A/N: Yeah, I know. Two weeks overdue. The usual excuses—plus this chapter was really long, I'm no good at battle scenes, and I really didn't want this to suck too badly, being the finale—but still. Guess there's not much I can do but offer my sincerest apologies for the wait and proceed with the chapter . . .
I'll try to get the next chapter up by Friday to make up for lost time, but I make no promises there. Tuesday's more likely.
Shadow had volunteered to be first for the simple reason that he was the least likely to die if something went terribly wrong. Right now, he stood with the toe of one shoe barely brushing the ground, the soft roar of Chaos humming in his ears. He regarded the creature that stood before him: a purple horse, lean but powerfully built, with a wild, tangled purple mane that almost resembled seaweed. This could just be a horse, or could be the water kelpie of Irish legend—either way, he didn't care.
"You know, I went to a lot of trouble to keep you from getting those powers," he remarked bitterly.
"And I went to a lot of trouble getting them," hissed Fiolet. "But in the end, your refusal to help me made no difference, save for the fact that I will now kill you. And all your friends." He stepped a little closer, his lips drawing back in a snarl—ho-ly cow, since when did horses have needle-sharp teeth?!—and regarded the glowing hedgehog with narrowed, hate-filled eyes. "Refusing my offer was foolish, Shadow. But I still respect you enough to offer you one final chance. Join me, and perhaps I will spare your life."
"Bite me," snapped Shadow. Then he registered the irony and just had time to smack his forehead before Fio leaped to oblige.
Super Forms didn't need to breathe. That should have been clear enough considering that Super Sonic and Shadow had once spent a prolonged amount of time in the vacuum of space, but it was still an interesting sensation to feel water swishing harmlessly into your lungs.
The kelpie had sunk its bristling mouthful of teeth into Shadow's arm and dragged him underwater almost fifteen minutes ago. In that amount of time it had cycled through five forms: Kraken, swordfish, a surprisingly violent giant octopus, killer whale, and now a shark. Shadow swerved aside to avoid a rapidly lunging body preceded by a grinning needle-filled mouth; none of the forms had managed to do any damage to him, since he was Super, but he still didn't fancy getting rammed head-on.
The shark barreled by him and plunged onwards, unable to make quick stops or tight turns. Shadow squinted after it, but quickly lost sight of it—the water was murky with agitated sand. Slowly he turned, waiting for the shark to circle around and return. There was no telling which way it would come from . . .
Out of the corner of his eye, he registered a dark shape roaring closer through a swirling haze of silt. For a moment he pretended not to have noticed; then he swung around and lobbed a handful of Chaos Spears in the shark's direction. Caught off-guard, it went down in a vortex of purple blood. That was the first time in the battle he'd managed to actually kill it.
Shadow took the opportunity to define the fight in his terms for a change. Looking up at the faint glow of the surface, he boosted towards it and shot into the fresh air. Touching down on the shoreline, he waited for Fiolet to follow him out.
Fiolet again obliged, exploding up onto the bank in a spray of seawater. This time he was a tiger, striped with Chaos gold atop his regular purple. Shadow was pretty sure tigers didn't normally come that big.
"Prefer land, do we?" rasped Fiolet, breathing hard. Water dripped from his lowered head as he reaccustomed himself to the air; Shadow took the opportunity to lunge at him. A pawfull of giant claws flashed towards him at once, and would probably have finished him then and there under normal circumstances. As it was, streams of Chaos spurted every which way, fizzing dangerously. Both hedgehog and tiger were thrown back with a fairly violent jolt; Fiolet, recovering, snarled and made a great leaping arc around Shadow, taking off.
"Get back here!" barked Shadow, shooting after him. Heaven forbid that creature get into a major city.
"Shads, don't tell me you're still Super," warned Rouge.
"I know what I'm doing!" Shadow's voice crackled back, breathless. "I've killed him five times already, but he's putting up a good fight!"
