"I heard," Sonic was glancing at the Emerald in his hand, the control panel and back at his communicator. "We can't talk anymore on this frequency. I'll meet you at the Science Bay. Be brave, Tails…"

Sonic signed off. "Well, that's a hitch in the plan…unless…" Sonic looked at the Emerald again, a grin widening on his face.

"What?" Dash said impatiently.

"If I give Eggman this Emerald, it'd be just like me putting the fake Emerald in myself. It would also hurt him more by making such a stupid mistake. Looks like we're off to the Science Bay."

"That's quite a ways back."

"Yep. Took us nearly a half hour to get there, it should be about the same back. Let's go. I can't stand another minute with Sally in trouble with Eggman."

Sonic zoomed out the door.

-----

Shadow stepped into a room and froze, and his eyes suddenly turned cold steel. Rouge happened to be in the same room and was looking at more of the computer files, and a quick glance told Shadow what was the contents.

"What is that?" Shadow said, his teeth clenched.

Rouge spun around, taken by surprise, but regained her composure. "Just a little research, dear…"

"You are studying the Professor's research! You have no right to look at that!"

Rouge pretended to yawn. "Why? Afraid of something I'll find?"

Shadow shoved Rouge aside, closed the files, turned off the computer and unplugged it. He also gave the console a sharp kick, popping it open. He activated one hoverskate and torched the inside of the console so it wouldn't work anymore. He wasn't worried about losing any data, for this wasn't the main computer.

"I should kill you for this…"

"Why? Just because a girl wanted to check up on a boy?"

Shadow was about to advance to give Rouge something to think about, but what Rouge had stopped him. "And imagine what I found out. You can't be the ultimate lifeform…"

Shadow stopped in his tracks, but didn't stop his glare. "I was created by Professor Gerald under Project Shadow, the project for the ultimate lifeform, may I remind you, so I am."

"Are you…" Rouge blinked. "…so certain?"

Something was wrong. Rouge was entirely convinced that Shadow was either lying or mistaken about claiming to be the ultimate lifeform. Shadow, who had always called himself the ultimate lifeform, began to wonder. He never asked the Professor why he was on the ARK, and the only clues he had was the Chaos training he had after maturity, and that the ultimate lifeform on the documents had much exposure to Chaos Emeralds.

Shadow shook himself, then said with a fierce glare. "Quite." Shadow marched to the window and took his usual position of staring into nothing.

Rouge knew she touched a nerve, and she thought later to exploit this discovery of Shadow's emotional weakness.

-----

7:40 PM

50 minutes to next fire

Tails had marched the Cyclone into the bay, half-expecting something of the worst evil to come out of the dark rooms and attack them. This fear was getting out of control! He tried to suppress it, but he couldn't help feeling this way. This was evil. At first, it seemed like his imagination. A little while later, a mirage of reality. Now, it was as real as the steps coming from the Cyclone.

He was trying to find the room number, but kept getting distracted by the dead stillness of the ARK. He figured that the ARK would be silent as a tomb, but this was unnaturally quiet; the kind that happens moments before a killer tornado sweeps through a vicinity.

He wasn't expecting a tornado, of course, but his mind was coming up with many byproducts of his past experiences with Sonic that could explain the quiet, but whatever it was, it felt like the embodiment of evil.

He found room 201 and opened the doors. Yep, there was Eggman, standing (or rather sitting in his mech) at the opposite end of the room, gun resting towards the group of girls, his face directly towards the door, eagerly waiting for anyone to step in.

Tails maneuvered the Cyclone in and also saw Metal-Sonic, cross-armed and perfectly still, like a predator waiting for its prey. Cream was clutching Cheese and was on her knees on the floor. Amy was similar, but Tails could swear that she had been crying of fright. Sally was standing, but the expression was what struck Tails: a look of rebellion, but worry.

"Good evening, Tails…" Robotnik said coldly. "If you'll climb out of your mech and join your friends, I'll be much easier to deal with me."

Tails felt like resisting, but had an idea. He found Frosty, who hadn't moved from her hiding place but had heard everything that was going on, and whispered to her as he was unbuckling. Frosty understood, and stayed hidden.

Tails climbed out and stalked towards the girls, Metal-Sonic's eyes following him with cold hatred all the way. Tails sat down, afraid to say anything.

It was another ten minutes before the doors slid open again, and there revealed the blue hedgehog; one hand holding the Emerald, and the other holding Dash. He slowly stepped into the room. "Sorry I'm late, doc. I forgot the left turn at Albuquerque."

Robotnik didn't appreciate the joke, and went straight to the meat of this meeting. "If you want to see your friends again, put the Emerald on that circle on the floor, now!"

Sonic couldn't help but grin, side-eyeing Metal-Sonic on the side, who hadn't moved, put down Dash nearby the Cyclone and stepped forward. "My, you've turned into quite the big-time villain, Eggman. Did you study?"

"Enough! Put the Emerald down and back off…"

Sonic advanced slowly, eyes never leaving Metal-Sonic, thinking the robot a trap to rip open his back when he put the Emerald down.

Sonic stepped fully into the circle, and the unthinkable happened. Robotnik pressed a button and down slid a cylinder of Plexiglas that surrounded him. "Hey!" Sonic cried out in surprise. "What's this about?"

Robotnik leaned back, relaxing. "I think it's quite obvious. It's a trap!" Robotnik laughed.

"You idiot! I still have the Emerald in here, or haven't you noticed yet?"

"Oh please, did you honestly think that you could fool me with that fake?" Robotnik sat back further.

Tails perked up, alarmed. How did he guess? Knuckles wasn't even able to distinguish the difference. "How did you guess it was the fake?" Tails asked.

"Tails!" Sonic shouted, his voice altered from the glass' thickness.

Robotnik smiled triumphantly. "Well, because you just told me…"

Tails felt like he turned into salt. He blew the whole plan, and now Sonic was stuck inside that tube.

"And now, for the fun…" Robotnik said. "Sonic, you are about to get launched into space in an escape pod, but I messed with it and now it's armed. Once it clears the area of the colony, BAM! And so ends the life of Sonic the Hedgehog."

This got mixed reactions, but generally the same. Dash's suddenly teared up. Frosty was still hidden, and couldn't believe what was happening. If only she could get the Emerald inside the engine compartment, and she could break Sonic out.

Amy was crying again in fear of Sonic's life. Sally's expression turned into a mixture of fear, sadness and disbelief. Tails had his ears flattened and was about to break down. Cream had her hands grasped over her mouth. This was too much for her…

Sonic was pressed against the glass, suddenly dizzy. He knew that he couldn't break out this way, and couldn't see anyway out. Now he was going to die…but what was going to happen now? He looked at Tails.

"Tails, I'm counting on you now…finish the mission. Take care of Dash for me."

Tails gulped the growing lump in his throat.

"Amy, take care of yourself, okay?"

Amy's eyes were rimmed with red and wanted to hug Sonic…one last time.

"Sally? Take care of Cream like you always have before; and…I love you…"

Sally let a tear run unchecked down her face.

Sonic leaned against the glass. "That's all…"

"And it was quite touching, to be sure," Robotnik mocked. "Goodbye, Sonic…"

"Please, don't do it, doctor…" Amy begged, just as the pod jettisoned into space.

Sonic saw the black sky of space surround him, and at the beautiful planet below, one he grew to love and would now by all appearances never see it again.

He thought about all on the ARK. How would they do now that he was gone? He couldn't think of anything in the few moments as he was up there, but as the pod flew further away, he began to think of much more things he wanted to say, but now it was too late. This takes a moment to say, but in reality was flashing through his mind in a second.

Then it dawned on him! That feeling that was growing on him on the ARK was gone! The fear was gone and his nature had returned full force. There must be a way out. His eyes flew around, looking for anything, like steer the pod back, disarm the bomb, anything. His probing eyes found the fake Chaos Emerald on the floor, forgotten and neglected.

He then remembered from a great way off what Tails and Knuckles were talking about it. They said that it operated on the same properties as the real Emerald. His mind flashed to the time he saw Shadow teleport with a Chaos Emerald. Could he…do it?

He picked up the Emerald and was hurriedly thinking about how to teleport; the pod would blow at anytime. His mind was furiously working, and something clicked, and in the Emerald, he saw a picture of Knuckles, running through a dark passageway. That stuck, and he shouted what Shadow said as he teleported.

"Chaos…Contro--!"

Then the pod erupted into a ball of flame.

-----

7:44 PM

45 minutes, 32 seconds to fire

Back on the ARK, all watched as the small speck that was the pod carrying Sonic to his doom flew further and further away. All watched.

Seconds past, and Sonic was still alive. Maybe Knuckles had found him or something, he was still outside. Two minutes past, nothing yet.

Three minutes and twenty-three seconds, all witnessed what looked like the most horrific image of their lives: a brief red glow, followed by an immense explosion. It was soundless due to the vacuum of space, but everyone seemed to hear it. Amy screamed Sonic's name once more and dropped onto her knees, crying hysterically.

Mecha turned away from the scene, feeling nothing, except a slight twinge of regret that he himself didn't finish off the hedgehog.

Dash was crying into the Cyclone's leg; he would never see Sonic…again. Sally was trying to comfort Cream, who was in shock, but couldn't stop the tears herself.

Robotnik was the only one who looked smug. "And so passes a worthy opponent…now, back to business. If you tell me where the last Chaos Emerald is, I will spare your lives."

Tails looked up, his eyes rimmed with red. A friend that he was with for years was snuffed out, just like that. Oh, Sonic….Tails wiped the excess tears from his eyes, and happened to see Eggman glare at them.

In the flip of a coin, Tails' sorrow begat a rage only matched by the devil. He was still tearing, but now these were angry tears. Eggman would pay every drop of Sonic's blood with a gallon of his own.

Tails dashed past the Eggwalker and Metal-Sonic so fast that neither knew what had happened. Mecha recovered first, and saw Tails climb into the Cyclone. The robot flew towards the fox, claws ready to taste blood, but there was one thing he didn't count on.

Dash.

Dash the chao was just as furious as Tails, if not more so, and when he saw Mecha make a dive at Tails' unprotected back, he combined his wrath and sorrow into a Sonic-reminiscent flip and flew right into Mecha's intake, jamming it.

Mecha went down as if he was shot, for in a way, he was. A chao was jammed into his intake. While so, he couldn't move swiftly at all. It hampered his systems for the intake also acted as a ventilation system. Mecha, cursing, was too busy trying to rip the chao out of his intake, and in that time, Tails had turned the Cyclone, straight towards Eggman.

"Eggman! You will feel what Sonic just felt!" Tails activated a button, just as Eggman turned his head, and a little later his walker, to the fox. A large laser lens appeared at the nose of the Cyclone. "Charge…fire Power Laser!"

Tails had installed a laser system in his walker, after studying the Egg Cannon on the Egg Carrier two years before, and he now found a good use for it. There was a kindle of blue, then a large laser, several feet wide torched the air and slammed the Eggwalker into the wall behind it. Tails' expression was haunting as the glow from the laser blast illuminated his anger-twisted face.

Tails let the laser burn until the heat gauge screamed a warning that heat levels were nearing critical. The laser deactivated, and it revealed an unconscious Eggman, and a smoldering pile of metal. The Eggwalker would never walk again.

Tails thought Eggman was dead at first, and was inclined to be glad, but Tails jumped out and inspected Eggman, and found a pulse and steady breathing. He felt sorry for not killing him, then realized something. If he did kill him, he would be no better then Eggman.

He looked up to see Sally, Amy and Cream with a look of shock on their faces. Sally knew that Tails' reaction was understandable, but justifiable or no, that was a job for the courts to decide his punishment, despite her thirst to end Eggman too.

"He's still alive," Tails said, sighing heavily. "I'm a bit surprised though."

"The armor of the mech must've protected him while it fell backwards, before being torched itself. It's all right, Tails. You proved a better one tem most. A lesser man would've put the final blow to him."

"Oh no!"

All spun around, reacting to Amy's outcry, and saw Metal-Sonic, who had succeeded to get rid of Dash (who was a distance away, bleeding some but triumphant) from his intake, lift his clawed hand out, and was clutching the last Emerald, inside the walker's engine compartment. "Fools!"

Metal-Sonic flashed out the door and down the hall.

"Hurry! We got to go after him!" Tails said, dashing for the Cyclone, and swung up into it. "He's got the last Emerald!"

-----

8:10 PM

19 minutes, 41 seconds

Knuckles was lost.

He had taken a wrong turn and ended up in a maze full of docking rooms and airlocks. He sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall and tended to his cuts received from Rouge from almost an hour before. They had partially closed already, but still smarted.

He wondered in the back of his mind if Sonic and Tails were able to finish the mission. They were resourceful, and figured that he really shouldn't hurry.

He was in this train of thought, when he heard a high-pitched ring for a second, but it stopped. Knuckles naturally looked around a bit, then forgot about it, but then, it felt like the wind was rising.

"What in the world?"

Knuckles stood up and followed the direction of the wind, which was gradually becoming stronger. A few rooms down, the wind was spiraling in a vortex. Knuckles was fascinated by this phenomenon; then it began to grow brighter in the room. Yellowish light flowed through and banished every shadow within eyesight. Suddenly, there was a terrible flash with a whoosh of sound!

Knuckles jumped back and shielded his eyes, expecting something to attack, but the light winked out as if never was. The Echidna lowered his hands, and let his eyes adjust to the semi-darkness once again.

A few moments later, he saw that there was a shape lying on the ground, apparently unconscious. Upon further review, he found out who it was.

"Sonic?"

It was. Sonic was lying face down on the cold floor, stretched out, his right hand clasping the Emerald as if it was vital to life (for if you remember, it was).

It took Knuckles a good minute to try to wake up Sonic. He had some minor burns on his arms and he smelled like he was on fire for a split-second. Finally, Sonic stirred. "C'mon, get up, man. You conked out or something."

Sonic pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. "Knuckles?"

"Sure, Sonic, what happened?"

