Sorry this took so long to update guys.

anywayyy enjoy chapter 7!

Chapter 7: Moving Along

The next morning seemed to come too soon. It was partly due to the trio not sleeping the best, and the early wake up call from Silver. Unfortunately for Silver, Chip neglected to explain the whole werehog endeavor in detail, so he wasn't expecting the rude and painful awakening.

Silver had been wavering through a deep and light slumber in the few hours that they had been able to rest. By the time the sun was just peaking over the horizon he had fallen into a deeper sleep but was hastily awoken by the ever-familiar sharp pain in his wrist. The orb on Chip's bracelet was flooded with the soft green light, shooting light energy throughout Silver's body triggering his reverting transformation.

Silver's eyes flew open as the pain quickly surged throughout his body, everything beginning to revert back to its original state. Unfortunately he wasn't able to keep quiet and woke up Keela and Chip with his shouts and cries of pain. As one could imagine, Keela was greatly annoyed with Silver not having the decency to try and be quiet, but secretly she pitied him. Chip on the other hand was quite used to waking up early in the morning being in the same situation countless times with Sonic in the past.

When Silver fully reverted back to his usual self, he apologized multiple times on the account he didn't know that it would happen. Chip said he didn't mind, while Keela gave him an irked huff.

Once everything had calmed down, the trio gathered in the kitchen to talk in more detail about the plan for the next few days.

"So if we're headed to Spagonia, we're going to need a lot of food and water since it's a few days trip on foot." Keela grumbled tiredly as she sat down at her kitchen table with a small cup of caffeinated tea. "Not to mention money."

"We're not that much of help in that department." Silver muttered apologetically. "I've only got a small amount left and it's Crisis City currency."

"I think I have enough…" Keela said, bringing the cup to her lips and taking a small sip. She scrunched up her face at the bitter taste and quickly swallowed.

'It's only to wake up…' she thought to herself as she placed the cup back down on the table.

"You know," Keela started, "you two still haven't fully explained this whole situation to me."

Chip looked up to Keela from the table.

"That's right…" he agreed. "I'm too tired to explain everything correctly…"

"Oh, I know." Silver stated quietly. Both Keela and Chip turned to him as Silver pulled out a journal.

"This contains everything you need to know about our present situation." Silver explained as he held it out to Keela. She took the journal from Silver and opened it to the first page. There was a long period of silence as Keela read through the translated pages of Pickle's journal.

Finally she closed the journal breaking the heavy silence.

"I see." She said simply, handing the journal back to Silver. She looked to Chip with a somewhat serious expression.

"How exactly are you planning on sealing Dark Gaia?" Keela asked.

"By placing all of the Chaos Emeralds in the Gaia temples to restore light energy to the planet." Chip answered. "I explained this-"

"Yes I'm aware you explained this last night that it was your mission. But there is an added factor." Keela muttered.

"Iblis…" Silver whispered blankly.

"How are you planning on extracting Iblis from Dark Gaia? It seems that this is the only way to truly weaken Dark Gaia enough so that you are able to seal him away." Keela questioned. Chip opened his mouth as if he was going to answer but quickly closed it as his eyes drifted down to the table. He had absolutely no clue how to extract Iblis from Dark Gaia. In fact, before he was even awakened, he didn't even know Iblis existed. Since the very beginning of time all he ever focused on was sealing away Dark Gaia, so he didn't have time to learn about other potential beasts living within the planet.

"I'm honestly not sure…" Chip admitted after a long pause.

"We would need a vessel." Silver said with anger and sadness clear in his tone.

"Not necessarily." Keela interjected. "What if we use the tainted emerald?"

"What? That's unthinkable!" Chip exclaimed shaking his head. "Using a chaos emerald while it's out of balance could have dangerous and catastrophic results!"

"Hang on, give me a second to explain my theory." Keela argued. "Once all the rest of the emeralds are placed within the temples, that should increase the light energy of the planet, correct?"

