At The Remnants of Eggperial City
"So bossman, what are we doing here?" Tangle asked, bored.
After the Eggman's Empire daring escape from an exploding Egg base, (Which Tangle was still a bit giddy about. Talk about exciting!) They quickly sped over to another unnamed base of Eggman's, somewhere in the middle of a jungle. After getting everything situated there, and Eggman officially renaming that base to Base T, (supposedly in honour of their newest member, Tangle, though she had her doubts) Eggman wanted A. and Tangle to join him on an expedition to the capital of the Eggman Empire, Eggperial City. So here she was, walking around ruined remnants and bored out of her mind. A. was back at the Egg-Mobile, supposedly guarding it from any unexpected surprises.
Tangle was currently sporting a new Eggman Empire uniform that was designed in a similar style to her original tracksuit, just in Eggman Empire colors and with an Empire insignia embroidered on the chest area. A few moments before, she was just following wherever Eggman wanted to go before this point, but now the adrenaline was starting to wear off and she was just bored.
"It's simple! I just need to collect some data I had stored here before the rat and his ilk helped bring it down." Eggman said, still a bit angry at the failure. Tangle chose to not comment about the fact that she was part of that 'ilk' when the city was brought down.
"Whatever boss. Anything I can do here before I start exploring on my own?" Tangle said, not so subtly hinting that she was about to ditch him.
Eggman seemed to take the hint, because he turned back to her with a smug smile. "Well, since we already seem to be on the topic, take this." He said, before pulling out the White Chaos Emerald out from one of his coat pockets, and tossing to Tangle.
Tangle caught the gem with surprising nimbleness, but after catching it, she just stared at it in confusion. "Okay? And? What do you want me to do with this?" She asked.
"Well, I was just about to ask you to tap into its power!" Eggman said cheerfully. Tangle just looked at him incredulously, before snorting.
"Who do I look like to you, Shadow? What, you want me to hold it up and yell 'Chaos Control!' or something?" Tangle said, starting to full out laugh. Eggman just looked at her patiently.
"Oh no, of course not! I truly would be mad if I thought you could tap into that kind of power! However, I do have a hypothesis I want to test." Eggman stated, his grin never wavering. Tangle stopped laughing and looked at the doctor suspiciously.
"Ok well, I guess I'll bite. I mean, I've never tried this before anyway, so." Tangle said, before closing her eyes and concentrating.
For several long seconds Tangle felt nothing. She was about to give up with a laugh when finally something felt different. She tried latching onto that feeling, and she could swear she felt something click. Suddenly, a very dim but noticeable white glow surrounded her, and she felt far more energized.
"Now, how about you swing that tail of yours over at that tower?" Eggman said, before pointing to an old ruin of a tower.
Tangle did as she was instructed, and she was stunned to see a phantom wave appear out of her tail and ram straight into the tower. It didn't do a lot of noticeable damage, but it was strong enough to knock over whatever was left of the unstable ruin. She turned to Eggman with stars in her eyes. She was about to start firing more of whatever that was at other areas, but all too soon the white glow flickered out. Tangle still felt more energy than before she used the emerald, but most of the excess energy just seemed to drain out of her.
Despite the loss of her cool new super powers, she was still utterly giddy when she turned to Eggman. "What was that!?" she nearly shouted.
Eggman just looked at her with that same smug grin. "That my dear, is the power of the Chaos Emeralds. As I'm sure you know, collect enough and the rodent, along with a select few others, can turn super. What they don't tell you is that any islander can access similar powers, just in a much weaker form. In fact, each emerald gives the holder a different kind of power. Especially the White Chaos Emerald, it is easily the most versatile and really depends on who is using it." Eggman said, starting to go into 'lecture mode'. For once, Tangle didn't care, she was too excited to learn about all this new information.
"While I'm certain you'll never achieve something like a true super form, you can become much stronger if you had all seven. Sadly, only islanders can access the kind of energy Chaos Emeralds give off, their innate chaos energy being higher than that of humans. I'll never personally be able to tap into any of the emeralds' powers, although I can use them for my greater creations easily enough. In the past, I've had no reason to truly care about this odd phenomenon, as only one being usually carries with him a Chaos Emerald at all times, and his innate abilities with it far succeed the usual function that an emerald would have with anyone else." Eggman didn't specify, but Tangle knew exactly who he was talking about. "So, I never put much thought into it. Nor have I ever put much thought into using it. But now I can! Or more precisely… you can." Eggman finished with a sinister look at Tangle.
