Chapter 26: Nazo III: Fatal Feud

Back on the Egg Continent, Eggman takes note of the change in the atmosphere and comments in a dreading tone "Grrr…So much for Shadic stopping Nazo in time. Truly, we are all doomed."

One bolt of negative energy comes down from the clouds and smites the area behind the doctor, but he barely flinches while the rest of the heroes leap back in response. Eggman Nega turns to look at his grandfather, saying to him in a frantic sounding tone of voice "Why did you ever think that this was a good idea?! You created something that could make one of the most deadly monsters in the universe even MORE powerful than he was before!"

Eggman glares at his grandson from the side and exclaims at him "You can't tell me that YOU wouldn't have done the same to stop Sonic, right?"

Eggman Nega replies with "Maybe not, but I would probably take into consideration the EXISTENCE OF MY GRANDSON'S FUTURE!"

"You're an idiot. If you were in any danger, then you'd have already vanished out of existence. Clearly events have already diverged with Nazo's rebirth, creating another timeline where he didn't reawaken. This already happened once before after the Solaris incident." Eggman's explanation ends with Silver looking at him and saying "Nice theory, but there's one big hole in it."

The doctor glances back at the telekinetic hedgehog as he stands onto his feet and mentions while brandishing a pointer finger out "Eggman Nega, remember your plan to conquer the past so the Eggman lineage wouldn't be seen as a joke?"

Nega replies with a puzzled "Yes? What about it." Which leads to Silver saying "That couldn't have worked out unless the past was perfectly aligned with the future. Which means that if you and I are still alive…"

Eggman Nega says in a tone of realization "Then that means Nazo is going to be stopped! But if Shadic is currently weaker than Nazo, that could only mean…"

Nega turns to face his grandfather while pointing a finger and exclaiming his way "You have to have some method of dealing with Nazo's increased power, don't you?!"

Upon his grandson accusing him of such a thing, all the heroes glance his way, the pressure of their gazes causing him to think back to everything he has done up to this point. He wracks his mind as hard as he possibly can, grunting until his face turns red and a vein nearly pops. But it is at that point that he lifts his head up confidently and snaps his fingers beside his face, exclaiming "Haha! Of course a brilliant mind such as myself would come up with a plan B in case of his insubordination!"

Vector swings his hands out and says "Spill it Eggman! What's your plan?!"

Eggman whips his right hand into the air and says in a bombastic tone "What I have given to Nazo, I can just as easily take away! When I was constructing the Egg Continent, I built a larger version of the Hyper-Go-On vacuum I implemented into Nega-Wisp Armor. It's hidden in the front hull of the ship, and in spite of your meddling efforts I should be able to activate it without relying on the nuclear reactor."

Silver asks "How long will it take to activate it?!" Which Eggman replies swiftly with "Ten minutes at the most. The vacuum works on a large scale of space, so we do not need to worry about aiming it."

Silver bravely proclaims while swinging his right fist out "If Shadic fails, then Blaze and I will try and hold Nazo off!" As he says this, the hedgehog grimaces in pain, something Eggman takes notice of immediately.

"Your bravery is appreciated, but you two are still too weak from fighting Sonic and Shadow. And even if you were at full strength, Nazo would burn you to ashes. It'll be a miracle of Shadic lasts long enough for us to drain Nazo." Eggman has little faith in the fused hedgehog's survival, but the rest of the group minus Nega have different thoughts on the matter.

"Eggman, if someone were to get communications back up, would we be able to cheer Shadic on from here?" Amy asks.

"Of course." Eggman smiled slightly at what Amy was suggesting, and said in turn "Omega, you and Silver should go take care of the communications array. My grandson and I will go activate the vacuum."

Omega clenches his right fist and proclaims "I will not take orders from you, Eggman!" Which leads to Rouge tapping him on the shoulder and saying kindly "Omega, just make an exception this one time."

The proud robot glances at the bat for a moment before turning around and saying in a calmer tone "I will do it only for you. Come, silver hedgehog." Omega dashes forward and leaps off the floating platform, and Silver coats himself in a telekinetic field and flies off towards the communications tower.