"Yes." Chip answered

"Then you can reintroduce the positive energy back into the tainted emerald and use it as a temporary vessel and extract Iblis from Dark Gaia. From there all we have to do is quickly release Iblis's energy from the emerald out of the atmosphere of the planet. This will in turn weaken Dark Gaia enough for you to seal him within the planet to rest." Keela finished.

"I think it could work." Silver said, sounding slightly unsure but felt it was the only tangible option they had.

"I don't know…it sounds fine in theory, but will it actually work is the question." Chip said.

"I don't see anyone else coming up with anything better." Keela replied simply.

"Fine, but if a better plan presents itself-"

"Sounds fair." Keela interrupted.

"So now we need to move back to what we were talking about earlier." Chip said sounding a bit annoyed.

"Sorry about the off topic question." Keela started. "Anyway, I can go speak to the town council about defense. They'll heed my word for sure, especially after last night's events. Once that's done, we just need to pack food, water and money."

Keela stood up from the table, taking another unwanted sip of her tea before walking the cup over to the sink.

"You two should help yourselves to some breakfast while I go talk with the town council." Keela suggested as she dumped out what little tea was left in the cup into the sink. "Just leave enough for the trip."

"I'll make sure of that." Silver said, giving Chip a sideways glance. Keela nodded and headed out the kitchen, leaving her kitchen to the mercy of a 'starving' Chip.

Once Keela was out of sight, Chip immediately went to flying around her kitchen and began rummaging through the cupboards. Silver on the other hand, remained at the table just watching him collect all sorts of food. But his focus had drifted to something other than Chip as a thought entered his mind. With the emerald they currently had, how were they going to search for the other chaos emeralds? The odds of stumbling across one on their way to Spagonia were 1,000 to 1. His brows lowered in thought and he began tapping the table with his ungloved fingers.

"Hey Silver, aren't you going to eat something?" Chip asked, his mouth stuffed to the brim. Silver shook his head and turned to Chip. His eyes widened when he saw exactly how much food was lying out on the table.

"Chip! You're not supposed to eat the whole kitchen!" Silver exclaimed as he began grabbing some of the untouched food and bringing them back to the cupboards.

"I'm hungry!" Chip retorted as he tried hoarding some of the food that still remained on the table.

"Yeah but we need to save some for the trip!" Silver argued as he came back over to the table and tried taking away some of the food Chip was trying to hide.

By the time Keela returned from talking with the town council, Silver had barley managed to wrestle a majority of the untouched food away from Chip and place them back in their respective cupboards. He sighed heavily and sat back down at the table just as Keela walked back into the kitchen.

"Defense measures are being taken." Keela reported as she walked over to one of the cupboards.

"All right! Now that that's done we can start moving on." Chip stated, now speaking with his usual energetic tone. "We've got a lot of ground to cover."

"True enough." Keela muttered as she pulled some food out and brought it over to the table. Chip eyed it hungrily and reached his tiny hand over to the pile but it was quickly swatted away. Keela gave Chip a quick glare before leaving the room to go get a small pack.

"That was rude." Chip muttered as he turned to Silver. He only gave Chip the same look before going to gather up his pack, and putting on his extra pair of gloves.

Once everyone was ready to go, they headed directly for the next continent, that being Spagonia. Silver had only heard about Spagonia from the Professor's stories from when he was a young scholar and had gone to Spagonia a few times on scientific and academic exploration. According to him, it was practically the safest place to be if you wanted to escape Iblis's wrath since Soleanna was on the outskirts of the once great capital of Spagonia. The malevolent beast had grown quite tired and bored of the small population of Soleanna after his many years of destruction, and moved onto other destinations like Crisis City. With Iblis moved on this allowed for Spagonia to take an early jump at rebuilding, which gave the city it's futuristic reputation the Professor spoke often about. As the trio traveled across the rolling terrain of Angel Island, Silver attempted to picture what Spagonia would be like. He didn't truly know what to expect, but kept a few ideas of what might await them in his head.

