A/N: Whoof, sorry for the late-ish update!
princessunicorn: Thanks very much for the review! Heh, for some reason it seems everyone wants to know what happens when Shadow gets bitten. XD Well, we'll see . . .
The next morning, the crowd of Mobians assembled again for a council of war. It didn't go as smoothly as yesterday's meeting; getting everyone into one building at the same time even once was quite a feat already. As it was, Team Chaotix was out on a case and had sent only Charmy to be their eyes and ears (heaven knew how that would go), Team Dark came stumbling in late looking battered and missing several fingers (all of them Omega's), and Knuckles didn't show up at all. They considered going to fetch him, but at last decided somebody would go over and tell him the minutiae sometime soon. Persuading Knuckles to leave his Master Emerald was like dragging a monkey from a banana grove.
"Okay," sighed Tails, when everyone had finally settled down a bit. "So, what's the first question?"
"How to get that Fio critter to bite Eggman," deadpanned Sonic.
"Wouldn't help us much," said Tails glumly. "Remember, Fio's pure evil. He only reverses traits that are good or maybe neutral. If your most important trait is being an evil genius, he probably wouldn't touch that—he'd keep moving down through the 'list' of traits until he found the most important non-evil one."
"Awh. But hey, hey, he's supposed to be all smart and all. What if it took his intelligence?"
"Then he'd stop showing off with complicated robots and just throw bombs willy-nilly at major cities until you died," said Shadow flatly. Sonic subsided quickly, muttering something about getting short-changed.
"We've got to start planning," said Blaze, pacing. "We must prepare for this creature's attacks in every possible way. Would it be feasible for everyone to carry a bottle of the antidote at all times, for quick treatment?"
"Well, I'd have to mix up a lot of the antidote, and it's a bit . . . well, expensive to make . . . " Tails stammered.
"Talk to G.U.N.," drawled Rouge, looking up from reattaching some of Omega's fingers. "We told 'em about Fio, and now they're concerned about national security and are willing to help out. They could probably chuck some funding your way."
"Wow," murmured Tails, awed at the prospect of receiving financial aid from an international security organization.
"Are we still going to need bottles of the antidote if we've already been bitten?" put in Amy. "What happens if Fio bites you a second time?"
"No clue," shrugged Tails. "Best-case scenario, you get immunity after the first bite. Middle ground, the same thing happens the second time as the first time. Worst-case scenario, the second bite kills you."
Several unhappy murmurs.
"Antidote all around," said Tails resignedly.
"Speaking of immunity, though," said Rouge. "Wouldn't Omega be immune? All metal, you know."
"Probably . . . "
"I expect I'd be immune too," said Shadow lazily. "I don't respond to poison or venom."
"Don't get overconfident," retorted Blaze. "Pure evil is not to be trifled with."
Shadow said nothing, but closed his eyes in a way that indicated he was quite sure pure evil had nothing on him.
"Say, Shadow, what about that thing you kept seeing while I was running the electrical tests on you?" asked Tails abruptly. "That cloud thing?"
Shadow shook his head firmly.
"It was definitely black, not purple. And it wasn't a harmless mist, it had eyes and powers. There was a solid form inside there, somewhere."
"Hm," murmured Tails pensively. "We still should keep that in mind . . . "
"I have a question," said Silver, waving. "What about the Chaos Emeralds? What happens if Fio gets hold of them?"
"As far as we know, nothing," said Blaze. "If the document is as old as we think, the Ancient Echidnas hadn't even developed advanced civilization yet. The Master Emerald, and by extension the Chaos Emeralds, would not yet have been known as a powerful force; they might not even have existed. Therefore it's fairly safe to assume that Fiolet has no connection to the Chaos Emeralds."
"Ah, cool!" said Sonic, perking up. "That's gotta be the first time we've had a major enemy who can't use the Chaos Emeralds against us!"
"Things can change, though," warned Blaze. "He might try. And he might succeed."
"Might, might," scoffed Sonic, waving dismissively. "Mites aren't a problem unless you have the mange."
"Honestly, Sonic," Blaze sighed.
For a while they all theorized about who was in danger of losing what. It was a little awkward at times, analyzing each other's characters, but some calls were quite simple. Marine, for example, was sure she would lose her love of seafaring adventure, and everyone agreed. Silver, obviously, was set to lose his psychokinesis, Shadow his immortality or Chaos powers (assuming he wasn't actually immune), and Tails his intelligence or twin tails.
Also, there was the question of secondary effects. Fiolet's venom targeted only the most dominant trait of one's character, but it seemed to have slight effects on other traits as well. Sonic, for example, had lost at least a bit of his speed; Amy had lost not only her love for Sonic, but her usual honesty and open-book nature. It was impossible to say whether these were just unintentional side effects or actually connected to the venom, and none of the Mobians were really too keen about gathering new data.
