Chapter 11
After roughly 10 hours of waiting and seeing that the people of the world were slowly inching their way towards the 60 percent mark of people against Commander X, I then noted that Sonic and friends were just then entering the pyramid and making their way towards the rocket to get to the ARK.
"It looks like we've got some unwelcome guests in my pyramid base. I think I'll go take care of them," Eggman said with a smirk as he then went to the area in his walker machine and Maria then looked at me in concern.
"You think he'd kill them?" Maria asked, me shaking my head at that.
"Nope. He's more a bark than a bite kind of guy. He'd rather talk menacingly about what he will do instead of actually doing... but if he does get any nasty schemes, I'm sure as hell going to make sure they don't happen," I said to her, Maria smiling and nodding at me.
"Okay," Maria said as I watched the fight through the yellow emerald that Tails had. I saw Sonic attack and defeat the Egg Golem with ease and then, the awesome part, the golem then turning on Eggman! Eggman then got distracted long enough for the furry friends to get into the rocket and commence the launch. And as for Knuckles, I sensed he had almost all the Master Emerald pieces on him minus the final three that Rouge had. But he put 6 pieces in the storage bay of the ship. And when Sonic accidentally hit a stray rock in space, the hull opened, Knuckles panicked, and the ship then spiraled the whole rest of the way into the docking bay of the ARK...
"Whew... at least they made it," I smiled as Knuckles then went out towards the Meteor Herd and Rouge then had a certain twitch happen with her head.
"Um... you okay, Rouge?" I asked, her then looking out towards the window that let you see the area known as Mad Space... AKA, the place with Mario Galaxy mechanics.
"S-Sensing jewels! Must grab them! Need gems!" she said with a ravenous voice as she then went to the nearby escape pod and jetted herself into the area in question!
"What's up with her?" Shadow asked for me.
"She senses the Master Emerald pieces that got released from that shuttle, so she's going to get them. Even though we told her not to," I groaned as I then spoke to her with thoughts. "Rouge, remember what we said. Once you find those pieces of the emerald, give them to Knuckles. The Master Emerald is off limits," I said, her then groaning at me.
"You always have to ruin the fun... fine," she groaned. And then, I noted that the percentage of humanity reached 62 percent... but we also had 10 hours left at the most with two villains that still weren't convinced of the plan, those being Eggman and Shadow. So I had to make sure that the final emerald wasn't placed in there... hopefully. I then got a call on the walkie-talkie from Eggman.
"This is Eggman, do you read me, Cheryl?" he asked, me smiling.
"This is Cheryl, what is it?" I asked him.
"I have a plan to get the final emerald in place. I do not want to be interfered with, understood?" he said, me frowning at that.
"I won't interfere, but if it involves murder, consider our partnership over," I said.
"Peh," he simply responded as he then disconnected his walkie-talkie and Maria looked worried.
"Don't worry, I'm going to keep a close tab on him. In the meantime, why don't you and Shadow go and talk a bit more together? I need to keep my mind focused on what Eggman's doing," I said, noting that there was also a second yellow emerald, that one being fake. And it was going towards the Eclipse Cannon's power supply. I kept watching for the next 40 minutes until I saw that Eggman was holding Amy hostage with a gun pointed at her head! And he then gave the order to both Tails and Sonic to give him the emerald in exchange for Amy. And if Sonic didn't arrive in the next half hour, he'd KILL Amy! When I heard that, I immediately focused my powers to make sure that, even if Eggman couldn't see it, that Amy was protected. Just some reorganizing of the molocules in the air and Amy was now shielded from the direction of the gun by an invisible wall.
I waited for the next 29 minutes with Sonic arriving at the very last minute with the fake emerald.
"You kept me waiting, Sonic... put the emerald there and back off," Eggman said as Sonic then smirked cockily.
"You've turned into a big-time villain, doctor!" Sonic smirked as he walked forward... before getting trapped in the capsule!
"Did you really think you would trick me with that fake emerald?" Eggman asked with a growl.
"So, how did you know it wasn't the real one?" Tails asked, me smacking my face at that.
"TAILS!" Sonic groaned.
"HAHAHA! Because you just told me, fox boy! That capsule is set to self-destruct. Once it clears the space colony, bam!" Eggman said as I then focused on Sonic, hoping that I could use the Chaos Control on him after he was sent to space. Eggman then hit the button and the capsule was sent out into space!... And just before I could activate Chaos Control, I gasped as I felt another life force next to Sonic in the capsule! And then, seconds before the capsule exploded, both of them exited the capsule and proceeded to fly towards the direction of the Eclipse Cannon!
"What? What the what?" I asked in shock at what just happened. Mainly because the person in question was not a Mobian or a human! That only left one answer as to who it was!
"What's up? Did Eggman do something bad?" Maria asked, me nodding.