Throughout most of the morning the trio had kept quiet as they traveled, mostly going over the events of the previous night. Silver, while attempting to imagine the famed Spagonia City, couldn't help but drift back to his dark transformation back at the temple. He was slightly worried that it might occur at any time, and gave periodic glances to the bracelet to make sure it wasn't the dark shade of purple. Keela was having somewhat the same train of thought. When they had finished getting rid of the Nightmares, Keela's mind went directly back to her friends being dragged away into darkness, and these thoughts continued to flow into her dreams as well. She attempted several times to bring her thoughts into focus on the mission at hand, but the images of her friends kept shoving themselves back to the front of her mind. With these worries plaguing the two of them, they had not time to talk or make any sort of conversation. Chip decided to let them remain silent since it was a change from when they were arguing constantly the night before. With everyone being so quiet and lost in their thoughts, they didn't even realize when they reached the end of the island. It was about 10:00 in the morning when they arrived, and Chip had to initiate the other two back into focus so they could continue to the next continent.

"Hm…" Chip hummed as he looked out to the ocean as the trio stopped. He could see that in the distance the ocean was split right down the middle. Beyond the large crack in between continents he could see the other half of the ocean and barley make out land on the horizon. He turned around to face the others.

"Since there's still only one temple is active with Light Gaia energy, I'm not sure how far I can transport us…and we can't use the Chaos Emerald either…" Chip thought aloud as he continued to look to the horizon. "What do you think guys?"

There was no response. Chip turned to the two of them, seeing that both were still stuck in their own thoughts. Chip flew over to Silver and snapped his small fingers in front of his face.

"Silver wake up!" Chip exclaimed. Silver gasped lightly, shaking his head and blinking his eyes.

"What?" Silver asked, bringing up a hand trying to swat Chip away from his face.

"We have a slight problem." Chip said bluntly while pointing out to sea. "Only one temple is under Light Gaia, meaning I can only transport us a short distance."

"Oh…yeah that is a problem." Silver muttered, still feeling slightly out of sorts. "So what do you think we should do?"

"Well, if I had a mental image of Spagonia I'd be able to transport us there, but it'd need to be a very vivid image." Chip suggested.

"Like you did the first night I met you?" Silver asked.

"Exactly. Only problem is Spagonia is a faded memory to me, and I can't really remember what the city looked like exactly…" Chip muttered, bringing a hand behind his head.

"You were probably too focused on the food." Silver grumbled.

"That's probably true." Chip agreed. Silver sighed slightly and shrugged his pack off his shoulders, letting it drop to the ground. He knelt down next to his pack and unzipped the top before reaching his hand in and pulling out the journal. He stood back up while opening the journal to remove the map from inside the pages.

"Well Soleanna is on the outside of Spagonia City." Silver said as he unfolded the map. "I just don't know how far away Soleanna is from Spagonia City."

Chip flew around and perched himself on Silver's shoulder to get a look at the map.

"There's Soleanna, and it doesn't look too far from Spagonia City." Chip muttered.

"Remember, we're walking to Spagonia City, so it'll be longer than you'd expect." Silver advised.

"Right but if it's the closest we can get to Spagonia we'd better take it." Chip said, leaving Silver's shoulder. Silver nodded and refolded the map and placing it within the journal. He then tucked the journal back safely into his pack before zipping it up and resting it on his shoulders.

"All right, let's get a move on then." Silver stated as he walked over to Chip. He stopped and turned to Keela, who hadn't been listening and was still deep within her own thoughts.

"Keela come on. We're heading out." Silver called. She shook her head and looked up at Silver and Chip who were waiting at the edge of the Island.

"I'm coming." Keela replied tiredly, walking over to the two of them.

"Ok, Keela hold onto Silver." Chip ordered. Keela made an uncomfortable face before grabbing onto Silver's arm.

"Ow." Silver grunted at Keela's unusually strong grip.

"I don't like it any more than you do." Keela muttered back, her normal hostilities returning. Chip gave and annoyed mental sigh before placing his hands on Silver's forehead.

"I need you to focus." Chip ordered, closing his eyes. Silver followed suit and began thinking of Soleanna. The bright and clam city entered his mind. He could see the cultured buildings, the crest of Solaris covering many of them. The streams in between the buildings began to weave into his thoughts, bringing the familiar scent of fresh salty air to his nose. People started to walk through the cobblestone streets, crossing the small bridges over the streams, their faces lit with bright smiles.

