To defeat an opponent.
That was what Tempest had taught him, in that short period of time when Miles had lived under his care. To defeat an opponent, to kill only when necessary – that was what Tempest had taught him, both philosophically and physically. It was that school of thought that had been passed down, from one extinct Family line of kitsune to another, for two thousand years. Tempest had told him, in the end, that there were only two in the entire world who understood and practiced the Four Pointed Way.
To defeat an opponent.
To use lethal force only when necessary.
For Tempest, it was a matter of practicality as much as honor. Kitsune honor held few qualms about killing; Miles had come to realize. Almost anything could justify murder in their eyes: they were a society of universal hypocrites, surviving in a static state, gifted and cursed by their genetic programming. Tempest had chided him for toying with his prey, that cougar… but another kitsune, most other kitsune, would hardly have batted an eye.
Merlin.
Merlin had sent Tempest.
Miles knew it, and could see the reasoning for it. From the beginning, Merlin had wanted only one lineage to know the Four Pointed Way, and to pass it on to the Chosen One when he finally emerged. Even then, with the cougar lying broken and helpless on the ground, Tempest had wanted his student to understand the philosophy that was necessary to unleash the power of the Four Pointed Way.
For Tempest, the technique have him control of his Clan. The Four Pointed Way was designed to take full advantage of ritualistic fighting, where one can observe one's opponent beforehand, or even while the fight is taking place. Most kitsune schools of combat stress destroying one's opponent quickly, even though most fights between kitsune rarely end in a death: these are anticipative or proactive. The Four Pointed way is reactive, reliant completely on an analytical mind.
The laws of motion, inertia, anatomy, physiology… combined with an understanding of the self and one's self-imposed and absolute limitations. When those factors are combined with a desire to defeat, and not to kill, it is the key to unlocking the power of the hidden school. Only then can one truly have a hope of understanding and appreciating one's opponent. Only then can he or she never hide their vulnerability.
Tempest applied this purely on an emotional and physical level.
This was why so many other kitsune would consider him intellectually soft.
Used purely in that limited way, Miles found he could dissect and analyze all those he had seen fight, or done battle with himself. He could see their tells – the movements, hints, and plays of internal energy that gave away their thoughts and intentions – and he could understand why they would do what they did. He could see their weaknesses, and knew how to respond to them. It was almost as if half his mind had become machine-like in its precision. Finally, Miles understood why Tempest was confident in opposing the entire Freedom Fighter roster. While someone like Bunnie could physically overpower him, in a serious fight Tempest would only have to survive long enough to see her tells, and then exploit them.
When he had decided to take action, Miles had mentally already known how to destroy any potential threats in Knothole or abroad. Sonic, for example, was only capable of forward acceleration, and it was the key to his entire fighting form. Miles had only to move in a diagonal direction and attack from the side, where Sonic was helpless. Or use his own forward momentum against him. More than the physicality of it, Miles understood that Sonic was almost blindingly confident in his speed and in himself. He entered a fight with everything in the open, and everything up front; he devoted himself to one task at a time.
Soon after, no doubt as Merlin had intended, he had come to the revelation that there was an additional dimension to the fighting philosophy as well: that the same principles applied by his mentor physically could extend to the supernatural as well. Chaos Energy, of which Tempest knew next to nothing, was a force also dependent on one's mental state. From this came the creation of his most powerful attack, his Chaos Judgment: the ability to see weakness in spirit as well as flesh, in Chaos waveform as well as in Material form, and to use that weakness to consume an enemy.
Bunnie, Sally, Sonic, Knuckles and a multitude of enemies living and dead had already provided the necessary knowledge of fighting before Tempest had arrived. As Tails he had thrived in a world of endless war, with death always just around the corner, and it had already provided the strength and the endurance training. Tempest had only to show up at that critical moment, when the clay just began to harden, and then mold it into a final and perfect form.
Merlin's Sword.
Merlin's Killer.
The Damned Chosen One.
Against any foe, especially one he had encountered before, Miles was confident in his abilities and his power. Even in a fake body like the one he currently used as a shell. Years of fighting and training had hardened him, and he had at his disposal perhaps the finest mind on the planet, and the most optimal fighting style he could imagine. Yes: he was confident of what he had become.
The sky above thundered; dark clouds churning and spitting heavy rain and frozen ice. Miles landed on his feet, and clutched at his chest and the purpling bruise there. It shouldn't even have been there. He had neither flesh nor blood in his body, and yet the wound felt as real and painful as any he had endured in his former life.
Mogul was chuckling, his voice a deep bass rumble. "How does it feel: the power of Rhadamanthus and Mogul combined?"
Miles narrowed his eyes at the weapon: the Spear of Rhadamanthus. It wasn't just oversized, but Chaos enhanced in a way Miles had never encountered. It wounded him in body, soul and mind. That had to be why his fake body had reacted like it did. Nothing, not even the great Sword of Acorns, had a power like that. Mogul seemed to look through Miles' eyes and expression, and see his understanding.
"Ah, yes." The ancient conqueror nodded. "You're afraid. As you should be."
Miles slowly smiled, wider and wider. "You've got my blood pumping, Mogul."
