Sonic GeneX - Knuckles the Echidna
Arc 2 - Treasure Hunt
Chapter 13 - Return to Pumpkin Hill
Stage 9(Hero 5) - Pumpkin Hill

Note: Sonic the Hedgehog and related characters are (c) SEGA and 
Sonic Team. You knew that, right?
GeneX and related fanchars are (c) 2BIT (TheGreatGator), the author.

The story thus far:
After escaping from the Covenant of Despair's assault on Angel Island, Knuckles and Tails were shot down by Dr. Eggman, who kept the Tornado and SPOT in storage as an incentive for them to do a mission for him: retrieve the Chaos Gauntlets from a ruin near Blue Ridge Zone. After retrieving the gauntlets, Knuckles saw a vision of Tikal, and when he came to, Tails had sent the gauntlets back with SPOT, who had escaped Eggman. Tails and Knuckles then split up, Tails going to see if he could find info on the plans of Eggman and Despair, while Knuckles headed back to Eggman's base. Once there, Knuckles encountered Sonic, who had just escaped from Super Eggman Land! Sonic had heard that Knuckles was working for Eggman, and the misunderstanding soon escalated. Now, they were ready to fight!
Now, on to the next chapter!


They had tried talking. Neither one would listen to the other. Sonic was convinced that Knuckles had been tricked by Eggman once again. Knuckles was fed up with Sonic's high and mighty attitude. There was only one way to settle this. Knuckles charged at Sonic and hurled the first punch, which the hedgehog jumped clean over, coming at the echidna with a spin attack! This was old news to Knuckles, he shot his other fist upward into an uppercut, connecting with Sonic's attack and knocking him back! Sonic landed on his feet and immediately went into a spin dash, forcing Knuckles to jump and glide over him! However, Sonic had gotten more skilled at this. He hopped mid-dash, turning and speeding into Knuckles as he landed on the ground! "Ooof!! All right... No more games!" he grunted, running at Sonic as he popped out of his spin dash. He threw punch after punch at the hedgehog, which he swiftly evaded, but Knuckles had fought him several times. He knew he could trip him up. After punching left, right, left, right several times, he jumped and slammed both his fists where he knew Sonic would dodge to next, bashing him in the chest hard! "Whoa!" Sonic stumbled backward, and retaliated with a high speed punch in return, which got Knuckles right in the jaw and made him even madder. "Sure you wanna take me on in a fist fight? You asked for it!!" he yelled, starting to really unleash his fury on the hedgehog! Sonic was still fast enough to avoid a good bit of his punches, but he was still getting socked and bashed as Knuckles unleashed a flurry of fists on him! Sonic didn't just take it, though, he fought back with punches and kicks of his own, getting much more hits in, though they weren't as strong since he wasn't able to build up speed. Neither one would back down, but Knuckles finally struck Sonic with an uppercut, heaving him into the air and onto his back! "There...now are you through mocking me!?" he panted. However, Sonic stood up with a smug expression. "Lucky shot. Tell you what, tell me where Tails is and I'll call it even." he said. Knuckles started to lower his fists. He had to respect Sonic, that hedgehog sure wouldn't quit.

Suddenly, a loud thud was heard as Sonic was struck from behind! "What!?" he stammered, dropping to his knees! Spiny the porcupine was standing behind him, grinning devilishly. "Good work, Knuckles! You've softened him up for capture nicely!" he said. "You!?" Knuckles gasped. Spiny dragged Sonic to his feet as Metal Eggman stepped over to him. "Hey!! Lemme go!" Sonic shouted. "Oho ho ho ho! I'm afraid you won't be going anywhere for some time!" Metal Eggman laughed, smacking Sonic in the chest with his hand, which electrocuted him! "Yaaaaaaaahhh!!!" Sonic screamed as Spiny dropped him to the floor! "Hey! Knock it off!" Knuckles shouted. Just then, the real Dr. Eggman appeared at the door and ran over beside Metal Eggman. "Well done, Knuckles! I may just consider you for a promotion!" he grinned. Metal Eggman nodded. "Yes! I will certainly consider you for a promotion!" he mimicked. "Cut it out! I'm the real Dr. Eggman, you dopey doppelganger!" the doctor snapped grouchily. Knuckles was in no mood for this. "Enough! Both of you Eggmen, let Sonic go right now!" he said threateningly. "Let him go? But he'll trash my lovely Eggtopia! And strangely, my insurance doesn't cover acts of hedgehog!" Eggman said. "Besides, I'm so looking forward to torturing this pathetic waste of quills!" Spiny said, kicking Sonic while he was down. "Not so fast, Spiny. I may still have need of him." Eggman said, "Tell you what, Knuckles. You could get into a hopeless fight with me here, and get yourself locked up with Sonic...or you can do me one more favor, and I promise I'll let Sonic go..." he offered. Sonic looked over at Knuckles. "Never mind me, Knuckles! I'll be okay. Just promise me you'll help Tails take down the Covenant of Despair!" he panted. "Shut your yap, hedgehog!" Spiny growled, slapping him. "Don't do that! I'm trying to negotiate!" Metal Eggman growled. "Both of you keep it down!" Eggman yelled. Knuckles rolled his eyes. "What do you want, Eggman?" he sighed. Eggman clapped his hands, and Char flew into the room. "Yes, doc?" he asked. "Knuckles, I want you to let Char take you to Pumpkin Hill. There, you'll find one of my robots. She'll brief you on your mission." he said. Knuckles nodded. "Harm one quill on Sonic's head, and I'll rip off your moustache!" he warned. "Not the moustache!!" Metal Eggman yelped. "Really... I'll be fine, Knuckles..." Sonic panted, passing out. Eggman looked at him nervously. "Errr... Don't worry about him. I'm a doctor, after all." he said. "That's what worries me the most..." Knuckles grumbled as he left with Char. Eggman turned to Spiny once Knuckles was gone. "Lock him up in the special cell..." Outside, Char led Knuckles to a hot air balloon that Eggman had rented for occasions such as this. "Eggman, free Sonic? Yeah, right. I'll have to mount a rescue when his guard is down, though. Guess I'll check out this mission just to see what Eggman's planning..." he thought as the balloon took off.


Elsewhere, on a bridge overlooking the highways of Central City, Col. Gunner was standing with his Spy, observing the President and the Commander. The Covenant of Despair had launched an attack on a portion of the city, and GUN's forces were busy putting a stop to the uprising. The Commander sighed as he observed the battle that was more or less over. "It was bold of the Covenant... To attack Central City." he murmured. The President nodded. "Yes, the battle seems to be going well... Too well..." he said, turning to walk away. "Mr. President?" the Commander said questioningly. "It seems you don't need me to oversee this battle. Give those dogs no quarter. I don't want to see them in my city again." the President muttered before he left. "Uh... As you say, Mr. President..." the Commander replied. He then turned toward Gunner. "I like how the president's thinking now... I almost wish I'd voted for him." the old Colonel smirked. "Colonel... Something isn't right with the president." the Commander whispered. Gunner shrugged. "You think so? Maybe he just learned a lesson after the Black Arms attacked our planet." he said bluntly. "No... This change happened too suddenly..." the Commander muttered, "I'm going to oversee the remainder of this battle. Colonel Gunner, I have an important assignment for you." he said. "You don't say? Does it involve shooting Despair freaks?" Gunner asked hopefully. "I'll see to that. I want you to keep an eye on the president." the Commander said. "You mean... protect him?" Gunner stammered. "Not exactly... I want you to watch his activities. I have a feeling there is more to his recent attitude than meets the eye." the Commander explained. Gunner's eyes darted around. "Sounds... treasonous..." he murmured. "GUN belongs to no nation, Gunner. Our duty is the safety of all nations and their people!" the Commander insisted. "Oh, you needn't worry about me, sir. If there is a secret the president is keeping, I'll find it." Gunner smirked. "I'm counting on you, colonel." the Commander nodded before heading on his way.


The balloon carrying Knuckles and Char soon found its way to the haunting canyons of Pumpkin Hill. Landing on an expansive cliffside decorated with brightly lit jack-o-lanterns, they found SPOT standing with an orange and pink robot that Knuckles recognized from when he first awoke at Eggtopia. "Greetings, Knuckles. I am E-4X, code named Firma." the robot said in a feminine voice. Char chuckled awkwardly. "Firma looks too much like Terra, so she freaks me out." he said. Knuckles nodded in silent agreement. "Okay, Firma, why am I here?" he asked. "Your treasure hunting expertise is required to locate the Chaos Emeralds in the area." Firma explained. Knuckles scratched his head. "Is that all? I guess Eggman's too lazy to do it himself." he figured. "A small robot developed by the inferior scientist, Tails, has been brought here to assist your search." Firma added, prompting SPOT to growl. "Inferior scientist? Requesting permission to attack Eggman's robot!" the text on his monitor read. Just then, Knuckles heard some familiar bat wings, and groaned as Rouge landed beside him. "Well, isn't this interesting? Are you taking in stray robots, Knuckles?" she joked. Knuckles rolled his eyes. "You AGAIN? Now what do you want, bat girl?" he groaned. "Agent Rouge! Your presence is not desired. Return whence you came, or be annihilated!" Firma added. Rouge glared at the robot. "Well, THAT'S rude!" she said. "Heh, I could use that robot on Angel Island!" Knuckles chuckled. "I guess you don't want my help!" Rouge shrugged. "Why would I want YOUR help?" Knuckles asked. "The Covenant of Despair is looking for something here. I thought MAYBE we had a common enemy." she replied. "Warning. Failure to comply with Dr. Eggman's command could be hazardous to Sonic's health. Bring the Chaos Emeralds to me once found." Firma ordered. Knuckles sighed. "Yeah, yeah. Thanks for telling Rouge about the emeralds, bot!" Knuckles groaned as he, SPOT and Rouge started on their way. They stopped after a short while when they heard someone crying. Looking behind a creepy pile of skulls, they found Cream and Cheese, who were shivering and scared. "What in the world are you doing here!?" Rouge wondered. Cream glanced up at them and hugged Knuckles, sobbing. "Mr. Knuckles! Miss Rouge! I'm so glad to see you both!" she cried. "Uh... Please stop crying on me..." Knuckles mumbled. "A big battle broke out while I was in Central City looking for Tails. He's gone missing you know. So I ran from the danger, but then I got lost, and now there are ghosts and scary guys in black suits around!" she babbled, trying to dry her tears. "All right... Come with us. We'll look after ya." Knuckles said. "Hey, it's SPOT! He'll lead us to Tails later!" Cream smiled, petting the robo-puppy. Knuckles sighed. "You know, I 'went missing' this morning, too!" he grumbled. "It wasn't hard for anyone to find you. You're loud." Rouge remarked, walking off with the others. "Hey... wait for me!!" Knuckles shouted.

