Chaos

For a moment it seemed as if nothing would happen and the three of them stared at the rocket, then it lifted up as in slow-motion, seemed to stand still a few inches above the ground for several seconds, then suddenly shot upwards into the blue sky, leaving a long streak of light in its way.

"Hey, Tails! It's working!", Sonic cheered.

Knuckles nodded silently, his eyes clinging to the quickly rising rocket.

Tails looked down onto his instruments. "We're at five kilometres and 643 mph…. 10 kilometers and 1395 mph…. 15 and 2856…. 20 and 3709… 25 and 5089… Congratulations, guys, we're out of the atmosphere!"

"Yahoo!" Sonic gave the fox a thumbs up. "Great job, Tails!"

"Still gaining speed… just as planned." Tails grinned proudly. "Sonic, that thing's a lot faster than you."

The hedgehog shook his head. "No way, nothing's faster than ME!"

Tails laughed. "I'm afraid that's not true… But it' s good that it is faster than you."

Sonic frowned. "How can anything like that be good?"

Knuckles dragged his eyes down from the sky to look at the hedgehog. "The faster it is, the faster we get rid of it. Of course that also goes for you…"

"So?" Sonic grunted and elbowed Knuckles, secretly glad though the echidna was relaxing enough to feel like teasing him. The past days he'd been strung so tight Sonic had feared if he gave him a push he could splinter.

A tiny smile lit Knuckles' face, but he didn't give any further comments. Instead, he lifted his gaze back up at the blue sky in spite of the rocket having already disappeared from view.

A few minutes later Tails looked between his two friends and put his tiny computer down. "It's gone."

"What do you mean 'It's gone'? It can't just vanish!" Knuckles frowned.

Tails shrugged. "I lost track of it. It might just be too far away now. Or something else. It's a strange thing, I have no idea what it'll do."

"Where is it now?", Knuckles demanded stubbornly.

"Why is that important? It's gone from our planet, so what the heck?" Sonic tilted his head at his red friend, casually shifting his weight between his feet.

"Sonic is right. Chill out." Tails smiled brightly. "Mission accomplished I'd say."

The Master Emerald's guardian was kept from commenting on the others' opinion when unexpectedly someone spoke up from behind them. "Oh yes, quite certainly. I am almost tempted to thank you, my little friends…"

All three of them span around. "Eggman!", Sonic shouted quite unnecessarily.

"Correct." The scientist laughed, tossing a small blue gemstone up and down in his hands.

Ten minutes earlier…

Rouge looked down on the snow, her eyes absentmindedly following the line of big footprints Omega left. The bat fluttered aside of him and right now she was really disliking all that snow. The white stuff reflected the sunlight and hurt her night-sensitive vision.

"Why did Eggman need to go up here? Couldn't he head out to a nicer place? Somewhere nice and warm? The beach?"

"With the currently stored information it is not possible defining the reasons for Eggman's intercourse to this location," Omega noticed flatly.

Well, Rouge thought, the snow had one good point: she could quite accurately say where Omega was. "Do you think he started that weird rocket we saw a while ago?"

"There is no evidence for that."

"Sure, but it is possible. What can he plan up here with Shadow?" Rouge looked around. "Here is absolutely nothing and –" She interrupted herself at the sight of something glittering right in front of them. "Hey, what could that be?"

Rouge beat her wings a little faster, then stopped and dropped down onto her feet when the spotted object turned out to be the light blue Chaos Emerald hovering in mid-air, about as high as her chest. She walked around it one time, then stopped and scratched her head. "How is it floating?"

Omega had stepped up to her side as his footprints told her. "Prepare analysis," the robot snarled.

Rouge heard the typical sound of Omega's mechanic arms reaching out, then she jerked back in reflex and covered her eyes as the Chaos Emerald suddenly flashed brightly. When she blinked carefully a few seconds later, she jumped again, but this time in surprise. "Hey Omega! Good to see you again!"

The red robot turned to face her, tilting his head slightly aside. "This unit has been in this location with you all the time."

"Yes, sure. But I can SEESEE you!" Rouge pointed at her robotic companion.

Omega raised his hands in front of his optical sensors. "It appears the usual physical state is restored."

