The epic sixth section of…

The Pencil Rain

Author's note: I promise there will be some action sequences in this chapter.

To summarize the last five pages: A lowly private, after falling down during basic training, discovers that there is a gigantic amount of pencils in the sky. The discovery makes its way to the President, who then notifies the one and only Sonic the Hedgehog. When he asks Tails what to do, he concludes that the only logical answer is to send the pencils into space with Chaos Control. Sonic then discovers that Eggman did not cause the pencil peril, and as Eggman and Tails work on a pencil-transporting machine, Sonic looks for the emeralds, meeting a marmot named Malachite in the forest and Knuckles in the process. That should get you past the worst of my writing so the future chapters may be more enjoyable. And now…

"Over there." Malachite had found the signal of three of the six remaining emeralds. It was no surprise they were so close, due to the fact that Knuckles had the six until recently. Her finger was pointing towards the distance, into the water. Sonic's face went from a look of confusion to bewilderment to disbelief as it dawned on him that there was no land on the other side of the area she was pointing to. Nothing but water. Sonic took a step towards the edge of the small island and peered over the huge distance below at which anything but the sea would have looked small.

Sonic asked Malachite, "Did you know I can't swim? There's no way I'm going there." Malachite just shrugged because she had no easy answer. It seemed as if they had hit a roadblock. At that point Knuckles said, "You remember I can swim, right? Guard the emerald and I'll have 'em back in no time." And with that, he effortlessly flew out into the ocean, leaving Sonic behind.

"Oh, well sure I remembered that," Sonic said perfectly normally. Malachite responded by rolling her eyes and floating out to sea to help Knuckles find the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic was now alone, free to run around…but no, he had to protect the Master Emerald. Immediately, he felt the burden that Knuckles had to deal with every day: constrained to one spot, only getting to leave when trouble struck. Sonic first sat there, doing nothing, then as boredom set in, he started twiddling his thumbs, his boredom growing by the minute…

Meanwhile, Knuckles swam for what seemed like hours, his breathing device and Malachite being the only things visible. Meanwhile, Knuckles looked to his left, intending to get a closer look at the mysterious marmot, but only getting past the head. She seemed to be breathing, but she had no apparatus to speak of. Since she appeared okay, and there was no way to speak anyway, Knuckles put it out of his mind, instead focusing on the blue that was rapidly turning to black around them. Malachite tried her best to keep calm, but she was lost, with only the emeralds' presence and her sense of gravity as a guide. This was more than Knuckles had, for he had lost both and subsequently felt something big and rough hit him on the head. The enveloping pitch black meant Knuckles saw nothing. He could, however, deduce that the thing he hit was a rock, and that he had hit bottom. Malachite at first held his hand to pull him towards the target.

After what seemed to be another hour of swimming, Knuckles let out as much of a yell as he could while submerged. The reason: another rock. This one was smooth and vertical, and it seemed as if it was large enough to be the size of a good-sized building. Malachite now felt that the emeralds were close by, past the rock wall that was still the same color of everything else: pitch black. She had heard from dumb hikers who traveled through the forest she inhabited that there were fish with lights on their heads, a watery version of the fireflies she often chatted with late in the evenings. Maybe there were some close by. Malachite tried to tune her thoughts to the fish. There were some close by, and soon there was the first light the two had seen in twenty minutes (the speed of their swimming was another of Malachite's unique abilities.) Before long, the wall was revealed by the light of an immense number of anglerfish. Knuckles was not paying attention to the wall, however. His thoughts were instead on the marmot to his left. He thought, "First she flies, then she swims at breakneck speeds, and now this. I've never seen anyone do these things. Maybe it's the unique situation, but…" Then his attention turned to the wall, which immediately grabbed a hold of his attention.

Spanning a width and height that would beat out any medieval castle, its coral-decorated façade was, incredibly, built into the strange rock wall in front of them. Perfectly squared out, the rock had been smoothed to make a rectangle as flat as a pancake. The pair floated in awe of the structure. For some strange reason, Malachite felt compelled to enter, emeralds or not. She knew something she had always wanted was there…

Sonic had by now run up what would have been a formidable score to beat in hackey-sack, since no matter where the ball went, he could dash to it to squeeze in another kick. He was about to kick it for the 300th time when a voice stopped him.

"Hey there. How's it going?" a voice all too familiar to Sonic said from behind the emerald. "Wow, Knuckles, this place looks amazing. Have you seen- Sonic!" Before he knew it, Sonic was receiving another of Amy Rose's bear hugs, certainly not pleasing Sonic. "I knew I'd find you! I have to tell you what happened to my friend Birdie."

"Hey Amy, I haven't seen you in a while." Much to my delight, he thought. "I'm guarding the Master Emerald while Knuckles goes to find some Chaos Emeralds out there in the ocean."

"Are you trying to find them to try and stop the pencils from falling?" Amy asked, not losing a bit of her bubbly cheeriness. "I heard it's going to be really bad, and I thought this might help." As she said this, she produced a Chaos Emerald from seemingly out of nowhere.

"Aah! Where did you get that? Did you…?" Sonic tried to think of where in the world she could have gotten that from.

"My friend Birdie finally found her parents inside those robots that Dr. Eggman had. In her locket she had this emerald."

"Hmm. If I return this to Tails on the other side of the ruins, I can let him know what is going on. It should only be a few minutes. I'll be right back. Guard the island, OK? That hammer is pretty strong. Bye." While Sonic ran off, Amy tried hard not to faint. What kept her on her feet was a presence that was rolling across the bridge…

Thank you for reading the epic Section 6 of my story. Next time, there'll be more action, more suspense, and Malachite's secret past: partially revealed! All in Piece 7 of… THE PENCIL RAIN.