"Got it." Chip whispered to himself as he received the images of Soleanna from Silver. "Chaos Ligh-"

Dark images began flashing through Silver's mind, causing the image of Soleanna to crackle and fizzle out of focus. It was as if something was forcefully reaching into Silver's mind, and purposefully corrupting his thoughts. He squeezed his eyes tighter and clenched his teeth, trying to see through the dark smoke slowly consuming the image.

"Silver! Focus!" Chip shouted, trying to cling to the image Silver had started with. "SILVER!"

Silver shook his head and opened his eyes, panting lightly.

"Sorry…I…something…" Silver stammered, trying to piece together what stopped him.

"I got enough of Soleanna to have an image of my own but I need your help. Come on you've got to focus." Chip ordered, giving Silver a hard look. Silver nodded and closed his eyes once again, going back to thinking of Soleanna. The image appeared in his mind once more, calm and bright, as it had been the first time.

"Do it now!" Silver shouted.

"Chaos Light!" Chip chanted. An orb of light surrounded the trio, before closing in and sending them to Soleanna.

Silver remained vigilant on his memory of Soleanna trying to ignore being thrown about through Chip's Chaos Light. Keela wasn't making concentration any easier as her already strong grip tightened around his arm. And on top of all of that, the dark cloud began to move its way back into Silver's mind.

"No…no, no, no please!" Silver hissed through gritted teeth. The image of Soleanna faded, causing Chip to lose his concentration. This threw the trio aggressively out of the stream of Chaos Light. The orb of light spat the trio out as if they were poison, sending them hurtling at high speeds toward the ground. Silver opened his eyes seeing the ground approaching fast.

"Oh GOD!" He screeched, holding out his hands using his powers to immediately stop the three of them seconds before coming into contact with the ground. Each of them were frozen for a minute as they saw exactly how close they were to the ground before letting out a long relieved sigh. Silver gently placed everyone on the ground before dropping his telekinesis.

"What the hell was that!?" Keela exclaimed, turning to Silver. "What happened!?"

"Yeah what happened Silver?" Chip asked as he gave Silver a hardened expression.

"I don't know. Something fogged up the image and I couldn't focus. It was almost like the nightmare's smoke but worse." Silver explained, putting a hand to his head. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to throw us off course."

Chip immediately grew worried at what Silver just told them.

"All the more reason to get moving. Come on, let's figure out where we are and make a plan from there." Chip said as he lifted himself into the air. Silver nodded and stood up along with Keela. She walked passed him to follow Chip, but made sure to give Silver a disapproving glare before moving ahead. Silver's brow twitched in anger, but he shook his head trying to remove his feelings of hostility before following Keela and Chip.

The next few hours were what Chip would call torture beyond any comprehension. He desperately tried to get Silver and Keela to focus on figuring out where they were, but all they kept doing were giving nasty glares and snide comments to each other. Chip never had to deal with a relationship like this before since him and Sonic became friends almost instantly. But finally Chip decided to give up and call for a break.

The trio sat down on pieces of rubble to take a short snack and water break before continuing on to…forward. They still had no idea where the unstable Chaos Light had dropped them, and they were no closer to finding out with their only expert taking her time arguing with Silver.

"I can't believe you didn't ask me to help in the transport!" Keela exclaimed as she hastily threw her bag off her shoulders.

"Oh my god, you're going back to this!?" Silver asked, throwing his bag down as well.

"Yes I am! It's not supposed to take one's full mental capacity to think of a city." Keela answered. "If you had asked me I would've been able to-"

"Right, sure. Next time we teleport somewhere we'll just ask you, Miss I've Been Everywhere Cause Iblis Can't Touch Me!" Silver hissed.

"Oh wow, how many brain cells did it take for you to come up with that one?" Keela asked her aggressive sarcasm at it's worst.

"Holy…look I'M SORRY. I've explained why I couldn't focus-"

"Oh yes of course. You're mysterious Dark Smoke." Keela scoffed closing her eyes and crossing her arms. Silver's eyes widened hearing the pretentious tone in her voice. He clenched his fists and his voice almost fell to a growl in anger and frustration.

