God i am late i ment to get this up before Christmas oh well

Chapter 7

Arrival at Aquarius

(Unknown location)

In a area that was draped in a never ending darkness, a place that even shadows seem to be brighter than the scenery itself, lays a castle. Asian in design but only if you could manage see it's silhouette. With in this place best fit for the nocturnal resides a jackal of unknown origins draped in a cape and metal armor brooding over something but not just anything. As the only source of light within or around was a giant gemstone. it was perfectly cut and gave a wondrous light green glow, until you took a closer look on the bottom point you would find that it is actually missing a point and on the top surface you can see a small crevice engraved onto it. While the near invisible canine was still looking at the gem he heard a voice in the back of his head it was shallow like the owner was scared of whom it was talking to. "Master. Two children that don't have regular energy are getting ready to move out of the village of darkness."

The Jackal's face didn't change in the slightest. "And what makes them worthy of telling me?"

The voice made a audible sigh anticipating what was to happen. "They seem to have a similar energy to you and your prize." with this the Jackal became more focused.

"Rally this to the others: Pursue them only if your certain you can WITHOUT alerting any of those pesky elders. No need to start a war due to their own over confidence."

"Yes Lord Lucifer."

"And while your at it… report to my personal torture chamber for observing my prize. I'll meet you there shortly."

"At once… Lord Lucifer."

The Jackal stood up from his chair and began walking away all the while he thought on what happened to those two kids that eluded him and the less than pleasing ideas he had for the his lieutenant well mostly pleasing to him and not the lowly worker.

(Meanwhile)

At the large plain black gates that marked the south boarder to the darkest hospitable place known to date. On the south side it was surrounded by a forest of trees with three dirt paths carved out. While the north had buildings rivaling the height of trees. At the bottom of the gates 4 figures were standing at the entrance. Two canines, a wolf and a fox, with a hedgehog and a bat. The wolf and fox look at each other before pulling themselves into a loving embrace. After the three minute love fest they forcefully detached their arms and left down to different paths the fox taking the eastern path while the wolf took the western path. The two only walked on for all of 5 minutes before the fox heard a familiar scream.

"Oh no that can't be Sarah!" The fox wasted no time running the other direction at surprising speed past the gates now devoid of the other mammals. Upon reaching the destination he found the wolf with a bleeding wound on her side, on the verge of collapsing next to a tree. On the other side was a hedgehog that look more feral then any he's seen before. The main figure was larger than a normal hedgehog, the quills were boarder and looked more like fur the canines were as defined as well… a wolf and it stood on all fours like a feral animal. With a look of pure rage the fox grabbed his zanbato from it's chain-link based holster and ran for the beast. It saw the attack and jumped above it. In a strange turn of events it then stretched it's arms down and struck him in the back knocking him to the earth.

After the hit he remembered what Rouge the bat had told him about The Chemist. He grunted at the example of genetic manipulation and shot back up in a fighting stance. The beast decided to make a move now as it stretched it's arms out to try and hit him again. He retaliated by having one of the hands make contact with the blade he was holding dead on. The force the creature used for an attack was just used against him. It howled in pain as it quickly retracted both arms to inspect the wound for the extent of the damage. While it was licking the blood from it's paw it didn't notice that the fox came up from behind and cut its neck clean off, falling onto the back of the beast with it's tongue still in a licking position. Leaving the body to twitch once or twice before it disintegrated to a very small mount of powder. which the fox grabbed in between his fingers bringing it up to his eyes only to find that his skin had hastily absorbed it. He turned to Sarah to see if she was alright.

Bleeding torso, holding on to a tree, and ready to fall over. I'll give you one guess people.

Seeing that she was indeed going to collapse he ran towards her to catch the now limp body only to be a second too late and having to resort to the collar of her robes which held her for a minute before coming undone and giving him a full view of her well rounded chest. With a blush he sat her on the tree and placed what medical supplies he had on the wound and put her robe over her as a blanket all the while wishing for a pair of pants or at least five to ten minutes with out looking at her chest or without her waking up.

Within two hours the wolf had started to awaken finding the rescuer sitting to her left, sleeping with a tear stained face. "Shattered." the fox snapped his eyes open to find her awake. "What happened?" breathing a sigh of relief he began to answer.

"Well, we left the village for different direction, you screamed after you were attacked by…something, I came and killed it, did what I could for your injury, and hoped you wouldn't die from my lack of medical training."

"Any ideas what that… thing was?" She asked.

"Nope it disintegrated before I had a chance to look it over. All it left was a small mount of powder that my fingers just well… absorbed."

"You just absorbed it? You'll need to ask the next elder we meet on that matter."

"Over at Aquarius. The both of us." Shattered replied making the 'both' part as clear as he could.

Sarah looked at him with a hint of agitation. "And the reason you say that is?"

"You didn't last 5 minutes with that thing alone. I don't want another friend or family member dying because I'm not there. Now if you'll excuse me." he turned his whole body in the direction away from the wolf. "Please get dressed. When you lost consciousness all together, I tried to catch you, but I missed and resorted to the back collar of your robe and it came undone a minute later." She finally took notice of what she had on and saw his point. With a slight blush she stood up and got the robe on properly after looking at the wound and used a white light that she had formed in her hand to heal it.

The wound itself looked like it had been made with claws and was very savage no less. The bandages that were already placed managed to keep the blood from oozing out long enough for a scab to generate over it preventing anymore. The actual healing process had took ten minutes to get to the point where it wasn't visible past the fur. Once it was done she put the robe on after seeing it secure she turned to Shattered.