Sonic tried to stand up, but was unable until Knuckles braced him. Sonic held his head as if it was about to explode. "I…I didn't think I was going to pull it off." Knuckles held up Sonic, trying to keep his head up. The latter began to feel his head getting relieved from the pressure inside. "Somehow, with this…" Sonic held up the fake Emerald weakly. "…I was able to use the Chaos Control."

"The Chaos Control? You mean the teleport that Shadow can do?"

"Yeah, but it sure drained the life-force out of me. I must've done it right when the pod exploded."

"What?"

"I'll explain later." Sonic managed to stand on his own, but not without difficulty and his knees unsteady. "Hey, do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Boy, you must be out of it. You have a time on your communicator if I remember right…"

Sonic automatically lifted his right wrist to his eyes, and had a hard time seeing at first, for his eyes were still a bit blurry, but when he finally did, his eyes grew large, and he felt a rush of adrenaline.

"Dude! We don't even have twenty minutes! I can't get to the control room, even at the speed of sound!"

"You didn't get the mission done yet?" Knuckles said, suddenly taking in the situation.

"No! Eggman kidnapped the girls so I had to double back. I don't have time to explain. What am I gonna do?"

"Is there a way to destroy the Eclipse Cannon without going into the control room?"

"I dunno, let me think," Sonic said, putting his hand to his head in thought.

"We really don't have the time, Sonic. Make it snappy."

"You're as helpful as a virus to a computer." Sonic snapped his fingers. "Hey, what if I ran up the nose of the Cannon and slam dunked the Emerald in there. It's not a real one, so if it hits the energy inside, it'll explode, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah, but who knows what disastrous effects it would cause. It could blow the ARK out of orbit."

"Better that then another potshot to the planet! Want to argue while Möbius becomes a chunky donut?"

Knuckles shook his head, and made motions about his waist, and in his hands appeared the Super Emerald belt. "You may need this."

"Yeah, but I doubt it. Hey, I could fly right up to the nose and slam dunk it in there!"

"Too many asteroids. It's more rock then space about a mile above the face of the ARK. Do you see any spacesuits around here?"

"Why?"

"You're not thinking about stepping out into the vacuum of space, Sonic…"

"That's the thing: the ARK has the outside as well as the inside pressurized and has breathable air."

"What? How do you know?"

"Talk to Tails. He got the schematics about the ARK onto the Cyclone's computer. Now, I gotta juice. Find the guys. Eggman's got to be making them suffer if I'm right."

Sonic waved a goodbye and took off for the nearest airlock. Knuckles looked after him for a second, and took off down another hall himself. Time was ticking, and the margin for error was slight. Sonic knew that he only had one shot and he better make it a good one.

This was it: the final rush…

Chapter 14: The Final Rush

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I guess he was just a regular hedgehog after all."

Shadow had been a few doors down in the science bay, and had watched the pod fly out of the "atmosphere" of the ARK. He watched unemotionally as it vanished in fire. He didn't like Sonic much at all, but he was a worthy rival.

His com crackled to life and he opened the channel. "Shadow, here."

"Shadow. Metal-Sonic has snatched the last Emerald. My walker has been reduced to scrap and I was knocked out, but Mecha took off when I was down, with the last Emerald, but there is another problem. Scans from the ARK's database indicate a center of Chaos Energy quickly heading towards the Cannon spire. It must be the Echidna, Knuckles. Cut him off before the cannon fires!"

"Yes, doctor." He deactivated the com, and looked around. He noticed that Rouge was gone. Slightly alarmed and not surprised at the same time, he took off down the door, knowing precisely she'd go.

-----

8:18 PM

11 minutes, 10 seconds till next fire

Sonic had found an airlock that led to the outside of the ARK. It was cold, dark, gloomy and the surface which looked clean from a distance, was coated with space dust. That was a little better, thought Sonic. It'd give more traction for his feet.

He could see the nose of the Eclipse Cannon far away. It looked like a mountain from his point of view, but it also looked like a spear, aimed towards the planet. Now that was an experience. Straight above him was the planet he lived on, and it felt very awkward. He had a similar experience a few years before when he first arrived on Little Planet, where he first met Metal-Sonic and Amy.

No time for nostalgia, Sonic. There's about 10 minutes to firing, and you're thinking about Little Planet. Gotta go, hedgehog.

Despite the artificial gravity that was equivalent to Möbius' natural gravity constant, it was altered on the face of the ARK. Sonic was actually lighter by about 10 lbs, and his bounds were about 10 longer, meaning he could gain better speed. He found this out by experiencing it personally.

Finally, something on his side. He was quicker then ever. He made for the cannon at a fast run, thinking slightly on what would happen if he didn't stop soon enough when he got to the cannon. A classic Looney-Toons gag came to mind.

-----

Shadow was able to beat Metal-Sonic to the control room.

(Metal-Sonic was actually amusing himself by leading the Möbians on a wild goose chase around the ARK, knowing that he could perfectly well get it to the control room soon enough. Eggman took away his chief desire of killing Sonic, so might as well take it out on the Möbians in any cruel way possible with a little game of tag.)

The black hedgehog had to stop by here because he needed a Chaos Emerald to more quickly overtake the Echidna (or whoever it was) on the Eclipse Cannon spire, but when he came to the control room itself, he was in for a surprise.

There was Rouge, standing in front of the six Chaos Emeralds, and while Shadow silently walked closer, he heard her say eagerly. "Ah, now I have six of the Chaos Emeralds, and I can always find the other one. Now they're all mine, all mine!" Her voice raised high in anticipation.

Shadow had other ideas. "I don't think so."

Rouge spun about. "Shadow! My, do you have a way of appearing at the worst times."

"I wouldn't call it the worst, for I find it most beneficial to me. And was that you planned all along, to get the Chaos Emeralds for yourself? Or was it a direct order from the human President?"

Rouge said nothing.

"Yes, I know who you are, Rouge the Bat. You are a government spy for the Möbian Agency of Intelligence, aren't you?"

Shadow smiled coldly. The tables had been turned.

Rouge turned to the side, crossing her arms, but still peered at Shadow. "So, I see you did your homework, Shadow. I'd call it an infringement on privacy."

"I could say the same about you. You were always asking or wanting to ask about me in any way or form, be it directly or underhandedly."

"Hmph, it's my job, dearie. I'm taking what I think is sufficient payment for my troubles in helping you boys."

Shadow swung up onto the platforms, and his scarlet eyes met Rouge's jade ones. "You don't deserve even the fake Emerald. You are one pathetic creature!"

"And you are no better?" Rouge was cool and collected. "What do you think this is?" Rouge pulled out her printouts from her pack between her wings, and displayed them to Shadow.

"This is a printout on information of the ultimate lifeform under Project Shadow. And if this report is what it says the ultimate lifeform, then who…or what is standing right in front of me?"

Shadow glared at the picture that showed a diagram of the ultimate lifeform. A quick glance at it told Shadow that according to this report, he was not the so-called ultimate lifeform.

Shadow tried to mask his hidden identity crisis, but wasn't sure if he had succeeded. If he wasn't the ultimate lifeform, according to this report, then…who or what was he?

He looked up and saw Rouge peering at him, triumphantly. Shadow's anger rose and he shoved his way to the Emeralds. He yanked out the Green Chaos Emerald and glared back at Rouge, who hadn't changed her general posture.

"If you want to live, leave the Emeralds where they are. Otherwise, Metal-Sonic will find you and won't spare you the mercy I just showed and will never after."

Shadow leaped off the platform, back onto the walkway, for the sake of getting away from Rouge.

"Do you really think that you still are the ultimate lifeform, despite what this report says?" Rouge said, smiling.

Shadow had his back turned towards the bat, but heard the familiar rustle of paper. He didn't answer.

"You know, even your memories could be fake as well…"

That did it. Shadow spun around with a ferocious glare at Rouge. "Listen, bat! I am Shadow the Hedgehog, the ultimate lifeform created by Professor Gerald and born upon the ARK. I have a commission to destroy the inhabitants of that pathetic planet, and I will include you with them if you continue to pester me further, understand?"

Shadow didn't wait for an answer. He waved the Emerald around and vanished in a flash of green light.

Rouge stood in the darkness of the control room, seething at being threatened, but pleased to see that the great Shadow received a chink in his armor. Now she will just have to exploit it further.

-----

8:22 PM

7 minutes, 8 seconds till cannon fire

Sonic had arrived at the bottom of the spire, which from his position seemed to stretch to connect with the planet, but he knew better. This was about to send out a message of death to the planet if he didn't do anything but stand there.

It took a quick search to find a ladder that lead to spiraling-upwards ramp. Sonic climbed the ladder, two steps at a time, and began ascending the ramp.

He wasn't even a hundred feet from the ARK's face when he saw a flash of green in the corner of his eye. At first, he thought it was a figment of his imagination, due to the shock of teleporting at the same time as the pod exploding. Then, he heard an oily voice that made him jump.

"You are indeed full of surprises, my dear Sonic."

Sonic turned his head to see Shadow, not six feet away, bearing the Green Emerald and a cruel look. Sonic began walking along the ramp, and Shadow went along on the side. Stride by stride, they matched, one blue hedgehog and a black one.

Shadow continued, "I believed that escape pod you were contained in had exploded in space, killing you."

Sonic flashed a grin and a glance at Shadow. "Heh, what can I say? I die hard."

"I am curious on how you were able to escape, you being just a regular hedgehog."

"Heh, your first mistake, I guess. If I was so regular, I would've died."

Shadow did not reply.

"But to humor you…" Sonic revealed the Yellow Emerald fake in his hand. "…it was you who really saved me, in a way."

"So YOU have the real one?"

Sonic's eyes narrowed mischievously. "Maybe…"

"You must, for you couldn't have been able to master the Chaos Control with a fake Emerald."

Sonic shrugged, and quickened to a jog. Shadow followed suit.

"There must be more to you then just looking like me," Shadow said quietly. "Who are you?"

Sonic glanced at Shadow, wondering at first if Shadow was joking for once, but the black hedgehog's eyes showed blissful wonder, being isolated on a space station with no other Möbians had given. Shadow had never met nor seen another hedgehog before he met Sonic. Sonic was obliged to feel sorry for him.

"Well, Shads, take a good look. What you see is what you get: just a guy who loves adventure." Sonic quickened his gait. "I'm Sonic the Hedgehog!"

Shadow had activated his hoverskates and was gliding along leisurely.

"I see, but you must know, I can't let you live. Your adventure days are coming to an end!"

"Bring it on, Shadow!" Sonic said, just before rocketing forward.

Sonic and Shadow raced side by side, reading each other's defenses. Shadow had the real disadvantage for his skates were near frictionless, so if Sonic nudged him off the narrow ramp, Shadow would slip off. Shadow met this with a Chaos Control from his Emerald.

Shadow however was more battle experienced and more aggressive, so Sonic had to be very careful.

The race took them to a maze of ramps and ladders that seemed to go everywhere, and speed was no issue here, and the race to the Eclipse Cannon became a race for survival.

Shadow struck first. He went into a spin and threw himself onto Sonic's side. Sonic was knocked off, the ladder, but his new teleporting trick was very nice to have. He had trouble the first few times, but it grew easier.

"Nice try, Shadow, but not good enough!" Sonic said, slightly bruised on his side, but loosing none of his spunk.

Sonic reached a ladder first and began to climb. Shadow reached it two seconds later, and began to climb. Sonic curled into a ball and let gravity pull him into Shadow's face. Shadow was spent sprawling and he fell off the ladder. Sonic was able to grab hold of the ladder again and raced again.

Sonic just reached the top before the black hedgehog teleported back onto the ladder, clearly vengeful.

"Before this is over, I'll show you the true power of Chaos Control!" Shadow raced ahead.

"You want it, you got it!" Sonic retorted.

The two supersonic hedgehogs raced side by side, Sonic's two strides matching Shadow's one skating stride.

Sonic aimed a kick to Shadow's waist, but Shadow caught Sonic's leg and flung him to the ground, where as Shadow placed one of his flaming hoverskates dangerously close to Sonic's eyes.

The blue hedgehog quickly retaliated with a kick with his free leg into Shadow's back, which flung him forward. Sonic had to rub his eyes, for those jets were powerful.

"Very good, hedgehog," Shadow hissed, rubbing his back. "I didn't see that coming…"

"Of course, you can't see at your back, Shadow," Sonic smiled back, and raced off again, Shadow gliding after him in the blink of an eye.

They had reached a long stretch of unstable platforms that soon collapsed underneath them. Shadow had the least difficulty, for he just teleported across. Sonic didn't think about teleporting until the first platform he was on collapsed and fell beneath him. After the initial shock of that, he used the Emerald to teleport, about ten feet behind Shadow.

"I've been waiting for you…"

"I know you were." Sonic half smiled, half bared his teeth.

"You haven't seen anything yet…" Shadow growled, returning a flash of teeth of his own.

The race was on again, but Shadow still had another trick up his sleeve, and planned to use it. Sonic had glimpsed to his side at Shadow, looking for a hole in his defense to exploit, when Shadow's Green Emerald flashed yellowish.

"Chaos Spear!"

Sonic saw the Emerald flash once, then he felt something he never felt before. A yellow-green lightning bolt of Chaos energy had raced from the expanse above and struck him in the back, sending him to the ground, dazed and stupefied at what happened. Shadow kicked him and glided off.

It was a few seconds before Sonic worked up the concentration to Chaos Control back up the Eclipse Cannon. Gah, that hurt…

Shadow didn't show any emotion to Sonic's reappearance, but Sonic saw that he was gloating over the Chaos Spear behind his red eyes.

Sonic didn't have the nerve to go through that again, but wondered if he could Chaos Spear Shadow...

He felt around the Emerald, as he did as if trying to find the Chaos Control, but never found the Chaos Spear. It irritated him because Shadow kept distracting him with a few blindside attacks.

Then, he picked up something. Nothing like Chaos Spear, but it was swift, cool, and strong. It reminded Sonic of the power of running at Mach 1. Now, to unleash it…

"Sonic Wind!"