With SPOT's sensors working on sniffing out the Chaos Emeralds, the group followed, ever on the alert. Like Cream said, there were various animals in black Despair uniforms around, but they were busy searching for something, too, and were easy to avoid in their distracted state. "They must be after the Chaos Emeralds..." Knuckles murmured. Rouge shrugged. "Unless there's somehow something else of value here. Which I doubt." she said. They started to near a crypt in front of an old graveyard, and Cream started to shiver, holding Cheese tightly. "This is where I saw the ghosts..." she stammered. Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Don't be silly. There's no ghosts here. They're probably all out making pumpkin soup or something." he said, trying to calm her down. However, several cloaked spirits suddenly appeared from the crypt! They were losohsts, and they were carrying lanterns lit with blue ghost fire! Knuckles and Rouge prepared to jump into action, but SPOT beat them to it by firing lasers at the Lost Ones, making them drop their lanterns and, since they were without weapons, flee in panic! The shattered lanterns erupted in ghost fire, which spread to the walls of the crypt, forcing Knuckles, Rouge and Cream to back away. "Let's find another way around, huh, SPOT?" Knuckles suggested. "Emerald detected!" SPOT suddenly said, beeping. As his alarm went off, Lospecter emerged from the crypt, turning the purple Chaos Emerald around in his hand. "Hey, buddies! Ready for Lospecter's Quiz Mania!?" he grinned, "Answer my question right, or get ready to say good night!" Rouge frowned. "Hey! Hand over that emerald, or YOU'LL be saying good night!" she threatened. "Tell you what, win my quiz and I throw in the emerald." he shrugged. "Oooh! I love the quiz!" Cream smiled, "...but why do you look different?" she wondered, recalling Lospecter's original form. "I ask the questions here! Now... There's a buncha rails nearby this place. What do folks call that area?" Lospecter asked. Knuckles scratched his head. "I don't remember any rails... Were they to do with the train?" he muttered. Rouge smirked. "Ha! I remember when Shadow was chasing you through there! It was Sky Rail!" she said. Lospecter chuckled and tossed her the Chaos Emerald. "Nuts, looks like you win this round... Stay tuned!" he shouted, the ghostly flames bursting around him, and then disappearing as he did! "...Give me that!" Knuckles growled, snatching the emerald from Rouge's hand! "Hey! Thief!" she snapped. "And here I thought you were helping me." Knuckles smirked, walking off as Rouge smacked her forehead.

They started to pass through the graveyard, since SPOT's sensors were picking up a faint signal in that direction. As they crept around the maze of tombstones, they soon noticed several Covenant of Despair members gathered around a large memorial statue, kicking and throwing rocks at someone behind it! "Th-those bullies!" Cream stammered angrily, while Knuckles stomped over to them. "Hey, you creeps! Cut that out!!" he shouted. The Despair agents, led by Patch the fox and including a bat, a dog, and a mean looking boar, turned to them and growled. "Well, why don't we have fun with you kids instead? Hee hee!!" Patch grinned. "Get 'em, Cheese!!" Cream shouted, surprising the uniformed animals as the small Chao rocketed into them one by one, smacking them all in the heads and making Patch drop his knives! "They're nuts! Snoorrr... I don't like this spooky plaaaace!!" the boar shouted, being the first to run away, the others quickly following him! "You're all cowards! Hee hee!! I'm teeeelling!!" Patch cackled as he followed them. Knuckles stared in disbelief, but they quickly shrugged it off and went to check on whoever was cowering behind the statue. They gasped in dismay as they found Alpha! "Punchy! You saved me!" the crazy robot cheered. "Oh, for cryin' out...!!" Knuckles groaned. "You really are a robot person today, Knuckie." Rouge smirked. "I left Eggtopia to follow Knuckles. Can you find him for me?" Alpha said. "You're nuts! Get lost, bot breath!" Knuckles growled. "Done." Alpha replied. Frustrated, Knuckles started to walk away, and tripped over a buried hand! "Whaaaa!! Zombie!!" he shouted. "Hey, th-that hand is moving!" Cream yelped. "G-get me outta here..." they heard a muffled voice shout. After a little digging, they found Crash the Rhino, who shook the dirt out of his yellow bowler, grumbling to himself. "Bury me alive will they? I hope Zipp shoots them all!" he grunted. "Who did this to you?" Cream asked. "Hm? Oh, I'm Crash. My so-called allies did that. Mr. Patch thought it was a riot." he said. Knuckles nodded. "Well, you can play with Eggman's robot here. I'm busy. I gotta find Chaos Emeralds before the Covenant of Despair." he said. Crash glanced at him. "It's not the emeralds they're after... Something else." he informed them. Rouge sighed. "Well good. If we can trust the word of one of them. Now let's get going!" she said. "Can I come and play, too?" Alpha asked. "NO!!" Knuckles and Rouge shouted at once, running off. "Hey, wait for us...and SPOT!" Cream cried, chasing them.

After some exploring, they found their way to a field full of pumpkins. A few had eerie smiles carved into them, but otherwise this pumpkin patch seemed harmless enough. The red Chaos Emerald was nestled comfortably on top of a large pumpkin, and Knuckles smiled, finally appearing to have some luck. However, Rouge stopped him before he could proceed into the field. "Don't you think this is too easy?" she asked, slipping her old Treasure Scope over her eye. "What do you mean? You're bats!" Knuckles growled. However, looking at the area through the Treasure Scope, Rouge could see plenty of danger that the others could not. "I'm warning you... That pumpkin patch is haunted." she said. Cream backed away a step. "Maybe we should come back in the morning, then." she suggested. Knuckles scoffed. "Bah, it's never morning around here! And how bad could it be?" he said, taking a few steps forward, only to have a ghost jump out at him from seemingly nowhere! "Whaaaaaaa!!" Knuckles yelled, jumping back as the ghost vanished. Rouge was smirking at him, but Knuckles simply crossed his arms. "It surprised me, is all!" he said. "I can see them. Why don't you let me go in?" Rouge suggested. "No way!" Knuckles grunted, only to be socked by a spirit as he took another couple steps! "SPOT, can you see them?" Cream asked. "Emerald detected." was SPOT's only response. "Aw, but Knuckles needs help..." she whimpered. Rouge rolled her eyes and called out to him. "Duck to the left!" she shouted. Knuckles glanced around, and saw a ghost zooming in high from the right! He stumbled a bit, but avoided it. "Augh! Now you gotta jump!" Rouge yelled. Knuckles leapt up as a pair of ghosts tried to grab at his legs! He hurried towards the emerald, following Rouge's directions until he grabbed it! Suddenly, the ghosts materialized so that all could see them, and they looked furious! "Ummm... I guess now would be a good time to run..." Knuckles gulped. They all screamed and started running like crazy, pursued by the ghosts until they were well away from the pumpkin patch!

"Emerald detected!" SPOT beeped. There was still another emerald somewhere around Pumpkin Hill. "Weird. How'd so many emeralds wind up here?" Knuckles muttered. Rouge shrugged. "They can wind up anywhere. What's the puppy say, kid?" she asked Cream. She pointed to another mountain that made up the Pumpkin Hill range, Ghost Train Mountain. "Looks like some air travel is in order." Knuckles said. They started towards the ledge nearest their destination, when Patch suddenly appeared in front of them! "Hee hee... Look, the tourists are still touring! Fun's over, pals! Well... for you, anyway." he said as a gang of Despair's bat troops flapped down behind him! Rouge batted her eyes at them. "Now, you boys wouldn't wanna create trouble for a harmless little lady like me, would ya?" she asked playfully. The bats chuckled, charging electric sparks from their hands! "You ain't harmless...but ya will be when we're through shocking ya!" one of them snickered. "Stay back, Cream..." Knuckles warned. Suddenly, several lasers were fired at the bats, singeing their wings! "Turkey jerks! Alpha makes you quack!" The crazed robot swooped down and forced the bewildered bats to the ground, where they heard some low rumbling as someone else approached. "Outta the way, echidna! I've got a score to settle!" Knuckles jumped aside as Crash charged by, his horn poised to do some damage to anyone he might run into! The bats tumbled one by one as Crash charged, and then he turned and kicked up some dirt as he glared at Patch. "Hee hee... Hey, derby-boy! Some...joke earlier...huh?" Patch stammered, looking around for an escape route. As Crash chased him off towards the graveyard, Knuckles waved to them. "Thanks for that! ...I think." he said, glad he wasn't trampled in the process. The bats still climbed to their feet, but Alpha was keeping them busy now. "You don't zap me! I zap you! Then we'll go out for garlic stakes!" the robot shouted. "Is that some kinda vampire bat crack!? We're not vampires!!" one of the bats yelled. "That's one person's opinion. Bye, guys!" Rouge teased as she, Knuckles, Cream and SPOT took to the sky, flying towards Ghost Train Mountain, though Knuckles had to glide. Once they found that final Chaos Emerald, Knuckles could begin to think about finding a way to free Sonic from Eggman's clutches!


Chapter 14 - The Lost Treasure of the Hill
Minor Boss 5 - E-4X Firma
Boss 9 - Conan & Patch

Note: Sonic the Hedgehog and related characters are (c) SEGA and 
Sonic Team. You knew that, right?
GeneX and related fanchars are (c) 2BIT (TheGreatGator), the author.


