Here I am again saying sorry for what seems like a long wait. I am really getting into this climax. Darkness' survival game is almost here! Err…wait… that was suppose to be a surprise… aw well you'll see it soon.
A declaration of honor! Knuckles vs. Igneous!
Tails pants while lying back in the snow as if as his troubles had literally stabbed him repeatedly in his lungs.
Yeah, he was that tired.
However, that's not to say he wasn't satisfied.
The fact of this whole matter was that he actually had beaten that murderer. It was an amazing feeling realizing that you were actually useful in a seemingly helpless situation. The fact that his plan had actually worked made him feel overjoyed.
"I only wish Sonic could've seen me do it… oh well." Tails struggled to sit up strait but it hurt too much. He would've quit if it weren't for the fact that if he stayed in the ice region he'd die.
Mustering up as much strength as he could he sat up, rubbed his hands together in a desperate attempt to get rid of the ice particles slowly forming on his hands, then turned to Charmy.
The little two-year-old was actually more impressive then he was. Being able to take Karst's hits like that must've been more then tough. The little bee lied on top of Espio's body not even caring that the blood seeping out of his helmet was staining Espio's body.
Charmy was tired and there wasn't a doubt about it.
Tails had to admit he was tired as well and judging by Charmy's state they would need some miracle to happen for them to even consider moving on.
Tails looked around and saw the wind pick up. He sighed in frustration as his fur started to get cold.
"I guess me beating Karst was the only miracle for a while… oh well."
Desert Region
The shockwave of Igneous' fist connecting to Knuckles' cheek sent him spiraling to the ground. He didn't have time to recover completely as Igneous slammed his unbelievably hard body on top of Knuckles and jumped back in the air.
The echidna spit out some of the blood that resulted from the hit then quickly dodged to the side as Igneous came back down again landing in the same spot.
"Damnit! He's an idiot but his body mass is unbelievable." Knuckles said completely surprised that he was still alive after a hit like that.
"Hey echidna! Stop talking to yourself and die like a good weakling!" Igneous said launching another boulder at Knuckles. The echidna quickly turned to run but was hit directly by the bullet shaped rock in the back.
He landed ungracefully into the sand and the rock kept flying ahead of him until it slammed into the ground as well.
"I'm getting nowhere with this idiot. Why am I even here anyway? It's not like Sonic's my friend or anything so why am I helping?" Knuckles asked himself while struggling to get up and fix his back.
It was probably because of that fox. Maybe if he weren't so young and innocent then he wouldn't feel obligated to help. It was either that or the fact that this was the same guy who had tried to steal his emerald before all this.
If he let up now then his emerald would be in danger and as a guardian he couldn't let that happen.
"Igneous Rock Hulgan!!" Igneous shouted as he slammed his fist in the ground. Not but two seconds later had a fleet of rocks come out of the ground and blast straight at Knuckles.
The echidna quickly swiped at them all with great force and broke them all easily. When he was done however he noticed Igneous was no longer there.
"Awe great. Another disappearing act." Knuckles was fed up with this and he almost considered leaving while Igneous was hiding until a hand came out the ground and grabbed his leg.
"HA! Gotcha!" Igneous burst through the ground and tossed Knuckles high into the sky.
"Damn! It hurts even when he throws me! Such incredible strength!" Knuckles looked down while he was flying up to see no one there.
"Looking for me!" Igneous said hovering above Knuckles somehow. This completely startled the echidna, as he wasn't expecting him to get above him so quickly.
Igneous curled his hands together into one huge fist and pounded Knuckles hard in the stomach. The very second the fist connected Knuckles seemed to have been half-dead. He immediately and literally threw up an impressive amount of blood then rocketed into the ground.
Knuckles was in a truck-sized crater not moving. That hit was so damn hard and amazing!
Igneous didn't seem to care for Knuckles' current state. The only state he was concerned with was the dead and not coming back alive one.
"Okay then! It time for me to dive!" Igneous launched himself back down to Knuckles' location, which made the echidna wince.
'Crap! If I get hit like that again I'm dead!' He said trying his best to move. As Igneous drew closer he managed to stand up but the robot was too close for him to escape.
Knowing that dodging was out of the question Knuckles held up his hands and caught the hulking mass of metal as he finished his descend. When Knuckles caught him however, the size of the crater immediately increased to about that of six trucks.
Knuckles himself was gritting his teeth as they bled through and summoned up all the muscular strength he could muster.
"Damn you! This won't kill me you idiot!" Knuckles clenched his fists and they immediately dug into Igneous' metal.
