Look at this! Another update! About time we're starting to get to the juicy stuff, am I right? ;)

Again, thank you all for taking time out to read this. It really means a lot to me! As always, feel free to leave a review!

Sonic and all other various Sonic The Hedgehog characters are Copyright SEGA, Sonic Team, TMS Entertainment, and all other associations affiliated with the Sonic X anime/manga. All other characters belong to their rightful owner (me) and have no similarities with above-said characters whatsoever. Names used for other characters are random. Any people bearing the real name, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The Onyx - Book II

4

Craddock suddenly awakened, sweating, his breaths rapid and deep. Frantically, he began feeling around his arms and shoulders again before realizing that he had incurred the same nightmare as before. He also realized he was on the floor in the middle of his cell.

He began slowing his breathing to compose himself, trying this best to collect his thoughts though his mind still felt scrambled, but when he reached up to wipe his forehead with his arm, he felt the touch of cold metal instead of skin. Immediately, he jerked his arm down and looked at both of his his wrists that bore metallic rings as black as those that had been on Amy Rose. He instantly knew what they were capable of doing to him, and, instinctively began pulling at them, but both remained steadfast, unyielding to Craddock's increasingly aggressive efforts fueled by rising panic.

Desperate, he ran over to the small sink, and began smashing his wrist upon the side of it as if he were a karate master attempting to execute the impossible feat of breaking metal with his hand. Over and over again did he smack the sink until a deep bruise emerged, and with a final blow, as hard as he could muster, he felt the bone finally break. He collapsed to the floor in a heap, but smiled despite the searing pain now burning through his hand and wrist, knowing he would now be able to slip the ring over his hand with ease, and start the process of freeing himself of his nightmarish role.

However, fate, along with the power of the emerald coursing through the rings, had different plans, for as he felt the ring finally begin to move, wincing from the incredible amount of pain at first, he also felt it begin to warm, too, emitting a faint glow of purple, and he heard the bones inside his once broken wrist crackle until the pain ceased. The bruise disappeared before his eyes.

Craddock could only stare at the sequence of events that unfolded before him in shock. That's...that's impossible!

Reluctant to accept what he had witnessed, he grabbed his pointer finger and twisted it, bending it in angles it was never intended to bend, until it, too, broke, leaving it in a sickly state. But within moments, the ring warmed again, and he watched his finger bend back into place, mending in seconds. He viciously bit down on his hand until he drew blood from the bite marks. Again, he watched the marks disappear under a new layer of skin, as if nothing had ever happened.

His acceptance of his newfangled ability was uncanny as he moved his fingers and his wrist, letting go a laugh that contained a mix of both sheer delight as if he had won a multimillion dollar lottery drawing and malicious intentions of what this new power could help him achieve.

Oh my God. It's almost like I'm...

His eyes suddenly widened, and his mouth fell open, as a once impossible, unfathomable theory so many had tried to attain through attempts that ranged from the ridiculous to the outright psychotic for so long, now seemed very real. He stared at his open hands.

...immortal...

At first, he discarded the notion, as it seemed way too fantastic to ever think it could be even remotely factual, but the evidence showed itself right to his face. He had watched a miracle happen where this black onyx shard blessed him with the ability to heal himself. However, he noted to himself that perhaps it was because of the rings on his wrists. If they were gone, so, too, would be the ability.

He looked at himself in the small mirror above the sink and the reflections of his current surroundings, and he remembered those who had put him there, carelessly putting his life at risk at the hope that a second attempt to create a perfect assassin would turn out better than the first, yet ready to simply replace him had things turned out not the way Conrad and Eggman had hoped for as if he were a mere number in their cruel system. His hands curled into fists, and he clenched them.

They say 'be careful what you wish for.' Right, Conrad?

"Subject is awake, sir," a lab worker said into a walkie-talkie, having noticed Craddock standing by the sink.

Craddock cast an icy sideways glance at the worker. "Subject? I have a name, you know."

