Chapter 24: Nazo I: A Familiar Battlefield

Back on the Egg Continent, Eggman Nega's Egg Imperial Tower has been thoroughly dismantled by Sonic and Shadow's allies, the parts scattered all across the arena as only the bottom of the tower can be seen visible at the end of the area. Everyone looked tired from their victory against Eggman Nega, and the grandson of the nefarious doctor can be seen lying in the center of the rubble, battered and bruised while left to wallow in the defeat handed to him by the heroes.

As he struggled to place even one hand against the ground to push himself up, Eggman Nega commented "I-I shouldn't have trusted that idiot grandfather of mine…Once again he ruined everything for the Eggman legacy!"

Nega is then surrounded by a field of psychokinetic energy that causes him to be lifted off the ground and dragged towards Silver, who is barely on his knees as his right eyelid limps shut and he holds his right elbow with his left hand for support. Once Silver has suspended him in mid-air, he looks up at Nega and says "I'm taking you back to the future Eggman Nega, and you're finally going to jail where you belong!"

Eggman Nega smiles without much enthusiasm as he replies to Silver's remark with "Yes, I'm sure a jail cell will hold a descendant of Eggman for long. Cause history has shown that it's worked before, right?" The tone of sarcasm Nega takes causes Silver to glare at him.

Amy happily swings her Piko Piko Hammer over her right shoulder as he sweats, saying in a relieved tone "Whew, good work everyone! Now it's just up to Sonic to take care of Eggman and we can call this a day!"

Just as she says this, Omega looks up towards the sky and comments in an aggressive tone of voice "Eggman life signature detected! Descending towards Egg Continent rapidly. Impact in 5...4..."

Eggman crashes against the ground in front of Silver, his pod falling to the left of him a mere second later as Omega lowers his aggressive stance and comments jokingly "Accuracy off by three seconds, we all have bad days."

Eggman's impact breaks Silver's concentration on Nega, causing the insane descendant to fall to the ground behind his grandfather. Amy happily mentions upon seeing Eggman looking assuredly defeated on the ground in front of her "Ha! Sonic did it again!"

After a few seconds, Amy happens to notice that Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow and that mysterious boy weren't coming back to the Egg Continent, which caused her to curiously comment "Huh? Where are they?"

Eggman starts to push himself up, saying in a frantic and frightened tone "It's all over for us…It's all over!" He repeats this multiple times over while the heroes look at him in a puzzled manner.

Nega is the first to react to the matter in a more prominent way, as he slowly pulls himself onto his feet while saying "You foolish grandfather of mine, what have you done now?!"

Eggman blabbers on about "He can't be controlled…He can't be controlled…We're all dead! We're all DEAD!" Nega then grabs Eggman and flips him around, holding him up by his collar before exclaiming to him "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

Eggman grins and responds with as lunacy takes him over completely "The ultimate weapon has betrayed me…We're all going to die by his hand! We're all going to die by his hand!"

Nega then slaps his grandfather across the face, saying quickly afterwards "Get a hold of yourself you lunatic!" Not realizing the irony in what he said, Nega then says as Eggman blinks twice at him "What ultimate weapon are you talking about? What did you create behind my back?!"

Eggman smiles, and as he calms down a little bit he says "Not create…Revive…" After a couple more seconds, the doctor states "I revived….Nazo."

In an instant, everyone save for Blaze and Silver freeze in place in shock, and Eggman Nega in particular looks at his grandfather and says to him in sheer disbelief "You…Did…WHAT?!"

Nega drops his grandfather onto his back in rage, and once he collides with the ground Eggman quickly leans on one side of his body and starts to pull himself up as he says to his grandson "You heard me idiot, I brought Nazo back to life!"

Eggman Nega responds to this remark with a gesture of his right hand in front of him and a comment of "You madman! How are you going to conquer the world if it's destroyed by that monster?!"

