End to Tyranny
"Hey Shadow." A whisper woke him, a fair weight seemed to be resting itself on his right shoulder. He opened his eyes, there was only a sliver of light, but he could see Slayde just fine, and Amy laying asleep on his shoulder. "I'll leave you to wake her, wouldn't want to ruin the moment." He whispered before he vanished in a flicker of yellow.
"Rose." Shadow whispered before stroking some of his quills out of her face. The moving of her quills seemed to disturb her as she groaned and opened her eyes. Looking right into his eyes she smiled causing his stomach to do a back flip. Shadow suddenly was filled with appreciation for Slayde's small gesture.
"Heya Shadow." She mumbled sleepily. A slight smile made its way to Shadow's lips before he spoke and it vanished.
"We need to get moving." Shadow told her gently. She quickly got off him and stood up. Considering that they had both fallen to sleep on the ground they weren't all that dirty. "Let's head back to camp." The two of them quickly ran back to camp to find that most of it had already been packed away.
"Shadow, do you think you could try getting the two of them up. I've already collapsed the tent on them and they still haven't woke. I daren't go in there." Slayde asked him.
"If you two don't get out here in five minutes I'm teleporting you out. And I neither know, nor care how much clothing you have on." Shadow announced. Slayde came back over again.
"Yeah, I don't really feel like letting you and Sonic fight it out for seeing his girlfriend naked when we're about to go into an important battle." Slayde told him.
"Well what do you suggest we do?" Shadow questioned. Slayde looked like he was thinking for a second before a wicked grin came across his face.
"Let's add a little bit of water. Chaos Torrent." He shouted as water gushed from both his hands and soaked the tent and all who were in it. The tents may have been water resistant, but little could withstand that volume of water.
"What the fuck is going on?!" Sonic shouted before Terra started laughing in hysterics. Sonic started fighting the wet tent until he spin dashed his way out completely naked. Luckily that didn't matter so much to a male Mobian. "All of my clothes are in there!" Sonic shouted while Terra could still be heard in the tent finding the whole thing hilarious, her head now peaking out, looking at Sonic's red and angry face. "And so are Terra's!"
"She can borrow some of mine." Amy said, indicating her completely dry tent. Terra had finally stopped laughing and disappeared in a flash of light blue before peaking her head out of Amy's and Prosha's tent.
"Think you could show me what I can and cannot wear?" Terra asked, amusement still on her lips. Amy quickly disappeared into the tent with her.
"How am I supposed to pack something this wet?" Sonic asked.
"Does it really matter? You broke it." Slayde replied. "Terra will have to go in with the girls and you can come in with either me and Shadow or Rage and Alpha." Shadow didn't look to impressed with the idea, and neither did Sonic when he looked at Shadow.
"I'll go in with Rage." Sonic stated. Slayde smiled.
"Then it's settled!" He announced. Sonic walked off mumbling something before he started getting all of the wet clothes out of the tent and putting them in a plastic bag. "Everything going to plan, there will be no need anyway Shadow." Slayde muttered to Shadow before walking off himself. "I already put our tent down and stored it in Chaos Closet as usual. Food's on the fire if you want any." He told him as he pointed towards where the smoke was coming from, so presumably the fire, the morning was getting lighter surprisingly rapidly. Though that was likely due to the lack of clouds in this area now. Amy and Terra came out of the tent. Terra was wearing some jeans and a purple tank top.
"Well it doesn't go the best with your fur, but it matches your eyes." Amy said happily, smiling. Terra smiled back.
"Thanks for the loan, I'll make it up to you sometime!" Terra told her merrily.
"Hey beautiful." Sonic stated as he kissed her. Terra kissed him back.
"I'm going to go see if they're cooking on that fire. Don't be too long." Terra told him as he went back to the tent to find stuff that was salvageable.
Half an hour later the whole group was up, fed and ready.
"Okay then!" Slayde stated, rubbing his hands together. "As you all know we found our sixth Emerald yesterday, the light blue one. Now as you know, or at least most of you do, there are six of us here who can use Chaos Control. Me, Shadow, Amy, Terra, Sonic and Rage. So there are also four who cannot. Prosha, Ebony, Alpha and Noir. So each of those who cannot use Chaos control need to group up with someone who can. My suggestions are as followed: Amy and Ebony, Rage and Alpha, Prosha and Terra, Noir and Sonic. If you have a problem with them then I'd suggest changing it before we leave, which will be in the next few seconds."
"Who made you boss?" Sonic suddenly piped up. Half the group rolled their eyes, but Slayde looked quite serious.
"Well I guess Tails did when he handed me the machine and not you." Slayde answered quite spitefully. Sonic suddenly shut up, going slightly red from this statement. He would have expected Tails to trust him most. "Any more questions from anyone they want answering bluntly?" Slayde asked rather coolly. Seeming more hostile than usual.
"Who are you?" Rage asked suddenly.