Ultimate or not, there was no such thing as immunity to adrenaline. It carried through his voice on the communicator, twisting the pitch upwards and filling each syllable with an eager barking energy; would have been cute if it weren't so dang scary.
"You've been holding onto those Emeralds for almost half an hour by now. Any longer and you'll drop them and waste a lot of time and energy. You're switching out, buster."
"Nobody to switch to!" This was followed by a muffled roar that sounded like the ground getting blown to bits somewhere nearby.
"I'm sending Silver over. He's closest to you."
Shadow began a very opinionated reply, but Rouge hung up. Muttering, he dodged as another spray of rock and soil flew into the air just by his elbow. Fiolet was quickly getting the hang of firing beams of Chaos.
"Giving up so soon?" smirked the purple chimera he was currently up against. "I'm disappointed."
"If I were you, I'd be honored," retorted Shadow, readying a blitz of Chaos Spears. "You wouldn't believe how many of us want a piece of you."
"Oh, so generous of you to let them all have a turn . . . " Fiolet leaped aside, giving a yowl of frustration as several of the Spears met their mark. Normally that many would have killed him, but there was the whole dang Chaos defense now. Worse, none of the new forms seemed to have any appreciable weak spots, at least not the kind you could readily pick out. Shadow favored aiming for the eyes and face, but he didn't reckon a lot of the others would be aggressive enough to try that.
Speaking of.
"Picking up the relay!" called a familiar voice nearby. "Woah!"
Fiolet had immediately turned his full wrath upon the unprotected hedgehog who had just arrived. Shadow didn't even have time to yell something angry about getting out of the way, but Silver miraculously did not die. Flicking up one wrist, he froze the chimera in midair, flipping it upside-down deftly.
"Hey. Remember me?"
Evidently Fio did, because he started to thrash madly, his eyes wild. Silver, tightening his hold, glanced to Shadow and tilted his head in a "go-ahead" motion.
Shadow didn't need any more invitation. A scream of Chaos Spears, and the blue aura of Silver's psychokinesis fell from around an indistinct purple tangle of mist.
"He'll be back in seconds," warned Shadow, touching down next to Silver and giving him a skeptical look. "Ever done this before?"
"I think so . . . "
"You think so?"
Silver shrugged.
"How spaced-out do you have to be . . . " Shadow groaned, but resigned himself. Truth be told, he was starting to feel the strain of holding onto the Chaos Emeralds more than he was willing to let on. Much as he'd love to keep this grudge match all to himself, it was time for someone else to have a turn.
The purple mist was already gelling into a solid form nearby. Shadow laid a hand firmly on Silver's shoulder for the transfer.
"Just try not to screw it up too much, all right?"
Silver merely gave him a smirk. Shadow rolled his eyes ruefully.
"Yeah, yeah, I've seen what you can do."
Silver chuckled, then closed his eyes and shuddered excitedly as the cool sizzle of Chaos energy suddenly rushed into him. A flash and an eddy of light, and a golden glow filled Silver's body while Shadow dropped into his usual black and red. Thank gosh; the transfer process worked.
"I've definitely done this before!" whooped Silver, bouncing off the ground and reveling momentarily in the oddly familiar (but still delicious) sensation of being invincible.
"Keep your head on your shoulders! You've got a job to do," retorted Shadow, doing his best to stay upright. He wasn't quite to the point of passing out, but dropping out of Super always takes a fair bit of your own energy with it.
"All right, all right, I—" Silver paused, surprised. "What the . . . "
Shadow looked up and blinked at Fio's newest form—an eerily accurate purple-and-lavender reproduction of himself.
"Now I'm legitimately insulted."
"It's got no mouth," said Silver, puzzled. "Why—Yikes! Hang in there!"
Shadow dodged aside hastily as the purple hedgehog sent a blaze of energy his way. Fiolet evidently saw fit to attack whichever fighter wasn't Super—they hadn't thought about the fact that the transfers would entail one vulnerable combatant on the scene at all times.
"Pick on somebody your own size!" called Silver, hoisting a boulder out of the ground and lobbing it Fio's way.