"Exactly." Rouge smiled. "Now that we got you back to your normal self again, we should hurry and try getting Shadow back. Eggman's getting away!"

"That is not the case," Omega contradicted and stretched one of his powerful arms out to point behind her.

Rouge turned around and her eyes widened. About two meters away from her and Omega, Robotnik's vehicle floated and the mad scientist grinned broadly down on them.

"What a surprise. Rouge the Bat and that disloyal machine. It's such a small world! What brings you here?" He leaned down a little as if he was truly interested.

Rouge's cheeks slowly turned red with anger. "You! And what you did to Shadow!"

Robotnik chuckled. "You will not stop me. Just as that pathetic blue hedgehog and his naïve friends will not stop my plans from succeeding." He laughed really now. "I'm very sorry, Rouge, I can't keep your charming company for longer, I got some more Chaos Emeralds to pick up." Robotnik sat back upright. "Shadow! Follow me."

Rouge quickly looked around at the mentioning of her friend, only to see him snatch the Chaos Emerald from out of thin air and skate past her, following Robotnik to where his vehicle has just flown off at a passable speed.

"Now it appears the targets are getting away," Omega noticed.

Rouge growled. "After him!" She quickly beat her wings, not wasting the time to check if Omega followed.

"It was so easy." Robotnik grinned smugly and smiled down on Sonic. "All the Chaos Emeralds got dragged here just for me to gather them at ease. And the three of you were friendly enough to clean the field of the interfering object that came here from outer space and that you called so truthfully 'Anti-Chaos', Tails." His gaze wandered to the fox. "I am truly impressed of the scientific performance behind this operation."

Tails grimaced. "I'd appreaciate the compliments if it wasn't you saying."

Robotnik laughed. "How ungrateful of you... But now that you did all this nice work for me and the Chaos Emeralds are restabilising, my plans for world domination will finally come to the end result that is worth all the work I put into them. With Shadow and all seven Chaos Emeralds, I have possession of the ultimate weapon."

"Shadow's not a thing, you cannot own him like your robots," Tails shouted up at him.

"Oh Tails, I can not? Just look at him! My brain-controller is my most convenient invention; it makes a creature a great robot. Unfortunately, Shadow is the only one it can work on; an artificial organism reacts less negatively to such interference with its brain work. His genetic make-up my genial grandfather designed allows infusing his mind directly with information. Originally used to teach knowledge... it was not difficult making it commands instead." Robotnik laughed again and pointed to the black hedgehog that stood motionless aside of his small craft. "Shadow? Get that last Chaos Emerald for me and then carry out your instructions."

"Affirmative." The black ultimate lifeform turned and walked a couple clumsy appearing steps away from the group before gathering some speed that activated his airshoes, the awkwardness of his slow walking immediately morphing into an elegant, fluent motion as he skated away to disappear between the snowy hills.

"What instructions?", Sonic demanded, itching to run after him, but before he tried stopping Shadow, it could be helpful knowing what he'd be up to.

Robotnik turned to him, as usually glad to be asked about his awesome plans. With almost childish pride he shifted into a comfortable position in his seat and looked between Sonic and his two friends. "Shadow will take all seven of the Chaos Emeralds and use their magnificent powers to transform into Super Shadow. In that state and controlled by my programming he is a weapon suitable to level whatever town I feel like levelling. I sent him to start a little demonstration of my powers in the cities of the villages in the valley." The mad scientist sat back upright. "As you may understand, I have prepared myself for a good view of this from a first line observer spot. So you will excuse me now." He waved at Sonic and the others as he would wave goodbye to a group of close friends and his vehicle floated upwards into the sky.

"Hey, wait up! I got unfinished business with you! Eggman!"

Sonic turned around to the sound of Rouge's angered calls and spotted her and her robot friend Omega running towards them. "Rouge!", Sonic called and waved her to him. "Eggman turned Shadow into a robot. We gotta stop him!"

"I know," the bat replied, a little breathless. "Where is he?"

"After the last Chaos Emerald. They're all close together here," Knuckles informed her, not really glad to have to tell that bat known for stealing all kinds of Emeralds about anything only closely related to that matter.