"Nice try Rage. Everyone grab your Emeralds." Slayde stated as he pulled out the yellow Emerald. Rage pulled out the red one, Amy the blue, Terra the light blue, Shadow the green, Sonic the white. "There's a hill to the South east of the city that we all have come to know. We shall land there. Now everyone to their teleporting partners." He motioned. Everyone moved to their afore suggested partners. "See you all in a few."
"Chaos Control." They said in unison. Everyone disappeared in a flash of various colours.
Many miles away they reappeared in flashes. Light blue, blue, red and white. The four standing there stood silent for a second. Before Amy spoke.
"Where's Shadow and Slayde?" She asked no one in particular. There was a sudden, very loud explosion to the north west and almost immediately another to the south west. Everyone looked from the hill they had landed on that was overlooking Robotnik's city of metal. There were two separate plumes of smoke rising from opposite ends of the city.
"Call it a wild guess." Rage started as there was a yellow flash from behind him.
"But we're at either explosion?" Slayde finished from behind him. "Yeah, I'd make the same assumption. Shadow's in the middle, in that wide and tall tower, looking for the Emerald as he's good at finding those damn things. I fell back to brief you guys." Slayde announced quite melodramatically. "We are to cause hell. That is all." Slayde told them with a smirk before disappearing in another flash of yellow and a third explosion sounded from the north end of the city.
"Show offs." Muttered Sonic before he teleported with Noir in a flash of blue, the others followed. Sonic found himself in the middle of a mechanical street that looked typically like all of the others that they had been to. The only difference was that there seemed to be a lot less worker bots round, a lot less bots in general in fact. "It's quiet."
"Too quiet." Noir agreed before looking up. "Look out! He shouted as he pushed Sonic over. A large metal object suddenly crashed right where the two were just seconds previously.
"Thanks little guy." Sonic called out. There was no answer. Sonic quickly made his way round the object to check to see if the little fox was alright. Sonic found him in a few seconds through the dust that somehow got kicked up from the piece of metal hitting more metal and realised he was bleeding from the head. Sonic quickly grabbed his wrist and checked for a pulse. He let out a sigh of relief when he felt one. Noir had simply been knocked unconscious. He quickly looked round. There was no where he could put him and him be safe. He started to realise just how hot he was getting. The dust seemed to be warming up and getting thicker. He looked over to where the metal had broken the other metal and he realised that it had broken a pipe that must have been carrying steam. Sonic suddenly got picked up from behind by a machine not unlike another egg emperor but without the shield and spear.
"What do we have here?" It spoke before dropping Sonic. Sonic fell face first on the ground before quickly whipping his body round. However his reactions were not fast enough and the tin monster had already put its foot on top of him.
"Get off of him!" A female voice sounded from behind the robot before it was picked up and thrown mightily across the 'square' in the metal city. Sonic looked up to see a blackened Terra standing above him, her light blue eyes shining through the steam. "Planning on getting up?" She asked him, holding out her hand and smirking at him. Sonic smirked back and grasped her hand pulling himself up.
"Heh. Thanks for that." Sonic stated as he watched the robot pull itself out of a small fissure. Terra shot at the robot as Sonic quickly did a double back and searched the thick steam for Noir. It took him a few seconds before he found him but just as he did a rather fast moving black hedgehog hit into him. "Ooft."
"Sorry Sonic! He's a bit stronger than he looks." She told him as she jumped up and sweat dropped.
"You needing help?" Sonic asked teasingly. She gave him an icy look.
"You just get Noir back to that hill and then come on back. This place has far too many strong robots in for the kiddies to deal with." Terra snapped, it was obvious that she was annoyed that she had been hit like that. Sonic teleported out of sight in a blue flash and Terra floated her way out of the smoke. "Now where were we?" She rhetorically asked the now three giant robots that were standing in front of her, the two newcomers looking far more deadly than the previous.
Amy looked about. It was obvious that battles had started in various parts of the city, but so far she had seen no one, not friend nor foe. Even Ebony had vanished.
"Hello?" Amy shouted out. She had another glance round and, after a few moments realised she was right next to the tower, placing herself almost in the dead centre of the city. "How did I go so off course?" Amy muttered to herself. Suddenly there was a crash as a rather dazed black hedgehog came flying out of the buildings wall, Amy managed to catch him and stop his flying progress.
"Amy?" Shadow asked, slightly dazed before he brought back his resolve in a matter of seconds. "Sorry, no time to chat." He stated as his fur turned golden and he shot back through the hole he had just come through. Amy just stood there gawping for a few second before she followed through the hole, almost immediately regretting it as she started falling with a rather irritated look on her face. She had just enough time to sigh before she face planted the floor, it being too dark to see properly. She looked up and was amazed at what she was seeing. The room that she was in must have been several times larger than the actual city itself. She could see tell tale signs of warped space in the room and decided that Robotnik must be using the Emerald to create a small pocket dimension as she had learnt about it being possible before from Shadow. She could see in the distance a small yellow light shooting about and battling a looming great blackness that could only be a fairly large machine. Fairly large being three stories high yet quite nimble. Amy quickly scanned the room and could see several doors. She scratched her head. Before running off through one, time to prove herself to Shadow by beating him to the Emerald.
