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V: The Market Battle
"So where will good old Knucklehead be?" Sonic asked as they waked away from the village.
"Probably in the city somewhere." Sky answered.
This made no sense to Sonic. Knuckles hated the city because that meant being around loads of people. The socially awkward echidna was usually guarding the shrine of the master emerald so why would he be in the city?
"Why would he be there? Surely he'd be with the master emerald." Sonic asked.
Sky sighed. "Normally yes. But he never managed to recover it after Eggman stole it and well…it's hard to explain what happened next and its better if I just show you, but I warn you not to tease him."
This made Sonic think about how dangerous this was if Knuckles wasn't able to get the master emerald back. He looked at how small and innocent Sky looked and how easily she could get hurt. She didn't seem to have any special powers other than appearing to be a sneaky little thing, but that wouldn't help her at all in battle. Maybe Tails was right about her going home to her mother.
"Listen Sky." He said carefully. "Maybe I should take you to your mother."
"What? Why?" Sky demanded, outraged.
"This seems like it's going to get really dangerous and I wouldn't want you to get hurt. You have a family Sky, I'm just trying to think of them." He tried to explain.
Sky huffed. "What happened to 'life is no fun without a bit of danger'?"
Sonic sighed. "Fine, whatever, but if things get too ugly, then I'll be taking you home."
Sky didn't say anything as she ran quietly alongside Sonic, never seeming to get tired which confused Sonic a little. Did she have a really good stamina or something?
"I still can't believe Tails is a father." Sonic thought aloud and Sky rolled her eyes.
"There's a lot in this future that you won't believe." She laughed.
"I'm never having kids." He said after a few seconds silence.
"What?" Sky gasped. "Why?"
Sonic chuckled. "Well all they do is tie you down. Tails might be able to handle that, but I wouldn't. Marriage and families? Yuck. I prefer my freedom. I love running off whenever I please, going wherever the wind takes me and a family would take that away."
Sky looked a little disgruntled at what Sonic had said and he laughed at her expression.
"I know what you're thinking and a lot of people can't understand how I can just take off and not come back for weeks on end. I've just always been like that." He explained. "Looks like that hasn't change considering the fact I seem to have disappeared now."
"So you don't like anyone back in your time then?" Sky asked with a cheeky grin on her face.
"What do you mean?" Sonic asked suspicious of where she was going with this.
"That Amy girl seems to have her eyes on you." She giggled and Sonic nearly tripped over his own feet.
"Amy is just a friend and that's all she'll ever be." Sonic nearly snapped at her. "I'm sick of everyone thinking she's my girlfriend and I'm sick of her chasing me around all the time. The girl can't take no for an answer."
"Alright chill." Sky said. "No need to get all defensive and maybe if you gave her a chance, you might find there's more to her than you originally thought."
"Why are you trying to set me up with her? Do you do this to me in the future? Does Amy put you up to it?" Sonic demanded. Why couldn't people respect that he didn't see Amy in that way?
Sky looked at Sonic with that weird expression again before smirking and shaking her head.
Westopolis was soon in sight again and they could soon hear all the busy traffic that was queuing up to enter the city. They ran to the city centre where Sky predicted Knuckles would be. A few people gave Sonic weird stares, but they ignored them as the wondered around.
Something soon caught Sonic's eye though as he looked at one of the tall buildings. A piece of paper, half hanging off as the wind blew it about. Sonic made his way over to it and gasped once he got a closer inspection. An image of his face was in the middle with big bold letters above his head: 'wanted'. Sonic turned around and looked at all the buildings and saw all his friends' faces on wanted posters and Sky finally caught onto what he was looking at.
"Creepy isn't it?" She said walking over to stand next to him. "The shadow demons need us for something, but we can't figure out what. Don't worry though, no one will turn us in. I hope."
Sonic was brought out of his thoughts by a sudden warm feeling. He pulled out the chaos emerald Sky had given him to see it pulsating as it reacted to something.
"A chaos emerald is nearby!" Sky said excitedly.
"Let's go." Sonic said as he held the emerald up to track the other emerald down.
They followed the signal and stopped outside a very large supermarket.
"This has to be the most unusual place I have ever found a chaos emerald. I guess Knuckles will have to wait." Sonic laughed as they both entered the building. Various Mobians and humans were shopping around and there didn't seem to be any sign of a chaos emerald anywhere.
"How're we going to find an emerald in this place?" Sky asked as she twirled around, looking in every direction. There were many aisles filled with every possible thing you could buy.
"This is going to be interesting." Sonic said as he continued to follow the emerald's signal although it was difficult as they had to weave around shelves and people.
"It should be around here somewhere." Sonic said as they both looked around at the tall shelves with many different clothes hanging from them.
"Why would a chaos emerald need to go shopping?" Sky mumbled to herself as she started parting all the clothes, looking for any sign of a glowing gem stone.
"We better hurry." Sonic said as he helped look. "Look out for the shadow demons."
"Look out, shadow demons!" Sky yelled as soon as Sonic had finished speaking.
Sonic snapped his head around to see two shadow demons emerging slowly out of the floor.
"Great, that's all we need." Sky growled as she dived into a rack of clothes, disappearing from sight.