Shadow ran straight into straight-line 100 mph winds that blew him straight off the tower. Sonic was unaffected being the wielder of the Chaos Emerald that wielded the power, even if it was fake…

Shadow teleported back up, his eyes kindling some.

Sonic's watched beeped suddenly and he glanced at it. Good grief! Only thirty seconds before the cannon would fire again! He concentrated on the tip of the Eclipse Cannon and teleported.

He landed on the tip which was about four-feet wide. There was a green flash and Shadow was there too.

"Heh, great minds think alike, eh Shadow?"

"Fools seldom differ…" Shadow had his usual pose, erect and arms crossed.

"Dude, Eggman I'm sure needs that Emerald you have, and you're just going to become toast standing here!"

"As will you, hedgehog."

Fifteen seconds to go….Sonic heard a deep rumbling and felt internal machinery move. The tower began to split into four.

Ten seconds to go….The actual Eclipse Cannon was revealed, a long, thin spire, pointing towards the planet. The lens of the laser was clear in the base. The only way Sonic was that it was glowing green.

Five seconds to go…Shadow teleported away in a flash of green, to which Sonic smirked. He looked down at the lens as it was glowing neon green. He raised the Emerald to throw it down into what looked like a pool of liquid fire, when all the sudden, it died.

The whole cannon stayed open, but the green was gone.

"What happened?" Sonic wondered out loud.

He soon felt the tower shake suddenly and decided to scram. He teleported away.

-----

Metal-Sonic raced into the control room, his torso-jet smoking white, and saw Rouge with her back towards Mecha, standing beside the Chaos Emeralds.

"What are you doing?" Metal-Sonic growled, which in a metallic overtone is not a pleasant sound.

Rouge turned and said coolly. "Just guarding the Emeralds, dearie. Somebody has to." She glanced at the Emerald in Mecha's gloved claws. "I see you found the last one."

Mecha ignored her, strode towards the console and jammed the Emerald into an available socket. He saw that there was still one available. He glanced over the colors twice to see what color is missing, then glared at Rouge.

"What?" Rouge asked innocently.

"Where…is the Green Chaos Emerald, Rouge…?" Metal-Sonic said, saying each syllable clearly and slowly.

"You think I stole it?"

"It's a possibility." Mecha flexed his claws.

"It just might, but I didn't. Shadow took it to do something. I'm sure he'll be back."

Mecha didn't reply, but eyed Rouge due to small amount of disbelief, but was distracted when he heard a commotion out in the halls: assorted voices, some heavy footfalls.

"It's the intruders," Mecha said, but not out of surprise. It sounded calm, as if he found them no threat. "Protect the Emeralds with your life, I will face them."

His claws and arm turned into a revolver laser gun, which would spin as it fired, giving a high speed rate of fire, a little weapon be "borrowed" from his predecessor, Silver-Sonic.

He fired a few warning shots into the dark passage-way, which in reply came a few shouts of surprise and more of the heavy footfalls.

"Fools."

Mecha saw the Cyclone stomp his direction, and fired more. Tails in the Cyclone returned fire. Mecha knew that a few good shots from that mech would heavily damage him, so he dodged quickly, while returning fire. The laser blasts only met strong armor that just charred the paint.

Sally was hiding behind the Cyclone leg, wishing that Mecha hadn't destroyed her laser pistol.

Mecha took a blast to the arm, which burned in and revealed some of the machinery side. Angry, he fired several more blasts, hoping some would connect.

On the other side of this firefight, Tails was still angry and anguished at Sonic being dead and he could do nothing about it now. He thought of all the possibilities he could've rescued Sonic, and that just made him feel more miserable. He let the Cyclone's laser blasts at Mecha scream his screams inside.

Several blasts came dangerously within an inch of his head, but he didn't notice. He was too focused on his sorrow-filled wrath.

He even didn't notice when Mecha titled his head at an odd angle, but he did notice when Mecha retreated back into the control room.

"Hey! He retreated!" Sally said from the side.

"Let's go!" Tails said, leading the Cyclone into a jog.

They turned the corner, and one by one, their jaws fells out of their heads. In the room was Dr. Robotnik, a little charred, but still brandishing his large gun. Metal-Sonic stood on one side of him and Rouge on the other.

"How did you get here?" Tails asked in disbelief.

"It's very simple, fox boy, I walked to a nearby teleporter pad and just recalibrated it to beam me here. I couldn't do it with my Eggwalker…" Eggman shot a glare at Tails. "…but it doesn't matter. When Shadow returns, you shall witness the rise of the Empire of Dr. Ivo Robotnik!"

Tails didn't really fear the gun Robotnik had, but if he advanced, he'd expose the girls and the chao to Metal-Sonic. Darn it! He was caught in a standoff! If he moved, the girls would be harmed doubtless, and if he stayed…

There was a flash of green on the narrow walkway and there stood Shadow, he saw the intruders first and grinned. He held up the Emerald, daring anyone of the girls, chao or Tails to grab it. He strode towards the console, and Tails felt the same wave of helplessness go over him.

Shadow gave the Emerald to Robotnik. "Would you like to do the honors?"

"Why, yes, Shadow…" Robotnik chuckled sinisterly.

Shadow coasted out of the room, and the girls let him pass uneventfully. As for Robotnik, he took the Emerald, and jammed it dramatically into the available socket.

The reaction was like pouring kerosene into fire. At once the computers blared a "FAILURE!" and made deafening sirens. Rouge winced in spite of herself and fluttered out of the room. Metal-Sonic grew irritated too and flew after her, but another reason was that his scanners detected a surge of chaos energy in the science bay.

Everyone was wondering what started the chaos. Robotnik was the only one not holding his ears. He was surprised and frustrated. He expected everything to go smoothly, but all the controls were locked.

"Let's get out of here!" Tails shouted, barely audible above the noise.

Everyone retreated into the halls, while Robotnik was left alone inside, trying tomake sense of the mess.

"Why won't the cannon fire?" Robotnik growled over and over.

He looked up at the screen again, and let out an oath. There, on the screen, was a video playing of an old man that had a large resemblance to Eggman.

"It's…my grandfather!"

Chapter 15: The End?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sonic had teleported into the science bay where he had been jettisoned from and found it empty, save for a mess of severely burned metal scraps on the floor. He was still holding the fake Yellow Emerald, and had just gotten there when he heard a voice…

"Hey! Where is everyone?"

It sounded like Knuckles. Sonic rushed for the door and looked outside. Knuckles was down the hall, trying to figure out where he was.

"Hey, Knux!"

Knuckles turned and saw Sonic peering out. He waved at him.

"Hey, have you seen anyone?"

"Nope, except Shadow, like that counts."

Suddenly, the whole colony shook.

"What's going on?" Knuckles said, surpised.

"I don't know! Dude, come in here…"

Knuckles ran into the room, half-stumbling from the shaking. They just got in there, when they heard noises from the hallways. It sounded like a distant jet coming their way. Sonic knew what it was at once.

"Mecha!" Sonic braced himself, ready for the navy-blue robot to appear any second.

A few seconds later, the robot roared into the room, and looked around. It's eyes immediately rested on Sonic, and it physically jumped.

"Ssssonic!" Mecha said in complete surprise. "You survived!"

"And kicking." Sonic smiled, just as another wave of tremors hit the space station.

Metal-Sonic hovered to keep his balance. "What is the cause of this?"

No one answered, but a few seconds later, Rouge walked in with a strange look on her face.

"You? You haven't given up yet?" Knuckles threw up his fists.

"I'm not after your Emerald. Even if I did, it wouldn't mean any good to me now…"

"What do you mean?" Sonic asked.

"I just got a call from my boss back in Sapphire City." Rouge answered, her voice trembling slightly. "The satellites have been trained at ARK ever since last night, and they found that the ARK…now…is approaching the planet at an incredible velocity! It's about to smash into the planet!"

"What?" Sonic and Knuckles said in unison.

"It's true…" Rouge said, despairingly.

"Transmission detected." Metal-Sonic stood erect and looked at a screen display on one side of the room. On it was playing a video of an old man, tied to a chair, with a large white moustache.

Sonic and Knuckles turned to see what Mecha was staring at, and saw the computer movie. "Who's that?"

They stood still and watched as the video played. The man sounded half-mad.

"This is a death sentence to Möbius. If my calculations are correct, the space colony with collide with the earth with a force equal to 4.5 million atomic bombs in less then 27 minutes. This program will activate when all seven Chaos Emeralds power the ARK. There's no overriding it. It will destroy all of you people and your precious planet. All of you ungrateful humans, who took everything away from me, will soon feel my loss and despair!"

There was a pause, then someone off camera said. "Is there anything else you need to say?"

The man shook his head. "No."

"Ready, men--"

There was a brief moment of static, then the movie replayed.

"Dude, he sounded off his rocker…" Sonic said.

"But he's correct," Metal-Sonic replied. "The ARK's orbit has decayed dramatically. Estimated target, 1.34 miles north of Sapphire City."

"What are we going to do?" Rouge asked from the side.

There was a ruckus in the nearby hall, some shouting and metal clanking. Some sounded very frightened, especially when the rumbling increased. A few screams rang through the halls that sounded familiar.

"Amy?" Sonic wondered…

The rest of the chatter was undecipherable, until someone said, "Let's get back into the room where we were before."

The crowd of Möbians came in and when they saw Sonic, their moods flip-flopped.

"SONIC!" Amy was the first to bolt forward and pounced on Sonic, who lost his footing. Tails and the others were next, all expressing their joy to see Sonic again, alive and real.

"How did you get out?"

"I love you Sonic!"

"We thought you were dead for sure!"

"I love you Sonic!"

"We're so glad to see you…"

"I love you Sonic!"

"Ok, ok, ok!" Sonic said. "Amy, nice to know. I'm very glad to see you guys, but we got a big problem…"

Sonic showed them the screen that was still playing the video. It was already halfway through, but it was presented well enough.

"So this whole space station is one gigantic nuclear bomb?" Tails reasoned.

"That's mean!" Cream said, her child-like mind working as usual.

"We gotta stop this, now!" Sally said.

"Who is that, anyway?" Amy asked.

"It's my grandfather…" a voice said.

All spun around to see the spherical figure of Dr. Robotnik. He used a teleporter to get back to the outer circles of the ARK, after failing to recalibrate the program.

"Professor Gerald Robotnik, the greatest scientific genius of his day, and my grandfather." Robotnik stepped deeper into the room, every eye following him.

"Stop it right now, Eggman, or else I'll--" Knuckles said, pounding his fists.

"I would've stopped this before if I had the chance!" snapped Robotnik. "Rouge, take this. Put it into the console near the computer."

The human gave the bat a small disk, who looked it over. "What's this?"

"It's my grandfather's diary…"

Rouge strode towards the computer console and put into the appropriate slot. A few seconds later, a document appeared. Rouge read the words aloud for everyone.

"Was it wrong to create the ultimate lifeform?

"I ask myself this from my cell on Prison Island, reflecting on the last several months of my life. I've lost everything except my memories, but what good are they when I die?

"I remember first being relocated out to the ARK, the first space colony of mankind. I was part of a team of scientists in the biophysics department. I found that there were also a team of scientists that were inventing weapons for the military. I knew that this would not go well for the colonies if the ARK ever fell into the wrong hands.

"Even before we moved to the ARK, we had been planning a project and began some of the work. We had connections to the Möbians with strong Chaos auras. Most of them were Echidnas who had Chaos Warriors, who thrived on the power of Chaos. We wondered if we could produce a Möbian with the strongest ever Chaos aura in history. We called out project, Shadow. We would deal with different species to see which ones would work best for us.

"I acquired two Emeralds to use with the prototypes. We first tried Echidna embryos, but none lived.

"One prototype that survived the radiation from the Chaos Emerald was a hedgehog embryo. Upon research, we found that Möbian hedgehogs had very strong auras at birth. Echidnas were bombarded with the energy when still in eggs. We named the hedgehog 'Shadow' after the project.

"The hedgehog grew with red fur, but when it was two years old, its fur darkened to a coal-black, while the lining of the spines and limbs remained blood-red. We began training it for using the Chaos Emerald we had.

"When out specimen, Shadow, reached the age of five, we relocated to the facilities inside ARK. Shadow still could not use the Emerald properly and would often throw fits of rage.

"Then one day, I received news from my family. My beloved daughter, and her husband were killed in a car accident. I'll miss them horribly. By divinity, their daughter, my granddaughter, Maria, and her brother, Kent, was still alive. I decided to take them in; they were my only link to my beloved daughter, now gone.

"Interestingly, Shadow was very interested in my two grandchildren, Maria more so. I suppose it would make sense, the hedgehog born in a laboratory being alone all the time, not having the proper parenting.

"Shadow and Maria grew to be very close to each other. It got to the point where Shadow would die rather then leave Maria alone.

"Another part of our project was to create a lifeform that would be able to survive virtually anywhere. We tampered with Shadow to do such as well, but he wasn't our main objective. We decided to use a sample of an amphibian since they were already adept to living on land and sea.

"It was years later, when Shadow was in his teens, and Maria was 12 when things progressed rapidly. Shadow was able to use the Emerald in fascinating ways. He was able to stop time, teleport and summon a lightning bolt.

"Then, it happened. G.U.N. troops had invaded the ARK. Apparently, some politicians back on the surface weaseled their way to shut down our operations on the ARK. They arrested many of the scientists, including me. Shadow, Maria, Kent, I hope you are all right. I found out later that the ARK was shut down under the premise that there was an accident.

"I sit in my cell for what seem like years, and news is that my dear granddaughter, Maria, was killed. I weep for her as I type these words. Shadow had been brought to me, and I could see in his eyes that he wanted to make the humans suffer.

"I too want the humans to suffer. They killed Maria, they put Kent in a foster home, my colleagues and friends, in prison, innocent of anything! I couldn't bear that. I went into fits of insanity.