Knuckles found himself climbing one of the towering spires that ended with an eerie, rock pumpkin at the top. SPOT had pointed the way to the Chaos Emerald, and once he climbed to the top, Knuckles found the yellow emerald at last. "Well, that wasn't so hard. Now I gotta get back and rescue Sonic as soon as possible." he said to himself. Looking down at the nearby Ghost Train Mountain, he saw that the spooky train was stopped near Rouge, Cream and SPOT. While Knuckles glided down to check it out, Cream and Cheese were giggling and running around, playing with the ghost that had been driving the train. As Knuckles arrived, he watched them with a dumbfounded expression. "Um... How did this happen?" he asked. Rouge shrugged. "Jasper there is a friendly ghost, apparently. Cream sure got over her fear of ghosts quick when he started getting chatty." she said. Knuckles seemed slightly disturbed, but turned his attention to SPOT. "Detect any more emeralds, mutt?" he asked. "No new signals detected." the text on SPOT's monitor read. "Good..." he sighed, glancing back in the direction the hot air balloon that took him to Pumpkin Hill was in. Cream suddenly ran up to them excitedly. "Mr. Jasper says we can have a ride on his train! C'mon, let's go!" she cheered. Knuckles glanced at the grinning Boom Boo conductor awkwardly, then cracked a nervous smile. "Great... Uh, Cream... Can you find out if the train goes back to the mountain we came from?" he asked, trying not to sound freaked out about this. "Sure! Just a second, Mr. Knuckles!" she replied cheerfully. Rouge smirked widely. "Looks like someone still has to get over HIS fear of ghosts!" she teased. "I am NOT scared of ghosts! I whupped the king of the ghosts at Eggman's pyramid!" he snapped. Rouge chuckled. "I heard you needed to turn the lights on... Was you scawed of the dawk, wittle Knukwes?" she taunted. Cream returned while Knuckles was growling. "Yup, the train can take us right back! ...Hey, why are you shaking? Don't worry, Mr. Knuckles. You don't have to be scared! Cheese and I are here for you!" she said, hopping off to the train while Rouge tried to contain her laughter. "Mustn't kill bat... Her ghost would never let me rest..." Knuckles growled.

They hopped aboard the platforms-on-wheels that comprised the ghost train's rear cars. "Hold on... to...uh... your balance." Knuckles muttered, looking around for a safety bar or something. The train started down the tracks for a bit before a ghostly aura surrounded it, carrying it into the air! "Well, Jasper wasn't kidding about taking us right back..." Rouge remarked. They couldn't relax during the flight, though; Some Lost Ones were floating around, and spotted them aboard the train! Appropriately, they were pumpkin-shaped losolanturns. These creepy ghosts flew towards the train, spewing fireballs from their mouths! Rouge immediately jumped into action, pulling out some bombs she'd been hiding on her person and lobbing them at the losolanturns, blowing several of them away! "You had BOMBS this whole time??" Knuckles asked. "Yeah, why?" she replied. "Never mind that! There's more monsters coming!" Cream shouted, holding on to Cheese fearfully. Knuckles leapt into the air and soared through the sky, punching out the pumpkins one by one as he passed by, then glided back to the train, landing gracefully. "There, how was that?" he smirked. An explosion overhead startled him, and when he looked around, Rouge was standing with a smug expression. "Missed one." she said. Fortunately, the train had just about arrived.

They politely thanked Jasper and headed for the hot air balloon. Not long after they'd left the train, they found their path blocked by Firma! "My sensors detect the three Chaos Emeralds in your possession." she said. Knuckles smiled awkwardly. "Uh, hey Irma! We were just on our way to take the emeralds to Eggman!" he said. "What??" Cream gasped, only to get Rouge's hand covering her mouth! "The poor thing's sleepy...hehe..." she chuckled. Firma just stood there. "I will take the emeralds from here." she said. Knuckles shook his head. "No way! I'm holding on to these until Sonic is set free!" he insisted. "Do not concern yourself with the hedgehog. He will not be harmed." Firma stated. "How do I know he hasn't been harmed already? I've been tricked by Eggman enough! Not today!!" Knuckles growled. Firma seemed to glare at him. "Acknowledged. Initiating appropriate response." she said, her hands transforming into huge, blunt steel fists! "Battle mode initiated!" she declared. Rouge dragged Cream back a few steps as the fight was about to start. "Outta the way, kiddo! Wouldn't want you to get hurt..." she said dubiously, grinning at the idea of scooping up the emeralds after both combatants exhausted themselves. Firma pounded the ground with her fist hard, the resulting shockwave causing the very earth to burst up violently for a distance, forcing Knuckles to jump the attack! "What was THAT??" he wondered. "I was designed to bend the very earth to my will!" Firma announced, picking up a large chunk of mud from the ground and winding up her arm in preparation to throw it! Knuckles jumped to a nearby mountain wall, climbing up to escape as Firma tossed the huge dirt clump! He safely avoided it, and was now high above Firma, but the robot simply walked to the mountain wall. "I will now proceed to crush you..." she said, hammering the wall with her massive fists, causing it to crack up! "Wh-what the??!! Avalanche!!!" Knuckles yelled, leaping off and gliding away as the rocks crumbled and fell on top of Firma, burying her! "Well... No one ever accuses Eggman of building smart robots." he said.

Suddenly, Firma burst out of the rocks! "...Heavy damage taken! Must return for repairs!" she murmured, "You will pay for this. Sonic will die!" she said in parting, speeding away! "Hey! Come back here! I warn you, if Sonic is harmed, Eggman will NEVER get these Chaos Emeralds!" Knuckles yelled. Suddenly, SPOT started beeping loudly. "Huh? NOW what!?" Knuckles groaned. "Alert!! Alert!!" SPOT was shouting. Cream looked at his monitor. "He says he senses another strong Chaos energy signal. Could it be another Chaos Emerald?" she wondered. Rouge shook her head. "No... I bet it's what the Covenant of Despair was here for!" she realized. Knuckles sighed. "Guess I better check it out then... And stop them!" he said, looking at SPOT's monitor to get an idea where he was going. Then, SPOT displayed another message. "I will attempt rescue of Sonic in the meantime. Good luck!" it said. As SPOT headed on his way, Knuckles, Rouge and Cream headed for the place where SPOT had detected the signal. It was a cave, and outside the cave, Alpha was hanging out. "Hi, Punchy! I've got those bats trapped in this bat cave! ...Should I watch out for boomerangs?" he babbled. Knuckles shrugged and walked past him, followed by Rouge and Cream. Alpha shrugged back and started to follow them as well. "If the bats get mad, tell them I'm just a harmless clown!" he said. "I sure will..." Rouge sighed.

The cave led to a chamber similar to the ones that held the Chaos Gauntlets and the tailbands. There were hieroglyphs all over the back wall, a few small broken statues here and there, and a pedestal that the Covenant of Despair members were gathered around, including Patch and Crash. A blue hyena with a black tail, spots and mane was there as well. He had grey eyes and a grey muzzle, and purple and green shoes. He was standing off to the side with a wide, toothy grin while Conan the raccoon was front and center, examining their find at the pedestal. It appeared to be a deck of cards. "These... These..." Conan muttered, seeming a bit flustered. "Eeeee hee hee! Mission complete?" the hyena asked. "These cards are forgeries! Pathetic forgeries, at that!" Conan roared, hurling them to the floor in disgust! "Someone must have already taken them! Bah!" he concluded. Knuckles gasped as he realized who's back he was looking at. "Conan?!" he shouted. The Covenant of Despair members turned to face him, Conan smiling as though relieved. "The Master Emerald guardian! How kind of you to bring us Chaos Emeralds!" he said. Rouge stepped forward. "Those emeralds are mine! Keep your hands off!" she shouted, finally sick of playing nice with Knuckles. "Oh, great... The battle of the thieves..." Knuckles sighed. "Eeeee hee... They won't share! What do you think of that?" the hyena said, glancing at Patch. "Hee hee! I'll share with them! Share my knife, that is!" the fox laughed. Crash looked around unsurely. "Should we really still be wasting time here?" he muttered. Knuckles scoffed at Patch and the hyena. "Laugh it up, you clowns. I'll clobber all of you!" he shouted. "Eeeee hee hee! Oh, you'll be fun! So I'll tell you my name. It's Eddie the Hyena!" the blue one replied. Patch pulled out a pair of nunchucks and spun them around as he rapped his introduction. "My name is Patch; and I'm gonna snatch; your pretty little rocks; and knock off your socks! Hee hee!" Conan drew his sword as well. "You don't stand a chance against us this time! Hand over the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald now!" he growled. "Make us!" Rouge snapped. However, before anyone could do anything, an unexpected visitor flew in and took Knuckles by surprise! It was a brown griffin, with tan wings, a white crest of feathers on his head and a white tuft of feathers on his chest. He wore cyan gloves, yellow sneakers with red stripes, and had red eyes. "I'll take those Chaos Emeralds off your hands!" he shouted, wrestling them away from the surprised Knuckles! "Hey! What are you doing!?" he shouted. "Chaos Blast!" the griffin replied, knocking him away in order to secure his escape! "Gaaaah!! The Chaos Emeralds!!" Knuckles shouted. "My name is Talon the Griffin. If you want the Chaos Emeralds back, you'd better remember it!" the griffin said before swiftly flying out of the cave! "THIEF!!" Knuckles shouted. "My emeralds!!" Rouge added, devastated. "What's a Griffith? Did he used to work for kids?" Alpha muttered. Conan frowned. "That was unexpected... Any thoughts, Eddie?" he asked. The hyena shrugged. "Eeeee hee hee... I guess I'll have to take a rain check on this beating. I'll go after this 'Talon!'" he said, running past Knuckles to chase the griffin. "Eeeeeeeeee hee! Hope to fight you later!" Eddie cackled.

