Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't been posting as often. As I always say, spring is my busiest season. With track almost coming to a close and a month of school left remaining, things should be coming down pretty hard here.

I'm writing this chapter with a bad cold. If some parts are a bit fuzzy, just blame that on my clouded mind at the moment. I'll go back and clarify everything in the whole story like I always do.

I haven't forgotten about any important characters or anything. Things are still on track (minus timing), and any questions and concerns in the comments will be met at some point in the near or far future (especially one that will be addressed at the end of this story).

With that said, enjoy the new chapter!

*With Sonic and Spencer, real time, in the Dai-Ki Mountains*

The two heroes stood in the middle of a large valley, surrounded by hulking rock formations that were shrouded by mist. The air was crisp and cool, but with the wind, it made the Fastest Thing Alive shiver uncontrollably.

"Blizzard would love this place," Sonic whispered.

YOU'RE TALKING TO YOURSELF.

If it helps him succeed in his journey—

YOU CAN'T!

Way to cut me off!

You two seriously need to pipe down before I open a can of way past cool on both of you, The blue hero thought.

"Alright, so what do I have to do to get this plant thing?" Sonic asked, standing impatiently before the large gorilla.

"Throngmenson plant, and you have to make it to the top of this mountain," Spencer stated, motioning to an extremely large mountain in the distance. "Once there, you will have to battle your enemy from within. Only then will the location of the plant be revealed to you."

YAY! FIGHTING! PAIN! DEATH!

You're quite annoying.

"Can't you just tell me where I can get it?" The hero asked, tapping his foot with his arms crossed.

"It changes location every time someone asks, alright?" The gorilla snapped. "I won't be able to help you, but I suggest you hurry. Your enemies are coming closer by the second, and once here, I'll vanish and leave you stranded here. I'm not fighting those guys again."

"Perfect…" Sonic muttered.

I HOPE YOU FAIL.

The Blue Blur rolled his eyes and approached the largest mountain in the valley, squinting in order to see past the mist that blocked the top, but failing. The hedgehog cracked his back and scuffed his feet on the ground, taking a few deep breaths.

The change in air pressure will give you extreme head pain.

YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO POP YOUR EARS.

Are you simple?

"Can't wait until you two are gone."

Sonic backed up a few steps before racing towards the mountain, gaining traction along the side and speeding up towards the top. Mist seemed to swallow him whole as he climbed higher and higher, making it difficult to see oncoming obstacles, like stalagmites and sudden dips in the stone structure. Sonic dodged right and left as he shot past different rocky road blocks, reaching the top of the mountain in a little over ten seconds. Grasping the top ledge, the hero heaved himself onto the mountaintop, taking in the air around him.

It wasn't five seconds before his head felt like it would explode.

Sonic dropped to the ground, yelling and shouting in agony. He gripped his head and rolled on the ground, thrashing violently at the immense pain that was burrowing into his skull.

Told you this would happen.

The Fastest Thing Alive curled up into a ball at the top of the mountain, shaking and groaning in pain until it finally subsided. When the Blue Blur got up, he had to steady himself to keep from falling off the ledge. His vision was cloudy and his mind was blank.

"Ok…Where's th…the flower…loca…tion?"

MORE LIKE WHERE'S THE FIGHTING? I THOUGHT YOU WOULD HAVE TO FIGHT THE EVIL WITHIN.

"I don't see anything around me except rock and clouds."

LAME!

A few seconds after that was said, a rocky formation of Sonic sprouted out of the ground.

"The Plague?"

No…This being has a different aura…Something more intelligent. Something more…you.

The statue of the Blue Blur was an exact replica of Sonic's build. It had no eyes or mouth, but everything else was the same, except more gray and rocky. The stone being thrust its hand towards Sonic, and in an instant, the Chaos Emeralds were at the hero's side. The copy motioned towards itself with the outstretched arm, forcing the floating gems to come towards it. The emeralds circled around the rocky Sonic, and soon the being glowed a bright yellow. When the light died, Fleetway Sonic stood in the stone figure's place.

"YOU'RE the evil within me?" The blue hero choked.

"When you lose control over yourself in your chaos state, when you intake too much chaos energy—I am the thing that emerges. Pure, derived evil. Destruction, malevolence, death—I am all these. No one is safe from me. Both good and bad alike die by my hand. Your enemies…and your friends," Fleetway taunted. "I am uncontrollable."

I LIKE THIS GUY.

"False. I've kept you at bay for years. I promised myself I'd never go that far off the deep end again," The hedgehog stated.

"We'll see how good you are at manipulating what lies within. Fight or die, Sonic," The evil replica hissed, getting into fighting position.

Engaging in combat on this small a platform will surely mean demise. The mountaintop is too small. However if you take the fight somewhere else, this challenger may not follow, and we'd waste more time saving your girlfriend.

SHUT UP, NERD! BEAT THE SNOT OUT OF EACH OTHER. DIRTY FIGHTING! I WANT AT LEAST ONE LIMB RIPPED OFF.

Sonic got into his fighting stance as well, preparing for the fight that would determine the fate of both him and Amy.

*With Knuckles, back at HQ, ten minutes earlier*

"Guys!" Charmy exclaimed, answering the video chat.