"My god. How many generators does one city have?" Slayde stated in frustration. He had been targeting the power sources of the city in an attempt to take down the defence system that seemed to be chasing him, but it wasn't really going according to plan.
"Intruder number 58 detected. Initiating security protocol seven." The robotic voice read out before launching several missiles out of the wall at Slayde. Slayde had a rather depressed look on his face as he smashed the panel that the voice read out of.
"Why on earth am I as high as 58?!" He shouted at no one in particular as he expertly dodged the missiles, fully frustrated at the security system. "Surely I should be about fifth after Sonic, Shadow, Tails and Knuckles?" He announced to the broken panel. There was of course no reply. Slayde sighed. "I'm getting too old for this." He told himself before he ran off back into the streets, looking for more generators that needed putting down. In minutes he had come across one that was bigger than all the rest that had come before. He sighed in relief, it was about time he found a main generator. He ran inside the structure to find it quite straightforward. That was until he noticed what was in the middle powering the thing. He stared at it for a few seconds before he sighed. A lump of Chaos crystal floated in the middle of the device. No wonder taking out all of the other generators didn't do anything if this one was on the same circuit. It was quite likely that the others weren't even operational anymore, and were only working on the lead up to the development and how to tap into the power of the crystals. Slayde couldn't help but wonder where the Doctor had found this cluster. Although he had seen more impressive clusters, this most certainly placed in the top five. The crystals themselves were incredibly dark, almost black, yet the sustained a shade of purple of which its deepness was hard to describe. Slayde then realised why he had been unable to sense anyone inside the city. The amount of Chaos radiation that was coming off this place was almost like a clogging mist. Creating small warps in space and time that were barely noticeable but still there. The way the Robotnik had organised his city was on the verge of creating a gigantic rift with Chaos energy, and with no way to tell where the rift would lead it was extremely dangerous. Slayde glanced at the crystals again and sighed. With the amount of distortion that was occurring round the city removing the crystals outright with Chaos Control could quite likely cause space to collapse in on itself, creating the afore mentioned object. On the other hand, if left unchecked it could power Chaos knew how many robots, defences, etc. There were two ways he could deal with the problem, both as risky as the other, but for different reasons.
He could either risk tearing them out, hoping for the best and chancing the fact that the whole system could simply collapse round his friends, killing millions and preventing them from saving anyone.
Or he could attempt to drain the crystals of their power, taking it into his own body so he could try and diffuse it slowly back into a Chaos Emerald or use it himself. But if the power of the crystals was too much the attempt could kill him or, worse, remove him from the time line and prevent him from existing in all memory. It was a tough call, but it was one that he had to make.
He sighed as he placed his hands on the lump of crystals and he started glowing a slight purple. He wasn't selfish enough to value his life against an entire planets.
Shadow could have sworn that he just saw something pink and hedgehog like run through one of the doors in the back of the room, but at the same time he couldn't be sure. The room was as big as it was badly lighted and it was massive. The room was obviously some kind of warped space, likely generated from the Chaos Emerald they all knew the tyrant had. Yet it also seemed odd that such a large robot had been built here. Just looking at the floor you could see the robot which was almost complete that was filling almost half the room. Still he had more pressing matters to attend to. The robot that seemed to be built for guarding this room was surprising quick and nimble. Though it was almost the size of a large car. Lucky despite the fact that it was almost as fast as him, in his super form, it barely packed a punch. True it had managed to swing him out the room, but now that he was serious the thing was doing the dodging instead of him. Still, Shadow hoped that The Doctor hadn't mass produced them, more than five and it may start being a challenge.
"This has gone on long enough." Shadow stated in a strong voice. Shadow held his left hand to his right side, staring down the robot that didn't seem to have any sort of vocal recognition software what so ever. Though it could have been that it understood Robotnik's vocal patterns and his alone. "Chaos Lance!" Shadow shouted as he released a yellow bolt of Chaos Energy not unlike his trademark attack Chaos Spear except, that it looked far larger, it was almost like a Chaos Spear that had been left to charge for an hour. Its power tore through the metal like butter as the machine instantly powered down and the Lance disappeared in a flicker. "Hmpf." Shadow breathed indignantly.
Shadow powered down and ran out of the room through the nearest door to him, breathing ever so slightly heavier than he usually did.
Sonic reappeared in a blue flash in front of a rather annoyed and bored looking Prosha, who immediately looked excited.
"You come to get me?" She questioned excitedly. Then she noticed who Sonic was carrying in his arms. "Oh..." She mouthed as Sonic placed him in front of her.