"Then…!" Mogul took one step forward, and then another, and then another, setting a fast trot on massive ten meter long legs. The ground at his feet shattered as he charged, the weapon held across his body, forming a veritable engine of destruction. Miles started up his tails, and used them to propel him backwards, and then in a sudden burst to the left as Mogul reached striking distance.
The Spear of Rhadamanthus took the ground to heel with another deafening roar, shaking the ground beneath Miles' feet. He could literally feel the shockwave from the impact, though only a tiny fraction of the attack's power went anywhere but straight down into the ground. A direct blow from it would not just cleave him in two, but the vibrations and shock would tear him to pieces as well.
It was a fantastic weapon.
Mogul wasted literally no time in adjusting his aim, using even the moment when he had to pull back his weapon as part of an upward stroke. Miles took an instant to level his custom handgun, forged from his own fake body, and fired a burst of three shells as he maneuvered. All three were aimed along nearly the exact same vector, which Mogul intercepted with the shaft of Rhadamanthus' Spear, all three impacting yet doing no damage, their HEAT rounds apparently useless.
In nothing less than the same motion, Mogul planted the spear yet again, the shockwave splitting the ground. Miles managed to avoid by reversing direction at the last second but had to duck to avoid the head of the weapon clipping him as it burst free from the ground, cutting a long line almost without resistance. Miles zipped back and forth, using his feet to break and his hands to perform evasive as Mogul struck again and again, his footwork and motions flawless.
The Spear became a literal blur, the thunderous impacts merging into one long tumult like the breaking of some titanic dam or the collapse of a mountain. Moving faster and faster in a desperate attempt to force an opening and survive at the same time, Miles could feel his maneuvering options narrowing, as the strikes from above hemmed him in. He fired at every opportunity, at Mogul's face and even his joints: the elbows and knees. If a HEAT bullet couldn't be blocked by the spear, Mogul shifted his body just enough to avoid it.
Back flipping, Miles strained not to lose sight of his opponent. An instant later, he saw the spear come down, then back up, filling his field of view. Adjusting his grip on his gun and holding out one hand to brace it as a shield, he saw it come closer and closer, as if in slow motion. The air pressure from it cut lines into his skin, and then the impact came and he gritted his teeth. The gun between him and the blade took most of the blow, but enough transferred into his arms and body to shake him to the core. Miles' ears popped, and he momentarily lost hearing.
Then the real pressure wave hit, and he went flying, a tiny mote in a storm.
He landed hard, with a splash of semi-wet earth, cutting a long trench in the ground before he shot into and through an outcropping of rock. Finally, he hit another jagged rock and bounced off the side of it, cracking it down the middle. He rolled onto his side, spat a sticky black fluid, and forced himself back up and on his feet.
He hurt.
He hadn't expected to feel pain, real pain, again.
Not after he lost his natural body.
A distant flash of lightning highlighted Mogul as he stood, the Spear of Rhadamanthus held in his right hand and propped against his side. He was frighteningly calm and composed, a giant standing alone like a mountain in a plain. Miles quickly wiped the black ooze from his lower jaw, a split lip causing a sharp moment of pain.
Miles wouldn't say as much, but he was worried.
Mogul wasn't fighting like before. He wasn't using his own power, like in the past, and his prowess with this new weapon was mind numbing. Miles had fought larger and stronger opponents many times before, and knew they had an arrogance and sense of invincibility, either conscious or subconscious, to their attacks and defense. Mogul had none of this. Worse, the timing and precision of his strikes was like nothing Miles had ever seen.
From what he had seen, Mogul had no obvious tells.
Miles knew that Tempest had, over the years, trained himself to remove consecutive tells from his fighting style. Still, the kitsune master had silent tells, if not physical ones that could be reliably read. Mogul seemed to be at a whole other level: he seemed to have no tells at all, silent or otherwise. His eyes were glowing orbs, and his massive body betrayed no movement beforehand: not the twitch or tensing of a muscle, not even the invisible flow of energy and heat to the muscles and nerves. It made him seem two, or even three, times faster than he actually was.
"Still alive, Miles?" Mogul asked, as he slowly approached, great footfalls leaving craters in his wake.
"Ergh…" Miles stood, and straightened his back. It cracked and popped in protest. "I'll live. Thanks."
"I am impressed. You have remarkable control of your internal energy balance, focusing it into your little popgun to blunt the blow from this Spear of the Heavens. However, control of this is not enough to defeat me." Mogul's pace increased slightly. "With this Spear given me, I am a master. You can not make a move without me sensing the change in your equilibrium and reacting accordingly."
Miles gritted his teeth. It sounded almost as if…
"Who gave you that Spear?" The young kitsune demanded. "Who was it, Mogul?"
"Oho? You'd really like to know?" Mogul smirked, his great arcing tusks framing the amusement on his face. "It was a long time ago. These days, he goes by the name of… Merlin."
"No! He wouldn't…!" Miles shook his head in denial. "I don't believe…"
"Believe it or not. I will admit that I never thought I'd have to dig it up and use it again. But you seem to forget, little Destroyer," Mogul replied, eyes shining in the darkness under his heavy brows. "It was only a couple millennia ago that Merlin considered me a useful puppet, and a loyal ally. I dare say I know him better than you do… If you have anything else to ask, Miles… now is the time."