Eggman bluntly replies with "Oh you're one to talk! You tried to destroy the world once before!" And Nega replies "Compared to how many times YOU'VE tried to control some type of force capable of destroying the world? Remember Chaos? The ARK? DARK GAIA?!"

Eggman stands up and jabs his pointer finger against Nega's chest to push him back slightly, glaring down at him while saying in an accusing tone "Only one of those moments was on purpose, and I would have restored the world eventually. So don't pretend like you have the moral high ground over me you foolish grandson of mine!"

Silver interjects between the bickering doctors by using his powers to shut their mouths for a few seconds while he boldly asks "Hey! If you two could stop for a moment, you need to explain who Nazo is, now!"

Silver lets go, and after Eggman and Nega catch their breathes Nega looks at the telekinetic hedgehog and Blaze and explains to them "Nazo is the ultimate monster born of negative Chaos Energy. Being born of that, he is inclined to become more powerful by absorbing negative energy until he is stronger than anything in existence…He also wants to destroy the Master Emerald to ensure that he will not always be under a being of infinite power."

"And to accomplish that task, he plans to destroy the very world itself." Eggman states afterwards. Amy then looks at Silver and states "You don't know who Nazo is in the future?"

Nega answers this question for the telekinetic hedgehog by stating "Of course he couldn't. In the future, the only known collection of information regarding Nazo resides in my base, sealed deep, deep within one of my grandfather's old bases. Not even I would be foolish enough to use Nazo to try and conquer the world, but apparently I underestimated just how desperate my grandfather could be to defeat that irritating blue hedgehog."

At the end of his sentence Nega gives Eggman a furious glare, and the doctor replies with "My plan was foolproof! That darn human boy must have caused my mind-control ray to malfunction when he destroyed my Egg Chimera!"

"And how exactly did you expect to mind-control someone like him?" Nega questions, which causes Eggman to fall silent for a few moments before Nega realizes what his grandfather had done, at which point he groans angrily while slapping the front of his face and stating "You really have doomed us all…"

"Grrr…We can only hope Shadic stops Nazo before he acquires the Nega Hyper-go-on/Dark Gaia energy mixture I have inside of the Nega-Wisp Armor." Eggman states, which Nega replies with "Such a slim amount of hope we have then, hmmm?"

Back on Angel Island, Shadic and Nazo have already engaged in battle. Shadic throws the first attack out, charging straight at Nazo and slamming his right fist against his gut to launch him through the hole and take him to the outside of Angel Island. Once Shadic blasted off to pursue the red hedgehog, Riku glanced back at Tails and Knuckles and said "Shouldn't you guys be helping him out?"

Tails points out "We can't. Even with the Super Emeralds active, we aren't strong enough to help Shadic fight Nazo. The same goes for you Riku, based on what you displayed earlier."

Naturally, Tails knew nothing of Riku's Chaos Form, but the teenage Overlord didn't feel like correcting the fox by jumping into battle with it at that very moment. Considering the warnings Shadic gave him along with what Eggman said, Riku felt that he should observe the battle between the two hedgehogs before he would jump in. Still, Tails and Knuckles' safety needed to be ensured, so he said to them quickly "You two should go back to the Master Emerald."

Knuckles says after that "Not a bad idea. But what are you going to do Riku?"

The teenage Overlord turns towards the hole in the wall as he sees two streaks of light clash against each other and says to the fox and echidna "I'll keep an eye on Shadic and Nazo's battle. If something goes wrong, you'll need to shatter the Master Emerald before Nazo destroys the planet."

Knuckles folds his arms against his chest and growls slightly at the suggestion, but begrudgingly says "Ok…But I know Shadic can win." Tails then grabs Knuckles by his gloves and carries him up past the lava waterfall, taking them out of the cavern as Riku walks to the very edge of the hole and leaps up into the air, suspending his flight just enough near the edge of the island that he'd get a perfect view of the battle between the two powered-up hedgehogs.

