Sonic Chaos Rivals (Season Three)

by sleepfiction

Framed for a crime he didn't commit, Sonic goes on the run with his friends when a dangerous and incredibly powerful doppelganger makes him public enemy number one. Facing all kinds of enemies- new and old, of Earth or in space- the truth about fifty years ago will be uncovered as Team Sonic tries to prevent this shadowy figure from exacting his vengeance upon humanity. (READ S1&2)

8. A Feat of Ice & Fire

"Frances."

"Commander Tower."

The old commander walked around the workstation to stand behind his scientist. They were currently in a mobile laboratory, one that was situated on the very end of the city limits of Westopolis. This area of the large city was mainly fields and forest, with large strips of road between each home, making it perfect to slip a small lab somewhere that was classified public property.

This scientist, Frances, was one of the leads in the research and development section of C.L.I.P. division (Chaos Lifeform Incapacitation and Physiology) which was currently lacking as the lead specialist, Dr. Kai Narasu, was returned to prison for kidnapping a mother and child. An act that GUN does not commemorate or agree with whatsoever, as the actions of the doctor were his own and does not reflect the Guardian Units of Nations.

They did, however, retrieve something interesting from that experience: a flute that was apprehended when the possessions of Vanilla and Cream were taken away from them while they were incapacitated. Hey, they don't agree with what Narasu did, that doesn't mean they can't still use what they got out of it.

Though Agent Mercury was upset she wasn't able to research the flute herself, she was currently too busy doing all the jobs that Agent Topaz used to do as Tower's "Number One." It was a hefty job, and though it seemed more like she was Tower's assistant, it was more that she was always the first choice for… literally anything Tower needed done.

She was currently out trying to track down the location of Sonic and his friends, as Tower was in the mobile lab looking over the asset they had retrieved.

"What can you tell me about this thing, Frances?"

"Well, it seems to be made of palm wood." The scientist replied, leaning in and looking over the flute- it was up on two small plastic poles with claws on the end of them. "But it has a mixture of coconut palm wood, date palms and oil palm DNA in it. It's subtle, but it's there. This is wood unlike anything I've ever seen before, it's almost otherworldly."

"Mercury retrieved that flute because she said there was something unique about it. Has there been anything of note involving it while it's been in your possession?"

"I'll say."

She turned to grab a small pair of tongs. With these tongs she grabbed a shard of crystal nearby, one of the artificial Chaos Emerald pieces made for the Omnitempus motorbike. Bringing it over, Frances held the small shard of artificial emerald near the flute.

Suddenly, the flute started rapidly vibrating on the claws it was placed on. After a few seconds, a few sparks of rainbow energy came from the crystal shard, connecting with a burst of white energy from the flute.

A blast of light came out from it, enough to rustle the hair and clothes of the two in the lab but not powerful enough to knock anything over. Tower's face didn't change from a stoic glance as the blast ruffled his combed hair and caused his sash to flap over his uniform.

"Interesting."

"I know, right?" Frances spun around in her chair to look back up at Tower. "They're highly volatile when near one another. It's like a magnet, but like if it was magnesium and oxygen. I find it interesting that the flute reacts first- it's like the shard only replies to the violent discharge of energy made by the asset."

"But what does the flute… do, exactly?"

"I'm not too sure just yet, but all the scanners I've put on it detect that it's literally bending light around it. It's almost like it's detecting a black hole, but… from this tiny little piccolo."

Tower leaned down to look at the flute himself. He tilted his head as he studied it with stoic curiosity. Mercury had told him that this was on that younger rabbit, Cream Tarte, and it nearly took out the metal detector when they ran it over her possessions. This small, wooden instrument had enough energy and radiation that it nearly destroyed a thousand dollar device.

Frances turned her head when her pager beeped within her jacket. She looked at it, standing up from her chair in front of the workstation.

"Oh! I have to check the chemical test I did to figure out what the flute is made of… or at least, if it's made of anything other than wood. I'll be riiight back."

The commander watched his scientist walk off to the back, slipping past a sliding pressurized door to get into the testing labs towards the back of the trailer. Once she disappeared in the back of the mobile lab, Tower's gaze went to the window right next to where the flute's workstation was. The curtains were open, and he had a glance into the grassy lands on the outside of Station Square.

There was a knock on the door behind him.

Tower turned his head to glance over his shoulder, face still set in stone but confused nonetheless. The location of this lab was only known to a few people- Tower, Frances, and whoever Tower's Number One is.

After a look at the laboratory door to see if Frances was coming back to answer, Tower decided that he would have to answer the door himself. He about-faced and stepped to the mobile's door, unlocking it and opening it with one hand- the other hand rested behind his back, to the holster he had above his pelvis, just in case.

He opened the door wide. Standing there was a person in the Burgerman costume, from Meh Burger, holding a few flyers in their hand.

The commander blinked his different colored eyes in surprise.

"What are you doing here?" He asked sternly after a moment.

As if to reply, the silent mascot handed one of the flyers to Tower. He looked the flyer over, advertising a special for four burgers, get two free, for couples. God, this country had a messed up sense of sustenance.

"Why are you giving me this? Why are you even here?" Tower was more annoyed than anything at the reaction of the flyer being handed to him. "Get out of here!"

The mascot waited in place for a few seconds more, staring at Tower with dead eyes on the front of the costume. If Tower was silent, he could hear the muffled heavy breathing of the person inside.

"Go!" Commander Tower said, more forcefully this time. He slammed the door in the mascot's face, frowning deeply.

Honestly, he had better things to do than be distracted by fast food advertisements. After making sure the mascot left the steps of the trailer, he exhaled slowly when he heard the sound of a car starting up.

Crumpling the flyer in his hands, Tower turned around and tossed it at the trash can that was right underneath the window. As he did, he noticed that someone was… off. The curtains were flowing now, when they were still a moment ago. The window was open, and it wasn't before.

Tower looked at the laboratory door, seeing Frances still in the back lab looking over test results. A bad feeling washed over the commander before he turned to the work station.

The flute was gone.

The old commander's hands shook before he gripped them tightly into fists. He looked out the window and rushed to it, leaning out of it and looking around as his face grew red with silent, fuming anger. He grit his teeth, leaned back in, and slammed the window shut.

---

FAR ABOVE THE EARTH…

The reflection of the Earth's blue surface illuminated the navy face of Shadow as he stared down at the planet below. He was staring blankly, his mind just as blank as his expression.

He had a lot to process. It had barely been 24 hours since Ivo had blown up part of the moon in his monumental show of force to threaten the world- but most importantly, it had barely been a day since he was shown the intricacies of his past.

Black Doom had given him the answers he had been looking for. But were the answers he wanted better than simply living in the dark? With each moment he thought back to the young Maria Robotnik, shot carelessly, dying in the arms of Shadow (then Eclipse) his heart wrenched further.

He felt so much ire in his body for those agents who came up to seize everything in the ARK. From the memories, and his studies on the Earth in the "grace period" between Chaos' dormancy and Shadow's first mission, it seemed that humans relished the thought of using the less fortunate for their own purposes and destroying them when those qualities ran out.

That's what would've happened to him. It happened to Maria. From the sounds of it, the Professor had it happen to him to- his "treason" to further his research only landed him in the Devil's Gulag up until his (heavily confidential) death.

"Don't be what they made you."

Shadow rubbed his arm. He looked down at his body, at the tattered clothes he was still wearing to replicate Sonic, and glanced over the wrist on his sleeveless arm. The bracelet there, that leathery black inhibitor band, was still tightly bound around him on both arms. There were small glowing red stripes across it, almost akin to veins, holding Shadow's energy within it, almost like a battery.

After a second of glancing down, Shadow's attention was taken away by the feeling of the Space Colony ARK shuddering below him. He looked back up, out the window.

THE THIEF HAS RETURNED.

"I can tell."

WHY ARE YOU KEEPING YOUR MIND HIDDEN FROM ME, ECLIPSE?

"What are you talking about?"

YOU ARE PURPOSEFULLY KEEPING YOUR MIND BLANK.

"I'm… not doing anything, Black Doom."

LIAR!

A sudden ringing in Shadow's ears disoriented him. The dark hedgehog felt himself forced down to one knee, crumpled against the window of the ARK as he groaned in pain from the sudden feeling of a psionic attack.

I TRAIN YOU, I GIVE YOU POWER. I EVEN ALLOW YOU TO USE THAT RIDICULOUS NAME AND YOU THINK YOU CAN HIDE THINGS FROM ME?

"I'm… I'm not…"

BE FOREWARNED OF THIS, ECLIPSE. NO MATTER WHAT IT IS YOU HIDE FROM ME, I WILL FIND IT OUT. I WILL SHATTER YOUR MIND UNTIL YOU ARE UNABLE TO BREATHE IF I HAVE TO. YOU WILL NOT STRAY AWAY FROM MY COMMAND. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?

Shadow was still groaning, the ringing in his ears intensifying as he tried gripping his clawed hands into the smooth glass of the window- as it was extremely durable, he didn't even make a scratch.

ANSWER ME!

"Yes!"

YES?

"Yes… Black Doom."

As if a physical force had let go of Shadow, the hedgehog was suddenly released from the sudden psionic attack, collapsing to the floor onto his hands and knees. Tears trickled down his face from the pain he had experienced from it.

ON YOUR FEET. NOW.

Shadow slowly hobbled up, swallowing thickly to try and prevent himself from sending his morning rations to the floor. He felt his mind harden slowly, his body returning to its previous state. Regardless of the worries he may have of the DNA spliced into him, whatever it was, it healed his body and mind fast.

Up above, in the speakers at the top of the room, there was the screech of the system turning on before a voice came through.

"Ugh, this stuff is disgusting," Ivo spoke. "Shadow. Rouge has returned with the asset. Please meet us in the observatory as soon as possible."

Ivo let out another voice of disgust before there was another shriek of the intercom system turning off, ending the message. Shadow turned around to his door, taking a deep breath and composing himself before walking out of his room.

As he traveled down the dark halls of the Space Colony ARK, he took notice of a little bit of… new decor that was spattered and trailed across the walls and the metal floors. It was red, smeared across everything and making puddly trails leading all the way to the observation deck. If Shadow went a bit further, he would find it would also lead down into the control room.

It was syrupy, and fairly sticky. It wasn't bodily fluid, and it had the consistency of slime.

Shadow followed the trail of gel to the observation deck, where Ivo was angrily wiping the red gel off of his hands and sleeve. When the doctor noticed Shadow, he adjusted his glue tinted glasses, refocusing on the hedgehog.

"Finally! Ugh, why did you insist on using this… this… disgusting substance?" He spoke.

"The conduit gel can send and receive energy and data through itself faster than any cable or form of transport on Earth. You cannot blame me for the amount we had saved on the ARK, it was the Professor's research into this substance that caused some to be kept on the ARK, and it was your interest that led it to being used."

"You insinuated that it was a much needed addition!" Ivo said defensively. He huffed, concluding internally that arguing would get them nowhere. "What was my grandfather even doing studying this stuff anyway? And what even is it, exactly? Did he make it?"

"No."

"Then where did he get it?"

"I'm growing bored of these questions. You asked me in here for a reason, doctor."

"Oh yes! Right. Rouge has retrieved the asset that she told me about."

"And where is she, if she's returned?"

At that moment, the door to the observation deck opened. Rouge stepped in, now sporting a notable magenta bag on her thigh. As she passed Shadow, she smirked, rolling her head to look at him.

"Hey, smiles."

Shadow grunted in reply.

"Are you done messing around? When I made that announcement, I didn't expect you to sprint out of the room!" Ivo scolded the bat.

"Calm down, doctor. I'm just getting ready for the trip."

"Trip?" Shadow inquired, moving forwards a bit to make sure he had an eye on both Ivo and Rouge at once. He could feel Black Doom's hand on his shoulder, making him move forwards, influencing him to observe.

"Oh yeah, the trip to get the next Chaos Emerald. Here you go, doctor."

Reaching in the pocket she had on her leg, she retrieved the asset- the wooden flute that once belonged to Cream Tarte. Ivo took it in a gloved hand, looking it over curiously.

"Hm. I expected it to be… bigger, for some reason."

"You wasted precious time on the counter to retrieve a child's toy?" Shadow asked the bat.

"Oh please, what's two hours out of seventy-two going to harm anyone?" Rouge rolled her eyes, turning from Ivo to Shadow. "Besides, you don't know what this thing can do. I've seen it in action, and if we're going to find a way to get that next emerald, a child's toy is what we need. Trust me."

"Bold words coming from a thief."

"Even bolder cynicism coming from the guy with no friends."

"Friends? I don't need friends, they—"

"Disappoint you? What a predictable response."

"Would you two shut up?!" Ivo barked, making both Mobians go silent. "I'm trying to work on finding a way to use this thing! We're on a very tight schedule here!"

Shadow turned to eye Rouge, catching her side eyeing him back. Rouge shrugged comically, stepping away from Shadow to stand closer to Ivo, leaving the hedgehog alone in his spot.

As the bat left his area, Shadow felt a ping of… something, hit his body. Regret, maybe? He wasn't particularly upset with Rouge, maybe he was just taking out his feelings on the bat from what happened between himself and Black Doom. According to what Rouge had told him, this asset was actually really powerful, even with its appearance being so… plain.

THE BAT WILL PAY FOR HER INSUBORDINATION.

Knowing he couldn't speak to Black Doom without alerting the others of his leader's existence, Shadow simply told himself internally that Rouge would still be needed for the plans to go smoothly.

Ivo pressed buttons on his glove to cause his nearby mech to reach outwards. He placed the wooden flute carefully in the grasp of the mech's claw, allowing him to look it over as it was held above the ground.

"You said this would help us get to that other world, and get the next emerald. How?" Ivo turned to look at Rouge.

"The way Cream used it was that she played musical notes on it. After that, according to her, things would be pulled in from another dimension to ours temporarily."

"A teenager just… had an interdimensional artifact. At all times?" Shadow asked her.

"She was given it by a princess from another dimension."

"A princess… could you be talking about that purple cat from that overly hot alternate zone?"

"Princess Blaze, yeah." The bat said to Ivo.

"If this pulls objects from alternate dimensions, it must use that energy she had contained within a mystic scepter." The doctor turned away from the flute, a hand stroking his mustache. "It required the combination of the Power of the Stars with the energy of those emeralds she had. When… Metal Sonic… scanned the other emerald she had, it seemed to mirror the same kind of energy that the Chaos Emeralds generate."

"Would chaos energy work to open another portal?"

"Only one way to find out!"

Ivo scurried out of the room, leaving Shadow and Rouge alone. He was gone a minute or two, leaving an awkward silence when he left the room. The pair mostly watched the door, though Shadow took a moment to study the wooden flute while the doctor was absent.

Eventually, Ivo returned holding a bag he was having difficulty with. As he struggled, a tube fell from the bag, rolling across the metal floor until stopped under the slightly raised foot of Shadow. As he looked down, he saw that the glass tube had a shard of crystal in it, and it made his foot vibrate like static as he rested on top of it.

"What is this, doctor?"

"Well, the other other project my grandfather was spearheading while here on the ARK was a project requested by GUN to recreate the emeralds of power he had been using to power the space colony." Ivo replied to the hedgehog. "He created these shards of crystal that housed chaos energy. There were some left over in storage, alongside that disgusting red slime."

"How will that help us?"

"Well, since these contain chaos energy, I feel that using these would be an easier alternative than disconnecting one of the Chaos Emeralds from the cannon's control room." Ivo pressed a button on his glove again. The other claw raised up to be a hook for Ivo to hang the bag on. "It's just a means of getting the energy out."

Ivo stepped up on the knee of the mech and retrieved a new device- it was a gun, or at least a gun-like contraption without a midsection on it, painted red. After hopping down to the floor, he opened the gun by cracking it in half like a glowstick. He retrieved the chaos drives from the bag, placing three in the gun's midsection, stacked like barrels in a triangle formation.

"Are you all ready to leave?" He asked the others.

"Sure am!"

"There isn't time for anything else."

"Good." Ivo walked away from the mech, closing the gun. After a second, and a loud whirring sound, the three chaos drives started spinning around each other.

Rouge and Shadow gave each other a glance.

The gun's chaos drives continued to spin around, eventually glowing white. Ivo aimed the gun at the flute in the claw of his mech, and soon fired.

A blast of rainbow electricity shot out and hit the flute. As soon as it did, the flute glowed for a second before a flash of white obscured the vision of everyone there.

A white portal, a tear in the fabric of spacetime, stood before them in front of the mech.

Walking behind it, Ivo retrieved the wooden flute, handing it to Rouge as he left the area of the portal.

"Use this to come back. I'm sure the Chaos Emerald you retrieve will help you on that front." The doctor said as she took the flute. "I will remain here to make sure nothing wrong happens during this journey."

Shadow grunted in reply. Rouge tightened the bag she had on her thigh again, stepping up to the portal to enter first.

"You ready?" She asked the hedgehog.

"Mmh."

"That's the spirit, smiles."

Rouge passed through the portal first. Shadow hung back for a moment.

DO NOT FALTER AS YOU HAVE BEFORE.

Shadow silently said to Black Doom that he wouldn't. With that, he passed the portal next. Luckily for them, the unstable portal closed behind them.

Ivo sighed as he suddenly became alone. He opened his gun, retrieving the spent chaos drives and slipping them back into his bag as he returned to it.

He hesitated for a moment, seeing at the bottom of his bag that he still had the file on the mysterious Project: M2. Ivo hadn't opened it yet, as he was still a bit frightened at what was inside.

Some things were best kept in the dark anyway.

The doctor grabbed his bag and left, not knowing of the presence in that very room that was with him, and the sudden disconnect that presence had with its powerful champion as he passed through the portal.

---

MEANWHILE, IN THE SOL ZONE…

"Walk it, ya filthy moles!"

It was quite the sight to see: a few people were lined up on a plank that was extruding from the starboard side of the SS Hyper-Marine. These Soleannans included such people like a canine, a procyon, and even an ursine.

These were the three left behind from the dozen that were currently in the waters below. On the inward edge of the plank stood a teenage raccoon, wearing a navy frock coat over a neon green wetsuit, and a tri-corner hat to match the coat. She was holding a sword- a cutlass specifically. That sword wasn't really seen much around the area, but she requested it specifically from a certain princess she was good friends with.

Captain Marine swiped the sword back and forth. Despite her age, she was actually quite good at using a sword. She could thank that princess' manx bodyguard for training with that. Though unlike the princess, the bodyguard and literally anyone else on Soleanna, Marine saw no issue with a fourteen year old using a sword.

The procyon Soleannan at the front of the plank plugged her nose before jumping into the water below the ship. The canine was next, who looked back for a moment before his own jump into the waters.

"What's what you wombats get for tryin' to take more of your cut with less of the work! I didn't hire pansies to act as my crew, I wanted sailors with some stones!"

As the ursine made it to the end, Marine swiped her sword again. Instead of leaping off immediately, the ursine turned around, looking down at her ex-captain.

"I'm not jumpin' in." The bear said. "You'll have to use that sword on me if you want me off. Unless you don't have the stones."

Captain Marine looked up at her ex-crewmate, a twinkle in her eye and a widening grin on her face. She pushed the edge of her hat up with her cutlass, allowing her to look up at the ursine.

"You're right, mate." Marine said to her. "Truth is, I don't want to use my sword on any of ya. I wanna use it when it matters, not on a buncha hoons who can't do their jobs right. But if you're gonna force my hand, you better consider how large that hand can be…"

The bear's eyebrows furrowed, before she felt a tap on her shoulder. The ex-pirate turned around to find a giant rising mound of water behind her. The water slapped downwards, engulfing her in water before yanking her off of the plank and into the sea below.

Marine sheathed her sword with a smile.

"Yo, Marine!"

The distant voice made the captain turn her head. She recognized it, allowing her to keep her smile as she turned to walk to the port side of the boat. Standing at the edge, she put her foot up on a hole in the wooden side wall meant for cannons as she looked down at the dock below.

She was actually docked at Soleanna the entire time. She simply had the pirates walk the plank away from the dock, into the water nearby. Sure, Marine could've let them off and onto the dock, but how was she supposed to assert dominance that way?

"Well, if it ain't ol' gray and red!" Marine called down from the top of the ship.

Down on the docks, Silver the Hedgehog and Tiara Boebowski were looking up at Marine. The sir and lady of Princess Blaze were dressed semi-formally, as always, and Tiara held the Verdant Scepter over her shoulders, keeping watch of it as instructed.

Marine stepped up onto the side wall and dropped off the edge of the ship. From the cracks of the docks, water passed upwards through it and created a raised platform that Marine landed on, which lowered her down the rest of the way.

"You're really getting better at controlling the water." Tiara commented.

"Thanks!"

The raccoon crossed her arms outwards, giving an alternating fist bump to the two knights before her. She put her hands in her jacket pockets after that.

"You know, what's the point of sending them overboard next to the dock? They could just climb back up and try to mess you up."

"They've seen what I can do out there. They'd be some serious drongos to try anything against me." Marine said to Silver. "Besides, all these pirates I'm hirin' are nothing but a buncha wimps. They can't even last an entire mission without whimpering and crying about somethin'. I just want one crew that can not only talk the talk but walk the walk, too."

"Soleanna isn't the place for that."

"Yeah, I mean look at Silver and I." Tiara joined in. "We had to be raised in that kind of environment to even be close to adventurers. You think you're gonna find suitable pirates in the high-class kingdom of Soleanna? You got no chance, stripes."

"UUUUGH." Marine let her head fall back, groaning to the sky. "Ah well. Anyways, what's with the surprise visit? I know you're not here to invite me to tea or nothin'."

"Tea?"

"Now hold on," Tiara held her hand in front of Silver. "Blaze has been looking for another person for her annual tea party ever since the maid was no longer able to do it…"

"Oh shaddup, red."

Tiara grinned at that, clearly amused.

"Blaze has called for a meeting between her inner circle." Silver said, getting the conversation back on track. "You're lucky you came back in time."

"What're you talkin' about? I'm always on time." Marine replied, strolling past Silver and nudging his side. "Captain Marine is nothin' but pun… Punc… That punk word."

"Punctual."

"Yeah, that! Thanks, gray."

Silver looked back at Tiara, gesturing forwards to indicate that she could go first. The lady did, still holding the scepter over her shoulders as she strolled past to walk down the dock. Silver took up the back as intended, sticking his hands in his pants pockets.

The stroll across Windmill Village was about as calm as expected. Walking down the brick walkways of the pedestrian streets, the group were treated to sights of street vendors and different businesses bustling with the various Soleannans taking a day on the town. Marine in particular, having been gone for a while, was happy to see the familiar sights of the village bustling with people.

The trio gave a wave to the small electric buggy that buzzed down the street. There were very few vehicles on Soleanna, as everything that the citizens needed was just a five or ten minute walk away from them. Blaze was still weary of the small buggies needed for workers to move larger loads though, and she had to admit she was constantly worried one would run over her foot, or her tail.

They climbed up the marble steps at the end of town to reach the raised level of the city, with the castle at the far end of the city's upper level. The castle courtyard was open to citizens to occupy, with a few market vendors set up in that area.

Passing under an arch made in the walls surrounding the castle property, two koala guards standing at either side of the arch made sure to look presentable when the group came through. They stayed that way until Silver passed by, relaxing again when the coast was clear.

The castle courtyard wasn't as hectic as the lower parts of Soleanna, which was a quiet relief to two out of three members of the troupe. Marine was upset that nobody noticed the fact that she was a ship captain.

As it was much more quiet in the courtyard, it was much easier for anyone to hear things that would otherwise go unnoticed in the busier parts of town- such was the case for Tiara. Since Silver was in his own little world, Marine was looking around the courtyard again, the calm Tiara was able to catch something.