Miles had no response except to brace himself for the coming storm.
"I see." His nemesis stamped his foot eagerly. "Good!"
Mogul broke into a run, charging like a demon out of hell.
THE CYCLE OF AGES: A NEW WORLD ORDER
CHAPTER SEVEN:
Nothing Beside Remains
"I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Nail looked down the elevator shaft, trying to ignore the sounds from behind him: sounds that shook the walls of Haven with their force and their fury. He glanced over his shoulder, as another distant rumble made him wonder just what was going on topside. He could feel Mogul's power when he concentrated on it, glowing like a sun through layers of granite, steel and concrete, frightful and overwhelming in intensity.
"You almost done?" he asked down into the dark pit, and saw Lara-Su wave at him, signaling that it would only be a moment longer. While he waited, he tried to predict what they would face the deeper down they went into Haven.
The Master Emerald had been corrupted, but what that would mean in practice… Nail just wasn't sure. What he did know, however, was that he couldn't sense any distinct life forms down below. While he was hardly sensitive enough to pick up small animals or the life, this was not so much a dead zone, but a blanket of darkness. He could feel that there was something down there, but what it was exactly defied his understanding or comprehension, and whether it was alone or not also eluded him.
He would just have to wait and see.
Down in the shaft, Lara started to make her way back up, jumping off the walls like springboards, in a little red blur. Nail stepped back, and a second alter she twirled out of the open doorway. It was sensible foresight on Miles' part to prepare someone in case their way was barred. The Guardians built their sanctuary to last, and with an eye for defense. Cutting through would have wasted a lot of his energy, and the heavy magnetic locks on the door would have made it nearly impossible to pry open.
Lara had simply hooked up some sort of magnetic depolarizing gizmo, and then blown the door open with plastic explosive. Nail didn't particularly like the use of such vulgar displays, as he personally put more stock in what one could achieve with one's own body and training, but he could appreciate the effectiveness of it.
"Fire in the hole!" Lara ducked off to the side, and Nail did likewise. A few seconds later, there was a dull and distant thump, followed by a groan. The echidna girl peeked down into the shaft.
"I was sure that would've gotten it loose…" No sooner had she said it, than the elevator itself gave a loud screech of metal on metal, and plummeted down into the darkness. Moments later, it hit bottom with a reverberating crash.
"Good job," Nail complimented, and stepped out over the edge. "Ready?"
Lara looked back the way they came, a worried expression on her face.
"Don't worry about the foxboy," Nail said offhand, clasping her on the shoulder. "He does his thing, and we do ours."
"Do you think… there's a chance he could lose?" Lara asked, tentatively. "And what would happen if he did? Would I lose the power he gave me?"
Nail shook his head. "I don't know. It could be that even he doesn't know the answer to that."
Lara slowly nodded, and turned back to the task at hand. "Sorry. I'm ready."
He smiled, approvingly.
Without another word, the two jumped down into the shadows.
Spectre stood between the pale green light and the pitch darkness. It served to highlight his face: the deep scowl and strong jaw, the wrinkles on his brow just beneath his helmet, and all around and under his eyes. He looked worn and used, his complexion harder and heavier, almost to the point of being leathery. A blue arc light flashed before him, momentarily sparking life in his empty blood red eyes.
"You called for me?" he thought, his dry lips sealed closed.
The light of the Master Emerald bathed him in a sick glow.
"Yes," it spoke, not from without, from within. It came from nowhere, but to Spectre, it was everywhere. He was the eye and it was the storm.
Mute, the former Guardian let out a hiss of air from his nose.
"What would you have me do?"
"Your Grandson." The Emerald commanded, "Bring Him Before Me."
Spectre didn't nod. He didn't have to.
"Will he struggle?"
The Emerald sounded almost amused. Another blue light flashed nearby, as something moved. "He Has Tasted Chaos. It Is In Him."
"And the human?" Spectre ventured.
"Watch Him." The Emerald glowed angrily. "Bring Him." It burned even more hotly. "His Blindness Is Offensive To Me." And then it died down to normal. "He Will See My Light If I Must Pluck Out His Eyes."
Spectre blinked, slowly, turned and walked off. The sounds of hissing and the glow of laser light at his back, he walked past Sabre, who seemed to leaning against one of the massive supporting pillars of the Emerald Chamber. The other echidna, Spectre's grandson after five generations, had his head in his hands, and seemed to be weeping. The sort of hiccupping inarticulate sounds escaping his mouth were more like those of an abandoned child than a dignified Guardian. There was a nasty smear of yellow-green vomit on his chin, but Sabre hardly seemed to care, wrapped up in a personal hell tailored for one.
Spectre stopped nearby, and Sabre looked up at him with frantic eyes.
"G.g..gg… grandfather…" he mumbled, shaking violently. "I ca… I can… feel it…"
"Return to work, Grand Son." Spectre's dried and split lips moved slowly as he spoke. A trickle of blood ran down his chin.
"I don't want to!" Sabre moaned. "I'm so tired, and it keeps screaming, and I can FEEL IT!"