"I told Shadow about out project nestled deep in the ARK, and that it holds the secret to revenge.

"Reader, if you want to fill the world with destruction, release Shadow."

Rouge stopped reading and turned to Robotnik. "So THAT'S why you released Shadow from the base!"

"Yes, but I wasn't ready for this catastrophe!" Robotnik said. "The Chaos Emeralds have been absorbed into the power of the ARK. To stop the ARK, we must stop the energy!"

Robotnik strode towards the computer and pulled up the schematics and maps of the ARK. "Computer, track the Chaos Emeralds!"

There was a bleep and a cursor appeared on the screen, taking twists and turns around the ARK's center, finally stopping close to the center, a little below.

"What's down there?" Knuckles asked.

"The cannon's core, where the energy from the Chaos Emeralds converts to usable energy."

"Is there a way to get down there?" Sally asked.

"Yes, but it'll take time…time we don't have."

"Oh, yes we do." Sonic held up the fake Yellow Emerald. "I can stop time with this. I can do it better then teleporting."

"So THAT'S how you escaped, but right now, that's fortunate. Now for the hard par. How to stop the Chaos Emeralds?" Robotnik said.

Rouge brightened up suddenly. "That's it! I know how. We must use the Master Emerald!"

Knuckles looked up suddenly.

"You told me that the Master Emerald has the power to control the Chaos Emeralds."

Knuckles understood. "Yes, if I can get to the core, I can use the Master to stop the Chaos Emeralds."

"Well, let's go!" Robotnik said. "I know the way. Tails, we'll need your mech. It has the strongest firepower now. We'll need to destroy the boundaries that block the paths to the core. If we work together, we can do this."

"Dash, Frosty, go with Tails. Let's go! We only have about 23 minutes!"

"Mecha, we may need you," Robotnik said.

"Affirmative."

Sally took Sonic's hand. "Be careful, Sonic…"

"Thanks, Sal. Take care of the others while I'm gone, will you?"

"Yes."

"I gotta go. Bye…"

Sonic raced out the door, followed by everyone else, except Sally, Cream, Amy and Cheese.

"Be safe…"

-----

17 minutes, 23 seconds before crash

The troupe was standing in a maze of corridors, passageways and what not, receiving instructions.

"Tails, you must destroy the door on the far end of this chamber. Be careful: There's toxic waste residue all over. It'll harm your mech if you're too close. Once you destroy the door, we can proceed," Robotnik said.

Sonic held up his Emerald. "I'll come back for you guys. Ready, Tails?"

Tails gripped the controls. "Ready."

"Chaos Control!"

Everything held still, and Tails looked around, seeing everything frozen. "Wow!"

"Hurry, it doesn't last forever. Let's find that door!"

Sonic went in the lead, keeping an eye on the Emerald, for if it flickered, time was running out. They came close to what looked like green water. It was the power residue, so both sought to avoid it. After what would be thirty seconds, they found a bolted door guarded by security locks.

"I'll shoot the locks," Tails said, aiming the Vulcan cannon at the four shining electric locks with a tag laser. The targets showed up on the targeting screen in the cockpit.

The mounted Vulcan cannon swiveled and fired four shots repeatedly at the locks, breaking them.

"Let's get back to the others before time starts…" Sonic said from the side. "…hopefully, we can get the next door just as quick…"

Sonic went first, Tails in the Cyclone following at a jog. The Emerald started flickering, and soon dimmed, just as they got to the others. To them, it looked like they did nothing at all, but the intercom said otherwise:

"System alert! Security door 1 has been compromised. Initiating lockdown of core…"

"Well done, now for door two. It's a bit tricky to get, so be careful. It's directly above a water storage vessel. The water acts as a coolant. It's too high up to use the Cyclone. Mecha, I'm counting on you to destroy the security gate. Go!"

Sonic was at first unsure about teaming up with Mecha, but they really didn't have time to quibble trivially. Sonic grasped Mecha's clawed hand (Mecha didn't react) and shouted the words "Chaos Control!" and time held still.

Mecha immediately looked up. "Hedgehog, I could disintegrate your existence right here and the doctor would be powerless to stop me, but in so doing, I endanger myself for you are the only possibility to prolong my existence. Consider your death postponed until after we stop the ARK. Agreed?"

Sonic looked strange at Mecha, but didn't answer the question. "Look, let's stop the ARK and after that, we'll talk about the fights. Now, let's juice…"

-----

Amy had managed to get away from Sally a little bit and was strolling up and down the dingy hall, ignoring the rumbling from the space station's movement. She was too upset at the others to notice.

"Ooh! I hate it when I'm left behind like a dishrag! I was able to beat that robot Zero and rescue the Flickies from the Egg Carrier, but do they count that? No! I'm 14, and I can take care of myself! But do they think that? No!"

She was in this mode of thought when she heard a distant door slam, and looked up. She saw Shadow marching down the hall towards her. No wait, not towards her…Shadow past Amy without even gracing her with an acknowledgement of her existence. The black hedgehog went into another room, but didn't shut the door.

Amy looked after Shadow for a moment, then realized that marching up and down the hall like a whiny baby would not help anyone.

"I really need to stop whining. Everyone else is trying to do their best, and so must I…well, not everyone's doing there best, I suppose…" she glanced at Shadow's room again.

Amy half-ran into the room and discovered Shadow near the window, looking at the planet, which now looked bigger then before. Amy ran closer, and one of Shadow's ears twitched at the noise of her footsteps.

"Shadow?" Amy started.

Shadow didn't reply.

"Shadow, I know you can hear me. We need your help! Please!"

Shadow still didn't respond.

-----

15 minutes, 17 seconds until ARK crash

The troupe was in a cylindrical room where orange-ish colored water was pouring in from all sides and being drained away in a moat around the base of the room.

Metal-Sonic had blasted a gate from above with the aid of Sonic's ability of Chaos Control. In less then two minutes real time, two of the four doors were already deactivated.

They stood near an armor-plated shield that protected what looked like a large pressure pad inside.

"Rouge, according to the readouts, this is the pressure pad that will drain the liquid from the passageway that Sonic and Knuckles must go to get to the core. But to do that, you must disable the shield around it."

Rouge fluttered her wings, and winked at Sonic. "Ready, manly?"

Sonic half-smiled and held up the fake Emerald, grasping to Rouge's hand. "Chaos Control!"

The world froze. Sonic and Rouge rushed through a frozen waterfall. Interestingly, they didn't get wet. They didn't think about this for they had to save a planet.

It was here they found a problem. The very next room had toxic residue from the ARK piled high here. It was a sea of death, in a way. To make things worse, the gate ahead seemed locked.

"Dang it. That's nice to see…" Sonic said.

"There's got to be a way…wait, I have an idea!" Rouge said, digging through her pouch. "Being an agent for the government has its advantages."

"An agent?" Sonic looked at Rouge as if she just switched colors like a chameleon. "If you're an agent, how come you hunt for jewels?"

"Oh, it's a hobby, you might say. Cases don't bring money in as easily as jewels do. Aha, here it is!"

Rouge pulled out a small gadget that looked like half of a ball. She flew across the toxic pit and placed it on the gate. She flew back.

"Now, what I said to you before, you cannot repeat to anyone else. I knew you'd ask anyway if I pulled out a surface detonator. Do I have your word?"

"Crosshairs on my heart." Sonic smiled…for some reason, he liked this girl.

Rouge pressed a button on a little gadget she had in her other hand and there was a violent bang and crash! Sonic and Rouge looked and saw that the gate had been decimated and what was left was sinking in the residue.

"Now's our chance: Let's go!" Rouge said, flying over.

Sonic went into a stationary spin-dash and he followed Rouge over. The switch was in the next room.

"There's the switch!" Sonic said, pointing to a large pressure pad on the floor. "Let's do it; my Emerald's already flickering…"

Rouge stomped with all her might onto the pressure pas, then Sonic took Rouge by the hand and made a dash for it.

"Are we going to make it?" Rouge asked.

"I dunno. Hold on, I'm gonna jump it with a Power Ring!"

Sonic had his Power Ring out in a flash, and unleashed its power. Sonic's blue fur lit up a few candelas and Sonic jumped. The power threw him over the toxic waste, through the tunnel and back to the others when the Emerald dimmed and time restarted.

"Excellent! Hurry, press the pressure pad!" Robotnik commanded.

Knuckles advanced first and gave it a firm stomp.

There was a sudden rush of the familiar water roar, then the speaker noised over the roar, "System alert! Coolant flow has been compromised. Proceeding lockdown."

"We must get out of here before the place floods. Sonic, back to the top!"

"Way ahead of ya, doc! Huddle!" Everyone gathered around Sonic. "Chaos Control!"

Everyone teleported away in a flash of yellow light, just as the room began to flood. They reappeared high above. They looked down to see the water rapidly rising.

"We are safe up here. The door is right over there…" Robotnik motioned towards a door, heavily bolted with security locks. "It's too strong for the Cyclone, and the switch is now waterlogged. One of us has to dive in and find the switch to deactivate the locks."

"Hold it!" Sonic objected. "You mean to say we have to SWIM?"

"There's no other way," Robotnik replied.

"Not to be over-realistic here," Knuckles started. "but none of us has the lung capacity to even try…"

"I realize that, but I have the solution." Robotnik pulled out a strange gadget that looked like a segmented tube with a string connected to each end, as if it was designed to wear. "This is an Air Necklace. It takes the oxygen dissolved in the water, and makes it breathable, much like fish gills. It's been used by divers for experimentation, for the Bends was always a problem. This eliminates the risk--

"Not to seem pushy here, but the ARK has about 13 minutes till it crashes…" Sonic said.

"I'll do it. I'm the best swimming," Knuckles said, taking the necklace and placing it over his neck. "I put it on my mouth through here, right?" He motioned to a slit in the pipe.

"Yes…"

Sonic walked forward. "I can give you a head start with this Emerald, but you'll still need to hurry."

"Got it…I'll go as fast as I can. Let's do it…" Knuckles took Sonic's hand into his large one.

"Chaos Control!"

Knuckles dived into the water and swam downwards. About halfway down was a tunnel that led deeper into the water. Knuckles was all right with swimming, but the warmth of the water made him feel drowsy. Also, he felt like he was being stalked by a shark or something. He kept glancing behind him, expecting to see something swimming around. He recalled something about in a sci-fi movie that Sonic liked a lot about a creature that lived in the garbage mashers that attacked some people that fell into it.

Another thing that was odd was even though the water was perfectly still, it still felt like he was running into currents. He thought that strange…

Once he reached the tunnel that led into the next hydro-chamber, he swam through, having trouble due to running into what felt like a current but he managed. On the other side was a very large switch, protected by a shield of glass, sitting on the wall. Knuckles smirked; like glass was going to stop him. He raised his fist and smashed through the glass. He reached in and activated the switch by pulling down the lever.

He began to go back in the tunnel, when time apparently restarted; for all the sudden, he was hearing a loud roar and he was sent tumbling head over heels out the waterway and back into the main hydro-chamber. He swam back up to the surface.

"Good work, Knux! The last door just opened!" Sonic helped Knux to get back onto solid ground.

"Now the core is accessible. Hurry! Get down into the core and override the Chaos Emeralds. We're all depending on you…Sonic, Knuckles, Mecha, go!"

"First, I'll teleport you guys back to the main room. Then, we'll juice on down here. Huddle!"

Everyone except Knuckles and Mecha grabbed hold of Sonic, just as Sonic shouted the words "Chaos Control" and the troupe vanished. Sonic reappeared a few seconds later…

"Let's go!"

-----

Amy was looking out the same window where Shadow was looking out of. Amy had been pleading with him for the last five minutes, but Shadow didn't grace her with an answer.

Amy was looking sorrowfully down towards the planet, which was by now very large and not too far from filling up the entire view.

"It's all going according to plan…"

Shadow thought Amy couldn't hear that, but Amy was a better listener then people gave her credit for. "What?"

Shadow glanced at Amy and thought about refusing to answer, but logically it wouldn't matter. "I said that it's all going according to plan."

"You mean, this was your idea?"

"No. Professor Gerald had it hard-wired to do it. I merely set it into action…the Professor put it right. They will feel his loss and despair…"

"But that's just wrong! I know that people fight and bicker about the stupidest things, but there are quite a few that are really good people, who help others when they need it. Just because the military shut down the ARK and ruined your life around you, that doesn't mean that all the people down there deserve to be punished…"

Shadow was stock still. His inner being was warring between two parts of him: the one loyal to a certain girl who died, and the other his vengeful spirit.

"Shadow, please promise me that you won't kill them! Give them a chance to be happy! Give them a chance to live!" Amy again pleaded.

Suddenly, Shadow fell apart at the seems. He suddenly sank to the ground, and he gripped his head. Amy leapt back in fear and surprise at Shadow's sudden flow of emotion. Shadow was shaking, crying. Amy didn't know that she penetrated Shadow's iron shield around his heart, and went straight through into him.

Shadow on the other hand was feeling several emotions: anger, sadness and others. Once again, he was reliving the tragic scene with Maria, at her side again. Once again, he was reliving the heartache from that experience. Once again…he thought about his promise.

And he almost broke it!

Shadow sprang to his feet, eyes still rimmed with red. "I know what I must do. I will obey Maria…" he thought in his mind. He turned to Amy. "I must go to the core. I must keep my promise to Maria…and you."

Shadow left the room at with a rush of haste. He skated down the halls and stopped in a power-chamber. In several sockets glowed different colored tubes. Shadow unscrewed one out and admired its green glow.

"It's not a Chaos Emerald, but this chaos drive will buy me time. Chaos Control!"

Chapter 16: Cannon's Core

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10 minutes, 33 seconds before impact with Möbius…

Sonic, Knuckles and Metal-Sonic were racing down the narrow passages that were going up and down, but always more down the up. There were many places where the path seemed to drop into nothing, so all were careful, but were trying to go as fast as they could at the same time.

This took time, so Sonic Chaos Controlled regularly to help remedy the problem. The three soon came to a place where the path ended with a rushing river of the orange water coolant.