Conan swiped his sword angrily. "This mission keeps getting more aggravating! You'd best hand over the Master Emerald, or else!" he yelled. "Oh, yeah?" Knuckles growled. "We'll see about that!" Rouge added. The bats in the room flapped their wings and glared menacingly. "We'll back ya up, boss!" they said. "I'm tired of carving pumpkins. I think I'll carve YOU! Hee hee!" Patch added. Cream, who'd been watching from the back of the cave the whole time, stepped in slowly. "Cheese, we'd better help out! No more hiding!" she said. Just then, Patch hopped down and started swinging his nunchucks around gracefully, threatening Cream. "Hee hee! I'm gonna crack up the Easter bunny!" he laughed. "That... doesn't make sense... Cheese! Help!" Cream yelped, leading Cheese to grab the other end of Patch's nunchucks, fighting over them! "Hey! That's not supposed to happen!! Gimmie those so I can bludgeon you with them!!" he shouted. Meanwhile, Conan had started battling with Knuckles much like their previous fight in the tunnels beneath Tails's Workshop, and Rouge was busy fighting off the bats. This left Crash and Alpha, neither of whom really had a stake in this anymore with the Chaos Emeralds gone and no other treasure in the cave, but Alpha was too kooky to leave without a fight. "All right, you bandicoot! I'll blast you back to the unemployment line!" Alpha shouted. Crash scratched his head under his bowler. "I'm a rhino... I don't even know what a bandicoot is!! Never mind. Maybe smashing Eggman's robot is a worthy cause..." he said before charging at Alpha, only to be leapt over and attacked with a spray of laser fire! "I DON'T KNOW WHAT A BANDICOOT IS EITHER!!" he yelled. He then fell over when Conan zapped him with a Chaos Spear from his sword! "No random yelling! I'm trying to concentrate!" he said, only to get sucker-punched by Knuckles! "Concentrate on that!" he yelled. "Leave it to you to resort to cheating! That little inferiority complex must be hard on you." Conan snapped. "Wha??" Knuckles muttered. "It is. Very hard on him." Rouge said as she threw a bat into a wall. "Is this a fight or a therapy session!? Shut it, both of ya!!" Knuckles shouted. "Suit yourself. Now, die!" Conan replied, thrusting his sword back at Knuckles!

The brawl went on for a while, the only ones willing to call it quits being the bats, who Rouge left quite battered and beaten after a while. Conan was getting frustrated as Rouge flew over, ready to involve herself in their fight. "You twit! Why won't you die!?" he growled. "Ha! Give it up, Conan!" Knuckles scoffed. "Never!!" Conan shouted. "Sheesh, he's as stubborn as you are, Knuckles..." Rouge remarked. "You'll pay for getting in my way! Now, the kid gloves are coming off! Get over here, Patch and Crash!" Conan shouted, gathering his reinforcements to him. "Hee hee! Now you get to die in this creepy place like in a bad horror movie!" Patch teased. "I don't like the sound of that..." Cream whimpered. Alpha had a decidedly different reaction. "This oughta be good! Someone gimme some popcorn!" he said. "Come on! I'm tired of this! Go home, Conan!" Knuckles groaned. "Not without the Master Emerald!" Conan insisted. "Then stay all you want. It oughta be fun." came a voice from seemingly nowhere! Looking around, they all saw Lospecter emerge through the back wall of the cave, grinning mischievously. "Howdy, fellas. What might bring all of you into such a dark and dismal cave?" he asked. "Lospecter?! Not you again!" Knuckles shouted. Conan groaned himself. "Ugh! Lost One... Wait, what's that in your hands?" he gasped. Lospecter was holding the cards he always held, which looked suspiciously like the forgeries Conan was looking at when Knuckles and his companions came in. "Oh, these? Heh. Sorry, losers. I found the Chaos Cards ages ago! They let me do all kinds of cool things. Like this!" Lospecter chuckled, tossing a card to summon a swarm of Losolanturns into the room, which quickly surrounded everyone! While the Despair members were reacting with alarm, Rouge was glancing at the exit. "I think it's time for me to bail from this dump..." she muttered. "Yeah, me too..." Knuckles added. "Bah! Insolent slime! You have no business holding those cards! I'll slice them out of your hands!" Conan shouted, pointing his sword at Lospecter! "Ho ho ho! Sounds like you're askin' to become a Lost One!" the ghost chuckled.

Knuckles tapped Cream on the shoulder and motioned for the exit. "Let's go while Lospecter's occupied!" he suggested. Cream nodded in agreement, and while they and Rouge were sneaking toward the way out, they were joined by Crash. "These guys are not worth all this. I'm out of here." he muttered. "Calling all Lost Ones! We've got runaways!" Lospecter yelled loudly, prompting the group to break out into a run! "You look hungry, ghost! Eat laser!!" was the last thing they heard from Alpha as they retreated into the cave tunnel, pursued by the ghostly pumpkins, the losolanturns! They spewed blue ghost fire at the walls, which spread rapidly, covering the walls the whole way ahead of them! "Keep in the center of the cave as much as possible!!" Crash warned. "I want my mommy!!" Cream cried. Knuckles looked back and yelped, ducking as a fireball was shot at his head! "We gotta get rid of these guys!" he yelled. Rouge sighed and glanced back, tossing one more of her bombs at the pursuing losolanturns. The explosion took out some and seemed to disorient the others, buying them the time they needed to escape the cave! "I hope your happy, Knuckles! I wasted all my bombs, and not even one little gem for my trouble!" she grumbled. "You're not getting the Master Emerald!" Knuckles snapped. "Well, you better believe I'm not gonna let you forget how you owe me!!" she retorted. As they escaped the cave, Crash kept running. "I gotta report to my master. Thanks for the assistance!" he yelled. Rouge flew off in a huff without another word, leaving Knuckles with Cream. "Firma probably took the hot air balloon, so I guess I'll be taking you home the long way..." Knuckles sighed. "Or I could talk to Jasper again..." Cream suggested. "Uh... No thanks..." Knuckles murmured awkwardly. As they started on their way to the nearest city, Knuckles thought about everything that had happened, and knew what he still had to do. "Hang on, Sonic! I'm coming to rescue you!" he promised.


Chapter 15 - The Sunken Ruins
Stage 10(Dark 5) - Seafloor Palace

Note: Sonic the Hedgehog and related characters are (c) SEGA and 
Sonic Team. You knew that, right?
GeneX and related fanchars are (c) 2BIT (TheGreatGator), the author.

The story thus far:
Finding no sign of the Master Emerald at Angel Island, Punchy got roped into a rescue mission at Giant Jungle. There, he met Fera, who gave him the Despair Seal, an object that would enable Punchy to change into Dark Punchy and back at will! This made breaking into Dr. Eggman's Tree Fort to rescue Adam and Cuthburt a bit easier. However, on the way out, Illusi attacked, followed by GUN's Dr. Nammad! Fortunately, Fred the fennec arrived to get Adam and Cuthburt to safety, enabling Punchy and Rainbow to escape on their own! On their way out of the jungle, however, Rainbow decided to refocus on finding her sister, and Punchy decided it was time to voice his concerns about this to Rainbow.
Now, on to the next chapter!


Punchy caught up with Rainbow when they were back at the main Mystic Ruins jungle area. "Hey, One! Why so slow? You're not THAT tired from climbing the tree!" she asked. Punchy sighed. "Uh, that's not it..." he muttered. "Don't you wanna meet my sister?" Rainbow asked. Since he was asked point blank, Punchy answered. "No, I don't!" However, Rainbow just shrugged it off at first. "Don't be silly, One! We'll catch a train and..." before she could finish speaking, Punchy grabbed her by the arm. "NO!! For cryin' out loud, Rainbow! WAKE UP!" he shouted. "O-one...?" she replied, sounding hurt. "She works for a bunch of bad guys! She's dangerous!" Punchy insisted, trying desperately to reason with her. She responded by pulling her arm away. "She... She is not! She's my sister! How can you even say that!?" she yelled, tears forming in her eyes. Punchy started to panic. "Rainbow, listen to me!" he pleaded. She shook her head angrily. "No, you listen, One! It's always you, you, you!! What about doing what I want for a change!" she shouted. "Rainbow!!" Punchy yelled, but she wasn't listening anymore. "No! Leave me alone, One!" she cried, starting to run off, "I'll find my sister without you! I don't need you at all!" she said, crying as she fled from him, much too fast for him to keep up! "Rainbow!! Wait!! Come back!!" he shouted, trying to chase after her, only to lose her somewhere in the dense maze of trees. "No! I'll never find her now..." he stammered. Stopping to think for a moment, he realized that she was probably heading off to find her sister. "I'd better try the train station..." he sighed, "I gotta fix this before she gets hurt..."


In Central City, Colonel Gunner had just received orders from the Commander to spy on the President, and try to find out why he was behaving unusually recently. It was still the middle of a battle with the Covenant of Despair, but he had to gloat about this to his own Spy. "Now THIS is getting interesting, Spy!" he said to him right after the Commander had left. "It is?" Spy muttered. "Don't you see? The president and the Commander are against each other!" Gunner grinned. Spy rubbed his head uncertainly. "Maybe it's just a minor disagreement?" he said. "This kind of thinking is why you're a mere pawn, Spy... Well, I have a few last minute commands to give." Gunner sighed, cracking his knuckles and scanning the area for someone. "Dr. Nammad!" he called. The wild-haired scientist hurried over with the blue shades wearing Agent 64. "Yes, uh, sir?" Nammad muttered, glancing around the battlefield skittishly. "How are your experiments coming?" Gunner asked. Nammad's eyes got a twisted twinkle at the question. "Project GXterminate is, uh, running on, uh, schedule. The, uh, Covenant of Despair won't stand a, uh, chance." he reported. Agent 64 stepped forward. "Excuse me, colonel. I was wondering... Couldn't this project be considered, well... Inhumane?" he asked. "Have you ever fought a war, Agent 64? You haven't won until every last enemy is wiped out." Gunner sneered. Nammad looked a bit awkward suddenly. "We've hit a little, uh, snag, though, Colonel Gunner. The energy source we're using isn't, uh, adequate. In order to complete the project, we, uh, need a Chaos Emerald." he said. Gunner rolled his eyes. "Then get one! Take a squad of robots if you need them!" he shouted. "But, uh... I'm no sergeant..." Nammad smirked. "Don't be coy, Ivan. I know what you're capable of." Gunner chuckled. Nammad gave him a knowing smile. "Hehehe... Very well, uh, sir. On my way." he said, walking off. "I'll watch your back, doctor!" Agent 64 said, following him. Spy looked at Gunner curiously. "So, uh... What IS Project GXterminate?" he asked. "Put a sock in it, Spy." Gunner replied. 