It sounded like a fluttering. Tiara just barely noticed it. If there were any birds in the sky, she probably would've waved it off as that, but the birds in the area mostly migrated to the other side of Soleanna that time of the year. The sound of fluttering wings, especially those audible to anyone in the courtyard, wasn't something you'd hear around this time.

The manx stopped in her tracks, the Verdant Scepter making a clink against the stone courtyard as she held the steel pole like a walking stick. She scanned the area, nearly hit by the gray hedgehog lost in thought behind her due to her sudden halt.

"Whoa." He said, turning and spinning around as he slipped past Tiara. As he was stepping backwards, he was facing her. "What's going on?"

"...I don't know." Tiara replied, still looking around. She even did a full about face as she looked around the courtyard for any sign of the mysterious fluttering. "Thought I heard something."

"You're letting El get to you, Tiara. You're acting as paranoid as her."

"Is it paranoia? Or simply being ready for anything?"

"If you were ready for anything, you wouldn't be looking around in confusion, now wouldn't you?"

"Oi!" Marine yelled. She had walked a good few yards before noticing nobody else was following her. "You bludgers better hurry up! You're the ones who begged me to come with you and see Blaze in the first place!"

Silver looked over his shoulder when Marine was talking to him, but turned to look at Tiara again once that was done. He gave her a small shrug before turning and walking away again. After a few moments, Tiara began walking after them again, using the scepter as a walking stick.

Once they entered the castle, they were greeted by a particular koala guard standing in the front foyer. Gardon stood with a straight back, one of his hands kept behind his back.

"Garcon! It's been a while, mate."

"Hello, Lady Marine." Gardon replied. It was futile to try and get her to say his name right. "I'm glad to see that Master Silver and Lady Tiara have brought you back for your meeting with the princess."

"I'm glad to be back! It's always so nice here. Where is Blazey, anyways?"

"She's in the new conference room we installed. Allow me to take you there." Gardon walked away, silently inviting the others to follow him.

After the adventure involving the return of Iblis, and Blaze's acceptance of the flames of disaster into herself, the castle went through a lot of extensive renovations as the princess started to fall more in line with being a very… prepared protector of Soleanna.

Technological advancements that Windmill Village had but was slow to be included in the castle were implemented soon after the change to the princess. The damaged part of the castle, caused by both Iblis and Tiara (but nobody really mentions that part) were completely changed from the ground up to be more secure and more sleek.

Blaze started more expeditions to the world outside of Soleanna (led by Marine) to find out more secrets that she had neglected to expand upon. Such secrets included the location of the lost water temple- which was needed, especially since the fire temple on Soleanna was destroyed a while back.

Most of the architecture for the castle's interior remained intact. The group was led down the red and gold rugs laid down the marble floors of the castle, eventually reaching a once mostly untouched wing of the castle.

There was a single door at the end of the furthest hall. Gardon opened it to let the others in.

All that was in the room was a large round table, with five chairs gathered mostly towards the right side. The table was dark, with gold covering the edge of the table.

Close to the door, with her back turned, was Blaze. She was looking over different papers that she had gathered for the upcoming meeting.

"Your highness—"

"Hey, Blaze!"

The princess turned around in time for Marine to give her a hug. Blaze was surprised at the sudden hug, but gently patted the raccoon's head to acknowledge the embrace.

"Hello, Marine."

"I'll inform the king that the meeting will commence soon." Gardon left the room, closing the door so Blaze and her friends could keep some semblance of privacy.

Marine walked and slid into a chair at the table after stopping the hug, spinning around in the swivel for a moment before leaning back with a grin, directly at Blaze.

"So what's this meeting about?" She asked. "Hope it's not about the water temple, because I still haven't been able to find anything about it. That drongo we call a friend hasn't been giving me any information either, I think she's holding out on me outta spite."

"It isn't about the water temple. Though I thank you for your countless journeys to try and locate it, considering everything going on."

"Then what's this meeting about?" Tiara asked. She got into a chair at the table as well, the chair right next to Marine. She laid the Verdant Scepter on the table, crossing her arms as she too leaned back in her chair. "You didn't even let Silver and I know what it was about."

Blaze paused. She placed the papers back on the table, before walking over to where the centermost chair was placed on that side of the table. She reached under the edge, flicking a hidden switch she had right underneath.

A square at the center of the table flipped over. In a glass cover, held up by a small metal claw, was the cyan Chaos Emerald. Everyone in the room turned to look at the emerald resting in a protective prism.

"Holy crap… El…" Silver murmured in shock. "You… made up an entire hidden display to present the Chaos Emerald we got?"

"Well, the option to add the little flipping part of the table was in the catalog." Blaze replied to him. "I thought it would be neat if we had a little thing to show off the emerald inside of it."

"I gotta say, I am a little impressed by it."

"Thank you, Marine."

"I mean, I wouldn't put something as powerful as that in a little glass box, but I admire the tenacity you got, Blazey."

"The glass is tempered. The only way to get the emerald is by opening the bottom part of the little pedestal." Blaze continued. "Nobody would be able to break through the glass. We actually had it installed in other parts of the castle as well, like downstairs."

"Nifty." Tiara replied, looking at the emerald for a moment before turning back to Blaze. "When are you going to return it to those heroes in the other zone, anyway?"

"Sooner or later."

"More soon, or more later?"

"Hopefully soon." The princess sat in the center chair, flipping the switch to hide the Chaos Emerald again. "I still need to perform a few more experiments on it."

"Are you really sure you want to keep a gem containing the ultimate power after Sonic and his friends had to fight a literal god who wanted to absorb them? Whose godly energy literally powers the emeralds?"

"It's about reassurance, Silver." Blaze replied. "The fact that these come from a god is what made me take this emerald in the first place. The Chaos Emeralds and the Sol Emeralds, act as if they're the poles on opposite sides of a magnet. When we use the Power of the Stars on them, they only lead to the other dimension, nowhere else. If they're connected, somehow, or if the Chaos Emeralds could explain where the Sol Emeralds came from, then…"

At that moment, the door to the conference room opened. The king was there, having opened the door himself rather than letting Gardon get it for him. He was much more aged than he was during the adventure with Iblis, having groomed his head (forgoing the braids) and allowing his face to turn greyer, creating a kind of beard as the gray covered his chin and chops.

He paused for a second, as everyone turned their heads to look at him.

"...hello." He spoke. "Good morning, all."

"Father."

"Hello, Blaze."

As the king stepped further into the room, he kept the door open. This was because behind the king, scurrying in with a platter full of teacups and a kettle, was a servant of the castle. The servant set down six saucers and the cups right after, directly in front of the chairs at the circular table.

The group sat down. Blaze sat in the middle, where the switch under the edge of the table was. Her father and Marine were on either side of her, with Silver and Tiara taking up the ends. As they sat, Blaze adjusted the papers she had for the meeting, and the servant started serving tea.

After her cup was full, Marine happily picked up the cup to be greeted with the beige color of the tea inside. Her excited face fell to a small frown.

"Dang. It's always chai tea. Don't you all have some black tea 'round here?"

"Chai tea is made with black tea, Marine." Cyrus answered her.

"That's worse! Why would you all mess with perfection?"

The others were amused with the annoyance of the raccoon- though Blaze was more focused on her notes than anything. She took a small sip of her chai tea.

"The meeting will commence once we are all alone." She spoke. "Please, be sure to hit the switch when you leave the room."

Though the servant didn't speak, it was clear they understood the command. After pouring the last cup of tea, they took the platter and the kettle, heading out of the room. They paused at the door, reaching over and flicking the switch right beside it, and swiftly left after.

There was silence for a few moments. Suddenly, the entire room began to shake. Silver was in the middle of sipping his tea as it happened, making it splash all over his face quills. The gray hedgehog let out an annoyed sound.

With a loud rumbling whir, the room suddenly began sanking downwards. It was descending to a lower level, leaving the closed door behind as it went further down.

It was lowering into the dungeon area, specifically in a specially built area in the dungeon level. There was a large, open room that lay before a prison cell only half the size of the waiting area. The cell, with that aforementioned tempered glass acting as the barrier between outside and in, was illuminated with bright white lights.

There was very little in the room. A bed, a toilet, a chair. There was a slot at the very end of the glass wall where you could deposit food and water into a small cubby hole for the person inside to retrieve themselves.

Speaking of, as the conference room lowered, the group were greeted with the prisoner inside. The chairs were set up so that the empty side of the table was pointed towards the prison cell, and pointed so that they could see the scientist standing with her hands folded behind her back, waiting for them.

It was like Quark had been expecting them. She would probably put on a better outfit- the magenta one she was used to, instead of the plain white jumpsuit given to her as the first prisoner of the newly renovated Agni castle dungeons.

Eventually, the room came to a rumbling halt at the very bottom, shaking slightly again as it came to a rest. As it had been lowering, Blaze's gaze had met Quark's, as the doctor had been staring directly at the princess during the descent.

Blaze and her friends had found Quark fairly quickly after the Iblis incident, and swiftly imprisoned her afterwards. Quark had been here ever since, silently steaming in anger as she was imprisoned by the very people she wanted to destroy.

But she still had some use for the princess and her friends. Which is what brings them here.

Blaze sipped her tea again once the room was still. She folded her hands on the table neatly.

"This meeting is now in session." She said simply. "We will be discussing the findings we've made since our last meeting, and discussing the ongoing projects happening within our group."

"...well, if you want me to go first, I haven't really figured out where the water temple is." Marine spoke up first. "I've been following Quack's instructions and went to all those spots she recommended, but I couldn't find anything there. Besides that, she seems keen on keeping her trap shut when I try to ask about it."

After Marine's statement, the princess glanced back over to the imprisoned doctor. Quark merely had a hand on her chin, one of her fingers touching her bottom lip as she glanced at Marine. Immediately sensing Blaze's gaze, Quark glanced back over to the princess.

No comment from her, it seems.

"Developments towards Soleanna and Windmill Village have been slowly improving." Cyrus spoke next, after a second's pause. "By this time next year, we should have enough supplies to mimic the colder climate conditions in the country, to allow us to grow vegetation unsuitable for the heat of Soleanna."

Still no comment from Quark. Though Blaze was glancing at her father, she could still feel the stare of the doctor only on her.

Tiara and Silver were merely consultants, so it was Blaze's turn to present her findings.

"The research I've done on the Chaos Emerald…" She pressed the button to show the cyan jewel at the center of the table. "Have come up with very little answers to any of the questions I pose. Even attempting to summon the power of the emerald has shown very little results… except for Silver, who seems to be able to use the emerald better than anyone in this room."

Silver rubbed a finger under his nose and chuckled a bit.

"It's the psychic power in me, I'm sure."

"I have continued testing the emerald with Quark in an effort to discover what else it can do to possibly benefit us. Or why, exactly, it reacts with the Sol Emeralds in the way that it does."

Blaze finished her statement, looking at Quark. Slowly, everyone turned from looking at Blaze to the doctor behind the glass, all expecting her to take over and speak.

But Doctor Quark did not.

She stood there, her hand still on her chin, glancing at Blaze directly. Her expression hadn't changed from mild interest the entire time, and her leer hadn't left the princess. She tapped her lip with her index finger.

"Well?"

The word from Blaze egged the doctor to react. Quark merely moved her gaze downwards… down the table, towards the center. For a moment, it looked as if she was going to look at the Chaos Emerald. However, she landed on the sixth cup of chai tea that was on the table. The extra cup was made for her, after all.

Slowly realizing she hadn't spoken simply because she didn't receive her drink, Blaze let out a slow exhale of resignation.

"Silver," the princess turned her head to look at him. "Please, deliver the cup to the slot."

It took the hedgehog a second to realize that's what Quark was waiting on as well. As soon as he did, he looked away from Blaze and to the cup. His top quills turned upwards, his body and eyes glowing cyan as he telekinetically transported the cup and its saucer from the table to the slot.

One side closed, another opened- a process the doctor turned her head to watch. When her side's hatch opened, she retrieved the cup briskly, taking a long sip. Blaze didn't try to show her annoyance too much, as it was exactly what Quark wanted from her. She was being slow on purpose to tick her off.

"Aaaaaah." Doctor Quark let out a content sigh as she finished her sip, smiling softly. She placed the cup back down on the saucer. "The experiments we performed on the Chaos Emeralds were only from the facet of what it could possibly do within the confines of our world. Our dear princess, as usual, has never taken a moment to think outside anything but herself."

"Shade aside," Tiara spoke up, leaning onto the table. "This doesn't tell us anything about how the Chaos Emeralds and Sol Emeralds are interconnected."

"Oh, my dear, the how is never quite as important, or as interesting, as the why." Quark wagged her finger to the manx. "These emeralds are from an entirely different dimension. Or, Zone, as you all have decided to call them. Yet they act like two sides of an electrical circuit, almost. But you're only thinking about why that could happen relative to your own emeralds."

Marine groaned, her eyes rolling. "Get to the point, bludger!"

Doctor Quark's lips pressed thin in aggravation for being interrupted.

"You figure out why these two sets of emeralds are connected. Then, you simply deduce the rest." She hissed. "It's that simple."

"And about the water temple…"

"The information for that, I'm sure you can find on your own." Quark, finished with her tea, placed the cup and saucer in the slot and shut her side. "You're more than welcome to continue sending out your little sidekick to keep looking. It's not like she has anything better to do."

"Hey!" Marine said. After a second, she shrugged. "Yeah, alright, true."

"Might I remind you that the deal, Bernadette, was that you provide us information on the projects and areas of interest to the Agni royal family." Cyrus said. "You're receiving even a fraction of hospitality because of your somewhat usefulness to our kingdom."

"You seem to forget that your side of the bargain was that I would receive time off of my sentence here in the dungeons of your castle! And yet here I am, still here, months later."

"You think attempting to kill the royal princess is a year-long sentence?" Silver asked Quark.

"I've given you everything I have." Quark ignored him, staring at Blaze. "You've… taken everything I have. Just like everyone else of your ilk. Humanity is dead on this planet, save for me, and I can't escape the legacy of my species."

"You aren't a victim here." Blaze replied, standing. "Your anger placed towards Soleanna and her people have led you to attempting to destroy the planet. There's very little evidence that any of our kind have actually killed any humans in the history of this kingdom, your retribution is misplaced."

"No, you just exiled them. Drove them out. Made it impossible to find them. Like you will to me." The doctor pressed her hands against the glass. "Do you know what it's like, princess? To grow up alone? I was raised by machines. The artificial program built into the liferaft I was placed in for who knows how long, before I reached an island to live on. I had to learn and fight to survive, until that program died out. I had no one. Nobody to call mummy, or daddy."

Quark paused, her hands balling into fists against the glass.

"But what am I saying? You don't care. You have your happy ending, hm? Iblis is gone. Your best friend is back, you have your little girlfriend. Humans be damned- the princess can smile again." She said bitterly. "You have everything. Now… I have nothing. But that's just the thing though- you can't take anything away from me. But there's still plenty to take away from you."

Blaze, her fingers touching the table, hadn't changed her expression. She didn't process the saying as a threat, merely the lashing out of the doctor that was probably multiple years in the making.

She felt all the eyes in the room go to her.

"This meeting is over."

With that, Blaze sat back down. Above, the switch that brought them downwards flicked back again. Slowly, the room rose up again. Blaze stared at Quark as she slowly ascended with the room, her sight only blocked by the table coming between them.

Quark continued to watch, pressing her body against the glass to look past the ceiling of the room to the rising meeting room above her.

"You can't keep me in here forever, Elise Agni the Third!" The doctor spat. "You have to let me out sometime! And make no mistake, when I get the chance to kill you, I will! There isn't a single one of you animals who will be able to stop me!"

Soon, the meeting room came to a halt as it reached its floor again. Everyone looked throughout the room silently, mostly at each other, as Blaze sat staring at the wall in silence.

"...good meeting." Silver said.

"Uh, yeah… sure was, gray." Marine added on, glancing at the seething Blaze.

"We will continue the search for the water temple on our own, it seems." Cyrus said. He soon stood, turning to say something to Blaze but pausing. After a moment, he put his hand on her shoulder. "Please let me know what you do next."

"...of course, father."

With a nod, Cyrus left after the acknowledgement from his daughter. He looked at the others.

"You all are free to stay among the lounges if you please."

"Oh, bloody ripper! Now I can get my hands on some of those peach tarts!"

"There's a problem with that, Marine."

"Huh? What, gray?"

"I'm getting them first."

Silver got up and rushed out. Marine quickly got up to chase after him, the door held by Cyrus as they ran past. The king, after looking at his daughter once more, left with them.

Blaze stared down at the tea cup on the table with a glower, still thinking to herself. She felt a shift on the table, making her look up at Tiara, who was sitting on the table right next to where Blaze was sitting. The princess was taken aback, her face heating up a bit.

"Some meeting, eh? Can you believe the stuff Quack said?" Tiara asked.

"She's bitter. Something out there, whether it be books or her own narcissistic tendencies, told her that humans were here before us. But everything I have in the archives tells me that humans were alongside our kind. My ancestor, Afroza Agni, the first queen of Soleanna- she was here centuries ago, alongside humanity. Quark is just… obsessed."

"...I was mostly talking about the part where she called me your girlfriend, but yeah."

Blaze's jaw locked, her face heating up more- and not in the way she was used to- at the comment. She sighed, rubbing her eyes.

"Hey, hey, c'mon Ellie." Tiara turned a bit, leaning in to put a hand on her arm. "I'm just messing with you. You seem really intense."

"I'm just," Blaze sighed. "We've barely gotten anywhere these last few months. Marine can't find anything, Quark refuses to give us all the info we need, and I've gotten nowhere with the Chaos Emerald. Not only that, but I run the risk of damaging my relationship with Cream if they discover that the emerald is here."

The princess reached over, pulling up the square where the emerald was underneath. She pulled it from the bottom platform, holding it in her hand and looking it over.

"It's a lot of stress, and we haven't figured anything else out."

"Why do you want to know about the Chaos Emerald so badly?"

Blaze opened her mouth, but closed it after, looking away.

"Ellie."

"I just… I want answers."

"Answers?"

"...I want it to make sense. Why Iblis has been haunting my family for generations. I've been fighting so much, keeping this kingdom safe. The one thing I was unable to avoid, I finally found a way to keep it at bay. And now… now what? Iblis is gone. The entire reason for my family's suffering is gone. I'm left with nothing… but I have to know why. And I think the Chaos Emerald is the key to finding that out."

The princess looked it over again before slipping the emerald in a small bag she had under the table. She shoved her notes in there as well- she would write down what happened during this meeting when she got to her study.

"How can you be sure the Chaos Emerald has the answer?" Tiara asked her as she stood up.

"Because it has to."

With that, the princess left, unaware that hidden eyes were watching her every move.

---

"Black Doom. Black Doom?"

Shadow quietly called out to his superior while leaning against a tree. He was currently on the outskirts of Soleanna, far away from the view of any windows on the Agni castle. It was there, via Rouge's treasure tracker, that the hedgehog and his companion would find the Chaos Emerald they were looking for.

The only problem plaguing Shadow at the moment was that he was no longer able to contact Black Doom. He was standing there, murmuring to himself like a crazy person, calling out to somebody that wasn't there.

Black Doom wasn't replying to him at all. He talked internally, externally, he even tried to will his superior into existence to talk to him. All of it ended up doing absolutely nothing.

He was waiting for Rouge to return, as the bat was taking recon on the castle before making any moves. Usually, as she said after they passed through that portal, it would take a few days for her to come up with a proper plan. But with that pesky countdown that Ivo had, they didn't have days, they only had a few hours.

The world felt… different without the feeling of Black Doom over Shadow's shoulder at all times. He could barely explain it- it was almost like the world was no longer shielded by a wall, or an umbrella. He could feel how hot it was on Soleanna, he could feel the warm breeze on his face. He could take a moment to appreciate how pretty the flowers on the island kingdom looked from far away.

Shadow didn't have to quickly move on, or really focus on some mission. He could just… be.

His quills rustled in the wind. Shadow enjoyed the feeling. It was so lifeless and weatherless in space… one of the things he could vaguely remember from Maria's time with him was the explanation of weather that existed on Earth. He wanted to experience it all, and yet… the duties he was woken up for prevented him from spending more time on Earth than needed.

But that's the way it was. Even now, he composed himself as he remembered why, exactly, they were in that alternate dimension in the first place. Now wasn't really the time for pleasantries.

There was a nearby flapping of wings that brought his attention to the skies. Rouge swooped down and landed on her feet, skidding to a stop. The treasure scope flipped up from over her eye, freeing her eyes from any obstruction.

She looked different than when Shadow saw her before. She was sporting a black racerback tank top, and what appeared to be sweatpants of the same color, with white flowers on the bottom of the pants legs. She was even wearing sneakers instead of her boots.

"You changed your clothes while you were gone?" Shadow asked in disbelief.

"This may be the only time I visit a dimension that's perpetually warm." Rouge replied casually. "A girl's gotta look her best for the beach, smiles."

"With sweatpants?"

"I never said anything about swimming. Besides, the only way anyone will see these legs is if they're swinging at high speeds into their face. Only if they bother me too much, of course."

"Naturally." Shadow's monotone voice sounded like he didn't seem convinced. "...what did you find out there?"

"I mostly investigated the security systems… Though I did spot the object of interest in the possession of Soleanna's protective princess. She's clearly keeping it on her person at all times, so if we want to retrieve it we'll have to be very careful and very smart about it."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Well, she had a meeting with her friends, and the woman who I can identify as Blaze's arch-nemesis: Bernadette Quark. The doctor told me about her, and said she's this universe's version of himself, in a way. Incredibly intelligent and obsessed with the jewels of ultimate power of this zone."

"Didn't the interaction the doctor had with this Quark woman involve her attempting to kill him and insulting him straight to his face?" Shadow asked. "This doesn't seem like the smartest route of action here."

"What choice do we have? If we walk in through the front gates, they'll identify you as a hedgehog, which will immediately set off alarm bells. Besides, Blaze and her friends already know me from the incident with Chaos." Rouge replied. "The only way to get that emerald before the laser is set to go off in our dimension is to ask the enemy for help."

"And you're sure she won't attempt to kill you and insult you straight to your face like she did to the doctor before?"

"Not… completely, but that's where you'll come in."

"What is my role in this?"

"You'll stand close to the castle and keep an eye and ear out for any sign that I'm in danger." Rouge replied. "When that happens, Blaze will most likely try to leave with the Chaos Emerald. Follow her and attempt to get it from her."

"Why is that not the plan in the first place?"

"Because while Quark is this universe's Robotnik, Blaze is the Sonic of this world- as in she's one of the most powerful beings in this dimension." The bat said, serious. "She's fast, she's powerful, and unlike Sonic she's trained in combat and can control fire. Even with your immense chaos…" She rolled her hand to find a word. "...controlling, your only route is to overpower her, and from what I can tell you can only do that without a Chaos Emerald for so long without nearly dying."

Shadow grunted- a grunt of resignation and admittance that what Rouge said was true.

"Trust me smiles, when I find a quick way to make her submit, I'll take it." The bat flipped her treasure tracker over her eye again. "Now because the castle is being renovated with security features, there's quite a few blind spots due to the transition- this includes the basement, where Quark is. I'll slip in, ask her about an alliance, hopefully get her out and find a way to get that emerald. When we're clear, I'll signal you."

"Signal for what?"

"Well, when they discover Quark is gone and the emerald missing, stuff's gonna go sideways. Again, that's where you'll come in to face off against Blaze."

"Right."

"Don't sound so skeptical, smiles." Rouge grinned a bit before turning around. "I'll see you in a bit. Keep an ear out over comms."

"Hmph."

With that grunt of approval, Rouge took off again, spreading her arms out and soaring away towards the castle. Her treasure tracker told her that the emerald was somewhere on the second floor of the castle- that was good info to keep in mind, but she was mainly focused on the foundation beneath the castle.

