Sonic

 

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Chapter 1- It's Getting Dark Out


"I'm sorry, mommy says I can't play outside…" a child voice spoke.

A very young hedgehog sat at a table, his big emerald eyes drooping with boredom. A glowing green gem much like the color of his eyes was on the table. The child's cheek was lying on the wooden counter, enjoying the coolness it brought to his skin. It was summer, and it was really hot.

"It's too bad, right? You would have been even prettier if you were in the sun…" the hedgehog muttered as he gazed at the gem's sparkling facets.

He shifted to a more comfortable position. "I hope mommy likes you. I only found you yesterday up in the attic, but I don't even get to play with you outside."

There was a short silence.

"…Really? Do you think the grass is as soft as it looks? Are trees fun to climb?" the child asked curiously.

He stopped his questions when he heard his mother's footsteps entering the kitchen. "Maurice? Who are you talking to? Did you call me?"

The little hedgehog shook his head and smiled. "No mommy. The gem I found. The emerald I found talks to me."


"What happened Eggy? Did you build this robot from the scrapheap?"

Sonic the Hedgehog grinned while twisting away from the giant-killer robot's claws as they jammed into the wall he had been running vertically upwards on seconds before. He flipped backwards, using the wall to launch himself out of the way of its smashing hands. Dr. Eggman howled in frustration. "Grr, E-678! Crush that filthy rodent!"

Sonic's body arched in mid-air, back-flipping to land with practiced ease on the robot's arm that was now stuck in the metal wall, while sniggering at the doctor's plight in his usual routine manner—fighting robots specifically meant to kill you since you were eight could do that to you. Whilst entertaining, beating Eggman over the years had become hardly much of a work out for the hedgehog. It was pretty much the same every time—break in, destroy whatever killer robot the Egghead threw at him, take whatever he had stolen, and get out. This time though, it wasn't the Master Emerald (surprisingly enough) that had been taken, but rather Cream and Cheese who had been kidnapped for whatever odd reason. …Okay, it was most obviously a trap to lure Sonic into his base but the blue blur simply couldn't resist the open invitation despite Tails' protests to proceed carefully. A raised eye-ridge from Knuckles had been enough to make the young fox's shoulders slump. Right. Sonic and careful could never been put in the same sentence.

Racing up the massive robot arm with the speed he was known for, a powerful spin-dash followed by a huge explosion ripped open the metallic ceiling. Eggman was sent flying along with his Egg-mobile thingy into the sky and robot innards scattered across the entirety of the metallic room. "Curse you Sonic! I'll be baaaaack!"

Sonic landed gracefully on the metallic flooring, watching with a grin on his face as his arch-enemy disappeared with a little twinkle. "Whatever Egghead."

"Now…" he rubbed his nose with a finger, turning away from the amusing sight of his nemesis hurtling through the sky to glance around the room to see where Eggman could have possibly hid Cream and Cheese.

He confidently hopped off the broken robot he had dismantled and ventured towards another random room. As he stood at its entrance, he found something he had not originally come there for. Another cheerful smile broke across his face as he stared up at the glowing rays of four chaos emeralds, each in their separate container. "Well, well, well, looks like I just hit the jackpot."

He walked into the room, contouring the four emeralds to examine what kind of stand they had been placed upon. They seemed to be encompassed in what seemed to be a generator-like structure, probably meant to power-up whatever next scheme Eggman had been plotting. But what was really weird was that Tails' radar hadn't picked up their location in the doctor's base. The team had three emeralds, counting the one Sonic currently had in his quills. The two others were probably powering up the yellow fox's plane by now. Speaking of which, it was strange that his buddy hadn't attempted to contact him though the wristwatch communicator Sonic had hidden underneath the cuff of his glove. Tails was meant to be picking him and Cream & Cheese up in the X-Tornado once the hedgehog had defeated the Egghead.

"Yo, Tails," Sonic spoke into the wrist communicator.

There was a sound of static before the young mechanic's voice answer on the other end. "So…nic! Did…find…Cream…Cheese?"

"Hey buddy, I'm not hearing ya too well, but no, not yet. But I found something else," Sonic beamed, despite the slightest sign of a frown appearing on his face.

Miscommunication was rare in Tails' gadgets—they always worked perfectly fine. There was no another sound except the static noise that was so long that Sonic dropped his wrist from his mouth and back down to his side, sighing in confusion. "Tails needs to step it up a little or I'm going to have to do this myself."

He glanced up at the emeralds and was just about to spin-dash the machine when a sultry voice halted him. "My, my lookie here…it's Sonic."

Sonic turned around to find a familiar white bat standing behind him with one hand on her hip. "Rouge?"

"Hi," the bat contented herself with saying with her usual provocative smile.

