Breaking into the cannon's core wasn't easy, but with the help from his friends, it went much smoother than expected.

Sonic rushed into the massive room with Knuckles in tow, skidding to a halt and gaping at the high ceilings and large structures that didn't seem like they should have fit inside of the space colony. The hedgehog felt his jaw begin to slacken as he took in the cavern, the shrine, the pedestals…

How could the ARK fit all this inside, along with all the technology and the people and the life support equipment?

Knuckles, however, seemed more focused on other things.

"What's that?" he demanded, pointing right at the structure in the center. "It looks just like the shrine of the Master Emerald!"

Sonic had to agree, save for the gigantic, pulsating machine right above it. That took up more of his concern than a few aesthetic choices.

"They probably designed the core like the shrine to harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds," he reasoned, eager to get back to their mission. The ARK gave another violent shake, prompting him to run to the steps, and the thundering sound of clumsy footfalls told him that Knuckles was right on his tail.

They passed by shallow beds of water, encircling the paths that granted them access to the awaiting staircase, but the sight of the pools and streams made Sonic's spines start to prick up in unease. To make matters worse, Gerald Robotnik's repeated message had made its way down to the core room as well, and Sonic was, frankly, sick and tired of listening to the angry man's final words.

He was sure he wasn't alone in that regard.

The machine above the shrine gave a particularly potent lurch, and Sonic felt his guts knot up in anticipation. "Knuckles! Here it comes!" he warned, as the old man's speech grew louder and more distorted. A surge of power sparked out of the machine, manifesting itself into what looked like deep blue lightning, spreading and crackling, growing in intensity until the cavern was bathed in blue and white.

Were they too late?

A loud rumbling filled the room, but it wasn't the sort that caused the ship to shake and tremble; it was a rumbling that ran through one's ears, causing hair to stand on end and a sense of dread to take root in the soul. The light subsided, the recorded message grew clear again, and a massive beast emerged from the machine above the shrine, throwing back its head as it let out a howl that pierced the air around them.

It landed in front of the two mobians, splashing in the water. Sonic shivered as a few droplets landed on him, trying his hardest not to think about swimming or drowning or being submerged. Instinctively, he stepped to the side, closer to the water, but out of range of the beast's head, in case it decided to send it crashing down on them both.

"Could this be the prototype of the Ultimate Lifeform that was supposed to be encapsulated?" Knuckles wondered aloud, and the thought made Sonic pause and look at the huge lizard-type thing with new eyes.

Was this who Rouge was originally supposed to be?

As if in answer, a gust of wind blew past their shoulders, and the sound of footsteps echoed forth before a low voice growled out.

"If that's the case, then leave her to me."

Sonic whipped around; Rouge the Bat was walking down the pathway, still scuffed up from their last encounter, her red eyes locked onto the prototype with undisguised hostility. Her wings stretched out, beginning to beat until she hovered a foot off the ground.

As glad as he was to see her still around and kicking, Sonic had his concerns about her goals, especially given the way she had spoken when they had raced outside the ARK.

"Rouge, what are you doing?"

Rouge paid him no heed, flying toward the beast before them, rising into the air until they were eye to eye. The lizard paused, her rumblings turning softer as she seemed to find familiarity in the bat before her. Rouge took the opportunity to call down to the two below.

"I'll take care of this, while you run to get the Chaos Emeralds!"

And with that, she swooped through the air, distracting the biolizard and leading her around in circles, clearing up the path for Sonic and Knuckles to run along.

Sonic wasted no time, realizing with a surge of joy that Rouge was on their side this time. He gripped onto Knuckles' wrist and tugged him forward. "Come on!" he urged, as the echidna stumbled to keep up.

"Can she really fight that thing alone?" Knuckles asked.

Sonic's response was immediate and certain.

"Without a doubt. Now let's go do what we came here to do!"


Rouge had a lot of anger left over from days and days of living a lie and believing it wholeheartedly, and then having her worldview be shattered in an instant, leaving her with a bigger picture that she had to struggle to fit back into.

She was angry at herself, first and foremost, for never considering what might have lay beneath the blanks in her memories, instead focusing on the fragmented information that was before her, and choosing to believe in the easiest answer. That was shortsighted and foolish of her. She was angry at herself for ending several lives and endangering countless ones, all for the sake of an insubstantial promise that she had guessed about. That was something she could never take back, never redeem herself for.

She slammed the button on the lizard's back once, and the beast's screams echoed throughout the chamber.

She was angry at the military, of course, for choosing a violent shutdown and slaughtering so many innocent scientists, so many innocent civilians, a young teenage girl with so much hope for the future and the planet she adored, and created a vengeful monster in their wake.

She hit the button a second time, and the biolizard roared even louder as the blood pounded in Rouge's ears.

No… they hadn't made just one vengeful monster…

Gerald Robotnik… her grandfather and someone she had trusted so much… she was angry with him, too. Behind her back, he had taken her notes and repurposed her prototype, planning on global destruction and mass carnage, if not the total extinction of life on earth, or the annihilation of the planet that he was supposed to have loved. Rouge was supposed to be someone who helped people, but he made her original design into a monster, a weapon, the exact thing that had frightened the military into shutting down the ARK. The exact thing that had ended Maria's life. Gerald Robotnik had done precisely what Rouge herself had done, but with all his memories intact, and she was so incredibly angry at him for that.

