This is Master Tananh. Things aren't looking good for Sonic and Knuckles. But maybe one or both of them might make it. (hence the name of the chapter) Read on.

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

Chapter 6: Impossible Rescue

Tails

I sighed. I had been forced to stay on the sidelines in yet another adventure. Frustrated, I decided to take a little walk. But while I was walking, my walkie-talkie went off. "Arrgggh!" My eyes went wide. That was Knuckles! I was about to ask him what had happened when I heard Eggman's voice. "There will be no more trouble from you." I had to get to the Tornado! I would charge the base if I had too!

Knuckles

I opened my eyes. Was I dead? No. Eggman was still standing over me. He looked thoughtful. "What, aren't you going to kill me?" I asked. "Hmm. No, not today." I relaxed a little. My hands unclenched. At least one of them did. I looked at the other. It was still holding the walkie-talkie! I must have pressed it when I was shot! Tails was probably on his way already!

Eggman looked at my walkie-talkie. Then, to my surprise, he smiled. "Tails, I assume?" I didn't answer. Chuckling, he pulled out a something that looked like a remote control. It had about twenty-five buttons on it. "This controls all the land mines surrounding my base," he explained. "Your friend landed right on top of one."

"NOOOOO!" I screamed as he pushed the button.

?

I was in the control room. Frantically, I tried to reverse the self-destruct order. "Please enter password, and scan your retina." Some bad words were running through my head right then. Sonic must be in the room where the Chaos Emerald is. I saw him in the room via security camera, but he was just sitting there! What was he doing?

I moved the camera a little. I gasped. There was all kinds of debris blocking the exit!

"Ninety seconds until self-destruction of the ship."

It was up to me.

Tails

BOOM!

I was sent flying backwards from the force of the explosion. I looked up and saw my precious Tornado. It must've been in a hundred pieces. If I hadn't taken a walk... No! I mustn't think about it. Eggman had said he wouldn't kill Knuckles. He was most likely in the prison area. If I remembered correctly, the blueprints showed that the prison was in the West Wing. I flew toward it.

Knuckles

I threw the walkie-talkie at Eggman's face and punched him in rage. He must not have expected this because he didn't blow my head off. Eggman went flying. I got up and charged him. I punched and punched and punched while Eggman screamed in pain.

Suddenly, something grabbed my arm and threw me toward the ground. Metal Shadow had arrived.

"One minute until self-destruction of the ship."

I rummaged through the bomb cache. All of them were too strong! I just decided to pick one. It was a small one. Carefully, I opened it up. After about twenty seconds I had removed enough plutonium to safely use on the debris outside Sonic's room. I started running. Come on Rouge old girl. I thought to myself, Go!

"Thirty seconds until self-destruction of the ship."

Sonic

I sat, waiting for my death to come. In less then thirty seconds, it would all be over.

BOOM!

For one wild second I thought the ship had blown up early, but then I saw Rouge standing by the exit. She had blown apart the debris! But she was dead, how could she... "Are you going to jut sit there or come with me?" she asked impatiently. I just got up and ran with her.

"Ten"

We ran as fast as possible.

"Nine"

"Eight"

I passed Rouge.

"Seven"

"Six"
"Five"

We were outside! I would make it, but Rouge would not.

"Four"

I jumped off, hating myself for leaving her.

"Three"

"Two"

I saw Rouge jump off the boat while I was falling.

"One"

I hit the water, and I heard a deafening noise from above and the explosion pushed me a considerable ways away from the ship. "NOOOO!" I screamed under the water. The fire had surely engulfed her.

I swam frantically up to the surface. I'm not a good swimmer, but I managed to grab a floating piece of the ship and climb on. Once again, I had passed up a friend and watched them die. First Shadow, and then Rouge. What was wrong with me? What kind of person just passes their friends and leaves them to die. Then I saw something impossible.

I saw her swimming towards me. I gaped at her, unable to believe what I was seeing. How many lives did this girl have? She reached the area where I was and climbed on the floating piece of the boat I was sitting on. "How ya doin?" she asked carelessly.

"How the heck did you survive?" She looked at me. "The time with the jet or just now?" She asked me.

I paused for a second. "Both" I replied. She shrugged.

"Well, the first time, after I ejected you, I pulled out a pistol and shot out the glass covering my cockpit. After struggling with my seatbelt, I jumped out, just in time. Unfortunately, the force of the explosion sent me spinning out of control until I landed. On my head." "Ouch," I commented. "Yeah," Rouge answered, "I was out cold until I was woken up by the self-destruct warning. I saw you running towards the Emerald area, so I ran to the control ship to find a way to deactivate the order, but it was locked by a password and retina scan."

"Wait a minute, how could Metal Shadow have gotten through that?" I wondered aloud. "Metal Shadow did all this?" Rouge asked. I nodded.

"I figured it might have been him. Maybe his eye visors have a way of changing shape to get past some security doors." "Man, Eggman didn't leave anything put on this guy did he?" I commented. Ignoring me, Rouge continued, "Well, anyway, After I failed I saw you trapped in that room. So I decided to find a bomb, and bust you out. So I did. You know the rest."