"Huh, what now?" Knuckles said, looking over the rushing water.

"Heck, I dunno. Jump in?" Sonic said, motioning to the water.

"This idle banter is a waste of time," Metal-Sonic said in disgust.

"Let's go down it. I'll Chaos Control, and we'll all rush down," Sonic suggested. "We only got about 10 minutes before the crash, so let's jam! Chaos Control!"

There was one thing that they didn't count on: even though time was still, the floor was still slippery. Sonic went into an immediate slide. Knuckles tried to catch him, but he managed to slip down the tube as well. Metal-Sonic found it remotely amusing, but there was a job to do. He jetted down after them.

-----

Shadow was skating down many a dark hallway, praying mentally that he wasn't too late to act. The words Amy said to him were comforting, but haunting, for hey were the same words Maria said just before she died.

He gripped the Chaos drive in his hand, trying to use its small bit of Chaos energy to generate the time halting effects of Chaos Control. He panted, concentrated, sweat drops beginning to run down his face. There!

"Chaos Control!"

The world froze, and he raced towards the center of the ARK, mildly wondering about a sudden strange presence…

-----

Sonic was sliding down, confused and hot. The water he was tumbling through was hot and tasted rubbery. Time had already started on him, and with it came the water. He tumbled around like a pinball, not even thinking about where in the ARK he was.

Suddenly, it stopped. He floe out of the pipe that the water was flowing through, and splashed into a small pool in a large room.

Spluttering, he dragged himself out of the water and lay on the ground. His senses began returning to him, and he found he was laying on rock! He jumped up all the sudden, thinking he was dreaming, but he was in a large room, that was made of stone and brick.

There was another splash behind him, and he looked back. Knuckles had just splashed down into the pool, and Sonic went to help him out. Mecha came in a little later, not even wet.

"I see you made it, hedgehog…"

Sonic side-eyed the robot, but said nothing to him. "Knux, you all right?"

"Yeah. I don't need a bath for a month. Where are we?"

"We are in the Cannon's Core…" Mecha said from the side.

Sonic had hoisted Knuckles out and was studying the room. On the far end was a rise in the ground, and around that were seven obelisks, each with a glow on them. Sonic recognized the color of the glows to be the Chaos Emeralds.

Knuckles saw the rise too and knew what it was. "Hey, that looks like the shrine of the Master Emerald before it was relocated to Hidden Palace…"

Sonic crossed his arms. "Heh, clever. They probably built it that way to better harness the Chaos Emeralds."

In the middle of the room was a circular flat of rock, surrounded by the flowing orange water, and another rock pathway around both sides. On the extremes of the room were just featureless parts of the floor.

But what drew all their gaze was something on the ceiling, something that Sonic hoped never to see again: it was a large mass that reminded Sonic of the vessels in the neck that sometimes can feel the throbbing of, the pump working away from the far side towards their side quickly.

"What is THAT?" Knuckles exclaimed.

"I can't relay the information to you; my scanners are being blocked by a lethal amount of Chaos energy, far more then any Chaos Emerald," Metal-Sonic said from the side.

"That doesn't sound good…" Sonic said dryly. "It's like there's something…alive in there…"

"That's the last thing we need…" Knuckles said.

"Well, let's get the Chaos Emeralds and get the heck out of here. If that DOES hatch, I don't want to be here when it does. Let's make a dash for it…"

Sonic ran first, but only went two steps when the worst happened: the mass ripped open! A wave of black energy surged outwards, knocking all three of them against the far wall. When Sonic recovered his senses, in the middle of the room where the pool was in the middle sat was the biggest creature he had ever seen, next to Perfect Chaos…

It was a light-brown and had a gray underside. A long neck and tail protruded from its wet body. Its mouth opened to let out a roar, revealing no teeth, and where its eyes should've been were only robotic implants. From its mouth came a pair of tubes that raced back over its shoulders and were absorbed into a large piece of metal gear strapped to the creatures back. It was at least 80 feet long and a good 20 feet at the shoulder.

The very sight of it made him sick.

Knuckles and Metal-Sonic came to and saw the creature. Metal-Sonic tried scanning it, but it couldn't operate due to the power that this foul beast leaked out. He contacted Dr. Robotnik who was back in the science bay. After a bit, the robot turned to the other two.

"I've just contacted the doctor and relayed out situation to him. He replied to what this creature is: it is the prototype of the Project Shadow, the ultimate lifeform that was supposed to be encapsulated. It is called the "Biolizard."

Sonic and Knuckles only half-heard it. They couldn't get their eyes off of the monstrosity. "It's between us and the Emeralds. How are we gonna get to them now?"

"It must be distracted somehow…" Metal-Sonic said.

"But how? It knocked us flat when it came out!" Knuckles asked.

"Leave it to me…" said a voice from behind everyone.

All looked behind to see Shadow, standing near the pool, brandishing a hot green glowing chaos drive.

"Shadow? What are you doing?" Sonic asked.

He didn't answer, but he strode towards the Biolizard, which was basking in the warm orange water. He looked it up and down, trying to find a weakspot, then he spotted the pack on his back. "It looks like a life support…" He turned back to the three. "I'll distract this prototype, while you get the Chaos Emeralds!"

"You're helping us?" Sonic asked.

"Long ago, I made a promise to Maria, and I intend to carry it out. Go!"

"I'll assist you," said Mecha. "I have no need to help the hedgehog get the Chaos Emeralds. I will help you fight this creature."

"If you insist…" Shadow side-eyed the Biolizard, which was peering down at them. He could feel its hatred and anger radiating from it. It chilled Shadow in a way…

Metal-Sonic attacked first. Jet active, he extended his claws and spun right into the area just below the neck meets the main body. It left a deep gash, which was bleeding a bluish blood. The beast made a snarl reminiscent to a jungle cat, and it lowered his head, searching for the perpetrator. It's "eyes" found Shadow, and it stooped down to devour him.

Shadow glided along the perimeter of the stone circle, and the Biolizard with its head to the ground, attending to snatch the hedgehog up in its mouth, dragged its fat body along.

Metal-Sonic who was hovering nearby had noticed that the flesh healed nearly immediately after he damaged it. He cursed inside; that pretty much ruined everything. There HAD to be a weakness…

Suddenly, the knees of the Biolizard buckled, and he lay flat, panting hard. Being encased in containment for 50 years, and having to fight nearly immediately after releasal gave him a very low stamina.

Shadow whirled and eyed as energy from the life-support pack was pumped into between the throbbing gills. He got an idea…

He sprang onto the pipe, which was made of a tough plastic, and grinded up it. Now on the pack itself, he spotted a black core that seemed to suck in the light around it. He went into a curl and smashed right into it.

There was an explosion like the sound of a bomb, and a visible black wave of energy spread through the room, shaking the bricks. It threw Metal-Sonic out of the air, and caused Sonic and Knuckles (who were running up the stairs of the altar) were thrown down violently against the steps. Shadow, who was at ground zero, was thrown against the stone wall, and slid down it, dazed. The Biolizard had screamed as Shadow was thrown against the wall. This all takes a moment to say, but it all happened in one time.

Metal-Sonic picked himself up, his internal gyro still wobbling, and noticed the Biolizard was stooping again to snatch up Shadow, and he did a thing that he knew would hurt him. He dove again right into the black heart of the life-support.

The same explosion again threw Mecha against the wall and he shorted out for a time. Shadow woke up from his stupor by the roar. Sonic and Knuckles were thrown down on the altar.

"There it was again! What is that?" Sonic exclaimed, picking himself up.

"I don't know," Knuckles growled as he raised himself and got back to work with the Emerald. "Help me out! There's a zillion pieces of this thing so I'll need all the help I can get."

Sonic threw himself to his knees and began withdrawing pieces to help build the Master Emerald again.

Shadow was on his hands and knees wondering what happened. He never felt such a wave of destruction before, but it didn't matter. This thing was a beast and needed to be disposed of. Shakily, he got up, and the Biolizard side-eyed him. It began dragging itself after the hedgehog, who lured the beast after him.

This time, the beast decided a new tactic. It opened his mouth, and to Shadow's surprise, it threw up a black energy ball, washed in blue sparks. It went overhead, but Shadow ducked anyway. The Biolizard spat out a few more before its energy gave out. Shadow rushed up the life-support tube, but instead of attacking the strange conspicuous black thing in the middle, he spin-dashed over and over at the tubes that were laced around the black thing.

The Biolizard let out its jungle cat roar and tried to get Shadow off its back by rolling over and over on itself, but Shadow leaped off just as it made its first spin.

Nearby, Metal-Sonic had just "awakened" and was shakily recovering his senses. Shadow skated up to him.

"Listen, Mecha. The weakness is the tubes around the black mass on its back. You rip the tubes out with your claws; I'll distract it. It's gets fatigued too easily."

"Affirmative. I'm all desirous to kill this…creature." Metal-Sonic was unsure what to call this monstrosity.

Shadow skated towards the creature again. The Biolizard was very angry by now and it displayed sudden swiftness that took Shadow and Mecha off guard. It stood high up and started firing down its blackish energy balls at the two. Shadow and Mecha were hard pressed to keep from being hit.

Sonic had observed this little battle from the pyramid, and watched in fear and awe as the Biolizard rained down its unholy rage.

"There!" Knuckles said.

Sonic spun back and found that Knuckles had put in the last piece of the Master Emerald. Thankfully, it didn't break as much as it did two years before.

"Sonic, I'll need your help. Place your hands on the Emerald. We need to say the command together, since we're too far from Hidden Palace."

"Got it!" Sonic smacked his palms against the Emerald, feeling its warmth. "Let's do it, or Shadow and Mecha will be so toast! What do we say to stop the Emeralds?"

"Remember what Tikal said to stop Perfect Chaos?" Knuckles said.

"Yeah?"

"That came in different variations, and that one that Tikal said stopped the Emeralds. Focus on the Master, and say it with me…"

Both Sonic and Knuckles took a deep breath and stared into the Emerald's green heart. Knuckles began, but Sonic began saying with him in unison.

"The servers are the Seven Chaos; Chaos is power, power enriched by the heart, the Controller is the one that unifies the Chaos; Master Emerald, read my heart! STOP THE CHAOS EMERALDS!"

There was a violent flash from the Master Emerald, knocking both Sonic and Knuckles down. Green lightning flashed out and struck all the Emeralds in one strike, and there was a terrible crack of thunder that seemed to break the room! The Emeralds flew from their obelisks and settled at the Master's base.

The Biolizard stopped and suddenly fell flat on the floor, writhing in agony. It roared hideously! Shadow and Mecha leaped back. Sonic and Knuckles watched in disgust as the slimy beast roared, pawed at the air and to all's surprise, it vanished in a flash of bluish light.

All winced at the sudden light. "Is it gone?" Knuckles asked.

"Where'd it go?" Sonic asked.

Shadow and Mecha rushed towards the two on the altar. Shadow reached it first. "Was that Chaos Control?"

The whole room shook suddenly, and all knelt to keep their balance.

"We stopped the Chaos Emeralds!" Sonic cried out. "Why is the ARK still on crash-course with Möbius?"

The shaking subsided, and all picked themselves up. Metal-Sonic tilted his head in an odd way, then looked back at the three. "I just got word from Dr. Robotnik: the Biolizard is still alive, and is perch on the nose of the Eclipse Cannon. It has now merged its mind with the space colony and is keeping it on collision course."

"We must kill him, now!" Shadow said from the side.

"And we will. C'mon, Shadow! Gather up the Emeralds!" Sonic said, scooping up a few.

Shadow complied, but couldn't help asking why.

"I'll show you." Sonic put down the Emeralds, but kept the green one. "Shadow, grasp this with me."

Shadow placed both hands on the Emerald. He stood on one side, Sonic stood on the other. "Concentrate on the Emerald's power, its ultimate power…"

Shadow closed its eyes, and Sonic did the same. There was a pause for a few seconds, but then the Emeralds all began to glow hotly. The six remaining Emeralds rose up and began spinning slowly around Sonic and Shadow, then they speed up until they became blurs of light.

"Let go!" Sonic cried out.

Shadow barely heard over the power resonance that was ringing through his mind through to the concentration, but he let go.

The Green Emerald flew out and joined the orbiting one. Then, the Emeralds evaporated into energy and embedded themselves into both Sonic and Shadow.

A pillar of Chaos energy rose from their feet, and both rose off the ground. Sonic's fur became ivory white, then faded to a hot burning yellow, his spines standing up from the rush of energy. Shadow was similar, but his fur turned creamish but the red lining of the spines and limbs were blood-red.

"We're Super Sonic and Super Shadow now!" Super Sonic said from nearby. "Let's kick some lizard butt!"

Shadow was amazed at why he didn't know about this Chaos power before, but he gave a determined nod.

"Chaos Control!" both shouted, and they disappeared in a flash of light.

Metal-Sonic and Knuckles stood in the silence of the room, while the Master Emerald glowed hotly behind.

"We shall return to the science bay. There's nothing more to do, but wait…" Metal-Sonic said at last.

Knuckles nodded in agreement, and picked up the Master Emeralds. Strangely enough, it shrank in its hand until it could fit into his pack. That trick would've bee nice to know before now, Knuckles thought.

Metal-Sonic picked up Knuckles by the arm and speed up the water tunnels again to get out of the core.

Chapter 17: To The Death…

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5 minutes, 23 seconds before crash…

Back in the science bay, all waited nervously, the planet filling up the entire view. Tails glanced out the window once, and felt sick.

Neither said a word when Knuckles and Metal-Sonic stalked into the room, silent as stone. Metal-Sonic was emotionless to all eyes, but Sally knew enough to know that when Knuckles doesn't speak, he's worried.

Dr. Robotnik had already informed them that the prototype had survived the beating it got from Metal-Sonic and Shadow, and had reappeared at the nose of the Eclipse Cannon. Sonic and Shadow were out there now, trying to fight them…

All looked breathlessly as two sparks of light that looked like stars flying at high speeds to the Biolizard.

