Act 4: Chaos Daemon

Chapter 22

The scream was unearthly, like a waterfall pouring down in full fury. The sound undulated as the demon waved back and forth, seemingly oblivious to reality.

A unit of cop-bots stepped forward and fired a single round. The demon's scream stopped and it rocked back as each bullet hit. The fire stopped, and the watery monster straightened itself, seemingly flowing to that shape instead of moving its body. The shaking eyes stilled.

Suddenly one of the demon's arms stretched forward and impaled one of the firing cop-bots straight through the core. The arm retracted as quickly as it had gone forward and the demon twisted around on one foot, quickly throwing out its impossibly long arms to destroy the rest of the offending cop-bots. After the last fell the monster stilled, balanced on one foot and arms held up on each side. What sounded like alien words gurgled out of it and it raised its arms to the air. It jumped down from the fountain, and charged the nearest thing, another unit of cop-bots.

OOOOOOOOOO

"That means 'burn', right?" Knuckles yelled out. The demon was tearing apart cop-bots like paper dolls, and the echidna didn't know if it would turn on the freedom fighters.

"Yeah." Dalin yelled from the back of the group.

"This is too close to be a coincidence." Knuckles murmured, rubbing his forehead.

"What is?" Manic said, crawling up to meet Knuckles' unit.

"That thing said-" Knuckles said something harsh and halting that left the green hedgehog utterly confused.

"In English please?"

"It said 'death to the strong arm and let Feth burn'."

"Feth? That can't be grammatically-"

"Feth's an echidna tree god." Dalin said with irritation.

"Really?" Manic asked.

"Yes." Knuckles said. "And we were trying to figure out why it was speaking Echidna."

"Maybe it's one of you guys' demons." Manic said, adding a half-hearted laugh to the end.

"I was trying to avoid the sillier options." Knuckles said. He turned and watched the water monster throw a cop-bot under and then stab it repeatedly with suddenly elongated legs, the body seeming to hang in the air. He didn't add that he was thinking about what his grand-father had said only a few hours ago.

Hunting a demon.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Four left." Scrat mumbled as he watched the demon. "Pretty soon we'll see if it likes us."

"It only hates." Somebody said. Scrat turned to see an echidna girl behind him, staring sadly out the window. Her eyes suddenly widened and she screamed. "Get down." The weasel dropped his body instinctively, and watched in shock as a spike of water shot in through the window. When he turned to thank the girl, he found she was already gone. She couldn't possibly have left the room that fast. "Mad Larkin." He said after a few seconds of pondering the incident, deciding whether or not to tell. "I can see it now."

OOOOOOOOOO

The last machine was destroyed with both of the demon's arms neatly punching through both its head and its core. As it finished it let the arms retract into their "normal" state, and the monster turned to face the freedom fighters.

"Come on." Knuckles growled and started leading the kids away. "We need to reach the bags."

"Why?" Manic asked, hurrying to catch up.

"The dumbest hope I've ever depended upon." There was a crashing as they heard building behind them start to be torn apart. "GO!" Knuckles roared, pushing the kids into a run. A tentacle of water went up and slammed one of the kids against a wall, making the remainder run faster. The demon leapt up and landed in front of Manic, forcing him to stop as it turned to face him. Manic yelped and fired wildly at the hissing mass of water, stopping it momentarily as a few bullets hit, stretching and distorting but leaving no mark. The demon hissed louder, and Manic turned and ran as the demon restored its shape.

Knuckles cursed as he saw the monster give chase. He was going to need one of the three, and now he wasn't sure he would find one.

Manic twisted around the corner of the house as he met the alley's end, watching as the demon ran past too quickly to stop itself. It seemed to stumble and flip head over heels, but hands became feet, feet became hands, and the head flowed to the new top of the monster's body. Manic ducked as one of the arms stretched out to hit him, feeling the sting as stone behind him shattered and flew into the back of his head. He pushed the pain away and ran, but the monster charged into the house in front of him, pushing off to turn and face him again. Manic was beginning to consider what was best to pray to when tracer fire lit up the demons body from behind. It turned and swung a long tentacle of water behind it, leaving a line of destruction in the buildings behind it and going over Sonic's and Sonia's heads.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Dingo, we need to get out of here now." Sleet said into the radio.