Using a few trees as cover, she glided down into the gardens of the castle, slipping behind a hedge in time to avoid a koala guard on patrol. Rouge peeked out to make sure the coast was clear before continuing, slipping towards the castle wall facing directly south.

The security additions helped with the dungeon cells below the castle, but nothing has been done quite yet about the low-tech openings that were still on the bottom half of the castle: the cellar windows. Rouge was able to pop them open with a firm press of her foot, letting it creak as it tilted upwards.

Rouge slipped her feet in, sliding on her stomach to slip inside, eventually dropping in once half of her body got through the gap. The ease of getting in was a little much for Rouge, however, as she found herself falling down and landing on her back as she got to the dungeon floor. She groaned.

"Well done."

The voice made Rouge get up. As she stood, she was greeted with the sight of the lady doctor in her cell. Quark had stood up as Rouge snuck in, standing with hands behind her back as she did when Blaze visited her earlier.

Rouge dusted herself off. "You're Dr. Quark, I presume?"

"That would be me." The scientist replied. "And who might you be, if I may ask?"

"My name is… not important. What you need to know is that I have a proposition for you."

"Oh? Do tell."

"I need that Chaos Emerald from the princess." Rouge said. "You don't like the princess. If I get you out of here, will you be able to help me get it from her?"

"Ah, yes. Someone from the other 'zone,' as it were." Quark chuckled a bit. "It is true, I do dislike that infernal princess more than anything in this world… but why should I help you?"

"You'll get a chance to do some real damage to Blaze? Like, emotional damage. She'll probably be really upset when she loses the emerald."

"Hm… You know what? Okay. Deal. But you have to find a way to get me out."

"Okay, okay. Hm… Perhaps I can shriek the wall down and get you out…"

"Good heavens, no!" Quark exclaimed. "I was being facetious. Do you not see the fingerprint scanner lock right next to my cell door?"

She held a hand out to it for emphasis. At that moment Rouge noticed that, yes, there was a fingerprint scanner right on the wall beside the giant glass wall. The bat was a little bummed she wouldn't get to shriek a glass wall down, but went to the scanner anyway.

"Are you sure you want to betray an entirely different dimension's leading kingdom to retrieve a single emerald with special powers?"

"Hey, if it wasn't going to be me, it probably would've been the country I live in. My country has a record of destabilizing countries that are doing better than us in any way."

The bat had been looking over the scanner as she talked. She pulled out a latex glove from her leg bag and snapped it on, looking like a doctor about to perform surgery in the middle of vacation.

She leaned in and huffed on the glass of the finger scanner, revealing the imprint left from the thumb that had closed the door, from residue oil provided by said thumb. She quickly pressed her own thumb onto the scanner- with the blank latex, and the oil pattern imprinting on her thumb, it simulated the correct digit to open the glass wall.

Rouge disposed of the latex glove as the wall sank downwards, freeing the doctor from containment. The process was given immense soundproofing so as to not bother the royalty upstairs, so nobody above was any the wiser.

Except for one, however.

As the doctor was freed downstairs, Silver was with Marine. They had collected as many tarts as their hearts desired, sitting beside each other in separate chairs in the lounge area. They had seen Tiara, who walked by to start wandering the second floor, most likely so she could stay close to Blaze as the princess wrote notes on the meeting.

Marine munched on a tart and hummed with happiness as she ate it, smiling.

"Oh man, that's good." She said. "Sure beats the rations I bring out on the sea. After a while you get tired of dense bread and orange juice."

"Orange juice? Not water?"

"I see water all day, mate! Besides, I need orange juice so I don't get scurvy! You and red wouldn't let me hear the end of it if I did, with pirates being known for it and whatnot."

"Right, right."

The raccoon girl ate another tart, chewing in thought.

"Say, gray," she began. "You don't suppose Blazey's upset we didn't stay back and talk to her? Or follow her upstairs?"

"Mmh." Silver swallowed his tart before speaking fully. "Trust me, Marine, you don't want to be there when she's this upset. You should know that by now."

"I just feel kinda bad. The other cat stayed behind, but we didn't."

"Tiara's known her the longest. Plus, she has a special spot in Blaze's heart." The hedgehog set his empty plate aside on a table. "Don't worry about it, Marine. When Blaze is ready to talk about it, she'll come to us."

"Hm… well, alright." Marine shrugged a bit. "While we wait, this gives us time for me to tell you about this weird thing that happened when I was out sailing. So basically, I see this bloody big shadow under the water, and so I point it out…"

Silver was listening at first, but he soon felt this wave of… something wash over him. Was it dread? Fear? Sadness? He couldn't tell. His front spikes lifted upwards like antennae almost as he got the vibe from elsewhere in the castle.

His expression changed from interest in Marine's story to a serious, stone face over the course of a minute. Silver turned his head slightly as he felt some otherworldly force turning his direction out of the lounge and towards elsewhere in the massive structure.

He was a victim of his own movement, watching himself turn his body and get up from his seat, walking away from Marine.

"…so we pull it out, I have my hand fully submerged in the chum bucket, the glass of orange juice is still balancing on my hat and my mouth is now fully biting down on the ship's railing. Then, I… Gray? Hey mate, what're you doing? I'm talking here! Silver!"

It was almost like tunnel vision, Silver's psychic power. Over a year ago he had enough of a grip of his ESP that he was able to give Amy Rose, a psychic he now knows has much more power than him, some advice on how to use her abilities. Now that he was reunited with his past life on Soleanna, it was opening a metaphorical Pandora's Jar that unleashed the fullest extent of Silver's psychic abilities, with him barely able to close the lid at times.

He heard Marine walking after him, having fallen silent as she became intrigued as to what Silver was doing. Luckily for him, Marine knew that Silver wasn't rude enough to just up and leave in the middle of a conversation- his customer service background prevented him from being too rude to other people.

With the ranking of being a royal knight, technically, he was able to pass by bodyguards with ease. Silver's presence also allowed Marine to slip by alongside him, following him closely as he reached the south end of the castle, and stepped down the stone stairwell to reach the bottommost floor: the dungeons.

They got down to the bottom step in time to see Rouge standing there with Doctor Quark, the doctor freshly freed from her prison cell.

"Oi!" Marine said first, as Silver was coming down from his psychic sleepwalk. "Whaddya think you're doing there?!"

"Oh, crap, a teenager." Rouge looked horrified.

"Wait a second… I know you."

"No you don't."

"Yeah, I do." Silver replied to the bat. "You're one of Sonic's friends."

"I don't hang out with him anymore. I'm working with his enemy!"

"Doctor Robotnik?"

"Oh good lord, that whiny little balding roboticist?" Quark recoiled, stepping back away from Rouge. "He's sent you here to retrieve me for him, has he?"

"No, I'm just here for the Chaos Emerald."

"Aha! That's where I know you! You're that thief that Sonic was friends with as a kid!" Silver pointed at Rouge. "You're not getting that emerald!"

"Yes we are!"

"Oooh, sorry love." Quark stepped away slowly, joining Silver and Marine's side. "If you're working for that bumbling doctor in the other world, I can't be with you. That man got on my last nerves… he was- how do you Soleannans put it? 'Thirsty AF'?"

"I will strip an entire year off your sentence here if you shut up and stay behind us."

At Silver's command, Quark did as she was told, getting behind Marine so she could still watch what was going to happen with Rouge.

"Look, we can talk about this." The bat said, holding her hands up in front of her. "Just take me to the princess and—"

Silver didn't respond with words. He put his hand up and flicked it to the side, his psychokinetic powers grasping Rouge in an aura of cyan and dragging her to her left, directly into a containment cell beside her. There was a beep as the cell detected a new prisoner inside of it, and the glass wall rose up quickly to keep her inside.

"The princess will see you." Silver said once the wall was up.

Rouge was able to move once the wall was closed. She pressed her hand against the cool glass, looking at it and through it to spot Blaze's allies (and Quark) nearby.

"Smooth moves."

The bat scoffed at the voice in her earpiece.

"Shut up, smiles. How did you even know?"

"I can hear everything through your earpiece. I suppose that's the signal I should be watching for, the sound of you being thrown in a cell?"

"No, not yet." Rouge slid her hand over the glass yet. "You'll know when you'll hear it. Are you close to the castle?"

"I'm right out front. Nobody is really paying attention to me."

"Get ready to come in."

Taking a few steps back, Rouge moved until she was in the middle of the cell. The glass of the front wall was thick, but no glass was thick enough to be resistant to sound.

The back of Rouge's throat glowed magenta as she opened her mouth and unleashed a sonic shriek, waves of similarly colored energy firing from her mouth and into the glass, causing it to vibrate in place from the force. The vibration of the glass practically vibrated the entire room, shaking the foundation of the castle as if it was going through an earthquake.

With the power of Rouge's shriek, the glass started to crack from the center, splintering out to the sides and shattering the thick glass in little under a minute. The glass sprayed across the hallway between the cells, the twinkling of the pieces heard in the stilled silence before alarms started going off, echoing a siren across the entire castle.

People started evacuating the castle as the siren went off. Guards rushed out, alongside any guests who were inside the foyers of the castle, piling across the front courtyard. As they did, a shrouded Shadow pushed through the crowd, headed inside against the current of the mob.

Rouge stepped out of the cell, the pieces of glass crunching under her shoes and the powerful legs that were above them. She stopped to turn her head and look directly at Silver and Marine, soon turning her body around to start running to them.

Silver and Marine had barely even begun leaving the dungeons when they put Rouge in that cell, mostly bickering with Quark. As Rouge started coming after the group, Silver telekinetically shoved Marine into Quark, stepping forwards.

"Marine, take Quark and get out of here."

"And go where?"

"Find Blaze or Tiara!"

Before Quark could protest about being dragged around by a teenage pirate captain, Marine grabbed her wrist and pulled her away from the dungeons. Silver turned fully to take on Rouge, his quills and eyes glowing once again with psychic power.

The bat leapt up into the air for a flying kick- however, she was immediately stopped by Silver telekinetically grasping her, holding her in midair.

Something really great about Rouge's technology was that it adapted. Her treasure tracker, though tuned to look only for jewels and shiny things, was at its core a scanner. So, after determining that Silver was a paralyzing foe just a few minutes before, the scanner was able to not only react to the same move, but predict and prepare what would be used next.

Within a few seconds of Rouge being stopped in the air, a thin metal contraption that was on the inner side of her leg bag switched on. Three holes opened on the foot-facing side of this contraption, and fired out three small spherical flares.

These little flares flew upwards to the front of Silver in a wavy path, exploding like small flashbangs that would only disorient, and not directly harm, her psychic opponent.

Silver stumbled back. Rouge was let go, landing on her feet after flailing through the air for a moment. When the hedgehog tried putting his arm up to use his psychokinesis again, Rouge was ready, kicking it away.

The bat sent two kicks into the side of Silver's body, making him grunt with pain. The bat soon grabbed the front of Silver's navy shirt, yanking him backwards in a maneuver that sent Rouge to her back. She pressed her knee against Silver's body, straightening it out when she fell back, using the momentum and the strength of her leg to perform a sacrifice throw that flung Silver back down the corridor.

As Silver tumbled to a stop, Rouge got up again, swiftly leaving up the stairs. The abandoned gray hedgehog was up soon after, his body continuing to glow as he lifted himself off the ground telekinetically. He flew down the hall and up the stairs, giving chase to the thieving bat.

Upstairs, as soon as the sirens started going off, Blaze had abandoned her notes and left her study, walking out to find the staff leaving to evacuate.

Walking against the flow was Tiara, who was walking right up to Blaze. As Blaze walked by, Tiara turned around to walk beside her.

"Ellie, what's going on?"

"I'm not sure. They said these sirens could mean anything from a break-in to a fire." Blaze replied. "I have to go find my father."

"I'll come with you."

"No, you go find Silver or Marine. If this is anything worse, they probably reacted first, they're on the ground floor. I'll join you after I find my father."

"Alright. Stay safe, Ellie."

As they reached the bottom of the stairs to get to the ground floor, they split off. Blaze walked down the main hall, directly to the throne room. She spotted her father speaking to Gardon through the doorway.

As she walked in, the attention was turned to Blaze. Cyrus didn't look too concerned about the current siren situation.

"Your majesty," Gardon said. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Please help with evacuation efforts, I'll escort my father out myself."

"Yes, my lady."

Gardon left. Blaze directed her gaze to her father next, looking as calm as he did.

"Father. Do you know what set off the alarm?"

"Well, I heard a faint squealing noise, and the entire floor was shaking for a minute or so." The king replied. "I think it was the dungeons. Perhaps Quark escaped?"

"She isn't powerful enough to escape that cell. If it had to do with the dungeons, it must be someone else. Someone must have broken in."

"Blaze."

Cyrus nearly interjected his daughter to get her attention. He was looking past Blaze, looking down the throne room to the entrance. The princess turned around.

The silence of the empty castle didn't help to detect Shadow entering the room. He took a few steps to walk further into the large open room, staring directly at Blaze with a similar, stoic expression.

Blaze turned around completely to face Shadow, moving her arm back to gently shuffle her father behind her.

"Who are you?" She asked immediately. Blaze had her suspicions, particularly that this was that Sonic fellow she hadn't see a lot of. But it was clear that something was off about this hedgehog.

Shadow tilted his head- not in curiosity, but to look past Blaze.

He spoke, but didn't answer her question. "Is that your father?"

"…yes."

"He can go. This is just between you and I."

The princess was hesitant, but turned around to look at her father and gently ushered him past her. The king looked back at his daughter, a mark of worry still on his brow.

"Blaze…"

"Go. Find the others."

Though Cyrus looked like he had more to say, he ultimately kept it to himself, turning away and quickly leaving the room. Shadow didn't look at Cyrus as he passed, but the king certainly stared at the hedgehog. Soon, the hedgehog and princess were all who were left in the room, the sirens still blaring in the hallway outside.

"I don't usually like to repeat myself, but I'll grant you that much because you allowed my father to get out of harm's way." Blaze said. "Who are you?"

"Who I am isn't as important as what I need from you." Shadow replied. He pointed a finger towards Blaze. "You have something I want."

Shadow could tell that the emerald was inside the bag Blaze had strapped around her body, the one resting on her hip. He could sense the chaos energy coming off of the emerald, radiating through the room and reaching out to him.

The princess knew immediately what Shadow was referring to, putting her hand on top of the bag and feeling the emerald below the bag's front flap.

"So you are from the Chaos Zone. And you look like that Sonic fellow, but… there's something off about you. Something that tells me you're not Sonic… and since you're not Sonic, or any of his friends… I have no idea as to why you would need a Chaos Emerald for anything but your own selfish desires."

"My desire for the emerald surpasses… simple selfish means."

"You don't seem very convinced saying that."

This was getting tiring. Shadow could go back and forth with the princess all day, but he didn't have all day. He needed this emerald now. Even if Rouge said that Blaze was dangerous, she surely couldn't be dangerous enough to keep that emerald in check for long.

Shadow got a vibe that Blaze felt the same impatience he had- or maybe she thought that Shadow was about to attack from how long he was staying silent.

Turning her body to put the bag furthest away from Shadow, Blaze quickly stepped forward and stuck her arm out, firing a bolt of fire from the end of her fist towards the dark hedgehog.

Watching the fiery projectile head towards him, Shadow didn't attempt to evade it. Instead, he lifted his hand and snapped. Invoking Chaos Control, at least as much as he could without an emerald, Shadow warped space in front of him.

A violet-colored ball generated in front of him like magic. He had used a similar move back when he fought against Sonic and his friends at Golden Bay. The firebolt hit the warp, dissipating instantly.

When the warp shrunk to nothing, the hedgehog was ready. He stepped forward and fired a projectile as well from his hand, launching a golden arc with a loud "CHAOS SPEAR!"

Blaze opened her hand as the arc reached her area, creating a pyrokinetic shield that blocked the attack, though created a ripple across the fiery surface.

"You really shouldn't announce your attacks."

"They're to warn others of their impending doom."

And that was that. Shadow and Blaze sprinted towards one another at high speeds. Shadow was the first to attack, swinging at Blaze but missing as the princess ducked the punch. Blaze actually lifted her leg up behind her and bent it forwards to kick Shadow in the face with an upside down foot.

As Shadow stumbled back, Blaze unleashed a burst of fire from her feet, lifting into the air in a grand allegro to leap over the hedgehog. It was graceful, really, Shadow was almost taken aback from it.

It was evident that Blaze wasn't intending for a fight, simply to escape from Shadow and get the Chaos Emerald somewhere safe. However, the dark hedgehog intended to get this emerald by any means necessary. With almost alien-like fast reflexes, Shadow was able to turn and grab onto Blaze's tail. He pulled hard, flinging the princess back and making her crash into the thrones at the end of the room.

The princess was back up in an instance. Rushing past the thrones, Blaze was more focused on fighting against Shadow this time. She bursted forwards, performing a fiery fouetté that allowed her to glide across the floor at crazy speeds.

She ended with a backhand that hit Shadow across the face. Blaze grabbed onto Shadow's tattered jacket and lifted him upwards, slamming him into the ground face-down as recompense for throwing her into the now shattered thrones. The hedgehog was able to roll out of the way of an axe kick downwards that instead slammed her heel into the carpeted floor.

Outside in the hall, Rouge finally got to the ground floor from the basement. She was led into the main hallway from the yelling and the sounds of fighting, and she was able to spot Shadow and Blaze in the throne room.

She began to run in an effort to join Shadow against Blaze, but after a few steps she began to feel… different. She slowed down to a stumble, beginning to feel the entire room twist around, dizzying the bat and forcing her against the nearby wall.

Behind her, Silver calmly walked up the steps to the main hall floor, his body and eyes still glowing that cyan color as he used his psychic power to induce confusion and wooziness on the thieving bat. He didn't need to see her to do so, luckily, so he was able to do so as he climbed the steps to the ground floor. Him using his ESP meant he couldn't fly up the steps, however.

He turned his head slowly to look at Rouge, who was gripping onto the wall as she tried to reach the throne room. Silver flooded the bat's head with horrors from the deepest recesses of his mind- the feeling of being dimensionally displaced, an unknown yet familiar world of fire and ruin, and a Karen holding up the line at the register during a midday rush at the store for one reason or another that she blamed on the clerk.

Rouge suddenly felt the room shift again- her head was slowly clearing, but as she was coming down from her vertigo, everything that wasn't nailed to the ground was lifted off of the walls and floor with Silver's psychokinesis.

The bat ducked and narrowly avoided a painting beside her swiping past, focusing again to try and reach Shadow and Blaze. Silver lifted himself off of the ground, making his hands into claws and pushing them towards each other as if he were crushing a soda can.

All of the telekinetically-controlled objects soon swirled into one point, like a vortex just opened in the middle of the room. Rouge was pulled back, but as she was, she slipped a small ball from one of her leg bags. She bounced the ball under where this invisible vortex was- luckily, as Silver wasn't expecting another object, he wasn't controlling it with his psychokinesis, so it could bounce freely.

After the ball hit the ground, it expanded into one of the bat cracker bombs. It floated upwards and in front of Silver, who was more confused at what it was than anything. It let out a cartoonish snicker before exploding, a concussive blast that made Silver lose his vortex-like grip on the objects in the room.

Rouge continued to use the momentum of when Silver pulled her back, stepping off a floating table and rushing to the gray hedgehog. As she passed by a floating set of armor, Rouge grabbed the spear that it was holding, throwing it directly at the flying hedgehog. It narrowly missed Silver's cheek, the psychic's head following the spear as it passed by him.

When he turned back, he was greeted by Rouge's foot, the bat kicking him across the face. He completely lost his grip on the objects in the room at that point, causing them to crash into the ground. Silver fell as well, with Rogue still on top of him.

Rouge punched him across the face. Silver grabbed onto Rouge's arms, trying to hold her arms back from hitting him again as he was pinned to the ground.

He looked down, past Rouge's leg. That set of armor that he had floating crashed into the ground and split into multiple pieces. His quills glowed again, using all his strength (he had the strength of a standard hedgehog of his stature) to push Rouge's hand upwards.

The gauntlet of the armor snapped onto Rouge's hand, making the bat look at it in bewilderment. The entire set of armor unfurled and started attaching itself to Rouge's body. Silver was kind enough to split the armor open so the metal wouldn't cut through her patagium under her arms. Silver managed to get up to his feet as Rouge was forced to hers, soon covered in a suit of armor before she knew it. Her body was heavy now, making her stumble around.

They were close to the steps leading to the dungeon. Silver gently leaned back and pushed the armored Rouge with his foot, making her instantly lose her balance and begin to fall down the stairs.

"YOU MOTHERF—"

The clanging of metal censored the cursing from Rouge as she crashed down the steps. Silver watched quietly- luckily the steps only went down a few yards before reaching a landing, so Rouge wouldn't be falling down an entire flight of stairs. Silver walked away before he could see the bat come to a stop.

After evading another attack, Shadow slid around to his hands and feet, facing Blaze again. He soon disappeared in a flash of blue, summoning as much chaos control as he could to teleport away. Before Blaze could react, the hedgehog reappeared at her side, swiping downwards to try and grab the bag at the cat's side. Blaze was able to sidestep away in time, and put her arm up to block another punch from Shadow.

Man, Rouge wasn't kidding. Blaze was a tough opponent to beat, especially for someone as inexperienced as Shadow. Sure, he had training on using his powers in battle from Black Doom, but it seemed that Blaze had some kind of training- he leaned towards martial arts, but maybe Blaze was just creative with ballet moves. He wasn't sure.

The only way to beat her was to overpower her, that's what Rouge said. Even with the inhibitor bands on his arms, Shadow still ran the risk of fading into chaos energy if he overexerted himself. He needed that Chaos Emerald.

After another hit was blocked by Blaze, Shadow used the opportunity to do something he hadn't tried before- he boosted forwards and into Blaze. It hurt the both of them, and it was really something that Shadow hadn't wanted to try before because of that, but he needed something unexpected to get Blaze off her guard.

They both crashed to the ground. The bag at Blaze's side opened, the turquoise Chaos Emerald falling from it and hopping across the ground. Shadow was up first, rushing forwards and grabbing onto the emerald, sliding across the carpet a bit like he was a baseball player.

"No!"

Blaze was up on her feet quickly. She rushed Shadow, but was too late, as the dark hedgehog was able to summon upon the energy of the Chaos Emerald. He disappeared, fading away into nothingness. Blaze stopped in her tracks.

This was different than just chaos control. Shadow wasn't going any faster, but he existed in some form of distorted space that was parallel with the space of the throne room. His shadow was still on the floor, unseen by the princess, gliding across the carpet as Shadow positioned himself behind Blaze.

He exited the distorted space there, feeling his body unleash a sudden flow of chaos energy. Space around him warped, unleashing an attack that hit Blaze before she could sense something was off. She was flung forwards, crashing into the wall between two stained glass windows, which both shattered from the power of the burst.

The princess slowly picked herself up from the ground, feeling the shade of Shadow come over her as he started to descend upon the fiery princess.

Just then, a table flew into Shadow. It took the hedgehog with him as it was sent into the far wall of the throne room. The force of the table made Shadow let go of the emerald he had upon impact, landing on the ground a few feet in front of Blaze.

Silver floated across the room and grabbed the emerald. He held his hand out to Blaze.

"Are you alright, El?"

"I've been better." Blaze took Silver's hand to get to her feet. She took the emerald when it was offered to her. "We need to get out of here. Where's Marine?"

"I told her to find you and Tiara. Speaking of, where's Tiara?"

"I told her to find you and Marine. Let's hope they found each other."

From the dust made when the table shattered across the room, Shadow was starting to get up to his feet. Blaze and Silver noticed the red energy glowing through the haze as the hedgehog was riding on the energy he had absorbed from the emerald.

