Chapter 23- He's Bad News!

Occurring at the same time with recent events e.g., Mighty Vs. Surge & Amy Vs. Koshinuke, the machine that would be used as a gateway to enter Null Space and find Sonic is around 65% completed.

Tails is seen conserving with Cosmo about the machine's possible success, at Resistance's HQ balcony. "This has to work…or else we wouldn't be able to bring back Sonic…"

Cosmo softly places a hand on Tails's shoulder, to give him a sense of reassurance. "Don't worry too much Tails, it will work"

Tails eyes to a certain extent widened, and smiles back at Cosmo. "Yea it will…Thanks Cosmo"

At one of the training facilities, Knuckles and Blaze are building up their strengths, whereas Shadow is guiding Silver in maintaining his Super Form as long as possible.

All of a sudden, they all heard the alarm system go out, exclaiming code red. As the alarm reaches the entire headquarters, all non-combatants are ordered to evacuate the area.

Drone are sent to attack whoever is attacking their general headquarters, revealed to be no other than Infinite. "So here is where you'll been were hiding all this time"

Infinite unleashes a destructive shockwave with red and black bio-electricity around the attack, growing larger and disintegrating the drones and robots with ease. As a result of the shockwave, inside Resistance's HQ, the monitoring system is shut down. Suppression squads at once head out to hold off Infinite, but are easily taken out by the empowered jackal.

The remaining G.U.N soldier tries to point his gun at Infinite, till his entire arm gets sliced off. "In this impending void era, I will rise as this world new saviour"

Knuckles makes his way to Infinite, seeing all the carnage and bloodshot he has caused. "Dammit!...Hey! Back then at Station Square…what did you mean when you said me, you and Sally's bloodlines were destined to clash amongst each other."

Infinite simply waves his hand to the left and manipulates Knuckles's sense of reality, changing the scenery into a much ancient version of Mystic Ruins. "During the older days, there were three great clans 3, 000 years ago or more known as the Knuckles Clan, the Knothole Clan and the Saigai Clan. Each clan member possessed extraordinary talent ranging from masterful usage of swordsmanship, the technique to harness Chaos Energy or abnormal physical abilities that exceeds normal superhuman capacity, passing down these skills and techniques through generations. Around that time, the Knuckles Clan led by their chief, formed an alliance with the Knothole Clan's leader and banded together to fight against the Saigai Clan and their leader dictatorship and his reign of terror. Unbeknownst to both the Knuckles and Knothole Clans, his followers fled to somewhere else undetected, holding on to the essence of the will of their leader, The Phantom Ruby. Its origins even predate the Chaos Emeralds, which I use to form a world where there is no more pain, no more suffering…no more futility"

Infinite brings to an end to his explanation, revealing something massive to Knuckles. "There is no mistaking it, Knuckles the Echidna. Me, you and Sally are the descendants of the leaders of the three great clans 3,000 years ago."

Knuckles takes a minute, collecting his thoughts on what he has just heard. "I see…even so, your twisted way of creating peace won't come into fruition. Just like my predecessor did before, I will do the same and end your schemes once and for all!"

Infinite callously scorns at Knuckles, for not understanding the benefits of his plan. "Naive as always…the hardest choices requires those with the strongest wills and are willing to sacrifice everything for peace…even their humanity"

While charging at breakneck speeds, Knuckles counters back entering into his Super Form. "Sorry to burst your bubbles, but our wills are just as equal as yours!"

At this moment, Infinite realises that Knuckles wasn't alone and is seemingly engulfed by a cascade of spears imbue of Chaos Energy and flurry of fireballs by the courtesy of Shadow and Blaze, also in their Super Forms. With a few seconds of respite, the group made up of Knuckles, Shadow, Blaze and Silver move into their pre-planned positions.

When using the power of the Phantom Ruby, Infinite modifies the state of matter of the nearby debris and instantly transforms them into an enormous blast of red and black energy that quickly overwhelms Shadow, taking him out of the battle for now. Just as Infinite dodges Knuckles's barrage of enhanced punches, Silver and Blaze set into motion a coordinated assault at the sidelines to assist Knuckles sending out their respective beams at Infinite. Knuckles goes for a succession of power-packed jabs, followed with a piercing uppercut which Infinite evades by side-stepping away.