Meanwhile, Eggman flips his pod back upright and leaps into it, noticing that it managed to survive the fall and saying in a delighted tone "Hehe, will my work never cease to amaze me?" Eggman Nega then jumps into the pod, and the two take off to activate the vacuum.

Back in the skies above the ocean, Nazo looks upon both Shadic and the mysterious boy and grins. The ecstasy brought on by his newfound power made him think one incredibly arrogant thought. "As I am now, I feel even the Master Emerald is nothing before me. I could create an infinite amount of power in my fingertips, and there'd be nothing anyone could do to stop me!"

The lack of eyes on Nazo's face made his grin all the creepier, but Shadic tried to remain cool and confident as he said "Stop blabbering Nazo and get on with it!"

Nazo swings his arms out and releases a surge of power around his body, the pressure exuding from it pushing both Shadic and Riku a little farther back through the air. He then pants a couple times out of joy before saying to his fated foe "You are far beneath me now…Shadic. But I suppose I should give you the respectful end you deserve…Also, you do not have to worry anymore about your planet."

Nazo quickly closes the gap between himself and Shadic, freezing the fused hedgehog in place as he grinned and said "I will suffice in conquering it and all other worlds in this universe!"

The power-driven hedgehog quickly threw five punches against Shadic's body before he could react, each impact releasing Nega Hyper-go-on energy that is collected within the maws of the tendrils surrounding Nazo's body and being released in the form of tiny spheres that bombard Shadic further and launch him back through the air.

Riku turns towards Nazo as the spheres connect and calmly draws his katana, using a single cut of the blade to cleave one of the tendrils off from Nazo's body before the hedgehog could fight back against him. But the mere second that the part of the tendril was cut off, another one immediately formed and turned towards the boy, where it utilized the Nega Hyper-go-on energy to blast Riku in the face with a powerful beam.

This attack causes Riku to flip around in recoil, but he gracefully spreads his two sets of wings and catches himself before he falls too far from the battlefield. But while he did all of this Nazo focused all of his attention on Shadic, throwing another couple hard-hitting punches against his body before throwing both hands out and stunning his opponent with a heavy shockwave.

Following up on this, Nazo whips his tendrils rapidly against Shadic's body before slamming him diagonally towards the water, which Nazo then follows up on even further by diving towards the hedgehog and delivering a powerful kick against his stomach. Before Shadic flies faster towards the water, Nazo swings his tendrils out one after the other, utilizing a different power in each one. He first smashes Shadic with a cube of Hyper-go-on energy, then follows up by hitting him with a spiked ball and a drill for two seconds in rapid succession.

Finally, Nazo takes the last tendril and clamps it against Shadic's chest before taking a second to charge up a laser within the maw of it and the other three extensions as they float limply around his body. Before he could get the job done, a sphere of light and darkness combined struck him, making him take pause and glance to the right, where that moment of hesitation allowed Riku to deliver a heavy slash with his glowing white katana, which took down two of the tendrils including the one grabbing onto Shadic.

Shadic quickly kicks himself away from Nazo thanks to the distraction Riku provided, and while the teenage Overlord drew his sword back the fused hedgehog curled himself up into a ball and rapidly spun himself around. Applying his own type of friction against the air to ignite himself with dark blue flames.

Nazo regains his composure after the attack and reforms his tendrils instantly, lashing two of them out and forcing Riku to fly back to get out of their way. But then Nazo relies on the Dark Gaia energy to make them stretch out, forcing the boy to take evasive action across the sky since cutting down the tendrils was not an option.

Shadic has fully prepared his attack while Riku has Nazo distracted, and by combining Speed Break with his powered up spindash he launches himself forward like a missile that streaks across two miles in the span of a millisecond. But through the awareness gained from his increase in power, Nazo pulled his body back before Shadic struck him while swinging his tendrils around in such a way that they wouldn't lose their focus on the boy as they were brushed around by the shockwave born of Shadic's charge.