Spectre's red eyes watched emotionlessly as Sabre reached behind his head, into the black hood they all now wore. The hand came back bloody, and Sabre's whole body started to convulse in horror and confusion. The younger Guardian took a deep breath, and stared at his hands.
"I can feel it… it my brain…" Tears rolled down his cheeks. "I can feel it in my brain! What's in my head! What is it?"
"WORK," Spectre repeated, and Sabre's head lolled back.
"So… tired…" Sabre wailed, and then his voice faded out. His head fell forward, still a little limply, and his bloodshot eyes found his Grandfather's. Spectre stared back, like a doll. A few seconds later, Sabre shuffled off, back to work.
"He will not live much longer," Spectre thought to his Master Emerald.
For a few moments there was no reply.
Then:
"His Work Is Almost Done. Only Then Will I Let Him Die." The Emerald Voice was merciless and all consuming. "Now Bring Me Your Youngest. He Is Ready."
Spectre walked off to his task, his mind empty of all but his Master's Bidding.
Far above, the clash of titans continued unabated.
With a bellow, Mammoth Mogul spun his massive weapon, and before him a half dozen explosions went off harmlessly. In midair, Miles tucked his custom 20mm handgun into his left arm pit, closed and opened his hands, and concentrated on forming the base inorganic material in his fake body into something more immediately useful. Two pink flesh colored rings formed, and then turned a glowing yellow. Drops of rain hissed on contact, as Miles angled himself in free fall.
His Tails spun, instantly stopping his downward acceleration.
Mogul was already moving to attack, the great blade of the Spear of Rhadamanthus making a visible crescent through the air as its displacement destroyed the rain in its path, turning it to steam. Mammoth Mogul's muscles were taunt with power as he swung the weapon in a perfect intercept course.
"Ring Shield!" Miles slammed his hands together, and the two rings fused into one, four times the size. Holding his hands out forward, the glowing ring of power hung in midair.
"Do you think that will save you!" Mogul roared, and the tip of the spear hit the so-called shield. But instead of plowing into and through it, the curved edge of the shield rode the air pressure around the end of the weapon. Even then, avoiding the brunt of the possible impact, it began to crumble and disintegrate. Miles stood on top of the Ring Shield, his BFG back in both hands as he took careful aim.
"You're MINE!" The kitsune howled, and fired on full automatic, pumping energy into the weapon as fast as he could. An assortment of rounds left the barrel of the weapon in as many seconds: a HEAT followed by a HE-IN followed by a SABOT, times three.
Mogul's eyes widened just a tiny fraction, but he didn't hesitate. Using the momentum of his weapon, he pivoted at his waist, and raised his elbow while ducking his head. The rounds impacted cleanly against the exposed area on the bottom of his right arm, around the triceps. The first round ignited and disappeared, the second exploded in flame and shrapnel, and the third similarly disappeared into the thick and corded flesh.
Only two more rounds managed to hit, before the blunt end of Mogul's spear rose to intercept the rounds, blocking them with pinpoint precision. The twenty meter tall Mogul then lowered his right knee, and expertly reversed the direction of his attack. Miles barely had time to spin his tails in the opposite direction, as the blunt end of the spear filled the space above him, the displaced air throwing him around wildly.
He didn't even have time to think about a landing.
Mogul hissed in pain, but seemed to have avoided any sort of critical injury. He stepped forward with the sound of a crashing meteorite, his weapon spinning and striking. There was hardly an opportunity to so much as get near the ground; Miles either kept flying and kept moving, or left himself vulnerable. So he double jumped to conserve energy, using his tails as a booster instead of a form of steady propulsion.
"Higher!" He snarled to himself, feeling fatigue in his body start to drag him down. "I have to fly higher!"
He jumped and jumped and boosted straight up, tails spinning, wet rain splashing against his already soaked face and fur. He looked down, and saw that Mogul was finally too far away to strike. Miles thought himself safe, at least for a moment, this far out of reach.
Instead, Mogul looked up, smirked, and jumped.
"Damn it!" Miles held up his left hand, summoned more of the self-aggregated power rings, and began to mentally program them. So long as he understood the construction of an object, it was not particularly difficult to self fabricate it, using his knowledge of Chaos Energy. And Power Rings, as little chaos batteries, were quick and relatively easy to create. It was at least once advantage of his weaker fake body that this little trick was made easier.
Below him, Mogul shot through the air surprisingly fast, and Miles held out his left palm and aimed with the gun in his right. "Ring Fury!"
Mogul laughed, his arms and spear cutting through the stormy air, blocking and intercepting the stream of explosive rings and twenty-millimeter bullets. Both of them in midair, Mogul closed the distance before Miles would have dared to dream, and Miles had to once again take evasive maneuvers. Lightning cracked behind them, as the two dueled in the sky, spitting in the eye of gravity.
"Are you enjoying yourself, Miles!" Mogul roared, his face alight with fury. "Is this everything you hoped it would be!"
Miles spun, following a gust of air current from one of Mogul's strikes. "I never thought it would be easy, Mogul! I never underestimated you!"