Without another word spoken, the princess and her psychic knight hurried out of the throne room and down the main hall. They passed by Rouge, who was still busy getting the suit of armor off of her body, unable to pursue the pair as she was trying to get the last piece off- the boots.

Shadow walked through the throne room, golden chaos energy scorching the ground and walls around him, as if he was the center of a plasma ball. He reached the steps in time for Rouge to get to her feet.

"Stuff really went sideways." He commented to her, echoing what she said earlier.

"Are you just going to let them get away?"

"Had to make sure you were ready."

Blaze and Silver were at the castle doors. Before they could step into the courtyard, however, Shadow stuck both hands out. He used the power he absorbed from the emerald to generate something more powerful than a simple chaos spear- a powerful lance of red chaos energy that rocketed from his hands.

The chaos lance hit Blaze and Silver in the back. As she hadn't put the emerald away yet, the princess lost her grip on the emerald as she landed on the courtyard, the jewel bouncing across the marble and rolling away. It soon reached the steps, bouncing down towards the Windmill Village below.

"Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap!" Silver said quickly, getting up to his feet. He flew forwards with his psychokinesis- Blaze got up quickly and rushed forwards to chase after the escaping Chaos Emerald.

Shadow and Rouge left the castle soon after. Using the momentum gained from Shadow's jet skating, Rouge let go as they reached the courtyard, spreading her wings and soaring into the air. She found herself chasing after Silver as all four of them headed directly to the Chaos Emerald.

Before Blaze could reach the emerald, Shadow landed on the ground in front of her, the force of his landing propelling the emerald further forwards. It reached the entrance to Windmill Village, bouncing across the ground and weaving through the bustling town.

Silver spotted the emerald, but before he could swoop in towards it, he was suddenly bombarded with the sound of shrieking hitting his ears. He covered them, eyes squeezing shut as he withstood the power of Rouge's sonic scream hitting him from behind. Once Silver was disoriented, Rouge glided forwards, stepping off on top of the hedgehog's head and forcing him downwards as she flew in front of him.

Though his head was spinning, Silver followed after Rouge as best as he could, trying to focus directly on her. He grit his teeth before swinging his arms, unleashing a blast of psychokinetic energy from his hands directly at the bat.

"Take THIS!"

The shouting clued Rouge in that something was coming her way, but she was unable to stop it. The telekinetic blast hit the bat, forcing her down and ending her glide. She hit the roof of one of the buildings in Windmill Village, rolling across the surface and stopping on her stomach. As she picked herself up, she heard the sound of Silver landing on the tiled surface a few yards behind.

Rouge took off, running across the roofs of the village as Silver gave chase. Because of the sonic shriek affecting his head, Silver's vision was still mostly swimming, and he couldn't telekinetically grasp Rouge if he couldn't see her clearly.

He let out a growl as he pushed a psychic shockwave from his body. At the edge of a roof, Rouge used the force of the blast to propel herself into the next building- because it was taller, she crashed through the window, landing in a hallway that led to another window at the end.

She slipped past a man holding boxes, making him stumble around for a moment.

"Sorry! Not really! Bye!"

Rouge leapt out of the window at the end of the hall, landing on a lower roof in front of her. Silver, having run across the roof of the other building, leapt from above and slammed down where Rouge was before just as the bat got out of the way.

Far down below, the emerald kept bouncing across the stone streets of Windmill Village, propelled along by slopes and accidental kicks from passing villagers.

Blaze was sprinting as fast as she could. She was quick and agile enough to keep a fair distance ahead of Shadow, who was quickly following on his jet skates. They weaved through the people walking through the village, Blaze being much more careful than Shadow was about getting through the crowd.

The emerald eventually bounced off the edge of a small plateau made from part of the walkway ending next to a small staircase downwards. After bouncing off the edge, it landed in the back basket of a small electric buggy, which was just taking off to deliver goods elsewhere in the village. Blaze watched the person drive off.

The princess looked behind her, spotting Shadow weaving through the crowd, harshly shoving people out of the way as he was following the princess close behind.

When she turned back, however, she was barely able to react in time before she slammed into a buggy, making the whole thing shake and bringing her to a stop. The person inside the driver seat of the little one-seated buggy was immediately horrified.

"Sweet Solaris! Princess, are you alright?"

"I'm fine."

"A thousand apologies, your highness!"

"It's alright, it was my fault. Don't worry about it."

As she said the last sentence, Blaze watched as Shadow sped by, not even acknowledging the princess as he was a hedgehog on a mission. He skated through the town, even completely pushing a person out of the way as he chased after the buggy with the emerald. He lept down the stairs ahead of him to continue on his journey.

In front of him was a pair of arches leading to the nearby marina. He watched the one-man buggy ride through the right arch, still unaware that the emerald was in the back.

Shadow pushed himself further, trying to go faster in order to catch up with the cart. Since he was already on that side, he leaned further to the left to head towards the arch on that side. He reached outwards, wanting his hand ready to grab onto the emerald.

As he tried to go through the left arch, he instead crashed into the wall that this arch was painted on with a loud SLAM!

"My still life wall painting!" The artist of the fake arch, hidden by the alleyway nearby, exclaimed in shock.

Shadow groaned, still pressed against the painted wall.

"I hate this dimension." He growled.

After a fiery fouetté on the plateau nearby, Blaze leapt off the edge and down the stairs, legs outstretched in a saut de chat, the aptly named "cat's jump," landing gracefully near where Shadow was collecting himself. She bursted forwards and through the right arch, following the buggy cart ahead.

The buggy cart had to make a turn to head further into the city, in order to keep away from the docks. As it turned, the emerald- which had been resting on top of a bunch of stuff- rolled off the side of the buggy's basket and bounced across the ground, heading towards the edge of the marina.

Blaze rushed quickly towards it, but sensed that Shadow was close on her tail. She dove to the emerald and swiped it away to get it further away from the edge of the marina. Shadow landed on top of her a millisecond later, reaching for the emerald, but Blaze elbowed Shadow directly in the nose. She shoved the hedgehog away from her.

As the Chaos Emerald bounced across the stone of the dock's small plaza, it got the attention of Rouge, who started to head towards it; Silver followed suit.

Shadow got up, wiping his nose with his thumb- it wasn't bleeding, but he had to make sure it wasn't broken or anything, and he had to look natural while doing it.

The emerald was a fair distance away from both of them, but they weren't focused on the emerald at this given moment. As long as either one of them were standing, one would always chase the other for the Chaos Emerald.

Both Blaze and Shadow rushed each other, boosting and bursting forwards to each other with immense power. Their forms crashed into each other, the pyrokinetic shield of Blaze locked against the chaos energy barrier created by Shadow. While purple plasma and orange fire rippled off of Blaze's shield, gold and black energy surged from Shadow's barrier, creating a giant spectacle of colors as the pair were stuck as a matched pair.

They continued to run as fast as they could, running but making no traction or movement, pressing further and further against one another as much as they could.

Eventually, the energies mixed, and once they did, it created an explosion of white. A ripple of white came from where their buffers met, flinging Shadow back inland and Blaze onto a dock next to an already parked ship.

Hearing and sensing the surge of energies, Silver stopped.

"Blaze!" He shouted.

With the hedgehog distracted, Rouge pulled out another ball, throwing it back and letting it bounce off part of the roof. It turned into another bat cracker bomb, this time blowing up right behind Silver. The psychic hedgehog was flung forwards, bouncing off the edge of the roof and down to the marina.

Rouge glided down, reaching Shadow and landing right beside where he landed. She touched his shoulder as he started to get up.

"Are you good, Shadow?" She asked.

"Yeah. We need to get… the emerald!"

Silver, where he landed, managed to pull the Chaos Emerald into his palm with his psychokinesis. He looked over to where Blaze was, seeing her begin to pick herself back up like Shadow did.

Whether it was chaos control, or maybe an innate ability to warp space on his own, Silver was suddenly transported behind Blaze. He stumbled a bit to regain his footing, but reached down to grab Blaze's arm, pulling her up.

"Are you okay, Elise?"

"I'm good." Blaze said, clearly winded.

They both looked forward in time to see Shadow and Rouge stepping in at the edge of the dock. Silver handed Blaze the emerald- the princess turned it into energy and took it into herself, keeping it alongside the Sol Emeralds inside of her form.

The princess and her knight crept backwards as Shadow and Rouge stepped closer to them. The dock eventually ended a few yards behind the pair, so they didn't really have anywhere else to go- especially considering that Silver wasn't all too good at swimming (unbeknownst to him, it appeared to be a hedgehog thing)

Eventually, Shadow and Rouge stepped under a shadowy part of the dock. When they stopped for a moment, Rouge felt a drop of water hit her shoulder. She touched the wet spot, then looked upwards, seeing they were directly under a bunch of fish.

"...when'd that get there?" She asked.

Before someone could answer, the watery appendage holding the net of fish let go. Shadow and Rouge put their hands up to defend themselves from the sudden barrage of fish that dropped on top of them, causing a bunch of flopping fish to spread across the dock, stopping at the feet of the princess and her knight.

Blaze and Silver watched the water appendage disappear.

"Oi!"

It was then they noticed that the boat that was parked right at that dock was the SS HYPER-MARINE. What kind of luck was that, right? Marine was leaned off the edge of the boat, looking directly down at them.

Behind the pair, the boarding plank slid out from the boat and landed on the dock. Blaze and Silver quickly rushed to the plank, climbing it up to reach the deck of the pirate ship.

"Rideshare for… Blessed and Sylvester?" Tiara asked jokingly as the pair climbed onboard.

"Marine, punch it!"

"Don't gotta tell me twice, gray! Hold onto somethin'!"

Marine was up at the yoke, pressing down on the accelerator pedal as hard as she could go. The thrusters on the stern roared to life, pulling the pirate ship out of the marina and away from Soleanna.

"Where's my father?" The princess asked Tiara.

"We met up with him, but the guards took him to a safehouse. He's okay."

As Blaze let out a sigh of relief, she suddenly realized that Doctor Quark was nearby, handcuffed but sitting with her legs crossed on a nearby barrel.

"What is she doing here?" Blaze asked.

"We were in a hurry! Both of you told us we needed to get out of here, and Marine didn't know what to do with Quark- I didn't know either." Tiara replied. "So we just brought her onboard! It looked like those two wanted help from her anyways, maybe it'll work out."

"I'm sure it will." Quark couldn't help but comment, smirking devilishly in the direction of Blaze. She lifted her cuffed hands up, wiggling the fingers of one hand towards the princess in a wave. "It'll be just like one of her little adventures."

"How exciting." Silver rolled his eyes. "Where to, Blaze?"

"I suggest you go north."

"Why would we ever listen to anything outta your mouth, Quack?" Marine asked the doctor.

"Because… you want to find the water temple, don't you?"

She smiled smugly, directly at Blaze. Of course, the second the doctor was able to use this to her advantage, she would play her cards to get whatever she wanted. In this case, she was taking control of this moment outside of her prison cell by playing the card that everyone in Blaze's inner circle wanted.

Blaze glowered at the doctor.

"...Do what she says." She eventually said.

Marine hesitated, but turned the ship around to head north.

Back on the docks, Rouge and Shadow eventually dug themselves out from the net of fishes. There was a fish stuck down Shadow's shirt, and one flopping between Rouge's head. As she got out, the bat spat out, nearly retching from the smell of fish.

"Ugh, my mouth was open!" She exclaimed.

Shadow spotted the ship that the princess was on turn, headed somewhere obscured by the landscape of the island. He glowered towards where the path of the boat went, keeping the look of the boat in his memory.

---

"And that, folks, is why you keep a change of clothes."

Shadow leaned against the wall outside of a public restroom as Rouge came out. She was dressed in her normal jumpsuit again, her vacation clothes now reeking of fish.

"You should've been dressed in that in the first place."

"And I wasn't! So it doesn't smell like the backrooms of an aquarium!"

The dark hedgehog grunted, turning his head to look away.

Rouge tossed the bag with her messy vacation clothes inside in a nearby trashcan. She turned around and looked at Shadow, a hand on her hip.

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"You need to change."

"No I don't." Shadow was aggravated. He walked to pass by Rouge. "We don't have time for this. We need to get that emerald."

The bat put her hand on Shadow's chest, stopping him. She looked him in the eyes, mildly perturbed by the hedgehog's demands to carry on.

"You've been wearing that gross outfit for the last few months. You haven't even taken them off, they're torn and full of holes, and now there's an audible stench coming off of them."

"So?"

"You think those guys won't smell us coming?" The bat replied. "Have some decorum. The emerald can wait, let's get some new clothes on you. Something you'll actually like wearing too, instead of something that reminds you of Sonic."

Though visually resistant, Shadow eventually relented, signaling this with a grunt to Rouge, rolling his eyes as well.

The bat smiled at that. She pulled Shadow away from the public bathroom, leading him through the crowds of the Windmill Village. A few people stared openly at them- considering that Shadow was chasing after their princess nearly half an hour ago, that checks out.

Eventually, after what felt like walking for hours, Rouge found what she was looking for. She pulled Shadow into a building, talked to a lady lioness at the front desk, and then shuffled Sonic somewhere in the back. From what Shadow saw, it was a public gym, and Rouge forced Shadow into a locker room.

"You're going to shower. You… do know how to, right?"

"I'm not a neanderthal, Rouge."

"Good. Throw away your clothes when you take them off. What kind of- what the hell are you doing?"

Shadow had his jacket and shirt off, showing his torso, including the unexpected large tuft of white hair that was on his chest. He stared at Rouge like she was stupid.

"You said throw these away."

"For the love of…" Rouge rolled her eyes, then covered her face with her patagium, in case Shadow continued what he was doing. "What do you like to wear?"

"I don't know, anything."

"Are you giving me permission to just grab whatever I think would look good on you?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

Rouge left after that. Shadow threw away his clothes and bathed.

It was surreal. He still reached out to Black Doom again and again as he waited for Rouge to get changed, but got no response. He was looking for guidance against Blaze and her friends, but still found nothing waiting for him when he called out to the unknown.

This had been the longest he'd been without Black Doom since… well, probably on the ARK. But he wasn't sure if Black Doom was connected to him when he was on the space colony. Doom only made himself known when Shadow woke up.

Part of him felt a little relieved that Black Doom wasn't following him around, antagonizing him and provoking him, criticizing every little thing he did. It was like a well deserved break… if he wasn't in the Sol Zone for a reason, he would've actually liked vacationing here, like Rouge wanted to.

Deep down, he would've actually genuinely enjoyed it if Rouge was with him on this hypothetical getaway. It was evident that Rouge made Shadow do things that he wouldn't even consider while under the watchful eye of doom- Exhibit A being that Shadow would've genuinely worn these raggedy clothes until his mission was fulfilled without question. The clothes weren't important to Black Doom, so Shadow never thought to change it. Yet here he was, actually changing his clothes for once in his life.

He thought about the jumpsuit he used to wear on the ARK. He remembered that the texture was… not preferred. It felt weird on his hands. He could never really take it off either, he hated that. He was so happy to peel out of it once Black Doom gave him the command to.

Now… here he was, choosing to change his clothes himself. Okay, maybe Rouge forced him, but he had final say on the matter. For the most part.

That brought him back to Rouge. She was strange, a bit quirky, but she wasn't that bad. She usually had Shadow's back out on the field, and she was a competent teammate. Weirdly enough, also, she was the only person to actually… ask about Shadow. How he was doing, what he was feeling. That always freaked Shadow out.

Maria used to do that. So did the professor.

The memory of Maria gave Shadow… mixed feelings. Now that he was away from Black Doom, he was able to properly process it without someone poking around in his head. The memory of Maria being shot, all of it. He remembered the things she said to him- at least what he saw in the visions Black Doom restored to him.

"Don't be what they made you."

Something didn't sit right with Shadow about Maria. She talked about doing good, but in the end… she wanted him to do bad things? Why?

Black Doom said that it was because Maria had lost hope in humanity. But if that were true… why did she save Shadow? Why did she save those scientists? It wasn't adding up.

He felt a wave of cold go across his body. He became acutely aware of his surroundings. Shadow felt himself becoming more and more paranoid by the moment that Black Doom was still out there, watching him.

Was this just a test? Was he failing it by questioning Black Doom?

It was just too much for him to think about right now. He had a mission he needed to do- he had to do it before it was too late.

He found his clothes laid neatly on a bench when he stepped out. He looked it over, seeing what Rouge got him, before getting dressed in a new outfit.

Crimson red track pants, a white undershirt, and white gloves that weren't fingerless this time. The bat had still gone with a jacket look- the jacket Shadow now has on was navy at the bottom, with the top half and sleeves white. The white color block on the top half made a point facing downwards, with a thick red line separating the colors.

Shadow looked himself over, and in the mirror. Maybe the undershirt being white was a bit much… he zipped up his jacket to his neck. All things considered, he did like his new outfit.

After a moment, he slipped out of the locker room to find Rouge there waiting for him on the outside.

"Wow! I really outdid myself." She said, smiling a bit. "You really do clean up nicely, smiles."

Shadow felt something swell inside of him. It wasn't disdain, or annoyance. It was… pride, maybe? He nearly caught himself smiling, but then he was sure the nickname would stay forever, so he shut that down immediately.

"Thanks."

"Alright, now that that's out of the way…" Rouge walked up to him. "I asked around. They say anyone who would be willing to find out where Blaze and her friends went would probably be in the Rusted Stern."

"Rusted Stern?"

"It's a tavern at the end of the marina. How about we hit it up, ask around, see if we can find anything?"

"It's the only lead we've got, so it's not like we have any other choice. Let's go."

---

The further north the SS Hyper-Marine went, the colder it got. Soon enough, it was snowing.

Blaze and her friends had been nice enough, at least in their opinion, to give Doctor Quark her trademark pink-and-teal jumpsuit back as it got colder. She walked out from the head and back on deck with a sigh, happy to be back in her normal clothing.

They had also taken a vote, and decided to let Quark out of her cuffs. She was outnumbered, so if she tried anything then she could easily be stopped. Besides, they were out on the open sea, it's not like she could escape.

As she stood on deck, she spotted Blaze up on the forecastle deck, all the way at the bow of the SS Hyper-Marine. The princess was doing stretches, her leg up on the side wall of the ship, keeping nimble just in case she had to fight someone again.

Quark made a sour face upon seeing her nemesis, letting out a huff.

"Look at her. Doing those ballet stretches. She probably didn't even do ballet!"

"...she did ballet as a kid." Silver commented, sitting nearby with a copy of Look Not Dead Inside Tri-Yearly. "You're called Doctor Quark. Are you an actual doctor?"

"...that's irrelevant!" Quark replied. "She thinks she's so high and mighty, so much better than everyone else… She doesn't know what it's like. She's never had to help anyone who didn't have a mom or a dad, she's too used to her family coddling her."

"You do realize I'm like, an orphan right?" Silver continued to prod at Quark's logic. "I was left at the castle with no sign of my parents. I grew up alongside Blaze and Tiara."

"She gets her happy life while someone like me has to suffer! It's disgusting."

"Wow ...so you can't like… put this effort and motivation into getting a real job or something?"

"Shut. Up!" Quark hissed at Silver. She walked away from him, going at the far side of the main deck to get as far away from the hedgehog as possible. Silver shrugged and went back to his magazine.

Up on the front deck, Blaze watched out through the snow for anything ahead of them in the water. She finished her stretches, sitting on the edge of the ship with her feet on the deck to watch out ahead of them.

Tiara, having been doing nothing for the entire time they've been sailing, came up on deck and sat next to Blaze, crossing her legs as she sat.

"How're you holding up, Ellie?"

"...I'm alright. The appearance of those people from another world really shook me up more than I thought." The princess replied. "The one I fought against… that hedgehog… he was peculiar."

"Was it that Sonic guy? The one from the Chaos Zone."

"No, it wasn't him. But they look alike. I didn't hand over the emerald because I didn't know who he was… plus he was shady when I asked him about what he wanted it for. I think I heard that bat, the one Sonic was friends with, call him… Shadow?"

"Shadow. Hm." Tiara looked out to the sea. "That bat was named Rouge, if Silver's information is still correct."

"I think so... Do you think they'll follow us out here, Tia?"

"We're headed the furthest point north. Nobody at the marina is crazy enough to follow us this far. We should be safe up here."

"I still can't believe Quark hid this from us."

"Of course she did. It wasn't convenient for her to reveal it until just now, when she could see it too." Tiara shrugged. "Do you think… her being here will ruin anything for you?"

"...I don't know." Blaze replied quietly. "I want these answers so badly, but… I have this bad feeling."

"That Quark is going to screw us over and tried to destroy us?"

"I feel that all the time, Tia. No, I mean I have this feeling that… When I find the answers I want, about Iblis and why he focused on my family, I'll find out that all of this… was for nothing. My entire life being dedicated to Iblis… I'll find out he just randomly chose us."

"I'm sure there's a reason Iblis targeted you and your family."

"And what if it's for a bad reason? What if it's not just because my ancestors stopped Iblis and he's vengeful about it?"

"Then… Well…"

It was evident Tiara didn't have an answer that would soothe Blaze's nerves. She sighed, looking at the princess sympathetically.

"We'll be here for you, Ellie. I promise."

"...okay."

The princess was (mostly) content with that, looking back out at the sea in front of them.

"...where's the Verdant Scepter?"

"Silver's watching it. I didn't want to carry it around the whole time. I think I'm going to leave it on the ship when we get to the water temple."

"If you're sure. We just have to… oh no, MARINE SLOW DOWN THE BOAT!"

The shouting of Blaze surprised everyone onboard. Marine quickly pressed the petal to reverse the thrusters, slowing the boat down. Silver and Quark came aboard the forecastle deck to see what was going on, the princess and Tiara now on their feet.

"What's going on, El?" Silver asked.

"Ice."

"Ice?"

"Ice." Blaze nodded. She pointed out in front of the boat. "The ice is getting thicker. If we keep trying to head forwards and force it with the thrusters, it'll tear the bottom of the ship apart."

"What should we do?" Tiara asked.

"Oh dear. If only we had someone with fire powers that could melt the ice." The sarcasm on Quark's voice was evident, her staring directly at Blaze.

"My fire can't reach this far."

"Then hang off the edge of the deck. Have your little pet psychic do it."

"The snow is so thick, I'll barely be able to see her. I need to see her to hold her."

"Then tie a rope around her and hang her off the edge."

"What?"

"It's the only option. Tie a rope around her waist and let her hang off the bow." Quark replied to Tiara. "You can hold onto it yourselves."

"Are you insane?"

"We need a way to get this ship to go forwards. C'mon, princess… don't you trust me?"

"I'd trust Iblis before you." Blaze paused. "...but we don't have many options."

Though Silver and Tiara both protested, they eventually settled on doing the rope plan- they tied a rope around Blaze's waist and chest, before letting her go off the edge to hang off the bow side of the boat. Tiara kept a tight grip on the rope to make sure Blaze didn't go too far down.

Halfway down the bow, Blaze could see the thick ice below. She rubbed her hands together, and used both of them to blast a powerful stream of pink fire directly downwards. The intense heat of Iblis immediately melted the ice.

"Go ahead, Marine!" Tiara yelled as she saw the colors below.

Marine sailed forwards again. The ship got through the ice with the path that Blaze was making.

They headed forwards more and more. The snow got thicker, the view got denser. Silver moved close to Tiara, putting a hand on the rope- it was so foggy that he could barely see anything. Marine kept her hat down to make sure the snow wasn't in her eyes.

Blaze's eyes were squinted to keep the snow out of her sight. She was firing downwards without any idea where the ice was, as the snow got thicker and thicker as they headed further and further inwards.

Then, suddenly, it all cleared.

It was almost like someone flipped a switch. There was a clear line where the snow just stopped. There was no more ice below them. Blaze blinked a few times, feeling the warm sun on her face. Looking at the water, it was super clear, and she could see the coral below.