Rouge turned to him with a small smile. "Relax Knucky; I promise you can keep all of them if you like. I'm not after jewellery right now. At least, not primarily."

"You're always after something shiny, but Chaos Emeralds are no fancy gems for collars," Knuckles muttered and folded his arms. He was very certain he didn't want to let any of her flirty behaviour get to him. This bat just played with him, and when he let his guard down just a little she'd steal his belongings right out of his hands.

"I came to find and rescue Shadow, nothing else," Rouge said, beginning to look annoyed, the playfully charming smile shrinking a little as she turned to the blue hedgehog. "Sonic, tell your red buddy that I'm not gonna steal his Emeralds, will ya?"

"Guys? Can we clear up on that later?", Tails interrupted, once more finding he was stuck being referee in some sort of useless exchange of words, though this time for once not between Sonic and Knuckles. "Shadow is getting away."

Sonic nodded. "Tails has a great point. Any ideas how we can stop him?"

"We gotta get this helmet off him," Rouge sighed, "but I feared that just taking it off could do some kind of damage; his brain is somehow wired to the thing…"

"Tails?" Sonic turned around to the fox. "If Shadow goes super, can the Emeralds prevent that damage?"

Tails nodded a little. "It is at least possible. In super form Shadow is almost invulnerable."

"Then this helps a lot." Rouge sagged with relief.

"Ehm, if nobody else has noticed, Shadow won't let you take it off without resisting, and charged with all the power of the Chaos Emeralds he could kill you with one blow." Knuckles looked between the others soberingly.

Sonic turned to him. "There is enough power for two."

Knuckles raised his eyebrows. "You don't plan… Sonic, they're not stable yet."

"They are for him as unstable as for me. Maybe with someone to use their power it's safer than without," Sonic pointed out. "Eggman has gone too far. I will not let him get away with this. We have to protect the people he's planning to level." Sonic's tone made the word sound like an ugly disease. "And I'm sure you don't want that either."

All of them nodded, even Omega inclined his robotic head.

"Then wish me good luck, getting the Chaos Emeralds won't be easy if he already got them." Sonic shot a glance around, making sure he'd looked into every face for a little moment. "I gotta hurry guys!" The blue hedgehog turned and ran after Shadow, following the trail his skates had left in the snow.

Tails looked after him. "Good luck, Sonic," he whispered.

The cold winds and the hard steam of air his own speed created felt like biting needles on Sonic's face. He pressed his lips tightly shut and forced himself to breeze through his nose. The air was already uncomfortably cold when standing still, running it felt as if you were inhaling liquid ice.

Sonic slalomed around a few more snowy hills and then found himself on the real glacier. A giant tongue of ice, slowly flowing down the slope, with a thin layer of freshly fallen snow on top. The top layer was as soft as the rest of the snow around, but running across it Sonic could feel the hardness of the glacier below as he slammed his feet onto the ground.

The traces of melt Shadow's hoverskates had left were easy too follow, leading up the glacier in a nearly straight line. And then Sonic felt it.

Felt the chaos energy flash not too far away from him. The blue hedgehog sped up, ignoring the cold and the not really trustworthy ground. He didn't pay much attention to the way any longer.

He mentally reached out for the faint power as he ran, sensing how Shadow drew it too him. Sonic knew the Emeralds held enough energy for the two of them to transform. It had worked before, but he had never needed to fight for getting a grip on it.

He thought he'd had it, several times, could almost feel the warm power flowing in and covering the feelings of the cold surroundings, but his grip on it was fragile and it seemed to be getting away from him even as he neared Shadow's location.

Sonic closed his eyes, forcing all of his concentration into his attempt to pull some of the building power from the other hedgehog. It was there, so close... Sonic took a deep breath as it seemed to flash again and held onto the tiny impression of energy he'd just grabbed. It was like pulling on a wire and crawling closer, and then suddenly it was really there.

With a beautiful mess of all seven colors of the Emeralds fluxing in his mind all at the same time, the power crashed over him, the feelings of cold and strain washed away when it overwhelmed all of his senses. For a moment of eternity, Sonic felt like falling, the ground suddenly gone, but then it stopped, leaving him with a feeling of being absolutely weightless, all boundaries of gravity just vanishing.

