Chapter 4 up!!
Chapter 4.
Uncle Chuck's plan was as feather-brained as you could get. Once he had told them what he had in mind,Sonic had disappeared for hours. It wasn't all bad, as it gave Chuck and Tails time to finish Tails' newest plane--The Hyper Tornado.A souped-up, silver version of the original. Amy and Rouge were left to work together on the groups diguises.
City of Soleanna.
A blur of colour shot over the red-tiled rooftops of Castle Town, one of Soleanna's capitals. Sonic came to a stop over-looking a vast metal structure, the top was shaped like a big bowl, similar to the ones used to hold the Olympic flames on TV. He "Hmed." Held up a paintbrush,and tried to figured out the best way to draw it.
The Clock Tower chimed the hour. Sonic pushed back his billowing sleeve and checked his watch. He groaned and quickly picked up his equipment. Peering into the streets below to check the coast was clear, he spotted a small red-cladded figure and smiled.
Jumping off the roof, he landed inches away from Amy, who, at the moment of bumping into him, squealed and fell backwards, her own paint supplies scattering over the pebbled road.
"You gotta watch where you're going , Amy." He bent over to help her up. "This place is dangerous."
Amy huffed her fringe from her eyes with a scowl. " It is when mad hedgehogs fall from the sky. Don't you get it? If you start acting like Sonic the Hedgehog, you'll blow it for all of us!" She straighten out her beret with a sigh. " OK, let's find the others." She picked up her paints ,pad and stand.
Sonic followed, shaking his own beret-covered head, "This is so dumb!" His hissed through clenched teeth as the two of them past the crowds.
"Quit complaining! You know what the Royal Council said, we're allowed to stay in the city undercover by day, and at night have free run of it and the other two capitals to search for the first half of The Leopard and the final scroll leading to the second half." She craned her head, trying to spot the rest of the group. She caught a flutter of the palest yellow and grinned. "Tails!"
The fox waved at them, a pencil stuck behind his ear. Like everyone else , he was dressed in a mackintosh. But while Amy's was clean and spotless, Tails' was the opposite, the front of his was covered in paint splats and ink spots.
" Hey, guys! You ready for another day of undercover work?"
"You bet!" Amy set up next to him and flicked her pad to a fresh page, she took out her pencil and started drawing the flowers in front of her, " There's something therapeutic about art." She sighed.
" It allows you to express yourself, with out feeling embarrassed." Came a clam voice from the other side of Tails. Shadow, dressed in grey, stepped back to admire his work.
" Well, I feel like an idiot." He moved to set up next to Shadow, passing Tails, he blinked and whistled. " She's a babe! Who is she?"
Tails took a second to look at him, then pointed to the newspaper cutting he'd pinned to the top corner of his pad. " You don't know who this is?" Sonic shook his head. The cub sighed and bent to mix up some light brown for the girls' hair. " This is Princess Elise the Third, current ruler of Soleanna."
Sonic went "Ooh." Nodded and patted his shoulder, " Good likeness,buddy." Standing next to Shadow, Sonic flipped his pad to an on-going drawing he'd started when they'd first arrived--about 8 days ago, and sharpened his pencil. Shadow looked over his shoulder and frowned as he tried to make sense of it. " What ?" He asked.
"What is that?"
"What's it look like, Sherlock? It's a wolf."
" I can see it's a wolf. What I can't figure out, is why it looks like you."
Sonic shivered. " I've been having prospective dreams again. I'm running down a hallway and I hear loud growling. I enter a room where only a big mirror stands, as I approach, my reflection warps and I become him, " He added more tuffs to the wolfs' fur. " I stand there, glued to the spot as.... Were-hog me reaches out of the mirror and grabs me. I scream, and then I wake up."
" Have you told Knuckles about this? "
Sonic shook his head, " He hasn't been around long enough for me to. Now that you've mentioned it, where is Knuckles anyway?"
Amy smiled, " He and Rouge went to the old castle...In Kingdom Valley. Carla found some more of those picture-graphs on the walls and thinks the gem is nearby."
"Not a moment too soon, if you ask me. " Said Tails, cleaning out his brushes. " Ever since we found out Eggman destroyed Uncle Chuck's bug, I've been worried he could use it to track us here, as all our equipment carries the same frequency...." He stopped as everyone else looked at him with bemused expressions. He grinned sheepishly, "Ah, sorry guys. Got a bit geeky there."