"Yes, we all know you have a name, Louie," Conrad laughed as he entered the lab from an adjoining room. "But his orders are to just inform me of certain things, and you are a still a test subject, though, I must say, things are going quite well from what I've seen."

The lab worker leaned over and whispered into Conrad's ear, getting a raised eyebrow and a stiffening of his jaw in response.

"What?" Craddock asked in gruff curiosity. "What did he tell you?"

"It seems you've discovered your new ability," Conrad said with just a hint of a disconcerting tone.

Craddock picked up on the uncomfortable vibe permeating the room, and a wry smile curled his lips. "It seems I have."

Conrad, undeterred by the man's advance, stood his ground. "I suggest you don't get any ideas, Louie."

"Or what?"

Conrad snorted in disgust at Craddock's brazenness, reached into his coat pocket, plucked out the same remote as before, pressed a button, and watched Craddock wince before swaying like a drunkard trying to walk home after a long night in a local bar before eventually collapsing to the floor. "Arrogant bastard. You got a lot of nerve thinking you can intimidate me with the position you're in."

Craddock managed to get to his knees, albeit slowly, with his hands clasped over his eyes, trying to stop the room from spinning. "Says the coward hiding behind his little remote control," he groaned, yet still able to sport a mocking smile before grimacing again.

Conrad laughed. "Louie, Louie. An insolent asshole up to the bitter end, I see. But coward or not, I run this show now. You had your chance, but you royally fucked that chance beyond anyone's imagination. We damn near lost everything because of your pathetic incompetence. We not only lost our weapon, we lost those emeralds that gave us an incredible amount of power, and we lost our onyx gem to the Goddamned FBI. Yes, you made one helluva mess, Louie. However, that being said, I did have a plan 'B' up my sleeve the minute you contacted me about the incident, and made some calls to my connections to have them cash in on their favors they owed me before everything literally blew up in my face. So although I'm no longer a senator now, the I.A.P. took me under their wing as an ambassador of this United States because they wanted to keep this thing going at all costs, so they were able to manipulate things to get my ass out of hot water. That was one of the favors. The other favors were upheld by my guys who are in the FBI and at a high enough level to where they can get into just about anything, Louie. And when I mean anything, I mean they were able to dig up shit that was supposed to have been long forgotten, like a little something called the Shadow project."

Craddock's eyes suddenly opened despite his ongoing weariness. He'd heard of that before overhearing Eggman's conversations with his scientists, citing similarities between it and Project Onyx, bragging about hacking their database and downloading all the data before deleting it to cover his tracks, then openly sharing with them everything pertaining to the project itself based on that data: the biolizard prototype and Shadow the Hedgehog. He had gone on and on about how his grandfather had created him within the ARK space station, and how powerful the black and red hedgehog had been, having the unique ability to manipulate various adaptations of Chaos Control by using the emeralds' energy, and a seemingly infinite amount of additional energy from within him, tempered by inhibitor rings that prevented him from unleashing utter destruction if he were to remove them.

The scientists were all overwhelmingly impressed by the tales being spun to them, but Craddock knew there was more behind it that what Eggman was sharing, as he had spent his time there, and had been indirectly involved with the aftermath of the incident. Though he never knew what really happened on the space station, he, along with most of the people of earth, bore witness to the massive explosion in the sky, followed by an immense sphere of glowing white that looked as if the sun itself was plummeting to the planet instead of ARKS's programmed freefall courtesy of Gerald Robotnik's last words that had somehow managed to appear on every video screen across the world, inifintely looping his vendetta against everyone on Earth before his life would end from a startling array of gunfire.

The reports that followed were borderline insulting to the media in terms of how vague they were, having been packaged up as nothing more than another evil plot from Dr. Eggman foiled by Sonic the Hedgehog. The internal reports confirmed the guerrilla group formed to protect the secrets of the project at all costs had been disbanded, with all those involved arrested and sent off to various prisons. Remnants of whatever was left in terms of content associated with the project, hard copy or digital, were allegedly destroyed. The ARK had been permanently abandoned, with the report of a final beam of energy emanating from it being regarded as nothing more than an illusion despite many eyewitness reports. And with Shadow gone, as well as all the Chaos emeralds, having gone back with Sonic to his own dimension, the project had been officially declared dead. But with Conrad bragging about his men finding and downloading information about it, he began to wonder about the validity of those reports, as well as the declaration.