Just then, Sergeant Drol approached them. "Sir! Where's the Commander?" he asked. "Sergeant Drol! Is the battle won?" Gunner replied, ignoring his question. "Well... My presence is no longer required." Drol stated as the green shades wearing Agent 32 caught up to him. "Report." Gunner said. Drol saluted and gave the information he knew Gunner wanted to know. "I have run across numerous experiments while on the search for the items, sir. They are hindering the operation." he said. "Sonic, too, no doubt." Gunner snarled. "I've yet to see Sonic himself, but I've seen his friends." Drol informed him. Agent 32 looked a bit concerned. "Despair has acquired some of the items, sir. What shall we do?" he asked. "It is time to up our game. Guard!" Gunner called out. Seconds later, Guard the gargoyle dropped from the sky, landing beside Drol! "Grrrr... Yes, boss?" he growled. "You will be working with Drol's unit for the moment. Find Despair's headquarters and retrieve the items they've stolen!" Gunner ordered. "What of the experiments?" Drol asked. "Those freaks? We have no use for them. Destroy them on sight. Bring additional troops if you must!" Gunner snarled. Drol raised an eyebrow. "I am permitted to use... Any means necessary?" he asked. Gunner grinned. "What the Commander doesn't know won't hurt him. That's all I have to say." he replied. "You're a prince, colonel." Drol smirked, turning to Guard. "You heard him, servant. You're with me, now!" he said. "Grrrrr... I am not YOUR servant." Guard snarled. "Never mind his attitude, sergeant. He'll do as you say, or I'll have him transferred to be Dr. Nammad's test subject!" Gunner warned. "Let's keep on schedule!" Agent 32 shouted. "Right. Let's." Drol added, leading Guard and Agent 32 away. Finally, Gunner turned to Spy again. "Listen, Spy!" he growled. "Coffee, sir?" he asked. Gunner nodded. "Yes, but afterwards, I want you to earn your title." he said. Spy looked at him awkwardly. "Sir?" Gunner smiled. "I will serve as the president's bodyguard. While I keep him occupied, you will find out all you can about his recent activities." he said. Spy shivered a bit. "Uh... Sounds dangerous, sir..." he mumbled. "DO IT!!" Gunner yelled. Spy yelped and started rushing off. "Errr, yes, sir! Coffee, first!" he stammered. "If all goes according to plan... Nothing can stop me..." Gunner mused, "Ha ha ha ha ha!!"


Punchy had taken a wild guess on Rainbow's destination and ended up in Troblusk City. He'd heard about this place before, and figured it was a prime location for the Covenant of Despair to turn up, though he wasn't entirely sure that Rainbow would put that together. He found himself wandering the city docks, not far from Eggman's Eggtopia, and spotted none other than Amy Rose wandering around. Hoping that maybe she'd seen something, he decided to take a chance on her. "Uh... Excuse me, miss. I was wondering if I could ask you something..." he said as politely as he could manage. Amy took one look at him and clenched her teeth in disgust. "Forget it! You're that Knuckles clone who works for Dr. Eggman!" she snapped. Punchy wasn't sure which part of that he was most ticked at, but there was no time to fight. "I AM NOT!! I was just wondering if you've seen an echidna girl around." he said, trying to keep his cool. Amy shrugged. "Oh, is that all? She's right over there." she said, pointing to a motorboat at the docks. Punchy looked, squinting. "Right over... Gah! Rainbow's sister!?" he gasped in surprise. She, Daisy, Infin and Anubis were among the Despair agents boarding the fancy, obviously stolen motorboat. "Hey... Those are those bad guys that came after Sonic in Central City!" Amy gasped. Infin seemed to be addressing the group in preparation for leaving, and Amy was getting freaked as she recognized a certain someone. "That jerk Anubis is with them! I should teach him a lesson he'll never forget!" she shouted. Suddenly, Razor the porcupine's voice was heard booming over a megaphone. "Freeze! Don't move a muscle!" Punchy hid behind Amy before he realized that Razor was headed toward the Covenant of Despair's boat! "How did you escape?!!" Anubis shouted quite loudly and frustratedly, hurtling a fireball at Razor that singed his hat, forcing him to stop to put it out! "Aaah!! My hat!! Stop in the name of the law!!" Razor yelped as Despair's boat was taking off! Amy suddenly grabbed Punchy by the arm and led him to the nearest water vehicle, a certain red and black submarine. "C'mon! Help me hijack this thing Eggman left here! We can't let 'em get away!!" she shouted frantically. Punchy stumbled inside with Amy following. "Well, I don't have the best track record as a driver, but I'll try..." he muttered, pressing a button to turn the submarine on. "Welcome to the EggSub!" said the voice of BAS as the vehicle came to life, "Enjoy your flight!" it said. "FLIGHT!?!?" Amy and Punchy gasped at once.

Despite Punchy's shaky grasp of flying submarine controls, they managed to follow the Covenant of Despair to their destination. It appeared to be a largely submerged ruin, which was once a magnificent ancient palace. Fortunately, despite being mostly underwater, there was an outdoor balcony that was just barely above sea level. This was where Despair had parked their boat, and where Punchy and Amy lowered the flying sub back into the water. As they hopped out, Punchy saw that Rainbow's sister was still loitering near the boat, though most of Despair was already gone. "Well, now what? GUN could be a problem..." said Daisy the skunk, who was loitering with her. "Hey, uh, you!" Punchy said, hurrying over while Amy was busy trying to tie a submarine to a balcony. "My name is Violet. Now, what do you want from me?" Rainbow's sister replied, glaring at him. Punchy frowned. "Your sister is looking for you." he stated. Violet's eyes softened. "Rainbow? She can't get involved in this! It's dangerous!" she groaned, "She should be guarding the secret relic, anyway!" Punchy scratched his head sheepishly. "I think the ship sailed on that a long time ago..." he muttered. Violet sighed. "I've gotta give that sister of mine a good talk, but I'm kind of in the middle of something." she said. This got Punchy rolling his eyes. "Here it comes. So, what ridiculous chore do you have for me?" he grumbled. Just then, Amy showed up, panting. "Aha! Here you are! Now, what are you planning!?" she demanded. Violet ignored her and spoke to Punchy. "We need to get into the deepest room of these ruins." she said. "Buuut, some ancient wise guy hid the key!" Daisy chimed in. Amy pointed at them as if she'd discovered some huge secret. "Ah-hah! So that's your scheme is it? Come on, greenie! Let's find that key!" she shouted, hurrying through the nearest door! "Uuuuhhh..." Punchy muttered. "Be careful, though. Seems that police officer called in GUN." Violet warned. "...No problem..." Punchy replied as Amy ran out and grabbed him. "C'mon! Hurry up before the bad guys find the key!" she shouted. "...whose side am I on?" Punchy muttered.

The interior of the palace looked like it had seen better days. It resembled a massive, moldy, seaweed-infested version of the Chaos Shrine in terms of its architecture, but this building was much bigger and grander than the Chaos Shrine. "So... Despair wants to get into the deepest chamber...? How is THAT possible!? This dump is underwater!" Punchy wondered aloud. They heard something buzz near them, and a voice replied to Punchy. "I think some of the rooms down there are somehow not flooded. Gotta be careful opening and closing the doors so as not to flood them!" Punchy and Amy looked to see Charmy Bee hovering next to them. "YOU!! What in the heck are you doing here!?" Punchy stammered. Charmy looked flustered. "Umm... I forget? Oh, wait! I know! Vector sent me to check out what Dr. Eggman was up to and I followed some robots here!" he said hastily. "Well... buzz along then..." Punchy sighed. Charmy nodded. "Sure thing, Knuckles! Hah! Only kidding. I'd have to be pretty dumb not to know you're Punchy now!" he chuckled before flying off. "You know, we could probably have used his help..." Amy complained. "I think he's helped enough. Now we know Eggman's robots are here as well as GUN." he said, leading the way down the hallway in front of them. Right away, they found squidlike Kuragen robots floating around the hallways! "Yeah, Charmy would just be in the way here! I'll fix these bots! Chaos Avalanche!" Punchy started to grab chunks of the floor with his chaos power in order to fight the robots. This was a big mistake. The floor beneath their feet quickly collapsed, dropping them into the flooded room below! They found themselves caught in a tangle of thick seaweed at the bottom of the lower chamber, but Amy still managed to whack Punchy with her hammer in an expression of her aggravation! As they struggled their way out of the seaweed, a large, red robot approached them. "Organic life forms... Do you not require oxygen to survive?" Punchy stared at the robot, not sure how to react. "Of course... You cannot communicate underwater. This makes questioning you useless..." the robot grumbled. Amy pointed up frantically, trying to mime what she wanted to say. "I calculated that you came from up there, pink hedgehog. Allow me to introduce myself, green one. I am Omega. I have come to battle Eggman's robots." he said. Punchy couldn't care less, he grabbed Amy's arm and attempted to swim back to the roof, though it was somewhat high. "You'll never make it that way. Allow me." Omega said, grabbing Punchy by the ankle and swinging his robotic body around, hurtling them across the room! They soared towards a small hole in the ground, and were suddenly propelled upward as a jet of water shot out of the hole! This geyser sent them rocketing through a hole leading to another room, where they soared high into the air!

They grabbed on to a sort of stone support beam going across the ceiling in order to stop their geyser-driven flight. When they climbed up, they heard a low growling. Punchy glanced over and saw Guard perched on the support beam as well. "Gaaah!! Guard!!" he yelled. The gargoyle looked at him with a start. "Grrrrr!? How did you get up here!?" he snarled. "Better question is how do we get down!?" Amy stammered. Guard turned to them, holding on to the beam with one hand while clutching his scythe with the other. "Grrrr... What are you doing in a place like this, anyway?" he wondered. "Trying to stop the Covenant of Despair.... and trying to help the Covenant of Despair." Punchy mumbled. Amy hopped down to the water pool that the geyser had shot them out of, swimming to the nearby ledge and finally climbing up to solid ground. "Whew! What a relief!" she sighed. Guard was growling at Punchy, not buying his story at all. "Grrr... If you won't give me a straight answer, I'm going to tail you and find the truth for myself!" he said. Punchy jumped to the wall and started to climb down. "No way! I just ditched a bee and a robot and you're not coming either!" he shouted. "I think Omega ditched US." Amy said, wandering around on her own. Guard followed Punchy from the air as he climbed down. "Grrr... I was called here by the Troblusk Police to investigate the Covenant of Despair, and now you mention them! I can't ignore that!" he insisted. While they were busy arguing during Punchy's climb, Amy checked down a nearby hallway. Opening a door, she found a chamber where the floor was mostly broken up. However, something was unusual about the water in that room. "Guys! Get over here!" she shouted. Punchy and Guard hurried over to where she was, gasping upon seeing what she'd found. Parts of the room's flooded areas were frozen!

