>>>>This is Master Tananh. How will the others carry on without Sonic? Read on.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters.

Chapter 4: The Plot Thickens

Knuckles

After Metal Shadow leveled the house, he flew away. I walked out of the next-door neighbor's and looked at the mess. What was that all about? Suddenly, Tails ran toward me. He looked very scared. "Tails! I'm glad your ok!" I said. "Knuckles! What has he done? What has he done? It wasn't supposed to end this way! Why did this have to happen?" Tails cried hysterically.

"Tails what's the matter?"

Tails looked at me sadly. "Didn't you know? Sonic was in there!"

I reeled back like he had hit me. Sonic? Dead? I never really had exactly hung out with him because of my duties to the Master Emerald, but we had been through a lot of adventures and it felt hard to lose a comrade.

I looked at Tails. He was fighting back tears. "I'm sorry Tails. I know he meant a lot to you. This wasn't supposed to happen. I thought I could beat him! But he won. Sonic is dead."

I bowed my head in shame.

"Oh come on!" a familiar cocky voice said. "Don't you have any faith in me?"

We looked behind us hopefully. "Sonic!" Tails exclaimed. "That's my name." The blue hedgehog replied. Tails ran over and gave Sonic a hug, which was an extremely unusual thing for Tails to do. I sighed. "I knew it was to good to be true."

"Hey!" Sonic exclaimed. I grinned. He was alive.

"How did you survive?" Tails asked. Sonic looked at him. "Well, after he knocked me out cold, some huge explosion that took out my wall woke me up." I nodded. "Must have been the Energy Ball attack that he tried to hit me with." Sonic shrugged. "Probably was. Anyway, when I heard that, I knew I had to get OUT of there! I ran out right before the first rocket hit."

"What are you doing here anyway?" Sonic asked me. My expression hardened. "Revenge. Metal Sonic stole my Master Emerald. I figured Eggman would send Metal Shadow over here to kill you, so I ran over as fast as he could." I replied. Sonic looked confused.
FLASHBACK!

Knuckles laid back. He was on Angel Island as usual. It was another ordinary day guarding the Master emerald. But Knuckles heard something. He leaped out of the way just as where he was standing was bombarded with rockets. "That was close." Knuckles said. He looked up.

Shadow? How could he be alive? It looked like he had been mutated into some kind of robot. I would have to be some kind of an idiot not to know who did this. I could recognize Eggman's handy work. And if I remembered right, after you defeat the robot, the mutated animal or what ever would fall from the exploding metal alive and well. I guess I'll just have to free him.

I leaped up and punched as hard as I could but found myself being thrown into the opposite direction. I landed on my back and looked at him when I noticed his eyes. His red eyes began to glow brighter and brighter. Then a laser shot out of his eyes and hit me in the shoulder before I could do anything. "Ahh!" I shouted in surprise as I tried grabbed my sizzling shoulder. He shot toward the Emerald while I was recoiling in shock.

"Nooo!" I shouted as he flew away with the Emerald in tow. I tried to catch him as the Island began to fall. But I could only glide; he could fly. I could only watch in despair as he flew away with my emerald while the Island was falling toward the ocean.

END OF FLASHBACK

"Why would Eggman want your Master Emerald? You don't think-" I nodded. "The only reason I can think of is he doesn't want the Master Emerald to stop the Chaos Emeralds from doing something." Sonic frowned. "What would Eggman want with the Chaos Emeralds? You don't think he wants to make a Super Metal Shadow do you?" "Uh," Tails interrupted, "You can't use the Chaos Emeralds on a machine without hooking them directly to the machine. You would have to actually hook up the Emeralds to the machine and even then the robot would have to be the size of a skyscraper if you wanted to use all seven."

I'm sure he was trying to help but that sure didn't make me feel better. There was a long silence. "Well I guess we better see if there are any Emeralds left to find." Sonic said. "And how are we going to find that out?" I asked. "The government would know if a robot freak was stealing all their gems!" Sonic replied. "But who do we know that works for the-"

Oh no. Not her.

Eggman

I laughed maniacally. Finally Sonic had died! I had been watching through my satellite. Content with the rubble, I turned off the screen. This Metal Shadow idea was great! And now Sonic won't get in the way when my real plan is set into motion.

That red echidna and the fox boy would try to stop me but they can only do so much. "Dr. Eggman." A computer voice said. "Yes?" I asked. "Metal Shadow is here." It replied. "Send him in." Eggman ordered.
A few seconds later, Metal Shadow stood before me. "Did you carry out the mission successfully?" Metal Shadow nodded. I hadn't given him a voice. It annoys me when robots have one. They usually argue and give me suggestions on what to do! This way they just shut up and do what they're told, but with Metal Shadow he just makes you feel like you're inferior to him like the real Shadow does. You can't fix everything I suppose.

"Well, it looks like you had an injury. Go back in your pod and you'll be repaired soon enough. We can't have you damaged for your next mission can we?" Metal Shadow just shook his head and left.

I took the elevator down into the basement. I approached the door to the Maximum Security Room. I scanned all three access cards, put in all five pass codes, and I scanned my fingerprint, handprint, voice, and even my eyes. After I got through the security. I entered.

