Chapter 10: Cold Welcome

"Just, STOP!" Syra was trying to get a hold of the hedgehog, or even try and drench him with water, but due to his speed it was impossible. He kept leaping from roof to roof like there was no tomorrow.

All of the guards were already tired, it was 2AM in the morning and NO ONE could even get a single drop of water in the hedgehog. But Sonic was already starting to get tired.

"Darn, I can't keep doing this forever..." He said slowing down. His feet were already hurting.

Meanwhile, in the temple.

"Its done." The sinister voice spoke, fading in the darkness. Virtual stood up slowly, like if nothing had happened and slowly opened his eyes, revealing a black sclera around his still white irises. He watched as his soldiers and his friends couldn't still catch Sonic.

"Weak..." He muttered, exiting his room to go and finish what his men couldn't.

Things were going from bad to worse for Sonic as some of the guards had already recovered energies and were trying to catch him, the most annoying of all was that winged yellow cat, that although she couldn't fly as fast as Sonic could run, she could still fly fast.

"Stop trying to catch me!" Sonic huffed. But his leaping came to an end when something hit him hard in the head and sent him to the wall. It was some kind of purple hammer made by dark energy.

"Well, I gotta thank you..." Syra was just about to thank the one that just stopped Sonic from running. But then she noticed that it wasn't just anyone, it was Virtual! He was surrounded with a purple aura. Everyone also noticed the dark sclera around his white irises.

"Virtual? I-is th-that you?" Rae asked him, very scared of his new powers.

"Yes, he is." Everyone heard a sinister voice inside their heads. "He is just stronger now, and soon, all of you will be..." The voice faded away.

Virtual's purple aura slowly started to expand and take form of tentacles.

"Embrace the darkness" He said with a sinister tone. The tentacles started to take life, expanding and attacking people. When a tentacle touched someone, it was cut from Virtual and entered in the victim's body as if it was a ghost.

Everyone tried to run outside the town, but nobody could escape the purple tentacles.

"Vi-Virtual..." Rae stuttered. Before she could react, a tentacle got her from behind.

"Rae!" Syra tried to help her, but a tentacle also grabbed her as well.

Sonic, seeing all of this madness, tried to make a run for it. He saw the people were trying to reach the darker side of the cave. That's were the exit must be! Before he ran, he saw the winged yellow cat that was chasing her earlier trying to run from a tentacle. Just when she thought the tentacle would trap her, Sonic managed to grab her and run as fast as he could.

"Thank you!" She said "I'm Honey the Cat..."

"No time for presentations!" Sonic cut her speech and found the stairs that led to the exit. The teantacles tried to grab him, but he was just too fast. He managed to reach the top, being the only one who had done so. He saw a door that led to a dead end.

"What now?" He asked the cat. She pointed at a torch in the dead end.

"Pull it down like a lever!" She instructed him. Sonic ran at the torch and pulled it down like if it was a lever, opening the exit for them. As soon as Sonic saw the light, he ran at the exit at his trademark supersonic speed, getting himself and Honey out of that mess.

Meanwhile, in the town. Everyone was crying in agony as they felt the darkness taking them over.

Virtual looked at everyone with a smirk. "Maybe Sonic and Honey escaped, but I still got everyone else..."

"Capture them, they are the only ones who can stop me..." The sinister voice said in Virtual's mind.

"I will, my master..."

The people stopped their cries and slowly stood up, everyone had their normal iris color in her eyes, but all of them had black scleras.

"...I will"

(-/-)

Tails had finally arrived at China, and he arrived a little earlier than expected. It was 3:00 AM.

"Finally! Now, where could Sonic be?" He kept following the singed trail. After a few minutes, he saw a purple rock heading for the Tornado, and it was approaching fast!

"Oh no! I've got to move!

" He said, trying to dodge the enormous rock so the Tornado didn't ended up crushed.

Tails only managed to dodge part of the rock. Because it actually hit the right wing and blew off half of it.

"This isn't good!" The Tornado started plummeting down to the mountains. Just before it crashed, Tails jumped out of the pilot's seat and started flying, hearing the rest of the Tornado exploding.

"Great! Now I'll have to..." He was cut when a piece of metal collided with him, making him fall. He rolled down the mountain into a spring.

The spring was freezing cold, he felt his entire body being eaten away by frostbite in matter of seconds. Without hesitation, he tried to pull himself out of the water. Every second he spent there, he felt his body getting colder, so cold that he felt his body was getting smaller.

Finally, he got out of the cold spring. His body stopped hurting him, and he didn't felt cold anymore. But he noticed something odd, his fur was now light blue.

"Something is wrong here... Wait a" His voice was different, it was high pitched.

Before he could react or see what was wrong with his body, someone spilled hot water over his head.

"Sigh, another unlucky traveler who accidentally got splashed in one of the cursed springs..." He was a human with black hair wearing an uniform that looked like the one of a general, but he was just a tour guide.

Wait, Unlucky traveler? Cursed Springs? He was in Jusenkyo!

"If I were you, I would be careful with cold water from now on!" He warned Tails. "You have fallen on the spring of the...

(-/-) I'm so bad. :P

"What had just happened down there?" Sonic asked Honey after closing the entrance to the "City of Light", which name should now be changed to the "City of Darkness".

"I... Virtual told us once that he had a nightmare, in which he saw our clan being covered in darkness. We just took it as a joke and we told him that would never happen..." She explained.

"Sonic..." He and Honey heard that sinister voice again in her minds calling for Sonic. "Come here, come and be enlightened..."

"I don't know who you are, but I'll find you, and I'll put an end to your madness!" He said, hoping that whoever was talking to him had heard him. They both heared it laughing.

"You can't stop us..." It taunted him.

"Oh really? How about showing yourself and letting me beat you up!" He challenged it.

"How about coming here..." The entrance to the city slowly opened, there was no one near, but the torches weren't lighted up, so it was pitch black down there. "...And trying it?"

"I would, but its going to be me versus a thousand, and... uh... yeah, I'm not stupid!" He replied. But suddenly, a purple tentacle came from inside the entrance and grabbed Honey, dragging her inside.

"Help me!" She screamed.

"Honey!" Sonic went inside, but just as he entered, the door behind him got closed shut.

"Dang, I fell for it..." He muttered. He couldn't see anything, and he couldn't go back, so he went forward, until he saw the large cave that had a big hole where light could enter. It was very early in the morning, so he couldn't see much, but he could barely see the stairs. He slowly descended, and if something went wrong, he would make a run for the giant hole in the wall and get his butt out of there.

He managed to descend to the place were people was once runing for their lives, and it was now as quiet as a tomb.

"Its too quiet..." Maybe it was too quiet, but he could feel that he was being watched. All of a sudden, a path of black torches appeared out from nowhere, ending into the entrance of a temple.

"Enter..." The sinister voice came back to his head again. "Else you will have to face them..."

Sonic could now see the eyes looking at him, the irises where glowing in the darkness, but the sclera was still pitch black. He could see irises of any color: Gold, red, blue, green, brown are the examples of the colors he could see. He started walking towards the temple.

"FASTER!" The voice demanded. He saw the irises approaching at him.

"Not good!" He ran at the temple, the torches turning off as he passed by them. When he got in, the door behind him closed shut.

"Something tells me I'm screwed..." He muttered.

/-/-/

Sonic is trapped in the dark cave! Will he be able to get out? Will he get trapped forever? Or will he save the people corrupted by the darkness? And what about Tails? In what spring did he fell?

All your questions will be answered, except for the last one, on the next chapter!