"Faker, always sticking his nose in where he doesn't belong," a second deeper voice came from his other side.

Sonic turned his head, staring disbelievingly at the red and black hedgehog that appeared out of nowhere. "Shadow? What are you guys doing here?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Rouge shrugged at the blue hedgehog. "We're here for those beautiful chaos emeralds."

"I'm here for my fourth chaos emerald," Shadow deadpanned.

"I didn't expect Sonic to come looking for them himself though…" Rouge sighed as if the blue hedgehog wasn't there. "Guess I rigged the X-tornado's scanner for nothing…"

Sonic blinked before scowling at Rouge. "So you're the reason why I can't hear Tails in the communicator?"

The bat walked over to one of the emerald stands and leaned on its metal plating. "I only intended to make sure I'd find the chaos emeralds first. I don't know what happened to that fox."

"Ok whatever, I need to fin—"

"Mr. Sonic?" a small voice interrupted him.

The blue hedgehog turned to see a little rabbit shift from behind Shadow and take a few steps towards him.

"Cream! Everyone's been worried about you… Are you okay?" the fastest thing alive asked while approaching the rabbit with his trademark smirk, scowl disappearing instantly.

"We found her in a cell on our way here," Shadow said, crossing his arms.

"I'm fine Mr. Sonic, thank you," the five-year old smiled. "Thank you for saving me Mr. Shadow, Mrs. Rouge."

"Chao chao!" Cheese added in Cream's arms.

"Good to hear," Sonic smiled.

"Now if you guys don't mind…" Rouge pushed off from the metallic generator and pulled back her leg to start one of her drilling attacks.

Sonic jumped as Tail's voice suddenly came through from the wrist communicator. "Didn't…def…Eggman…? …und…fire…now!" the fox's distorted voice uttered, interrupting the bat who stared at the watch curiously.

So if it wasn't Rouge's fault that communication was down… Something was off. "Tails, what?"

Another all too familiar voice blared on the other end, almost making his eardrums bleed despite the bad communication.

"Oh Sonic! …darling…!" Amy swooned through Tails' intercom, which only earned an eye roll from Sonic, despite there being something slightly off about her voice too. The words that followed afterwards confirmed his suspicions. "Oh no! …hit! …save us…onic!"

Something was clearly wrong. Sonic jumped as he heard a large explosion on the other end of his comlink. The hedgehog's eyes widened. "Amy? Tails! Are you okay?"

The continual sound of static made the silence seem louder to the now worried blue hedgehog. What was going on? What was that explosion? What if his friends were hurt or…? Sonic shook his head. It was probably just Eggman who had come back for a beating. Yeah. Whatever happened, he needed to find them.

"Cream stay here," Sonic said, reassuming a smirk and saluting Rouge and Shadow. "Catch you guys later."

Forgetting about the emeralds, Sonic was just about to make a dash to search for his friends when the ceiling caved in, cutting off his path from the exit. Rouge gasped as she was forced to leap away from the incoming mass that had crashed through, cutting her off from the chaos emeralds. The fastest thing alive grabbed Cream and followed the ultimate lifeform as both hedgehogs nimbly dodged the falling cement and metal. They arrived to the other side of the room next to Rouge where they weren't in any danger of getting squashed by rubble. Placing Cream down, Sonic smirked knowingly at what had obstructed their path. An enormous gleaming red robot with Eggman sitting at its helm behind a protective sheet of glass. It was holding in its retractable hand two limp bundles of fur and two chaos emeralds in the other. Sonic's smile vanished.

"Eggman!" Sonic shouted, his worry exploding into fear for the bundles of fur he now recognized as Tails and Amy in the new killer robot's hand. "No fair!"

Rouge put a hand on her hip. "Now that's playing dirty."

Eggman must have caught Tails and Amy unawares; after all, Sonic had dealt with him, so the mad scientist shouldn't have been a problem. Eggman must have shot down Tails' X-Tornado. So that's why there had been that nerve-wracking if not annoying static—Eggman must have hit Tails' communicator.

"Ohohohohoh!" the mad scientist laughed evilly. "I told you I'd be back! With my ultimate creation, the Egg-nnihilator!"

Before any of them could react, the two chaos emeralds taken from the X-Tornado were dropped into a glass compartment in the robot's stomach and the four chaos emeralds previously sat in the containers were hoovered up into the robot along a thick black tube. "I have your furry little friends to thank for such wonderful additions to my collection of chaos emeralds! Without their unlimited power, I would never have been given such a wonderful opportunity to crush you Sonic!"

How many times was the Egghead going to use the chaos emeralds before it finally registered in his brain that it always resorted into something that backfired on him? Eggman leaned over to peer down at Sonic, Shadow, Rouge and Cream.

"I see you brought more of your pesky friends along. No matter, the Egg-nnihilator will still destroy you all!"