Sonic's com-link went off, the hedgehog frowned and quickly read the in-coming message. His frown deepened. " Guess who's just shown up?"
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Ruined Castle--Kingdom Valley
Knuckles dived behind a pile of rubble, Rouge hid behind a nearby pillar, clutching to her chest a cloth pouch, containing the first part of The Leopard and the final scroll. She screamed as the post beside her exploded into dust.
The good news was that they had found the gem, the bad news was that they were now under attack from none other, then Eggman himself. The Doctor, in a brand-new Egg-o-Matic hovered above them, next to him, hovered a weird-looking UFO.
" You can't hide from me, my Death Pod will find you and fry you to a crisp."
The Guardian crawled over to Rouge's side while the Doc was in mid- rant," Plan?"
"Uh, I don't have one." She took a second to peek into the bag, she smiled. " Oh my ! So mysterious, those little white fleck in the darkness...."
" Rouge! We're trapped here! Think of something!"
" If I might interrupt," Said Carla, causing them to both jump. " I think the best course of action, is to give him what he wants."
" Have you blow a circuit or something!? This the first half of the gem and the means to find to second. If we give this to Egg-face, he's won!" The bat yelped as a laser narrowly missed her arm and dissolved the rest of the pillar beside her to mush." Oh, that's it! Nobody messes with my wardrobe!" She buried the items under the rubble and dusted down the front of her halter-neck style bodysuit. " You coming?"
A grin back, "Try and stop me." He ran over to a handy pile of small boulders and flexed his muscles. " Try and find a weak spot on the top, I'll distract it."
" OK, Knucky!" She called back, taking flight and heading towards the Pod. Below, Knuckles provided numerous targets for the Pods' lasers by throwing the stones, darting for cover when the fire-power got too much. Rouge managed to land safely on its' smooth surface and uncapped the small pouches on her belt. She planted the bombs on a brightly lit area, which she assumed to be the control panel. " There you go, sweetie!" She jumped off and landed next to Knuckles, ready to finish the job.
In the midst of the chaos, Dr Eggman sat calmly in his seat. His dark glasses glinted in the suns' rays, a smug smile grace his lips as a group of Egg-bots closed in on the two treasure hunters and Mephiles hurried forward, then hurried out again.
" Time to say good-bye! " Eggman held up a remote and pressed a button. The Pod hummed and lowered its primary weapon, taking aim at Knuckles and Rouge. The treasure hunters stood back to back, ready to fight their way out.
A fierce wind howled into the deserted building . A comet of blue shot by, unleashing serious homing attacks on the Egg-bots. It journeyed up a broken pillar and sawed its way through the under-side of the Pod, destroying the laser-gun in the process. Rouge, seeing the way clear, flicked the switch and the Pods' control-board exploded in a series of brightly-coloured sparkles. The whole thing shook violently, giving off a high-pitched whine. It veered out of control and crashed landed into the moat of the Castle with a tidal-wave of a splash, that showered them.
Eggman groaned with disappointment as the blur slowed in front of his friends. " Sonic..."
The hedgehog grinned," Hey, Lard-belly! Ooh..." He walked over to the edge of the platform and peered into the moat, at the ruined Pod and pouted. " Aw, did you break your new toy?"
" That was only the prototype, rodent. Now I know what its weakness is, I can improve the thousands I have ready to roll out from my Doomsday Machine, and not even you, with your buzz-saw trickery, can stop them." The Doctor giggled madly, put his Egg-o-Matic into Hyper-Drive and floated away into the distance. " Catch me if you can, Sonic! Hoo-Hoo-Hooo!"
" Argh, that rotten egg!" Sonic kicked a pebble with frustration. He sighed and walked over to where Knuckles was digging frantically at the ground, Rouge looking over his shoulders. " What's up?"
Knuckles gave a short yell and pulled at his dreadlocks. " The gem's not here! The attack was a diversion. Eggman's got the first half of the stone and the final scroll, we've had it!"
"If I may," Carla's voice startled all of them, " he's better off with it, Uncle Knuckles."