"So the dark smoke that grabbed all you're friends was 'mysterious' too? Gee, does that mean you didn't have any friends at all?" Silver hissed. Keela whipped her head around to Silver, her mouth open in disbelief.

"How DARE you!?" She screeched, moving closer to Silver as if she was going to tackle him.

"How dare I!? How dare you!" Silver shouted back. He moved closer as if he was ready to counter her.

"I probably have-"

"ENOUGH!" Chip screamed, flying right in between Silver and Keela Breaking them up. "This whole day you two have been glaring, arguing, and hissing at each other! Neither of you are focusing on what's IMPORTANT. Like maybe, oh I don't know, WHERE WE ARE!?"

Silver remained in his tense position for a second or two before heaving an agitated sigh and letting his body relax, and Keela did the same.

"Finally." Chip sighed. "I swear to god if that went on any longer…"

With Chip finally taking initiative, Keela got a chance to look around taking in the surroundings for the first time. They were currently located in a thin patch of forest with a large amount of rubble scattered here and there. Curiosity immediately dowsed her aggression, and she moved from the piece she was sitting on to investigate.

"What time is it?" Silver asked as he began to dig through his pack looking for his bottle of water.

"Probably around 1 judging by how long the two of you were arguing." Chip grumbled angrily.

"Well once we figure out where we are, we could move ahead a bit before setting up camp." Silver suggested as he grabbed his water and removed it from his pack.

"That sounds like a good plan. But if we're anywhere near Spagonia City, setting up camp would be a stupid idea when we could easily find a place to rest within the city." Chip muttered as he took out a snack to nibble on. Silver looked away from Chip to look at the scenery around him. He brought his bottle close to his lips before something clicked in his mind.

"Wait a minute." Silver whispered, lowering the bottle slowly. "Are we anywhere near a large lake?"

"I don't know. I've been to distracted the past few hours to really take any notice." Chip grumbled taking a bite of a piece of bread. Silver scrunched up his face in annoyance before standing up to look around fully.

"Guys." Keela called, as she walked back over to the two of them. "I found something interesting."

"I think I might have too." Silver added. Chip looked up to the two of them.

"What is it?" Chip asked.

"By looking at the rubble around us, I can certainly say we're near a very ancient castle. It also looks as if the rubble has been greatly water damaged allowing for it to scatter this thin part of the forest we've been traversing through." Keela reported.

"An ancient castle doesn't exactly help." Chip said unenthusiastically.

"Are you kidding? We're near the old Kingdom of Soleanna. That's only a few miles away from Soleanna itself. We made it!" Silver exclaimed excitedly.

"So all we need to do is head toward the old kingdom of Soleanna and then you can figure out where to go?" Keela asked.

"I know the way to Soleanna from there. It'll be a synch." Silver said with confidence.

"Mhm." Keela hummed doubtfully. Silver huffed lightly and picked up his bag, putting his water bottle inside.

"Come on. If we move now we'll be able to make it to Soleanna by nightfall." Silver said.

"Finally some progression." Chip whispered, shoving the rest of his snack down his throat before lifting himself into the air.

"C'mon let's-"

"Hold on. This is my field. This rubble has been moved and beaten about. Without my investigative skills, you'll get yourself going in circles. Let me lead the way, because I can guarantee our arrival to the old kingdom of Soleanna." Keela stated. Silver raised a brow in doubt.

"Even if you say no, I'm still going to lead the way." Keela said with a smug smirk. Silver grumbled quietly before nodding.

"By all means, lead the way." Silver hissed, holding out his hand. Keela's smirk only grew before she headed off, letting Silver and Chip trailed on behind her.

In, probably record time, they arrived at the old Kingdom, or what was left of it. Silver's jaw dropped slightly when they emerged from the forest to see the giant lake and the kingdom resting upon it.

"So, I think this is a good example of my skills. Actually no, a great example." Keela said with pride as she turned to Silver and Chip.