"Be careful, Sonic…" Sally breathed.

-----

The power inside the Biolizard didn't die, even as the power from the Emeralds was severed. It's life support was still working some, and the creature was determined to fulfill its task that the Professor created it to do.

In less then five minutes, its task would be complete. It would die, but it would die honoring its creator.

A surge of Chaos energy distracted it and it glanced to see two glowing specks of yellow and white racing towards them. Enemies! it thought, They must not stop my task to obey my master!

Super Sonic raced forward first, and struck the creature in its side, but he merely bounced off. Super Shadow struck again and again at the joints of the Biolizard, but this had no effect either. The two super-charged hedgehogs backed off.

"Dude! Even as Super, we still can't hurt him!" Super Sonic exclaimed.

"Improvise!" hissed Super Shadow.

Shadow darted forwards, and did loops and spins around the Biolizard's head. Sonic flashed forwards as well and rammed into the eye-equivalent. The Biolizard yowled and let fly its fat legs at the two. Shadow and Sonic were able to dodge them easily enough.

"Sonic, I don't know how to fight him in this form," Shadow said, floating close to Sonic. "How do you?"

"Just like normal."

"But it's doing no effect!"

"What about the life-support?"

"I might not get close enough."

"You're invincible, Shadow. Just ram into its back! I'll distract it…"

Super Sonic darted forward, and weaved around the face of the Biolizard like a fly to a horse. The monster was snapping at Sonic, but kept falling short.

Shadow darted forwards already and closed in onto the life-support pod. The black pod in the middle seemed to suck any energy nearby, but Super Shadow put all his power into a spindash and smacked into the pod.

A ripple of solid black energy shot out of the life-support, throwing Sonic and Shadow clear back from the Biolizard. The great beast had roared in pain which they could hear, even in the vacuum of space.

"Well, that hurt him…" Sonic said, shaking to regain his senses. He felt that one.

"I don't understand it!" Shadow exclaimed. "What is causing that shockwave…?"

"I dunno, but we don't really have time to discuss it in committee!" Sonic snapped. "Let's get him!"

Sonic and Shadow charged in one solid bullet of energy. They smacked into the ribs of the Biolizard. They bounced off, but not without leaving behind a gouge, exposing some of the inner workings inside.

"Eww…" Sonic said nonchalantly.

"Look!" Shadow pointed at the wound, which was healing itself, as if it was in time-lapse.

"That's not cool!" Super Sonic scowled at the wound which was as good as new.

"Spare no mercy!"

The two Super-charged hedgehogs darted forwards again, and like chisels, they rammed over and over again into the porous flesh of the Biolizard. It did no effect.

"We need more power…"

"I'm not God, Shadow!" Sonic snapped back, smacking his hands against his hips. Then, he blanched. His hands fell across something around his waist. "Hey! How could I forget?"

Sonic crossed his arms, and snapped them back across his waist, as Shadow had observed. Suddenly, their single colors of white and yellow began flashing different colors, the colors of the Seven Chaos Emeralds.

"We're Hyper now! Now we're ready to kick some serious tail…hey!" Sonic noticed that spinning around the two were energy balls the same colors as their flashing ones, each one the size of softballs.

"It's the Chaos Emeralds!" Shadow exclaimed.

"I never saw that before…"

"I can feel the powers of the Chaos Emeralds. Now we have more weapons…Chaos Spear!" Hyper Shadow swept his hand towards the Biolizard.

A bolt of green lightning struck the monster's forehead, leaving a hideous burn across the pasty flesh.

"My turn! Sonic Wind!" Sonic swept his hand at the lizard. All felt supersonic winds whip them, and the Biolizard was nearly blown off his perch, but he refused to budge.

"Well, that didn't work…"

"Let me show you the power of Chaos!" Shadow said, observing the failure. "Chaos Control!"

Because they belonged to the same bond, both were effected by the time-altering effects, and both flashed forward to make some mincemeat as Shadow called it.

Hyper Shadow darted forward and started attacking the life-support, not the black stone (Shadow saw that it was a stone of some sort) but the tubes around it. Each tube broke soon after Shadow's relentless attacks. Sonic lent in his strength too. Pretty soon, the whole mass of tubes collapsed, revealing what the black stone looked like.

"Dude! It looks like a Chaos Emerald, but it's…black?"

"We must back away from it; I sense that will kill us if we touch it now…"

Sonic obeyed. Seven Emeralds he had heard of, but an eighth one for some reason made him nervous.

When time restarted, the Biolizard was in agony threefold. He was losing this battle, but he would not give up his task to destroy the world.

"It's weakening!" Sonic said.

"Yes, but to save the ARK, we MUST kill it."

"It's body's too tough to pierce through. We gotta kill it from the inside. Can't we like cook its brain or something…?" Hyper Sonic asked.

"I have an idea. It's a long shot, but it should work. You fly ahead to distract it, and I'll dive into its mouth and give it a strong taste of REAL Chaos…"

Hyper Sonic didn't think he'd have the nerve for such a plan. He didn't like the way it looked from the outside. What did the inside look like?

But there was no time for sick feelings. Shadow would carry it out, and so Sonic must too.

Sonic gulped. "You're with me?"

Shadow side-eyed Sonic. "To the death…"

They darted towards the head of the Biolizard, two multi-colored hedgehogs with a task to save the planet, headlong into a monster with a task to destroy the planet.

Hyper Sonic flew at the Biolizard's unprotected face. It opened its mouth to snap at Sonic, but instead, it got Shadow unintentionally.

Sonic waited with a sick stomach to see what would happened. Seconds felt like hours but suddenly, the Biolizard's head ripped open in a flash of red fire! The shockwave from inside sent Hyper Sonic spinning, but he straightened and flew back to the smouldering body of the Biolizard, to find Hyper Shadow cross-armed, victorious.

"Shadow! What did you do?"

"I went into the back of his throat, and performed what is called the Chaos Blast. It took concentration, but it worked. It's dead now, the pathetic lifeform…"

"Yeah," Sonic nodded. Both watched as the body of the para-natural slid off the nose of the Eclipse Cannon and fall towards the planet.

"The ARK's still falling!" Shadow exclaimed. "We must stop it now!"

"Can we Chaos Control something this big?" Sonic asked.

"It'll take much energy, but we must try…"

"Grab my hand!" Hyper Sonic reached out his hand. "Ready?"

"Ready!"

The glow increased beyond any mortal could bear, but Sonic and Shadow could endure it, since it was needed to save the world. "Now!"

"Chaos Control!" Both shouted at the same time.

The light shone out of them and enveloped the ARK. There was a pause, then the ARK vanished from it's dangerous course, within three miles of Möbius' surface.

For some reason, it didn't work as planned: The ARK returned to its stable orbit, but Sonic was the one who teleported the ARK, but Shadow had merely stopped time. So when the relocation was complete, only Hyper Sonic was there beside the Eclipse Cannon, still covered in some of the grime from the Biolizard.

"Shadow? Shadow!" Sonic yelled over and over. Sonic went into a dive towards the planet, eyes wide in fright, looking for Shadow.

He dropped a good five miles closer to the planet until he found Shadow. He was not moving…

"Shadow!" Hyper Sonic shook the unconscious hedgehog to wake him up. Shadow stirred, weakly, and opened his eyes a fraction…

"Sonic…is it safe? Is the ARK and the planet safe?" Sonic could barely hear the words.

"Yeah, what's up Shads?"

"I don't have much longer to live. My purpose was to save the planet from impending disaster, and I finished my task. I no longer have a purpose…"

"Shadow, don't talk like that! You gotta be able to live longer!"

"My promise to Maria was fulfilled. I only regret that I helped in the planet's near destruction…" Shadow rasped. "Tell everyone back on the planet, that I, Shadow the Hedgehog, friend of Maria, am sorry for what I nearly did…"

"Shads, please, don't give out on me now. I can't leave you here, Sonic! I gotta save you…"

"You…already did, Sonic. Your determination to help the people around you finally got through to my cold heart. You have a goal to keep the people safe. I kept my promise…keep yours, and maybe we'll see each other again…"

"Shads…" Sonic felt the tears choke him. "Don't…"

"Sayonara…Sonic the…Hedgehog…" Shadow breathed one last time.

Then gravity took over. Sonic had been holding onto Shadow's wrist all this time, and when he was within the pull of gravity, the brass wristband slid off and Shadow fell to the earth. Sonic darted towards him for a second, but something held him back. Shadow was dying, and nothing in the world could save him now.

Tears welded up in Sonic's eyes, as he cried for the first time in a long time. He made a friend in Shadow, but now he was gone…

Slowly, Hyper Sonic drifted his way towards the ARK. He would never see Shadow again…ever…

-----

From the inside of the ARK, everyone had witnessed the battle through the glass on the floor, and watched fascinated as the Biolizard's head split with fire. In that instance, the world suddenly seemed to get smaller, for then, Shadow and Sonic had teleported the ARK back into stable orbit, and Möbius was no longer filling up the view.

"They did it!" Tails exclaimed, bouncing over and over.

Everyone did various forms of celebration: the girls hugged each other over and over, the chao played "ring around the rosies," Robotnik and Metal-Sonic just stood there, looking emotionless, but were inwardly relieved. Rouge had sunk to the ground, thankful she was still breathing. Knuckles saw that everything seemed more cheery around ever since the Biolizard died and was smiling. At last, some joy in this ARK.

Back on the planet, the worst half-hour of the planet's life had ended. People watched as a madman, tied to a chair prophesied on how the space station would crash into the earth. Panic rose, tears were shed, children clung to their parents for moral support.

But all watched breathless as Sonic and Shadow killed the Biolizard and relocated the ARK within 90 seconds of the prophesied crash. All stood staring for a few seconds, but cheered for the valor of Sonic and Shadow.

Little did anyone know that with the relief and happiness that took over the planet and space around it, there was one speck of mortal sadness that nearly swallowed up the person it surrounded.

Back on the ARK, all jumped to see the door slide open again, and Sonic alone stood there, carrying the seven Emeralds. His spines were drooping, his eyes rimmed with red, his total manner, was disheartening.

Everyone rushed to Sonic, but when they saw his hollow face, they backed off.

Rouge had glanced down the hall, expecting to see the black-and-red hedgehog, but found no one. "Where is Shadow?"

Sonic stopped his dragging gait, then tossed something at Rouge, who caught it. It took a quick glance to realize what happened. "This is one of Shadow's bracelets…do you mean?"

Sonic stood staring out the window, arms crossed, silent as stone. Rouge involuntarily jumped when she saw that Sonic had taken up Shadow's normal stance.

Rouge help spread the word of Shadow's demise, and all understood Sonic's sadness. No one ventured to talk or encourage the hedgehog. Robotnik and Metal-Sonic left with their own thoughts.

Sonic's sorrow seemed to suck in the joyful spirits around, and all couldn't help glancing at Sonic once or twice.

Rouge walked up to Sonic, to see if she could cheer him up, but couldn't think of the words to say right away, so she merely stood beside him, fondling the brass bracelet. When she looked at Sonic again, she caught him looking at the bracelet and saw a tear running unchecked down his face.

"Do…you think that Shadow was the ultimate lifeform, Sonic?" Rouge asked, hesitatingly.

Sonic paused a moment, deciding on responding or not, but said finally, "I don't know, but he was what he was: a hedgehog who gave his life to save the planet for a promise. I wish I could do the same someday…" Sonic turned away again.

Sally walked up and hugged Sonic compassionately. Sonic would try anything to lessen the pain, and accepted it. Tails also ventured forward to do his part in comforting the poor hedgehog…

Rouge strode away, thinking on what Sonic just said. Both Sonic and Shadow worked selflessly to save an entire planet, and what was she doing here? To get paid. Shadow's death and Sonic's sorrow showed her how selfish she had been, weaseling herself onto the ARK to get the Chaos Emeralds. She was no better then Robotnik it felt, trying to get the Emeralds for herself.

"So, what's up with you, Rouge?"

Rouge turned to see that Knuckles had strode towards her and was trying to be nice to her. It took no knowledge to say that he was still a bit miffed about loosing the Master Emerald again before, but he was trying to keep it down.

"Oh, hi, Knuckles…"

Knuckles' hands were behind his back, and he seemed to be stalling. "Well, uh, I'm still sorry about hurting you…"

Rouge glanced at him. What was he on about?

"Well, I see that you really like jewels and I was wondering…"

"Yes?"

"Well, I'm sure you'd like this…"

Knuckles took out his hands and in them was the Purple Chaos Emerald. Rouge felt the lust swell in her, and she reached out to take it, but she thought she needed to say something first…

"Thank you, Knuckles, but I have something to say…I apologize for taking your Master Emerald, and I'm sorry for hurting you too. I know that you were trying to keep what was yours, and I'm sorry for not honoring that. I make a vow never to touch the jewels on Angel Island again…"

Knuckles felt flattered, and handed over the Emerald. "I'll hold you to that…gonna try hunting for more once we get down there?"

"No, I had enough of treasure hunting for right now. Besides, I have something else on my mind…" Rouge looked at the brass bracelet again.

Knuckles left, feeling perfectly silly but he was making amends for hurting her, and Rouge came back with something he didn't expect from a hunter: an apology.

Knuckles gathered the other Emeralds into his bag, and turned to the others. "Well, I'm getting tired of this place. Let's go back home…"

All noiselessly look at Knuckles, and there was a mutual agreement between all of them. They picked up their things, and tromped out the door. Sonic followed the rear, but before he left the room, he turned back to the inside of the room.

"Sayonara, Shadow…the Hedgehog…" Sonic choked on the words, and noiselessly followed the others.

Chapter 18: Is It Over?

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The trip back to Möbius was different then going back. Some played in the anti-gravity field while others remained buckled, silent. It took four hours to return to the planet, and the human space agency down there granted them landing since they were the heroes of the planet.