"Definitely blown a circuit." Muttered the bat to Sonic, who raised his brows. " She said that before we were ambushed."
" I did, and before we were attacked, I had already scanned the second scrolls' text. Eggman is better off with the fake clue---"
"Hang on." Said Sonic, raising a hand. " Did you say fake?"
" I did. You see, my Master came to Soleanna in the hope that he would find information on The Leopard in the Royal Library. During that time,The Duke and Ignus became good friends. In one of his searches, Ignus came across the dark secret of the Sun God that Soleanna worships. The Duke found out and promised Ignus, that if he didn't reveal to the world the truth of Solaris,he would hide half the gem in the city and provide a fake clue to send whoever was searching,"She giggled, " On a wild goose chase to the most deserted place on the planet ! "
Sonic grinned, "Bloody brilliant! So, where's the real gem?"
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After relaying what Carla had told them, Sonic, Knuckles and Rouge joined the others in the biggest Library any of them had seen. The group split up and began searching the thousands of dusty volumes.
On one of the upper-walkways, Sonic and Tails looked in a section about gemstones. Sonic threw down his book with a grunt and started counting the golden arches the sun made as it set on the wall opposite. He frowned ,finding one missing in the center and looked up, he got up from his seat and tracked the missing arch, finding it hidden behind a tattered cloth.
"Yo, Tails! Look at this," His foxy pal hurried to his side and he pointed upward, " What do you think?"
Tails shrugged, " I think I can reach it. Watch my back." The fox started climbing, finding make-shift foot and hand holds between the books. He reached the cloth in no time at all and tugged on it hard. " It's loose! Watch out, Sonic!!"
Sonic looked up, "Whoa... ARGH!!" He vanished under the smelly sheet, "Get it off! Get it off !"
Tails laughed and floated down to land at his side, he tugged the sheet off and dusted the hedgehog down. " OK, now what?"
Sonic was looking at the revealed window, reading the reflection." Gimme a com-link." Tails handed him the device and he strapped it on." Carla, open all channels and scan this writing."
" OK, Blue-streak, my man." She bleeped," This is really old text, but..Text reads: Under the sun where the leopard sleeps. Here is where you'll find what you seek."
Shadow's voice came through, " Not to sound like a dumb-arse, but what the hell does that mean? "
"Along the walls of this very room are pictures of the sun and various subjects. I believe...If you find the painting of a leopard resting under the Sun, you will find the stone."
" Did you guys get that?"
" We got it ! " Came the reply from the others. There came a mast of shuffling and squeaking as the gang searched the walls of the Library. Soon Amy's voice rang out without the use of the com-link.
" I found it! I found it!"
The group gathered around her. On the wall was a grand painting of a black leopard with white spots, fast asleep on a flat rock under the Sun. Chuck stepped forward, put on his half-moon shaped glasses and peered at the bottom left corner. He held up Carla to scan the signature, he smiled when she beeped to confirm it as the real thing.
He took a deep breath and ran his fingers between painting and wall. Finding the smallest of gaps, he dug his nails in and pulled with all his might, grunting with effort. Shadow gave him a hand, and together, they managed to swing the painting out. The gang peered into the darkness, in its depths came a glint. Chuck reached in and pulled out the black gem, he held it about his head and whooped.
They all took turns holding it, it was about half the size of a Chaos Emerald, black in colour with odd white flecks embedded within. Knuckles turned it over in his hand and frowned.
" We should destroy it."
Sonic rubbed his chin, " I dunno, Knuxs. I know it's dangerous because it's got great power, but maybe we can use it against Eggman and his Doomsday Machine." He turned to his Uncle," Well, what now?"
Chuck looked at all of them seriously, " Now, we plan big. This Doomsday Machine isn't gonna be easy to take down, and I should know. We need to go over the blue-prints and try to find any weaknesses. This is serious, Sonny, and not all of us might walk away from it. Are you sure about going through with this?"
" I am ,Unc. Eggman's gone too far this time. He's going down, right ? " He looked at them, and they smiled, half-smiled or simply nodded in understanding. Sonic winked at his friends, " OK... Playtime is now over. Let's do it, to it!"
"Yeah!" They all shouted.
Next chapter might be late. Computer trouble.
Didn't mean for it to be long, and sorry about any mistakes.