"Hmph," Shadow took an angry step forwards. "Give me back my damn fourth chaos emerald!"

Rouge almost face-palmed.

"I'm deeply sorry Shadow, but I can't afford to that," Eggman grinned.

Sonic impulsively moved forwards too, unable to stand the sight of his friends in the robot's vice-like grasp. "Let em' go Eggman!"

"Ah, ah, ah, Sonic," the doctor wagged his finger with an evil grin on his face. "I still need your chaos emerald in order to be unbeatable! Give it to me, or your friends will pay the price."

At his words, he snapped his fingers and the robot began to squeeze Tails and Amy. The duo were forcefully torn from their unconscious state and screamed in pain. One of Tails' baby blue eyes was shut close in pain with his teeth gritted together, while Amy wailed in terror. "Sooooniccc!"

Sonic gasped. "No! Stop!"

The grip ceased and both his friends sucked in a pained breath.

"Give me the chaos emerald Sonic!" Eggman demanded.

"No! Don't do it Sonic!" his best buddy yelled at him.

A heavy gust of air whizzing by him signalled Sonic that Shadow had already darted towards the robot, leaping into the air. "Chaos Spear!"

The chaos spears harmlessly bounced off the robot's metal plating, crashing into the adjacent wall near the black and red hedgehog. Almost immediately, the robot responded by glowing with the power of six chaos emerald and smashing its enormous metal arm into Shadow with alarming speed, sending him crashing back to Sonic and Rouge's feet. "Shadow!"

The ultimate life-form staggered upwards, wiping the trail of blood off his mouth. "Dammit…"

Eggman had a huge grin on his face as he glanced down at them. "Try that again and your friends get crushed."

The blue hedgehog's teeth gritted together. Sonic the Hedgehog was one of the most graceful and athletic mobians on Mobius, with a reputation for smashing through killer-robots with alarming ease at supersonic speeds. On the other hand, the fastest thing alive had never been good at dealing with hostage situations. In the past, they had always resorted to him either ending up being blown up in a space-capsule or sent 200 years into the future. Conclusion: hostage situations were not Sonic's forte.

He had considered spin-dashing the mad doctor here and now like Shadow had done, but with six chaos emeralds powering his robot and his friends held hostage, the hedgehog figured it was probably not the smartest move. The blue hedgehog winced. Even if he gave the emerald to Shadow to perform chaos control, one emerald wasn't much against six of them. Torn between the safety of his friends and the consequences of giving the emerald to Eggman, the blue blur resulted to do what he always did. He pulled the glowing blue gem out of his quills.

"No Sonic! He'll hurt you!" Amy screamed at the blue hero.

"Please Mr. Sonic…" Cream said softly, her little face and big eyes wide with fear.

Their pleas made the hedgehog cringe with concern for their safety. These were his friends…Cream's mother was anxiously waiting for her five-year daughter's safe return… and Amy and his eight-year old best friend…now in the clutches of the mad scientist…

"Promise you'll let them go, Eggman!" Sonic demanded at the fat scientist who was currently grinning from ear to ear at his victory.

The doctor's glasses glinted ominously. "Why of course, dear friend, why wouldn't I let them go? Here, I'll let one of them go to prove my generosity."

The giant machine loosened his grip on one of his friends and let Tails drop like a ragdoll. Sonic sprinted to catch his little brother, his eyes wide with worry. He caught the little fox before the kid hit the ground. "Buddy, are you okay?"

Tails moved with difficulty, as if every movement he made resorted in pain, but he flashed Sonic a reassuring smile. "I-I'm okay, Sonic. You…You think you can beat him?"

The hedgehog smiled in relief, before giving his friend a thumbs up. "You bet."

The speed demon dashed across the opposite end of the room and deposited his friend as far as possible from the conflict where Cream and Cheese were, before returning to his original spot with his stand-off with Eggman. Pulling out the emerald from his quills again, Sonic chucked it at Eggman while trying to pull off a confident smirk. "Ok, take it."

He had no other choice. Shadow stiffened.

"Sonic, no!" Amy protested again in dismay.

The robot's other hand successfully caught the emerald, and the doctor continued to laugh triumphantly as it was joined with the other emeralds and the killer-robot assumed an ethereal glow of power. The unlimited power caused the bot's grip on Amy to tighten even further, causing the pink girl to scream in pain.

"No, stop! You said you'd let her go!" Sonic shouted with a hand reaching up as if it would stop the mad scientist from further hurting his friend.

"Finally! I have all seven chaos emeralds at my command! I can finally rule this world and establish my Eggman Empire, and become its new ruler! Ohohohoho!" Eggman gloated, too caught up in himself to notice the hedgehog below.