Sonic slowly breathed again as the first rush receded, his eyes flew open - and widened in the same moment. It had not only felt like falling, it had been falling. He was floating between two rather close walls of ice, glazing and shimmering like wet in the dim bluish light that seemed to come from the walls itself but was just a reflection from above. Below him, the light lost itself somewhere in a deep darkness. A crevice, a gap cut into the glacier.

That was a close one, Sonic thought as he launched himself upwards. The thought of how narrowly he'd been saved from a long fall to certain death was just a brief flicker in his mind, there was so much else to feel and think, there was no space for worries.

The golden glowing hedgehog aimed for the sky and for where he knew as if he could see him Shadow was with the second part of the chaos powers. Sonic didn't need to search. He was one with the Emeralds, and so was Shadow. A bond nothing like any personal relation, but it was there, and if just now, it was strong. Super Sonic didn't even need to waste the moment to look and locate Shadow, he knew already where he was, rushing across the sky not far from him. In less than a heartbeat's time, Sonic was after him, leaving a second streak of yellow behind that painted his wake on the blue sky.

The rushing of wind in his ears was the only thing that truly indicated his speed for Sonic, the biting cold, even the pressure of air against this body was nothing but a far far away memory. Super Shadow's path was a straight line as if he'd planned his course and drawn a line into thin air to follow it now. Maybe exactly that was the case, just that it had been Eggman drawing not Shadow himself.

Sonic accelerated until he reached him and simply launched himself into the silvery golden and red hedgehog, throwing him out of his clearly defined course. Shadow twisted, catching himself in no-time and just rebalanced before he span round to search for the attacker. Spotting the glowing Super Sonic, he shot a series of chaos spears at him.

Sonic skipped through them as easily as if it was slow-motion and didn't bother to look down and see the lances of chaos powers smash into the flanks of the mountains below. He was at Shadow as quickly as he'd dodged his attack, charging a super spin and catapulting himself as a ball of ridged glowing quills into the other hedgehog.

Shadow tumbled out of control for a little moment, just to rapidly regain stability and shoot up at Sonic in a move resembling the one Sonic had tried just a moment before. Super Sonic span aside, turned in a perfect loop and raced at Shadow, plunging into him and both of them crashed into the rock summit of one of the mountains around.

Sonic shook himself once and pushed out of the rock, shooting a brief glance at the two hedgehog-shaped cracks in the wall. This was useless. He had never fought Shadow before when both were super and the last minute had proven why that was an absolute waste of time. One was as strong as the other; a fight was doomed to end as a draw.

Or maybe it wouldn't. He knew Shadow had a weak spot... Dodging Shadow's next attack out of reflex, Sonic quickly turned so he could stay on his heels, then flew upwards and shot down on Shadow, his fists aimed at the steel helmet. The moment his glowing hands connected with it, it splintered into hundreds of pieces.

Shadow stopped in mid-air, as if space and time had been frozen for him. He flickered and Sonic could feel the chaos energy fading from him incredibly fast. He managed to grab him the second his fur was back to the usual black and barely kept him from falling out of the sky. Slowly Sonic descended towards the rocks and snow. Once down, he laid the limp body of the black hedgehog onto a small space of rock. He didn't need to check on him; he could feel that he was alive. Nothing else he could do for him.

… or maybe there was something he could do. Super Sonic smirked darkly, shot a last glance at unconscious Shadow and shut his eyes.

"Chaos Control!"

When Sonic's eyes opened just a microsecond later, he was surrounded by greyish walls inside a corridor lit by neon light. Sonic grinned. "I promised you'd pay…", he mumbled and shot forwards, crashing head-first into a steel portal without feeling the resistance as the material scattered all around him.

Like a golden streak Sonic smashed through laboratories, all kinds of unfortunate machinery in his way being torn apart… or blown to bits as a result of rapidly spreading chain-reactions. Not a single piece of Eggman's base stood a chance against the Emerald charged hedgehog rampaging though its build-up.

Just a minute after his arrival, Sonic broke through the base's roof and rocketed across the sky, the multiple sonic booms he left stirring the clouds in his wake apart. He slalomed through forests and then up into the mountains again, the radiating energy leaving a trace of melt in the snow now only a meter below him. For a little moment Sonic just gave in to the high of having the entire energy of the seven Chaos Emeralds to himself, their warm power flowing though his body like his very own blood. He twisted around a couple of rocks and flew upwards again.