News got out unfortunately, and at once as they got out of the shuttle, they were mobbed by reporters. Thankfully, the President (who was there to greet them) had his Secret Service surround them so the reporters wouldn't overwhelm then, much to the relief of the Möbians.

They were ushered into the black limousine the president had, where the Secretary of Defense also was located. The President offered his deep thanks to the Möbians, and said they were welcome to come back to Sapphire City whenever they chose to.

Sally, being the political head of the group, thanked him cordially.

Sonic was the only one acting strangely, at least to Tails. He was quiet, and crestfallen. Tails was worried; Sonic was usually the first to gloat at the adventure, but he was like another hedgehog the kitsune did not know.

The President also said that he would hold a major press conference to honor the people who saved the planet from the ARK's fall.

All were tired for it was after midnight by now and all were tired from their adventure. The girls went into their room and nearly all fell asleep at once. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and the two chao kind of took their time. Sonic still hadn't said a word and noiselessly slipped under the covers. He dozed off…

Tails turned to Knuckles, who was also looking at Sonic with concern spelled out clearly on his face.

"You're worried about Sonic too…" Tails said.

Knuckles glanced at Tails and said nothing, but the look said everything.

"I am too. What are we going to do?"

Knuckles shrugged. "He's feeling the same thing I did when I lost my father. I didn't know how I coped with it that long ago. It was only 10 years ago when that happened. Just give him space; he'll come around."

Tails looked back and began to feel the same feelings he did when he thought he lost Sonic. To him, it seemed that everyone experienced loss of some kind. Knuckles had lost his father when he was younger, Tails and everyone else experienced the loss when they thought Sonic was dead, and now Sonic was feeling it.

He began regretting ever laying his eyes on the ARK, but there was nothing to be done about it now. What was done was done…

Tails pulled off his shoes and socks and slithered under the covers, feeling tired. Frosty climbed up onto the bed and climbed under the covers with Tails. She wouldn't let Tails out of her sight if she could help it, after today, she felt very insecure.

"Good night, Knuckles…" said Tails, before closing his eyes.

Tails heard the Echidna breathe the words "if only it was" before he fell asleep.

Knuckles climbed into the sleeping bag, his arm resting on the pack that contained the Master Emerald and the six other Emeralds. He fell asleep at once.

Dash climbed noiselessly onto the bed of his master. He felt Sonic's sorrow as he slept and climbed into his arms to see if he could give him any comfort. There, the blue chao slept the rest of the night.

Thus ended what was probably the worst day of Möbius in modern history.

-----

Interestingly, Amy woke up first and she couldn't stand lying in bed until everyone else was awake. She quietly slithered out of bed, slipped on her default-red dress, tidied up her hair in the bathroom, dressed it with her ribbons, and went outside; taking her boots so she wouldn't wake anyone else.

It was not far after 6 AM when she had gotten up, so not many were already out and about. Amy took the stairs since he figured that she might fall asleep in the elevator, and the walk would clear her head.

She went into the hotel lobby where breakfast was already being served in the buffet. She went to serve herself with a sausage patty, scrambled eggs and a cup of cranberry juice. Word had gotten around about the ARK incident so the people of the resident gave her a free breakfast.

After her first few bites, she realized how hungry she really was; she went through the buffet twice more before her appetite was satisfied. That was a good thirty minutes later.

Appetite gone, she sat at her table, mildly playing with her utensils and began thinking about the previous day. Most of the previous evening she spent brooding, mostly at feeling left out of the excitement. If she could beat Zero when she was twelve, she could handle other things too, she thought. Then she stumbled upon Shadow, alone and brooding as well. She pleaded with him, and at last Shadow completed, but not how she had expected.

The thought of him made her memory flash forward to seeing Sonic, hollow and sad. He wanted to be left very much alone after that. Amy was burning with curiosity to find out what happened out there. But something in her heart held her in check. Sonic needed to be alone more then anything right now. Give him that, it told her.

That thought made Amy think. Every time she was with Sonic, she always hugged him and told him on how much she loved him. She also remembered how much he resented her for it, but pretended to hide it.

That thought hit Amy in a funny way. She always liked Sonic, and wanted earnestly in her heart to sometime be united with him, but thinking about him, she realized what she was really doing to Sonic. She was demanding her own way like a spoiled child.

You dummy! thought Amy. Sonic doesn't like you that much because you're too selfish! You treated him like a huge toy you always wanted, and look what you did to him!

She felt angry at herself. Sonic didn't deserve what she did to him, always being the annoying brat that follows the hero around. To life to love she always believed…

If she wanted Sonic, maybe she should try a different approach, like maybe caring for him more as a person then a mere object to love.

Poor Sonic…maybe she should tell him on what she thought about. That princess Sally treated Sonic like a person, and she earned Sonic's respect. Maybe she should try that…

She was in this mode of thought, when she heard footsteps coming towards her. It was Tails and Frosty, looking tired and in desperate need of anything energizing.

"Hi, Tails," Amy said. "The bacon's fresh; it's pretty good."

"Good, I'll eat anything…" Frosty said in his place.

Tails took up a plate and loaded his plate, which mostly consisted of bacon, sausage and eggs. There was a blueberry muffin, but that was all. He ate greedily, and Frosty got herself dirty from bacon grease. Amy watched them, and then retired to the hotel lobby. The TV was on there, and she felt more like watching TV then being with Tails. Besides, she had more thinking to do…

When she left, Frosty said to Tails. "Hey, did you notice strange about Amy this morning?"

Tails swallowed a mouthful of bacon before answering. "Well, she was up pretty early."

"No, about her. Did you see something strange in her eyes?"

Tails shrugged. "She looked the same to me…"

"You boys have no insight. I could see something in her eyes. She had been thinking about something very important to her, and it made her…lonely in a way."

Tails answered, "You girls can see too much."

"Well, if that's the way you feel about this whole thing…" Frosty snatched up a tender piece of bacon and gobbled it up.

-----

The next several hours saw the rest coming out at different times. Knuckles was next and he helped himself to the fruit bar, as did Sally, Cream and Cheese soon afterwards. All wondered about and watched as Frosty and Cheese frolicked in the outdoor pool.

Dash sunned himself on the chairs, but if one looked at the right time, he'd catch him looking up at the higher windows, wondering which one was Sonic's, and wondering if he was all right.

Tails had the roughest morning, for when he was in the parking garage with the Cyclone, working with it, when he was mobbed by lurking reporters, who were "conveniently" hanging around the hotel, waiting for one of the Möbians to venture out.

The poor kitsune reemerged inside, grumpy at being pounced on by the reporters like a lion would do to its meat. He warned the others about the reporters.

Knuckles avoided the reporters by climbing to the top of the hotel and gliding from one building to another. He missed his island something terrible, and dearly wanted to return. He could see it in the ocean, sitting, but in his pack were six of the Chaos Emeralds. Last time he took six Emeralds to his Island, it crashed down again. He didn't want to go through that again.

He called up the Chaotix and told them that he would be a while returning to Angel Island, and said to continue guarding Hidden Palace.

He immediately began wondering about Rouge. Would she keep her promise about never returning to Hidden Palace? He also remembered giving her the Purple Chaos Emerald, out of making amends. Could she use it like Shadow could use the Emeralds?

Probably not. She was only interested in them due to being a jewel-addict.

Cream sat alone in a corner. She was only 7 and had been through a lot in less then 30 hours. She reflected on being separated from her mother and father at such a young age, and had met the very reason why she had been sent south to the Knothole Freedom Fighters. She stroked one of her long ears nervously.

She didn't like Dr. Eggman. She didn't like that blue metal hedgehog that loomed over her like a phantom in a dream. She had nightmares about him last night and Sally had slept with her to comfort her. She dearly missed her mother and father, even though she only knew them for two of her seven years.

The adventure had changed her life, and she ever wondered if anything would return to normal…

-----

Robotnik and Metal-Sonic had escaped the ARK unnoticed, and had relocated into a base built in an iceberg in North Möbius. Robotnik escaped to his chambers to brood about the last few days.

Metal-Sonic stood in the labs, thankful to be in a cold environment instead of a desert like the Dagro Hidden Base. He soon would have to return to clean out the base.

The Mystic Ruins base was still operative, but Robotnik didn't want to go back there. Metal-Sonic had preferred it due to its seclusion, and its ideal scientific labs. Most of the other bases his master and he had been were basic, while the Mystic Ruins base or Final Egg as it was called was I reality a super-base, like the Death Egg was to be, and the ARK if Robotnik had properly taken over it.

The robot pondered what Shadow had told him in the control chambers the day after the Eclipse Cannon had destroyed the moon, about leaving his master. Metal-Sonic was getting stronger and faster each upgrade. That option was very feasible, but he still needed Eggman and his facilities before even acting.

He uploaded the files that Shadow had lent him about the bio-metal that Professor Gerald had created. According to the data, it was a fairly simple metal to create, but it needed the proper facilities. A nanotech facility would be needed, as well as a vast supply of nanites.

Maybe he should journey down to Final Egg and see how close he could make it into a nanotech facility and use it. The more he thought about the bio-metal and its capabilities, the more he began to want it deeply.

For years, he had been upgrading himself by the simple robotic industry, but when the doctor had upgraded him with gelatinous nanite cartilage inside his joints, the metal of his outer shell looked ancient, like ENIAC would be to a Palm Pilot.

He would research more into this bio-metal and Professor Gerald's projects more…it was a shame to lose Shadow; he would've been a great asset.

-----

Sonic stirred at noon, for the outside light had crept in now and radiated him with the warmth. Sonic crawled out from underneath the blankets, had a shower and slipped on his shoes. He crept downstairs, feeling reluctant to say anything to the others, for they were bound to ask about…

The thought made his throat constrict. He shoved it back down in his memory, not wanting to start his day so poorly.

He reached the lunchroom and found that everyone was having a big lunch, complete with various dishes. Knuckles was eating a salad topped with chopped ham with a low-fat vinaigrette dressing. Tails was feasting on spaghetti covered in parmesan cheese. The fur around his face was messed up with the pasta sauce. Amy was enjoying a nice small dish of human oriental food, complete with moo goo gai pan with a side of fried wan tan (she had it delivered from a local Chinese buffet shop). Cream and Sally had split a garden salad, but Cream had a carrot cake slice, while Sally was slowly eating almond spice cake. Cheese was eating a large ripe tomato, and expressed his appreciation greatly. Frosty had wolfed down a meat-heavy hamburger, cut into slices for easier eating, while Dash was still delicately eating a dish of shrimp scampi.

Tails looked up and saw Sonic tromping his way. "Hi, Sonic! Go ahead and order. The people got wind of our stuff and let us eat for free…"

Sonic eyed the food and his appetite awoke with a vengeance. "Where's the menu?" Sonic sat down.

Tails handed his a menu, and for a second studied him out. Sonic still had that hollow look, but it was partially hidden.

Sonic ordered a dish of lasagna with a side dish of French Fries, drenched in melting cheddar cheese, a fizzy orange soda to drink on the side. His order took a bit getting there, but when it did, he ate, and I mean ate. The lasagna was spared no mercy, and neither was the fries, which covered in cheddar cheese is delightful.

Everyone was talking at the dinner table, but Sonic continued to eat. He eyed everyone, waiting. Just wait, they would ask…

When he finished, he still didn't feel ready to face the day, and retreated into the lobby and plopped down into the sofa. He would've gone unnoticed, but Amy had been thinking hard about what she wanted to say to Sonic, and now that Sonic was alone and not as melancholy as before, she thought it would be a good time. She still felt nervous; you could hardly blame her for that.

Sonic was watching the TV suspended from the ceiling, when Amy came in. Sonic didn't seem to acknowledge her presence until she spoke.

"Uh, Sonic?"

Sonic's ear cocked in her direction.

"Mind if I sit down?"

He thought about it, and decided he didn't care. "Go ahead…"

She sat down, on the sofa, on the opposite side of the sofa as Sonic was. He didn't really notice.

"I must say something to you, but you must not interrupt me or I'll never finish. Agreed?"

Oh boy, he thought. Here it comes… "Shoot."

"Sonic, I...I know--that is--I want to say," Amy stammered. "I want to say that--that I'm sorry…"

That got Sonic's attention. "For what?"

"Well, for treating you like an idol." Amy was blushing. "I was thinking. I wondered in my mind why you never liked me…"

"Hey, don't put it that--"

"You said you'd let me finish. I know that I've been an annoying little brat ever since I met you. You always had to rescue me from Dr. Eggman and Metal-Sonic, and I always thought I could make it up to you, but I keep making a mess of things.

I'm sorry for being a selfish jerk. I really hope to make it up to you, for being a brat. If you don't like me, just say so. I don't care. I'm getting what I deserve…go on…"

Sonic was speechless. He never thought he'd see Amy bare her soul like this, and it gave him a mind wipe. He started stammering. "Well--uh--gee Ames--I--uh--I don't--I don't know what to say…"

Amy didn't respond, but Sonic noticed that she had her handkerchief out.

"Well, I see that you noticed that I did get ticked at your--uh--spirit, and I tried to hide it. I should--uh--I should say sorry to, for not being so open with you."

Amy looked up.

"I'm sorry too, for just treating you like a jerk, and not saying it like it was…"

Amy smiled.

"So, what do we do now?" she asked, a tear of happiness running down her cheek. She didn't expect Sonic to understand so.

"Well, we could be better friends…" Sonic smiled, feeling a little silly.

"You know…" Amy started. "I'd like that. I still like you, but I'm going to try my best to treat you like a friend, instead of an idol…"

"I'd like that. Otherwise, I thought about barricading my room with bear traps."

Amy laughed, and Sonic laughed too. Ah, it felt good to laugh.

"Hey, wanna go somewhere, like the mall or something?" Sonic smiled.

"Yeah, let's. I heard there's a sports shoe sale there…"

"Now you're talking…"

Sonic didn't have as much fun with Amy after that little talk before. He actually enjoyed the window shopping. Amy tried on almost every dressed in the store, and Sonic tried a few shoes, but said they looked tacky, despite Amy's reassurance that they weren't.