But Shadic wasn't done, as he performed a quickly 180 and rammed right back towards Nazo with only a little loss in momentum. He manages to perform a decisive strike against the side of the power-driven hedgehog's body, and after a second spent reacting at the blow to his body Nazo is dragged straight across the sky towards the water. His tendrils retract, and as friction strains his body he tries to move his tendrils to clasp onto his foe's body.

Instead of waiting for that to happen, Shadic unfurls himself and delivers a swift kick with both of his feet to launch Nazo away from him and straight towards the water. But Nazo flips himself straight up and exudes a heavy amount of energy around his body, creating a field of pressure that leaves him levitating above a crater on the ocean's surface. Nazo then points his tendrils at Shadic and slaps two of them together, combining Nega Hyper-go-on energy together to create a gigantic dark purple drill roughly the size of Angel Island in mere seconds.

"Whoa, seriously?!" Shadic exclaims in sheer disbelief while Nazo smirks and fires the gigantic drill straight at him. With it's girth meaning it would hit in mere seconds, Shadic activates Time Break and flies to the right to try and get out of the way, but Nazo meets him in spite of time slowing down in order to throw a left hook that strikes Shadic and sends him flying right back in front of the path of the drill.

However, while all this was happening Riku had been preparing to create a gigantic rift to drag the drill into, which came forth into existence right as Shadic was hit by Nazo's punch. The drill is swallowed up within the black void to another realm, and Nazo looks at the boy and quickly flies towards him while Shadic was recovering from the punch.

Riku pulls his left hand back and draws his katana, casting the blade in a holy glow to increase it's length before swinging it out twice to cut down Nazo's lashing tendrils, followed up by him holding downward in front of his body to catch a punch from the hedgehog before it struck his armored chest. The force of the punch dispelled the light surrounding the sword, and as Nazo presses on Riku could feel the blade bending towards him.

The teenage Overlord thinks to himself "This is ridiculous…He has gotten way too strong now!" While he spent some focus on these thoughts, Nazo regenerated his tendrils and pointed two of them at Riku's head.

With one thought, Nazo would summon forth drills of Hyper-go-on energy that would bury through Riku's skull and make puree of his brain. Thus Riku had no choice but to counter this quick thought with one of his own, as he summoned two small darkness rifts on both sides of his head that absorbed the blunt force of the drills in the nick of time.

With nervousness starting to grip the teenage Overlord's mind, Riku was left vulnerable as Nazo thrust both of his hands against the boy's katana, letting out an aggressive cry as he fired off a pressurized shockwave powerful enough to shatter Riku's weapon in half while the remainder of the energy crashes against the boy's armor and puts small cracks all along as he is knocked a few feet back through the air.

But though the shockwave dazed Riku, he wasn't one to not take advantage of Nazo's earlier attack. By opening two more darkness rifts connected to the first, Riku forced Nazo to feel his own Hyper-go-on drills grind against the sides of his skull for two seconds before the pain forces him to retract the tendrils and feel an echoing throb inside of his head for the next ten seconds.

The teenage Overlord brushes the bottom of his chin with his right arm and smiles, leaning forward slightly and taking in a couple of breathes before he holds his hand out and works to weave together another katana out of pure light. In the mean time, he looks behind Nazo and catches a glimpse of something he hadn't noticed before. Streaking back and forth across the air is an indigo-blue blur that leaves in it's wake black-flame surrounded Chaos Spears that are all pointed at Nazo.

Riku sheathes his katana and swings his hands out, opening dozens of dimensional rifts that pulsate with darkness and aim themselves at the power mad hedgehog. With Shadic reappearing behind his projectiles and snapping his fingers while the teenage Overlord thrusts his arms in front of his body, the Chaos Spears and darkness empowered bolts fly out and converge upon Nazo's body simultaneously, covering him in hundreds of explosions.