"Great work!" Chip praised, who was ecstatic that they were finally getting somewhere.

"All right Silver. Show us the way to Soleanna." Keela said, holding out her hand to the old kingdom, mocking Silver's earlier gesture. Silver huffed before walking forward and lifting himself into the air to get a bird's eye view. He looked around trying to determine which way he had come years ago to find this place from Soleanna.

"This place is even worse than when I visited it with Sonic." Silver muttered to himself. He brought his hand up to scratch his head when he noticed something. The bracelet on his wrist was blinking a bright green color. Confused he brought his hand down to level with his face, and poked at the bracelet. The bracelet flashed brightly a few times before a beam shot out into the thick of the old Soleanna kingdom.

"What the…?" Silver muttered as he floated back down the ground.

"Well, which way do we…?" Keela drifted off as she noticed the small but vibrant beam of light coming from Chip's bracelet. "What's it doing?"

"I don't know. I just noticed that the bracelet was blinking and I touched the orb, causing this." Silver explained.

"It's pointing to something." Chip said following the beam with his eyes. "And whatever it's pointing to is in there."

"We get to go into the old Soleanna Castle ruins!?" Keela exclaimed with excitement.

"Well if this bracelet is taking the time to point something out, then yes we're going in." Silver answered.

"This is going to be great." Keela stated with enthusiasm as she dropped the bag off her shoulders and started rummaging through its contents. Seconds later she pulled out a very expensive high tech camera.

"What's that for?" Silver asked, as Keela zipped her back and placed it back on her shoulders.

"Taking pictures, obviously. I brought it along for cataloguing some of the other Gaia temples out there, but I have the chance to go through a 21st century castle ruin! I'm not going to waste this opportunity because if I get decent information I could come back here with my archeology team after I get them back from Dark Gaia." Keela explained as she out the camera around her neck to let it hang at her chest. "Well? What are we waiting for let's go!"

"Hold on. I don't know if you can see this but the entire ruin is sitting on top of a giant lake." Silver said holding out his hand to the ruin.

"Well that's what you're for isn't it?" Keela asked.

"Are you kidding me!?" Silver shouted angrily. "I-"

"Silver, just drop it for now and let's get a move on." Chip advised. "The less fighting, the better."

"Fine." Silver grumbled before lifting himself and Keela into the air. Chip quickly followed suit and the trio then headed out into the ruins, following the beam.

Silver didn't do as much looking as Keela and Chip did, and remained focused on the task of finding whatever was acting up Chip's bracelet. However, this didn't stop him from taking a few glances here and there. The ruins were nowhere near as in tact when he last visited. Most of the buildings had been badly charred and burned at the tips, while water damage plagued the lower areas. Every now and then, Silver could hear a piece of a building fall off and splash into the, miraculously surviving, lake.

'This place is no where near safe.' Silver thought as he weaved in and out of the buildings. 'Keela's crazy if she thinks she can get an archeology team here.'

"Hey look!" Chip exclaimed. Silver looked to Chip to see he was pointing at something ahead. Silver followed Chip's hand until his eyes fell upon a large building.

"It looks like the main castle." Keela speculated.

"That's because it is." Silver stated. "And in the main castle there was a tunnel leading to an underwater laboratory."

"An underwater laboratory? We need to go see it!" Keela exclaimed.

"No, we're here to find out what the bracelet wants and that's it. We're on a tight mission schedule remember?" Chip stated bluntly.

"Besides that lab could be filled with water. That glass could only hold for so long." Silver muttered.

"You've been inside?" Keela asked in surprise. "How?"

"Later." Silver said simply, though he really didn't want to tell her in the first place. "The bracelet is pointing to inside the main castle."

Silver brought them down to the ruin, but he didn't drop his telekinesis in fear of the ground crumbling beneath their feet. He flew inside to see that all the tapestries, furniture, and practically everything within the castle shared the same fate as everything else on this planet. Things were ripped, broken, charred, shattered, and completely devastated. Silver wasn't at all surprised. Though, he could hear Keela grumbling in disappointment at the sight of such wreckage.

