A/N: Hello, awesome readers! This is the seventh chapter of Journey For Friendship!

Cream: This is so exciting!

Me: I know! Thanks to everyone for reading so far, and here's an action-packed chapter coming up, right after Knuckles does the disclaimer!

Knuckles: Ugh, fine! He doesn't own ANY Sonic characters, even though he wishes he does. Which will never happen because SEGA owns us!

Me: Wow! You are being SO rude!

Sonic: Well he did cover what he was supposed to…

Amy: Shut up, Sonic! You're not helping!

Shadow: I think Knuckles needs an attitude adjustment. Rouge…

Rouge: Come here, Knuckie!

Knuckles: AAAAHHHH! *Runs away*

Me: There we go. Now that that "situation" is solved, we can get on with the chapter!

Enjoy!

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*Ryan's POV*

"We have what?" I asked over blaring alarms.

"It's our main enemy. They're a clan set out to destroy us, and we just have to keep fighting 'em off." Tails replied.

"Do they have a name or something?" I asked. "No, and I'll explain the rest later. Let's go!" Shadow said.

I followed him and Tails out the door. Before long we were in our gear and in the halls. And yes, Tails gave me new spy glasses, thanks for asking.

Master Cream was choosing who would go out to battle. "Let's see… Rouge, Marine, Tikal, Tails, Shadow, and Ryan! You all go outside and defend immediately!" she ordered. (WAIT! Why me? I don't even think I'm ready to battle yet!)

"Sure you are!" Blaze said. Hmm, I was right. She CAN read minds. "Well then let's go!" I said.

We were now outside, with the enemies barely visible as they approached from over the top of a hill. I slipped on my glasses and I noticed I had a new message from Tails. I opened it and it read:

Hi, Ryan. Since this is your first time out here, I'll give ya some info. The enemies that are here are Dr. Eggman, Wave, Metal Sonic, Espio, and Scourge. Their clan seems to have sent a strong bunch this time. Watch out for Eggman's robots, which includes Metal Sonic. They're pretty dangerous.

Wave is really good with technology, so be careful with that.

Espio and Scourge work together a lot. They're both almost as fast as Sonic and Shadow, and they're both versions of ninjas. They can also control some of the elements, so be cautious.

That's pretty much it, other than try not to get separated from everyone else.

But it's weird how their leader isn't here though. If he shows up, I'll let you know, so don't worry about it.

Good luck, Ryan. Let's battle!

The message ended. I looked through my glasses to find our enemies barely a hundred metres away running towards us. 'Good luck, Ryan. Let's battle!' Remembering that last part of Tails' message, I told myself quietly,

"Yes, let's…"

*Normal POV*

Scourge was the first to make a move. He jumped at Shadow, who evaded easily. Espio, surely enough helped out and pulled out three shurikens from his "bracelet" and launched them at Shadow. Luckily, Tikal had pulled out a laser cannon just like Sonia had and shot them down before Shadow would get hit.

Rouge shouted out to Ryan, "Hey there, hun. You might think you're better than me just because you beat me, but you haven't seen the real deal yet."

She raised her hands, showing off the cloud symbols on her palms, and started to chant, "With the power invested in the spirit, I summon the sacred element of…AIR!"

Ryan wasn't impressed. What did Rouge think THIS would accomplish? Did she want him to worship her or something?

"Rouge! What are you doing?" Tails shouted out just after Marine dodged a laser-shot from Wave.

"I'm proving that I'm better than this newbie!" she replied. "Are you insane? You know that summoning an element this early in a battle will drain your energy too soon!" Tails yelled back.

"Ryan, watch out!" Tikal shrieked. Ryan looked up to see Shadow high up in the air shouting out "Chaos Spear!" and sending it right at…HIS FACE?

Ryan ducked just in time, then he heard an explosion behind him. He looked back to find Metal Sonic sprawled out on the ground. "Well that was close…" Ryan mumbled to himself.

He stood back up to meet some of Eggie's robots with cannons pointed straight at him. "Ryan! Use the metal bar in your belt!" Tails shouted out before flying off to help Marine.

Ryan reached into his belt, pulled out the bar, and pushed the button. The bar extended to about 3 feet long. Just then the robots shot some lasers at him. He whirled the bar around and deflected them with slight difficulty. One laser shot straight back at one of the robots and it exploded.