The ARK had given me an idea. I could use the seven Chaos Emeralds to charge up a machine with huge power capabilities just like the ARK! My grandfather's plan would have worked if it hadn't been for that stupid Master Emerald! But my plan will be full proof! Since I have the Emerald in my possession, Goliath would be unstoppable!

I looked at my creation which I had code named Goliath. It was about the size of a skyscraper. It was human-shaped with a few differences. It's right arm ended in a large plasma cannon and around the outside of it were machine guns that could move independently.. It's left arm ended in a sharp point. When the point opened up it fired a similar but less powerful beam like the Eclipse Cannon. Although it couldn't destroy an entire planet, it could still do some damage. The one real reason it doesn't look entirely like a human is because it didn't have a head. The control area was inside the chest. On the shoulders were large high powered motion-sensitive guns that would destroy anything that got within range of the cockpit. And all along the stomach area were little guns that shot out lasers that cut everything it touches in half. Inside the stomach was the core, while along the ankles were smaller guns that could shoot down people on the ground. Then there was also a little surprise in the inner workings I had thought up in the unlikely event that Goliath was damaged. This plan would be full proof.

I laughed with anticipation. Soon Metal Shadow will find me the rest of the Emeralds and I will rule the world!

Sonic

We rang the doorbell to Rouge's house. It wasn't too shabby. Knuckles wasn't looking too happy about us coming here. I guess he was still mad at her about trying to steal the Master Emerald.

The door opened. "Well what do you know?" Rouge said in surprise, "My old ARK buddies!" She winked at Knuckles. "Couldn't get enough of me could you?" Knuckles looked at me with a look that said I told you this was a stupid idea. "We're actually here on business Rouge." I said.

"Business? What do you mean?" Rouge asked a little more seriously. "Well, it turns out that Shadow didn't die on his fall from the ARK."
That made her drop her flirting talk. She got a little serious. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Uh, can we come in?" Inside her house, we told her everything we knew. She seemed surprised by this plot. "So what do you want with me?" She asked.

Knuckles spoke up. "We need to know if any Chaos Emeralds have been stolen or if some psycho robot attacked lately. We have to be sure Eggman is planning this." Rouge smiled carelessly. "Well I could tell you that without even looking in the computer files. It's all over the news. There's been five reported sightings."

"Five?" I shouted. This was worse than we thought. Eggman only has two more to go! "We have to find an Emerald. That way we can Eggman will have to confront us before he can have all seven!" Knuckles said. It was a good plan.

Rouge looked a little uncomfortable. "There's a slight problem with your plan. The locations of the Emeralds are top secret. Even I don't know where they are." We thought this over for a moment. Tails perked up. "I bet I could hack into the system and find out!" "Yeah! Tails can do it!" I said excitedly.

Rouge looked skeptical. "My government has some of the highest cyber security in the world. It would take a genius to hack through it. I could understand Eggman breaking through, but a child?" I smiled. "He's like a child prodigy or something. He could do it." Rouge still looked doubtful. "Ok. I'll get you in as far as I can, but you'll be on your own from there."

Rouge got on her computer and started typing away. "Ok. I've got in as far as possible with my clearance. It's up to you now fox boy." Tails smiled confidently. "Just stand back and watch." he said. I'll tell you that kid is scary on those computers! Those windows were almost popping on and off faster than I run! Rouge looked impressed too. I think Knuckles was getting dizzy or something because he looked away.

"Here we are!" Tails said. We looked a little closer at the screen. It was a map of the world. There were seven pictures of Chaos Emeralds on the globe. One was in Australia somewhere, another was on the sea near the Bahamas, and the other five were all in a desert in the Sahara.

"Well I think we know where Eggman's base is!" I said. "How would the government know where the seven Chaos Emeralds are?" Knuckles asked. "GUN has some kind of satellite up in space that can spot the energy given off by the Chaos Emeralds." Tails explained, "They know where his base is, but it says they have to be very careful in attacking him because they know about Eggman's knowledge about these little things called weapons and bombs and so on and so forth."

"So," I began, "They know where he is, but they're afraid of getting killed if they attack." Tails smiled. "Exactly!" "Is the Master Emerald there too?" Knuckles asked. Tails nodded. "Then that's where I'm going!" he replied. I sighed. Why wasn't I surprised.

I looked at the Chaos Emerald in the ocean. "Is this one underwater?" I asked. Tails looked at me. "No, that one's being smuggled into the States along with some other jewels." I looked at him. "Smuggled?" "Yeah, by some terrorist named Nick Sykes." Tails said, "He seems to be smuggling advanced robot warriors and jewels." "Robot Warriors?" I asked. "Yeah, he stole them off of Eggman." Tails replied.

I raised my eyebrows. "Stealing from Eggman and getting away with it? He must be pretty good." I said. "He escaped from a mental institution three years ago and has been wanted ever since." Rouge replied. I nodded.

"I think I ought to pay a visit to this Nick Sykes."

>>>>This is Master Tananh. Will Sonic be able to defeat Nick Sykes and get the Chaos Emerald? And what about Knuckles and the Master Emerald? You'll find out next chapter. Now please review and tell me how awesome it was.