Plan?
A ball of blue razor spikes smashed into the robot's body at full force. "Out of my way, junkbot!", Sonic shouted as he regained his feet running, just to launch himself at the next group of Badniks. The hedgehog bounced into the first, ricocheted into the second and stomped down onto the third.
Freeing himself from pieces of wreckage, Sonic cast a glance around and yelped at the sizzling sound and the blinding brightness of a laser gun shot. Diving for cover, Sonic landed rolling on his shoulder. Spinning on his heels in the same movement that brought him back on his feet, the blue hedgehog spinballed in direction of the newly appeared swatbots.
He knew he shouldn't be here. Actually, he'd not planned going here at all. For obscure reasons he'd ended up smashing into Robotnik's base.
Defence was a lot less organized than usual. The boss wasn't 'at home' and the crowd of robots was slightly overcharged with the blue hedgehog racing through the labyrinth of humming machine blocks.
But still, there was no point doing this. There was no reason to smash the robots that guarded the base. Neither running around like this at all. But he couldn't stay there. The idea was sick. Insane. Absolutely crazy. Suicidal even.
Sonic grunted as the suddenly striking arm of a swatbot catapulted him straight against the next wall. Muttering a curse, the hedgehog crawled back to his feet and stubbornly got back at the robot, ducking past a newly attacking arm and spin-jumping right onto the machine.
The usually satisfying sound of the armor cracking and the crumbling of the robot that followed it went almost unnoticed as Sonic was already running again, slaloming around the buildings in his way and dodging the occasional shots aimed at him, but not truly paying attention to the battle.
It wouldn't work like this. The Persecutors had always been strong opponents to fight, and they'd never before met more than a handful of the Drakons' war machines. Them together with the most likely to be already invented sick Robotnik-machines… Amy was right. He'd take out a few, the others would take out a few… make it hundred or thousand even. Never close to enough. Never close to a fair chance... but Robotnik had never aimed at being fair. Nothing of this was fair.
Still, there had to be a way. There just had to. He'd always found one. If there was a chance to beat the odds, it was Sonic the Hedgehog's job doing it.
If he'd follow Knuckles' idea… what if he would end up really destroying everything he'd ever fought for? Everything that was worth being protected? If he really did turn super, the chances that he'd kill Robotnik were as big as killing his friends or himself. Was that worth it?
But what if the echidna was right? What if there was just a tiny chance he wouldn't? What if he wouldn't have taken that chance and the Drakons and Robotnik succeeded? He'd never know if he would have been able to prevent it. Anyway, what were their chances if he didn't try?
"Damn it all…" With a loud crash, Sonic smashed through the enforcement of the base's perimeter.
Knuckles frowned down onto the screen of his handheld communicator, showing him a good view on the freedom fighters' headquarters.
"What if we'd smash that portal ring thing of his?" Amy paced the room.
"How do you suggest we smash it?", Porker asked slowly.
"We shoot a rocket at it." The pink girl paced back.
"It's too big to be truly damaged by anything we shoot at it…", Tails took over answering for the pig.
"Sh-oot!" Amy dropped onto one of the chairs standing around, just to stand up again as soon as she sat. "There is no point sitting around here. We're discussing for hours and nothing has turned out!"
Knuckles looked down onto the small screen of his communicator. "We have found multiple ways how not to destroy Robotnik's machine," he pointed out sarcastically.
"Knuckles is right, we already sorted out everything that doesn't work, maybe now we'll soon find the way it will work...", Tails put in, trying to cheer the others up.
"Sure we will…", Amy mumbled annoyedly. "You know what? I will go home now, do some shopping and make myself a coffee. I'll call you guys if I get a brainwave."
"Okay, Amy." Porker nodded at the hedgehog girl when she left. For a minute he sat still looking after her, then he turned back to where Knuckles could see his face. "Maybe she's right and we should all take a break. This is leading us nowhere."
Knuckles was about to open his mouth to answer when someone else did.
"What is leading nowhere?"
Tails and Porker's images on the screen turned around as Sonic stepped into the picture, looking dirty and tired.
"Sonic," Knuckles addressed the hedgehog before anybody else could say something. "We all just think that the chances to have any form of success if you-"
"Spare your breath, Red," Sonic interrupted, "I'll do it."
"You – what?", Porker choked out.
"Are you deaf? I said I'll do it." Sonic turned from the pig to look at Knuckles. "Don't say anything or I might change my mind."