Conrad laughed, and pulled out a small USB drive from an inner pocket of his navy blue suit "Guess you've heard of it since you're not giving me any snarky replies. I hadn't until I plugged this in, and boy, was I blown away by the crazy shit that went on up there, and I mean crazy shit."

Craddock eyed the small peripheral storage device being waved around like an orchestra conductor wand through his crossed fingers, curious as to what information could have possibly been on it that had not already been deleted by Eggman.

"Now, don't get me wrong, Louie," Conrad continued as he walked over to a computer terminal and plugged in the device, "I'm sure you and the good doctor had some long talks about all this, and you might think you know everything, but you're wrong. You don't. Neither does he."

His senses somewhat returning, Craddock lowered his hand, casting a stone-faced gaze toward the former U.S. senator. "What the hell are you talking about?" he groaned.

"I read the report about the hacking incident. He only trashed what he had found in the Prison Island database; he didn't touch anything that was in the main G.U.N. database concerning the Shadow project, likely because he didn't even know about it. Yes, the project may have been disbanded, but there's some very interesting information here that could greatly benefit this project; like, the fact that there are multiple dark emeralds out there."

Craddock's eyes widened. "What do you mean 'multiple'?"

Conrad turned in his chair to face his questioner, confused as to how his last comment could've possibly been misconstrued. "Multiple, Louie. That means there's more than one."

"But you said..."

"I know what I said, Louie. Yes, we lost the original dark emerald to the FBI, but, you see, paying off insiders has allowed me to reap the benefits, and in this case, the benefit was a second dark emerald, courtesy of yours truly. How, you might ask? Easy. The intel I got explained that during the original incident on ARK over sixty years ago, two escape pods were jettisoned. One contained that Shadow fella that was eventually found. The other pod wound up buried in some empty field in Kansas, somehow managing to remain hidden for all this time until an excavator dug it up while clearing it for construction for an oil well. So, some money was pushed here and there, along with my guaranteed promise to the owner to let them keep the property, was able to get it to Robotnik, and here we are. Guess his grandaddy must've had one with him up there on ARK all along. Not sure why he sealed it away in an escape pod, though. Well, for whatever reason, he sure lost out on what could've been. His failure is going to be the stepping stone to my success, and now that I know there are multiple emeralds out there, I can build my army of ultimate weapons like you and make this world mine for the taking."

Craddock rose to his feet, his face now bathed in disbelief. "You're delusional!"

"Says the man who shared the same delusional belief?" Conrad fired back with a sly smile. "Guess I should add you to that list of failures that's going to help me in the long run, too."

He suddenly stood up from the terminal, turning the monitor around. "I want to show you something, Louie. Watch closely."

Upon the monitor was a video of a newsbreak with the title in Spanish:

¡Uno de los carteles de drogas más grandes de México eliminado! (One of Mexico's largest drug cartel rings eliminated!)

Craddock watched a somewhat grainy video accompanied by a Mexican news anchor describing it as raw security footage taken from the compound during the raid. A single person donning an all black suit was rampaging through hordes of armed men with absolute ease despite the swarming bullets flying from every direction until all of them had been felled by way of stange flashes of bright purple in an almost spear-like shape that flew from his hands, then, with a slow turn that seemed to come straight from a horror movie, the man cast an evil glare to the security camera lens before his eyes began glowing purple, and he spread out his hands and fingers, as if summoning something, and in a matter of seconds, was enveloped by a circular ball of energy, and vanished, leaving behind a perfectly cut shape in its aftermath among the broken bodies, its edges glowing like lava. The last words spoken by the anchor were "¿Quién es este hombre?" (Who is this man?) before the video abruptly ended.

Craddock stumbled backwards a few steps, opening his hands and staring at them, then at the rings, black, cold, yet still menacing even in a dormant state. "That was...me?"