"He's exactly my size," said Shadow drily.
"Metaphorical size?" grinned Silver, shrugging. Then he looked after Fiolet, who had just morphed into a cheetah and was tearing out of there like nobody's business.
"Woah." He blinked in surprise while powering up his psychokinesis for rapid pursuit. "I've never had anything be scared of me before."
"Don't let it go to your head!" Shadow called after him as he disappeared.
Silver caught up to Fiolet within five seconds.
"Get back here, scaredy-cat!" he scolded, catching the cheetah up in his psychokinesis and tossing it against a tree. "Relax, this time I'll only throw things at you."
The cheetah hissed, bristling in a mixture of anger and terror, then suddenly whirled into an indistinct smoky form. This in turn collapsed upon itself and yielded a tiny purple creature—a hamster. It blinked up at Silver with wide shining eyes.
Silver blinked back down at it, bewildered.
"Is this s'posed to be an insult?"
The tiny creature huddled against the ground pitifully, still gazing up at him. Silver groaned, realizing where this might be going—fighting a big vicious monster was easy, but killing tiny cute helpless hamsters took a particular brand of angry.
"Nice try, but I'm gonna have to deal with you anyway," he announced resignedly, picking up a nearby rock. The hamster gave a squeak of fright and tumbled over onto its side. It lay there, motionless.
Silver squinted. He'd heard hamsters were easily frightened and died young if stressed too much, but actually dying of immediate fright seemed unlikely.
"You're faking," he said cautiously, landing and squinting harder at the tiny purple form. "Come on, get up."
The hamster still didn't move. Puzzled, Silver crouched down and leaned in to poke at it cautiously—
—at which point it promptly exploded into an enormous purple creature and struck him like a cement mixer going sixty. Silver crashed back against a tree, and the tree itself decided it had really had enough and went down as well.
"Really . . . realllllly should have seen that one coming." Silver sat up slowly, groaning. Luckily the Super hadn't been knocked out of him—Knuckles swore that was possible, and Sonic didn't contradict him—but he was still momentarily dazed. This was long enough for Fiolet's new form, a massive purple rhinoceros, to charge at the dizzy hedgehog, head down and horn spewing arcs of Chaos.
Silver's vision steadied just in time to show him he was about to be skewered.
"Yipes!"
The rhinoceros bellowed angrily as Silver sent it tumbling across the ground in a whirl of blue.
"I think I liked it better when you were scared of me!" panted Silver, scrambling to his feet. Thinking fast, he hoisted up the tree he'd just knocked down and hurled it in Fiolet's direction, but the rhinoceros merely tossed its head and blew the trunk to smithereens with a single bolt of Chaos.
Silver, however, had latched onto an idea. Taking off, he kept up a brisk pace through the air while gathering rocks and loose bushes from the ground, alternately baiting and herding his opponent along. Fiolet thundered along beneath him, morphing from form to form in mid-run, attempting to mow him down with shafts and missiles of Chaos. Obviously he would rather fight a non-Super opponent, but first he had to figure out how to lose the one that was Super.
He was focused enough on eliminating Silver that he didn't notice he'd been coaxed back onto Angel Island. Silver landed and surveyed his surroundings, leaving himself open to any attacks Fio might choose.
"You're mine!" snarled Fiolet, charging up a particularly powerful ray of raw power.
"You sure?" Silver sprang aside nimbly and tossed out one hand. Suddenly patches of blue glowed all around him, and a whole half a forest's worth of felled trees rose around him, ready to throw. Knuckles hadn't cleared all the broken trees off his island yet.
Fiolet had time to swear, but that was about all.
Tails' communicator chirped shrilly, cutting through the steady whbwhbwhbwhbwhb of his tail-rotor.
"Tails here!" he called. "Silver?"
"Yeah!" The hedgehog's breathless voice rattled against the speakers. "I'm starting to get shaky here—" At this point there was an unearthly screech in the background, and the sound of wood snapping "—and I don't have time to get up high enough to see if anyone's nearby. Is there anyone I can transfer to?"