"Not quite. How'd you survive just now?" I asked. "Well, instead of just jumping down and letting me get consumed in the flames, I glided off the edge. I glided as far as I could, and I barely made it." She pointed at her slightly burnt shoes. "Any more questions?" She asked.

"Yeah, how the heck are we going to get out of here?" I asked. Then, as if to answer, a helicopter landed right next to us. (It was one of those deals where they could land on top of the water.) The door opened and the pilot looked at us. "I was sent to investigate an explosion around here."

Me and Rouge exchanged a mischievous grin.

We hopped in the helicopter, and threw the pilot out. "Sorry." Rouge said as we took off. She looked at me. "Where we going?" she asked. I grinned, "Eggman's base. Now!"

Metal Shadow

I punched again and again. This echidna had gone too far. He had tried to destroy my master. "All right! Stop! He's had enough." My master ordered. Obediently, I stopped. The echidna was in bad shape. He could barely move for all the injuries that I had given him. "You wouldn't want to hurt your future cousin now would you?" My master asked me.

Knuckles

"What did you say?' I asked groggily. Eggman laughed. "You don't think I'd destroy a perfect specimen like you now would I?" I tried to sort out what he said but it just made my head hurt. "I think a Metal Knuckles would do nicely, don't you?" "No!" I tried to get up, but I couldn't! I needed time to recover. "Please don't! Just kill me! You have all the Chaos Emeralds now! You have no reason to have another robot.!"

"Oh, your wrong, I have every need for more soldiers. You see, I have been busy with other things as well. I have been building a great army! After Goliath destroys all the major cities, my army will come in and enslave the rest of humanity! I will need some more advanced robots as lieutenants won't I?" Eggman looked at Metal Shadow. "Take him to the prison area and strap him onto the bed! The robo-doctor will be there soon to patch up his wounds. He smiled nastily. "He'll also be giving you some nice armor. Wouldn't want you getting hurt again would we?" I tried to protest, but I was in too much pain.

"Don't leave him for any reason until he is put to sleep." Metal Sonic nodded, and started dragging me away.

Eggman
WARNING! ENEMY AIRCRAFT APPROACHING! SEND ANTI AIR EQUIPMENT NOW!

"Eh?" I asked. Had the military finally made a move? I checked the outside camera. It showed a fox heading for the prison ward. I nearly laughed. For a second I though it was a threat. I gave the order to launch the anti-air equipment and ran toward the docking bay for my personal attack ship. Just in case.

Tails

I was pretty close to the ward when the alarm went off. Suddenly, hundreds of missiles were launched at me! "Oh, man." I groaned as I prepared to dodge. The first missile reached me and I dodged. Suddenly the air was filled with missiles! And with reflexes learned from the fastest hedgehog in the world, I dodged all of them. If only Sonic could see me now. I thought happily as I practically danced around the missiles.

Eventually, they stopped launching. Must've ran out of ammo. Then I looked ahead and saw a whole new problem. Eggman.

"Ahahaha!" laughed Eggman in his bizarre machine, "do you like it? I call it the Egg Top."

As strange as it was that Eggman had called his machine this, I could see why he had. At the top of the machine was Eggman in the cockpit. In the middle, were eight arm things sticking out of the machine with a gun at the end of each. Then at the bottom was a hover device that kept the ship airborne.

Eggman pushed a button, and the arms started spinning rapidly until they were just a blur, then he pressed another button. "Whoa!" I shouted in surprise as lasers went flying around my head. They were everywhere! The spinning arms were now firing rapidly, causing lasers to go all over the place. Luckily for me, the shots were random and I could dodge them pretty well. I headed for the cockpit, weaving in and out of the laser fire. Then I curled into a ball and hit him.

"Arrrgghhhh!" Eggman shouted in surprise and fury as I scored a shot in. He backed up and this time, Eggman pushed another button. The spinning arms then started to move up and down while they spun, making it even harder for me to dodge. After a little while, I managed to get closer and score another hit.

Eggman backed up and was looking at me with a look of utmost loathing. I smirked and charged again, but as soon as I got close enough, Eggman pulled out a hand-held gun and shot at me! I pulled back just in time. Eggman laughed like a maniac. Determined as ever, I flew towards him again. When I got close again, Eggman aimed, but I swerved to the left and kicked hard. "Noooo!" Eggman shouted. I nailed the cockpit again and backed off as an arm nearly smashed me. I had kicked his pistol out of his hand just in time.

"It appears that I have underestimated you, fox boy!" Eggman taunted, "Metal Shadow will take care of you!" He turned around and flew away. Oh no you don't! I thought. I chased after him. "Eh?" Eggman said when he saw me, "So you want to follow me, eh? Good luck!" He pushed another button and the arms all moved until they were pointing behind Eggman and at me. They started firing again. Except this time they weren't spinning, they were all pointing at me. Going as fast as I could without getting blasted, I followed.