"Do you think that you could look after him for me? While we do what we have to do in this place." Sonic requested as he looked back to the city. His worry for Terra evident on his face. "This base." Sonic paused, not completely sure what to say. "This city of robots is different to all the others. This city is probably the most terrible thing that has ever been made on the planet." He looked at Prosha. There was stress on his face, which was a first for the blue blur. He had never felt it before. He had moments where he had worried, true. But nothing of this scale. Maybe that was what being romantically involved did to you? You feel the best of emotions, yet it also opens up a way for some of the worst to come as well.
"Of course!" Prosha shouted enthusiastically, knocking Sonic out of his train of thought. Sonic smiled at her before disappearing in a flash of blue light, reappearing immediately back where Terra was. He found the scene awfully quiet, nothing seemed to be moving. He knew that the main power source must have been taken out, but it seemed awfully odd that the larger robots whom Terra was fighting would just shut down. Or for that matter that Terra would just leave the area when she knew he would likely return here. Sonic sighed whilst scanning the area, he didn't like this one bit. A bit of rubble shifted. Sonic quickly ran over to it and lifted up a large piece of it to find an unconscious brown Hedgehog.
"Terra? Terra wake up!" Sonic almost shouted in a panic as he picked her shoulders up gently. Terra frowned and groaned before coughing up a little bit of blood.
"Wow can that thing hit." Terra mumbled as she pushed Sonic hands off and tried to get up. Sonic held his hand out and she took it, helping her get up right away. "Don't worry, the bloods from my gums. I'm just a tad winded." She reassured the concerned look on Sonic's face.
"What happened?" Sonic questioned. The robot that he saw should have been took down by Terra easily. Although looking round he could see the remnants of two quite large robots or very many small ones.
"Well as you left, two more arrived. One of them just sat there doing nothing while the other two attacked. It wasn't that hard of a fight. The one that you saw was destroyed in a second, the other in ten. But then the last one came at me. God could it move fast. I barely dodged its attacks. It was going toe to toe with me for speed, even if it did seem to be lacking strength. I was just gaining the upper hand when suddenly all of the power shut down. I expected the robot to be distracted by that, I even dared hope it got weaker... I would never have expected it to suddenly get stronger. Suddenly I found myself flying into the building, with such strength that it made the buildings supports weak, I looked up and the robot had vanished. Then the building collapsed on me and I must have lost consciousness." Terra explained quite thoroughly. Sonic looked towards the tower in the middle of the city. "No dwelling, we have people relying on us. If Shadow says we need that Emerald then we do our best to help him get it!" Terra announced in a pep talk. Sonic nodded.
"Yeah." Sonic agreed. Looking towards the sky there seemed to be some kind of odd distortion in the clouds, if he wasn't mistaken there was something with crazy power there. "Let's go." Sonic pointed out before dashing off with Terra in his wake.
Left, the corridor doubled back on itself or went right. Left again and Amy hit another dead end. The place was like a damn maze. In fact it was worse than a maze because A. most mazes didn't include deadly, biological, heat seeking missiles. And B. You could give up on trying to get through a maze without having to worry about the apocalypse. Amy sighed, at least there didn't seem to be anything shooting at her down this corridor. She dared a hope, willing for the reason that the attacks had stopped was because she herself was near the Emerald and Robotnik didn't dare have traps too close to it. She frowned and leant against a wall, she mentally scolded herself about giving herself false hopes as she realised that she wasn't stopping against the wall. She hit the ground and winded herself before picking herself up and looking to see what was near her. There was no wall where she had just fallen through, just a hole leading to the corridor. She quickly stepped back out into the corridor and was meet with a seemingly solid wall. She placed her hand on it and found it simply went straight through. The experience was trippy to say the least as she walked through a solid object back into the room that shouldn't have existed considering that there was a corridor just on the other side of the wall. Amy could think of two simple explanations for both occurrences. The wall either was holographic, though that didn't seem likely else it would be visible from this side, or the wall was simply in another part of existence. As for the room, the wall could have been acting as an active teleported, yet her biological senses didn't seem to think she had moved at all, or it was simply another area of warped space. Either one was possible, though looking to see what the room contained, the second seemed more likely.
"The Emerald!" Amy almost shouted out. It was in a strange looking device floating in the centre of it. Her guess was that the machine was drawing on the Emeralds power. Suddenly she felt a wave of sickness. She peered round the Purple Emerald to see a Black one. Amy breathed in deeply and shook her head. She wasn't about to let a stupid unnerving Fake Emerald stop her from taking the Chaos Emerald. She walked towards the Purple Emerald slowly, feeling the odd waves of revulsion the closer that she got. She took one last deep breath before grabbing the Emerald and making a run for it towards the entrance to the room which seemed to be fading. Her eyes widened as she jumped through it, still feeling slightly nauseous. She looked back to the wall as it appeared to solidify. 'Good riddance' She thought before fleeing out of the halls and back towards the tower so she could leave from where she came.