They started exploring the set of chambers ahead, using the trails of ice to cross the water along the way. They noticed that there were some GUN robots frozen in chunks of ice as well, leading them to conclude that this was probably the work of Eggman's robots. They were proven right when they caught up to Freeze the Gizoid, busily creating an ice bridge across some more water in another chamber. The robot turned to them with a cold stare. "Are you the ones who arrived in the EggSub?" he asked, making Amy reach for her hammer. "Yeah..." Punchy replied. Freeze nodded. "Since you are with us, I suppose you are aware of the need to locate the key." he replied, making Amy hastily put her hammer away. "Yes, the key... Any sign of it yet?" Punchy asked. Freeze pointed down. "Since you have arrived, I will begin searching underwater. Continue looking above sea level." he ordered, diving down below! Guard grunted in confusion. "You are with Eggman...?" he muttered. "Try to keep up, devil dog! We're here to stop the bad guys so I can impress Sonic!" Amy smirked, hurrying off into the next room. "She's just as dense as Rainbow, but she's got a big hammer. How did I get into this mess?" Punchy groaned. Suddenly, they heard Amy shriek, so once again they ran to catch up to her! They found her being chased around by Chaos Guardians, the jellyfish-like creatures that had also guarded the Chaos Shrine and Frostbite Maze! However, Punchy was only aware of their passing resemblance to the Kuragens. "Huh?? Eggman's robots came to life!?" he gasped. Amy ran behind Punchy and Guard, forcing all three of them to evade the flailing tentacles of the Chaos Guardians as they approached! "Grrrr!! Take this!!" Guard growled, slashing his scythe at one of them, only to have it bounce off uselessly. They all blinked a couple times at this development, then screamed and ran away, with the Chaos Guardians giving chase!

As they fled, they passed by Charmy. "Hey, guys! I think I know where the key is!" he said. "Not a good time!!" Punchy shouted. With the guardians catching up, Amy smacked her hammer against the ground to pull off a high jump, soaring over the guardians as they passed by her! "Ha! Tricked ya!" she teased, only to anger a pair of them and get them chasing her again! Guard flew up high to attempt to escape, but the Chaos Guardians could fly as well, making it useless! "Grrrr!! I'm not even with them!!" he shouted. Charmy watched them running awkwardly, backing away a bit to avoid being spotted. "Vector didn't tell me this place had monsters..." he whined. Suddenly, a water geyser went off in a nearby pool, shooting Omega up from the lower floor! "Deceptive Eggman robots! How did they know to maneuver me to a geyser!?" he shouted. Punchy, Guard and Amy were about to get cornered, and seeing this, Omega jumped into action, firing explosives at the Chaos Guardians! This got their attention, but still didn't seem to really damage them. "The Chaos Guardians are near-indestructible! It is best to dive underwater to throw them off your trail!" Omega suggested. Punchy shook his head. "No way, I'm mad now! We'll just see if they're indestructible!" he yelled, his Despair Seal flashing a bit before he transformed into Dark Punchy! "Grrrr... Why didn't you do that in the first place?" Guard wondered. "Shut it or I'll give YOU another taste of this power!!" Dark Punchy threatened. He then stomped toward the Chaos Guardians, hurling a dark energy ball at one of them to get their attention. "Hey, squids! Ever hear of calamari?" he growled. The Chaos Guardians flew at him, and he responded by creating a powerful shockwave of dark energy, knocking them all into the walls hard! The guardians quivered and writhed in pain, and Punchy tapped into the Despair Seal in order to change back to normal. "Well, at least they seem to be stunned. Let's go!" he said. "Follow me, guys! I think I can find the key!" Charmy said, flying off towards the door he'd come from, "Hope you all can hold your breath!" he added. Omega hopped back into the water. "Must eradicate all Eggman robots!" he said. "All right. Let's get that key!" Punchy said, running off after Charmy while Guard and Amy followed. "...You knew he could go all creepy-black like that?" Amy asked Guard. "Grrrr... He seems to have gained power from that bracelet." he said. Amy shuddered as she followed Punchy. As unsettling as his new power was, she'd need help if she was going to take on Eggman AND the Covenant of Despair!


Chapter 16 - Attack of the Meta-Hydra
Minor Boss 6 - Infin the Weasel
Boss 10 - Meta-Hydra

Note: Sonic the Hedgehog and related characters are (c) SEGA and 
Sonic Team. You knew that, right?
GeneX and related fanchars are (c) 2BIT (TheGreatGator), the author.


Punchy, Amy and Guard were swimming through a flooded corridor of the palace, led by Charmy. He pointed out a door and started to push, but apparently the small bee was too weak. Punchy and Guard swam over and started to shove the door as Amy watched nervously, seeming to realize something the others didn't. As soon as the door was open, the water started rushing in to the next room, pulling the group in with it! They were flung to the ground roughly, but at least they had fresh air, for the moment. "Well, it's great that this room isn't flooded, but now it's floodING!!" Amy shouted. Punchy and Guard tried to approach the door to close it again, but the water was rushing out too fast, and it was no use! "Well, now what??" Punchy grumbled. Just then, a bright light shone from across the room! "Stiffiam!" With the casting of this spell, the water suddenly stopped moving into the room! The group turned and stared, seeing Fred the fennec holding his wand. "Well... Lucky I was here." he said. Punchy raised an eyebrow. "Yeah... What ARE you doing here??" he wondered. Fred looked around. "We thought we saw a fennec among the agents invading this palace. Turns out it wasn't Gemini, but now I have to locate my companions again. Don't worry, I think I have it covered this time." he said. Guard looked at him a bit suspiciously. "Grrr... Would this have anything to do with what happened at the jungle?" he grunted. Fred shrugged. "Possibly... Well, I bet you're looking for the key. Head that way, before the spell wears off." Fred suggested before using his magic to warp away. "...I was gonna say that." Charmy muttered.

The key, an odd looking ancient relic which appeared to be a fragment of something, was sitting on a stone table. It was surrounded by Orbinauts, red, orb-shaped robots with spike balls orbiting around them. These robots had apparently come with Freeze, and were guarding the key until the gizoid could find his way to them. "Those bots are pretty well protected by those spikes. Should I try Chaos Avalanche?" Punchy wondered. "Grrrr! You fool! You'll make the whole palace collapse! Grrr... I will use my scythe's energy blasts." Guard suggested. Charmy shook his head. "Are you kidding? It'll just bounce off those spikes! Let me grab the key! Lemme do it! Me me me!!" he shouted, only for Punchy to place a hand over his mouth to muffle him. "Quiet, we're thinking!" he grumbled. Suddenly, the three of them heard several explosions, and glanced to see Amy bashing the robots with her hammer, which knocked the spikes right into the main robots without trouble! She quickly took out the Orbinauts, and then picked up the key! "If you guys are through talking, can we go find the door this goes to?" she sighed. Charmy struggled away from Punchy and raised his hand. "I know the way!!!" he said excitedly.

To reach the deepest chamber Violet had spoken of, they had to dive down once again. It wasn't easy, because geysers kept shooting off along the way, threatening to send them all the way back to the highest floor! Along the way, they found Omega floating towards the bottom. "It is you again... Sensors indicate you possess the key. I shall accompany you to the doorway. Eggman's robots appear to be seeking access to it as well." he said, joining them as they reached the lowest levels of the palace. The thick seaweed immediately tangled Omega, but the robot thrashed his powerful arms and tore it to shreds. "Annoying aquatic plant forms..." he said. The group hurriedly pushed open the next door, once again being dragged in by the rushing water leading to the air-filled hallway. They had no way to stop the rushing water, so they'd have to move on quickly. "Whew, I was about to suffocate!" Charmy panted. "The door should be up ahead! Grrr... Let's go!" Guard grunted, hurrying ahead. "How do you know that??" Amy muttered. Punchy shrugged. "Who cares? Let's just move towards the air..." he sighed. Omega watched them for a moment before he started to follow. "Pathetic air-breathers..." he muttered.

They found the doorway at the end of the hall. Violet and Daisy were waiting for them there. "Huh? How'd you get in here without flooding the chamber!?" Punchy stammered. They pointed to a hole in the ceiling. "We found a better way in. If only there were holes leading past the door." Daisy said. Violet stepped over to Amy and snatched the key from her. "Thank you!" she said. "Hey!!" Amy yelled. Punchy shrugged. "Never mind! Let's leave the key with the skunk now and go find Rainbow!" he suggested. Violet shook her head, walking to a strange sort of puzzle on the wall that the key apparently would fit into. "My mission isn't finished yet. I'm afraid I can't just run off..." she said. Suddenly, Infin the weasel dropped through the hole in the ceiling! "Hey, youse mugs! Why ain't that door open!?" he growled. "We're on it, Infin!" Daisy reported. "Infin, huh? You must be the boss. Listen, you! I'm takin' Violet away from you creeps!" Punchy shouted. Violet glanced back at Punchy. "Excuse me?!" she snapped. "Mind your own business, cucumber!" Daisy added. Infin glared at them. "GET THE GATE OPEN!! I'll handle this!" he yelled, "She doesn't wanna go wit you, punk. Buzz off!" he sneered. Punchy raised his fists. "Too bad. She's getting my friend mixed up in this nonsense!" he said. Infin reached for a gun holstered in the jacket of his suit. "So, that's that, eh? Well we can't have you botherin' our agents! I'll have ta rub ya out!" he shouted, firing an electric blast from his special gun at the floor, which was wet from the water that was flooding in from the entrance! "Look out!" Amy shouted as everyone jumped away, the electric bolt spreading through much of the water on the ground! Guard was forced to flap his wings and pull Amy off the floor to protect her from getting fried, while Punchy grabbed on to the wall and started to climb! The water hadn't quite reached the back of the chamber yet, so Violet and Daisy were safe, but Omega got quite a jolt! "Power overload! You will regret that!" Suddenly, Omega used the surge of electricity to power his jetpack, propelling himself towards Infin at high speed! He tackled the weasel, knocking him into the back wall hard! "Yaaaah!! My metal foot!!" Infin grunted, grasping his foot in pain!