Shadic zips through the air at speeds unheard of in this world, which gives him the little advantage he needs to fight Nazo. Shadic rushes at Nazo and throws three straight punches at the red hedgehog's gut, followed by him rising his left knee up to strike him in the chin. Shadic then slaps his hands together to create a shockwave of Chaos Energy that knocks Nazo back through the air.

The red hedgehog quickly recovers and uses a more powerful variation of Chaos Control to slow time to the point that not even Riku could peg both fighters as they fought each other in the air. Shadic activated Super Chaos Control at relatively the same time, and both forces charged at each other to engage in further close-combat. Shadic throws out two punches that Nazo guards with his arms, and as the red hedgehog swings his arms out he coats his fists in negative Chaos Energy and tosses two hazy comet-like projectiles at Shadic.

Shadic takes both projectiles to the face and finds himself barely fazed, but while his vision is obscured Nazo thrusts forward and throws a kick straight into the fused hedgehog's forehead, knocking him a couple feet back before Nazo then flies behind him and jabs his right elbow into his back to forcibly suspend him in mid-air, where he then follows up by using a couple aggressive punches into the back of Shadic's head.

Shadic recovers from these blows and flips around to try and strike Nazo with his elbow, but misses as Nazo glides back a couple feet and smirks. But Shadic then blasts him right in the face by swinging the rest of his arm out and opening his hand to send out a large Chaos Spear. The spear blows up on Nazo, launching him a far distance away from Angel Island as the Super Chaos Control breaks and Shadic immediately clenches his fists and coats himself in a ridiculously vibrant aura as he launches himself in a curved path through the air in pursuit of Nazo.

But before Shadic can assault Nazo with a barrage of attacks, Nazo recovers and immediately throws his right palm out to catch Shadic's first punch, where he then grins for a mere second before punching Shadic right in the face while letting go of his fist. Shadic is launched back from the blow, sending him flying into the side of one of Angel Island's mountains, creating a large crater from the impact.

Nazo then goes to try and punch Shadic straight through the mountain, but the fused hedgehog quickly regains his composure and curls up into a ball, launching himself into the air while using Super Chaos Control to prevent Nazo from reacting in time to his next attack. The red hedgehog slams his fist into the center of Shadic's impact zone in the mountain, only to be immediately met with a descending spin-dash from Shadic. The impact drags Nazo's fist out of the mountain as his body is grinded down across the side of the island, ending when Shadic dunks his opponent right into the water far below.

The impact with the ocean launches a giant plume of water into the air, some of which splashes against Riku's body. Underwater, Nazo and Shadic split off from each other, their powerful bodies not needing even a bit of oxygen as they stay submerged. Nazo makes the first move against his fused opponent by swinging his right hand out and launching a few negative Chaos Energy spheres through the water.

The underwater wildlife scatters away from the attacks as Shadic folds his arms against his chest and takes the projectiles head on, and while he is covered by bubbles he charges energy within his hands in preparation for Nazo's next assault. The red hedgehog sprints through the water at Shadic, waiting until the last second to throw his right fist at him only to be met by a jagged wave of Chaos Energy launched by Shadic swinging both of his arms out at the same time.

Nazo takes the attack head on, charging through it in spite of the damage so he can still slam his right fist straight into Shadic's forehead. The blow combined with Shadic's look of shock causes him to be stunned for a brief moment, allowing Nazo to wallop the fused hedgehog with a few more aggressive blows until Shadic recovers and uses a quick roundhouse kick to push Nazo a few feet away from him.

Shadic then wipes the side of his mouth with his left glove and grins, while Nazo glides back through the water and raises his right hand into the air, creating a large sphere of Chaos Energy that he throws against the ground, the ensuing explosion launching a large plume of dirt that surrounds Shadic's body, robbing him of sight temporarily. Shadic tries to fly out of the plume straight ahead to go after Nazo, but the red hedgehog anticipates his move and fires another sphere of energy that hits Shadic and pushes him back into the plume while simultaneously dealing damage.