With a quick motion he twirled the robot around and tossed him out of the crater into an unknown location. With that the echidna basically collapsed.
"At least give me a moment to recover dumbass!" Knuckles said laying back and trying his best to regain composure.
Those hits had hurt but they were nothing compared the echidna himself.
"All for a fox… who'd a thought…"
After a couple of minutes Knuckles began to climb out of the crater the idiot had made in a forceful attempt to finish this charade.
When Knuckles reached the top he quickly lifted himself onto the ground and looked around the terrain with an intense look on his face.
"Oh I see… it's the evil dude pose of bad-ass-ness is it?" Knuckles said as he laid his eyes on Igneous standing just a few feet from him. His hands were on his hips and Knuckles couldn't see it on his face but he just KNEW this guy was smirking.
"You'd better watch who you're calling badass." Was Igneous' brain dead reply.
"… You're a freaking moron, you know that?"
"Yeah whatever! Shudup!" The bulky commander shouted feeling as he had won the micro-sized argument. He spread his arms out, bent his inflated legs, and did a miraculous jump over Knuckles' head.
Despite how miraculous it was Knuckles wasn't impressed. But then again, not much impressed him anyway.
In a somewhat forced attempt to make his decent graceful Igneous began to flip in the air over and over again until he took the shape of a ball. Doing this unconsciously gave his decent more speed but it was more than obvious that the idiot commander didn't realize it.
"Yeah right! You're not laying those filthy sausages on me again!" The echidna was bloody, bruised, and pissed off. It was a dangerous combination to anyone who had the misfortune of fighting a guy who had been forced to stare at a green rock for the rest of his life.
Knuckles pulled back his fist and waited for Igneous to draw closer. Eventually he was close enough for Knuckles to dive to the left and perform a successful fake out.
As predicted, Igneous connected with the ground. This time Knuckles was smart enough to jump when he did. Shockwaves weren't fun to experience, especially in this heat!
Knuckles landed gracefully but Igneous had to roll a few to get back on his feet. The echidna just grunted in anger while the robot dusted himself off. That attack wasn't well planned and didn't seem at all necessary some how and they both knew it. That only meant one thing…
"You're playing with me now. Is that it?" Knuckles spoke up nonchalantly cocking his head backward and sideways at the same time.
Igneous put his left hand on his hip and waved his right finger at Knuckles in a ridiculous and overconfident looking gesture.
"That's a bad echidna! Making up excuses for your weakness."
Knuckles' response to that statement was one that clearly showed he ignored it completely.
"I guess I'm right then. I'm all battered and bruised up and I don't know whether or not I have any broken bones but now's not the time to check." Knuckles closed his eyes for about 5 seconds then reopened them and stared coldly at Igneous.
"So now you're taking this to your advantage and doing useless attacks to try and ware me down enough so that you can finish me off without any trouble. Is that right?" Knuckles said silently but loud enough for Igneous to hear. His fists were clenched and he looked half tired and half bored.
Tired and Bored. They were two completely different things when dealing with Knuckles.
Igneous chuckled at the hypothesis and soon laughed out loud like a mad man.
"Yup! You got it! After all, if you're gonna die then there's no need to suffer right? HAHAHA!!" Igneous had but his fists on his hips as he laughed at the sky.
Knuckles closed his eyes again and let out a small breath while Igneous continued to laugh. The echidna opened his mouth again and said a word that caught Igneous' full attention.
"Coward."
"What!" Igneous stopped his 'madman' pose and replaced it with a 'taken back' one.
"I had thought that this was suppose to be an honorable fight that was to determine the outcome of the destiny of needy child. That's why I wanted Amy to stay out of this. However, it's become more than obvious that throughout this fight you've been using cheap and annoying gimmicks to reframe from fighting for real."
Igneous just stared at him as Knuckles continued.
"Hmph! What's your problem! Are you that frightened of me? Are you afraid that your power alone isn't good enough? If that's true then I'm leaving… I don't need an opponent like that."
Igneous couldn't believe what he was hearing. This fool was asking him to kill him!
"Tiring someone out is a good plan of action in battle but not in situations where that someone is holding back just so he can do it. That jump attack just now was stupid and an easily evadable attack. I know you can do better but you deliberately didn't!"
Knuckles stomped his foot in the sand.
"People who don't honor their opponents' request for a 1 on 1 duel by not giving them their all disgust me! If you're just gonna play games and jump around then I'm moving out! Come at me with everything you have! I'm more than a worthy opponent to the likes of you!"
"Y-You." Igneous stammered.
