Chapter 25: Nazo II: Darkspine Unleashed

As Nazo and Shadic stayed suspended in mid-air for a few moments, Riku thought back to everything he heard regarding the red hedgehog, focusing particularly on the matter of his revival. He takes pause and thinks to himself "Nazo wasn't destroyed the last time…Who's to say that Shadic can destroy him again? I wonder…"

With a singular thought guiding his actions, Riku quickly flies off of the side of the mountain and curves around the island to arrive at the Master Emerald shrine, where Knuckles and Tails have just arrived at. He lands in front of them, catching them off-guard for a moment. Knuckles says to Riku "You're back already? Is Shadic losing?" He had a little bit of concern in his voice as he asked.

Riku shook his head and said as he walked a little closer to Knuckles and Tails "He's holding up fine, but there's something I was thinking about while I was watching."

The teenage Overlord turns his head and points at the Master Emerald, saying in a curious tone "If it's at all possible, would we be able to seal Nazo back up in the Master Emerald?"

Knuckles says "First you want me to destroy the Master Emerald, now you want me to seal that monster back inside of it?! What's next, are you going to tell me to give the Emerald to Eggman?!" The echidna had a bit of fury in his voice due to the crazy ideas Riku telling him, causing Tails to have to come forward and calm Knuckles down by standing in front of him before he got up in Riku's face.

"Easy Knuckles, Riku does have a bit of a point here." Tails mentions, causing Knuckles to respond with a half-puzzled, half-angered "He does?"

Tails then turns to face Riku and says to him "If what Nazo said is true, then we can't hope to permanently destroy him so long as he has at least one ring to put himself inside of. We'd be better off sealing him away in the Master Emerald, since he wouldn't be able to break free again due to how balanced the Chaos Emeralds are now."

Knuckles folds his arms and calms down a bit, saying to Tails as the expert on the emeralds "It's not that simple. My Echidna ancestors sealed Nazo away long ago, and the secret of how they did it is likely lost forever. Even if I asked Tikal's spirit about this, she probably wouldn't know."

"Can't you try and attempt the process?" Riku asks casually, to which Knuckles replies to angrily with "Of course not! Sealing Nazo in the Master Emerald isn't an option now!"

Riku nods his head and says "Alright, I'll drop it for now Knuckles." He then turns around ready to go back and watch Shadic and Nazo's battle before he's interrupted by the black dragon Takashi "You're considering sealing that monster away?"

The question is replied to almost right away by Riku "Yeah, why do you ask?" Takashi then says "If that Master Emerald isn't an option, then perhaps you could use our realm as a prison."

This idea piqued Riku's interest, and he said to the black dragon "You sure that's a good idea? Nazo is way more powerful than you, and-"

"I won't be anywhere near the guy. When you seal him away in our realm, it'll be in a quadrant different than where Sodenko and I are at. The only problem is that you'll have to create a chain similar to the one that bound me to this realm." As Takashi points that last detail out, Riku got a little worried look on his face.

Takashi picks up on this immediately, saying to Riku in turn "Hmmm…Come to think about it, you probably didn't get a good look at the chain's composition." The teenage Overlord then replies with "It shouldn't be too hard. But I'm only going to do it when Shadic has weakened Nazo enough." Riku then cuts off his line of communication with the black dragon and decides to head back to watch the battle.

Winding back a few moments, we find Nazo staring blankly at Shadic before he quietly chuckles and says in response to his bold remark "You'll defeat me with only seven rings? That's quite a claim Shadic, especially seeing how you burn through thousands of rings with every second."

Shadic responds to this by grinning and saying "Ha, you really don't know about everything I've done since your last defeat, do you Nazo? Can't say I'm surprised, there's no way that Eggman could have known about this little trick of mine either. You ready to be blown away?"

Shadic stretches his arms and legs out as his body is covered on the left side by black and blue flames while seven different colored rings begin to emerge from and surround his body. Each ring had different runes etched into them, and as they appeared Shadic muttered out "Prayers…Sadness…Rage…Hatred…Joy…Pleasure…Wishes…Give me the strength I need!" The rings glowed brightly and threw themselves into Shadic's body after dissolving into the essences of the respective emotions they represent.