Suddenly, the puzzle on the wall flipped and twisted, revealing a hieroglyph of an ancient echidna! The large doors beside it slid open, and Violet and Daisy exchanged a hi-five. Punchy dropped from the wall and glanced at them. "Huh? Oh, the door's open... Come on, Violet! Your mission's done!" he said. "So is yours, Dark One!" The voice of Illusi the shrew drew Punchy and Amy's attention. "This is getting out of hand, isn't it? ...Maybe I should've brought Sonic..." Amy sighed. As Infin was recovering from his injury and standing up, Anubis the jackal jumped down from the hole in the ceiling as well, proving Amy right. "Is there a problem, Mitch?" Anubis asked. The weasel stomped his metallic foot angrily. "CALL ME INFIN!!" he yelled. Punchy was glancing over at Anubis, but Illusi got his attention again as he was rushing across the wet floor. "Dark One! Stay where you are!" he shouted. This got Anubis's attention as well. "You! In the cape! You are holding an item of interest to us. Hand it over at once!" Anubis shouted. At this moment, Violet and Daisy were rushing into the chamber that had just opened, pursued by Guard and followed by Charmy. Illusi, seeing Anubis, had second thoughts about confronting Punchy now. "Um... I'll be right back, Dark One..." he said, vanishing in a puff of smoke. Punchy, noticing that everyone was getting away, screamed in frustration. "Wait!! All of you!!! ARRRRRGH!!!" Amy then smacked him with her hammer. "Thanks, I needed that..." he grumbled. "Come on! We're falling behind OMEGA!!" she shouted, noting that Omega, Infin and Anubis had decided to proceed into the next room without them as well. "Right! We'll see about this! ...At least Illusi got chased off..." Punchy said as they ran to catch up.

The next room was very similar to the rooms that the Chaos Gauntlets, Cards, and tailbands had been found in, with a pedestal in the center and a back wall covered in hieroglyphics. However, this room's back wall had been blown open by GUN's forces, led by Sergeant Drol! Guard was meeting up with him at the hole in the wall, while Punchy and Amy ran to catch up with Violet at the pedestal, which was atop a small shrine with steps leading up. "All right, you! Get back here!!" Punchy shouted. Violet, Daisy and Infin turned and glared at Punchy. "You don't know when to quit!" Daisy said. "Ugh... You are such a stubborn..." Violet started to say, only to be interrupted by Amy. "I've held my tongue enough! Now you creeps are gonna step aside and let us walk away with that shiny thing!" she yelled, pointing at the object on the pedestal. It appeared to be a gold cape, with silver trim. Punchy groaned. "Cut it out, pinky. It's hard enough getting through to Rainbow's sister." he said. Suddenly, Razor the Porcupine stomped into the room, pointing his gun around. "FREEZE!!" he shouted. "Aaaand now the cop's in here..." Infin sighed. Charmy buzzed over to Punchy and Amy, looking a bit nervous. "Is this gonna be a warzone like Central City? 'Cuz I went on this mission to get away from that!" he said. Drol shouted up at everyone on the shrine. "Knaves!! You thought you could outwit Sgt. Drol, did you!?" he yelled, making Infin jump. "Cripes, why'd Anubis have ta go lookin' for that shrew!?" he stammered. "Huh? But I thought he came in here!" Amy said in confusion. "Surrender yourselves, and turn over the Chaos Wing, immediately!" Drol warned. Punchy looked at the cape awkwardly. "How is that a wing?" he wondered. Agent 32, who was also with Drol, pointed up at Punchy frantically. "Boss! That's GeneX Experiment 1 up there, too!" he yelled. Guard nodded. "Grrrr!! I have been tailing him, sir! He aided Despair in finding the key to this chamber!" he said. "Tattler!!" Punchy yelled. "Do not be concerned. I have come prepared for such ruffians." Drol said. A hulking machine was waiting in the shadows from inside the hole in the wall, but before it could emerge, Freeze the Gizoid dashed into the chamber, firing an icy bolt that exploded near the Despair members! They all took cover, surprised by the sudden attack. "D'ooohh, now what!?" Infin growled. Freeze leapt up to the pedestal and grabbed the Chaos Wing before anyone could react! "I am E-6X. Also known as Freeze..." he stated, "And if you wish to acquire this object, you will have to bargain with Dr. Eggman!" Omega, who had been waiting at the foot of the shrine, started to fire missiles at Freeze! "Halt! Freeze, you will not get away! I will destroy you and prove that I am the ultimate robot!" he shouted. However, Freeze started fleeing back into the palace quickly, evading the missiles! "Hold! Robot!! You will turn that over to me at once or be destroyed!" Drol shouted pathetically as Freeze escaped, pursued by Omega. Drol growled angrily when he realized he'd lost another precious relic. "Meta-Hydra!! Get them! And give a special thrashing to that green knave who keeps interfering with my operations!" he commanded.

Punchy could see several robotic heads stirring in the shadows, and he got a bad feeling. "Violet, look out!" he shouted, shoving her out of the way as an intense jet of flames blew at them! A mechanical monstrosity stomped out of the hole in the wall, a mech with seven snake-like heads, each equipped with a different weapon! Amy gulped. "Well... Been nice knowin' ya, greenie. Maybe I should go..." she muttered. Suddenly, Punchy was tackled to the bottom of the steps of the shrine by a winged figure, who soared past the Hydra to attack him! "Prepare yourself, Punchy the Echidna!!" the winged figure said with a distorted voice as Punchy rushed back to his feet! It was the Deathbringer! "I will end you!!" the hooded being shouted. Drol looked a bit surprised, but didn't let this shake him. "Never mind... whoever that is! Meta-Hydra! Don't let them escape!" he yelled. The Meta-Hydra's heads started spouting fire, ice, lasers, and thunder, blocking Amy, Charmy, and the Covenant of Despair as they tried to find a way out. "All right... For now, we better team up..." Violet suggested. Charmy nodded. "Anything you say! I'll take the guy with the sunglasses!" he grinned. "No... It'll take all of us to stop that bot!" said Daisy, drawing a katana. Meanwhile, Punchy was unable to help the others, because the Deathbringer had him on the run, hurling powerful energy blasts his way that, if they should connect, might end his life quite abruptly. "Gotta fight back... Chaos Avalanche!" he shouted from cover behind the shrine. He picked up some rubble left over from GUN blowing up the back wall, and hurled it at the Deathbringer, only to see those chunks destroyed by some well placed energy blasts! Punchy gulped, seeing just what those attacks could do. "Anyone wanna trade me??" he asked. Three of the Hydra's heads were moving in close, trying to snap at Daisy and Infin while they struck back with sword strikes and bullets, respectively. Amy hopped on one of those heads' necks and started to run along it, her hammer readied. "I better find a weak spot..." she murmured. As she went, the other heads tried to hit her with flames and lasers, but Charmy flew up to tackle them and mess up their shots while Violet chucked some dark energy balls at them. Drol glanced at Guard, and he flew up to try and stop Amy, only to get a hammer to the face! "Grrrraaaaagh!! How dare you!!" he growled. Amy soon landed on the Meta-Hydra's back, and proceeded to slam it with her hammer hard! "Let's see how your hardware likes this!!" she yelled.

With things seeming to go well with the Hydra, Violet glanced at Punchy and the Deathbringer. The Deathbringer seemed about to strike Punchy with an energy blast, when suddenly a dark energy ball broke its concentration. "You dare interfere?" the Deathbringer growled, glaring at Violet. During all of this, Razor was sitting by the door, standing guard while GUN handled the situation. As he yawned, a sudden tremor stirred him back to his feet. "Whoa!? What was that!?" he gasped. Drol looked around. "Our blasting to get in here may have left the palace unstable... And this violent battle hasn't helped." he said as the Meta-Hydra collapsed in a heap! "Scram!! This place could come down any moment!" Infin shouted. Drol nodded. "We'll have to retreat! It's too dangerous to remain here!" he said. "Not to mention all that's left is Guard." Agent 32 muttered. Drol glanced at Guard. "Gargoyle! Follow the Covenant of Despair! Find their headquarters!" he ordered. Guard nodded and took off as Infin and Daisy were rushing out of the room, the palace starting to shake even more. Violet, however, stopped to observe Punchy, who was still locked in combat with the Deathbringer. They were fighting hand-to-hand now, but they still seemed evenly matched. "I will bury you in this palace!!" the Deathbringer sneered. "Grrraaa!!! You're making me real mad!!" Punchy yelled. "Run for your lives!! The whole place is gunna fall down!!" Charmy shouted in a panic, flying past them out the door. Violet looked at Punchy urgently. "Leave him! Punchy, we have to go!" she said. Amy nodded as she caught up with them. "Umm... What the creepy girl said!" she panted. Just then, Anubis entered the room. "Violet!! Come, we must leave this place." he said. "Yeah... I know..." Violet replied. Amy pointed at Anubis furiously. "Hey!! You! Now I gotcha! I owe you a beating for threatening Sonic!!" she shouted. Anubis crossed his arms. "Hmph... Sonic is no more. I buried him at Dr. Eggman's base." he said coldly. "Wh... What!?!?" Amy gasped as Anubis turned to leave, "No way!! Sonic is OK!! I'm going to find him right now!!" she cried, rushing off in a hurry. With everyone else pretty much having fled the chamber, which was beginning to collapse, Violet realized she had to act. "Yaaaaaah!! Enough!!!" Punchy shouted, struggling with the Deathbringer. "I agree. It's time to go!!" Violet said, grabbing Punchy around the arms and flinging a few dark energy balls at the Deathbringer as she dragged the stubborn echidna away! As they arrived in the rapidly flooding hall, Punchy glared at her. "I had everything under..." before he could finish speaking, a ball of pinkish light appeared out of nowhere and blinded him! "...control...??"