Everyone on deck felt it too, the ship passing from the storm into the furthermost point north.

Ahead of them there was an island- Quark had commented that it was given the name "Blizzard Peaks" a long time ago. There was never a name less fitting than that- though the island was mostly made up of a massive mountain, it was a tropical jungle on the island.

On the side of the mountain was a massive opening, leading to a cavern inside.

Blaze was pulled up back on deck to Tiara and Silver. The trio, with Quark still nearby, looked out to the island that was ahead of them.

"What kind of wizardry is this?" Silver spoke first, in awe.

"The water temple is not just the temple of water- it's the temple of ice." Quark said. The protective barrier for the temple, much like the fog of the sky babylon, is a blizzard. It's to keep those unable or unwilling to brave the challenges… out."

Quark turned around to look at Marine across the deck.

"Into the cavern, girl!" She yelled.

Marine's eyebrows furrowed. She saw Blaze turn around, giving Marine a silent nod to tell her to do what Quark asked. The captain rolled her eyes at having to do Quark's demands, turning the ship to head inside the massive cavern.

The inside of the caves were lined with beautiful, iridescent coral. Everyone stared in awe as they entered the cave, the reflective surface of the mystic coral illuminating the cavern for Marine to see where she was going.

They soon reached a dead end.

"...why did you want to go in here again?" Silver asked Quark.

"It's supposed to lead to the temple! The temple is inside!"

"I'm only seeing a wall, Quack."

"QUARK! QUARK!"

"See, that's why we call you that, you're literally quacking."

"I didn't bloody say quack, I said Quark!"

"This accent is really messing me up…" Tiara murmured to Blaze.

The group continued to bicker towards the front. Marine stepped down from the poop deck, where the yoke was located, and hopped down to the main deck. As she did, she noticed something peculiar- some of the corals matched colors.

She tilted her head. Marine slowly crouched down, seeing the corals continue to change colors, eventually matching colors in lines that seemed to curve around.

Marine wasn't low enough to see the whole picture. She looked up at the others.

"Oi! Blaze! Gray! Red! …Quack?"

They were too busy bickering still. Marine huffed.

"Can't hire good crew these days, not even your own mates."

Marine walked to the edge of the deck. She put her hat to the side, and then took off her coat and set it neatly on the side as well. Left in her wetsuit, she put it to good use, and dived off the side of the boat.

Using her control of water to help her through it, the raccoon girl moved herself around to see the different shades of the coral.

More and more lines came into view. She was pulled deeper as she saw what the corals were forming.

The young captain was pushed out of the water and set down on the deck, still hearing the others bickering. Grabbing her hat and coat, the soaking wet Marine walked up the steps to the forecastle deck.

She put her coat and hat in the arms of Silver.

"Hold these, mate."

"Alright. Wait, why are you wet?"

Marine pushed through the others. In an instant, she absorbed all of the water in her body, becoming instantly dry. The absorbed water transformed into energy, and Marine stuck out both her fists. The white-green energy that Marine still knew very little about fired out of her hands and into a part of the wall.

"Marine, what are you doing?"

"Get a hold of your lackeys, princess, she could get us killed!"

Suddenly, Blaze and Quark's impending argument was halted by the entire room shaking.

The corals folded away, revealing a greenish-gold wall of stone under it. The wall split in half and opened slowly, shaking the entire island with it. It revealed a shore inside, a place where Marine could put her ship.

"Strewth! I was hopin' it would do somethin' like that."

"...how did…?"

"The corals are positioned so they make a bullseye in that spot I shot. But I had to see it underwater." Marine replied to Quark. "You're welcome! Now let's get moving."

Now dry, Marine put her hat and coat back on. She returned to the yoke and got the ship going, pulling into the small internal beach.

Blaze spoke (thought?) too soon about there being no ice at Blizzard Peaks. This shore had ice completely lining the walls and ceiling. It instantly became chilly again, though most of the group weren't that cold. Quark was though, because she didn't have fur or anything like that.

They stepped off the boat with a plank leading to the sand. Quark quickly walked across the shore to the back of the cavern, her hand running over the ice.

"The temple should've been this way. The old notes I studied said there was an opening to a downwards staircase."

"Another puzzle, maybe?"

"I dunno mate, the coral doesn't look like it makes any kinda bullseye around there." Marine replied to Tiara, arms crossed.

"Maybe it just froze over."

"In that case… Blaze, get to work."

Blaze growled at Quark's command. She stepped up regardless, rolling her shoulders. She blasted fire forwards, on the wall, illuminating and warming the area instantly. Water started trickling across the sand.

The princess continued to shoot fire on the wall.

Part of her was nervous. They were very, very close to discovering the truth. But the truth could be dangerous… the truth could reveal things that were best left unrevealed.

Blaze kept trying to focus. She's come this far, she couldn't just turn back now. Especially considering those Shadow and Rouge characters were coming after them. She had a feeling that it was completely on sight now, there was little chance of talking- all fighting.

She kept engulfing the wall of ice with flame, lost in thought. Eventually, she was snapped out of it when she saw something inside of the ice.

The princess paused, her flames dying down.

"...Blaze? What's up?" Silver asked.

In response, Blaze created a fireball in her hand. She held it up to the ice.

Through the ice, trapped inside, looking behind itself, was a polar bear. It had on a helmet with horns on it, and Blaze could make out a shield in its hand. It had on fur and metal armor.

"It's… a polar bear."

"Looks like a viking. I think… I can make out more shapes through the ice."

"They must be the locals of Blizzard Peak. Frozen when the walls were frozen." Blaze said. "We should help them."

"Helping a bunch of ferocious viking bears? Yes, please, that sounds fantastic." Quark was being sarcastic. "Use your brain! They could kill us!"

"We need to get here anyways."

Blaze didn't wait for a group vote. She used fire from both hands, molding it around the front polar bear. Eventually, they got his head free first.

"Ugh… Ugh!" The polar bear struggled as it realized it was stuck. "Where am I? Where's… the professor?"

"The what?" Blaze asked.

The polar bear's eyes darted around until it reached Quark. When it saw quark, its eyes narrowed, a growl coming out of its mouth.

"You! There you are!"

Doctor Quark looked around, before realizing it was talking about her.

"Me?"

"Don't play dumb with me! I'll… I'll kill you!"

The ice started to crack and rumble. Blaze stepped back, watching in awe as the polar bear was breaking through the ice.

And that it did. The polar bear broke the ice- not just the ice around him, but it managed to shatter the ice around the other polar bear vikings that were inside of the ice. Those bears had to take another minute to regain themselves, but soon turned around.

"Destroy the professor!" The first viking yelled.

"Oh boy." Quark mumbled. It turned to shouting. "Protect me!"

It was a group of six vikings. The team was outnumbered by two- not counting Quark as a member because she was cowering in fear- but they still had to fight. There was a temple they had to get into.

Blaze ducked a swing from the viking she unfroze first. She tried to kick him, but it was blocked with his shield, swinging it to throw her backwards. Blaze bursted forwards to ram into the bear, knocking him back. The princess tackled the bear and wrestled with him on the ground.

When the other vikings came after the team, Silver reached out and psychokinetically pulled the helmets over the eyes of two of the bears, instantly blinding them. They were dazed and confused, stumbling around and bumping into each other. They got more confused when they touched each other, and eventually started to fight each other instead of Silver. Satisfied, the hedgehog took out his magazine from before to continue reading.

Tiara pulled Quark away from a swipe made by a viking. She was kicking herself for leaving the scepter up on the boat- she glanced over at Silver.

"Hey Sil!" She yelled. "Can you get my scepter?"

"Yeah hold on, lemme just finish this article." The hedgehog licked his finger and turned the page of his magazine, barely paying attention.

"We're gonna die!" Quark exclaimed in fear. Tiara rolled her eyes.

The bear pursuing them slammed his fists onto the ground- the manx pushed Quark out of the way and evaded it. Tiara grabbed onto one of the bear's arms and pulled herself up, kicking the bear across the face with both of her feet. She flipped back off of the bear's arms to her feet, in front of him.

She held her fists up, bobbing between two swings from the bear, before punching with all her might into the bear's snout. The viking cried out in pain, clutching his nose and falling back on his rear end. As he was there, Tiara flipped forwards, bringing her foot down on his head and making a loud CLANG on the helmet, successfully knocking the bear to the ground.

Meanwhile, Marine was fighting two polar bears at once. With her cutlass out, she swung and blocked attacks from the bears she was fighting, slicing against their shields and armor to keep them back.

They got close to the shore. Marine grinned. She sidestepped a punch from one of the bears in time for a stream of water to blast from the beach, hitting that bear directly in the face and forcing him to tumble backwards.

The raccoon swung her sword four times, making an M shape out of dents in the remaining viking's shield. She reached back to touch the outstretched water, absorbing it, and brought her fist back around to punch this viking in the gut. The hydrokinetic energy she created made the punch twice as powerful, sending the big bear flying back from a punch by the teenage captain.

Marine barely had time to react to a giant piece of ice being thrown towards her. She dove to the ground, the ice passing over her and instead finding its mark on the bow of the SS Hyper-Marine.

Hearing the loud noise of ice hitting the ship, Marine scrambled up and looked at her boat- the ice made a scratch in the side.

Fury swelled within Marine. Since her houseboat was destroyed, she swore that she wouldn't let anyone hurt another boat of hers ever again. Not a doctor, not a god, and certainly not a bunch of confused vikings.

She touched the water again to absorb it. She fired a blast of the white-green energy into the ceiling.

"HEY!" She screamed.

Everyone stopped to look at Marine. Blaze, who had her viking in a liontamer leglock, stopped what she was doing, looking at the raccoon alongside the polar bear. Tiara and Quark, along with their vikings, looked as well. So did Silver, who stopped reading with a confused "Huh? What's going on," with his fighting vikings getting their helmets off to see the captain. Even the viking Tiara knocked out was up, rubbing his nose but paying attention to Marine.

"You… slagging—"

Blaze, Silver and Tiara covered their ears immediately. They had only seen a rage like this once in their lives, involving Marine- it was when her cricket team didn't win the Soleannan Kingdom Championships. They learned then just what kind of language this raccoon picked up from the docks- words that had been learned from many sailors, everywhere.

They didn't hear anything, but they saw how absolutely furious Marine was. Her mouth was moving quickly, yelling out curse words that would best be left to the imagination. The faces of the vikings, and Quark, all changed more and more, becoming horrified, shocked, a bit angry at times, but in the end absolutely blown away.

Eventually, as Marine was calming down, the others uncovered their ears.

"...PIECES OF WHALE VOMIT!" Marine finished, stomping her foot. "All a'you, over here, RIGHT NOW!"

The vikings were hesitant, but eventually walked over and stood in front of Marine.

"Sit down!"

At her command, the vikings all sat on the sand.

"We're gonna find this temple. When we're done, all of you drongos are gonna buff out that scratch, and refinish my ship!"

The vikings were silent.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

Hesitantly, the group of ferocious polar bears went "Yes cap'n."

"Good!"

Marine stomped off, sheathing her sword and dusting off her hands, still frowning.

"That… was spectacular, stripes." Tiara commented first.

"Bludgers think they can scratch my ship…"

"That was very impressive, Marine." Blaze added.

"Yeah, yeah. Let's just find a way to get into this temple so we can get our info and get the heck outta here." Marine looked back at the vikings. "...you know, they really held their own in that fight. I'm kinda impressed."

Silver floated over to the ice that remained, wanting to see if he could break through. As he ran his hand over the ice, trying to see through it… eventually, he saw something inside.

"Uh… hey guys, come look at this."

The group joined Silver to look at the remaining wall of ice, the part of the ice that the bears were facing. There was something left inside of it.

It was something none of them had ever seen before. It wasn't a person like Blaze, or the others (a Mobian, if you're from the Chaos Zone) it looked more like Quark. This person had blue skin, however, which was a bit deterring. They saw this person's red hair, a similar shade to Quark's, which was stuck up above his head. He had on small glasses which fit just right on his nose. He had a white and blue jumpsuit, which almost looked like a lab coat… and also looked similar to Quark's jumpsuit.

Behind the ice, frozen in a scream of terror… was a human man.

---

The Rusted Stern was fairly busy this time of the day. Pretty much at the very end of the village, it was the furthest reach away from the Castle Agni that was possible on Soleanna.

Because of that, it was an allegedly popular spot for anyone who wasn't necessarily the biggest fan of the princess and her friends, especially after they had a long day because of them.

Shadow and Rouge were able to step in with little attention drawn to themselves. They reached a table and sat down in the corner of the tavern, surrounded with full tables.

They sat in silence for a few moments. A band nearby was playing some contemporary jazz, something Shadow had never heard, and something Rouge hadn't heard in a while.

"So how are we going to do this?"

"I'm not sure. These guys seem like… very ordinary people." Rouge replied. "Are we sure this is the right place?"

"Why are you asking me? You had the information in the first place."

"Okay, okay, let's just take a break." The bat leaned back in her chair. "We'll ask the waitress! She has to know something."

The waitress set two glasses on the table.

"Excuse me," Rouge spoke softly. "Do you know anything about tracking someone?"

"Nope." The waitress answered immediately. "You two ready to order?"

"…no, we need a minute."

The waitress left without another word.

"…well, that was interesting." Shadow commented.

"She didn't have to answer that fast." Rouge added. She sipped her water. "What now? What do you think?"

"I think we scope out the place and find someone who is the most likely candidate to find the princess."

"Isn't that judging a book by its cover?"

"We're swiftly running out of options."

After a second, Rouge shrugged a little and nodded as if to hesitantly agree. They sat in silence again, the two of them now looking out into the tavern.

Rouge was right, these people looked… very casual. Not a single flashy and/or ripped piece of clothing in sight. They all looked like average joes.

Shadow turned his head to look around the tavern. It was a little more obvious than Rouge, but hey, he only had a single eye to work with here.

He was getting more aggravated by the second. Eventually, he spoke.

"This live music is horrible."

"Ugh, I know right? Who likes contemporary jazz?" Rouge said, as if waiting for him to say that. "And in a tavern? What kind of atmosphere is supposed to be going on here?"

"I feel very confused and very disturbed." Shadow deadpanned.

"Like, I love saxophone. A good sax riff? That's the vibe I wanna put off. But this is not the place for it."

"What kind music would you recommend for a place like this then?"

"I dunno, folk music?"

"Sure would match the vibe. That's another thing I don't like, what the heck is with this decor? It's like if rustic and log cabin had a baby- but they didn't do it the biological way, they just tried taping baby doll parts together and bringing it to life."

"Franken-rustic."

"That's a good word for it." The bat nodded. "Not even an influencer would try to make this an aesthetic. These vibes are disgusting, I want to clean out my eyes with this water, and I feel like I need financial compensation for even being here."

"Maybe we should bring the ARK to this zone and have it just destroy this tavern."

"No, because why would we get the key to the city for that?" Rouge said, smiling in amusement. "The princess would be so confused why her attackers are national heroes."

Shadow grunted- but this time it was a grunt in amusement. He sipped his water.

"Since we're on the topic of things we like…" Rouge said after a second. "You brought up Lost Impact last night."

"Yeah? So?"

"I didn't know you liked that band. Seems really your style, but you don't really seem like a music guy."

"I haven't really sat down to listen to any music since I started working with the doctor." Shadow replied. "You mentioned albums. That they had albums, multiple."

"Yeah, they have seven albums. I'm surprised you didn't know about that, since you said you like them."

"I haven't heard any Lost Impact in… a long time." The hedgehog said, reserved. "I didn't even know they had more than one album. Is their new stuff good?"

"Eh, you know, it depends on what you like. Vocals are still the same, but they changed guitarists after album four. I like the first four because the guitar sounds the best."

"I've only really listened to the first one. My favorite song is on that one: Never Turn Back."

"Never Turn Back?" Rouge scoffed with a smile. "That's my favorite song too! I love that track. Got me through… a lot of hard nights."

"Yeah, me too."

It was quiet between them for a few moments. Rouge rubbed her finger along the rim of her glass idly, looking into it. She sighed.

"Okay, I think we should call it." The bat said. "We need to find a different way to find that boat. What was it called? The SS Hyper-Marine?"

"Did you just say the SS Hyper-Marine?"

The table right next to theirs, closest to Rouge, all turned to look at the pair. Sitting there was a canine, a procyon, and an ursine. All of them were fairly wet from the swim they took in the docks that morning.

"Uh, yeah. Who's asking?"

"Someone who wants to know why you want to find it." The ursine said, narrowing her eyes at them.

"We need to find the princess. That includes her friends."

"Like the captain of the ship?"

"Yeah, most likely."

"Are you gonna hurt her? The captain?"

"I mean, if we really have to… she is like, ten years old."

The ursine stared at them for a moment. She looked around, back at her buddies, then leaned in towards the dark duo, talking low.

"There's this guy who sleeps at the end of the docks, where the marina becomes a wharf. Says he has a score to settle with that little brat." The ursine said. "Now my friends and I are more bark than bite, I'll say that much. But if you're really looking to find that little twerp, he's your best bet."

"What's he look like?"

"You'll know when you find him. He's green."

Shadow and Rouge looked at each other. Settling on that info, they both got up and left, leaving their half-empty glasses behind.

They walked along the marina, heading further and further down until the docks disappeared, and boats were moored to the wharf created. There were nets and piles of fish that were placed where docks met wharf.

The pair walked further into the area of many fish. They could feel eyes on them, but they weren't sure where.

"Hello?" Rouge called out. "Is anyone there?"

Silence.

"Who's askin'?" Called the shadows.

Rouge side-eyed Shadow, who met her gaze the same way. She called out again.

"Someone who may be able to help you out with your problem. About the Hyper-Marine?"

There was a moment's pause. Suddenly, whirring and footsteps were heard, almost like an animatronic stepping towards them. The shadows left the figure, illuminating him in the midday sun.

His green paint was chipped, having not been touched up in a while. The top of his head was shaped like a torpedo, with red and yellow eyes tucked just underneath it.

"You're wastin' your breath." Johnny said. "You don't have anything of use for me. I can already tell you where they are."

"We're not here to provide information. We're here to provide assistance, in exchange for assistance." Shadow replied.

"Assistance? I don't need help. I'm the fastest thing on the planet, I can handle myself."

"That's why you're holed up here and not chasing after the princess and her pals then, eh?"

"Watch your mouth, girl."

"Listen, my friend and I are very trained professionals." Rouge continued. "You don't need any help dealing with them, sure. But I know you can't handle them all at once."

"What're you saying?"

"Let us help. We can take on at least two while you get what you want. No harm, no foul, right?"

"Heh. Nice try. But I don't—"

Johnny narrowly dodged a projectile that was fired to him. The chaos spear hit the pile of fish behind him and made it collapse. Shadow, his hand still outstretched, stared at Johnny.

"You're pathetic." Shadow said. "You hide here all alone wishing you could do something about the princess and her friends. You have the speed, and the skill. How about you get off your pity horse and do something about it?"

Johnny was silent for a moment. The android soon let out a chuckle from his speakers.

"I like you." He said. "…alright then, sure. Come with me."

Johnny turned and walked away. The pair followed closely.

"…pity horse?" The bat murmured to her companion.

"Is that not the expression?"

"I think you have some mixed up, smiles. We'll work on it."

They got to the end of the wharf, where a dinghy was tied to a moor. Johnny crouched down and started untying it.

"Name's Johnny by the way." The android said.

"I'm Rouge. This is Shadow. What's your deal with the princess and them?"

"I used to run with a crew of pirates a while back. I was the right hand to a legendary captain. Then, the princess and some raccoon girl fight us one day, and the captain goes missing. That raccoon girl gets the ship my old captain stole with his own two hands… that ain't gonna fly with me."

"Are you sure you'll be able to find the princess and her crew?" Shadow asked.

"Sure can." Johnny turned his head and tapped the edge of his eye. "I got GPS tracking on me. I can locate the ship and take you right to her. Hop on in, and we can get going."

Shadow was in first. He offered a hand to help Rouge in next, and the pair sat down in the dinghy.

Johnny tied the boat's rope, attached to the dinghy's bow, around his waist. Right after, he jumped in the water.

"Hold on. It's gonna be fast."

Johnny soon took off across the water. The boat was pulled along, ripping through the ocean as Johnny started heading north to find the boat that his captain once led.

---

"Brrr… Sank you so much, my friends!"

The German accent was probably the last thing anyone in Blaze's group expected when this mysterious blue man opened his mouth. It wasn't too thick, but it was there, and a lot of his words became different words due to his pronunciation.

The polar bear vikings were still sitting around, under watchful eye and command from Marine. She was very pleased at the development that they all listened to her- they must have been in shock and awe of Marine's power. Or how someone that small is that foulmouthed.

Blaze paced back and forth in front of the blue man, who was sitting on a barrel brought from the ship, with a blanket around his shoulders. Blaze had heated up some black tea that Marine had onboard, so the human man was sipping that.

Quark hadn't left the human man's side since he was unfrozen. She stood right beside him, looking at him from time to time, almost like an amazed child seeing a Mall Santa for the first time after hearing so much about him. This guy wasn't some weirdo scientist from another dimension, this was a human from this dimension!

The princess soon stopped. She turned to the human man. She took a deep breath.

"I'm so sorry, I forgot my manners." She said calmly. "I'm Princess Blaze Agni, of Soleanna."

"Her real name's Elise the Third."

"Elise Agni the Third? Vell, that clears up if I've been in zat ice for longer san a year! When I was around, sere was only vun Elise!"

"My grandmother, then?" Blaze hummed. "May I ask, what is your name?"

"Oh, ya! Sorry!" He put the cup aside and stood, holding his hand out. "I am Professor Dinglehopper von Schlemmer! It is so nice to meet you!"

Blaze shook his hand, but blinked after a second.

"I… wow, what a name."

"Oh, ya. It vas my grandmother's name."

"It's a beautiful name." Quark interjected. "Tell me everything that's ever happened in your life, ever."

"No." Blaze said quickly. She turned back to Schlemmer. "Why were you in the ice?"

"Because zee vikings vere attacking me."

"Why were the vikings attacking you?" Silver looked over at the group of bears.

"You heard the bloke, answer 'im!"

"Because we needed to." A polar bear quickly spoke up at Marine's command. "We just… needed to."

Schlemmer clicked his teeth a few times, shaking his head and putting his hands on his hips.

"It is not zheir faults, hmm? They vere coerced into doing zee bidding of someone most sinister. But I have zee feeling sat is not vat you all vant."

"Is that sinister person here with us?" Tiara asked.

"No, no, he is not."

"Then you're right!" Quark said. "Look, they want to ask you about some kind of bloody boring gem, whatever. I want to know about you!"

"Zere is not much to say, dear. I am just your standard scientist." He smiled at her. "Have we met? You seem very familiar."

"We definitely haven't met. You're the first human I've ever seen!"

"Very interesting. The last human I remember vas a vee little baby." Schlemmer's face slowly dropped. "Goodness, and how long I've been gone… I'm so sorry, you all vere asking me something important."

"Mostly what you're doing here. You're frozen in a cave fighting polar bears? That's sick as heck, man." Silver said. "How'd you get frozen mid-fight?"

"Zee tides! Zee barrier I made to block off zis cavern also means that when ze vater rises, it really rises." Schlemmer replied. "Zis is not only the Gaia Temple of vater, but also the one of vinter. So zere is always an influx of cold coming from zee inside."

"I'm sorry, the what temple?" Blaze asked.

"Zee Gaia… oh dear… whoopsie! Zat isn't right. You all don't call zem zat here." Schlemmer shrugged. "But anyway! I can explain vye I'm here, but I request we go deeper into zee temple so I can retrieve my sings. Zey must be so dusty by now…"

The professor walked to the spot where he was frozen. He put his hand on the dark ice right behind where he was standing.