"Liar!" Mogul's swipe went wild, or at least appeared to. In fact, he had let it go to hold the massive Rhadamanthus Spear in only one hand, while he suddenly backhanded with the other. Miles barely got his arms up to block, before a fist the size of a car plowed into him.
A tan streak fell to the earth.
"You all underestimate me…" Mogul spoke calmly as he fell, spear in one hand the other by his side. "I have fought in a thousand wars. I have seen a half million lives extinguished before me. I have lived for over five millennia, and survived the wrath of two Destroyers. This world is Mine by right of the Sword Arm! I built it once from the ashes, and I shall do so again! Mammoth Mogul is no one's puppet!"
When he landed, it was like an underground nuclear explosion. A shockwave distorted the ground, and radiated out for hundreds of feet. Mogul stood unfazed amid the conflagration.
"Yet…" He held his free hand up to his chest, where his ancient armor concealed his great shame, and his ethereal chains. "No. No matter what I become, I am Mogul. I have the Pride of that Name. I will not bow my head and let the executioner's blade fall!"
Miles rose from a pile of ruble, a ferocious sneer showing long canines.
"You bastard…" He spat blood, his tails swishing behind him. Half his face was purpling, and an open gash on his forehead let a stream of crimson flow down the left side of his face.
"If you want to be this world's new Kingmaker, Miles… You will have to go through me!" Mogul bellowed, and resumed his assault. Miles shook off the pain, and started up his trademark tails, using them to propel him backwards, skipping and jumping over the broken ground.
The fight raged on.
Nail could see movement in the shadows around them. Shoulder to shoulder with him in the tight confines of Haven's underbelly, he knew Lara should see them too. Between the drip-drip noises of condensing steam, and the distant hum of an electrical generator, there were skittering and slipping animal sounds, like hundreds of little feet on metal.
"A little more light?" Lara asked, and Nail nodded in agreement. His right fist, already faintly glowing enough to light their way, became brighter as he directed more chaos energy into it. It became a lighter shade of green as he did so, giving off a wider spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. Lara did likewise with her left hand, flooding more of the place with light.
Several creatures were quick to scurry behind pipes, and back into the darkness. Lara caught a hint of something insect-like, huge, with a dozen or more orange legs, and then it was gone. She sucked in breath through lips tightly pressed together, but quickly composed herself. She didn't turn her back to it, instead trusting Nail to lead and watch her back at the same time.
Still, she was growing … concerned.
"We're going to be surrounded soon." Lara warned. "They're massing for an attack. I can feel it."
"You're probably right," Nail admitted. "However, we have no time to waste, and there are enough tight spaces here were we won't fit. Our only choice is to keep going towards our objective."
"I suppose." Lara trailed off. "Um, Nail, could I ask you something?"
Nail gave a steaming pipe a wide berth, as the two entered an open corridor that branched in two directions up ahead. He kept his eyes on the ceiling, where two vents were off their hinges, and one was on the floor. The once ample lighting was dead, casting the empty hall in a disturbing gloom.
"Go ahead," he prompted.
"My father… what kind of echidna is he?"
Nail sensed the insecurity in her voice. He sympathized. "We only met once, but I never knew him personally. Athair always spoke highly of him. He was respected, if not liked, by both his friends and enemies. He seemed very serious and strong willed, though short tempered. I thought him suspicious and overly defensive, before I became educated on some of what he had been through. Still, he's someone you should be proud to have as a father. Why do you ask?"
"He…" Lara started to say, but wasn't sure how to continue. "That is… we… I never really knew him. I knew of him, of course, but he was never family to me. I'm not sure what I'm going to tell him, or even try and do…"
"Why are you here, Lara?" Nail asked. "Why exactly?"
"To save my father!" Lara insisted. Nail gave her a brief look, but he said nothing. After a few seconds, Lara sighed. "I am here to save him, and maybe build a better future. Maybe I didn't give a lot of thought to how I was going to do that, but it is what I believe I can do, and have to do. I can't let things turn out as they did. And… I have nothing to lose…"
"Nothing to lose?" Nail asked, disbelieving. "What about your mother? Your family?"
"As if! My mother kept me in the dark my whole life about who I am, and what I am. I've lived my whole life hiding my true self from the world. All my life… all my life I felt alone and empty." Lara sighed softly. "I've always felt like there was something great that I was missing out on. Like there was an adventure out there for me, if only I could find that first step towards it."
"And you thought this was it?" Nail shook his head.
'No, Lara,' he wanted to say, 'Maybe at one time, you could have made your future with your own two hands, but not now. Not ever again.'
"Yeah," Lara replied. "I think this is it. I think…"
The two froze and looked up, as the ceiling shook, and the sound of a hundred segmented legs beat a rapid tempo tap dance on the metal grating. A second later, a blue and yellow head stuck out of the open vent – it was eyeless, with two long antennae, and a hideous pincer jaw drooling poison ooze. It hissed, and skittered out, followed moments later by a flood of comrades.
Lara and Nail gaped, as they crawled out of every crevasse, every hole, and from ahead and behind. Some were centipede like, only a hundred times natural size; others were in the sick guise of misshapen spiders, with odd numbers of legs, and three or five malformed jaws. Others were soft and gel like, covered in eyes and flailing pseudopods.