Metal Shadow

I stood guard by the echidna's cell. He wasn't doing much. He just shot a lot of nasty looks at me. Suddenly, I received a transmission from my Master. "Metal Shadow, get over here! I'm having trouble with a fox! I shook my head and replayed his voice to him: "Don't leave him for any reason until he is put to sleep."

My Master wasn't pleased.

"Cancel that stupid order and get over here right now!" My Master ordered. So I left, following my Master's tracking signal.

Tails

I was gaining slowly. Then, after several minutes of circling around the base I made it! I was above Eggman's cockpit. One Homing Attack was all it took. The Egg Top started exploding, but, like always, Eggman pushed a button and ejected out of the mess. Eggman looked down at his exploding creation descending down. "Well, well, well. You are full of surprised aren't you?" I didn't like his cocky tone. "I hope you don't mind, but I invited a guest." He pointed toward the West Wing. There was Metal Shadow flying straight for me. Eggman flew away, laughing maniacally.

I remembered what had happened last time I fought this guy, and I wasn't eager to repeat that incident. Especially now that Knuckles wouldn't be there to catch me. So I just flew straight for him.

Metal Shadow

I was flying toward the deformed fox, and he was flying toward me. I powered up my eye beam and fired. But just before the beam hit him, he dived down under me. I looked down to find him heading toward the prisoners ward. I gave chase. I fired rockets and lasers from my hands and eyes. None of them connected. He was too far ahead.

Tails

I dodged as another rocket flew harmlessly past. I dived down and followed the rocket. It exploded on the West Wing, leaving a small hole. I flew in.

I looked around. Where's Knuckles? I started running past the rows of empty cells until I saw him. The door was opened and he was strapped onto a bed. There was a robot inside that looked like he was about to give him a shot. Whatever was in that shot, I definitely didn't want him to take it. I ran faster, with an awareness of Metal Shadow had entered the building.

I ran in the cell and kicked the robot's head off. "Tails?" Knuckles wondered aloud. "I thought you were dead." I looked at him. He was in pretty bad shape. "Not yet." I replied grimly as I started to rip the bindings off of him. He was free. Then I turned around and saw something that made me lose all hope. Metal Shadow was standing in the doorway.

Rouge

I hacked into Eggman's files in the control room. "Metal Shadow, Metal Shadow, Aha! Here he is!" I looked at the design of Shadow's robotic suit. "Wow." I said to myself. This was the most hi-tech thing I'd ever seen! "Hmm. There's gotta be a way to turn off that shield."

Metal Shadow

I had trapped the fox and the echidna. They were doomed. I prepared to finish them when...

BAM!

Something hit me from behind! It had bounced off of course, but what could have done that? I turned around to find that blue hedgehog in a fighting stance. "Come and get some!" He taunted.

Sonic

I looked at Metal Shadow. This wasn't looking good. I was in a hallway with no room to jump or dodge. He walked towards me. "Get out of here guys!" I shouted towards Tails and Knuckles. No sooner were they out the door when Rouge came running towards me. She saw Metal Shadow and held back. Then something else happened.

"Metal Shadow! Stop whatever your doing and go down to Goliath's chamber! I am about to take off." Said Eggman through Metal Shadow's built-in walkie-talkie. "When you get there, guard that Master Emerald!" Metal Shadow nodded obediently and took off. I followed but he ignored me. I chased him all the way to an elevator. The doors closed before I could get in.

"Wait!" Rouge called. She ran up to me, panting. "Use these." She showed me some grenades. "Right." We backed up, and I threw the grenade at the elevator doors.

BOOM!

I jogged up to the hole. "Hey Sonic!" Rouge said. "What now?" I asked impatiently. "I was looking at Metal Shadow's files and I found out how to disable his shield." she said, "When he tries to do his ultimate attack, kick him in the stomach, that should make it malfunction." I nodded. "What would I do without you? Take Tails and Knuckles to the helicopter and wait for me. With any luck I should be able to show up with the Master Emerald and Shadow." Rouge agreed and ran back.

And without a backward glance, I jumped through the hole and slid down the elevator cables. I landed on the descending elevator after a few seconds of sliding. I was amazed that it hadn't stopped yet. We must be way far down. When it finally stopped, I did a Homing Attack on the elevator ceiling, which destroyed it. I landed on the elevator floor and ran through the open doors. Metal Shadow was all ready in the room ahead. I ran after him.
Inside was the largest room I'd ever been in. And in the far side of it was the biggest machine I'd ever seen, with the exception of the ARK. And it was taking off. I watched, unable to do anything as enormous jets on it's feet. The ceiling above opened and it took off. I noted it was going pretty slow. Then we were alone. Just me and Metal Shadow.

Rouge

We were all in the helicopter waiting. Then we saw it take off. The ground was opening. Then a huge machine came flying out. And if it kept going in that direction...

Tails said it first.

"It's heading for Station Square!"

This is Master Tananh. Next chapter is the long awaited final battle between Sonic and Metal Shadow. Will Sonic be able to defeat him? And if he does, what about Goliath? Things are about to heat up so stay tuned. Please review and tell me how awesome it is.