Shadic and Riku felt that they actually did some permanent damage to Nazo's body with their combined assault, but within mere second after the explosions had come to an end Nazo flies out backwards through the cloud and throws a heavy punch against Shadic's stomach. Nazo was unharmed once more, causing Riku to note "You got to be kidding me!" As he grits his teeth, draws out his katana, and flies straight at the power-mad hedgehog.

The teenage Overlord tries to slash Nazo from behind, but with awareness of his opponent's movements Nazo responds by throwing two of his tendrils backwards and wrapping them around Riku's wrists before he can slash down upon his body. But instead of waiting to be flung away, Riku creates a gigantic blade of light as an extension of his katana and cutting straight through the top of Nazo's head.

But being born of Chaos Energy, Nazo has nothing resembling a brain within his skull, but he does pause for a moment before releasing his grip on Riku's wrists and firing two lasers at the boy's body to send him away. He then floats back slightly as Shadic slowly recovers from the blow to his stomach, limping in place with tired breaths as Nazo claps his hands together and smiles before stating "I honestly didn't expect it to be this easy, Shadic."

"I'm not through yet Nazo!" Shadic confidently proclaims just mere seconds before the indigo-blue coloring surrounding his body fades away for a brief moment.

Nazo raises one hand up in front of his body and says "Even if you weren't almost out of energy, you cannot put a scratch on me."

Shadic grits his teeth down gently and says to his foe "I don't think you've earned the right to be so cocky Nazo. I'm not dead yet."

Nazo says in a eerily joyous tone of voice as he widens his grin "You will be though. The moment your fusion comes to an end, I will destroy your two halves permanently."

Now that he had caught his breath, the fused hedgehog straightens his body up and swings his right hand in front of his body, exclaiming as he clenches it into the shape of a fist "Then I guess I'll go out with a bang!"

Shadic immediately flies forward and activates Speed Break before Nazo can react, slamming him with the entirety of his body as he covers himself in a bullet-shaped flaming aura. Shadic speeds by Riku as the boy recovers from the laser beams, and as the teenage Overlord turns his head around to follow the fused hedgehog's movements and quickly thinks to himself "Shadic's about to run out of power…So what's he trying to do?!"

The fused hedgehog eventually snaps out of Speed Break, creating three subsequent shockwaves from the release of this that all launch Nazo away from his body. Nazo was left stunned as Shadic swung both of his arms out and summoned forth the seven World Rings around his body. Each ring glowed as intensely as a white sun, inflamed mostly by the power of Shadic's emotions going into full tilt. The indigo-blue coating on his fur started to peel away rapidly, leaving only a light-blue fur underneath, but Shadic gripped onto the power of the World Rings as much as he could so he could finish this final attack.

As the World Rings flew down in front of his body and combined together into a singular, burning orb of swirling light, Shadic could hear voices coming in loudly from afar. "Sonic, don't give up! You're fighting for all of us!" "Mr. Sonic, don't give up, we believe in you!" "Come on Sonic, you are the greatest hero of the future for a reason! Show this faker what for!" "Sonic, if that monster lives, he'll threaten my dimension as well…You already saved it twice before, I trust you to do it again!" "Hey Sonic, we Chaotix might not have much money, but when you save the world this time, we're treating you to some chili dogs!" "Shadow, you are the ultimate life form, this inferior hedgehog is no match for you!" "Come on Shadow, you need to make it back to us safely!" "Hey Sonic, this is Knuckles! Tails managed to patch into whatever communications frequency everyone else is using! We might not be the closest of buddies, but if there's anyone I can trust to save the day, it's you!"

"Sonic, we've been best friends longer than anyone else. We've had many adventures together, and I want us to keep taking down Eggman side-by-side until we grow old! Take Nazo down for all of us!" "You irritating hedgehog, you are the one person I hate the most in this world…But at the same time, you're probably one of the few I actually have an inkling of respect for. I'm truly sorry for going this far to try and stop you, so atone for my mistake by destroying this monster for good!"

It was only once Eggman made his remark that Shadic had finished charging up the World Rings with every last bit of energy he could. With his indigo-blue fur almost peeled away by the flames of darkness, Shadic cups his hands tightly around the combined World Rings and exclaimed "Sorry Nazo, but you heard them! I can't lose against a monster like you!"