The echidna just looked at the hedgehog, knowing full well it had been a hard decision, and nodded.
Tails leaned down from the biplane's cockpit, looking down on Sonic and Knuckles. "Porker and I will try finding something else to do against Robotnik's invasion plans."
Knuckles nodded. "It can't hurt. The more plans we have, the better."
"I can leave you here without risking the two of you smashing each other's skulls?" Tails smiled good-heartedly.
Sonic grimaced. "Sure. I'll do my best not to kill him."
Knuckles snickered. "We have work to do together. I'll try keeping him in a good mood, don't worry, Tails…"
Sonic grunted, but didn't comment further.
Tails looked between the two and started his engine. "Then good luck, guys."
"We need it," Sonic muttered under his breath, finding by the glance Knuckles shot him the guardian had very accurate hearing in spite of the lack of visible ears. Ignoring him, Sonic forced a smile on his face as he waved up to Tails. "See ya later, little bro!"
"Bye Sonic! Bye Knuckles!", the fox called waving back while the Tornado slowly started to roll over the meadow.
Sonic stood still gazing after the biplane hopping slightly over the bumpy subsoil but quickly gathering speed and soon lifting up and climbing straight into the flawlessly blue sky.
Knuckles silently eyed the hedgehog. The emerald eyes clung to the little plane as if it was a fading opportunity to escape something entirely evil. The echidna wasn't quite used to see Sonic stand around; the hedgehog rarely did. Usually you always found him moving in the one or other way. Now he stood stiffly, and Knuckles' sharp eyes couldn't miss on the strain that had braced all of the not big, but tough muscles under his skin and fur. The hedgehog's body was a bow spanned to near breaking point.
Not at all a good starting condition for teaching him anything about control and measuring of chaos powers. Knuckles frowned. He had somewhat expected that... He would need a less direct approach.
The guardian folded his arms, still sideways looking at Sonic and waited the almost five minutes until the hedgehog turned to him. "You ready?", he asked then.
Sonic grimaced. "As ready as I can be for doing something absolutely crazy."
"It is not crazy, Sonic," Knuckles calmly contradicted, biting down the comment that Sonic usually spent his life doing nothing but crazy things. It was not the time for comments at all.
"Says who? You? You don't know, Red. It has never happened to you." Sonic firmly crossed his arms.
Silently skipping on being pet-named, Knuckles tried meeting Sonic's eyes. "No, it has not. But I have seen it happen. I have seen many things like that happen. I control the Master, Sonic."
"Maybe that's easier," Sonic muttered. "Maybe the freaky big stone likes you or something. Maybe you're a natural talent."
Knuckles slowly inclined his head, but decided against telling Sonic he most likely was, after all, he had been chosen as the Master Emerald's guardian not without a reason. Instead, he regarded the hedgehog for a moment and took a small pause before he spoke. "Do you know anything about chaos other than that it is dangerous?"
Sonic gave him a stern look. "I know it makes me do bad things. I know it hurts me."
Knuckles still just calmly looked at him. "When you got hurt fighting Robotnik, what did you do?"
The hedgehog frowned. "What do you think I did, Red? Bite my lip and go on…"
The echidna shook his head. "Sure. But that was not what I meant. You used the rings."
Sonic blinked. "Eh.. yes?"
"The golden rings are chaos. The weakest manifestation of chaos we know, but chaos after all."
Sonic narrowed his eyes. "I know that. If I had enough of them I sometimes turned super even without any Emeralds in reach."
Knuckles nodded. "Yes. But used at the right moment in the right amount, they do good not harm."
One of Sonic's ears flicked. "Ah, now you're going to tell me 'take just a bit of freaky Emerald stuff and its all fine'…"
The echidna shook his head. "That wasn't exactly the idea, no. Although, even saying you have a strange way of putting it, one Chaos Emerald is less dangerous than more of them. The Emeralds are… one unity split into seven bodies, you could say. They belong together. Their powers increase the more of them get close together."
Now Sonic looked stern again. "They get unstable when you put them together. Even with cooling you can't keep all seven together."
Knuckles calmly shook his head. "I keep all seven together."
"You're a wizard, Red." Sonic pulled a face.
"No." The guardian shook his head again. "With chaos it is as with many things. You need to know how it works. Come on, I'll show you something more about how things work."
Sonic frowned, grumbling under his breath, but reluctantly followed Knuckles. Wherever the red idiot is going…