The flames on the left side of Shadic's body then burned across the rest of his fur, replacing it with a smoother indigo blue color while the rings around his body glowed as bright as the sun itself. Two streaks of white appeared from between Shadic's now crossed blank white eyes and extended to the back of his center quill, all of which folded backwards and drooped halfway down his back while his gloves and shoes were shed off and replaced with indigo blue latex, while the rings that were absorbed into his body appear all across his fingers.

Shadic clenches his fists and swings his arms downward while straightening the rest of his body upright, unleashing all of his power in the form of an aura of crisp red-orange flames. Nazo, in his stint of surprise at Shadic's transformation, is pushed back a bit by the release of power displayed before his eyes. Once he recovers, Nazo looks at Shadic and proclaims "What is this new transformation of yours?! Answer me Shadic!"

The fused hedgehog gives his answer by flying straight at Nazo, throwing a punch at the head that the red hedgehog barely dodges with a swing of his head to the left. But though the blow missed there was a bit of force exuding from the fist that brushed against Nazo's face and felt almost as powerful as one of Shadic's regular punches. Shadic follows up on his first punch by throwing another one straight into Nazo's gut while the red hedgehog was confused by the added properties of this transformation.

The punch forced through Nazo's back an expulsion of red flames that appeared and disappeared in a mere second, leaving the red hedgehog stunned in place as Shadic proceeded to rapidly pummel away at Nazo's body with both his fists and feet. Each impact with either limb caused the rings to release spurts of black flames. The assault on Nazo lasted five seconds, at which pointed Shadic roared angrily and raised both of his hands into the air, taking all of the power built up by his frustration against Nazo and slamming it down against his head with both palms.

A large shockwave ruptures the air as Nazo is launched straight down towards the ocean over the course of two seconds, his impact splitting the ocean in half diagonally as he travels down to the floor and breaks right through it, sending a slight quake through the planet as he piles through many layers of crust. Meanwhile, Shadic floats in the air and waits for Nazo to return, exclaiming in an deep, echoing voice "Come on Nazo, I expected more out of you! But all you are is nothing before me!"

This taunt was born from the whirlpool of emotions created by the rings that power Shadic now, and as it echoed through the hole created by Nazo's impact with the ocean floor it only took five seconds afterwards for the red hedgehog to fly right back out and charge straight at Shadic in rage. When he bursts from the ocean's surface he drags along gallons of water with him, all of which burns mere yards away from Shadic's presence.

Nazo throws out a punch, but Shadic raises one hand up to catch it, smirking at the red hedgehog afterwards and saying to him "Well isn't this familiar?" Before he raises his left hand up and blasts Nazo in the face with a gigantic wave of black flames that sends him flying back down towards the ocean after he lets go of his fist.

The red hedgehog recovers before he collides with the water's surface, pushing outward all of his power to stabilize himself while simultaneously creating a shockwave across the ocean for a good mile. Nazo looks up at Shadic and scowls, but before he rushes in recklessly again he waits for the burn marks on his fur to heal up and notices something off with Shadic's movements. This cause him to switch to a smirk as he rises up and levels himself in front of Shadic's line of sight.

Nazo then swings his right hand out while widening his eyes in a maddened manner and creating a collapsing sphere of dark energy in his opened palm. The red hedgehog holds his hand up and casually launches a larger sphere at Shadic before immediately activating Super Chaos Control to warp behind the fused hedgehog, appearing the very moment that Shadic swings his right hand diagonally to cut the sphere down to nothing.

Nazo gave Shadic just enough time to react to his presence, but as he turned around he didn't have enough time to counterattack and was quickly punched in the side of his face by a heavy blow from Nazo's right fist. Shadic is sent flying away quite far away, his body impacting and skipping across the ocean's surface until Nazo warps behind him and uses a rising kick to launch him high into the air, and after one final Super Chaos Control the red hedgehog appears behind Shadic and clasps his palms together to blast the fused hedgehog with a powerful wave of negative Chaos Energy.

But as the residual energy from this last attack fades, Nazo notices that Shadic is nowhere to be found. The fused hedgehog's body reappears behind Nazo and quickly throws a powerful punch into the back of Nazo's head, which catches him off-guard and causes a slight crack to be heard from his skull. This dazes the red hedgehog as he hangs his head forward slightly and feels it throb in pain as he regenerates the damage.