"Attack me the hardest you possibly can in a fight like this! That's what I want! If you can't honor that than you're a coward!"
It was silent for about to seconds before Igneous pumped his fists in the air trying to hold back 'honorable warrior tears'.
"I'm no damn coward! If you want to die painfully and mercilessly than fine! I'm coming at you with everything I've got!" Igneous started to punch the air with his newfound respect for the animal he was trying to kill.
"Good… despite my state or my size…I'm not weak…and I demand to be treated like it damnit!"
"Gotcha! No more gimmicks!" Igneous shouted and struck a pose that would probably have people laughing at him if anyone was around.
About 2 more seconds later Igneous dug his hands into the ground and began to lift. Knuckles felt as if the entire planet was rising out of the ground. That may have not been the case but HE was rising off the ground.
The Earth rumbled and rattled and shook until it began clear what Igneous was lifting up. Under Knuckles' feet was a huge boulder as big as a house!
"How's this for my best eh?" After a few more seconds Igneous succeeded in lifting the entire boulder out of the ground. All of it uncovered was a bit bigger than a regular two-story house. However it was huge for rock standards in the desert plains.
Well at least this desert.
Igneous made a large grunt and lifted the boulder above his head with Knuckles still standing on it. He fixed his arms so they were in an acceptable position and began to twirl the boulder around. Knuckles hadn't seen this coming and soon found himself launched towards the sky. However, Igneous still held the boulder.
"Now let's see you handle this!" Igneous launched the boulder straight towards Knuckles about 10 seconds after he had sent him flying.
Despite it's size and the speed it was coming at him with. The echidna couldn't help but smile.
On his travels with Amy he had done simply to get away from the island life once in a while he had discovered so many things about the situation at hand. He read books about a kingdom in coordinates 000 that had been condemned for over 4000 years.
Some king named Prower had been tricked into becoming some sort of monster somehow by his assistant. Some Diox clan was destroyed some thousand years after that happened and ever since Kitsunes have shown up for brief periods of time to cause a little destruction and then be put to rest.
It was a cycle but it was read that today that cycle would end at where it began. The many different kitsunes showing up throughout time had appeared at different locations on the planet, not coordinates 000.
After the thing was created at coordinates 000 kitsunes showed up at specific times at different coordinates such as 025L, 050, and 025R. However, it was read that when the cycle ended at coordinates 000 again the ending of all life would come.
It would all end at where it began.
Knuckles thought about this as the boulder drew closer to him and he smirked.
"Bullcrap…" Knuckles extended his hands and braced himself for the boulder's impact. It hit his hands with amazing accuracy.
"I'm not about to let some kitsune decide when my life will end…"
The echidna dug his hands into the rock as they kept going up.
"… I don't care what some dumbass prophecy says…"
Knuckles slammed his feet on the rock and began to push it back. His strength was being forced to push back both Igneous' and the boulder's strength!
"…I will live… I'm stronger than some dumbass robot!"
The boulder was slowing down and Igneous began to notice it as well.
"…I'm stronger then some crumbly old rock…"
Knuckles pushed even more and the rock, somehow, defying all logic in the echidna's mind, stopped flying!
"What!" Igneous was sure he had thrown it hard enough for it to at least reach the stratosphere (Realistically he had only thrown it hard enough to reach past the clouds). It didn't make any sense that it would stop before it got past the clouds however.
"…I'm not gonna die…I'll win! You hear me!" Knuckles began to pull back his fist.
"What the hell is he doing?" Igneous looked really freaked out by this.
"Now eat this and choke on it too!" Knuckles slammed his fist into the rock at an angle he doesn't usually do and instead of it breaking the boulder was launched right back at Igneous!
"Oh Crap!" The robot clearly didn't see this turn of events coming and hesitated to move. When he released he should move it was already to close. Igneous lifted up his hands in a last ditch effort to save himself.
The rock slammed against his hands and himself and almost instantly created a huge crater in the ground! Dust immediately fillled the area.
"HA! You're amazing Knuckles!" The echidna laughed as he slowly made his descent.
As he drifted back down to the battlefield he could make out three things. There was a miraculous amount of smoke everywhere, a pink hedgehog running up to the smoke that had stirred from her sleep not a while ago, and sand… lots and lots of sand.
"Oi, there's so much sand." Knuckles twitched as he landed in the safely in that sand.
About a minute later Amy had caught up to him.
"Hey, Amy! When'd you get-"
WHAM and Knuckles was face down in the sand. Amy's hammer fizzled, as did the lump on Knuckles' head.