"One second!" called Tails, and rose higher, squinting in the direction of Angel Island. "Blaze is nearby! I'll send her over!"
"Thanks!"
Tails hung up and immediately paged to Blaze's radio. Fiolet was maneuvering madly around the region all the while, and Silver was hounding him with anything that wasn't fastened down, so he almost passed Blaze by entirely. Then he caught notice and whizzed back, landing in a spray of earth and grass.
"Quick, quick," he panted, looking over his shoulder. "He's getting away!"
Blaze nodded sharply and was about to reach out, but Silver had already grasped both of her hands gently.
"You sure this is going to work? I know you're more used to the Sol Emeralds—"
"It shouldn't make a difference. We shall soon see," said Blaze firmly.
Silver nodded, still catching his breath. Blaze closed her eyes and concentrated, and Silver felt a faint tug at the energy in his hands as it wisped across into Blaze's system.
"It's different," she murmured.
"I can hang on a few more minutes," said Silver gamely. "Take your time. Get used to it."
"Mmmhm." Blaze bowed her head, focusing on tuning into this new wavelength, syncing the rhythm of her cells to a foreign beat. Silver watched her face intently, her eyes moving behind her eyelids, her upper teeth worrying delicately at her lower lip. His heart swelled involuntarily—after all that had happened, it was so good just to know she was here . . .
"I'm ready," announced Blaze, her eyes still closed. The tug at Silver's hands grew stronger, drawing the energy faster and faster. He didn't even realize what he was doing until his muzzle was brushing against hers; even as her eyes slid slightly open and her head tilted to counter his, a flare of energy encircled them both. When it faded, Silver was back to his usual pewter gleam, and Blaze was glowing an intense pink, trails of flame flickering from her wrists. She drew in a breath and nodded slightly at the somewhat giddy-looking Silver, smiling.
"I have to get to work now."
"I know." Silver grinned ruefully and watched as she disappeared in a streak of magenta flame. "Good luck!" Still grinning, he sat down for the briefest of rests; he knew he should be getting back to his "flier" duties, but he had to regain what falling out of Super had taken.
Although Burning Blaze was a fast form, it still took a while to locate Fiolet. A rattle of gunfire and distant screeching soon clued her in, though.
Fio had taken advantage of the lack of pursuit to head for Station Square, but luckily G.U.N. had used its collective head for once and had stationed its largest squadrons around major cities. Fiolet, now as a giant purple wolf, was snarling and weaving back and forth a quarter-mile from the city limits, held at bay by showers of artillery fire and helicopter assault.
"Face me!" commanded Blaze, sending a wave of fire his way. Fiolet glanced up at her and snarled, showing a mouthful of glistening pale-purple canines.
"On your own terms!" he growled, and collapsed into a jumble of shifting smoke. A sudden whoosh of movement, and a giant flapping form arose from the mist, shooting up to Blaze's level in the air. It appeared to be an enormous bird of some sort, but its wings were indistinct, sending off streamers of purple energy.
"A phoenix?" Blaze smiled sardonically. "Appropriate."
Squealing throatily, the fiery bird swooped out of the G.U.N. soldiers' range and dove into a nearby clock tower, sending geysers of purple flame spewing from the windows. Blaze gritted her teeth—that was much too close to populated places for comfort.
Shaking her head angrily, she whisked through one of the windows in pursuit. It was dusty inside, still smoke-scented from the phoenix's entrance, but there was no sign of a flaming bird. Blaze touched down on the floor and stepped cautiously, peering around. Pigeons scattered before her, cooing frantically; not far overhead, giant iron bells hung mute, casting eerie shadows over the bizarre gargoyles lurking in the corners.
Still no sign of Fiolet. Blaze gave a short breath of puzzlement, turning around slowly and squinting into all the corners. Where? . . .