Nazo tries to use Super Chaos Control before Shadic attacks him again, but Shadic quickly declares "Time Break!", and suddenly Nazo finds Super Chaos Control shattered and overridden by a foggy veil that distorts time and space, leaving Nazo completely frozen in place as he was in the middle of turning around. Shadic flies behind Nazo and performs a series of punches and kicks all across his body in a span of seconds, using all of his strength with every blow for ten seconds straight.

Shadic then moves away from Nazo and snaps his fingers to disable the "Time Break" effect, which causes Nazo to rapidly feel the effects of all the punches and kicks in a single second. As Nazo is pounded by these blows, he's covered by a field of fire while Shadic floats behind him while swinging his hands around and arrogantly and angrily saying "What's wrong Nazo? Are you too slow?!"

When the red hedgehog finally recovers, he looks incredibly battered as he turns around and angrily goes to punch Shadic for what he just did. The fused hedgehog swings his right hand forward and with a flick of his fingers he strikes Nazo with a burning spark that consumes him in a fiery explosion in mere seconds. Shadic flies back some more and laughs at how futile Nazo's efforts are.

Instead of charging forward again, Nazo waits for the smoke from the flames to die down, at which point he starts panting slowly, recognizing that Shadic is managing to inflict enough damage to his body that his regeneration isn't able to cover it all. The red hedgehog smirks, saying to his fused opponent "Hehehe…So you admittedly have some clever tricks up your sleeves Shadic."

As Shadic closes his eyelids and laughs at the compliment, Nazo quickly raises his right hand up, taking full advantage of Shadic's arrogance to flick two of his fingers towards his body while proclaiming "Now they shall be mine to use!" But Nazo is left dumbfounded as nothing happens.

Shadic opens his eyes and says "Ha, did you really think you'd be able to take my power for yourself? Newsflash Nazo, I'm not using negative energy! This Darkspine form of my mine harnesses the power of emotions from the World Rings."

Nazo scowls at the fact that he can't take this "Darkspine" power for himself, but then laughs and says "Yes, I suppose I cannot." He takes the matter in stride, especially as he recalls everything he has observed so far and points out to his opponent "But it's not hard to see the flaws and strengths of your new form. Your strength is far greater than my own, but your speed had to be sacrificed in order to use this power. And because the rings were used in conjunction with your Hyper Form, you are still able to keep up with me. Not to mention that your little "Time Break" trick means I can no longer use Chaos Control without consequence."

Shadic goes on to say with angered impatience "Are you done yet Nazo?" The red hedgehog replies with bluntly "Of course I am, lets continue on now shall we?!" He follows up on this comment by aggressively rushing at the fused hedgehog, taking advantage of his speed in order to through a volley of punches at Shadic, and this time around some of them manage to connect. This forces Shadic to raises his arms up to defend against some of the attacks before fighting back with a swift punch aimed at Nazo's gut.

Nazo lowers one of his hands to intercept the punch while grinning and then proceeds to throw a hard hitting punch straight across Shadic's face, stunning the fused hedgehog enough that he lowers his arm and succumbs to Nazo's continuing assault. After a few seconds though Shadic manages to slip a couple fingers away and snaps them to create a burst of flame between the two of them, pushing Nazo away so he can get some distance and brush his right hand alongside his chin after recognizing the amount of damage he just took.

The red hedgehog charges at Shadic, but Shadic responds to Nazo's punch by gliding to the left to dodge it as he flies backwards through the air to put some very far distance between the two of them. Shadic notices that he is now lined up with Angel Island, and smirks as an interesting idea comes to mind. Nazo's mind is also at work, as he predicts what his foe will do and readies himself to counterattack the moment Shadic got close to him.

Shadic stretches his right hand into the air and clenches it into a fist, coating it lightly with fire before he pulls it back and flies straight at Nazo. The red hedgehog predicts Shadic's speed and readies his right hand to block the punch, but without warning Shadic proclaims "Speed Break!". His body then rapidly plunges forward at Nazo, going faster than the speed of light as his body launches three sonic booms that rupture the air entirely.

Nazo is unable to even change his facial expression as Shadic throws his fist straight through his chest, hitting him with the equivalent force of the universe's largest asteroid while releasing a burst of fire hotter than the sun. Nazo convulses for a single second, but suddenly finds himself flying away from Shadic's body. He crosses the sky and slams through the side of Angel Island, where he crashes inside of the Chaos Energy mine with such a mighty impact that the entire island quakes at a 10.0 magnitude.