"Can someone break down zis ice, please?"

"I can melt it."

Blaze stepped up, the professor moving out of the way. The princess unleashed a heavy blast of fire from her hands, burning down the ice and revealing stone stairs behind the wall of frost, headed downwards.

"Sank you! Let us continue on."

Blaze and her friends looked among each other. The princess decided to head in first, quickly followed by Silver and Tiara.

Marine turned to the vikings.

"Oi! You drongos keep and eye and ear out!" She said. "Yell down to us if you see any ships or weird things approaching!"

The vikings nodded. Marine left, satisfied, heading down the stairs.

As Quark entered the stairwell, her arm was touched by Schlemmer. She slowed down, walking beside them as they slowly descended.

"Excuse me." The professor said. "I am so sorry to be rude, but you do look familiar to me. How old are you?"

"Well, it's very rude to ask a lady her age."

"You look young." He continued. "Your hair… zat shade is zee exact shade as mine. And your eyes… it matches mine! You even wear spectacles like I do!"

"I'm… I'm confused at what you're getting at."

"…before I vas frozen, I… I made a device sat would save someone who vas very near and dear to me." Schlemmer continued, stopping. Everyone else stopped as well. "I sought I vould only be frozen for a little under a year, but… it vas much longer san expected."

Schlemmer twiddled his thumbs around, silent for a moment, before speaking.

"You said your name is Bernadette. Vere did you get zat from?"

"…it was on the blanket wrapped around me when I was a baby. It was—"

"A pink and teal blanket, knitted like a quilt." Schlemmer continued for her. "Bernadette was in big letters on one edge."

"How do you know that?"

"Because… I made zat blanket." Schlemmer put a hand on his chest. "Bernadette… you are… you must be… I am your father."

Quark was speechless. Blaze and her friends looked among each other at this sudden development for this man they just met.

"…you're… oh, my lord." Quark took off her glasses.

Schlemmer stood there awkwardly, still, before he leaned in and hugged her. Quark was still shaken, but soon hugged him back.

"I can't… I can't believe it." She said as she pulled away. "You're… you're my daddy!"

"Okay, now it's weird." Silver commented.

"You're the one making it weird!" Quark immediately barked at him.

"How is this…?" Blaze asked, looking at Schlemmer. "This is a heck of a coincidence."

"Vell, for all intents and purposes, Bernadette and I are zee only humans on zee planet." The professor replied.

"How're you blue and she's not?" Marine asked.

"Watch your mouth, you little rodent!"

"Bernadette, please." Schlemmer kept her back. "It's a natural response. I'm surprised you all have kept it in zis far. The simple answer is zat I do a lot of dangerous experiments and test them on myself… sometimes zey do crazy things, like make me turn blue. Luckily I kept zat gene out when I made Bernadette."

"Made?"

"Not in… zee physical sense." Schlemmer frowned. "I do not like… being physical. I do not like anyone at all, actually. I am only married to science! However, it's an abstract concept, and it cannot have children… I've always vanted children, and so I made vun myself, using my own DNA!"

"Like a clone?"

"Ya, exactly!" The professor nodded to Silver. "I simply changed a few genes to make sure she vasn't blue, and made her sex to female." He paused, then turned to Quark again to murmur to her. "Do you identify as female?"

"Oh! Yes, yes I do. You're good."

"Fantasticks!"

They carried on, walking down the steps of the temple. They passed down many, many, many floors of the temple, down a winding staircase leading to the bottom. The light surprisingly reached all the way down through the ice, illuminating the place.

There were many open floors. Along the way, they kept talking to the professor.

"So if she's your daughter, how come the quack sounds like that?" Marine asked.

"Zat is most likely because zee AI program I had in her raft system had zee same accent. She must have picked it up as she was being raised." Schlemmer frowned. "My, I've missed so much… your entire life."

"It's okay, daddy. It's all in the past."

Blaze and her friends made a face at this grown woman referring to her father as "daddy" still. She was also a psychopath, so maybe she could get a pass just this once.

"Wait, if you're Professor von Schlemmer, where the heck did "Quark" come from?" Tiara asked.

"Vell… I'm not sure. I tried to put zee entirety of her name, Bernadette von Schlemmer, on zat blanket she had. However, I ran out of thread before I could finish past her first name."

"I'm somehow not shocked."

"Then why is your last name Quark?" Blaze ignored Tiara's comment to look back at Bernadette.

"…Quark's a cool last name."

After a second, Blaze's team all reluctantly started agreeing with their team's sworn nemesis.

They finally reached the bottom after that. The bottom floor was a big empty room, but through the light shining through they could make out a few large objects.

The professor left his daughter's side, walking to a corner close to the room. He patted a large squared device, trying to find something… when he did, he yanked on it hard.

The generator rumbled to life as the professor used the pull starter. One row at a time, the lights lining the walls turned on, further illuminating the room.

Professor von Schlemmer smiled, rubbing his hands together as he looked around.

"Ah, how I've missed zis. Even if I didn't know it!"

The newly illuminated contraptions caught the interest of the group. Silver looked at a snowmobile, Tiara saw a now completely defunct computer, and Marine found a frozen over sleeping bag.

Quark picked up a device, one that looked like a cannon. The side had glass on it, but it was frozen over. The doctor ran her hand over the frost, looking inside to see a sea green crystal inside.

"What is this?"

"Ah! Zat is a cannon for zee Power of zee Stars. I have zee crystal from zis temple, zee Tidal Crystal, inside. It's how I managed to travel between dimensions- it fires ze energy of zee Power of zee Stars, and can open portals to other worlds. I'll take zat."

The professor took the cannon from his daughter, putting the strap over his body so it rested on his back. He patted Quark's head, smiling at her.

Blaze walked up to one in the middle of the room- it looked like a pedestal, with a hole at the top.

"Zat is our laser. You place a power source at zee top, and zee laser drains the object and creates a laser to try and dig through the ice. We haven't found anything strong enough yet."

"Why would you want to dig… through… the ice… Sweet Solaris…"

Looking down, Blaze saw her answer through the ice. It was a massive monster, a giant squid, purple and blue with yellow rings across its body. Though she could tell it was a squid, part of the body and tentacles had been replaced with robotic augmentations- making it a cyborg.

Professor von Schlemmer stood next to Blaze, shaking his head as he looked down at the imprisoned squid.

"Zee remnants of a monster. A Ghost Kraken, if you vill. Zat's vat we used to call it", He said. "I had been trying to free it, but I had feared it vasn't long for zis vorld. Unfortunately for me, as I vas gone so long… hm."

"…that technology used on it is incredible." Quark said. "Is that from humans too?"

"Yes. Yes it vas." Schlemmer looked grim when he said that. Almost full of regret.

Blaze was disturbed, but being disturbed got her back on track of why she was even there. She shook her head and turned to face the professor.

"Professor von Schlemmer. Is there anything you can tell me about this?"

Blaze summoned the Chaos Emerald from her body, letting it rest in her palm.

"Ah! Is zat a Chaos Emerald?"

The room immediately fell silent.

"You… know about this?"

"Oh, ya."

"How much?"

"A lot."

"Then… would you be able to tell me about… if they have a connection to the Sol Emeralds? The ones of this world?"

Blaze summoned the turquoise Sol Emerald into her other hand to show the similarly colored gems to the professor.

"Oh yes, zey are very connected."

"How?"

"Vell, it varies from person to person, but zee common hypothesis that I subscribe to is zat… vhatever created both Solaris and Chaos, it made sem to be zee polar opposites of vun another. Hence vater and ice vith Chaos and sun and fire vith Solaris, and so on. But fundamentally, say are zee same. Because say are so closely linked, say are connected via quantum entanglement! Zis stretches out, even across dimensions. As a result, zee emeralds are kind of the same. Chaos and Solaris are two sides of zee same coin, zeir emeralds similarly two sides of a magnet. Both sets of gems created from zee anger of sohse gods."

"Of… Solaris? I thought the Sol Emeralds were connected to Iblis."

"Zey are!" Schlemmer smiled, pointing past Blaze.

The princess slowly turned. There was something on the back wall of this floor, something she couldn't make out from afar. She walked to it slowly, it coming into view as she got close.

It was a mural. The drawing was blocky and simplistic, but Blaze could get it out. On one side, there was a purple cat- she could tell from the ears and tail. It wasn't Blaze though, as this cat very long hair. It's arm was outstretched.

Beside it was a being of all black, with what may be… tentacles, on the top of its head? It was unclear what exactly it was. It also had its arm outstretched.

On the other side was Iblis. Blaze recognized it- it was the hostless true form of Iblis. In the center of its chest, however, was a smaller drawing. Blaze had only seen a drawing like this a few times, and every time it meant the same thing- the form of the sun god Solaris.

In the middle was a halo made of the emerald-cut gems known as the Sol Emeralds. A beam was coming out of Iblis' mouth, fired directly at the emeralds, but clearly not destroying them.

Blaze looked at the Sol Emerald in her hand. After a second, she turned it back into energy and stored it inside her form.

"What is this?" Silver asked the professor. Blaze's friends had gathered behind the princess while she looked at the mural.

"Zee past! Zee genesis of zee Sol Emeralds, as you called zem. Very catchy name, by zee way."

"What… is happening?"

"I'm glad you asked! You see, centuries ago…"

"Wait, wait, stop." Tiara said, rubbing her eyes. "Professor von Schlemmer, I'm sorry. I can handle a small explanation, but I really cannot handle hearing a full five minute backstory from you."

"How dare you! My father is a bloody genius, and you'd be lucky to hear anything longer than a few paragraphs—"

"No no, I understand Bernadette. I get zat a lot." The professor nodded, still smiling. "No hard feelings. Does anyvun have a notepad I can write on?"

"Actually, I have a better idea." Silver spoke up. "I have some telepathic power… I can read your mind and tell the story myself. If that's okay."

"Oh, ya! Zat sounds phenomenal! Go on!"

Silver stepped in front of the professor. The hedgehog put his hands on the sides of his head, feeling his quills raise beneath us fingers as his body glowed with psychic energy. He scanned Schlemmer's mind.

"Many centuries ago, when Soleanna was still new…" Silver spoke. "Humans and native Soleannans- the evolved animals- lived in harmony. But that all changed when they discovered the fire temple on prehistoric Soleanna. The temple held the Jeweled Scepter, the first artifact they discovered that could control the Power of the Stars, a primordial energy that they soon discovered was able to harm the god of their world.

"Solaris, still involved with the living beings of Sol at that point, was tricked by the humans and native Soleannans, imprisoned within a pocket dimension with the Power of the Stars to keep her there, so the living beings on Sol could use her heat and power for their own reasons. Solaris was enraged by this trickery, and sprung from her came Iblis- the personification of fury and negative emotion. Iblis laid waste to Soleanna as a reckoning for what the living did. Solaris, after being freed, left Sol with the intention to never return.

"From the haze, an ancient feline warrioress- Afroza Agni, seen on the mural- set out to find a way to defeat Iblis. She teamed up with Onyx- a hedgehog warlock with psionic abilities, seen beside her on the mural- to use the ancient Power of the Stars from the temples around the world in order to find a way to even the playing field. Using this energy, they managed to open a portal to a different world entirely. Not Earth, not Sol, but something… special.

"Afroza and Onyx were visited by humanoid, twin crystalmancers from this world. They managed to convince these twins to create seven brilliant emeralds for them, more beautiful than anything they'd ever seen before.

"Afroza used these emeralds as seen on the mural- she goaded Iblis into a fight and tricked the god into infusing its own energy into the emeralds, imbuing them with the fire and power of Solaris. Afroza empowered herself with these emeralds, becoming a burning warrioress who managed to weaken Iblis. Onyx, using the Power of the Stars, imbued Iblis with enough energy to revert him into an infantile state. They imprisoned the little Iblis in the land below Soleanna.

"After the fight, Afroza went on to become the first queen of the new Soleanna, her bloodline forever tied to Iblis due to her use of the new Sol Emeralds. Onyx, however, became insane with the omnipotence the Power of the Stars gave him. He burned bridges with Afroza, and decided that humans weren't allowed on Sol. He started a fellowship: the Onyx Groupmind, a group of fellow psychic beings, and started imprisoning any human they could find. As a result, humans used the Power of the Stars to escape to other dimensions.

"When I… er, when Professor von Schlemmer still had an infant daughter, he returned to study the Ghost Kraken that was inside this cave. However, he was alerted that the Onyx Groupmind were on their way to him. He had the infant Bernadette sail away to safety on a raft, but was unable to get away from the mind-controlled vikings… and here we are today."

Silver powered down, blinking a few times after he was finished.

"If I knew zat I vould miss my dear daughter growing up, I vould have never come back in zee first place." The professor took Bernadette's hand, looking at her with sad eyes. "I vould do anything to get a second chance vith that. But… vat can you do?"

"I can name one thing I could do right now." Quark let go of her father's hand.

She turned to Blaze and her group, before leaping forwards and pointing directly at Blaze's face, making the princess lean back from the intruding finger.

"I TOLD YOU SO!" Quark yelled so loud it echoed throughout the entire temple. "Your kind is responsible for humans leaving! Your kind were the ones who caused this world to be awful! It's all of you, never humans!"

"We never said humans did any of that!" Tiara replied to her, pushing her hand from Blaze's face. The manx was stopped with a hand on her shoulder- Blaze, who looked dejected and deep in thought.

The princess walked past Quark to look at Schlemmer directly.

"This is really what happened?" She asked him. "All of it. All of that is true?"

"Yes, I can confirm." The professor nodded. "Vee had historians confirm it. I think perhaps the history may have been a little different for the royal family though."

"It was." Blaze said. She turned from everyone else, taking a few steps. "All these years… I was fighting against Iblis. I was told that Iblis was the end all, awful being that wanted to destroy Soleanna… but that was because we forced Solaris to create it as repentance for our own selfish nature. It haunted my bloodline… It nearly destroyed Soleanna… because of us."

It was quiet in that room. Silver, Tiara and Marine looked to one another, all equally as concerned for the princess in that moment. Professor von Schlemmer had his hand on his chin, his eyebrows furrowed, thinking over what Blaze was thinking. Quark stood with her arms crossed, grinning widely at the despondent princess, smug about this development.

"Hey cap'n!" The voice of a viking was heard at the top of the stairs. "We got a boat up here!"

"Oh slag, really?" Marine looked at the others. "C'mon then, let's go!"

Everyone, including Professor von Schlemmer, rushed out of the bottom room to the stairs. Blaze stood still, watching everyone leave, feeling the cold Chaos Emerald still in her hand.

As she passed, Tiara stopped, turning around to look at Blaze directly. She took the princess' hand and pulled her along, forcing her out of the room to the top. Blaze looked at the Chaos Emerald before putting it in her side bag.

The ship that had arrived in the coral cave was another massive, regal ship. This time it was identifiable- King Cyrus had sent out a crew of koalas to look for his daughter. The plank extended out and hit the sand of the coral beach. Many koalas were holding spears, pointed directly at the polar bears, who were holding their shields and growling.

"Whoa, whoa, stand down!" Silver yelled as he got out. "They're friendly! Both of you, the other side are full of friendly people!"

"Listen to the man. Stand down."

Cyrus walked across the sand, his cloak making it seem like he was gliding. The koalas reluctantly put their spears down.

"Put those shields down, boys. They're friendlies."

At Marine's command, the polar bears eased up. The raccoon grinned- she was really starting to like how they were following her commands.

"How did you find us?"

"I always know where my daughter is. Where is she?" Cyrus asked Silver. His eyes trailed over to the blue-skinned human man that was standing nearby. "...who is this?"

"Ah! I am Professor Dinglehopper von—"

The professor was interrupted by Blaze, who had just gotten to the top, shoving past him. She stood right in front of her father, starting him right in the eyes.

"Did you know?" She asked.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Did you know about Iblis?" The princess asked. "That he was just the fury of Solaris? That he was made because the people of Soleanna were greedy, horrible people? That the thing I've been told to worry about my entire life is just the consequence of the hubris we had back then? Did you know?!"

Cyrus' eyebrows were raised. After a minute, his face relaxed, his eyes immediately growing tired. He looked almost apologetic. Blaze knew the answer, but Cyrus said it anyway: "Yes."

Blaze shook her head slowly. She felt almost like crying, but she wasn't going to. The princess looked hurt, betrayed at the development, stepping away from her father.

"All of this… everything I did, it was just… based on a lie." She said, staring with disbelief at her father. "My entire life was dedicated to Iblis… My life was thrown away because of the actions of my ancestors."

"Look on the bright side." Quark had leaned in, holding Blaze's shoulders and smiling at her. "You finally realize the truth. And you know what they say… the truth shall set you free!"

Quark chuckled for a minute, before laughing aloud, pulling away from Blaze. The princess took a deep, shaky breath. Then, she turned away and ran.

"Blaze!" Silver shouted.

Blaze bursted forwards, out of the caves, sprinting away. Quark kept laughing.

"Ellie, wait!" Tiara said, stepping forwards. She was stopped by Cyrus, however.

"I'll go to her." He said. "I should have gone a long time ago. You all stay here."

Cyrus quickly rushed away, following the same path that his daughter went. Quark's laughter slowly died down, and she sighed happily after she calmed down. Professor von Schlemmer looked at his daughter, bewildered.

"I sure hope she is alright."

"I don't!" Quark said cheerily after her father spoke.

While Blaze's friends, the koalas, the polar bears and even her father were distracted with Blaze's sudden exit, Quark turned away to head to the stairs. She kept chuckling under her breath, pulling into her jumpsuit and taking out the cyan Chaos Emerald- she had taken it from Blaze while the princess was distraught.

She had a plan- she knew what she needed to do. Now, with the princess all mopey, she had a chance to put her sudden plans in motion. Still holding the Chaos Emerald, Quark descended the stairs and headed towards the bottom.

On the beach, Tiara, Silver and Marine stood amongst one another quietly.

"Poor Ellie." Tiara said. "Her whole world must be coming down."

"I don't get what she's upset about." Marine said. "So what if Soleanna was the reason Iblis is out? She's still a big hero. She still punches and kicks all kindsa hoons across the world."

"Blaze's life was dedicated to Iblis, ever since she was a girl." Silver turned to Marine. "She did a lot of things in the name of defending the world from Iblis, but all this time the family just said that this was a burden for the family to bear. But that burden was because of the country she protected in the first place."

"But that's just the thing, gray. Shouldn't she be happy that she put Iblis away? I mean, don't get me wrong, I would be angry if my entire schtick was based on a lie, but… she got rid of Iblis. Twice. The second time being permanent."

"It's the principle of the thing, stripes." Tiara crossed her arms, looking at where Blaze disappeared. "She wanted things to make sense… but she never expected the cause of Iblis to be what she swore to protect."

"I guess. I just hope that… Wait a tick… do you blokes hear that?"

There was the whirring of something getting closer and closer. Whatever it was, it was obscured by the two massive ships parked at the coral cave's beach.

"Look!"

From the side of the ship, a dinghy appeared, quickly whipping around to reach the beach. As it slid across the sand to a stop, the two familiar forms of Shadow and Rouge stood up, stepping out from the boat and onto the shore.

Stepping up from out of the water, Johnny let out a chuckle as he got on land, standing alongside Shadow and Rouge.

"Johnny…" Marine growled.

"It's those two again! They're after the Chaos Emerald!"

"Look man, Blaze is really going through it." Silver added to Tiara's statement. "Don't bother her! Can't you just leave us alone for two seconds?"

Rouge's treasure tracker came down over her eye.

"...the Chaos Emerald is down there." She said, leaning to Shadow and pointing to the open staircase.

"Down zere?" Professor von Schlemmer looked behind him. He then looked around. "Where is…? Oh no… Bernadette!"

The professor quickly scurried down the steps.

"What? Oh, come on!" Tiara said. "Ugh, of course Quark took the emerald!"

Rouge and Shadow rushed forwards, passing by the distracted Silver and Tiara. They were clearly both knighted for a reason, it seemed.

"I never thought I'd say this, but we gotta protect Quark!" Silver said. He used his psychokinesis to bring the Verdant Scepter from the ship to Tiara. He paused for a second before flying off quickly. "I call the hedgehog!"

"No fair, I wanted to fight him!"

Tiara ran with the scepter in her hands, both of them headed down the stairs.

Marine tried to follow, but was grabbed by the back of her collar by Johnny, who lifted her up.

"Not so fast, twerp." He said. "We got a score to settle."

"Unhand her!"

One of the polar bears punched directly into Johnny's body, grabbing Marine and pulling her away from him. The bear set Marine down, the other vikings gathering right behind Marine, all of them clearly ready to fight Johnny.

The android slowly got to his feet, his body whirring as it put anything out of place back to its rightful spot. It faced Marine directly, before gesturing to her with a hand to bring it on.

Marine slowly smiled.

"What's your name, mate?" She said to the one that punched Johnny.

"Norman."

"Norman, you're gonna be my first mate just for that." She turned back to the robot. "Alright crew- attack!"

---

Tiara was the last to enter the temple, and as a result was at the back of the group. She held the scepter in both hands, going down the stairs as fast as she could.

Suddenly, she heard a flapping noise somewhere. Tiara stopped in her tracks, going silent to listen out for that sound.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what Route wanted. She had stayed back in order to lure Tiara into a trap- mostly because she didn't want to fight against Silver again. She was up above, her eyes peering through the shadows and down at Tiara.

The bat soon swooped in after Tiara stilled, swinging down and kicking the manx in the back. Tiara was flung forwards, into one of the large upper rooms of the temple, followed by Rouge. The bat flew over the tumbling guard, swooping around to land facing her.

Tiara had let go of the Verdant Scepter as she fell into the room, but after she regained herself, she dove forwards and rolled over the scepter to grab it. Rouge rushed in, lifting her leg for an axe kick downwards, but was blocked by Tiara holding the scepter up, blocking the leg with the pole of the staff.

Pushing Rouge's leg away, Tiara managed to get on both feet. She jabbed the scepter forwards with both hands like a spear, trying to hit the bat two times but missing, as Rouge was able to sidestep out of the way of both thrusts.

Rouge swung her leg forwards to Tiara, but the manx blocked it with the end of the scepter. The bat had wanted this- she brought her foot down to force the scepter against the ground. However, immediately reacting to this, Tiara twisted the scepter forwards and knocked Rouge with the butt of the staff on the top of her head, forcing her back.

Throughout her life, Tiara had received training in both using a spear and polearm by the guards of Soleanna. This had been done in secret- she didn't want her mother to find out that the princess' lady-in-waiting was learning how to do such regal activities.

Tiara's mother had passed after the manx left the service of Blaze all those years ago. Now she was a knighted guard, and unless her father miraculously decided to give up his studies and actually return to her life, Tiara was free to use her training to her fullest potential- especially as the scepters used by the Angi family (Jeweled and Verdant) were essentially spears themselves.

After getting some distance from the thief, Tiara aimed the Verdant Scepter at her, firing blasts of energy from the Power of the Stars directly at her. Rouge narrowly missed the shots, running away from where Tiara was shooting. She reached into her leg bag, pulling out one of the bat cracker balls and bouncing it to the manx.

It inflated close to Tiara, exploding in front of her and discombobulating the guard from attacking again. Rouge rushed in again, sending a rising knee into Tiara to knock the wind out of her.

Rouge punched Tiara twice, leading it into a powerful shoulder ram into the manx after. When Tiara tried to swing the scepter at her, Rouge stepped on the pole of the polearm and pushed it down to the ground again with her foot. When Tiara tried to bring the butt of the pole to hit her again, Rouge instead caught it, and sent a palm thrust around the arm and directly into Tiara's ribs under her arm.

With the manx disoriented once again, Rouge unleashed a flurry of kicks- she landed a triple kick on Tiara, and finished with a rolling sobat kick into her chest, forcing Tiara back but not off her feet.