Suddenly one of the gargoyles roared to life, leaping at her throat. Gasping sharply she struck it back, but it merely spread its forelegs for traction, tossing its ugly head and charging a beam of Chaos in its mouth. Blaze dodged, but not fast enough; the force sent her crashing back against the wall of the belfry. If it hadn't been a stone building, it would probably have broken open.
"You die a second time today!" snarled Fio, leaping to claw at her face with talon-bearing forefeet. Blaze hissed angrily and struggled to hold him off with one arm; the other arm reached back until her fingers found crevices in the wall, letting her dig in for greater strength. Preoccupied with her throat, Fiolet missed the flash of fury in her eyes.
"Crikey," muttered Rouge from her post, squinting at the distant city's clock tower. The entire top of it seemed to be engulfed in flame, first pure orange and red, then mixed with shreds of purple, spewing from the windows and licking far into the sky.
"Well, we won't have trouble keeping track of her position, anyway . . . "
The gargoyle version of Fiolet had gone down in moments, but now he returned as a phoenix again. The giant fiery wings swooped and thundered in the enclosed space, beating Blaze back, striking the church bells and sending them swaying wildly. The air sang with clanging and thundering as the two opponents chivvied each other back and forth, clawing and striking and throwing down carpets of flame. Panting, Blaze dropped to one knee, her eyes flickering shut.
"Worn out already?" sneered Fiolet, landing with a scrape of talons on wood. "Say your prayers."
Blaze glanced up at the ceiling with one eye. Fiolet followed her gaze, just in time to see the final tongues of flame eat through the rafter above him. It happened to be supporting one of the largest bells.
The clang of metal striking wood was deafening; the whole floor trembled and crunched faintly. Blaze clambered to her feet, breathing hard.
"Twice in five minutes," she remarked grimly. "I account myself lucky."
Fifteen minutes later the call for backup went out again; luckily Knuckles was close by. When he tore onto the scene, Blaze was at the city limits, grappling with what appeared to be an extremely large and very toothy salamander—the mythical fire-proof kind.
"Transfer needed?" bellowed Knuckles above the scraping of claws and thudding of scaly flesh.
"Please!" gritted Blaze, taking advantage of the salamander's dive for her throat to drive a knee into its throat. "I will confess this is somewhat tiring."
Knuckles grunted in understanding and winged a fist at the tip of the salamander's tail. It screeched in pain and whirled to glare at him, slobber dripping from its teeth.
"Don't let it bite you, you're not Super!" cried Blaze, as the giant lizard lunged for Knuckles in turn.
"Transfer, if you don't mind!" barked Knuckles, diving clear for all he was worth. Meanwhile, the salamander drew back and eyed its two new opponents, grinning. Then it swung around, its long tail lashing, and lumbered off down the nearest city street. Two strides along it morphed into a deer and went bounding onwards at a blinding speed.
"Wait! No!" Blaze cried, shooting after it.
"Blaze! You've got to transfer before you pass out!" Knuckles shouted after her futilely. Groaning, he set out after the monster and fire-cat with all the haste he could summon.
He found them soon enough, at a city intersection, grappling again. Luckily the streets were deserted, since everyone was hiding from Fio's rampage, but Blaze was hard-pressed to keep Fio—he was back to salamander now—from destroying buildings.
"Blaze!" shouted Knuckles. "Transfer, now!"
"I can't!" Blaze called back over her shoulder. "I can't afford to leave him unattended for even a second!"
Knuckles swore, scraping his feet on the asphalt in desperation. What to do? There was indeed no time to be wasted on transferring, but if Blaze didn't hand off the Chaos Emeralds soon she would pass out and "drop" them, creating an even longer pause while Knuckles picked them up and entered Super himself. A third fighter could solve their problem, but—
As if in answer to Knuckles' frantic thoughts, a sudden blitz of shrapnel and fire shot down from the sky, striking the salamander in several spots across its back. Screaming, it whirled towards the sky, eyes blazing.
"Look who I've got!" whooped Rouge from overhead, waving at the enormous battleship hovering over her shoulder.