The remaining two were shoved together by a strong gust of wind, followed by an ivory bat screaming "DRILL KICK!" and falling from the air, with a sharp boot going straight through both.

Rouge backed out, and launched the destroyed bots away with another gust. They exploded in the air and made a large cloud of dust.

But in Ryan's opinion, there needed to be more. He pulled out a smoke bomb and threw it on the ground. "Now try dispersing it…" he suggested to Rouge. "Alright." she replied and did so, creating a giant fog cloud that engulfed the entire battlefield.

"Good job, Rouge!" Ryan praised. "Thanks, hun. But, why aren't you jealous?"

"Because we're teammates! And teammates work together! Right?" "Right." Rouge answered, grinning. "Let's go, buttercup!" she teased.

Ryan rolled his eyes at his old nickname, but was met with two glowing red eyes behind Rouge.

"Um…Rouge…" "Yeah?" "Look out!" Rouge turned around swiftly. She looked good doing it, but her reward was a kick to the face from a metal foot, that belonged to none other than Metal Sonic.

MEANWHILE…

"With the power invested in the spirit, I summon the sacred element of…WATER!" Marine shouted as she raised her palms covered by wave symbols. If she ever needed help, this was the time. She had punched Scourge in the back, but this had only gotten him angry, and now both he and Espio were set on her.

Marine swung her arm towards Scourge and sent a wave of water crashing into him. Espio instantly jumped aside and turned invisible. Marine hated how chameleons could do that!

She let out her anger on Scourge by turning the wave into a whirlpool. He started to get sucked in, but Marine got distracted by a certain invisible prick that just kicked her in the back of the head. She kept the whirlpool going and turned around, and received a kick to the gut.

Hard.

She got knocked back into her own whirlpool. The last thing she heard before going under was Tails screaming out her name.

With her energy drained, and air escaping her, Marine could barely remain conscious. Luckily, this also meant she couldn't keep the vortex going and it ceased soon after. Unluckily, this meant Scourge could escape. Which he did.

Scourge jumped up high and latched onto Tails. The fox couldn't hover while carrying the both of them, so they both fell to the ground.

Scourge climbed on top of Tails and started to choke him against the soil. The space around Tails started to get darker. Was he starting to slip away, or was there sudden onset fog or something? He hoped in was the latter of those options. But he couldn't tell, everything just seemed so sombre. Marine was laying helplessly on the ground, a sudden scream was heard in the background, everything was fading…

Espio had returned to normal and had pulled out a shuriken from his bracelet. He took aim, and threw it straight at the side of Tails' head, still in Scourge's tight grasp. It drew closer and closer…

MEANWHILE…

Shadow was fighting against Wave. Not only was she great with technology, she was also pretty well-trained in martial arts. With Shadow saving his Element Energy for later, this made a fair battle.

They exchanged kicks, punches, leaps, and swipes. Until Wave pulled out two handles of something. She sparked them with electricity and they roared to life to become sword-like lasers. *Like lightsabers* She swung them back and forth, attempting to hit Shadow. He dodged narrowly each time.

At his first opportunity, Shadow jumped back, and charged forward at super speed. This caused Wave to flinch, and Shadow managed to snatch one of the laser swords.

Now each with one sword, they clashed them together. *Just watch Star Wars* Shadow wondered if this could be anything like fencing. He had tried fencing a while ago but he quit becau-

Shadow's fencing daydreams were interrupted when Wave gained the upper hand because of it. Wave was on the attack and forcing Shadow back, which he really didn't like.

And you don't want to get on his bad side.

"Chaos Blast!" he shouted.

And that's why.

This got her to move back. More like exploded her back.

Now that he had some time and space, he threw the laser sword extremely high in the air, raised his hands and started to chant, "With the power invested in the spirit, I summon the sacred element of…ICE!"

As he finished, he caught the electric sword and transformed it into a razor-sharp ice blade instead. Right then fog set in, giving Shadow a darker environment. (Cool, visual effects. I like it.) he thought. He threw this at Wave and she barely dodged it. Her sword wasn't so lucky, it got sliced in half.

Shadow and Wave now had a "glaredown" as a sudden scream was heard. Shadow couldn't take it anymore, he had to do some sort of attack.

As he prepared for a Chaos Spear, he felt himself get lifted off the ground. Taken aback, he looked around for who was lifting him. Nobody was there. That could only mean one thing, and Shadow knew what it was.