Shadow looked round the corridors. He had broken anything that had dared shoot at him, yet he didn't seem to be any closer to finding the Emerald. The place seemed massive and seemed to be built out of that same annoying material that blocked Chaos abilities. Shadow sighed, there had to be a way of telling where the Emerald was. Alarms suddenly started blaring, causing him to frown. He had been discovered long ago, so what had changed in the mean time? He caught a flash of pink and someone streaked past him in the corridor in front. He rolled his eyes and immediately took off after her. "Amy!" Shadow shouted after the pink blur, but she didn't seem to notice. He started sprinting in order to try and catch up with her, she was definitely getting faster because Shadow was only gaining on her slowly and it was frustrating him. In a wave of frustration he activated his air shoes despite being in such a confined space and pushed forward, gaining on her quite quickly. Suddenly Shadow found himself in the room that he was fighting the robot. "Amy!" He shouted once again. Amy suddenly stopped and turned round Shadow tried to break but had forgotten he activated his air shoes and went crashing straight into Amy, the both of them rolling across the floor.
"Owiie." Amy stated, rubbing her arm as she stood back up. Shadow pushed himself up, a slight rip in his jeans and a graze on his knee.
"Sorry Rose." Shadow apologised as he picked himself up. Suddenly the room started lighting up. "What the...?" Shadow trailed off. Amy clutched the Emerald in her hand.
"Shadow I got the Emerald." Amy stated happily, holding it in her hands showing him. Shadow looked at her awestruck before looking up.
"Amy, put it away." He growled. Amy looked at him quite cluelessly until she looked up. There were several robots, and all of them were the same as the one Shadow was fighting.
"So this is where my Emerald got to! I'll be taking that back I do believe... And you were so kind as to bring me two other Emeralds. I thank you." Robotnik's voice, however his voice seemed a little off, came from the lead bot that looked like it had some adornments likely for a chain of command. Shadow placed his Emerald in Amy's hand.
"Rose, run, I'll hold off the cavalry just get that Emerald to Slayde." He stated as he powered up into Super Shadow.
"No need Shadow." An eerie version of Slayde's voice spoke. Shadow and Amy looked over to the culprit to see Slayde, except he was basked in a purple aura and looked drunk.
"You haven't done what I think you have?" Shadow snarled in an a panicked voice. To Amy he even had a hint of worry in it, which worried her more than she could even express. Slayde nodded, looking like he was about to burst into laughter at the thought of it. "You fool!" Shadow shouted. Slayde just stuck his tongue out like a little boy before smiling like he was completely out of it.
"Another one of you won't make a difference-" Robotnik started before the group of robots blew up in a flash of purple akin to the aura round Slayde.
"Shut it." Slayde spoke to the room in general. Shadow grabbed him by the shoulders and started pulling him along.
"What's up with him Shadow?" Amy asked, Slayde started watching something that seemed to be flying round his head.
"He's absorbed Chaos Crystals, or Chaosyte (Cay-Oh-Site). They are grown in the presence of a Chaos Emerald. One can artificially speed up the process to make them, but it takes hundreds of years from them to grow naturally, without the Emeralds. They are basically... Drugs for Chaos users, both performance enhancing and... Well you can see what state he's in. They give you a high which actually boosts your power dramatically depending on how much you absorb. But there are a lot of side effects, like the temporary insanity he's experiencing right now, the more you have the higher the boost but the higher the risk. Too much can cause just about any illness, they can cause death... But that's not the worst of it." Shadow explained. Amy now looked really worried.
"What could be worse than that?" Amy asked, almost fearfully.
"It can completely erase your existent, or at least... It's believed they can. There's no hard proof, but a fair few powerful Chaos wielders, including myself, have noticed inconsistencies that could only be there if someone had vanished. It changes the physical world completely, and yet there's always something that lingers on...
"Anyway, the stronger you are, the more you can take without side effects. Slayde is almost as strong as me... I'd hate to know just how much he must have took to be in this state. Right now I think he'd be able to hit Hyper Form... With room to spare. It'd burn off the energy really fast, but at least he'd be safe from the ill effect." Shadow finished his explanation. Now Amy really was worried.
"If we can't get the Energy out of him could he die?" Amy questioned, hoping for a no.
"No... Death is one of the symptoms that manifest right at the beginning of absorption, AKA, as soon as you hit too much for your body you're gone. (So the existence erasing could only happen to someone who was in the white group!) No, he won't die, but the insanity could stick." Shadow told her with utmost certainty. This relaxed Amy marginally, but not that much. She remained silent as they made their way to the hole in the wall that had gotten bigger, the rubble quite conveniently forming a staircase. As they made their way to the top Slayde and Shadow suddenly stopped walking.
"What's up?" Amy asked in a voice laced with worry. Slayde pulled his arm out of her grip like she wasn't even there and pointed backwards. Suddenly there was a groan of metal that could likely be heard throughout the entire city. Amy turned round slowly, already knowing what it was but wanting to confirm it with her own eyes. The arm of the giant robot was moving, and it was pulling up. "Holy shit." Amy muttered.
"Run!" Shouted Shadow as he started to drag Slayde along, Slayde being surprisingly cooperative despite his mental state. They ran at a fairly slow pace compared to normal due to Slayde, but before they knew it they ran headlong into Sonic and Terra.