"Eggman?!" sputtered Knuckles, aghast.
"This happens to be my territory!" bellowed Eggman's voice over the ship's scratchy built-in speakers. "And I happen to have had enough of you interfering with the city I plan to rule!"
"We'll take whatever motivation we can get, huh?" Rouge called down drily, then winced and looked away hastily as the streets became splattered with purple blood. Judging from the subsequent whine of wings, Fiolet had now chosen some kind of giant insect form in hopes of meeting the flying battleship on a level playing field.
Meanwhile, Blaze landed on the street and staggered slightly, her breath shallow.
"Easy now, easy," soothed Knuckles, hastening over to catch her before she fell. He was still a few paces away when he gasped and was forced to stop, though.
"Gosh, that's some temperature you've got," he said uneasily. "You okay?"
"Normal part of the Burning form," panted Blaze, steadying herself against a swiftly-warping lamppost. "This may pose a problem in transferring, however . . . "
"Dammit," muttered Knuckles, and setting his teeth, forced himself to step closer. The heat washed over him in a blinding wave, and despite Blaze's obvious efforts to reduce the temperature he felt his palm searing when he grasped her hand.
"Knuckles, no . . . " she mumbled dizzily, already starting to lose consciousness.
"Hang in there, hang in there," murmured Knuckles soothingly, though his own teeth were clenched. "Just a few seconds . . . "
The searing heat in his palm gave way; his body filled with the soothing hum of Chaos just as Blaze gave a little sigh and slumped against him.
"Take it easy," he sighed, setting her down gently against the remains of the lamppost. He turned over his palm cautiously and found that the burns were already healing; nice job that Chaos was doing. Glancing up at the sky, he found that both Eggman and Fiolet seemed to have taken the battle elsewhere. The radio on his wrist crackled suddenly.
"He's headed southwest," Rouge informed him. "Quit hugging Silver's girlfriend and get going!"
"I'll find a reply to that when I'm less busy," muttered Knuckles, and launched off the ground to find his target.
Eggman and Fiolet (now in the form of a condor) were duking it out in the countryside. Eggman was not at all sparing in his use of missiles, and Fiolet was carving great hunks out of the Egg Carrier with multicolored bolts of energy. Knuckles couldn't even figure out where to find an opening.
"Nice color," somebody quipped behind him.
"Hush, you," retorted Knuckles, casting a glare over his shoulder. "It's magenta."
"Uh-huh." Rouge grinned wryly, tilting her head. "Pretty intense action over there though, huh?"
"Just glad it's out in the open," muttered Knuckles, watching as the condor went down in a tangle of purple feathers. The resulting mist foamed for a moment, then snapped into the form of a winged horse, powerfully muscled with glowing red eyes.
"Not very cute, for a little girl's fairy-tale dream," remarked Rouge. Knuckles sighed impatiently and feinted through the haze of bullets and missiles, trying to get in a shot at Fiolet without getting shot down himself. Rouge settled back to watch the action from a safe distance; the battle raged on, moving slowly across the Mobian countryside.
Eventually they approached a lone cottage standing out amongst the fields and fens—Cream and Vanilla's house.
"They're out, right?" Knuckles called over his radio.
"Tucked up in G.U.N. HQ like bugs in rugs," assured Rouge blithely. "Smash away."
"I'm not planning to wreck their house, you know. Just in case."
"Uh-huh."
"Seriously, hush," muttered Knuckles.
Fiolet seemed to realize that civilian collateral swung the balance of power in his direction. He began to circle closer and closer to the little cottage, daring Eggman to hit it, and finally leaped right up onto the roof, wings flaring.
"Shoot me down now!" he bellowed.
The Egg Carrier seemed to lurch suddenly, but the shot still struck true; Fiolet went down with barely a yowl. He'd miscalculated on Eggman's reluctance to take out innocent bystanders.