With a curt laugh, Conrad confirmed. "Impressive, isn't it? No one stood a chance against you, Louie, though I'm still not sure what was going on with that last part; didn't know you could teleport yourself without the use of the machine."

Craddock was speechless as he gingerly sat on the edge of his bed, trying to come to terms with what he had seen, the truth that he was watching himself appear with almost superhuman strength and agility as he tore through the hapless guards who had no way of stopping him before tapping into some sort of internal energy source to teleport himself back.

He stared at his open hands again. I...I don't understand any of this. I don't remember doing any of those things I just saw. He glanced over to where the black emerald was, quiet in its housing. That had to have been what was in the cryogenic tube I saw! So, did I...did I do that Chaos Control, or whatever it's called, Eggman was babbling on about, then? He led on as if only Sonic could do that sort of thing, and only if he had a Chaos emerald in his possession. So, is that a Chaos emerald, too? If it is, how in the hell am I able to do it? Nothing makes sense other than the fact that I'm apparently invincible...

He slowly turned his gaze back onto Conrad, who was talking with a lab worker. A devious grin began to grow.

...and you aren't. Just you wait, Joey. One wrong move at the wrong time, and I'll bring hell upon you, upon Eggman, upon everyone who decided to ruin me. Now that I know there's more than just one emerald out there, I can only imagine what kind of power that could give me. But if I could only figure out how to remember how I was able to do all that...

The rings on his wrists suddenly flashed, though too dim to be noticed by anyone other than Craddock, who quickly glanced down at them, swearing to himself that he thought he had seen something before a sharp pang of pain rippled through his head, and a quick flash of a location appeared before him. He saw the faint outline of a temple among a thick curtain of vines cascading from various tropical trees that were around it.

What the hell?

But the vision quickly faded as another pain, though not as sharp as the first one, glided over his forehead. He closed his eyes, tried to recall the image as best as he could.

What the hell was that?

Conrad happened to notice him with his eyes closed and his hand up by his head, and approached him along with a lab worker. "Everything okay, Louie?" he asked, though his voice lacked any discernible signs of concern.

"Yeah, as fine as fine can be considering," Craddock replied in a half-mocking tone. "Not every day you find out you're invincible."

"Invincible," Conrad said flatly. "Right. So, anyway, Louie, little change of plans today. I.A.P. wants me to have you go back in and finish off the rest of the cartel rings, but I think I'd rather have you pay a visit to our friends down at the FBI, and convince them to give me back the emerald they took."

Craddock could only look at Conrad, unable to fathom what he had just said. That fool is wanting me to go get the other emerald?! This plan might be easier than I thought. But, still, how can I manipulate the emerald's power if I have no memory of my prior actions?

"Get some rest, Louie," Conrad instructed, plucking the remote from his pocket again. "You deploy at oh-three-hundred." Without further warning, he pressed a button.

Craddock felt the familiar pinch behind his ear, but this time, there was no wooziness nor immediate signs of lethargy, but he did feel a slight burn upon his wrists, causing him to glance down at them with a look of confusion and nervousness.

Conrad also possessed a look of utter confusion, seeing that the remote had no apparent effect. He looked at the remote, pressed the button: no effect. He pressed it again and again, now gruffly announcing that something was wrong with the remote. He beckoned a lab worker to come to him and inspect the device, but as she rose from the station she had been assigned to, another worker ran over to the dark emerald housing, exclaiming that he had seen it begin pulsating, and that the electromagnetic levels were beginning to aggressively fluctuate.

Craddock quickly turned his attention to the emerald as it began to increase its pulsing rate, and he felt his head begin to throb, and the burning sensation begin to intensify. He knelt down as he began to succumb to them, wondering now if the nightmares he had been having were about to come true. But instead of expecting to watch his skin melt away, he heard a voice within his mind that was not his own.

~ Ego te elegi, ut facias mandata mea. Profer testas et restitue potestatem meam. ~
(I have chosen you to do my bidding. Bring forth the shards and restore my power.)