'Did she really think that everything was going to remain in tact?' Silver thought as he brought them through a few corridors, still following the beam of light. The beam quickly turned into a large room, and Silver made the turn as well before gasping slightly at where the bracelet led them. The room looked practically identical to the one deep in the aquatic base where the king had sealed Iblis within the soul of his daughter, Elise. And sure enough at the opposite end of the room, spinning ever so slowly on a mantle under the crest of Solaris was the dark blue chaos emerald.

Chip's bracelet flashed a few times before fading back to its soft transparent green, causing the beam to disappear.

"A chaos emerald? I didn't know the bracelet could detect chaos energy." Silver questioned, as he lowered himself and Keela to the ground gently. He tested the weight of his body on the ground before fully dropping his telekinesis.

"It never did that before….or at least not that I remember." Chip muttered. "But I'm glad it did or we would have never found this emerald."

"Well then let's get it and leave." Silver suggested. "This place could crumble at any second."

"I got it." Keela stated as she walked over to the mantle. She stopped in front of it and gently placed her hand on the spinning emerald before slowly removing it. She waited a moment to see if anything was going to happen before fully pulling the emerald away from the mantle.

"It's all right I-"

A sudden rumbling halted Keela's words. The ground beneath everyone's feet began to quake violently, causing large cracks to run from the floor to the ceiling.

"Keela!" Silver shouted, as he held up his hand to try and grab her away from the mantle with his telekinesis, but was a little too late. The ceiling gave way allowing for large chunks of rubble to cave in on the trio. Silver used his telekinesis in the nick of time to stop the rubble from collapsing on Chip and himself, but he was unable to grab Keela and bring her under his telekinetic shield. The tremors lasted for a few seconds longer before everything came to a sudden stop. Silver remained frozen for a moment before slowly pushing the debris away and off the telekinetic shielding. He looked around to see any sign of Keela.

"Keela!" Silver shouted as he looked around the room. "Keela!?"

"I'm ok!" Keela responded. "This chaos emerald kept the debris off, but I'm still stuck under a bunch of it!"

"All right, just keep talking I'll-"

Silver took one step and the cracks on the floor began spread like taking a step on thin ice.

"Oh god…" Silver whispered, lifting himself into the air. The structure began to shake once more, the ground beginning to crumble and fall into the lake.

"Guys!?" Keela cried. Silver whipped around trying to find Keela as the ground began to shake more violently. The whole structure then broke apart, falling down into the lake. In a split second decision, Silver reached into his pack grabbing the tainted emerald.

"CHAOS CONTROL!" Silver shouted. The emerald flashed and in seconds Silver, Keela and Chip were outside the raining debris and ruin falling down to the lake. Silver grabbed the three of them with his telekinesis before coming into contact with the water, and heaved a sigh of relief.

"Are you ok?" Silver asked, turning to Keela.

"Yes, I'm all right. And so is the emerald." Keela answered holding out the blue chaos emerald. "How did you do that?"

"I used this." Silver said holding out the tainted emerald. "I couldn't see where you were and it was the only way I could assure that I would get all of us out of the ruin safely."

"You used the tainted emerald!?" Chip exclaimed sounding distraught.

"Whoa easy! Everything's fine!" Silver tried to assure Chip.

"No, everything is not fine! Do you even know what could happen when you use an emerald that is unbalanced!?" Chip asked, his tone rising to hysteria.

"Chip, everything's-"

"When you use an emerald that is unbalanced you can throw off your inner balance of chaos energy! Who knows what could happen to you!" Chip exclaimed interrupting Silver.

"Chip, I promise everything's fine! I'm ok." Silver reported. Chip gave him an uneasy look.

"We can worry about me later. Right now we need to get to Soleanna as soon as possible." Silver reminded Chip.

"You're sure you don't feel off…?" Chip asked.

"I'm fine, really." Silver replied, as he started moving toward Soleanna. Chip gave a nervous sigh and flew after Silver having a grave feeling in the pit of his stomach. Silver ignored the nervous glances from Chip and continued on to Soleanna, trying to shake the strange stinging feeling slowly emerging in his chest.

tadaaaaaa. TBC