He could already see Knuckles, Tails, Rouge and Omega standing still on the glacier's lower part, not too far from where he'd left Shadow. Sonic was sure the black faker would be fine. He smiled and lowered his flight to get back to his friends, when suddenly a brief feeling of loss, not even pain, cut through the high of power.

It was leaving him. Sonic realized it in the second it already did and a moan escaped his lips when he felt gravity's throes like a weight of tons pulling at him, suddenly the cold winds getting a grip on his body, too. The blue hedgehog found himself tumbling head over heels towards the whiteness below. His mind filling with emptiness, he was not even fully able to hope the snow would abate his impact.

"You will never get it back, Blaze my dear…"

The lilac princess looked up to her nemesis, Eggman Nega. The tall, fat human had brought the powers of Sky Babylon under his control, and he had stolen the Jewelled Scepter from her treasury. Again. If Blaze the Cat hated one thing, it was repetitions like that.

Her eyes narrowed as she sent Nega a glare. "Aren't you forgetting something?" Had Nega been close enough to her, he would have seen the brief flash of a smirk darting over her face, the closest thing to a smug impression you would ever see one the royal cat's face. The way it was now, he didn't.

What he did see was the bright flash of light around her that got him shielding his eyes and screaming out as he realized what she was doing. Drawing on the Sol Emeralds. A few seconds later, Burning Blaze hovered gently in the air, surrounded by a corona of flames, a tiny, but destructive sun if she put her mind to it, and she was putting her mind to it right now.

Blaze quietly let her eyes roam her enemy and the surroundings. The shield of fire around her didn't hinder her sight; it was her element, her nature. Just about to start her attack, the pyrokinetic cat was held back by something else but Eggman the improved vision of her super form allowed her to see.

The tiny purple gemstones, to be found on many places of her planet, were pulsing. Slowly, so slowly she would have never noticed it without turning super. The purple crystals held magical powers, for them gravity didn't seem to exist, allowing for the construction of floating balloons that would carry you upwards until you smashed the balloon's skin, then you'd fall, but not the gems. How it was possible that there was still a rather large amount of the shiny objects on the planet was a question she would likely never get to answer. If you were close enough to them, you would hear them sing, a small, tingling sound like from a wind chime of jewels.

Now as Blaze stared, they were singing too, louder, more passionate… yes, almost happy. Realizing that made her notice another thing, a thing concerning herself and the Sol Emeralds. Her fire was brighter, not flickering as much, and easier for her to control.

A genuine smile grew on Burning Blaze's face. Whatever it was that had changed, it was a good thing. She was still smiling when she finally addressed her opponent again. "Ready to give back my Scepter?"

Eggman Nega shook his head, his mecha crossing its arms in front of its chest and lowering its head. Fighting stance. "No! Come and get it if you dare…"

A large ball of fire growing between her palms, Blaze's eyebrows lowered a tiny bit.

Five minutes later, the lilac cat picked up the Jewelled Scepter, listening to Nega mourning over yet another loss. For one of the rare moments in her life, she truly grinned.

"Come on guys, they might need help!" Tails' twin tails twirled nervously.

Knuckles nodded and pointed to where they'd just seen Sonic falling out of the sky like a stone. "I suggest you and me go searching for Sonic over there and –"

"And the two of us," Rouge interrupted him, gesturing to herself and the robot at her side, "go for Shadow."

"Alright," Tails nodded.

"Affirmative," Omega agreed.

"Let's go." Knuckles turned to the left to leave.

"I'd be glad to see you again, boys," Rouge smiled after him.

"Better not. You're only trouble," Knuckles muttered, turning his back to the irritating bat and starting to walk away. "You coming, Tails?"

"Of course," the fox replied as he lifted himself up and hurried to the echidna's side. Behind them, Rouge and Omega took off in the opposite direction.

Shadow's eyes opened and he found himself staring up into the blue sky. He didn't even try sitting up or do major movement. His head hurt, his entire body ached and his mind struggled to remember what had happened.