Knuckles builds up momentum with his fists and swings them at full force, only for Infinite to parry the strike with his forearm, discontented. "Your fighting moves are slow and easy to read…You won't win like that against me unlike your previous opponents, Knuckles the Echidna."

Infinite then punches Knuckles in the stomach, spins him around with his tail, before kneeing him in the back and tosses him aside hard into the ground. Infinite pulls out his other arm to deflect Blaze and Silver's combined onslaught of psychic energy and flames attacks away with a lack of exertion. He is then bombarded by a renewed assault from Shadow, who rained dozens of his Chaos Spears V2 down on the jackal. Unfazed, Infinite absorbs the explosive Chaos Energy of Shadow's rapid fire yellow energy spears and redirects at Shadow as his own variant of the attack with his colour-scheme.

Recovering, Knuckles touches his face to see blood and dirt coming from his cheek. "His attacks…are heavy…and dealt this much damage on me in my Super Form as well."

Blaze ignites her fist and slams it into the ground, erupting a wave of intense flames across the ground that soon becomes a powerful flaming whirlwind. Silver with his psychokinesis on Infinite and manages with great difficulty to force the jackal into an immobilised state. Knuckles and Shadow prepare a merged energy blast at point-blank range, only for Infinite to anger Knuckles.

"You know, Knuckles. We actually had been torturing your friend Sonic for quite a while. Beating him close to death and only keeping him alive to torture him even more, much more painful than the previous. Oh! His screams of agony and pain are like music to my ears…HAHA!"

Enraged, and despite Shadow's attempts to persuade him to put a hold on his anger, Knuckles began to ruthlessly beat Infinite impulsively, inadvertently breaking Silver's control over the jackal. Infinite pretended to be immobilise and effortlessly escaped his restrains, extending both his arms and fires small, thin concentrated laser-like beams from each of his fingers and barrels down and pierce through Silver, Knuckles and Blaze in a Gatling Gun fashion, inflicting massive damage on the trio.

Rebuffing a desperate assault from Shadow, Infinite creates a virtual sun that he planned to drop on the group, which would destroy them. The Resistance HQ is taken out by the virtual sun, as fragments of the base hurls down as hail of meteors. Shadow successfully rescues the others with Chaos Control, Infinite soon is confronted by a recovered Shadow.

Infinite and Shadow stare down each other for a while, until Infinite was the first to speak. "Shadow the Hedgehog…you along with Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Eggman are major threats to my organisation. Though, we have more in common than you think. We are both individuals fighting for the promise of someone dear to us to correct this cruel world into something better."

Unfazed, Shadow strongly disagrees with Infinite. "Tch! Me and you are not the same, never will, never be!". Shadow removes his Inhibitor Rings, doing so allows him to release such tremendous amounts of energy that it forms an impenetrable barrier around himself. While in this state, Shadow gains increased strength and speed and attacks Infinite first, blasting him with his Chaos Spear V3. With Infinite seemingly distracted, Shadow began attacking him relentlessly and dropkicks Infinite with his Air Shoes' thrusters and unleashes fire at high temperatures from them, "burning" Infinite before he could recover.

Shadow proceeds to pummelled the jackal's face with a devastating punch, with enough force to deal somewhat significant damage on Infinite. Undaunted at all by this, Infinite coldly taunted Shadow. "All that labour and struggle only to land a lucky fluke of an attack like that…you disappoint me…Ultimate Life Form."

Infinite then began to brutally beat down Shadow with his fists, as each strike was performed faster and stronger than the preceding one. With Shadow helpless to resist, Infinite followed with a point-blank blast to his abdomen, sending him flying and heavily damaging Shadow's body. Desperate and without any other option to attack, Shadow uses his Chaos Blast at full power and unleashes an explosion of highly powerful Chaos Energy that damages all that is within 10-20 yards. Infinite appears undamaged and ruthlessly stabbed him in the abdomen with a energised blade, decisively ending the fight.

Infinite to some degree, respects the Resistance. "I would admit…I am impressed by all of you by your fearlessness and unbreakable determination. Nevertheless…it was pointless to believe that you can win against…a God." Infinite prepares to kill Shadow, as his death would be a fatal blow to the Resistance's morale.

What a battle! Tell me your favourite part? Find out in the next chapter, what happens.

See ya!