"What about the demon?" Dingo replied from the other end.

"Go around it. Just get out of there." Sleet said and turned off the radio. He trudged towards the back of the hut he had taken shelter in, rubbing his forehead. The ninja had missed, the robots jumped the gun, and then a fething demon appeared in the middle of the town. The wolf could feel his calmness being devoured by his anger at all the idiots he had to work with. He had a plan and they had all messed it up.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Missed." Sonic yelled as the demon ran headlong into an alley, failing to hit Sonic by centimeters. Sonic heard a crash and ran from the house behind him, not waiting long enough to see the demon burst out of it. Manic and Sonia fired on it, confusing it long enough to give Sonic a head start. By now, however, its focus seemed to be purely on the blue hedgehog brave enough to taunt it. Sonic ran down an alley way as he heard the demon give chase. He wasn't sure how they would stop it, but they were at least buying time for everyone else in the town. Sonic heard a tracer fire and the monster stop, and before he could react a hand grabbed him and pulled him behind a building. It was Knuckles, gun slung on his back and oddly enough, holding a large, glowing ring in his hand. He pushed the ring into Sonic's gloved hands and waited.

Sonic looked at it oddly and before Knuckles had time to explain the demon was back, tearing out the corner of the house and swinging at the two. Sonic held the ring tight as he ducked the monstrous arms, fumbling with his gun to fire it. Finally he shoved the ring between his teeth so he could use both hands, but then there came the glow.

The demon froze, a hiss trailing into silence.

Sonic looked down. His gem had come out from under his shirt and was glowing, glowing blue and swinging wildly without reason.

He felt a new strength flow through him, a feeling of joy he hadn't felt in… weeks? Months? Ever since the war started. His mind seemed to fly through the cosmos faster than possible, reaching the farthest star.

OOOOOOOOOO

"FETH!" Knuckles yelled as he ran from the demon. Sonic had glowed and then disappeared in a sudden gust of wind. What sort of weapon was that? He turned and sidestepped as the demon lunged at him. He swore as he fired to stun it.

OOOOOOOOOO

The old echidna called Athair had slowed his run to a walk. His mind was still confused from the encounter with his grandson. They had both been agitated, and he hadn't been able to figure out why. He was usually more in control of himself than that. He could feel the demon close by, but the anger clouded his mind and hid the direction. That and he felt a smaller glow of the same power… and it was coming towards him. He turned to face it, but was only met by a roaring wind with a blue tint. His face was whipped around, and he saw an explosion of dirt and dust behind him. The wind stopped and a figure came running out of the explosion back towards Athair. It passed in seconds, but it was enough to make clear what the wind had been: of all things, a hedgehog running faster than earthly possible.

Athair continued on his way.

OOOOOOOOOO

The demon was close, swinging blow after blow at Knuckles, giving him barely a chance to dodge each time, backing him closer and closer into a wall. Shots rang out, and the demon turned and stretched out its arms to impale Manic and Sonia, who were firing from the other side of the town center. It started to charge towards them, but before it could pass the fountain a blue flash of light cut through it from the side.

Two halves of a demon wobbled and started to collapse, but they pulled up and flowed back together to reform it. It had barely turned to where the flash had gone when it came from behind and cut through it again.

The demon barely twitched up when the flash cut through again. The blue flash attacked the demon time after time, faster and faster, the circle it weaved becoming clearer and closer until the light simply danced back and forth over the puddle that was left of the demon, moving so fast that it seemed to be a constant circle.

The light finally stopped to show Sonic bathed in a blue glow and standing in triumph over the demon's remains as they soaked into the ground.

"The hell?" Manic muttered. The clearest thing to him was how Sonic's gem was glowing brightly, the same as the day the three had first agreed upon being siblings. The glow around and on Sonic died down, and he collapsed to the ground.

"Oof." He muttered as his brother and sister came to help him up. "That was something."