"What was that noise that we just heard?" Sonic asked cautionately but Shadow wasn't really in the mood to talk, and went straight past them, so he started following the group of three. "And what's up with him?" Sonic questioned in a slightly curious but in a mostly freaked out way. Since Shadow seemed to be carrying Slayde fine by himself Amy let go and fell back with Sonic and Terra.
"The big robot Robotnik was working on? Seems it's activated... As for Slayde, apparently he's done something that's basically taking drugs for Chaos users. Giving him a temporary power up." Amy told him. Sonic nodded, deciding against talking until they suddenly came to a stop. Whereas Terra rolled her eyes. Obviously she knew as much about them as Shadow.
"This should be far enough from that robot." Shadow stated as he pulled a strange device out of Slayde's back pack. Sonic instantly recognised it as the thing he had seen in Tails' room. Before Sonic could say anything however, Shadow held out his hand. "I need the Emerald we lent you." Shadow commanded. Sonic looked at him in rage, but didn't bother saying anything simply because he knew that Shadow would ignore him and take it anyway. He placed it into Shadow's hand as Terra pulled hers out and held it out towards Shadow, earning a slight look of respect from him.
"You know, I just noticed that there are houses here. Why would Robotnik need houses?" Sonic pointed out. Shadow looked up and round.
"You're right. But why would he bother with houses?" Shadow replied to no one in particular.
"It's because this base was made on top of a large city. So some of the original frame is still here." Amy informed them both, a look of realisation of their own stupidity creeping on Sonic's face more than Shadow's. "There's the two Emeralds I have Shadow." Amy announced to him as he took the two from each of Amy's outstretched hands, the slight blush on his muzzle concealed by his dark fur unlike Sonic's red cheeks.
"We're missing someone~" Slayde sung in a slightly eerie voice as he stared at Shadow with one eye half open and the other one wide. Shadow gave him a look of irritation, he hated it when the people he was with did the crystals. When they over did it, they were just plain unbearable.
"That's a point. I haven't seen hide nor hair of him since we left the mountainside. Or of Alpha for that matter." Terra stated, Shadow looked slightly perturbed.
"Rage was the weakest of us Chaos users, which is why me and Slayde put him with the strongest one out of those who could not manifest physical Chaos. To fight the enemies here effectively, I had to go into Super Form. As far as I know, Rage couldn't do that... Dammit, we overlooked something." Shadow speculated, slamming his fist into the wall he had rested the machine on.
"You shouldn't... Worry so much. He never... Did tell the two of you who he was did he? Well it seems... You're about to find out." Slayde told the both of them, taking inconvenient breaths in his speech causing odd pausing, practically ignoring the presence of all else.
"Wait, you can sense them? I can't feel it over the interference left in the cabling." Shadow asked impatiently.
"Of course. The same power... Runs in me now..." Slayde told him. Shadow looked at him.
"Tell me where they are Slayde." Shadow demanded.
"Aww, but the fun's about to begin." He told him, most of the group looked confused. Shadow didn't, he just looked irritated. "And there goes one flame." Slayde whispered in both sadness and delight. Shadow was about to start shouting for the first time in ages, but then he felt a slight pressure coming from the north-east.
"Quickly everyone." Shadow raised his voice in panic as a second wave of the pressure came, strong enough for everyone to feel this time. Shadow grabbed Slayde under the arm and started running. Slayde didn't bother half arsed running this time and ran at the pace of the group so Shadow let go and focus on moving. Within seconds they arrived on the scene. Rage was up against four of the robots that Shadow was against just earlier with that amount Shadow was certain he himself would get tired, so Rage was certain to die. Shadow powered himself up as started rocketing towards Rage until Slayde moved in his way, shaking his head. Shadow was about to push past until he noticed something beside Rage. An unmoving Grey wolf stained with red. "I see." Shadow motioned as he powered down and returned to stand next to the others.
"Why isn't anyone helping him?" Amy asked, trying to break through a grip that Sonic seemed to have on her.
"You noticed it before I did then Sonic?" Shadow stated. Sonic nodded.
"Yeah, I noticed one was missing." Sonic replied. Shadow folded his arms and frowned.
"I see." Shadow answered. Amy was continuing to struggle so Shadow took her other arm, Sonic let go.
"I need to go help him, let me go help him." Amy shouted at Shadow, violently trying to break out his grip.
"Amy, there is something you must understand." Shadow simply said calmly, Amy stopped struggling. "There are two types of fights. Well three I guess, but I'm meaning real fights, there are fights to protect one's life. And then there are fights to protect ones honour, or pride. If we interfere now we will certainly save his life, but what would become of his pride? He's sworn to tear them down to avenge his comrade. We must respect his wishes." Shadow concluded. Amy snatched her hand out of Shadow's but made no move to help Rage.
"Men." She muttered in anger, earning a giggle from Terra.