I don't understand. Who is this?

~ Scies cum shards mihi redditae sunt. Perge statim! ~
(You will know when the shards are returned to me. Go at once!)

"Goddamn it, what's going on?!" Conrad raged, finally tossing the remote aside and storming over to where the dark emerald was now madly pulsating.

"I don't know, sir!" the worker assigned to the station said, furiously pressing all sorts of buttons on the control pad in hopes of somehow regaining control. "Nothing is responding at all!"

"Unhook it, then!" Conrad demanded, but as he put his hands on the glass tubing to rip it free from its tangled mess of wires, the emerald flashed brilliantly, and sent shockwaves through his hands, instantly bucking him off, and with a cry of anguish, he fell to the floor, his hands ravaged with burns. The lights within the lab flickered, with some bursting due to the explosion of energy, before all was cast into darkness, except for Craddock, who had been encapsulated in a cocoon of dark purple with flames of black greedily licking at its sides. He emerged, still kneeling, as the wisps of purple and black dissolved into the air. His suit emitted a dark violet glow while the rings were now alive in a brilliant shade of lavender, hauntingly illuminating Craddock's body as he slowly rose to his feet.

"What the hell happened?" Conrad groaned to a lab assistant as she was hurriedly bandaging his hands. "I didn't execute the command for deployment, I was going to put him in sedation mode. How the fuck did this happen?"

"I don't know, sir," the worker responded while fiddling with her phone to find the flashlight. "The emerald started pulsing light, then the levels started going all crazy, and the controls became unresponsive."

"The emerald's gone!" another worker shouted, his flashlight shining upon the housing tube, revealing his truth.

"Gone?!" Conrad bellowed. "How?! Find it immediately!"

"No need," said Craddock, his voice not of his, but as if a thousand voices birthed from within the pits of hell had melded into a low growl. "For it is with me now." His back to Conrad, he raised his hand, opened it, and the emerald suddenly appeared, wrapped in wisps of purple and black flame.

"Louie?"

Slowly, he turned his head, casting a back glance at Conrad, his pupils gone, replaced by obsidian black, and a smile laden with malice. "You speak as if I am to respond by this name I do not go by."

"Well, whoever the fuck you are, you'd better put the Goddamn emerald back now!"

The smile disappeared, melting into a frown of disgust at having to hear such disrespectfulness, and he flipped his hand, causing the emerald to disappear. He turned to face Conrad, the rings coming alive in a blinding white, and thrust both arms out with his palms open. In an instant, the terrarium windows shattered in an explosive manner, sending everyone who had been watching, frozen in place by fear fueled by curiosity, to the floor and up against walls with tremendous velocity. As some came to and began to flee, Craddock casually approached Conrad, but soon stopped after one of the lab workers jumped in front of him, aiming a taser, daring to throw a brazen command at him to stop.

He looked upon her, expressionless, yet confident in his stance. "Foolish child, machines made from human hands cannot harm me."

Disregarding the warning, she pulled the trigger and watched the wires fly toward him, he snorted in amusement, and allowed the wires to attach to his body, its confusing array of electrical currents angrily snapping and crackling yet impotent. In mere seconds, the crackling stopped, and the wires simply dissolved into dust. With a gasp, she dropped the taser and retreated a few steps before putting her hands out to shield Conrad from Craddock's advance, again, demanding that he not hurt her superior.

Craddock towered over her, but his expression was of mingled respect, wonder, and pity. "I admire your courage, young one. For you stood your ground before me, compromising your own mortality to protect this man whom you love as a figure of authority while the rest of your comrades selfishly fled to save their own."

He suddenly flicked his wrist, and she levitated a few inches off of the ground before gravitating towards him while frantically clawing at the air in a desperate attempt to free herself from his grasp until his hand was around her throat.

"And do you know what that true love is, my child?" he whispered, stroking her hair with his other hand as she closed her eyes, defeated, her emotions uncontrollably spilling, but somehow managing to whisper back 'no'.