OOOOOOOOOO

"Now, I think the obvious question is why 'why didn't we do that earlier?'" Sonic said. The freedom fighters were still regrouping from the strange battle, and their leaders had little time to figure out the miraculous intervention themselves. Knuckles bowed his head and shook it.

"Because I did not know that would happen." He said, carefully enunciating each word. They passed by where Shanks was handling the worst injuries while giving out instructions to other kids.

"But you knew it would do something." Manic said, filling his voice with suspicion. Knuckles rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"I was only seventeen when I joined the guard. They weren't going to tell me a lot." He said.

"So what did they tell you?" Sonia asked.

"Only to give a ring to one of the royalty in dire emergencies."

"And the Robotnik's take-over?" Sonic asked.

"One, we weren't able to reach the king in time. Second, the specific wording was 'when all forms of conventional weapons have no use.'" Knuckles responded. Manic winced. "And they told me the person had to have one of those gems. Beyond that, nothing."

Knuckles walked away from them and went to help organize the wounded while the three went to recuperate on their own.

"By the by." Manic said. "I think I saw who tried to kill Sonic, before the demon and all arrived."

"Really?" Sonic asked.

"Yeah. It was definitely an anthro, but beyond that I couldn't really make it out. Had a horn and a long tail of some sort, and I couldn't see any fur on it. Oh, and it was this yellow-brownish color. I got the drop on it but it gave me a nasty knock before running away." Manic carefully left out having shot at it, even though he had felt it was entirely reasonable. Sonia had begun to shiver. "What?"

"A ninja." She said simply.

"You're kidding." Sonic said.

"Not the ones of legend, but a ninja all the same."

"Any clue why it would attack Sonic?" Manic asked.

"Because it thinks he's a threat." Sonia said, looking at the ground.

"To what?"

"The world."

OOOOOOOOOO

"How many?" Knuckles asked Shanks, the rest of the question clear to both of them.

"Nineteen." Shanks said simply. There was a brief silence before he continued. "The wounded are mostly minor though. And I don't think the… thing got anyone." Knuckles nodded grimly. In the long run, the demon probably saved them, but still, nineteen… that made twenty-eight dead kids so far. And for this round they wouldn't have as long to get over the shock, because someone much better than a machine was hunting them, and the Edward kid who had taken over Thran knew where they were. But if they moved, they would miss the boats… He walked to the house where he had left the orange-furred giant, hoping to interrogate him about something, like if he knew about the trap, but when he reached the house he found bloodstains, and that led him to the dead bodies of the two kids he left behind. Thirty.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Dingo, you've got blood on you." Sleet said. The orange furred anthro looked at his hands like they were caked with mud. "I told you not to shoot anybody."

"I didn't." Dingo said. That was enough for Sleet to know what had happened. The chameleon was looking away in clear disdain.

"You do realize what this means, right?" Sleet said, turning on the radio and holding it up to his mouth. "I'm the only person here who did his job!" he yelled.

"Your scheme had obviously failed." Edward said defensively from the other end of the radio-link. Sleet had been quick to ask the Robotnik about what had happened with the cop-bots, and was furious about the answer. The worst part was that the Robotnik had decided that the kid made a decent decision.

"And I had a plan if the ninja missed." Sleet said. "I told you I had a plan. You went and messed everything up." Dingo took his eyes off his hands to raise an eyebrow at his partner. Sleet was usually the calm one of the pair. Then again, Dingo had hit those kids a few more time than necessary. Everyone seemed a bit more angry than usual.

"Yes, a demon suddenly appeared," Sleet was saying. "And if you hadn't had those bots shoot it might have killed the three for us. Now we don't even know whether it's still there or not." Sleet grunted and clicked the radio off. He stared at the chameleon. "Now you…"

"I had already thrown when the cat called out. The hedgehog's reflexes were faster than expected." Espio stayed where he was as he replied, not turning to face the bounty hunters. Mercenary brutes, both of them. One simply pretended to be sophisticated.

"Right." Sleet said, taking a deep breath. "We need to sleep. We need to eat. We need a new plan."