"Ok, I'm ready now."

"Good let's head to Aquarius." the two had then started walking of towards the village of everything liquid.

(Unknown location)

The once silent darkness was now accompanied by a scream of pain as someone was being tortured to death. That someone was a an oddity as he had or rather used to have green lizard scales that now had rips and tears from the cuts his superior had inflicted on to him on his back you could see the marks of what was once wings but now foot long bloody holes. The reptile was bound to the ceiling and floor by black metal chains. He had an expression that showed hopelessness and a inward "I told you so" as this was the same way that the 20 or so predecessors had "resigned."

Two feet from his face was the jackal dubbed Lucifer he had in his hands a whip in one and a special bladed staff known as Soul Crusher to those that know it while the uneducated would see it as a custom Zanbato. the biggest notable "custom" was that it was forged with unknown amounts of blood that boiled with rage as it left it's owner, giving it the edge equivalent to the most evil blade ever forged in deepest pits of Hell. The blade itself looked demonic alone the design on the staff wasn't any less evil but instead gave a feeling of status to the user with a dragon like appearance starting from one end ending with the mouth opening up to the blade. What most people would find fearful was that it almost looked to be alive.

"Well now." The canine began. "I think you learned your lesson. All that's left is to clean the room." The lizard shot up in fear. Seeing the man with a small glint of hope in the lizards eyes that it was going to be quick, only to watch him drop Soul Crusher with the blade digging into the blood stained floor "Beelzebub, dinner time." At the command of it's master the black still eyes on the weapon cracked apart revealing ominous red as the cracks began to flow across the dragon like design the red glow followed through. As the cracks grew over a body part entirely it began to move and grow in size until the whole dragon was standing in front of the lizard that more than likely shat and pissed himself. The beast was the size of half the room with red eyes black scales with a slightly lighter than black shade of blue underbelly, the wings were leathery and further increased the visual size more so. The large dragon gave a fierce roar before it took the reptile into it's mouth chewing once before swallowing. It's master watched with mild enthusiasm as it happened plenty of times before the only question now is who the next reporter will be.

(In front of Aquarius)

The two had made it to the village easy but they still wondered about the loot they found from the failed attacks mainly the 4000 or so pieces of gold from wild animals. But either way aside for the wealth there was also the matter of the powder from some of the corpses that not only Shattered absorbed, but Sarah as well. Seeing the dilemma, she used a leaf from a near by tree and scooped a sample into a glass tube.

Upon entering they were met with a gust of wind as a blue streak rushed up to greet them kicking up a thin wall of water from the wet ground. "Hey there, you must the guy Shadow mentioned." it said as the air born water met the earth.

"And you are who?" the fox asked rudely. Only to get punched in the arm by Sarah.

She greeted him properly. "Hello I'm Sarah and this emo canine" she pointed to the vulpine in question. "Is Shattered."

"Nice to meet yay I'm Sonic The Hedgehog." the blue one said.

"I wonder why teacher never said anything about how cocky you were?" -POW- Sarah gave him a more forceful punch in the arm earning the sound of a twig snapping the whole village heard. "You know you didn't have to break my arm."

"And you don't need to be so judgmental." she replied.

"I'm not. It's written all over his face." The entire time Sonic was wondering if the two were as inseparable as Shadow said.

"Ok kids, calm down. I may be the husband of Amy and live hear but I'm still the Wind elder."

"And Shadow's the Darkness elder, as Amy being Water, I presume. but more importantly if you're the Wind elder why are you here especially since you can't swim and who's in charge of your village."

"In the same order I'm married, learning to, and Tails has taken care of it turning it into a metropolis."

"Well this time lets cut out the shenanigans." The fox began. "We need a place to stay, she needs any lessons on healing you offer that are not in Shadow's village, there's some powder in a tube that Sarah got from a creature that attacked us on the here, she'll give you the full story of that, and I need directions to some guy Rouge called 'the Chemist.'"

Sonic responded to the last part with his head hung low. "so you want to go against Mogul then? Well I guess the moving mountain should die."

"woah, woah, woah." Sarah interjected. "Die why should he?"

"She does make a good point Sonic. Death is not you, that much I know."

"Well first, let me tell you his story. Mammoth Mogul was an evil immortal entity made possible by a chaos emerald. The backlash though crippled him to the point that he will inevitably die from the very thing keeping him alive. Since he gave Tails the most grief he was the one to celebrate the most. But than someone else came, and told him something or other that made him want to do scientific stuff. Genetic stuff and along the way he found how to extend his, no longer endless, life. But he has to constantly raids us of the resources needed for whatever he makes."

"So do you know where his fortress is?"

"No."

"Then how am I going to kill him?"

"They try to raid us every other day so why not hitch a ride with one, they tried yesterday so they are due tomorrow. But first go to Amy in the Elder's palace at the center of Aquarius. She'll give Sarah here the Healing lessons of Water. Finally based on the large stack of gold you brought with you the inns should be very accommodating."

"Um, one more thing." Shattered took a moment to get his zanbato out with his good arm. "Shadow gave me the Emerald Shard he was guarding and put in the container." he lifted the orb holding the Shard of Darkness into Sonics face. "At the end here."

"Well tell Amy this and she will decide on giving you the Shard of Water."

"One more thing, does Tails have the Wind Shard?"

"Yes. I gave him it when I gave him power over Agustus the now metropolis of Wind."

"One more-hic" Sarah began dragging Shattered by the collar effectively cutting him mid-sentence.