They had run into reporters outside the mall, and Sonic escaped with Amy on his shoulders on the Speed Highway. He reached the hotel and stayed there.

When the sun began lowering in the west, it found Sonic and Knuckles on the beach deck, watching everyone frolic on the sands. Amy and Cream had built a sandcastle, and wailed as the tide was coming in.

"Doesn't look like the tides are harmed any…" said Knuckles.

"I suppose the moon didn't really shrink," said Sonic. "It's just got a messy makeup job."

Knuckles chuckled quietly and eyed the moon; scarred, but didn't seem any less majestic.

At the mention of Robotnik, Sonic was reminded of the previous night, and his eyes clouded over….Knuckles had noticed.

"You miss him, don't you…?"

Sonic looked at Knuckles, tearing slightly, and nodded. "He was cool…"

Knuckles patted him on the back. "If it hurts too much, you don't have to tell me, Sonic. I didn't want to talk about my dad's disappearance to anyone for a while too."

"And you got over it well enough…"

"Kind of…" Knuckles looked at the horizon, and saw the Island's mountains washed in the warm orange of the setting sun.

"You want to go back, don't you?"

Knuckles looked down towards the oceans again. "Yeah, it calls to me…"

"What's keeping ya?"

"Sally said that she received a call from the President, and he's going to give us a special honor at his press conference, and she requested that all of us be there."

"When's that?"

"Tonight, 9:30…"

"Wow, that's not too far…" Sonic looked towards Angel Island again, a diamond in the sea it seemed like. "I hope she doesn't want me to talk about…" Sonic choked.

"Maybe if you told her, she'll not make you say it twice."

"I don't have the nerve…could I tell you, and could you tell Sally?"

"Are you sure you're up to it?"

"I gotta tell someone, and you're closer…" Sonic smiled.

Knuckles smiled, but sobered. "If you must…"

In a few minutes, Sonic was telling about the Biolizard, the going into Hyper mode and using a powerful Chaos Control that sent Shadow over the edge. There, he stopped, not willing to say more, but there was nothing more to be said. Knuckles nodded understandably.

"We'd better get ready for the press…"

"The cage of tigers you mean…" Sonic said, wiping his nose with his glove.

Knuckles found Sally and relayed the story of the battle to her, and she understood. She would give the story at the conference, under the condition that Sonic would not be pestered about it.

The hour came, and they entered the limo again. Dash kept playing with the automatic window opener all the way. The President smiled at the chao's play.

When they arrived at the press conference location, outside the Capitol Building (built after the Perfect Chaos incident, replacing the City Hall), they were meet by a host of reporters. Security drove them back, and all marched down the red carpet laid for them. Sally was dressed in a splendid gown of bright blue, sequined and it shined like diamonds under the lights. Amy was also dressed in a red dress that she had rented from a tuxedo/dress store, with a red rose in her hair. Sonic thought it made her look older.

Sonic noticed Rouge was there too, on stage and looking official. She was paid handsomely by the Agency for her job well done about bringing in the information about Project Shadow and had purchased an evening gown to wear for the occasion, black and flowing.

On the platform, the President once again showed his approval and eternal thanks for saving the planet. The Möbians and the chao were seated in a neat row behind the podium. The lights were annoyingly bright, and the crowd's cheering got on some of the nerves of the Möbians, but they knew that this was how the humans gave thanks in mass.

Sally stepped forwards and gave an modest speech, about what happened on the ARK, Robotnik, and how Sonic and Shadow, had saved the ARK.

Sonic glanced at an empty seat that was beside him, thinking about who could and should be sitting there.

There were dancers, special music artists and a fireworks show in their honor. The festivities ended at midnight, and all trouped back to the hotel to get a decent night's sleep, except Knuckles who couldn't stand another moment away from the Island.

He met with Sonic and gave him five of the Chaos Emeralds. He said he'd keep the light blue one on the Island, for the Chaotix deserved something for stoking it out on the Island alone.

He left shortly after, and Sonic went to bed.

-----

The next morning showed that Angel Island had risen out of the water and into the sky; drifting south into winter territory. Sonic watched it go from the beach deck. In his hand was the Blue Chaos Emerald, and occasionally, he'd glance at it. Every time he would, the memory of Shadow and how he died would pop up renewed.

It didn't help that last night, he had a nightmare when he and Shadow switched places in the battle, and that Shadow was the one trying to convince Sonic to continue living.

"C'mon, hedgehog. He's gone and you can't bring him back…so just deal with it…" Sonic would often say quietly to himself, but it didn't lessen the inner turmoil.

He looked towards where north would be. Knuckles mentioned he was homesick for the Island and Sonic was feeling the same about Knothole. He hoped they'd be going soon; he really needed a break from all this.

Interestingly enough, Sally was thinking the same. This adventure taxed their spirits greatly and she reasoned that familiar grounds were needed. She said as soon as everyone was packed, they all could get ready to go back to the Great Forest.

Thus, three hours later, the heroes said goodbye to the city of Sapphire City and made the trek north. Tails carried the chao in the Tornado, Sally had Cream in a hovercraft she invested in and Sonic went on foot, thankful for the chance to be alone.

They reached the outskirts of the Great Forest as the warm September sun was looking down on them. All could feel that they were close, and eagerly just wanted to rest.

Later, they made it to the quiet little hideout of Knothole. All there greeted them back (they had seen the satellite broadcast about the Eclipse Cannon and the crazy old man) and were happy to see them again.

Sonic made for the privacy of his hut, and he climbed into his bed and lay there. He was home finally, and he just wanted to stay there.

Normal activity went back into motion a few days after the heroes returned, and the first thing was preparing for the winter. All began working hard to prepare for whatever Mother Nature would show her fury in the cold, harsh season.

Tails used the Chaos Emeralds to test something he had been working on: a chaos-energy reliant power system. Knothole had some electricity, but suppose the blizzards knocked it out. The Chaos Emeralds would be there to back it up. He had tried using the fake Yellow Emerald, but it wasn't as strong as he thought it was.

Dash and Frosty were gathering the fruits and vegetables in the gardens. It's quite amusing to see a chao trying to roll a pumpkin out of the patch, considering that the pumpkin is larger then the chao.

Sally oversaw the pickling and preserving, making sure that they would have enough. The hot summer seemed to promise a hard winter, and she was taking no chances.

Sonic helped out, but the adventure had taken the edge off of his spirit, and me would me most found sulking and brooding in some quiet place. Tails grew concerned as the weeks passed…

September ended, then came October. Knuckles and the Chaotix teleported in on the teleporter outside Knothole and helped out with the harvests and the maintenance, which dealt most with fixing up the old sheds or building new ones. Shingling was a big issue as well. Charmy helped with harvesting the fruit trees. The Floating Island didn't need winter preparation due to the fact that it could move across the world in a month and in the winter, it was in the tropics.

The kitchen smelled of jams and jellies that seemed to literally pour out of the room. The smell always gave anyone an appetite.

Knuckles had gathered honey from the hives of the tropical bees that live on his Island and graciously shared it with the Freedom Fighters there. The honey was the best then that store-bought honey you'd find.

October turned to November before many realized it, and the winter preparations intensified. All looked eagerly at Thanksgiving marked on the calendar, and thinking about all the food they gathered, they couldn't help but think about the feasts.

Frosty, who had the ability to shape-shift with the White Emerald she loved to use, used it to hunt down for meat storage. Meat wasn't the biggest favorite among the Möbians, since most of them were either rodent or avian, but there were some that had a taste for good meat. Tails and Frosty always favored meat, as did a friend named Rocco Raccoon that liked meat too.

The days passed and the day of thanks came closer, all were so excited about this day that it nearly dominated all of the thoughts of the residents.

Only one didn't seem very happy with the holiday, and that was Sonic. Ever since Shadow died, he really didn't see a reason to be overly thankful, and spent most of the time in his cabin. Dash couldn't understand why Sonic was taking this so hard; Shadow was on the side of the guys that nearly killed his master.

Then, one day, Knothole had a visitor; a rather unexpected visitor.

It was on a cold, crisp morning after one of the first frosts. Tails and Frosty were playing in a nest of leaves that they had raked up. They could smell blackberry jam from the nearby kitchen and it made their stomachs growl…

It was probably fortunate that there was a strong smell; otherwise what would've happened next may have never happened.

The white chao had climbed out of the leaf pile, giggling like the girl she was, when she looked towards the forest and was startled to see that something in the woods was moving. Her surprised squeak was heard by Tails and he looked in the same direction.

There was a rustling and crackling of dried leaves coming from the forest. Tails wondered if he should tell somebody…

Suddenly, the thing was in view. It was a dirty black, caked with mud and looking nearly dead on its feet, for it stumbled as it walked. Tails had to look twice at it until he could grasp more of the features. Now that it was closer, it looked like a hedgehog. At first Tails figured it to be Sonic, but he was in his cabin, brooding.

"It--it couldn't be…" Tails stared wide-eyed at the stranger. It was impolite to stare, but if you knew who it was, could you blame him?

Frosty gasped in recognition. "It's Shadow!"

The figure fell forward onto his face, and yes, the spines of this strange hedgehog were lined with red. It HAD to be him!

Tails dashed forward, his little legs carrying him as much as they darest. He dropped down onto his knees and shook the hedgehog. "Shadow! Shadow, is it you?"

The black hedgehog stirred, and he turned his head to look at Tails. Shadow looked like he hadn't eaten in days…

"Where…am I?"

"You're in Knothole! I don't believe it, but you're here! You're here! You're alive! Sonic thought you were--" Tails blanched. "Sonic! I must get him!" Tails zoomed away in a flurry of feet, nearly flying flat on his face at the first stride. Frosty was trying to help the emaciated hedgehog get up.

Tails hit the door running, and not bothering to knock, he flew in, his eyes wide in astonishment and excitement, which met interestingly with Sonic's eyes low with depression.

"Sonic! You'll never guess to just dropped into Knothole!" Tails was spinning his tails, and not realizing it.

Sonic didn't stir much, "Who?"

Tails picked up Sonic's hand and was trying to drag him out the door. "You won't believe me if I told you. Come on!"

"All right, all right, I'll--" The words died on Sonic's lips as someone came to the door. Outlined by the sun, the lanky hedgehog looked even blacker, but Sonic could see enough.

A tear ran unchecked down Sonic's cheek. "Shadow?"

"It is!" said a high voice nearby. It was Frosty who had been standing next to Shadow's ankle unnoticed. "I'd recognize his smell anywhere…"

"Shadow…how…?"

"I am here, Sonic…"

Sonic was standing up; he felt like such a klutz now. "How did you survive? I saw you fall…I still have the bracelet…" Sonic had the brass bracelet in his hand. "You fell…"

Shadow sighed. "Through fire…and…I can't remember the rest…I was cared by a large cat that lived on the earth below. He nursed me to health and I remembered what you tried to tell me. I'm still needed here…"

Sonic stood staring for a whole minute. This was surreal…Shadow, thought dead, was standing here in front of him…

"Shadow…I…I don't know what to say…I thought you were dead, man…"

"So you did, but the time for mourning has past, Sonic. The night is over; this is the morning…"

Sonic suddenly snapped awake. "Dude, you're starving to death. Let's get you some food." Sonic squeezed past Sonic and darted away. One could hear him spreading the joyous proclamation from far a ways…

"Shadow's alive! He's come back! He's all right!"

Tails smiled. Sonic was happy again… "I'm glad you're back, Shadow."

"I am too. Maria had her purpose to spread her happiness, and she made me want to do the same." Shadow looked down to see that Sonic had dropped the bracelet; he gingerly picked it up and slid onto his wrist. He saw this as a little symbolic.

"C'mon, I'll find you something to eat…" Tails said, taking Shadow by the hand and led him out.

-----

The news had spread like wildfire, and all were eager to see Shadow the Hedgehog, the hedgehog that helped Sonic save the planet.

Shadow was wearing Sonic's old pair of shoes, for Rotor was trying to fix up his hoverskates, since the entry into the atmosphere nearly disintegrated them.

Sonic felt like a huge emotional burden had been lifted from his soul. He was like his old self again: joyful, pulling harmless pranks and always making someone laugh. Shadow wondered how someone so festive could sink into depression like he did, but after some thinking on how he lost Maria, he saw the signs that matched his own. Sonic just reacted differently.

Thanksgiving finally came and there was a grand feast. There was the sweet potato pie, the cranberry pie, the creamed corn and oh! You never smelled such delicious turkey in your life! Shadow was pretty much the head of attention and received two large helping of the turkey. Everyone talked, laughed and ate, especially ate. Shadow never remembered eating like this before.

That evening found him and Sonic on the high hill, admiring the sunset. Shadow had received his hoverskates back and was feeling good about that; though he didn't say anything, Sonic's old shoes felt cramped.

"Shads, I never really said how glad I am, seeing you alive…"

"I'm just glad that you were forgiving about what I intended to do."

"As far as I'm concerned, I forgave you when you help fight the Biolizard."

Shadow shivered suddenly. "I'd like it if you didn't mention that dreadful creature…"

Sonic looked down. "Sorry…"

"It's okay; I know you meant well…"

Both looked at the setting sun as it sank lower and lower in the sky. Despite the growing chill, Shadow could sense that something or someone was looking down on him from above, smiling…

There was a rustle from the breeze that felt heavenly, and he thought he heard the word "remember" in the wind. He glanced at Sonic, but he must not have heard it.

Sonic shivered from the chill. "C'mon, let's go back to Knothole. Can't have Sally roasting our hides because we were having a night out."

Shadow's gaze followed Sonic. His choice of words was strange to him, but he figured he must bear with his speech as well as his manner.

The two hedgehogs disappeared into the forest and the gathering darkness, just as the last little bit of the sun sank beneath the horizon.

Thus our tale has ended. Should it be my lot to tell you about what will happen with the newly restored friendship of these two, I will be glad to, but for now, I wish you reader, a fond farewell.

THE END