Robotnik had betrayed him, oh yes. He'd told him all the time he was his friend, but the only thing he'd wanted was using him. The things he'd been told and that Shadow had been about to take as his own memories were very likely nothing but lies.

But there had been these other people, the pictures of their faces and sounds of their words foggy through the controlling machine around him, but they'd been so strangely … familiar. The white bat and the red robot, not anything like the robots in Robotnik's base he had seen, two others he could remember nothing but shapes about, and a hedgehog, shining gold with the chaos energy, just like he himself.

He'd been fighting the other hedgehog? Why? Shadow blinked and closed his eyes, but all he could recall was the commanding machine and the feeling of pure power that was his and in the same time was not. The last thing he knew before lying here was a sharp pain in his head, the sensation of loss, of the power being drained within seconds, and then it was nothingness.

"Shadow? Shadow!", a female voice rang through his drowsiness and Shadow heard the metallic sounds of heavy footsteps nearing him, but the hands that touched his shoulders only a few seconds later weren't robotic. "Shadow?"

The black hedgehog looked up into the worried face of the bat, and suddenly he knew her name. "Rouge?", he mumbled it.

A delighted smile flashed over her face. "Hi Sugar."

"Omega?", Shadow verbalized another thing flickering in his head and looked at the red robot.

The robot's head made something that could be a nod. "How's your status, Shadow?"

It needed the hedgehog a moment to grasp that he'd been asked how he was feeling. "Oh, I don't know if I feel like anything now. It's all just … weird."

The bat smiled softly. "You remember us, don't you?", she asked, a grade of worry and care on her face the black hedgehog had rarely ever seen on anybody and that strangely barely fit the image he now found himself suddenly having of her. "You're still yourself, right?"

Shadow inclined his head wearily. "I guess so. But right now I don't know anything for sure. I just feel … so tired."

"Shadow requires restoring his power unit," Omega declared and Shadow felt himself smile about the robot's language.

Rouge still smiled, too. "We'll do that."

"We?", the ultimate lifeform wondered.

"Of course 'we'. We're a team. We're partners." She turned to the robot and Omega bent down, as if he'd understood her glance, his metallic arms slid around Shadow's shoulders and under his knees and the limp form of the black hedgehog was lifted up as if weighing nothing.

"We'll handle things," Rouge said, "Partners, remember?"

Shadow nodded briefly and relaxed into Omega's steel grip, exhaustion closing his eyes. "Partners," he mumbled. He could stay with that for now.

Sonic shook himself and crawled to his feet. As much as turning super felt uplifting like nothing, he hated suddenly running out of these powers and not giving them away on purpose. Right now he felt so groggy he wouldn't even have liked a nice little run... and that took a lot from the fastest thing alive.

The blue hedgehog leaned with his back against a rock nearby and for a moment closed his eyes to try and pull himself together. He took a few deep breaths and concentrated on the sensation of cool air flowing in and out of his lungs. It seemed to help, the worst feelings of tiredness slowly eased out of him.

"Sonic! Sonic!"

The hedgehog opened his eyes to the sound of Tails calling his name and spotted the fox and Knuckles running up the hill towards him. "Hey guys!" Sonic pushed away from his rock and slowly walked towards them.

Tails looked up at him worriedly when they reached him. "Are you okay, Sonic?"

Sonic smiled and patted his head. "I'm fine, little bro."

"Really? No weird feeling? The Chaos Emeralds can't be back to normal so soon," Knuckles noticed and Sonic thought he'd heard a hint of concern in his voice.

"I'm good, really," the hedgehog assured his friends, "I just lost them pretty quickly and pretty suddenly. Didn't really expect it. I would have gone down before running out of energy if I'd known that, but this stuff is good to soften a rough landing." He tapped a foot in the snow with a grin.

Tails finally smiled at his brother. "What happened to the Chaos Emeralds, Sonic?"

Sonic shrugged. "Who knows? And honestly: Who cares? That they are gone is something normal, right? And I think this is a good sign."

Now Tails finally grinned up at him. "You could interpret it that way I guess."

Knuckles looked between the others. "Now what do we do?"

Sonic tilted his head and looked back at him. "That's is a stupid question, Knux. We got unfinished business, don't we?"