"Sacrifice", he said, and his eyes closed, and he clenched his hand around her throat a little harder, causing her to let loose a blood-curdling scream before her body dissolved into a fine gray ashen mist that soon dissipated into nothing.

Conrad could only look on in horror, paralyzed by shock and dismay, as Craddock soon loomed over him. "Who are you?" he gasped, his trembling voice squeaking as fear had wrapped itself around his neck like a rising plume of toxic smoke, choking him. He threw his hands up in front of his face, cringing like a downtrodden beggar before an abusive master, pleading that he not be hurt in exchange for useless promises.

Craddock snorted in disgust, repulsed by the cowardice sprawled on the floor before him, yet, confused as to how a man who broke so easily could have begun the resuscitation process of his master. He knew there was another that could claim responsibility, but questioned whether or not that claim would be openly confirmed.

He grabbed Conrad by his neck, lifting him off the ground with ease, and he brought him up at eye level. Conrad whimpered like a beaten animal, daring not to stare into his eyes.

"Pathetic," Craddock growled. "To think that an imp like you could ever possess the ability to awaken my master is unfathomable. However, you still might be of use to me."

With his other hand, he placed two fingers upon Conrad's forehead, immediately causing the one-time United States senator, who had proudly served the president as his advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff before plunging into the pits of scandalous corruption brought forth by temptation's plight, to become rigid within Craddock's grasp as the ring began to pulsate from white to dark purple.

"Qui verus est vocator?*" Craddock asked in a hauntingly ethereal whisper, his ominous voice plundering through Conrad's feeble mind in search of the answer.

Conrad twitched, grunted from the probing request, his eyes opening wide, then silently mouthed 'Doctor Robotnik' as Craddock spoke it.

"Ubi sunt aliae shards?**"

Bloody teardrops began to lazily roll down Conrad's cheeks, and purple veins began to snake across his neck as Craddock continued his probe.

"FBI," Craddock said through Conrad's mouthed response.

"Ubi est?**"

"Washington, D.C."

"Ubi aliud sunt shards?^"

Conrad could only grunt as blood now began to seep from his ears, the veins multiplying in number as they furiously scrawled across his face like a confused stampede of starving worms.

"Ubi aliud sunt shards?!^" Craddock growled, his patience waning. He took his hands and clasped them around Conrad's head, causing him to moan in excruciating agony as if his head were on the brink of melting.

Conrad did not answer. Craddock grit his teeth in anger at being denied his truth and demanded, again, to know where the other shards were. The rings were now ablaze in brilliant white, and as Craddock shouted his question a third time, Conrad screamed as his eyes burst in bloody fashion before he, too, dissolved into a gray ashen mist.

Breathing hard, and his face spotted with Conrad's blood, Craddock composed himself before opening his hand to allow the dark emerald shard to appear. "He did not know the location of the others, my lord, but there is at least one we now know of and can retrieve. Perhaps the answers to where the others might be will lie with the true summoner; this Doctor Robotnik. I beg forgiveness for losing my composure before knowing where this Robotnik resides."

The shard began pulsating in purple, and in Craddock's mind, he could hear its words:

~ Ne timeas, fili, pro labore tuo solacia quaeras. Praemia suo tempore metentur, sed et vigilanti et patienti maneas oportet. ~
(Fear not, my son, for you should seek solace for your efforts. The rewards shall be reaped in due time, but you must remain both vigilant and patient.)

"Yes, my lord," Craddock replied with a bow as the emerald returned to its blackened state. For a moment, he scanned the room and its destruction at his hands before turning his gaze back onto the emerald. "Soon. Soon, the lord of the Master Onyx shall rise again to assume control of it and the Master Emerald, and all worlds shall fall to his power!"

He spread out his arms and fingers, and as the rings began to glow brighter, he chanted "Chaos Imperium!^^" Within seconds, a ball of energy grew around him, and he disappeared, leaving behind the same circular cut as he had left in the cartel's compound.

* Latin - "Who is the true summoner?"

** Latin - "Where is that?"

^ Latin - "Where are the other shards"

^^ Latin - "Chaos Control"