"Chao!" Nail yelled, and unleashed a spray of blue-green energy from his right hand into the thickest cluster of the monsters.
"Chao?" Lara pushed back her rising panic and disgust, and did likewise, an energy blast taking the head off one of the massive centipede creatures on the ceiling. The rest of the body skittered, and then fell to the ground, crushing several smaller cousins. She jumped, and stomped down, as one of the spider beasts snapped at her leg, stomping it flat with a loud crunch.
"Creatures of Chaos!" Nail dodged a snapping set of jaws, and landed an open palmed strike with his left hand. The misshapen mandibles exploded in a spray of purple gore, and the rest of the body fell twitching. His arms and feet became a blur as he moved within a tight arc, killing anything near him, and blasting those that grouped together for a concerted attack.
Despite having similar chaos related abilities, Lara used them differently. Hands to her sides, she pushed forward, telekinetically slamming a half dozen of the swarming monsters into the wall at a time. Piles of them began to build up, heaped upon the broken remains of their fallen brethren. Still, more came, like an unending tide of gibbering, salivating madness.
A glowing ball of power streaked down one curve of the hall before exploding, a wave of flame and concussive force annihilating ten score of the massing chao. Despite that victory, Nail wailed in pain as a creature, half mouth and all teeth, clamped down on his right arm. Its only beady eye stared back at him with two pupils, and Nail could feel its teeth grinding deeper into his flesh. Backhanding another lunging mouth full of razors, he reacted instinctively, and tore the creature loose.
He regretted it the instant he had done so, as a spray of blood arced through the air. Smelling it, the chao frenzy seemed to multiply, as they jumped into the air and snapped wildly at anything in reach. The monster in his grip bayed and snarled, mouthing desperately in his direction. With a heave, Nail to threw the creature into a nearby wall, where it hit with a wet splatter. Before it even hit the ground, it was torn to pieces and devoured by more of its fellows.
Lara 'eeped,' as a giant set of pincer jaws rose up out of a mass of seemingly dead chao, chomping and rending at the air just a foot from her knee. Directing one hand at it, she sent a pulse of ruby red chaos energy into her hands. As if it was the most natural thing in the world, her power flexed, and the offending head became flattened against the ground with a crunch, one of the mandibles distorting enough that it twisted and broke through the head, sticking out between two beady eyes.
She felt almost aflame with power.
Her old Guardian abilities couldn't even begin to hold a candle to the power she felt coursing through her now. As a dozen of the creatures rose up to take her, she quickly tried something new, focusing her telekinetic power not just on one target, or even a half dozen, but on a general area. The air distorted at her command, and five gaping mouths crashed against an invisible wall, while Lara pointed at the sixth, and sent it flying into a crowd of its buddies with the force of a cannon shell.
Nail blasted two larger chao to pieces, raining legs and bits of torso all around him. He had cleared a small amount of breathing room, but only momentarily. There were too many of them, approaching from every angle. Only the presence of Lara at his back gave him comfort. Taking the brief opportunity, he closed his eyes, balled his fists, and concentrated. It had to be quick – he could hear them rushing towards him, heedless of safety, consumed by a lust to bathe in his blood and tear the meat from his bones.
"Chaos Flash!" He cried, opening his eyes. The moment he did, a white-hot burst of energy filled everything in his cone of sight. Many of the smaller chao hissed and bubbled and burned, the others ignored the damage and continued forward, mad and hungry. Nail met one of them with his fist, blowing a hole in its back and sending it flying. Another took a small energy ball to the face; that face quickly ceasing to exist.
"There's too many!" Lara yelled, raising her hands, and sending a dozen of the freakish chao into the ceiling, before letting them rain down in broken pieces. Then, mixed in with the sound of little feet, there came heavier footfalls. Behind and ahead of them, something roared, long and loud.
A few seconds later, they saw it come down one of the corridors. It was far larger than any of the previous chao, but still a patchy blue and yellow color, mixed with some red. It had a hideous face: four little eyes surrounded by bone, and above a jaw lined with needle teeth. It had bear paws for hands, massive and leading up to a muscled hump at the shoulder. Hooked horns ran up its arms and across its skeletal chest. Stout legs crushed smaller chao underfoot, as it shambled towards them.
Then another appeared: it was similar, but had flailing squid tentacles, suckers lined with tiny razor sharp teeth. And then, from behind, yet another emerged. This one had a sharply curved beak for a mouth, and arms lined with drooling mouths and blinking eyes. All three seemed a wretched mixture of different animal traits, obscenely exaggerated by a diseased and perverted mind.
Behind the new hulks, yet more shadowed shapes made their slow approach, each more hideous than the last. Lara and Nails steeled themselves for the fight ahead, as the horde of chaos renewed its advance.
It seemed empty.
Which was not to say that Hunter had dropped his guard or changed his plans. Even if this, the lowest level of Haven, seemed completely devoid of the little demons they had seen on the way down, he had plenty to worry about. If nothing else, it was a problem to be faced on the way out, once the elevators and the like were back in working order.
On the way out, he'd also have to see if he could set off the reactor, too.