The bee was pictured on a large computer screen, making him easy to see for everyone in the room where Amy was hooked up. Consequently, anyone on the screen on the opposite end could see the entire set-up in Tails' lab.

"Oh! How's Amy? We saw the news!" The young detective added.

"Not too good, Charmy. We need your guys' help. Can you put Espio on?" The echidna asked.

"Espio's not here. Vector is, though! You wanna talk to him?"

Knuckles looked back at Tails, who was facepalming and shaking his head.

"He's a bit of a dope sometimes, but he's the next best one," The fox whispered.

Knuckles turned back to the screen and nodded. "Could ya?"

Charmy buzzed off. A couple seconds later, shouting and banging was heard from off-screen. Eventually, Vector plopped down in a seat in front of the screen.

"So what's the haps, guys? How's Amy? Sonic doing well?" The croc asked.

"Everything is trash right now. Amy's running out of time as far as saving her goes and we have no other assistance in helping track down cure ingredients other than Sonic. The military is too busy trying to track down Eggman, Silver and Blaze are dealing with issues in Blaze's dimension and Shadow and Rouge are out on a G.U.N. mission," The red hero explained. "We need help finding ingredients. Sonic is taking too long. I was wondering if you guys could help."

Vector smiled and leaned back. "The voice has gone dark for a while and no other cases are coming up…"

"Right…The 'voice'…" Tails repeated slowly, using air quotes when he said "voice."

"…We'd be glad to help! Gives us something to do!" The croc finished. "I'll get Espio after we hang up."

"I'll send over the list of things we need. Stuff that's crossed out are things that we already have or things that Sonic is getting. Try to get stuff within the main part of Mobius. That'd be a huge help," Tails explained. "Check your email."

Vector nodded, and after saying their goodbyes and thanks, they hung up.

*With Shadow and Rouge, twenty minutes later, in the outskirts of Mobius, MISSION COMPLETED*

"So what do we tell boss man?" Rouge asked, walking alongside her G.U.N. partner.

"All threats were taken care of and the shipment was destroyed," Shadow responded.

"We don't know that."

"It's implied. I've never failed a mission before, and just because we didn't play a direct hand in this situation doesn't mean we didn't succeed."

The bat rolled her eyes. "If you say so. Do you wanna talk about what happened with Maria? Ya know, on the ARK with this Backlash character?"

"No."

The G.U.N. agent eyed the Ultimate Life Form, trying to determine what his emotions were right now, but as usual, she couldn't get a beat on anything. He was really good at hiding his expressions and intentions.

The two continued their walk, nearing a clearing where they would soon be able to gaze over the entire main city of Mobius with ease. A lot of people liked coming to this certain place, especially during the summer. During this time, the sun would shine off of the glass that surrounded the skyscrapers, bathing the entire city in a pure, beautiful light. It gave people a feeling of happiness and hope.

What awaited the two heroes when they reached that place was something different.

The sky was amazingly dark and cloudy. Not a sliver of the sun shone through the clouds. Winds howled throughout the land, making it hard to keep from being tipped over. A giant blue energy dome surrounded the entire city, easily stretching over 200 miles. Guards were lined up all around the inside of the dome, armed to the teeth and backed by tanks, choppers and all sorts of explosive artillery. The origin of the blue force field was traced back to a bright beam of light blue, shooting up into the sky and encasing the area within it, closing off the city of Mobius completely. This beam was coming from the Mobian military base—the base where the President is usually at.

"What the heck…?" Rouge asked, standing in awe of the closed off city.

"Let's go check it out." The dark hero stated, and the two rushed down towards the dome.

Once arrived, they were greeted by a barrage of military chatter and training of weapons onto them.

"Not this again," The bat sighed, remembering back to the Darkspine siege, where the military thought Sonic and them were wrecking the city instead of their clones, putting a hit out on the heroes.

"Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat, we have received strict orders not to let anyone in or out of the city. We're sorry, but we absolutely can NOT afford to let Eggman escape with those two creations of his or re-enter the city and destroy it," A solider stated.

"Hold on a second. What's this about Eggman? What creations?" The Ultimate Life Form questioned. "What is going on here?"

One by one, each Mobian soldier filled the two in on the situation, from Eggman's attack, to Amy's condition to Sonic's journey to find ingredients.

"So nothing can get past this force field?" Shadow asked.

The soldier nodded.

"If nothing can get past this, then why do you all have so much firepower?" The bat asked.

The soldier looked around at each other.

"We're…not really sure. The President just stationed us here with all this stuff," The trooper replied.

"Great. We can't get in. How do we help stop things that can't be killed?" Rouge asked.

"We can't," Her partner answered. "We can help save Amy, though. I owe a lot to her. Maybe I can start to make all that up as of now."

"How can we assist our friends? We don't even have the list for the cure!"

Shadow dug out a phone from the duffle bag that contained the weapons from their mission. "I may have a way."

Rouge raised here eyebrows. "What're you gonna do?"

The Ultimate Life Form turned away from the ex-thief and punched in some numbers on the keypad. "Make a call."

There it is! Things are starting to get more interesting all around. As some may have guessed, this story will go a little more than 20 chapters solely because there is so much more to cover. Unless I start writing 3,000 words for each chapter, which I'm not about to do, I'm not gonna make the 20 chapter marker.

Remember to leave a review! Please! Make a sick guy happy!

More to come…