Tangle immediately put up her guard. "Wait, so what am I to you, your chaos proxy? I don't think I'm cool with that. If you're gonna try something, good luck, I still have the emerald in my hands." Tangle said suspiciously, slowly backing away.
Eggman put on his best 'shocked face'. "No, of course not! If it were that easy, I would have put it into practice by now! Just kidnap a random islander and force them. Besides, while Metal can't tap into individual emeralds powers, Metal Sonic can go super as well." Eggman said. Something in his voice convinced Tangle that he did, in fact, try kidnapping an islander to do that in the past.
"No, no, the holder of the emerald has to be completely willing and free to use that power. It can't be forced, it has to be a conscious decision by the holder. So, when I said that you can use that power, I meant it in the very literal sense. You see, I've never had an islander partner I would trust with that kind of power on my side before now. But now I have both you and the Subject here to help with that, with a very high chance of there being more to come! So, Tangle…" A gleam started to shine on Eggman's face.
"How do you feel about going pseudo-super?" He asked quietly, like sharing a secret.
Tangle could not feel more excited than she could right now. "Yes. YES! That would be awesome!" She shouted, jumping as high as she could go. Her shout echoed throughout the ruined city.
Eggman smiled grandly, got you. "Excellent! Well then, after my business is concluded here, I'll give you your first proper mission as a soldier of the Eggman Empire! Your goal will be to retrieve the Yellow Chaos Emerald. Only the White, Blue, and Yellow Chaos Emeralds are actually useful at this point in time. The Subject alongside Sage will be retrieving the Blue Chaos Emerald though." Eggman said, starting to walk through the city again. Tangle followed excitedly.
"Ooh, ooh! What does the Yellow Chaos Emerald do!?" Tangle asked, shivering in excitement. "Quite simply, it is a weaker version of Chaos Control. While true Chaos Control can be used to completely stop time, as well as be used with any emerald by those very specific few who have the power, the Yellow Emerald can be used to slow down time a considerable amount. And as to answer your next inevitable question, the Blue Emerald has the power to create numerous weak clones of the holder. The strength hardly matters though, it's the numbers that do. While all the emeralds' individual powers are strong, only those three are truly versatile enough to consider major priority. The rest can come later." Eggman said, starting to sift through some rubble.
Tangle couldn't be bothered by that clear dismissal though, as she said, "That's so cool! But what do the rest do? I wanna know!" She said, starting to sound a bit whiny to Eggman.
Eggman sighed, picking up what looked like a broken computer console. "Ugh… Fine. The Red Emerald can temporarily turn you into living magma, while also letting you use fire bursts. The Cyan Emerald can turn you into living water, the Green Emerald affects plant life, the White Emerald is completely different depending on who holds it, but it usually seems to amplify their preexisting abilities in some way. And the Purple Emerald… Well, that one is a bit harder to explain. It shows you things from an alternate dimension that you then can interact with, such as floating platforms or rooms in places that were once solid rock." Eggman stated, a bit gruffly.
Eggman was also always secretly fascinated with the specific power the Purple Emerald gave its holder. The rest were fairly mundane, but what the Purple Emerald did was something completely different. It always reminded him of The Phantom Ruby in a roundabout way. That might be an interesting idea for a plan another time, but for now it would have to wait.
"So, if I just happened to hold all the emeralds, could I use all of their powers at once? I bet I'd be unstoppable if I could do that!" Tangle rambled, a slightly manic gleam entering her eyes.
Eggman looked over at her, for once thoughtful. "In theory? maybe. In practice? I wouldn't recommend it. For one, if you attempted to use all of their powers at once, you would go into the pseudo-super form I mentioned. If you tried to use several but not all of them at the same time? The abilities might overlap, or they might shove too much power into your body at once to handle. Super forms act like a complete covering of chaos energy around your body, so that way the energy is evenly dispersed and controlled. Individual emeralds don't do that. They just stuff the energy into your body to allow you to use the power. Besides, there are some Chaos Emeralds that just mixing in general would be a terrible Idea. Such as the magma and water abilities. That could only end badly. And I highly doubt the Purple Emerald's power should be mixed with anything." He said, thoughtfully.
"But what if-" Tangle was about to ask, but by that point Eggman had enough. "Nope! No more questions. Besides, I didn't just lend that Chaos Emerald to you to show off. Besides just my data, we're also in this abandoned city for another reason. You might need that emerald's power in any upcoming fight. Practice with it here! Just don't hit me or you'll regret it." Eggman said, and warned, before turning away to sift through more rubble.
Eggman could hear Tangle shout in excitement before he heard more crumbling buildings.