Sonic spindashed at the robot against his better judgement—anything to divert the power-crazed machine's attention away from Amy and divert it towards him. "Hey, robot! Your mother was a tin-can!"

He collided against the killer-robot's armour without making a dent, only feeling the powerful pulse of all seven chaos emeralds when he came in contact with the machine.

"Ggh!" a massive metal leg came up to knee him as the blue blur bounced off the robot, connecting with Sonic's body with a sickening crack.

He was sent flying into the ceiling, choking on rubble, before gravity brought him crashing to the floor. "Ugh…"

The sounds of crashes nearby signalled that Shadow and Rouge had followed his lead and ended up with the same fate. Sonic blearily tried to get up, vaguely noticing Amy bawling his name and Tails and Cream calling for him. There was also a heavy pounding sound accompanied by tremors. He realized he was currently surrounded in a plume of dust and dirt his crashing body had kicked up, which meant that his friends were unable to see if he was okay. The metallic ground where he lay had split and curled up almost like it had been melted by the speed at which Sonic had been sent crashing down. Sonic chuckled weakly as he tried to get up. "Heh… So this is what it feels like when you're up against Super me…"

The dust cleared and Sonic could see that the pounding sound was probably linked to the giant machine hammering the ground with one fist and plumes of metal and ash being kicked up because of it, while holding a crying Amy in the other fist. Rouge was screaming something as she flew over the robot and attempted to land several ineffective kicks on it, but Sonic couldn't hear what because his brain was in a massive daze. Then an idea as to who the Egg-nnihilator was thrashing dawned on him.

"Sh-Shads?"

"Now, now, Egg-nnihilator, no need to be so temperamental…!" Eggman yelled at the robot, his voice uneasy at this unexpected turn of events, slightly surprised that his enemies had been taken down so easily.

Sonic stood back up shakily, the gears slowly turning in his head as his brain rebooted back up again. His entire body was in agony and something just wasn't right with Sonic's ribs. But that wasn't what was on his mind right now. He just stumbled blindly towards the robot, who had just ceased pounding the ground to see Shadow laying where metal had been burnt to a crisp to reveal the dirt ground it was built on, now charred and blackened by the robot's emerald-powered fists.

"Shads?" Sonic said hoarsely, coughing as his ribs strongly protested against his quickening movement towards the commotion. "Shads?!"

He stared at the beaten up form of the red and black hedgehog, unable to understand what was happening.

"Noooo…! Please stop! Shadooow! Sooonicc!" Amy sobbed while trying to wriggle free from the robot.

Rouge darted down and scooped up the ultimate lifeform and flew away from the machine as fast as she could. "Shadow? Shadow! Talk to me!"

The ultimate life-form didn't respond. Sonic continued stared blankly at the pair as Rouge lay Shadow down on the metal and shook him repeatedly. "Shadow…!"

Sonic didn't understand. This was meant to be a usual fun rescue mission where in the end he saved the day and everyone was safe and unhurt. No one was supposed to be crying. How had it come to this? If he hadn't given Eggman the chaos emerald…

All his fault.

Sonic wasn't sure if he was waiting for Shadow to get up, or hoping someone else would step in and do something about the out-of-control robot that was slowly making its way towards his friends with Amy in tow. Sonic didn't know. All he knew was the right now, he couldn't move even though he was shaking. And it wasn't because he was scared either.

He didn't know what was happening, why he couldn't move… He was just so angry. He could hear everything. Eggman gloating and the pounding of the robot coming towards him, marching to hurt his friends. Rouge's hiccupping as she cried holding a limp Shadow in her arms. Everything was suddenly happening very slowly. He could feel all seven chaos emeralds inside the robot. He didn't notice the robot's grip tightening on Amy, but he heard her ear-splitting scream of terror and pain. "Soooniccc!"

He covered his ears and sank to the floor. "Stop…"

"Amy!" he heard Cream's breathing hitch as her eyes watered with tears. "Mr. Sonic, please!"

Everyone sounded so scared… Was it possible that Shadow might be dead? Fail, just like before…

"Stop…" Sonic tried to stop the burning, the chaos emeralds were—

"Sonic!" Tails shouted from his wounded position up against the wall. "It's coming!"

"Shadow, please!" Rouge begged.

It just happened.

Sonic just snapped.

The room exploded with pitch black aura, wreaths of abyss swirling around the hedgehog as his fur darkened to a deep dark blue, and a murderous scowl formed on the hero's usually cheerful face. His eyes glowed like incandescent white pools of nothing, glinting like knives.

Everyone stared. The robot seemed to shudder uncertainly.

Dark Super Sonic's voice came out like flint. "You. You did this." 

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Alice-Elizabeth

I love Sonic! It's been a while since I read a fan-fiction but I really enjoyed it. What a cliffhanger! Excited to see what happens next :)

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