"But it's strange. His power feels like he's in Super Form, but at the same time he doesn't look like he is." Sonic stated.
"You're wondering about that?" Slayde asked from behind. Sonic turned and looked at him confused, he could see Shadow looking as well, but more out of interest than curiosity. "As you well know, there are two base elements in Chaos. Dark and Light.
"These two elements in different quantities, in their respective several types, make up everything in our universe. However, when it comes to fighting there is one other thing that is at the core of our very power. That is our style of fighting and progression of which there are two types. 'Dou' and 'Sei'. These two together form what the humans call 'qi'.
"'Dou' types are people who use anger as a medium to burst through their limits and use it to grow stronger. A good example of a 'Dou' user would be Sonic, who's anger at the death of his friend brought forth his power from our time in the chamber.
"'Sei' types are people who use calm penetrating logic to ascertain the best way to progress. A good example of a 'Sei' user would of course be Shadow, who's cool temperament looked for a way to prevent his pride being dinted in front of his disciple and therefore brought forth the power he had gained from our time in the chamber.
"In rare circumstances people have been known to be able to use both, as such they grew in power both quickly and violently but ultimate all died young from either misjudgement and cockiness or their bodies burning up faster than a normal person due to the violent auras clashing together. Rage is one such person, he can not only use a perfect balance of 'Dou' and 'Sei', but he can also use a perfect balance of light and dark Chaos. It's not that he's not in a Super Form or Dark Super Form. It's that he's in such a strange clash between the two, they are cancelling each other out visually. If you recall, I did the same thing when I had the Emeralds to power up." Slayde concluded.
"His power's still rising." Shadow commented as he watched Rage decimate the first robot. "It's gone above Sonic's power now and is somewhere between mine and his." Sonic looked at him in an irritated way and opened his mouth to speak. "Yes he's stronger than you." Sonic's mouth opened and closed a couple of times until he breathed in to speak again.
"He's getting a little bit too strong isn't he? I mean he trains as much as I do, maybe less." Sonic stated. Slayde started laughing at him causing everyone to look, even Shadow who was engrossed in the fight.
"He was born with it! Or should I say created... He's you and Shadow, mixed up a bit, pounded together and smeared into the Petri dish until Robotnik was satisfied that he had removed both your weaknesses but kept both your strengths. Did you never wonder how he could be so strong without even trying? Ironic really. All he wants is a peaceful life." Slayde concluded leaving everyone except Shadow gob smacked as he looked back to the battle.
"Yo, don't tell me you knew Shadow." Sonic told him rather angrily in an unreasonable way considering how long Slayde had kept it from him and not mentioned it. Shadow just shrugged.
"I had my suspicions." Shadow replied simply, eyes not leaving the fight. There was now just one robot left, but Rage looked as if he was at his limit, his breath heavy, his sight blurry. He fell to his knees as the last robot towered over him, preparing for the final strike.
"You're not giving up that easily are you Rage?" Slayde chipped in from the back of the group. Rage's eyes snapped open and he held his hand back. The robot swung a mighty blow right at his head.
"Chaos Tear." Rage muttered angrily as he slashed his hand across. The robot just froze before collapsing and falling apart, its internal chassis and electronics vanished. Rage collapsed, and Amy shouted in panic.
"Don't worry, he's not dead. Just exhausted. The Wolf however..." Shadow told her as there was a mighty crash from behind them. It seemed the big robot had made it out of its room. There was a mighty metallic roar. Shadow quickly gripped his hand on the device to find that it was no longer in his hands. He looked up in worry, surely he didn't drop it. He noticed Slayde kneeling next to Rage's body, with the device whilst activating it, and gave a sigh of relief. It seemed that Slayde at least had some of his rationality left.
"This'll take several minutes to power up." Slayde muttered in a strange way that allowed everyone to still hear him. Shadow was starting to worry now, which was unusual for his personality. For some reason Slayde wasn't releasing the power he absorbed at all. Could it be because he thought it would just go back to the crystals? Shadow couldn't be sure. He just knew it was getting dangerous.
"Shadow!" The doctors voice came across from what must have only been the giant robot. "Sonic too! How wonderful... Allow me to show you something, incredible." The doctor told them as the robot fell still. Holographic displays beamed out of the things eyes, displaying the Doctor, but he had changed. His moustache had turned grey, his style had changed, no long way he wearing his red coat, but was now wearing one that was black with yellow patterns. His love of red was still however shown in a full body suit under his now black and yellow coat. His old black boots had been replaced by black and yellow stripped boots, and finally he had replaced the goggles atop his head with more visor looking goggles. He stared right from the projection at them with glowing red eyes. "How do you like the new me? Seems that black Emerald contained a little more than I bargained for... Eternal life! Hee hee hee." He boasted as he placed some deep blue sunglasses on. The holographic image faded. "Now then... It's time for you to die. I'll try to capture you, but unfortunately that's simply not likely." The robot started moving with shocking speed considering its size as a fist of steel plunged down towards the group. Shadow and Sonic quickly powered up into their respective super forms and shot off in either direction.