With a single thought, Shadic releases the energy of the seven World Rings upon Nazo. The sky rips apart in all directions as a colossal beam of multicolored flames tears straight through the air at the power-made hedgehog. The clouds and ocean surface split aside as the energy is instantly released and Nazo's body is consumed entirely by the attack. It lasts only for a few seconds, after which the World Rings burn to a crispy black and fade away back into Shadic's body, who now has blue fur.

Shadic pants heavily, seeing not a single sign of Nazo's body through the thick streak of smoke created from his attack, and he smiles and comments "Hah…Hah…That better be the end of him…Cause I know I'm done for…" Shadic closes his eyelids and starts to fall out of the sky afterwards.

Nazo pushes aside most of the smoke with a burst of energy, but his body was severely damaged to the point that white flames still lingered on the torn away bits of flesh across his body. His regeneration was slowly putting him back in shape, but he still found himself growling in anger at the fact that Shadic still had that much of an ace up his sleeve. "Grrr…You've humiliated me for the last time Shadic!"

The power-made hedgehog swings his right hand out and pools as much Nega Hyper-go-on energy as he could into a gigantic sphere aimed at Shadic. With the wind whistling eerily as the sphere reaches completion, Nazo launches the attack straight at Shadic as the hedgehog splits apart into his two-halves. With maniacal, joyous laughter emerging from his mouth, Nazo fails to notice at first as two rifts of darkness open up in rapid succession, with one carrying Sonic and Shadow away to the Egg Continent in an instant while the second one takes Nazo's attack and sends it fly off harmlessly into space.

Nazo looks up immediately after seeing his attack fail to kill Shadic's two halves and finds the mysterious boy floating quite a distance away from him. Naturally infuriated by the boy's interference, Nazo swings his right fist up and exclaims "Once again you intervene in this battle! I suppose now that you've robbed me of the chance to destroy Shadic once and for all, I will have to settle with obliterating you instead!"

Riku glares at the power-mad hedgehog, satisfied in knowing that Sonic and Shadow were currently safe as he drew his katana and looked at Nazo, saying in a calm yet curious tone "Do you even know who I am?"

Nazo says in response "Of course not. But I will conquer you without even a hint of fear or hesitation!"

The teenage Overlord draws his sword out in front of his body while mentally connecting himself to the realm of darkness. Opening one of the largest rifts he ever has before, Riku says in response to Nazo's bold claim "You would be wise not to assume that you conquer the unknown, Nazo."

As he said this, a draconic claw reaches out through the rift and starts to pull himself through into the physical world. Nazo looks up above the mysterious boy as a titanic bipedal dragon covered in black scales towers himself over the battlefield as he fully emerges from the rift. The dragon glared down at Nazo with his human-like red eyes as he reaches for his ancient-runic belt and pulled his triangular-bladed sword straight from the hilt and let out an echoing roar to let the power-mad hedgehog know that he was ready for battle.

Nazo grins and laughs at the mysterious boy, saying in an almost delighted tone of voice "You truly plan to go through with this, aren't you? You could summon a thousand dragons and I still would be fazed by your efforts. Do you not realize that I am now beyond even infinity itself?!"

Riku points his katana at Nazo and says to him "I don't care about how much power you claim to have. Everything has a limit in this world, and I will push myself to that very limit if that's what it'll take to stop you Nazo. You will not be killing anyone here today!"

The teenage Overlord releases all of his power at once, creating a shining veil of black and white around his body that pushes his wings up into the air, and upon declaring "Takashi, you have my permission to not show any mercy, we have to win!" The black dragon immediately responds by exclaiming "You didn't need to say anything, Riku!"

Nazo floats ominously in the middle of the air, drawing Hyper Nega-go-on energy into his tendrils and palms as he stares down both the boy and the titanic dragon without a hint of fear on his face. The final battle for the sake of the planet Earth had now truly begun…

Next Time: Cataclysm