Sonic turned back around and glared at the shadow demons as they stared back with their blank white eyes.
"Not so tough are you?" Sonic teased. "Bet you can't catch me."
He took off running towards the other end of the store, items blew off shelves and people screamed as a sudden gust of wind blew past them. Everyone starting panicking as soon as they saw the shadow demons and ran out of the store screaming, abandoning shopping carts and dropping items where they were standing.
Sonic was about to run past an aisle full of frozen food when a shadow demon appeared out of the floor again, halting him in his tracks. Sonic skidded to halt and was about to turn back around when he saw the other shadow demon continuing to pursue him.
"Oh no, what will I do now?" Sonic said pretending to be scared before laughing and pulling out the chaos emerald. He held it in front of him as the shadow creatures continued to stalk slowly towards him with their arms out ready to capture him.
"Any time you want to chip in chaos emerald." Sonic glared at the jewel as it didn't seem to be having any effect on the creatures. "Come on." Sonic begged as the demons got closer and closer.
Sonic huffed and finally decided to jump into the air and run back towards where he last saw Sky. Why didn't the chaos emerald trick work for him? It worked for Sky and he doubted she had much experience when it came to harnessing their power. Sonic decided to worry about it later and focus on protecting Sky from those creatures and finding the other emerald.
He was once again stopped in his tracks by a shadow demon appearing out of the ground. Sonic held the emerald out in warning, but the creatures ignored it as they continued to stalk towards him.
Sonic squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to will the emerald to work its magic and repel the evil creature, but once again nothing happened.
"Out of ideas Sonic the Hedgehog." A raspy voice seemed to echo throughout the building.
The shadow creature reached out to swipe at Sonic, but the voice commanded it to stop and Sonic looked around in confusion, trying to determine where the voice was coming from.
"Fool! Don't kill him! If you destroy him then we'll have no guest of honour at our grand finale. Now hand over the girl."
"You mean me?" Sky's voice called from the top of one of the shelves. She stood there looking around for the source of the voice with the purple chaos emerald clasped tightly in her hands.
"Ah Sky the Hedgehog, your father must be very proud of all your hard work of the past few days." The deep voice laughed.
Sky didn't say anything as she glared at the ceiling.
"But your efforts are useless and you're needed down in the underworld for something very special. Now be a good little girl and come quietly." The voice commanded sounding really bored.
"What do you need me for?" Sky asked sounding shocked.
"Oh you'll see, but I'm sure your daddy will be happy to see you." The voice laughed manically.
Sky gasped. "What have you done to my father?"
The shadow demons suddenly appeared behind her and grabbed hold of her arms.
"Sky watch out!" Sonic called out and ran over to her.
"Let me go!" Sky screamed and the chaos emerald began shining brightly again. The shadow creatures let out loud screeches as if they had been burned and soon melted into the ground.
"I don't know how you did that." Sonic said in shock as he helped the little hedgehog down.
Sky looked around wildly with wide eyes. "I don't know either. It just keeps happening."
Sonic looked around and gasped when he saw more shadow demons rising out of the ground.
"Do you think you could use it on them?" Sonic asked as he pointed towards them.
"I think running and hiding is the best option for me right now." Sky choked out when she saw how many shadow demons were behind them.
"Right." Sonic agreed as he quickly scooped Sky up and ran to the other side of the store, hiding behind one of the aisles.
"Now what?" He asked.
"I'm thinking." Sky insisted as she frowned in concentration. "Obviously I can't let that guy get hold of me because I doubt he needs me for planting flowers or doing the dishes."
Sonic peered around the corner to see the creatures stalking towards them, knowing exactly where they were. Sonic was about to point this out to Sky when the future versions of Amy and Cream suddenly teleported in front of the demons.
"Take this, you creeps!" Amy yelled as she swung her hammer around. Sonic was astonished to see that her hammer had a direct effect on the creatures and they screeched and melted in pain as Amy continued to hit them.
"Amy, they're gone, it's ok now." Cream tried to reassure Amy as she continued to hit the ground where the creatures had been. Amy was panting heavily as she finally let her hammer come to a rest and she seemed to be biting back sobs.
Sonic was about to come out and greet them before he felt Sky's hand wrap around his arm and pull him back. She placed her hand over his mouth to silence him and sat there, looking frozen with fear at the sound of Cream and Amy's voices.
"I was so sure she was here." He heard Amy say and Cream sighed.
"It looks like everyone left when the monsters started attacking. I don't think she's here Amy." Cream said sadly.
Amy whimpered, but Sonic then heard her growl as another shadow demon appeared out of the ground.
He heard Amy drop her hammer and grab hold of the creature. Again, Sonic sat there in shock wondering how Amy could make contact with the creatures and other people couldn't.
"Where's Sky?" Amy snarled at the monster who didn't say anything.
Sky held her breath and had a look of pure horror on her face. She kept a tight grip on Sonic's mouth as he looked at her with a confused and suspicious expression while he continued to listen carefully to Cream and Amy.
He heard her growl and hit the creature with her hammer and he guessed it must have disappeared.
"We'll find her Amy." Cream tried to reassure her friend and Cheese made a noise in agreement.
"I hope so." Amy growled and then Sonic heard Cream and Amy disappear.
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