Seeing that the guard was still up on her feet, Rouge reached into her leg back to retrieve something else. She tossed a small, gumball sized device at Tiara- one that was black and gray with hearts on it.

This wasn't like the other, concussive cracker bombs. This was an actual detonator, one that could do some real damage. When it exploded in front of Tiara, it was strong enough to send her flying and on her back. Luckily for her, somehow, she managed to hold onto the scepter still.

She used this scepter to get herself up to her feet. This bat and her leg bag were becoming a serious problem. She watched as Rouge took another bat cracker ball from her bag, bouncing it across the ground to hit Tiara again. But this time, she was ready.

As the bat cracker inflated, Tiara quickly swung the scepter like a baseball bat, hitting the inflated bomb and sending it directly to Rouge. The bat was caught off guard, unable to shield herself properly in time before her own concussive bomb went off in her face.

Rouge fell back, barely catching herself before Tiara was coming down with the scepter. The sharp crystal cut Rouge's outer thigh, and tore the front of the leg bag off completely, causing everything from inside it to spill out onto the floor.

After she rolled out of the way, the bat pulled her legs back and kicked Tiara in the side with both of her feet as hard as she could. The manx was sent to the floor, letting go of the scepter and rolling among the spilled supplies from Rouge's ripped bag. The bat was getting up fast, heading to her opponent again as Tiara was getting up.

Spotting Rouge coming for her, the manx knew she had to act fast. She felt the small bombs under her hands as she tried getting up- Tiara grabbed a few of the spilled heart bombs, and threw two handfuls onto the ground. The explosion created by the bombs kicked up a bunch of dust and smoke, creating a haze in the room.

Through the haze of the smoke, she was able to retrieve the Verdant Scepter from the floor. While she was reaching around, however, she discovered something else. It wasn't just bombs that spilled out of the bat's leg bag- she felt something else. Tiara pulled it in closer, enticed as she felt familiar smooth palm wood, and looked it over.

It was a flute. Not just any flute, the mystic flute that was created by Blaze's great-grandmother. Blaze told Tiara she had given it to that girl, Cream… but instead it was here, in Rouge's bag.

Tiara tucked the flute in her pocket, intending to give it back to Blaze later.

Rouge was waving her arms and coughing, the sudden concussive explosion knocking her off her groove. She was doing so well too… figures.

Trailing through the smoke, the bat soon came to a stop as it discovered the hole created in the floor by the bombs that were thrown onto it. It led directly down into the floor below, and it was a far drop from where Rouge was standing.

Not seeing Tiara anywhere nearby, Rouge turned around to walk away.

However, through the smoke right in front of her, Tiara appeared. She burst through the cloud and tackled Rouge head-on, pushing both of them over the edge and into the hole leading to the floor below.

---

Shadow was at the front of the group, heading down the steps quicker than the others. Luckily, thanks to his boots, he was able to skate down the stairs rather than have to actually step down them.

Unfortunately for him, Silver was the same way thanks to his telekinesis.

Before Shadow could reach the bottom, he was tackled from behind by the flying Silver. The two hedgehogs were flung into one of the middle levels of the temple, crashing into the ground of the wide open room and tumbling across the stone.

They both slowly got up, back to their feet. Shadow squinted his eyes, staring at Silver peculiarly.

This gray hedgehog had a lot of chaos energy radiating off of him. Not just off his head, signaling the psychic aspect of his powers, but off his entire being.

That didn't check out though. She could see Princess Blaze, her friend Marine, even their friend Tiara clearly. Why did Silver have this much chaos energy coming off him?

He didn't have much time to question. Silver shot a blast of psychic energy towards Shadow. The dark hedgehog sidestepped away from it, clapping his hands to fire a chaos spear towards the psychic.

Silver flicked his hand, his psychokinesis making the energy projectile change course and hit the wall instead.

The gray hedgehog flew forwards at lightning speeds, already sending out a telekinetic pulse that knocked Shadow back. Silver caught Shadow with a psychokinetic grasp, pulling him along and dragging him along the wall as he flew across the room.

Making it around half the room, Silver swung his arm like he was throwing a ball, sending Shadow flying across the floor. Though he bumbled across the ground, he soon disappeared in a flash of blue as he teleported away.

A psychic vibe gave away where Shadow was going- Silver turned in time to look at the dark hedgehog teleporting in behind him. The psychic, in turn, teleported away himself before Shadow could get a hit on him.

Silver was above Shadow now, using his psychokinesis to grasp the dark hedgehog again and force him downwards into the ground. Shadow was stuck in the telekinetic hold, unable to move- it was… well, it was no use.

He noticed in time that Silver was coming down with both feet to land directly on Shadow. Unable to move, Shadow wouldn't be able to properly react and defend himself from the attack.

Feeling energy sizzling inside of him, Shadow called upon chaos control, warping space around himself to unleash a blast of energy that not only broke the grasp Silver had on him, but also completely shattered the floor he was on.

Shadow teleported away in a flash of blue before Silver could slam down onto him, instead allowing the psychic to slam down onto the floor below them.

The dark hedgehog reappeared in front of Silver, kicking off the psychic's chest with both feet and flying backwards. Silver was pushed back, but stopped himself as he fell backwards with his psychokinesis, lifting himself up off the ground.

Summoning his power, Silver, lifted the rubble from the floor they destroyed and directed it to Shadow. The rocks and ice from the upper floor collided into Shadow, sticking onto his body like it was metal and he was a magnet. Becoming weighed down by the rubble, Shadow slowed until he was completely covered.

Shadow warped space again, using his chaos nightmare move to push all the rubble off of him. A few pieces collided with Silver, knocking him off focus for Shadow to skate in.

When Silver tried bringing his arm around to use his telekinesis again, Shadow grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him in. He used the momentum, putting his hand on the back of Silver's head and moving him out of the way to slam the psychic face-first into the ground.

Grabbing Silver by the back of his shirt, he lifted the gray hedgehog up and threw him back against the far wall of the room.

Shadow was in again quickly, trying to punch Silver but missing the nimble gray hedgehog, instead punching a hole in the stone wall. Silver tried to reach out to Shadow again, but the dark hedgehog snapped his other hand towards the psychic. He created the bubble of warped space, powerful enough to knock Silver back just a bit.

Rushing in again, Shadow landed an actual punch on Silver, then brought his other hand around to launch a chaos spear close to Silver's chest, acting as another hit to the psychic.

The psychic tried reaching out with both hands this time- Shadow grabbed both of Silver's wrists and directed them backwards, forcing the gray hedgehog to hit himself in the face with both of his hands and disorienting him again. While he wasn't focused, Shadow kicked forwards directly into Silver's torso, sending him backwards.

After rolling back and gathering himself, Silver tried to get up but was immediately hit with a chaos spear, making him grunt in pain. Shadow was headed straight for him, skating as fast as he could.

Silver held both hands out, using his ESP to telepathically inject images into Shadow's head. It was the same kind of disorienting images that he put in Rouge's head before- a burning world, the horrors of retail. However, unlike how it overwhelmed and confused Rouge, it did something different to Shadow: it just made him angry.

Glowing red all over, Shadow felt energy and rage swell within him. Silver rushed to attack Shadow before the dark hedgehog could do anything, but it was far too late.

The dark hedgehog unleashed a small chaos blast from his body. It knocked Silver back, and unleashed enough force to shatter the floor once again, sending both hedgehogs down.

As they landed on the next floor, Silver and Shadow were both ready to pick themselves up again. They landed on their feet, and once Shadow was able, he launched himself forwards at high speeds.

He was lucky that he was in a completely different dimension, as well as in a room different from Rouge. What he did next was picked up straight from his lookalike's playbook- Shadow curled into a ball and boosted forwards, homing a spindash directly at Silver.

Silver created a forcefield with his powers, using both hands to keep the barrier at bay. Shadow's spin attack grinded against the barrier, with golden electricity arcing off of his curled up body and hitting every surface of the room, except for Silver.

The psychic was feeling himself getting weaker. He was using his psychokinesis too much- eventually, he would need to rest or replenish himself somehow.

From the grinding of the spindash against his force field, Silver could tell the energy was quickly rising in the room. Shadow spun faster, intent on breaking through the shield with pure power and speed alone.

Instead, from all the power gathered by Shadow, it instead broke through the brittle floors of that room. Once again, the two hedgehogs plummeted to the room below them.

---

Professor von Schlemmer slid as he came to a stop at the very bottom of the temple. He spotted Quark immediately, standing at the back end of the room, her back to the professor, was Quark.

Schlemmer walked across the ice-covered room to reach her.

"Bernadette, zere are hostile people who want to get that Chaos Emerald. You have to give it to me." He held his hand out.

"I can't do that, daddy."

"Young lady, it is not ze time to be facetious! I need zat Chaos Emerald!"

After a second, Bernadette took a step to the side, turning around to face her father. She revealed that the Chaos Emerald was placed in the laser device, using it as a power source.

She had cut a hole in the ice. Now, the laser was firing down into the head of the Ghost Kraken. Instead of cutting through it, however, the skin of the robotic squid was now starting to glow all over.

Schlemmer stepped to the edge of the hole, looking down in shock.

"Vat are you doing, Bernadette?"

"I'm reclaiming what's ours." She replied. "With the power of the Chaos Emerald, I can bring the… you called it a Ghost Kraken? I can bring it back to working condition."

"But… vhy vould you do sat?"

"To get rid of the problem. Them!" She pointed towards the stairs. Quark walked to a nearby table and picked up a wireless control panel for the laser. "They now know the truth. It was their kind that drove humanity out of this world. They deserve to be punished."

"Zose people didn't do anything to us!" The professor argued, following Bernadette. "It vas zee Onyx Groupmind! We cannot blame zem for ze action of a single extremist group!"

Quark turned to her father. She smiled, a genuine smile, and looked almost as if she was going to cry.

"They'll do it again. All of them are just waiting for a reason." She said, still smiling. "This is what's best… I'll get rid of that infernal princess, and her little friends… then, I'll destroy Soleanna."

"My dear, you aren't listening to me!"

"You have nothing to worry about, daddy." Quark replied to him. "When the world is ashes… together, we can go to a new world. One that's free of them. I promise."

Bernadette walked to the edge of the hole that was made in the ice. Schlemmer, in horror, stared at his daughter.

"Bernadette… vat are you going to do?"

The doctor pressed some buttons and twisted some knobs before looking at her father, still smiling.

"Take back what's ours."

With that, she pressed a bigger button on the panel. Suddenly, the laser reversed the direction of the beam it was making. Instead of firing downwards, the power of the emerald pulled the kraken upwards.

The top of the squid's head crashed through the ice right beside Quark. The top of the robotic squid's head opened, revealing the cockpit inside.

Quark stepped inside the Ghost Kraken, the top of the head closing above of her. Soon after that, the squid disappeared, into the waters below the island.

Professor von Schlemmer felt conflicted. He was horrified at what became of his daughter, created with so much hatred towards the princess and her friends.

He didn't know what to do. So he fled.

The professor sprinted out of the room, heading back up the stairs of the temple.

---

Cyrus didn't expect his daughter to be within the jungles of Blizzard Peaks. She was a lot like her mother- when she wanted a place to be alone, she would head to the beach.

Stepping through the brush of the trees and shrubs at the edge of the shore, Cryus found his daughter sitting on the sand, looking to the ocean.

The king was hesitant, but walked over to join his daughter. He took off his cloak, only in his fine clothes to sit next to Blaze on the beach.

The sun was just starting to set. It was beginning to dip behind the clouds of the blizzard that surrounded the island.

"…I don't think I've ever seen anything block a sunset before. It's strange to not be able to see the sun set over the water."

Blaze didn't reply.

Seeing the sun starting to hide behind the clouds, Cyrus eventually turned to look at his daughter directly.

"Elise," He said. "This situation with Iblis… it's much more complicated than you think."

"How could it be, father?" Blaze finally spoke. "Did our people not cause Solaris to make Iblis? Was Schlemmer wrong?"

"He… wasn't wrong. The stories are true, to my knowledge."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I didn't want you to be burdened with that information. You were already dealing with Iblis, and being bullied for your powers. Then your mother died… you already had so much responsibility on your shoulders. You didn't need the world on it, too."

"But it's the truth. We caused Iblis to do… so much damage to this world."

"We didn't do anything. Our ancestors did."

"So we should be absolved of guilt?"

"No, of course not. We need to be better. That's what your mother and I wanted for you. That's what we wanted you to be."

Blaze turned to look at her father, her eyebrows furrowed. Cyrus took a calming breath.

"Your grandmother, Elise the First, she was the one who discovered that the Power of the Stars could transfer Iblis into a new pocket dimension, when using the power in tandem with the power of the Sol Emeralds. But everyone, including your mother, knew this was simply a temporary solution to the issue. She wanted her children to live in a world that could be freed from Iblis' control.

"So she experimented. She tried finding everything she could on what they could do to stop Iblis. She eventually came to one final conclusion: the the Sol Emeralds could possibly contain Iblis within it. As Iblis is merely a spirit that could generate and control fire, it didn't have a true physical form. So, she took the Sol Emeralds and tried to do what the first queen Afroza did so many years prior… but it didn't work. She couldn't sustain the burning form, she didn't have as much strength and power that the first queen did. However, it did something different- unknowingly, she was pregnant with you at the time of this experiment, and once you were born, we discovered… that experiment gave you power over fire.

"So that's when we dedicated ourselves to preparing you for when Iblis would rise again. We had predicted that he would grow back to full power on your sixteenth birthday, and since you had the power of fire on your side, your mother knew you would be stronger, faster and smarter than she ever was. She knew you'd find a way to put Iblis away for good… and you did."

Blaze was quiet as she listened. She looked at the setting sun again, just for a moment, before she spoke.

"So… you and mother trained me… to fix the mess that was made so long ago?"

"No. We trained you so you would be better than us." Cyrus touched Blaze's shoulder. "For years, the monarchs of Soleanna have evaded find a permanent solution to save our world. They were afraid. Seeing you control fire made us realize that you could be that solution- not just to Iblis, but to what our ancestors did so long ago."

"It doesn't change the past."

"It doesn't, and it shouldn't. It shouldn't for you… I'm sorry I never told you the truth. The entire truth. It was selfish of me to think you'd be better in the dark." The king said. "But please, Elise… be better. Be better than me, than your mother, and the people who ruled before us. You're the change this kingdom needs, and your mother wanted you to get rid of Iblis for good so you could be that change. Don't lose hope in who you are… you're not dictated by your ancestors' actions. You're Princess Elise Agni. You're Blaze."

The father and daughter shared a glance as the princess looked back at her father. Slowly, hesitantly, the pair hugged one another. It was a bit awkward- Blaze hasn't been hugged since she was about twelve- but it was definitely something both of them enjoy.

Suddenly, the fur on Blaze's neck stood up. She pulled away from her father, looking inland. In the distance, almost like an echo, she heard the sound of Silver screaming.

"Silver…" She murmured.

"What? I don't see him."

"My psychic link with him… I think he's in serious danger. It must be Shadow and Rouge."

"Well?" Cyrus stood up with Blaze. "Go save your friends!"

"Shadow was difficult to fight last time. If he has that Chaos Emerald… I could barely keep up with him."

"He has an emerald. A single one?"

"Yes."

"And how many do you have?"

Blaze blinked, taken aback from the question. She never even considered that. Blaze closed her eyes, her head gem twinkling before the Sol Emeralds appeared, floating around her in a circle.

"He might be strong… but you're stronger." Cyrus said to her. "And you know how to use your emeralds."

The princess smiled a bit at her father. She raised up into the air as the Sol Emeralds swirled around her body, creating a halo of color.

She had only done this once before. It took a lot out of her to sustain this form, and the last time she did it, it was only for thirty minutes. This time, she was determined she could go longer.

The Sol Emeralds slipped into her body, but this time empowered her. Her purple coat turned red, her purple fur turning a rose gold color, and her eyes turning a shining gold. Orange flames covered her, setting her ablaze.

Much like the first queen of Soleanna, Blaze- set to be the first queen of a new era- flew off in a streak of pink and red, granted the ability to withstand the infinite power of Solaris by her mother to become a Burning Blaze.

---

Johnny was much faster than Marine remembered. Then again, it's been like half a year since she's seen him, so maybe she had forgotten what a quick opponent he was.

The green android zipped between the polar bears, slamming into each one of them lightning fast- fast enough that the large vikings weren't able to defend themselves in time.

When Johnny rushed towards Marine last, the girl was ready. She knew that Johnny wouldn't simply slam into her, so she raised her cutlass in time to block a back swing from Johnny's arm. With her free hand, she summoned in a stream of water from the shore to blast Johnny back- thought it was only slightly successful, as the android was able to push against the water to stay close.

Her sword free, Marine sliced into Johnny's body a few times, even slicing against Johnny's hand when the android lifted it up to try and block a hit.

Two of the polar bears behind Johnny grabbed him by the shoulders, both throwing him back far enough to hit the ice gathered on the cave wall.

"Protect the cap'n!" Norman said, standing in front of Marine with his shield ready.

"I appreciate the sentiment, mate, but I'm not one to back down from a fight!"

Johnny zipped from the ice wall into another polar bear, slamming through the wooden shield he had and grabbing the neck of the bear's armor. Johnny zoomed forwards, forcing the bear backwards, and shoving him into another polar bear, forcing both of them to go flying across the beach.

When another bear tried swiping at Johnny, he simply sidestepped the attack. The android spun himself around at high speeds, using the speed to throw a punch directly into the bear's face, flinging him backwards.

The next bear tried ramming Johnny with his shield. The android grabbed onto the shield, and rammed it into the bear's face, again. And again. And again. He slammed the shield into its owners face in rapid succession, until the dazed bear stumbled and collapsed onto the ground.

Johnny took the shield from the fallen bear, and slammed it on the head of the next bear, instantly knocking him out.

Marine had to admit, while they weren't able to really keep up with Johnny, these were the bravest men she's had the pleasure of being the captain of. Any other crew would've run away like cowards- the polar bears were brave warriors, and not only that, they listened to her… mostly. They were perfect.

"Captain, look out!"

Norman, though instructed that he didn't need to protect Marine, pushed the raccoon away when Johnny finally got to them. The polar bear raised his shield, but found it shattered immediately with a punch from the android.

Without any protection, Johnny was able to send a punch right into Norman's gut, making him double over with a loud groan of pain.

The android grabbed onto the back of Norman's armor, launching forwards and using the momentum to throw the polar bear back towards the water.

As he reached the water, it raised upwards and caught Norman, lowering him down to the sand. Marine was there, kneeling down next to the polar bear.

"I told ya I didn't need any protectin', ya moron!" She said. "Are you okay, mate?"

"I'm fine, cap'n… think I'm gonna lose my lunch."

"Keep it in, mate. That's an order."

"Yes… Marine…"

Johnny came upon them. Marine stood up with her cutlass, but before she could use it, it was smacked from her hand. She tried reaching back to the water, but Johnny grabbed her by the throat and picked her up, rocketing back from the water to get her away.

"Finally." He turned around, throwing her down to the ground further away from the water. "I finally get my revenge."

"Ugh. Slag off, ya piece of…"

"Say what you want, Marine, but nobody can save you now. Not your new little crew, not the princess, or any of her little friends. I will finally avenge Captain Whisker, and finally regain what was properly mine, getting the revenge I've longed for so long—"

Johnny's big moment was ruined by a tentacle coming out of the shore's water. A purple and yellow robotic tentacle came up from the water, grabbing onto Johnny and flinging him backwards. Much like he was when he faced Marine last, he was being sent flying into the horizon.

"NOT AGAAAAAAIN!" He screamed, his voice getting fainter.

Marine watched Johnny turn into a sparkle in the horizon as he blasted off, again. Then, she was taken aback by the sudden appearance of a giant robotic kraken appearing from the water, rising its head up to the shore.

The head of the Ghost Kraken looked down at Marine. The of the squid's head opened up, revealing Quark piloting the robot with a big smile on her face.

"Ha! Bonza!" The raccoon exclaimed as her men got up behind her. "Never thought I'd be happy to see you, quack!"

The front tentacle of the kraken lifted up above Marine, making her face drop in confusion and fear.

"Don't get too ahead of yourself, rodent." Quark replied, still smiling.

Before Marine could flee, the tentacle descended on the teenager and wrapped around her, pulling her back and off the shore. The front of the kraken's head closed once more.

"Cap'n!" Multiple polar bears yelled as Marine was taken off the beach.

They were left helpless on the beach, watching their young captain pulled into the water with the Ghost Kraken, disappearing into the sea underneath.

---

In the abandoned bottom floor of the temple, the roof exploded.

Silver and Shadow both collapsed to the cold ground, both exhausted from the extended fight they were having. It was clear that both of them were powerful enough to hold their own against one another, so their continued battle was mostly just a contest to see who could pass out first at this point.

Both breathing heavily, they started to pick themselves off of the ground. This time, there wasn't any bottom level to crash down into, so they would probably have to finish their battle right there in that room.

Shadow got up on one knee. He reached out to Silver, his hand opened wide.

"Chaos… chaos spee… chaos…"

"Oh my god, shut up!" Silver interrupted him, on his hands and knees. He coughed a bit as he slowly raised to one knee.

The psychic noticed one of Schlemmer's tables nearby. He reached out, using his psychokinesis to grasp it and try to move it forwards. However, because he was so tired, he was only able to slide it across the ice slowly.

Shadow watched as Silver tried to fling the table towards him. He stayed down on his knee.

"Any day now."

"I said shut up!"

The dark hedgehog tried getting up, stumbling forwards and gathering enough energy to try and fire off a chaos spear. However, he didn't account for the fact that the floor was completely ice.

He slipped and fell forwards, misfiring the chaos spear into the floor and falling down on his stomach with a groan.

Though the table sliding across the ice took up most of the sound in the room, Shadow could also hear a buzzing hit his ear. He got back up on his knee, looking around until he could detect the source of the energy- it was behind him.

He spotted the laser device, and could see that the Chaos Emerald was on top of it. At that moment, Silver noticed it too.

Shadow got up to his feet, trying to get across the ice and slowly gaining traction as he moved to the laser device, already close to it. Silver also got up, abandoning the table to try and run for the other hedgehog.

"No. No, no!" The psychic said.

Able to regain his footing in the ice, Shadow rushed to the laser device. He didn't know how it worked, and he didn't care. He grabbed onto the top of the Chaos Emerald and yanked it out of the contraption.

As soon as he held it in his hand, Shadow felt himself full of energy once again, using the emerald as his own power source now. He heard the footsteps of Silver getting closer.

With the power over chaos energy at his disposal, Shadow was able to activate complete chaos control without even turning around fully. Time slowed down, stopping Silver mid-run just a foot away from the dark hedgehog.

Shadow moved to walk by, but as he did, he spun around and delivered a kick into the back of Silver's head, sending him flying forwards and into the ground. With a groan, the gray hedgehog was bested.

His back to Silver, Shadow looked over the cyan Chaos Emerald, feeling a sense of relief that he finally fulfilled his mission.

Suddenly, there was a rumbling deep in the temple. Shadow looked up from the emerald, over to the entrance wall of the room.

The rumbling got closer. Suddenly, the front wall exploded. The room flooded with pink and orange light as Burning Blaze crashed in, coming to a stop and hovering above the ground. Instantly, the ice all around her started to melt.

"Get away from him!" Burning Blaze yelled, reaching out. A force field of fire surrounded Silver, lifting him up off the ice and pulling him over towards the now wide open wall of the temple. He was set back down, the force field still covering him.

Shadow didn't have any time to say anything about leaving- he immediately had to be on guard, as Burning Blaze fired a beam of pink and orange plasma directly at him. Shadow created a small barrier of chaos energy, but was knocked off his feet by the force of the attack, forced to use his jet boots to regain proper footing.