Nazo then flies around the plume while launching multiple energy spheres into the plume to try and hit Shadic. The fused hedgehog moves his body around in a stationary position to avoid most of the spheres, but ends up not being as successful as he'd like to be in this regard. Shadic tries to pick up on a pattern to the sphere so he can fight back, and after standing the assault for five seconds the fused hedgehog activates Super Chaos Control before Nazo can notice and zips straight off to the right to strike the red hedgehog in the gut.

With Super Chaos Control broken Nazo feels the full impact of Shadic's punch, causing him to stumble in place in the water as the energy breaks from the palms of his hands. Shadic then follows up on this attack by covering himself in the vibrant white aura from before and increased his speed to such a rate that he rapidly flies around Nazo's body, creating a whirlpool around him that draws him upward as it grows in height with every second.

While flying around the edge of the whirlpool, Shadic relentlessly launches Chaos Spears at Nazo, ascending along with the growth of the whirlpool until it breeches the surface of the ocean, at which point it starts to become a typhoon that carries Nazo up for another four seconds before the red hedgehog recovers from the blow to his gut and straightens himself upright in the center of the typhoon and swings his hands out to create two negative Chaos Energy shockwaves that simultaneously breaks the typhoon and launches Shadic away from the edge of it.

Nazo had a few scorch marks across his body from the Chaos Spears, and he takes a couple heavy breathes in while he had a moment to do so. Meanwhile, Shadic flips himself around and suspends himself in mid-air, looking over at Nazo and smiling confidently before looking at his body and noticing a couple marks on his fur. He hides his somewhat tired demeanor as he charges right at Nazo for another round.

The red hedgehog raises his right arm to block a punch coming for the side of his face, and then swings his left fist in an arc to strike Shadic's gut. The fused hedgehog endures through the attack and uses his left hand to blast Nazo point blank with a Chaos Spear. Nazo and Shadic simultaneously warp away from each other via Chaos Control, glaring each other down before they dash straight at each other and collide in a flurry of perfectly timed blows.

Both fighters try to break through the other's attacks, their blows coming out at such a rapid rate that their fists and legs exist as nothing more than blurs in the air as observed by Riku from afar. Eventually Shadic and Nazo activate Super Chaos Control to try and gain an advantage over the other, making their presences utterly invisible in the air for fifteen seconds from the two hedgehogs' perspective. Finally, Shadic swings past Nazo's arms and delivers a hard blow right into the front of his face that breaks their confrontation for now.

Super Chaos Control breaks, followed by dozens of shockwaves created by the combination of blows the two hedgehogs delivered filling the air around them. Nazo and Shadic stare each other down after this conflict, both tiring from the battle already a Nazo takes in some heavy breaths and comments to his opponent "H-Hah…It seems as though I'm not quite used to being alive again Shadic…But even so, it seems as though something has tired your two halves out."

Nazo grins as he notices Shadic's white fur briefly fade to blue, indicating that the fused hedgehog was starting to run out of rings to keep this state going. Nazo comments as he arrogantly folds his arms together "Hehehe…Looks like our rematch was short-lived Shadic. At the rate your ring supply is going, it'll only be a minute before you split apart, leaving me with no other choice but to focus my goals on destroying the Master Emerald."

Shadic grins at Nazo, saying to him in the echoed combination of Shadow and Sonic's voices "You think we're done here Nazo? I still have plenty of rings at my disposal."

Nazo was intrigued by what Shadic was suggesting, but nonetheless taunted him for the remark by extending a hand out and mentioning "Surely you jest. If you think you can gather millions of rings to your location with the move that bested my physical body last time, then you are overestimating your luck."

Shadic replies to this with "I don't need millions of rings, Nazo…" He clenches his right fist in front of his body as he smirks confidently and states "All I need is seven in my hand to defeat you."

Next Time: Make Beliefs Reborn