"He tried to kill Sonic while holding Amy hostage... but luckily, it seems that the alien from that GUN base rescued him from a self-destructing escape pod," I said, Maria sighing in relief.
"Whew... that's a relief... but wait, if Eggman did try to kill Sonic... what does that mean?" she asked.
"It means that he broke our partnership. Now we can go stop the Eclipse Cannon from firing again! You go to the cannon's power supply and take out the Chaos Emeralds from it while I go check on the blue blur," I smirked, her nodding as I then teleported myself to Sonic, who was now in the starting area of Final Rush. And when I did, I saw the view of Cosmo, her looking exactly like I'd think she would in the real game.
"Oh! Hello there..." she said shyly, me smiling at her.
"Yeah, hi... and thanks tons for rescuing Sonic, miss Cosmo," I smiled, her then gasping at that.
"You know my name?... Or at least my English name?" she asked, me nodding at that.
"I was the one that rescued you from that Area 49 before blowing it up," I said, her smiling at that.
"But how did you know that it was the most expensive GUN base?... Unless you used to be in GUN?" she asked... me noting that Sonic was still there and looking at us in confusion, me then looking at him with a smirk.
"Hey, don't you have a self-destructing emerald to dunk into the Eclipse Cannon? Eggman knows Tails has the other one, so you need to go get that taken care of, Sonic!" I said, him looking surprised at me, me then groaning. "I thought you were the fastest thing alive? Go, get going! Rapido, andele!" I said in Spanish, him then immediately running off to the nearby rocket and grabbing onto it before flying it into the Final Rush, me then looking at Cosmo and her smiling.
"I can sense that you have animosity towards GUN's commander, as do I... and that you beat him up in a fight. So why are you still working for that Eggman guy?" she asked, me then looking at her with a sigh.
"I'm not. He broke our partnership when he sent Sonic out to get exploded in a capsule. I would've rescued him myself with Chaos Control, but you showed up much faster," I said with seriousness.
"Huh... you speak the truth... so where do we go now?" Cosmo asked as I then sensed that Tails was now engaging Eggman in a battle as well as Knuckles engaging Rouge in a fight... I groaned at this and then looked at Cosmo seriously.
"Two groups are fighting each other now. I'm going to help Tails fight Eggman while you go break up the fight between Rouge and Knuckles. They're a white bat and a red echidna respectively. Make sure they don't hurt each other and tell Rouge to give the emerald pieces back. She'll know what it means," I said, her nodding as she then zoomed off quickly, me then using Chaos Control to teleport myself to the fight with Eggman and Tails!... And in the worst part possible. Why? Because both of them were readying their super laser attacks!
"FIRE-AAACCKK!" Tails shouted when he realized I was in between the beam struggle, the pain making me gasp as I fell to the ground in pain, me wincing from the numerous burns I now had on my body. It stung like a right arse, but I was more shocked that I survived it!
"WHAT?!" Eggman gawked when he saw me on the ground.
"Rgh... that was... the worst idea... I've ever had... oww..." I groaned as I then noticed Amy huddled in the corner... and that she had a bottle of water on her. "A-Amy... water... please..." I groaned, her then rushing to me and me putting a barrier of light in front of her as before... but Eggman simply backed off from us as I noted that he currently did have the final emerald on him somehow.
"Hmph... normally I'd simply run off with emerald in hand, but I didn't expect you to get injured in the crossfire..." Eggman said, me hissing at him as well as in pain.
"Don't act all innocent, baldy... I saw everything... you tried to send Sonic to space to get him exploded... but do you really think he could get killed that easily?" I asked, that making Tails and Amy gasp... while the latter gave me a drink of water. Why did I need it? Because, with my Chao genes, I was able to heal bad wounds in an instant so long as I had a steady stream of water. After glugging all of it down, all my wounds magically healed and Eggman looked at me in anger.
"What do you mean?! You rescued him?!" he asked.
"No, I did not. Someone else beat me to the punch. That alien girl that I rescued from Area 49. Listen, you have what you need and I'm not your partner anymore. So I'd suggest you get going to the cannon, cause that's where Sonic's heading to as we speak," I said, him gasping at that and immediately rushing out of the room, leaving Tails and Amy with me in the same room. They looked at me with unease as I simply sighed.
"Cheryl..." Amy said with worry as I simply stood up with some assistance from the pink-furred hedgehog.
"I didn't mean for things to get this bad, guys... I made sure that nobody would get killed by our actions, including warping all living creatures away from Area 49 and its vicinity before loosing a blast from the cannon and rescuing a little rabbit girl from the commander of GUN... I only teamed up with Eggman because I wanted to make everyone realize that the commander of GUN was pure evil... I didn't expect Eggman to pull this stunt, though," I said, lying intentionally at the final part.