With the Chaos Emerald in hand, Shadow disappeared into distorted space, moving out of the way in time for the beam to burrow into the wall before deactivating.

Burning Blaze floated forwards, her eyes eventually trailing to the floor. The light pouring out from the fiery princess' powerful form allowed her to see the shadow of the dark hedgehog in distorted space. She watched the shadow get closer, her eyebrows furrowing.

Suddenly, Shadow exited the distorted space, unleashing his burst of chaos energy to the powerful princess attacking him. Instead of hitting her though, the princess's body instead rippled like it was just a hologram.

Shadow rushed forwards, passing through the heat shimmer double that Burning Blaze made. When it disappeared, the fiery princess appeared down the end of the room, having used the heat shimmer double to gather speed.

When the princess reached Shadow, he quickly made another force field, but was still knocked back a bit as if he just suffered a massive hit from the feline. He barely sustained the shield as Burning Blaze used her entire body to unleash a firestorm upon him.

The pair slowly started spinning, with Shadow staying in one spot on the ground, trying to defend from the fiery blast of the princess, almost like she was circling him from above like a vulture. They went faster and faster, with Burning Blaze getting in closer.

Shadow slowly rose into the air- he was actually being forced into the air with Burning Blaze's power raising him upwards. The flames curled around Shadow's form in the shape of a sphere, entrapping him in the flames.

Eventually, Burning Blaze let out a yell, pulling Shadow around and throwing him directly down into the ice below. The ice cracked under the hedgehog as he landed, though it wasn't hard enough to make Shadow let go.

Before he could move, or even teleport, Burning Blaze was there. She stood over him and grabbed him by his collar, picking him up and slamming him back down into the ground hard enough to knock the air out of him.

She punched him. Once, twice, again and again. Pure unadulterated fury surged through Burning Blaze, especially seeing what had become of her close friend Marine. Shadow kept trying to get up, but when he tried to sit up, Blaze fired a beam of plasma directly into him, forcing him down. She raised her foot for a stomp down on the hedgehog, however…

"That's enough!"

Burning Blaze paused. She slowly turned around to look at the source of the voice- it was Rouge.

The bat had Tiara. Rouge was behind the manx, holding the Verdant Scepter by the pole against Tiara's neck to keep her held in place.

In case the princess didn't think she was serious, Rouge lifted her knee and quickly grabbed her survival knife from inside. She put the pole of the scepter in the crook of her elbow, bending it to put the knife to Tiara's throat, showing Blaze the inscription: "Fated, Not to be Tamed"

The princess's face dropped, and she stepped away from Shadow to face Rouge completely.

"No…" She murmured.

Shadow finally propped himself up, seeing what Rouge was doing. He felt a shock of ice go through him, his own face dropping from the sight.

He knew little about the princess, but she knew that she was close to her friends. Now, in that moment, Rouge discovered that the one major weakness the princess had was putting those friends in danger.

But all Shadow could see is a friend putting themselves in danger for someone they loved. Tiara putting herself in harm's way… just like Maria did.

"Let him go." Rouge said, not a hint of coyness on her voice. "We just want the emerald. We don't want a fight. Let. Shadow. Go."

Shadow was lifted in the air with a force field of fire, pulled to Burning Blaze, who grabbed him by the arm.

"Let go of Tiara first." She said.

"We'll trade, okay? On three." Rouge replied. "One… two… three!"

Both the bat and the feline pushed their hostages forwards. Tiara landed in Burning Blaze's arms, the princess able to control her body heat to not be boiling hot for the lady.

"Ellie…"

"It's okay, Tia. It's okay."

Burning Blaze took the Verdant Scepter from Tiara.

Shadow reached Rouge, the emerald still in hand. The bat still had the knife in her hand, twirling it around her fingers.

"Been a while since I used this. You're wel—"

The hedgehog interrupted her by grabbing her wrist, making her drop the knife. Shadow leaned in close to Rouge with a look of pure disdain and anger.

"We don't trade lives." He rasped. "Especially those who matter to others. We don't take innocent loved ones away from people who might deserve it. Do you understand?"

"Yes, yes! Let go of my arm!"

Shadow did so, his eyebrows still knitted in a glower. Rouge rubbed her wrist, looking it over for bruising before staring at Shadow with a furrowed brow. She kept the stare as she crouched down and returned her knife to her boot.

Suddenly, a white blast of energy hit the Chaos Emerald in Shadow's hand. It created a portal almost instantly, placed right beside Shadow and Rouge on the opposite side of where Blaze and Tiara was.

Burning Blaze was holding the scepter. She brought it back to an upright position.

"You have what you want. Now leave." She growled. "And don't ever come back."

Before Shadow or Rouge could say anything, Burning Blaze fired a blast of plasma at them. The force of the blast launched the dark duo through the portal, forcing them out of the Sol Zone and back to their home dimension. The portal closed right after.

It was still and silent for a moment. Burning Blaze handed the scepter back to Tiara, discovering that her hand was purple again in the process. She looked over at where Silver was laying, the force field disappearing.

The princess walked over, eventually stumbling forward in front of Silver and falling to her knees. Tiara came to her side in time to see her finally exiting her burning form. The Sol Emeralds reappeared around Blaze's body, landing in a circle around the princess.

"Ellie, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Are you okay?" Blaze asked the manx.

"I'm okay."

The two felines hugged tightly, with Blaze happy that Tiara was in her arms instead of hurt because of her.

With a groan, Silver slowly sat up, rubbing the back of his head. Blaze and Tiara parted to look at him.

"Ugh… what happened? Did we win?" He asked the pair.

Blaze and Tiara both laughed lightly at that. The princess moved to Silver, hugging him next, taking him by surprise. Silver slowly hugged back, patting Blaze's back.

"I'm happy you two are alright." The princess said as she moved away from Silver. "I'm sorry I ran off like that earlier. I was just… so overwhelmed."

"I get it." Tiara said. "I mean, I get what you felt."

"You don't have to explain yourself, El." Silver added. "If I found out I was lied to my entire life, I'd be angry too. I'm sorry that your pain was for nothing."

"But it wasn't for nothing." Blaze replied. "I mean, I'm angry that Iblis existed to give Silver amnesia and take over Tiara at one point, but… he's gone now. I fulfilled my destiny, even if I didn't know why I had that destiny in the first place."

"So… what're you going to do now then?"

"…I'm going to become the change Soleanna needs." Blaze said to Silver. "Iblis is gone, but we have to make sure we don't something like that again. I'm going to use this new freedom to… make Soleanna the best it can be, and keep it safe from trouble.. inside and out."

"And you know we'll be by you every step of the way." Tiara said, taking Blaze's hand with a smile. Silver added on by putting his hand on Blaze's shoulder for support.

Blaze smiled- a true, normal sized smile- and nodded.

"You two and Marine… where is she anyway?"

The answer crashed through the ice at the other end of the room.

The Ghost Kraken raised up from the ice in the temple floor, lifting a tentacle up and flinging Marine at the trio. The teenager crashed into the three, and they held her as Marine gasped for air, coughing after.

"Oh Sweet Solaris, Marine!" Blaze exclaimed. "Breathe! Are you alright?"

"I'm…" Marine coughed more, but the sarcasm was evident. "I'm peachy."

Laughter was heard before and after the front of the Ghost Kraken opened. Quark smiled widely, devilishly, a full toothy smile down at the group of heroes who had scorned her so many times in the past.

"Uhhh, Blaze? Now would be a good time to go burning." Tiara mumbled to Blaze, shuffling the Sol Emeralds closer to her.

Blaze closed her eyes, almost wincing a bit and grunting. She soon opened her eyes with a sigh.

"I can't. I'm… too tired from using it before."

"You couldn't hold it until it was safe?"

"I didn't know a kraken would be after us, Silver!"

"This is perfect." Quark purred. "This is exactly what I wanted- you four mongrels at my feet, waiting to be taken out. All I had to do… was wait."

"You got what you wanted, Quark! You finally have another human from this world! He's even your father!"

"But that's not what I really wanted, princess. What I really wanted was to wipe you and your disgusting, barbarian animal race off the face of this planet, and salt the world behind me. My daddy was just a plus!"

"You're insane!" Tiara yelled.

"I prefer the term 'opportunistic', my dear."

"Hey, hey, you wouldn't kill a bloke under the age of eighteen would ya?" Marine asked between coughs, voice shaking.

"Oh, I actually dream about it." Quark said, almost swooning. The front of the kraken closed. "Goodbye, Blaze and friends."

"…wow, she didn't even say anything to me. Rude." Silver grumbled. "…we're going to die."

The four, exhausted from their fighting, instead just held each other tightly, staring up as the Ghost Kraken lifted a giant tentacle.

Before it could crush anyone on the team, however, a blast of white energy hit the body of the kraken, making it stumble. It used its tentacles to grab onto the walls as it was forced back.

The princess and her companions looked behind them at the source of the blast. Standing in the exploded doorway was Professor Dinglehopper von Schlemmer, holding the cannon with the Tidal Crystal inside. Though he had originally fled in fear, he finally grew enough courage to come back.

After regaining itself, the kraken face opened to reveal Quark again. She stared in disbelief at her father. Like a defiant child, she raised her kraken's tentacle again to try and hit Blaze's group, but was hit with another blast of the Power of the Stars.

"Ugh! You blasted me!"

Schlemmer walked past the group and stood between them and Doctor Quark.

"Bernadette, you cannot do zis!" He said, voice shaking.

"What? But… but they took all of this from us! All of this should be ours!" Quark replied.

"Zese people are not responsible for ze actions of so few! Ze people of zis world are innocent, are you really going to destroy all of it out of anger?"

"Yes! I'll destroy millions and millions of people for them to feel the pain I feel every minute being in this hell!"

The Ghost Kraken's arm raised again, but Schlemmer fired another blast into the robot, starting to make it fall apart.

Quark's eyeglasses fell off. It didn't matter anyway, her eyes were getting misty, tears starting to fall down her face.

"You're on their side?!" She cried out, her voice cracking as she was starting to silently sob from frustration and heartbreak.

Schlemmer has tears rolling down his cheeks as well. He closed his eyes, looking away from the kraken.

"I'm sorry, Bernadette…"

Blaze and her friends watched as Schlemmer unleashed the full force of his cannon onto Quark. The beam of energy slammed the kraken back, imbuing it with white energy. Quark could barely hold on, scrambling to the controls.

She tried to swing one of the tentacles around, but the power of the cannon caused it to crumble during its swing.

The cockpit was collapsing. Quark scrambled back, letting out a yelp of fear. She looked at her father as white light and energy started filling the inside of the squid.

"Daddy!?"

The scream of Doctor Quark was the last thing heard from her before the entire kraken was overrun with the Power of the Stars. Another second later, a shockwave of force came from the squid, causing Schlemmer to stop firing upon it.

Once the beam was done, the Ghost Kraken swung around a bit, before falling forwards. It's head crashed into the ice, resting above water, the opened face looking to the side and out of view of the others.

Blaze and her friends were finally up. However, Schlemmer was down on his hands and knees, his cannon dropped to the ground.

From the stillness, Blaze looked at the remains of the Ghost Kraken, and possibly, Bernadette Quark. She had to admit… there was a part of her that felt a bit sad that the doctor was gone.

The princess walked over to the front of the professor. She reached her hand down in front of his face, and reluctantly, he took it, rising to his feet.

"Professor von Schlemmer… I don't know…"

"You don't have to say anything, my dear." The professor said to the princess. "You and ze rest of Soleanna don't deserve to be punished for what your ancestors did. Not to zis extreme."

"But what you did… Quark was your daughter."

Silver brought the professor his cannon. Schlemmer put it across his back, sighing.

"It's vat I had to do. Your grandmother… if you're anything like her, zen… this vorld needs you more zan you can possibly know. Vat I've done… Well, I suppose humans didn't deserve a happy ending after all."

Only a second after the professor's statement, the sound of crying echoed through the room. It wasn't normal crying, however… it was a baby's crying.

Everyone looked at each other before running to the source of the crying- the kraken's head. Schlemmer was in first, stepping across the cracked ice to reach the opened cockpit.

Blaze and her friends had to wait for Schlemmer to turn around to find out what it was: a small, orange-haired baby, wrapped in Quark's old magenta jumpsuit. The professor, retrieving it from the cockpit, cradled it in his arms.

"Sweet Solaris…" Blaze murmured.

"What happened to the quack? Why's there an ankle-biter there?"

"I think…" Silver said to Marine. "The Power of the Stars reverted Quark to a baby. Like it did to Iblis centuries ago."

Professor von Schlemmer was staring down at his baby daughter, a smile slowly coming across his face. He put his finger down in front of her for baby Bernadette to grab onto.

"I have my chance… to watch her grow up." He said softly.

He looked at them, smiling widely.

"What're you going to do now, professor?"

"We could bring you back to the castle," Blaze said as an answer to Tiara's question. "I'd be more than happy to provide you housing."

"I appreciate ze offer, my dear, but… I am not going to stay here."

After a second, he put the baby in Silver's arms, making him hold her for a few moments. They watched as Schlemmer took off his cannon, twisting a few knobs and pressing buttons on the side of it before aiming it at the nearby wall and firing it.

Two beams fired from the cannon, twisting around each other before hitting the wall at the same spot. The beams created an X-shaped portal, opening wide for the professor to come to.

After that, he took his daughter back from Silver.

"I want to go find ze humans I vas with before I came back here. Before I vas frozen." He said. "I do not sink I vill be back… but I do hope our paths cross again, someday, my friends."

He walked to the portal, still holding the baby Bernadette in his arms. The baby cooed as it looked at her father, happy to see him, happy to be with him.

Schlemmer looked back at the group one more time.

"Bye Professor von Schlemmer! Be safe!"

"Ta, mate!"

"Watch your back out there."

"You're welcome back whenever you'd like."

The professor nodded to them all. He was going to turn back to the portal, but paused. He looked at the group for one final word.

"Sank you for bringing my daughter back to me."

And with that, he turned around and headed through the portal. As soon as he went through, the portal closed forever, the closing door that signifies that Doctor Quark was gone from the Sol Zone forever.

As soon as the professor was gone, all four members of Team Blaze relaxed their bodies. Tiara leaned her head against Blaze's shoulder, Silver slouching forwards.

"Man, what a day…" He murmured.

"I can't believe Quark's really gone. I also can't believe she came from a guy like Schlemmer."

"I heard that." Tiara replied to Blaze.

"I can't believe I found the perfect crew frozen in ice!" Marine exclaimed, perking up again. "Between that and gettin' rid of Johnny again, todays really looking up for me!"

"I'm glad we got rid of those guys from the Chaos Zone within a day." Silver said. "Though I have a feeling Sonic's got a problem on his hands in his world."

"There's still just one more question about that on my mind." Blaze added. "How did they get here? There shouldn't be any artifacts using the Power of the Stars in the Chaos Zone. At least, not to my knowledge."

"There is. This one."

Tiara took out the wooden flute from her pocket. She presented it to Blaze, who immediately took it from her.

"The mystic flute." She said, looking it over. "This is the flute that I… gave Cream…"

The princess thought to herself for a moment. She tried to think of all the possibilities as to why this flute that she gave Cream specifically ended up in the hands of Shadow and Rouge.

Her hand slowly gripped over the flute, holding it in her fist tightly. Her jaw locked.

She needed a day or two to recollect herself. She needed to get things straight in Soleanna, log in the water temple and regain her strength. Then, once she was up and running again, she would be taking a trip to the Chaos Zone.

And Solaris have mercy on the poor soul who possibly hurt Cream to get this flute away from her.

---

BACK IN THE CHAOS ZONE…

"I got you something."

It wasn't the door opening and closing, or the footsteps, that made Shadow look away from the window in his room. It was what Rouge said to him.

He turned around, seeing Rouge standing semi-awkwardly in his room. She had a wrapped gift in her hand, a thin box wrapped in shiny purple paper with a black bow.

Shadow eyed the box, then looked back at Rouge's face. He grunted simply in response, before turning around to face the window again.

The hedgehog heard Rouge put the gift on the bed. She didn't leave yet, evident by the lack of the door opening and closing again. From the partial reflection of the window, Shadow could see her stepping once or twice with awkward anticipation.

Eventually, she cleared her throat and spoke.

"Hey look, I'm… really sorry about how bad the situation escalated back in the Sol Zone."

"I'm not the one you held captive."

"Yeah, I know, but… you seemed really shaken up by me doing it. Especially since that girl was so close to Blaze."

"She was her friend. Or at least very close to her. You don't threaten to take someone away, to make someone feel… helpless. The princess was a very respectable opponent, what we did was underhanded."

"It's what had to be done at the time." Rouge replied. "What's this really about? I really didn't expect you to get so upset about the friend being in trouble, you made your feelings about friends clear before."

"…I wasn't going to say they disappoint me."

"What?"

"The reason I said I don't have friends, is because… because they can be taken away from you."

Rouge was slow, but walked to Shadow, coming up to stand next to him at the window of the room.

"You sound like you have experience there."

"I do." Shadow replied softly. "The only friend I had… the one friend that mattered to me… was taken away from me."

"…wow." Rouge murmured. It took a moment for the next statement to come out of her mouth. "I… I know the feeling. Of someone close taken away from you. I'm not trying to invalidate your feelings, I'm just… relating."

Shadow turned his head to look at her with his good eye, silently cuing her to continue.

"…when I left the compound, the one I grew up in… the first thing I did was try and find out who my parents were." The bat said. "And after a while, I finally did. They… were dead. Gone before I even turned a year old. It was a meaningless death, they were just… gone. Succumbed to the chaos energy and discarded like trash."

"Rouge…"

"No, you don't…" Rouge put a hand up to stop him, gently wincing. "It's been… god, it's been like twenty-one years. I didn't even know them. I think… what hurt more is the regret."

"Right. The regret. I wasn't strong enough to… but you, you were barely a child."

"I'm not talking about the regret from my biological parents. I'm talking about… the one who raised me." Rouge replied quietly. "I was so alone, so… upset that I felt like an outcast. I thought finding my parents would've helped me, but it took finding out what became of them to realize that I already had a mother… her name was Aleena."

"You regret not realizing that."

"I should have. I acted out when I was a teenager because I didn't realize the family I needed wasn't the one that created me… and it ruined my life. Even if I did get a cushy job, I only have one real friend in Topaz, and she…"

Rouge shrugged a bit, smiling softly at Shadow after. The hedgehog kept his dispassion, looking at the bat almost quizzically.

"How do you carry on? How do you… still act so confident? How did you keep the regret from consuming you?"

The bat thought quietly for a moment. She looked out to the Earth below for a moment, before turning back to Shadow.

"You have to learn to forgive yourself." She said. "It's the first hurdle, and it's the hardest. You let yourself feel that pain- you remember, you feel and you cry. Because unless you let go of that grief, it's just going to consume you. It'll turn you into something you're not."

Shadow gazed at Rouge quietly. He watched her, even as she turned to look out the room's window again.

Something washed over him. It wasn't regret, it wasn't grief, it was… something good. Something different. Certainly nothing Black Doom had ever instilled in him before. It was something he hadn't felt for fifty years.

Before he knew what he was doing, Shadow's hand slowly raised up. He reached out to Rouge, putting his hand on her shoulder. The bat turned at the touch, looking down at the hand before her eyes let Shadow's.

The sudden influx of new emotions was making Shadow's body almost shake with the feeling, and it wasn't out of exhaustion or anything negative. His adrenaline was pumping, he felt every nerve in his being rumble like static.

This wasn't excitement. It wasn't anger. Was this… goodwill?

Rouge put her hand on top of Shadow's. She nodded at him gently, understanding the comfort he was trying to give her, even if it wasn't directly intentional. She took it off her shoulder, holding it still as she returned it down to Shadow's side.

Pulling away from Shadow, Rouge turned and started walking away, taking long strides as she moved to leave the room. Shadow watched her.

"Stay grouchy, smiles. Remember that we got that final emerald mission coming up soon."

"I'll be fine."

"You better." Rouge pointed at him, grinning a bit. "Don't want to save you a third time. Fourth if you count the captive stuff."

"I don't."

"Right, it's easier on you to only be 2-1."

With that, the bat left the room, clearly amused by her final statement. Shadow watched the door open and close. After a moment or so, he turned to leave the window, going to where the gift rested on his bed.

The black bow was one that stuck onto the box, so it wasn't like he had to unwrap any ribbon. In fact, the wrapping paper was just wrapped around the top and bottom part of the box separately, so he could just pull off the top.

He had to pull it out to make sure he was seeing it right. Shadow held it up in front of him- it was a shirt, but not just any shirt. It was a shirt for the band Lost Impact.

The band's stylized name was printed across the chest of the gray shirt. He saw it shine in the light of the room as he looked it over. It looked just like the one Maria gave him all those years ago.

Shadow felt a tug at his mouth. Before he knew what he was doing, he smiled… just a bit.

YOU HAVE CHANGED YOUR APPEARANCE.

It had been so long since Shadow heard the voice of Black Doom that he was almost frightened by its sudden reappearance.

"I was wondering when you would pop up again."

I HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO DETECT YOU FOR A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF TIME. AND HERE I AM, SEEING THAT YOU HAVE COMPLETELY DISCARDED YOUR PREVIOUS APPAREL.

"I don't need to look like that blue hedgehog anymore. From the sound of it, the illusion is broken on Earth anyway."

THEN YOU SHOULD BE DRESSING IN THE TRADITIONAL APPAREL OF HIGH RANKING SOLDIERS OF THE BLACK ARMS, NOT ANYTHING FROM THAT BLASTED PLANET.

"We can discuss it later."

YES, WE WILL. THERE ARE MORE PRESSING MATTERS AT HAND. YOU KEEP DISAPPEARING FROM MY VIEW FOR EXTENDED PERIODS OF TIME.

"I was in another zone."

I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT. I AM REFERRING TO MOMENTS WHERE I AM UNABLE TO SCAN YOUR MIND, OR SEE THROUGH YOUR EYES.

Shadow's eyebrows furrowed. He lowered the shirt as he tried thinking of something, anything to give him an answer.

I BELIEVE THE RESIDUAL ENERGY FROM THE POWER OF THE STARS HAS CAUSED A DISRUPTION PREVENTING ME FROM USING MY POWERS.

The hedgehog's eyebrows were still furrowed, listening to what Black Doom was saying to him. It wouldn't make sense if the Power of the Stars disrupted psychic powers, as seen by that gray hedgehog still being powerful around that Verdant Scepter.

There was also something in Doom's voice that he didn't recognize- it wasn't exactly complete uncertainty, but… enough.

Black Doom didn't know what the cause of the disruption is.

"…right." The hedgehog spoke slowly. "Well, the flute was left behind in the other dimension. So… you won't have to worry too much about the energy disrupting your powers. Unless…"

UNLESS?

"Unless my new clothes affect you as well." Shadow was lying through his teeth, but he felt that he had control over the situation. "They came from the other zone."

AND YOU CONTINUE TO WEAR THEM?

"We have almost forty-eight hours until the doctor's timer is almost done, and you want me to play dress up? I will do as commanded and planned by you, Black Doom. Nothing more."

There was silence in his head for a few moments. Shadow thought maybe that Black Doom was cut off from him again.

VERY WELL.

The voice came back, though. Shadow let out a breath, relaxing at the thought of keeping up this charade.

He wasn't too sure how he was able to become blind to Black Doom, either. But even if he was on Doom's side, it's a valuable asset to have, to turn invisible. He'd have to figure out what the source of that ability was.

Until then, he had to carry on.

Shadow raised the shirt again. As he looked over the thoughtful gift from his companion, he felt that same tug at his cheek again, and after a moment continued to gently smile.

UP NEXT: What Lingers Below!