"When did I wake up you ask? Oh about a few minutes ago! Thanks for caring! I can't believe you just left me there alone in that sand! I could've been buried and lost to this vast and dirty desert forever!"
"…That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing you know." Knuckles mumbled.
Amy had heard it but simply gave him a 'hmph' and turned away.
"Besides what was I suppose to do just let the bad guy get away." Knuckles knew that didn't get through to her when he saw her cross he arms and pout.
Knuckles sighed and almost considered letting his guard down when he felt that annoying presence again. The echidna immediately steadied himself then heard the sounds of rocks moving.
"Duck!" Knuckles shouted.
"A duck? In the desert?" Asked Amy.
"No you idiot! Get down!" Knuckles shouted as a barrage of rocks came out of the rubble and smoke. Knuckles dived for Amy, grabbed her, and dodged the incoming rocks. They were moving faster than bullets.
Knuckles kept dodging for the both of them until the barrage stopped. When it did so did Knuckles.
He stared at the smoke for what seemed like a couple of minutes before a heavily damaged robot jumped out and made a punch at Knuckles. It happened so suddenly that it almost scared the echidna.
Knuckles ducked backward as the fist came out and Amy let out a surprised scream. Knuckles quickly dropped Amy and began to jab at Igneous' already damaged face. The robot shell surrounding a human body inside had plenty of cracks in it and only grew more as Knuckles' punches became more intense.
He kept punching Igneous' face until the robot fell back into the sand with Knuckles on top of him. As the robot's anger rose so did his determination. He grabbed Knuckles and tossed him to the side harshly.
The robot then got up on one knee then put his hand into the sand.
"I've had it with you…" He said as he bled through his shell. " I'm the great Igneous Rock! I shall not lose to a stubborn animal!"
"You're the stubborn one! Why don't you just stay down already! And how dare you attack a lady!" Amy fumed remembering full well who it was who put her into that oh so unpleasant state of unconsciousness.
"Be quiet. You're just as, IF NOT MORE, annoying than that echidna! I don't care which one of you dies first…"
That's when Igneous pulled out a huge staff that was eclipsed in rock. He held it in front of him with both hands and shouted.
"…AS LONG AS AT LEAST ONE OF YOU DIES MY MISSION WILL BE CONSIDERED AS SUCCESS!!" Igneous said launching himself at Amy.
"Amy!" Knuckles gets up and pushes the girl out of the staffs way at the last second. It connects with the ground and makes a small but frightening crater.
"This is my Metamorphic Rock Staff! My most powerful weapon!"
"… Hey… but since it's a collection of other rocks wouldn't that be Sedimentary…"
"I HAVE SPOKEN! IT'S METAMORPHIC BECAUSE IT SOUNDS COOLER!!" Igneous twirled the weapon above his head and tossed it straight at Knuckles like a boomerang.
"Heh! You thing that'll work." Knuckles harshly pushed Amy to the side as the staff closed in on him. With great timing he jumped over the rotating staff and landed in the same spot. "Easy!"
"You think so?"
"Huh?" Not a second after Knuckles had asked the question had the huge rotating staff connected him in the back and sent him hurling towards Igneous. The robot smirks as he pulls back his fist and jabs Knuckles in the stomach.
Knuckles basically threw up blood as both the still rotating boomerang staff and Igneous' fist connected their blows at the same time. Eventually Igneous grabbed the staff from behind Knuckles and quickly slammed it into the echidna and sent him into the ground before gravity did his work before him.
"Oh no! Knuckles!" Amy shouted when she saw her friend and her self proclaimed protector connect with the ground.
"HA! SMOKED YOU BITCH!!" Igneous shouted and began to laugh. "This boomerang staff is such a great attack that it can take out a dozen military tanks with one swing!"
"Oh yeah!" Shouted Amy raising her hammer high. "Well my hammer hits harder than that in one swing I'll tell you that!" She said as she launched at Igneous.
"What the hell is your problem?" Igneous asked while backing up a bit.
"Take this!" Amy slammed her hammer toward Igneous but he quickly dodged and continued to do so as her attacks continued to rain down on the robot.
This continued for about five minutes.
Eventually they were both tuckered out from the constant moving around.
"Well that outta learn ya!" Amy shouted.
"Yeah right! You didn't even hit me!"
"Yes I did!"
"No you didn't!"
"Yes I did"
"No you didn't!"
"Yes I did!"
"SHUT UP BITCH! I SAID YOU DIDN'T!" Igneous raised his staff and prepared to toss it.
"Get out of the way Amy!" Came a struggling voice from behind.