MEANWHILE…

Tikal was having her own laser battle with Dr. Eggman over a long distance, so very few shots actually hit.

Tikal had put up a temporary shield that had just worn off, and Eggman's forces had been weakened. Now fog set in, and neither one of them could see where they were shooting.

Suddenly, an ice blade sliced through her laser cannon. Tikal screamed loudly in surprise as the blade barely missed her body and her cannon started to shoot random lasers all over the place.

She looked over at the blade. She noticed it was made of ice, so it must have been Shadow who threw it. She looked straight ahead once again, and what she saw was unbelievable.

Standing in front of her, was the leader of the IPIA's enemy clan,

Silver the Hedgehog.

She tried to aim her malfunctioning at him. He jumped out of the way with ease and the last laser remaining shot out straight towards Tails! This could not end well. Tikal was forced to focus on Silver again as he lifted both herself and Shadow in the air using his psychokinesis.

Tikal and Shadow started to lose their breath when Silver's invisible hold started to choke them. Everything was going wrong. This is the end. This must be it. Tikal wasn't usually one to think negatively, but she couldn't help herself. There was no hope, was there?

Luckily for Tails, the shuriken Espio had thrown at him got destroyed by some random laser he had no clue about. Now he had an extra two seconds to live – woopdiedoo – until Scourge would mercilessly choke him to death.

With his head pressed up against the ground, Tails listened to the last sound he would probably ever hear. He heard rumbling, slowly getting louder and louder, until…

The entire battlefield got rocked by an enormous earth boom. Everyone got thrown into the air and off each other. When Tails landed back on the ground, free of Scourge's hold, he realized what the only thing that could've been was: Knuckles' Ground Pound.

Surely enough, Knuckles came into sight right then, powered up in his Earth form. "Well would you look at that. Knuckles saves the day, AGAIN!" he said cockily. Sure Tails still secretly found it irritating as hell, and that having Knuckles talk in the third person was no better, but he was glad he had saved him, and a few others too.

"Thanks…Knuckles…" Tails choked out, gasping for breath. "But… how did you… know we needed… your help?"

"Ryan sent us a message."

"Wow.."

Just as the enemies prepared to attack again, six bolts of electricity shot down from the sky and electrocuted them. Then Sonic showed up in his Electric form.

"Too easy!" he said. The bolts stopped and Wave and Eggman collapsed on the ground. "Two Kos in one shot! Yeah!" Sonic boasted.

Blaze, Manic, Amy, and Sonia then showed up. Blaze scorched Metal Sonic and Espio, Amy flattened Scourge with her hammer, and Manic and Sonia shot at Silver from their helicopters.

Ryan dragged all his weak teammates together. "Thanks, Ryan. I'm proud of ya." "Thanks, Tails. It was nothing…" Ryan stayed with them until the battle would be over. Not much longer now…

Blaze, Knuckles, and Sonic collected their energy, and all at once unleashed it in a massive shockwave. Once any of the enemies got hit by that, they would get knocked out.

When they were defeated, a proud Amy piped up, "TA-DA!" Everyone clapped. Everyone who wasn't too injured to do so anyway.

Blaze pulled out a ray gun and aimed it at the group of unconscious enemies. She pulled the trigger and they all vanished. "Woah! What was that?" Ryan asked, very surprised.

"Transporter ray." Blaze simply replied. "Why didn't you just use that at the beginning?" he asked again.

"Nah, it's against the law to use it on a conscious being, so we aren't allowed until we knock 'em out first!" Knuckles answered.

"Come on, let's get these guys back to HQ." Blaze proposed.

As Ryan helped Tails and tried to help Shadow who would refuse since he's an "Ultimate Lifeform", he couldn't help himself from thinking about his journey so far.

(If this is what the first week here is like, I can't imagine what will come next. This should be interesting…)

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A/N: And that's the seventh chapter!

Well, was it good? I can't tell, these guys won't give any useful advice, so please review!

Everyone: Hey!

Sonic: That's disrespectful!

Me: Uh-huh, whatever…

Well that was a long battle, I hope it was good.

And thanks to Chaos Controller15, Unwatered, and SSXfanatic once again for being so awesome!

Thanks for reading everyone, and see you next time for a brand new chapter on January 3rd!

Hope you liked it, and please R&R!