"Yet you still said you were going to try and rescue Sonic regardless. I don't care about anything else you did. The fact you were planning on rescuing Sonic from the beginning is all that I need to forgive you!" Amy smiled as she hugged me, me wincing at the hug, since I still had a few stray burns.
"Ack... thanks... I'm still sore, Amy..." I groaned.
"Oh, sorry..." she said as I looked at Tails and he looked at me with a frown.
"I already told Sonic to take the final emerald to the cannon's power supply while Maria is going to take out all of the 6 remaining emeralds from it. I just hope that they get there before Eggman," I said, him then nodding at me.
"I still don't know if I can trust you," he said, me nodding.
"Understandable... I did some pretty shitty stuff in this adventure, after all," I groaned.
"Language! I'm only 8!" Tails groaned.
"And I'm 13 in a month and I swear from time to time," Amy said, me sighing at that.
"I'm going to check on the others and make sure everything is going okay," I said as I focused on everyone, sensing that the Master Emerald was now whole again with Knuckles going towards our current area with Rouge on his tail. Maria and Sonic had reached their areas successfully, with the latter demolishing the cannon itself with his super speed while heading to the power supply... and the former was in the area at the same time as Eggman. I immediately made sure that Maria was safe by protecting her with emerald powers... but that wasn't the bad thing. The bad thing was that Eggman had reached the power supply first and placed the final emerald inside of it!... And then, shortly after, the entire place started to gain multiple red warning signs as we saw the video appear.
"Oh shhhhoot... this is not good..." I gulped at the sight of Gerald Robotnik in the electric chair.
"W-What's happening?! What's going on?!" Tails asked in shock. But before anything else happened, we were all shocked at how every single one of our group, Shadow included, were immediately warped into the room we were currently in!
"NO! What's going on?!" Maria asked in shock as we felt the force of the place beginning to go on its crash-course to Earth and for the video to start playing.
"To all the people on the earth, I am Gerald Robotnik! You will all feel the sorrow I felt in losing my granddaughter, Maria. The ARK is now set on a crash course to Earth. By my calculations, the ARK will destroy your world in 29 minutes and 36 seconds..." the video said, me gulping at that as everyone then looked at Maria and Shadow, the former of which had collapsed to the ground in tears and Shadow looked to be holding his head in pain.
"W-What's... going on with me..." Shadow groaned before Maria then spoke.
"I couldn't keep my own promise... nobody will ever be happy again..." Maria sobbed, that making Shadow gasp.
"T-That's it! I remember now!" he shouted, everyone looking at him in shock. "Gerald Robotnik... he implanted false memories in me! Saying that Maria wanted revenge on humanity... I should've known something was up when I not only saw her, but her mannerisms..." Shadow said as I spoke.
"Then there's only one thing to do. We need to get to the Chaos Emeralds at the core of the cannon and use the Master Emerald to stop the crash-course!" I said, Eggman gawking at that.
"That's right! If we all work together, we can get at least four different people into the core of the cannon to stop the collision course! We have less than half an hour!" Eggman said with seriousness as Amy then looked at him in anger.
"And you think we'd help YOU, of all people?! You were the one that wanted to fire the laser to destroy the world in the first place!" Amy shouted in anger.
"That's not what I was planning on doing with the final emerald! I was going to fire it directly at Commander Xavier for almost killing my cousin! And it was going to be at 10 percent power, not nearly enough to destroy anything bigger than a stadium at the most!" he said, me sensing that he was actually telling the truth!
"He's not lying... he's being truthful... dammit..." I groaned as I looked at everyone and then at Eggman.
"Okay, the more time we spend bickering, the less time we have until the planet gets blown up from the ARK smashing into the planet! So we need to work together to get to the core of the cannon! Shadow, you provide us with the details, since you know this place better than any of us," I said, him nodding.
"In order to get to the cannon's core, we'll need to have two different teams going to two separate areas. The ones with the heavy weapons in Tails and Eggman will go to the different power modules listed here... and here..." he said, pointing to the east and west areas next to the cooling area of the cannon. "Once both power modules are destroyed, it'll allow access to the coolant chamber for the cannon. Once it's open, you'll need to fill it with cooling liquid and then proceed to hit a switch in the depths of the chamber. Once that switch is activated, it will allow the final door to be unlocked at the top of the cooling tank, which will lead directly to the area we need to go," he said, me nodding at that.
"I'll be the one to go to the west power supply," Tails said as he then activated his Tornado 2 and got inside of it.
"Then I'll handle the east! Everyone else will go to the cooling station!" Eggman said with seriousness.
"RIGHT! Time to get to work!" Cosmo said. Nobody even mentioned her being among us, mainly because she did look a lot like a Mobian, despite not actually being one.