Amy turned quickly to see Knuckles barely standing and a lot redder than usual. Such an amazing spirit in such a small animal. It was unheard of.
"Knuckles?"
"I'm about to end this fight! GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
Amy didn't argue as she ran away from both Igneous and Knuckles and not looking back until she stopped to turn and look.
"HA! I think you mean I'M about to end this fight!" Igneous said as he began to twirl his staff around again.
Knuckles spit out some blood on to the sand as silently said…
"I meant what I said. I'M ending this fight right here, right now! It's over."
"Yeah you keep telling yourself that!" Igneous' spinning grew faster and Knuckles remained calm.
"Now be a good boy and stay there as I TOTALLY SMOKE YOU! BITCH!" Igneous shouted as he launched his boomerang of sedimentary rock at Knuckles.
Knuckles stood there as calm as ever until the staff was about an inch in front of his face. That's when, with amazing speed, he grabbed the staff with both hands and began to twirl across the plain with it.
It was hard to get control of it, as expressed through his large grunts of pain.
He then slammed his feet into the sand and began to skid across it. The staff was still twirling but now it was in Knuckles' hands.
Igneous was too stunned to say anything. This incredibly worn out animal just caught his attack… AGAIN!
Knuckles twirled around the staff noticeably faster than Igneous had done before.
"The minute you pulled this out you sealed your own fate! Now take this and don't ever bother me again!" With that Knuckles launched the boomerang rock staff at Igneous with twice as much speed as Igneous had done it.
BLAM!
The thing hit him square in the stomach and immediately broke through his robotic shell. It began hitting against Igneous' human body so hard it sent him rocketing across the sand for what looked like miles until a huge crash signaled that Igneous and the staff had crashed into the ground.
There was silence and smoke. Lots of smoke.
After the smoke cleared Igneous lied there not moving. His robot shell was shattered and he had a huge staff made out of incredibly hard rocks jammed into his fragile human body.
Knuckles didn't need to examine him when he reached the area Igneous had landed to tell that he wasn't getting up again… EVER again.
He however did look down into the mess that was Igneous and spot a small green light emitting from him. Knuckles simply reached in the mess and pulled out a green chaos emerald. Including the one Amy stole from Karst back at Christmas Island. They now had two.
The echidna sighed and turned away from the body as he made his way across the desert sands toward what he thought was the ice region and hopefully where Tails was.
He was amazed that after all that he was still standing, much less walking. He didn't say anything when he saw Amy run up to him with a perky smile on her face. It was almost too perky… it almost scared him.
"What?" Knuckles asked breaking the unwanted silence.
"Oh nothing… we sure make a great team. That was tough work! Phew!" Amy said wiping imaginary sweat from he forehead.
"Pff! Yeah right! I did all the work! You slept half the time and didn't land a signal hit on him throughout the entire fight! 'Great team' my ass! I'd be much better off with that annoying hedgehog than a lazy girl like-"
Knuckles was silenced when something he wouldn't have predicted would happen ever in his life happened.
Amy quickly pecked him on the cheek and ran towards the direction Knuckles was walking. Knuckles stood there with an unbelievable blush on his face.
"Don't take that the wrong way Knuckles! That's nothing compared to what I would've done to Sonic!" She giggled and ran off into the desert.
Knuckles quickly snapped out of his trance and began to yell uncontrollably from embarrassment.
"Wh-who asked you to do that to me! Hey! Come back here! I'm talking to you! DAMN YOU!!
Meanwhile flying over the desert region unnoticed
The Government's assassination team was headed for the ice region in a rather large and noticeable Government ship.
Hato sat there quietly pondering why Smokestack thought his appearance in 3-way villa was helping any.
Rasshu sat quietly as well contemplating whether or not this fox was as big of a freak as the report stated. If he was he'd have fun killing him. Rasshu smiled silently to himself.
Buru was counting the amount of change in his pocket. He didn't really care what it was they did as long as it was done quickly.
Shoui kept fixing her hair even though it looked fine.
Mardo was… for some reason… licking a half empty yogurt cup and stabbing it with a fork.
Buru leaned over to Mardo and suggested he use a spoon to get the rest out.
"Oh yeah, that's right! AAAAAA….AAAAACHOOOOO!!" Mardo sneezed into a tissue held up by Buru at the last second.
Hato smiled to himself. This was guaranteed to be fun!
Sorry if this was a long rate and if there wasn't enough Tails. I felt Knuckles deserved a little spotlight for once. I'll try to update sooner. REVIEW PLEASE!