"Whoa, all my life I've never seen someone as ugly as you are," Silver said, to a sand monster.
The monster narrowed its eyes into a glare, and snorted a few times.
"And..." Blaze joined in, "...never as lame, I guess..."
It grunted again, and its whole self became very very red, rivid with anger.
"Bet you can't catch me, ghoul!" Silver said.
"And you'll NEVER get the Flame-Stone off me," Blaze declared, before turning her back on it. She looked at it over her shoulder. "Ghoul."
With a furious growl and flames dancing in the very center of its eyes, the monster swiped a claw at Silver, who dodged it almost with his eyes close.
"You missed!" he said. "See, you can go tell that slime-king of yours to just leave these caves altogether. You ought to live in a swamp or something. You know, I know a GREAT place for you bastards to live. It's called...HELL. "
This furiated the monsters more. With horrible grunts, growls, screams an squeals from all eight directions, the entire party closed up on them.
"We can't hold 'em so long! There's too many! Their numbers are against us!" Blaze cried out.
"We can try..." Silver said, but even though between them they might have killed a thousand baddies, there was just...too...many.
"Bring them here! Bring the scum to me!" That was the last voice they heard in their heads.
Closing their eyes for what they thought was the last time, it seemed like all hope was lost...
Until...
KABOOM!
Everything went red. Well at least...so it seemed to Blaze and Silver.
One by one, they opened their eyes, and saw all the monsters and goblins lying...DEAD?
Standing in the midst of the corpses was a black headgehog, with red stripes down his quills, and with a muderous-looking face. He was about to run off, but taking another look at the two strange captives, he actually found them...familiar.
He found himself walking closer to them, and even ungagging their mouths so they could speak.
"Th-thanks," Blaze muttered, weakly. "I-I was a-afraid we w-would n-never get it in t-time."
"Who are you, and what do you want?" the mysterious black hedgehog said, gruffly.
"I-I'm Blaze, descendant of the magnificent King Flame-Stone himself, and this is Silver, my comrade and associate. We came to find the missing Flame-Stone, which...was supposed to destroy evil forever. Rumour has it that-that it's in this cave, but where exactly I do not know." Blaze replied.
"...And we thought we were gonners when the baddies got us, and then you came! And SKEDOOSH! The bad guys were defeated and - and -!" Silver said.
Blaze chuckled sheepishly, rather nervously. "Uh..." she said, deliberately interrupting Silver. "...We best be going now. We are...uh...busy. And should we be a minute late, we'll be tardy, and that's not good isn't it? Goodbye!"
"Tardy for what?" the ebony hedgehog asked.
"Uh...first off, before you ask any questions not of your business, I demand to know who you are." Blaze replied.
"I'm Shadow. Shadow the hedgehog," he said.
"And why are you here?" Blaze asked.
"None of your business," Shadow replied.
"Very well, then ours is not yours. We should be on our way," Blaze said.
"Fine," Shadow said, reluctantly. "I'm looking for my Damn Fourth Chaos Emerald - and another stone with it."
Damn fourth Chaos Emerald...was that familiar? The same question rang through both Silver's and Blaze's minds.
"What does it do?" Blaze asked. "Does it clean the bedroom for you?"
"No. And don't ask if it cleans the bathroom either," Shadow said, still a bit grouchy at the earlier incident. "It's like this. My Damn Fourth Chaos Emerald is one of the seven Chaos Emeralds. With the power of the Chaos Emeralds, one can actually travel forward or backward in time. With the help of a certain jewel, and the Damn Fourth Chaos Emerald, I can travel fifty years in the past. As I said, the rest is history."
"Tell us more of this 'history' of yours." Blaze insisted.
"I, the Ultimate Lifeform, was created 50 years ago on the Space Colony ARK..." Shadow started, but he suddenly paused as flashbacks and horrible images flashed through his mind. "I need to save... I don't want to talk about it. Come on, if the surviving monsters see the dead companions on the floor, they will hunt our tracks, and by night the caves will be swarming with them."
"But you haven't told us who - or what - you need to save!" Blaze said, indignantly. "Ugh...fine. Come on, Silver."
XXXX
"We've been walking for two hours and fifteen minutes non-stop! Come on...let's have a break," Silver complained.
As if his prayer was heard, the party of three suddenly stopped in their tracks. "Wait just a minute!" Blaze cried out, looking around.
"He's led us out the cave! Where would the Flame-Stone be but the hall of the High King?"
"We're not going to the cave. Hurry up, if you can help it," Shadow said.
"If we can help it? Who are you to boss me around, HUH?" Blaze asked.
"I am the Ultimate Life Form. I do as I please," Shadow replied. "Hurry up, or we won't get there in time."
"And where's there?" Blaze asked.
Shadow didn't answer.
"Dammit. We'll NEVER get there in time. Stand back," he said, turning towards them.
"CHAOS CONTROL!"
A flying blue teleport thing (not a UFO) appeared in the middle of nowhere.
"Wow! How did you do that? You're now officially labelled as super cool!" Silver cried out. But Blaze was nowhere convinced.
"Forget the label," she said. "Come on, Silver. Let's see what he's up to."
So the three jumped in.
XXX
"Where are we?" Blaze asked.
"We've gone back in time," Shadow said.
"How far?" Blaze asked again.
"Two years," Shadow replied. "Now where's that damn Fourth Chaos Emerald?"
Still unimpressed, Blaze rolled her eyes and asked, "Where did you last put it?"
Shadow ignored her and continued searching.
"This way," he said, heading for a small opening the metal walls. He bolted off, to a long winding passage.
"How do we know he's not a bad guy?" Silver asked.
Blaze considered this and said, unenthusiasticly, "We just have to trust him."
With that, she raced off to follow him, with Silver close to her heels.
To be continued...