Ch.9: Chaos End

With Knuckles knocked unconious by Rouge's dart the Emeralds were bursting at the seems with dark energy. Dodging the dark bolts Tails reached the control panel that Amy smashed when the force field was up and tried to put a stop to the Emeralds wild energy.

But before he could complete his short repairs and switch the wires a dark bolt of lightning shot out of the Master Emerald and blasted the poor, twin-tailed fox into one of the metal walls.

"Tails!" yelled Chris, running over to the fox " are you alright?"

"I'll be okay" said Tails, struggling to get up " but if we don't put a stop to this power surge we won't be,"

"Maybe we can help" said Sonic waking up from unconiousness " drain the core,"

" But the force of that energy could destroy you," said Cosmo worriedly.

"What's more dangerous?" said Shadow sarcasticlly " getting zapped or blown up? Besides with Knuckles out, we don't have another choice,"

With no arguement from the others both Sonic and Shadow bravely stepped up to the core and started to drain away the dark energy. The process was clearly painful for them both as they kept screaming in pain.

Covering her sensetive ears from hearing Sonic's and Shadow's screams Rouge's eyes landed on the unconious Knuckles. Clearly the Chaos Drain was having somekind of effect, because Knuckles black fur was changing back into red.

"Keep it up guys" said Chris " a little more and it will all be over,"

But apparently, a little more, was more than both hedgehogs could handle when the Master Emerald started to fight back. The force absorbed from it was nearly twice as powerful then those absorbed from the Chaos Emeralds.

And the two hedgehogs were no longer screaming from pain they were screeching from pain. From the sidelines everyones face, even Dr. Eggman's, looked frightened from worry. If this Chaos Drain lasted any longer Sonic and Shadow would probably not make it.

Rouge predicted this would happen and was about to shatter the Master Emerald when a voice yelling " No!" stopped her in her tracks.

Suddenly everyone, especailly Shadow and Sonic, got a surprise when Knuckles pushed them out of the way and took over the Chaos Drain process himself. Everyone watched in horror as Knuckles cries for pain changed to an inhuman scream as the dark energy from the Master Emerald dueled with it's guardian.

Despite the intense pain Knuckles stood strong and drained the last of the dark energy. A gaint blast suddenly exploded from the metal alter flinging everyone into a metal wall.

For about five minutes after the blast everyone was blacked out, and when they awoke everyone could see that the Master Emerald and the Chaos Emeralds were back to normal.

Without thinking everonye cheered with joy that the crisis was finally over. Everyone that is, except for Sonic. The others soon caught onto the blue hedgehog's solemn expression and turned to see what had gotten him depressed.

And then they saw. Knuckles body was still on the floor, breathing, and barely clinging to life.