It wasn't that he was ungrateful for the years of confinement that the Guardians had given him. No. After all, they could have killed him, and he would have understood perfectly. But as it was, this 'Haven' was corrupted beyond redemption. Barring a squad of marines in powered armor with pressurized napalm projectors, a big bang was simply the most efficient way to clear out this hellish stain on the planet.
And if he couldn't find a way to destroy Haven…
Well.
Fuck Angel Island.
He'd just leave, and relax on a beach somewhere. Wouldn't that be nice? Sipping a martini in the twilight, with a nice BBQ going on nearby filling the air with the smell of good honest foodstuffs, and maybe a couple of friendly women in bathing suits trying to entice him into the water to play with them.
Enjoying the fantasy as he was, he reacted without an instant's hesitation when he saw a dark shape approaching from around a corner. Hunter was halfway through the motions of throwing his makeshift hunting knife into the newcomer's forehead when he recognized him, and pulled off the attack at the last second. As it was, the whole motion was dome behind Knuckles' back, and with enough speed and conservation of movement that the echidna didn't even notice.
A black furred and hooded echidna rounded the corner ahead of them, his stern and severe face otherwise expressionless. He said nothing, at first, as the three stood in surprised and sudden silence.
"Spectre!" Knuckles cried with a happy whoop, and grasped his greatest grandsire by the shoulders, breaking the tense moment. "Thank the Walkers…!"
"Ho! Here's a surprise!" Hunter managed a smile at one of his former jailors. "So one of you fellows is still alive, eh?"
Spectre tilted his had slightly. "We are all alive."
His vacant eyes moved from Knuckles to Hunter, and back again.
"Come. Grand Son. Come." The oldest living Guardian took a step back, turned, and started walking back the way he came.
Knuckles gave Hunter a strange look, but fell in behind Spectre.
"Tell me: how is the Master Emerald? Have you been able to find a way out of here?" Knuckles shot off the answers a little frantically, but didn't care. "What happened? What were those things?"
Spectre didn't answer.
"Hey!" Knuckles seemed to get a little angry at the silent treatment as they walked. Hunter noted as Knuckles shoulder muscles tensed, one of the warning signs that he was on the very of a fit. The human sighed under his breath.
"Hey!" Knuckles said again. "I don't think you know what I've been through! I've seen Hell, and I want to know what the yiff is going on, damnit! Answer me! You owe me that much after all I've been through!"
"The Master… Emerald… will make everything clear," Spectre finally replied. "So very clear."
"You can't leave, can you?" Hunter asked, his hand on his knife. "No. It isn't that you can't. You don't want to."
"Why would I leave the Master's Light?" Spectre asked.
"I don't like this…" Hunter whispered to Knuckles.
The echidna frowned at him in reply. "I have to see what's going on. I have to see the Master."
"The Master Emerald." Hunter grumbled. "I never understood you stupid furries and your obsession with those things. And you echidna are the worst. Chaos Emeralds are more trouble than they're worth. We'd all be best off firing them into space to burn up in the sun."
Knuckles spines bristled at the implication. "You don't know… can't know…what it feels like."
Spectre's response was more cryptic. "It would never be allowed to happen. He would prevent it. You humans are blind… but you will see... you will believe…"
"What the hell does that mean?" Hunter 'hmfed' loudly. Spectre was not inclined to respond, so Hunter turned to Knuckles. The youngest Guardian either didn't know or didn't want to say. They walked in silence down a flight of wide steps. Spectre's movements seemed slow and deliberate, and Hunter felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
He looked nearby for some other way around this part of Haven, any one but the one Spectre was taking them down. The walls here were clean and white washed, nothing out of place, and even the lighting here was working perfectly. It was like an island of stability, but Hunter felt even more uneasy than before, by virtue of that alone.
His nose twitched.
"Do you smell that?" Hunter asked, softly. Knuckles sensitive nose took in a quick sniff, and he nodded. Either had to say what it was, but it was growing stronger. The trio passed by an intersection, and to their left, both Knuckles and Hunter could see an odd path of wall, strained with dried blood, and a pool of dark urine. It seemed completely out of place in the otherwise clean and sanitary surroundings.
More ominously, some of the bloody marks on the walls were plainly handprints.
"Fired your janitorial staff, did you?" Hunter quipped, hiding his discomfort. His hand tensed and untensed around the handle of his knife, and he shifted the weight of the homemade spear on his back. Spectre didn't say a word, or even give any hint of hearing.
They came at last to a pillared entryway, and through that into a great cavern. It was not some rough-hewn open area, but a carefully carved temple. Huge pillars, too large for a man to put his arms around, rose to support the lower levels of the granite walls. Giant murals decorated the floor and open swaths of the sides and ceiling, more than a hundred feet above. Nine inverted flying buttresses rose from close to the center of the cavern.
This was the Emerald Chamber.
But it was not what shocked the two newcomers.
"By the Great Maker…" Hunter gasped, and stumbled backwards, eyes wide and mouth agape. Knuckles just stared, seemingly entranced. There, in the middle of the massive cavern, sat the Master Emerald, on a stand of gold and platinum. A circlet of electronics and wiring coiled and hooked into it, holding it in place.