Near the Master Emerald Shrine, Knuckles is forced to brace himself tightly around the Master Emerald to keep it from falling and shattering, noting the destruction of the pillar around the shrine and the cracks forming across the island's surface and exclaiming "What is Shadic doing out there?!"

Back with the battle between the two hedgehogs, Shadic straightens his body and watches as the fleshy bits from Nazo's chest burn away from the heat around his fist. He looks at Angel Island and shakes his right hand out, proclaiming loudly to the red hedgehog "It's over Nazo! Sorry, but you shouldn't have just stayed dead!"

The echo of Shadic's voice reaches Nazo's ears as the hedgehog lies on the ground of the mines with a steaming hole burned through his chest. He was barely able to lift his head and move his arms, and his regeneration was barely doing a good job in patching him up. With fainted breaths, Nazo quietly said "N-No…I can't go out like this…"

He hacked and rapidly breathed as he slowly turned his head to the left and right in search of something that would be able to help him. He notices Eggman's Nega-Wisp Armor, and with a hesitant grin he said "Y-Yes…The d-doctor's negative energy s-s-substance…Is mine!"

With a weak flick of his left fingers, the tubes containing the mixture of Nega Hyper-go-on and Dark Gaia energies shatter apart, all of the energy flowing towards his body and covering him entirely as he looks forward and starts laughing, his voice growing louder and stronger until he is silenced by the energy enveloping his head.

Outside Angel Island, Shadic looks up towards the sky and sees that storm clouds are being pulled in from various parts of the world. The clouds then start to take on a dark-violet hue as a hellish electricity surges out from the hole in the side of Angel Island and flies up into the clouds. Shadic senses a massive spike of power coming from within the mines, and upon remembering just what he left lingering inside he groans and says "This doesn't look good…"

Nazo comes out of Angel Island with his body now transformed. His fur is now coated in a thin layer of Nega Hyper-go-on energy, with the hole in his chest now replaced with the bulging serpentine eye reminiscent of the ones seen on Perfect Dark Gaia. His quills remain relatively the same, but they were now joined by four lashing tendrils with maws shaped like those on the Nega-Wisp Armor. Nazo's eyes were gone, and his mouth had been replaced with a pitch black teeth-y void. Finally, his arms gained a more feral, furry appearance similar to what happened with Sonic when he dealt with Dark Gaia.

Nazo looks over at Shadic and proclaims in a more echoing sounding rasp than before "I have never felt more alive, Shadic!" The empowered hedgehog flies forward in a blur, appearing not very far away from his opponent with strength the likes of which he never had before. His power affected the very atmosphere, leading to bolts of Nega Hyper-go-on energy to strike down across the expansive battlefield with each passing second.

Nazo quickly swings all four tendrils in front of his body, infusing the cusp of the maws with Nega Hyper-go-on energy while he grinned in a maddened manner and said "I will now waste no time in wiping you from the face of this planet! Tell me, can you feel the power surging within me?!"

Shadic indeed fell into a brief state of paralysis as he looked at Nazo's overwhelming state of power, leaving him completely vulnerable as Nazo fired off all four lasers at him simultaneously. The lasers crossed the sky in a mere couple seconds, but were intercepted halfway by a swiftly timed guard born of pure light. As the guard vanishes and the negative energy disperses, Riku stands before Nazo in his Chaos Form with diamond gilded katana drawn at the empowered hedgehog.

"Alright, you've warranted my intervention now, Nazo." Riku calmly states, which causes Nazo to stare at the boy in a dumbfounded manner while saying "Who are you supposed to be?"

While the hedgehog tried to piece together who this interloper was, Shadic looked at Riku and stated while swinging his right arm out "Get out of here Riku! I can handle this just fine on my own!"

Riku says to Shadic in response "Judging by the way you were paralyzed just a moment ago, I really think you need my help on this one."

Nazo shakes off his concerns regarding the boy's presence and immediately goes on to mention as he extends his tendrils and arms out beside himself "If that is what you have decided on, then you can join Shadic in his ultimate fate. I will show no mercy to human or beast if they choose to stand in my way!"

Next Time: Clash of Titans