And so she pulverised the button a third time, listening to her prototype wail in agony, feeling a sick sense of satisfaction that maybe, just this once, she could kill the truly awful parts of herself by killing this beast.

She knew, logically, that they would stay with her even as this biolizard died, but it was oh so cathartic to hurt this creature made of malice.


Knuckles followed Sonic up the stairs, pausing for just a moment to catch his breath as the sound of battle continued behind them. Up above, he could still hear the machines humming and clanging, and all around them, Robotnik's message kept repeating in a loop. The guardian went to the center of the shrine, where all the symbols on the floor met at a circular indentation, and he took out the Master Emerald, placing it carefully in the middle. His hands reached out, brushing against the minute fractures in the gem from where it had been pieced back together, and exhaled, making sure he remembered the words he needed to say.

"The servers are the seven Chaos. Chaos is power, power is enriched by the heart. The controller is the one that unifies the Chaos."

The Master Emerald began to spin, and the symbols on the ground began to glow a bright red, feeding into the sacred artifact and making it shine.

"Only you can do this!" Knuckles cried out, earnestly pleading for the emerald's help, for the help of his ancestors, to not allow their culture and their duties to end like this. "Stop the Chaos Emeralds!"

The Master Emerald continued to spin and glow, spin and glow, faster and brighter until the blue lightning reappeared, striking all around them like the wrath of a god, until a final, powerful shriek from the beast chilled him to the bone.

The Master Emerald had stopped in place, the glow had died down, and Knuckles couldn't tell if the ritual had worked or not. Then, in a flash of bright light, the biolizard warped out of sight, and he was left even more confused than before.

"Is it gone?" he asked, still blinking away the bluriness from his eyes.

His ears picked up the sound of wings before he saw the bat touch down to the ground. "Was that Chaos Control?" Rouge demanded, and Knuckles had no answer to give. "Did that thing have that ability all along?"

The ARK rumbled, even worse than before, causing everyone to crouch to the ground for better balance. Knuckles felt his heart freeze in his chest; it didn't seem like their plan had worked.

"Since we stopped the Chaos Emeralds, why is the space colony still on a crash course to earth?" he demanded. After all that effort, they were still hurtling at top speed to their doom, and now this monster prototype thing was set free.

Life really did hate him, today...

To add insult to injury, one particularly violent shake of the colony had him sprawled on the floor, beating out of him the last shred of dignity he had been holding on to.

The loud sound of static distracted everyone from their terror and confusion. Eggman's voice filtered through the speakers, doubling over itself but still understandable.

"The prototype is still alive, and she's controlling the space colony as it's falling to earth! She's become one with the space colony, and is determined to keep it on its collision course!"

The speaker crackled out, the doctor's warning hanging in the air like a thick fog, and for a moment, nothing happened. Knuckles pushed himself to his knees, forcing himself to stand up, while Sonic and Rouge stared up above, unmoving.

"Sonic!" the echidna urged, feeling panic start to well up in him.

They were going to die. By Chaos, they were all going to die.

Sonic spared him a sideways glance, before he turned to Rouge and smiled wide at her. Rouge's teeth were bared, pointed and furious, but the anger seemed to ebb and a look of understanding dawned on her face.

Knuckles watched, amazed, as the two met in the middle, beside the Master Emerald. Each raised an arm: Sonic his right, and Rouge her left. From above, the Chaos Emeralds floated down, no longer trapped by the cannon, nor the biolizard's prison, and Knuckles felt a surge of energy crackle through the air as the emeralds reawakened their power.

Sonic was smiling.

Rouge was smiling back.

Their hands twirled in the air in tandem, and the sacred gems swirled around them like a cyclone, rising in speed and energy, much like the Master Emerald had just a moment prior, but now it was due to the sheer power that those two held. Knuckles' eyes widened as he realized what he was about to witness. A flash of golden light overtook his vision, and once again he had to blink several times until the world came back into focus, but once it did, his breath caught in his throat.

Sonic stood before him, golden and glorious, and though Knuckles had seen him in this form before, his Super Form, it was still no less incredible to behold.

But now, he was seeing double.

Rouge stood tall next to Sonic, her fur more platinum compared to Sonic's gold, and the red stripes remained in her hair and along her wings, which had also transformed into a gorgeous golden color.

On their own, they would have been magnificent, but together, and so close by?

Knuckles was pretty sure he was having a religious experience.

"Don't worry, Knux!" Sonic said, giving him a brilliant thumbs up. "We got this under control!"

"Thank you for your help," Rouge added, grabbing on to Sonic's hand. "We'll take it from here."

And with that, both of them warped away, leaving Knuckles dazzled and awestruck until he shook his head clear again. He needed to stop doing this. He needed to keep focusing on what was needed of him, like taking his emerald and making sure it was safe and secure before finding the others and making a rendezvous point. He didn't have the time nor the energy to revisit an old crush, or indulge a new one.

Yet all the same, as he plucked the Master Emerald from its altar, he couldn't help but take just a moment to close his eyes, and revisit that splendid image that Sonic and Rouge had forever embossed into his brain.


Next chapter: Live and Learn.