"Doctor! Give up on this foolishness! If one born without immortality tries to force it all sorts of side effects can follow!" Shadow shouted to him, Robotnik just laughed at him and changed the direction of the robots swing instantaneously. Such speed that shouldn't possibly be attainable by such a large robot. One of the fists managed to hit Shadow sending him spinning. He then shot towards the fist of the other arm, which had been occupying itself with Sonic, but it flew at Shadow with blinding speed. Causing Shadow to back off rather than get in an attack.
"A machine that large should be breaking and cracking the earth at its feet." Sonic commented as the two flew past each other. Shadow looked down. He was right. The earth hadn't been harmed at all.
"What on Mobius is this robot?" Shadow asked no one in wonder. The doctor heard him.
"This is my greatest creation! It is powered by the Master Emerald! I call it. The Destroyer." He announced quite evilly. Everyone paused upon hearing the name, causing both Shadow and Sonic to get hit.
"If it doesn't have 'Egg' in the name it's probably actually something quite deadly." Sonic commented to Shadow as they stopped out of its reach. Shadow nodded before shooting towards the robot and unleashing a barrage of Chaos attacks causing a load of smoke and explosions. The smoke cleared slowly, revealing the robot once again bit by bit. It was completely undamaged, it hadn't even moved an inch.
"Hee hee. Let me show you my machines true power. I was merely toying with you before." Robotnik shouted in his glee. The robot started floating slightly, allowing it to use all four of its limbs. Shadow was hit by a kick so ferocious he was winded. It was like being smashed by a skyscraper. Which was the only comparable thing to the size of the robot. Sonic looked over to Shadow to check he was okay, only to be hit by a punch himself, his consciousness flickering for a split second.
"No, no it can't be... Shadow and Sonic. They... They're losing..." Amy whispered in fear as Shadow was ploughed into the ground, taking a few seconds to get up. Sonic followed him, smashing into the same location causing an extra hit on Shadow as they hit one another. Terra powered up in rage after Sonic didn't get up, but felt a hand on her shoulder stopping her.
"Go get Shadow and Sonic and get them to that machine. There's no on switch, as soon as it's ready it will activate and everyone needs to be holding it when it does. I've already got Rage holding it, though he's barely conscious." Slayde stated, seemingly sane. "I'm trusting you." He told her heavily, making her feel like she couldn't let him down. Slayde started floating up until he got to a level that was the same height as the head of the robot.
"You think that you alone can take care of a robot built to be able to take on several of you foolish creatures in Super Form?! I'll enjoy destroying your arrogance." Robotnik stated.
"And I yours Doctor." Slayde retorted calmly. The robot swung a mighty punch at Slayde which whipped up a fair bit of dust. The dust settled showing a Slayde holding back the fist, but this wasn't Slayde as he normally was. Where his quills were black they were flashing between every colour of rainbow in a loop and where his quills were normally Blue they were Purple from the tainting of the Chaos Crystals. There was a simple, lazy expression on his face. "You may be able to beat two lone Super Forms, but can you beat something that's many times stronger I wonder?" He punched the metal fist, actually forcing it to move back.
"How can you have such power?" Robotnik screamed as he forced the entire weight of the robot behind an attack. The Doctor smashed the robot's fist headlong into the stationary Slayde, causing the robotic fist to shatter.
"Didn't you realise just how much power this base needed to run?" Slayde asked tauntingly. The purple fur on Slayde's stripes flickered blue for a second, as his hyper form started to just flash just from yellow to green to blue and back again. "Damn." Slayde commented, then, suddenly a lightning bolt struck down behind him with a crash of thunder causing him to turn round and look at a warping effect that was swirling down where he left the group, everyone was holding onto it with two hands except for Shadow who was looking at him with his left hand outstretched. Slayde didn't need a seconds thought as he bolted towards the fading group his left hand outstretched towards Shadow and they grabbed each other's hands as they were pulled into a whirling vortex of time. Slayde slipped slightly. Quickly looking at his hand he remembered that he had decided to put gloves on this morning and was instantly regretting it as the friction between Shadow's and his gloves were minimal at best. He slipped a little further, Slayde fingers only just in Shadow's gripping hand. They looked at each other fearfully as they knew what was about to happen. Slayde's glove slipped off his hand along with the bracelet on his wrist as the two looked at each other in horror. "Try and find me!" Slayde shouted as he was consumed in the dark, never-ending pits of time. Then all went black for the whole group.
I hope you all enjoyed Rage's big reveal! I hope that some of you had managed to guess ^.^
One chapter to go and this is finally finished! Can't believe how long it's taken me... I'll get to work on the sequel as soon as I've finished, but I won't be posting it until I've finished some of my other projects!
Also sorry for the late post, I was at my GF's this weekend so I was a tad busy, haha! I'll hopefully get the final chapter out by the end of the week! Don't forget more reviews means a sooner post ^.^