Chapter 4: The Hidden Power

The view from the Ark had changed greatly over the years. When he was awakened from his 50 year slumber, Shadow had been able to look down at the Earth from within the only celestial object circling the planet. Today, he could barely get a glimpse of the full Earth with the literally hundreds of thousands of space stations, exploration crafts, satellites and miscellaneous objects that littered space. Ever since the humans finished that damn space elevator, the construction of spacecraft had become an inexpensive routine operation.

There was more than one reason for Shadow's self-imposed exile. The reason he publicly revealed was that he had become tired of watching friends grow old and die around him. That was certainly true, but the main reason was one that Shadow had kept a guarded secret. If anyone knew the truth, then that would open a gateway to yet another catastrophe.

It would be hard to tell for a visitor that anyone actually lived inside the Ark. Dust was everywhere, though not as much as you'd expect in a terrestrial building, since the original creator of the Ark had taken special precautions to keep the contained atmosphere as clean as possible for the sake of his sick granddaughter. There were even cobwebs. Shadow had been curius about that himself, and had taken a few days to discover that the insects stored in Gerald's old research labs had been accidentally reanimated when Shadow purged the computer system of any trace of the malevolent program installed by Gerald during the height of his insanity prior to his death. The spiders had escaped into the food storage compartments, and bred succesfully. Shadow had found the insect nests, but had chosen to leave them alone. It made him feel slightly better to know that even after all this time, something still called the Ark its home.

The heart of the Ark, known as the Cannon's Core, was different, though. No one could've mistaken that for abandoned territory. It was not only clean, but the deteriorating maintenance machinery of the station was kept in top-notch condition. The visitor to the Ark wouldn't have been able to go any further, though, because maintenance wasn't the only robotics on full alert within the Core. Shadow had restored all of the Artificial Chaos robots that he had been able to recover since most of them were destroyed 200 years ago during Eggman's attempted takeover of the Ark and the Black Arms invasion of Earth. No half-measures would suffice when it came to keeping what was located within the Cannon's Core secure.

The altar at the innermost sanctuary of the Ark was a true likeness of the Emerald Altar on Angel Island, as it had looked during the height of Echidna civilisation, thousands of years ago. The pillars designed to hold Chaos Emeralds were not empty. What Shadow had hidden onboard the Ark was the means to either destroying the entire world, or saving it from destruction. The black hedgehog had lost count of how many times the seven Chaos Emeralds had fallen into wrong hands and nearly doomed everyone. He was determined that as long as he lived, he would not allow the vessels of Ultimate Power to be used for evil again. Since he was immortal, it was going to be a very long vigil.

Shadow had made some necessary changes to the altar built by professor Gerald. Each of the pillars was now outfitted with a high-tech containment unit designed to prevent the energy of the individual Emeralds from interacting with each other. Every time the full power of the seven Emeralds was drawn out, the Emeralds themselves reformed in random locations throughout the world. As long as their power was kept in check, they would stay put here, safe.

Although he had decided that the seven Chaos Emeralds were his responsibility to guard, Shadow had accepted that the Master Emerald belonged to a different group. Knuckles's great-great-great-great-grandchildren were more than capable of taking down anyone who dared trespass on Angel Island. Heh, even today Shadow still smirked at the memory of how that reckless red echidna had lucked out so incredibly in the field of romance. Actually, even though he'd never admit it, Shadow sometimes wondered what might've happened if he hadn't rejected Rouge's advances.

Walking slowly through the cavernous hall of the Core, Shadow approached the altar. He still admired the architecture of the chamber. Gerald had harvested rock from Angel Island and built an exceptional likeness of an Echidna temple. The masonry looked authentic to even an expert eye, though Shadow knew for a fact that inches beneath the old rock lay thick titanium metal walls. The Ark had taken quite a few tumbles over the years, as various evil factions fought for control over the doomsday weapon contained within the space station, yet not a single crack had appeared in the rocks. Amazing.

The machinery that fed energy from the Cannon's Core to the Eclipse Cannon was destroyed. Shadow had done the job himself, and he was glad that vile laser cannon had been scrapped. It had served its purpose, and would no longer exist as a temptation for villains desiring world conquest.

The leader of the Artificial Chaos robots saluted stiffly as it saw Shadow come near.

"Report, Omega," Shadow the Hedgehog said to the E-series robot that was nearly as old as himself.

"All systems functioning optimally. No sign of intruders," E-123 Omega responded.

"Good."

"Are you alright? I was not expecting you to check up on us for another three days."

Shadow smiled. He'd instructed Omega to be suspicious when he gave him the assignment of guarding the Chaos Emeralds. They couldn't run the risk of shapeshifters or imitation androids, so Shadow didn't object to Omega activating his scanners to check that Shadow's unique molecular structure matched expectations.

"I have a bad feeling," said the black hedgehog.

Omega nodded. The intuition of the Ultimate Life-Form carried a lot of weight.

-

Meanwhile, down on Earth, Blaze was rushed into a treatment room at the nearest hospital. A nurse immediatelly extracted a tissue sample from the unconscious cat and hurried it over to the restoration clinic.

"Here," the nurse said, handing the sample over to the on-duty man. "Female feline animaloid, late teens, severed right leg. The reference feed is being sent to holo-projector four. Need a full-regrowth."

"Got it!"

Medical science had come a long way. A doctor of the present age would respond with disgust at the idea of simply sewing a detached limb back on. Growing a brand new limb based on the DNA of the patient, accellerating its growth to match the patient's age, and training the muscle tissue to fit a leg that'd been used effectively for years, was a much faster and more efficient method. Of course, doctors of any age will always look down at the methods of their predecessors...

In a day or so, Blaze would have nothing but the memory of her injury.

-

Metal Sonic landed on the rooftop of a high-rise apartment building. All around him were high-tech units built in to allow the tenants to recieve any amount of data transmitted from the satellites above.

He knew that if he was going to be able to finish off Sonic this time, he'd need power to match those accursed Chaos Emeralds. First thing came first.

Using Silver's psycho-kinetic powers, Metal demolished the satellite dishes, harvesting every ounce of advanced technology contained within. The less useful outer metal layers were coated with colour and bent into more useful shapes. As he assimilated the available material, Metal Sonic's body changed. Soon, standing ominously against the dark sky, was Neo Metal Sonic, reformed from the shape of a soldier into the shape of a ruler. All that was missing was a cape...

In the next chapter:
- Silver's search proves fruitless.
- Metal Sonic starts to get a clue.
- Oh, and Metal also gets that nifty cape he wants.