And upon the Master Emerald sat a skeleton of titanic proportions.
It filled nearly the entirety of the chamber, the massive arms resting on the flying buttresses, and the skull hunched slightly forward. It was not simply bone, either. Machinery in the form of flying robots, mechanical arms attached to hover platforms, and industrial lasers moved up and down the lattice work and scaffolding surrounding the skeleton. Most of it was not the white bone color, but a bluish gray metallic sheen. In design as in scale, it was like nothing either had seen before.
The great five fingered hands had serrated talons as long as an arm. The chest was almost a solid cavity of interlaced bone. The skull was host to a long jaw of shark like teeth, three whole rows of them. Even the outside of the jaw had bony protrusions sticking out all up to the heavyset cheek. Above and behind looming brows and close set angular eye sockets, great horns spread out and up, like the spires of a crown. A long tail ran along the ground, capped at the end by a host of fierce spikes.
What was truly horrifying, however, was that flesh: muscle and sinew, were growing like a cancer on the supposed bone. Blue and yellow masses, the creatures from before, crawled up and down the massive skeleton, before settling into place, and merging with those nearby, to form new tissues and organs.
In hover platforms, Thunderhawk, Sojourner and Sabre worked and oversaw the job, as lasers put the finishing touches on parts of the hands and face. A stream of chao from a crack in the dome above flowed down as an almost solid mass. They dribbled and slipped over the crest of the skull, and into the rest of the body. Hunter and Knuckles could only watch, dumbstruck, as a collection of the creatures massed together and formed a single unblinking eye in the fleshless skull.
The massive pupil focused in on them.
"Now…" Spectre spoke, turning towards them. His voice was dry and hoarse and from the grave. "Now… you will see…"
Knuckles started to laugh, a mad look on his face.
Hunter, however, was not as amused. Spectre lunged for them, but Hunter was too fast. He slipped past the echidna's grasping hands, tried for a quick cut across the neck, missed by an inch, and settled for reversing the blade and burying it up to the hilt in Spectre's chest right past the ribs. With a dry gurgle, the oldest Guardian fell backwards, the knife still wedged tightly in him. He hit the ground with a muffled thud, his arms and legs still flailing.
Which was strange, since Hunter had just cut his heart in half.
Then, Spectre's head kicked and rolled off to the side. Beneath his black cloak and helmet, something seemed to be moving. A second later, the hood folded back, and Hunter and Knuckles could see a large crack in the back of Spectre's helmet, and a bloody hole behind that. To their growing horror, something black and red oozed out of the crack, slowly coalescing into a chao with bright red eyes.
Knuckles, by this time, was laughing hysterically.
Hunter just shook his head in disbelief. "By the Maker… he had one of those things… in his head…"
"Grandfather Spectre was the first to see the light." A voice came from behind, and Hunter turned to see something step out from the shadows. It was another echidna, with a short white beard, and a long, tattered lab coat. Hunter recognized him as Locke Knuckles' father. But, as he came into the light, Hunter could see that there was something wrong with him.
Locke's lips were gone, replaced with a gruesome visage of pink gums and white teeth. His eyes were manic and wild, the lids seemingly gone. It seemed impossible for him to even speak and form words, and yet he did. Locke approached, that perpetual smile forever ripped onto his face.
"He was the first… and he showed his son and grandson the light as well. It was my pleasure to be the last to see the light… To be introduced to it in a less physically destructive manner." Locke kneeled down next to Knuckles, and ran a hand through his son's quills affectionately. "I see that he has been eating well."
"Eating…?" Hunter looked back at the flesh growing on the skeleton that sat on its Emerald Throne. He suddenly realized all of what had been implied, and dry heaved. Stumbling back, he tried to bring his last meal back up, but it didn't seem to want to comply.
"You see… they had to force feed me, and I fought it for many days." Locke held a hand up in front of his ruined face. "You see where it got me. But my son… he is still perfect and flawless. He will serve the Master so well… We are almost done grafting the chaos resistant metal to his bones. Then he will arise… invincible… and the Guardians will protect and serve the Master Emerald always."
"A new body, for a New Devourer…" Locke chuckled, and slowly walked towards Hunter. "That only leaves you, human. And your kind. Nothing we did to you helped you to see the light, like it did my son. So now we shall try more… vulgar measures…"
"Is that so?" Hunter cracked his knuckles and glared at the former Guardian. "I'll bite my tongue off and bleed to death before I let you put one of those things in my head!"
Locke opened his mouth, and stuck out what was left of his tongue. Then, he started to laugh, and long black and red tendrils erupted from his forearms and elbows. On the floor, Knuckles was still manic, laughing wilding and edging away from the monster that had once been his estranged father.
Behind Hunter, Sojourner and Thunderhawk dropped to the ground, their bodies aglow with chaos energy. They were silent, with tortured expressions on their faces, and hoods behind their heads. Both seemed to have undergone the same treatment that Spectre has suffered from, but from the easy way their bodies moved they promised to be more of a threat.
Marcus Hunter sighed resignedly. "Don't think I'll make this easy for you…"
"Take Him," the voice of the Emerald roared through the broken minds of the echidna Guardians, the children of Edmund, and as one they attacked.