At last, the meeting seemed to wind down. Tails left to mix up the first few batches of the antidote (it was agreed those would be given to the children, to protect them as soon as possible), and Rouge volunteered to go tell Knuckles the most important points of the meeting.
It was some forty minutes later that she came stumbling back to Sonic's house, nursing a swollen purple shoulder.
"What is with that echidna, exactly?" she asked angrily. "I barely approached that island, and I nearly got killed!"
"What happened?" asked Tails, eyes wide.
"I don't know. I set foot on the ground, and a tree falls on me!"
"By accident?"
"On purpose. It was rigged to collapse, there were cut marks all over the trunk. When'd he install the death traps?"
"He never said anything about that," murmured Tails, glancing back at Sonic. "There was nothing there a few days ago!"
"Doesn't sound good," said Sonic grimly. "We'd better check it out."
He and Tails headed for Angel Island swiftly. They talked little, silent with tension.
"Do you think? . . . " ventured Tails.
"I wouldn't be surprised. Leave it to the Knucklehead to get bitten by something. And ten to one it'd take away his knucklehead—ed—ness . . . You know what I mean."
Tails airlifted Sonic onto the island. Uneasy about landing, they rose a little higher than the treetops, looking down at the uneven green carpet of palms and cycads.
"Looks all clear, doesn't it?" said Sonic. "We could probably come in for a landing somewhere in that—"
Suddenly Tails gave a little cry of horror. Sonic lifted his line of sight just in time to see an arrow blazing through the air, heading directly for him. There was no time to react, but a little lightning-fast corner of his brain screamed that it couldn't be a sharpened arrow, even as his eyes snapped shut reflexively.
There was a piercing screech, and Sonic's eyes flew open again. By some unheard-of miracle, a Flicky had happened to fly into the path of the arrow just before it struck him. The bird somersaulted in a tumble of feathers and plummeted downwards, dead.
"It was sharp," Tails whispered from overhead, his voice quavering. "It was sharp."
"Yeah," said Sonic quietly, looking down at the swaying leaves where the bird had fallen. "We . . . might need some backup."
After some thought, they realized the death traps weren't really a problem; they just asked Shadow to Chaos Control straight to Knuckles and give him a bottle of the antidote. Shadow was a tad miffed at playing delivery-hog, but at last agreed.
Four minutes, three Chaos Emeralds, and a lot of oaths later, they found that this wasn't about to work.
"I can't use them!" gritted Shadow, his fingers sliding angrily over the facets of an oddly dull cyan Chaos Emerald. "That Master Emerald that the idiot guards has control over all the Chaos Emeralds. He must have asked it to disable them all to prevent anyone from Chaos Controlling to him! He wants to force anyone trying to get to him to go through the death traps."
"Didn't know you had the green Emerald," remarked Sonic, somewhat irrelevantly. Shadow blew through his nose in irritation.
"I didn't know Knux had that much influence over the Chaos Emerald scene," sighed Rouge. "So then, since the airspace above the island seems to be completely riddled with arrows, I guess the only way to get to him is the old-fashioned footwork way . . . ah well. I wasn't really satisfied with only getting one tree dropped on my head anyway!"
It took a while to find a corner of the island that was safe to land on. Even then, they decided it would be best to leave the younger or less agile set behind.
"We should probably stay in pairs," said Sonic. "Everyone, find a partner. Oh, for Pete's sake!"
This last part because Amy had immediately swooped to his side. She gave him a bright smile, her hands clasped behind her back sweetly, and Sonic relented enough to give her a resigned smirk in return. Meanwhile Silver sidled closer to Blaze, Rouge leaned an elbow on Shadow's shoulder (he shrugged her off without a second glance), and Espio, rather bewildered, found himself with an equally bewildered Omega. Vector had wanted to come, but he was clumsy enough on level ground without having to worry about death traps.
"Every team got a bottle of antidote?" called Sonic. "Okay. Let's all split up and try to come at the shrine from the four compass directions. Whoever gets there first slugs the potion at the angry echidna, and we'll see if we can't get him back to normal knucklehead levels."
"You sure it's safe letting those two go off into the romantic jungle alone?" smirked Rouge, nodding towards Silver and Blaze.
"Don't be absurd." Shadow glanced up boredly. "Those two couldn't maintain eye contact while eating Popsicles."
He got several raised eyebrows. Rouge blinked.
"Where do you even . . . Now I'm scared."
"Yeah, sh-shut up," stammered Silver. He had already turned quite pink at Rouge's first comment, but by now he was doing a spot-on impression of a Ferrari.
"So you do know what I mean?" said Shadow slyly. "In that case you may have to explain to her where you learned that. Previous experience?"
"Cut it out!" protested Silver, reaching maximum saturation in the red spectrum.
"All right, all right, that's enough," sighed Sonic amusedly. "Come on everyone, we'd better get going!"
Each choosing their own direction, the four groups set off.