"Damn," muttered Rouge, eyeing the smoldering wreckage of Cream and Vanilla's house as Fio respawned nearby and the battle continued. She was just about to turn back to watch Knuckles taking over, since Eggman seemed to be running short of ammunition, when a hint of movement caught her eye.
"Hey! Who goes—wait, what the—" Rouge swooped down to land by the wreckage of the cottage, dangerously close to the main brunt of the battle. "Bokkun?! What are you doing here?"
"Cream!" sobbed Bokkun, scrambling among the rubble and struggling ineffectually to drag it aside. "Cream! She's trapped in there somewhere!"
"She's not, you little idiot," sighed Rouge. "She and her mom were evacuated to safety."
"They were?!" Bokkun's face lit up. "Honest?"
"Sheesh, honest." Rouge rolled her eyes.
Bokkun plunked down on a piece of rubble and sighed with relief. Suddenly, however, his eyes went wide in realization and he burst into tears again.
"What now?"
"That means I was worried for nothing!" wailed Bokkun.
"Oh, big tragedy," groaned Rouge, impatient to get back to watching the battle. "You'll live, believe me."
"But now Master Eggman knows! I tried to stop him from blowing up the house, and now he knows!"
"He knows you're sweet on Cream, you mean?" asked Rouge, raising an eyebrow. Bokkun nodded tearfully.
"I'm doomed now! Do you know how Master Eggman will punish me?"
Rouge opened her mouth to reply, but suddenly some sixth sense sent the back of her neck prickling. She barely had time to bark "look out!" and dive headlong before a stray bolt of Chaos blew the piece of rubble where Bokkun was sitting to ashes.
"Dammit," groaned Rouge, untangling herself from her somewhat ungraceful landing. She flicked an appraising eye over the little robot she had just managed to snatch out of harm's way. "In one piece, shorty?"
Bokkun nodded mutely, seemingly in shock.
"Yeah, well." Rouge hoisted him up by the scruff of the neck and stood him on his feet. "You're with us now, kid."
Once Eggman's salvos had tapered off a bit, Knuckles was able to get in on the action a bit more. He baited Fiolet expertly around the countryside, mowing him down repeatedly with sheer brute force. After twenty-five minutes or so he radioed in to Rouge, who was still watching from an appreciable distance.
"Who's there to transfer to?" he hollered. Rouge boosted higher, squinting around.
"Nobody in sight," she informed him grimly. "Let me put in a call to Tails and Silver, they'll find someone close to this region."
"Could you maybe step on it a bit?" asked Knuckles, his voice ragged. "The energy just kinda dropped off all at once, and I'm starting to have a hard time holding it here."
"Hang in there, hang in there," mumbled Rouge, already punching through to Silver's radio. Unfortunately Silver and Tails couldn't report anyone particularly close to their region either; it was going to be a few minutes before anyone could show up. Meanwhile, Knuckles was circling around with a purple hyena, trying to get past the grinning teeth and flashing spouts of Chaos to land a hit. A particularly well-aimed bolt struck him in the chest, sending him tumbling. For a second his head spun and his fur started to flicker back to red; it was only with effort he managed to pull himself back into Super.
"Knux?" Rouge, watching from far overhead, blinked as Fiolet's hunched purple shape suddenly went galloping away. "Knux, why'd he leave? Are you okay?!"
"I'm—losing it," gasped Knuckles, now sounding utterly exhausted. "He knows—I'm too tired—to stay Super and follow him at the same time—"
"Hang in there, Knux," said Rouge, chewing her lip. "Silver's sending over Sonic, Tails is still searching—somebody's bound to get here soon. If worst comes to worst, you'll just have to drop the Emeralds. We can afford that once, can't we?"
"Not really," grunted Knuckles. For a moment there was silence. "Rouge, get down here."
"What?"
"I'm not going to be able to hold out for Tails or Sonic. We're going to have to try something drastic."
Rouge opened her mouth to ask what, then suddenly blinked in realization and grinned slowly.
"You won't have to ask twice, Knux."
To be continued; possibly on Friday.