Punchy found himself in an ancient-looking city. "Violet? I appreciate getting me out of the palace, but where am I...?" he muttered, "...That WAS you, right?" he stammered, looking around. The city appeared in ruins, but there were still signs of life. He saw a few echidnas gathered up ahead, and they seemed to be in an uproar over something. As he approached the crowd, he saw the source of the commotion. Shadow Chaos was there! Tikal was there as well, carrying the Master Emerald, and she was accompanied by Radia and Athair. "Ch-chaos!?" Tikal gasped upon seeing the shadowy creature. Shadow Chaos glared around at the nearby echidnas, who were in a panic. "Aaaaugh! That thing is back!! It's come to destroy us!!" the surviving echidnas were shouting. Athair also looked stunned. "My word! What should we do??" he wondered. Radia frowned. "It's a creature of shadows! Everyone, stay back!" she warned. "Chaos... Please, calm yourself!" Tikal pleaded. This made Shadow Chaos glance at her with a look of confusion. "Quickly, we should get out of here!! It might attack again any moment!" the echidnas shouted, ready to flee the scene. However, a new voice shouted from a ledge of the city's central pyramid. "Hold it right there, shadow creature!" Looking, the people could see a breed of gray wolf, with red eyes and red stripes. He had a light gray muzzle, brown gloves, sandals and gold ankle braces, as well as a gold collar. His most interesting feature was a pair of twin tails, which were gray and ended in red. He leapt down to Shadow Chaos and shouted "Chaos Blast!" The chaotic explosion that resulted seemed enough to send Shadow Chaos fleeing, and the echidnas surrounded the stranger with reverent awe. "The creature fled! He saved us!" they gasped. "I saw what needed to be done, and I did it. Resume rebuilding your homes." the stranger said gruffly. Tikal stared at him in surprise as the villagers left. "You used chaos power... Just who are you?" she asked. The stranger bowed slightly. "They call me Howler. I'm a traveler..." he said. "We could sure use your help in case that creature comes back, Mr. Howler." Athair said. Howler glanced in the direction Shadow Chaos fled. "It will... We will need greater power to be rid of it for good." he said. "Just what sort of power do you think would do it?" Radia wondered. Howler looked back at them. "The ancient power of the Chaos Relics!" he declared. Tikal looked out where Shadow Chaos had gone a bit sadly. "Chaos......" she sighed.

Punchy awoke at the Troblusk City docks, babbling. "Howler? Echidnas?? Where'd all those people I was spying on go??" he muttered until he saw Violet standing over him. "Um... Are you okay?" she asked. Punchy's eyes darted back and forth. "Yeah, sure. Seasick dream." he said. Violet sighed. "I just drug you all the way back here. I'm sure gonna hear it when I get back..." she said. Punchy sighed. "Why are you working with those sickos?" he asked, slowly standing up. "It's the humans that are the sickos!" Violet snapped, "Let's agree to disagree for now... Might as well look for Rainbow..." she sighed. Punchy glanced at the EggSub in the water beside them. "Did we ride here alone?" he asked. "You kidding? We're lucky anyone waited for us..." Violet grumbled as she and Punchy set out to find Rainbow together.


As the ancient palace sunk deeper to the seafloor, Illusi was still hanging around one of the rooms that still had air. "Blast! It seems that the Dark One is gone again! You'd think I'd be able to keep up with him, knowing his whereabouts at all times..." he sighed. Suddenly, he spun around, finding the Deathbringer behind him! "You... You are referring to the echidna with the evil presence within..." it asked. Illusi looked at the being awkwardly. "Um... Doom...sayer...?" he mumbled. The Deathbringer stepped forward and extended its hand. "Come with me... I believe we have a common enemy...."


Chapter 17 - The Trials of Sandopolis
Stage 11-12(Hero & Dark 6) - Molten Sands

Note: Sonic the Hedgehog and related characters are (c) SEGA and 
Sonic Team. You knew that, right?
GeneX and related fanchars are (c) 2BIT (TheGreatGator), the author.

The story thus far:
After escaping from Super Eggman Land, Sonic encountered Knuckles. Believing him to have been tricked by Eggman yet again, they inevitably got into a fight, which led Sonic to get captured! While Knuckles is busy trying to come up with a plan, Sonic is trapped in a "special cell!"
Meanwhile, Kosmo and Copter went on a mission to get the Chaos Boots from Eggman's Cloud Carnival. During the chaos of the battle to get the boots, Katie the Coyote was shot! While Basker made off with the boots and dragged Chet off with him, Copter enlisted the help of Gemini and Silver in attempting to save Katie's life!
Now, on to the next chapter!


Kosmo met up with Silver outside the hospital in Station Square. "Well, she made it to the doctor... I guess she'll be resting for a while." Silver said. Kosmo nodded. "Yeah..." he murmured. Silver looked around anxiously. "I'd better go after those guys now. They got away with the Chaos Boots, and I have to see if I can throw a wrench in their plans!" he said, hurrying on his way! "Huh??" Kosmo muttered, watching him go. "Didn't he know I was one of them? Why is he letting me go?" he wondered. Not really wanting to dwell on it, he thought for a bit about what to do now. Though he would surely be wanted back at Despair HQ, he decided to check in with Katie.

He found her in a hospital bed, bandaged up and connected to IV drips. Copter and Gemini were standing at her bedside with worried expressions. "Katie... please be okay..." Copter whispered. The doctor looked at them sympathetically. "I've done what I can. It's up to her now." he said. Kosmo looked at the human doctor awkwardly. "Think a human's qualified to treat a fur?" he wondered. Noticing him, Gemini stepped past Copter and pulled out her wand threateningly. "What are YOU doing here?! Go on, beat it you creepy monster!" she growled. "WHAT!?" Kosmo snarled. Copter quickly planted himself between them. "Hey, both of you! This is a hospital!" he snapped. Gemini glared at him. "Copter, how can you hang around him? After he tried to destroy the whole world before!" she shouted. Copter gulped and turned to Gemini, motioning frantically for her to silence. "Ix-nay!" he said. Kosmo growled softly. "Well, you're still here, aren't you? Did you think I was still all crazed?!" he growled. Gemini looked startled, like she'd never even thought of that. "You feel that way, too, don't you Copter?? I see how it is. All anyone sees when they look at me is a monster!" Kosmo yelled. This got the doctor's attention. "Sir, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave. Undue stress could slow the coyote's recovery." he said. Kosmo looked around the room, and started to run off. "You... I don't need any of you!!" he cried. "Kosmo!!" Copter yelled before turning to Gemini angrily, "Gemini, you dope! I've been keeping an eye on him, not palling around with him!" he snapped. Gemini looked pale and gasped after hearing this. "Teacher, what have I done?" she thought.

Kosmo had tears in his yellow eyes as he exited the hospital. "I don't... need..." he stammered. "Troubled?" someone called out to him. It was a strange, yellow creature with a blue streak going down the center of her head, as well as blue hair hanging behind her head as well. She wore a light green sleeveless top, burgundy pants and had a forked tail with a band of blue fur ringing near the tip of each end. She had pink eyes and white and light green shoes. Kosmo just wiped his eyes and kept walking. "Go on! I don't need anyone else bothering me!" he grumbled. "I saw what happened at the carnival. They all say really nasty things about you, but... You really worried about her, didn't you?" the odd creature said. Kosmo stopped walking. "Are you spying on me, too?" he asked. Actually, I was sent to keep an eye on GUN. I've learned quite a bit about that snake Drol's activities." she said. Kosmo turned to face her. "GUN? Yeah, right! Unless... You're with the Covenant of Despair..." he murmured, "Looking at you...\. I've never seen your kind before. You strike me as one of HIS experiments!" he realized. "Perhaps we have a bit in common. We're both... unique." the stranger said. "You mean freaks..." Kosmo grunted. The stranger looked a bit angry. "THEY call us freaks! Those who just don't get it... My name's Carrie." she sighed. Kosmo's expression softened a little. "Why did you come here?" he asked. "You looked like a lost soul... I... can relate." Carrie said, "If you seek some truth, try Angel Island in the Mystic Ruins. There's a place there that's important to both GUN and the Covenant of Despair." she whispered. Kosmo smirked a little. "This your way of asking for help 'keeping an eye' on things?" he wondered. "Hoping to see you again, maybe..." Carrie said, walking away. Kosmo thought about it for a moment, then started on his way to the train station. His route unwittingly took him past the entrance to the Hidden Ruins, which Rainbow was on her way home to. "Maybe I shouldn't have shouted at One like that. I'll never find my sister without..." she was muttering as she caught a glimpse of Kosmo through the corner of her eye. "Wait! I'd know that shade of purpley fur anywhere! It's Viola!" she gasped. Just like that, she started to follow in the direction Kosmo had gone...


In the basement of Eggman's Eggtopia base, Sonic's teeth were chattering in the frigid cell that he'd been thrown into. An energy field generated by the cyan Chaos Emerald was keeping him stuck in the cell. Sleeping in a chair in the corner of the cell was Professor Pickle, another prisoner of Eggman. As a security measure, Jolt was standing guard outside the cell. "Can't you at least turn up the heat?" Sonic whined. "No way! I'm going nowhere! I'm not gonna let any more prisoners escape!" Jolt said. Suddenly, BAS started blaring. "Intruder alert!!" As everyone's attention turned to the stairway, they could hear Metal Eggman's voice from above. "Hey, it's just... NO!!! Wait!! What are you doing!? STOOOOOOP!!!" A loud thud followed the robot's screams. "What's all that racket?" Sonic wondered. They then heard Spiny's voice at the top of the steps. "Hey, you!! You got a death wish!?" he growled. "DO YOU!? GET OUTTA MY WAY, YOU FAKE SONIC!!!!" With this shout from Amy, Spiny soon came tumbling down the stairs! Amy followed him down and smacked him with her hammer, sending him soaring to the back wall, out of the way! "WAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!" Spiny wailed before collapsing, unconscious. Jolt watched in horror as Amy stomped her way in. "Spiny? Metal Eggman??" he murmured. "Who dares stand between me and my Sonic!?" Amy growled. Jolt started to buzz with electricity. "Hehehe, go ahead and touch me! You'll get a terrible shock!" he warned. Suddenly, SPOT dashed down the stairs and stood beside Amy. "Eggman robot detected! Preparing for battle mode!!" his monitor read. "N-n-nice doggy..." Jolt stammered as SPOT started charging his lasers. SPOT then started to chase him. "Save me, Sonic!!" Jolt shouted as he fled up the stairs. Next, Tails came down the steps while Sonic was telling Amy that the chaos energy shield would only repel her hammer. "Hang on, Sonic!" Tails said. "Go away, Tails! The power of my love will save Sonic!" Amy protested. "How?" Tails asked. "Umm... It just will! So stand back!" Amy shouted. Tails looked up at the cell and saw the emerald plugged into a socket near the ceiling. So, he pulled out a new gadget to take care of the situation. "Activating Chaos Emerald magnet!" he said, using the high powered magnet to pull the emerald down! Meanwhile, Amy tried her hammer anyway, just as the energy field vanished! "Huh? I did it! I did it! Now we'll ride off into the sunset and get married!" she cheered, running into the cell and throwing her arms around Sonic tightly! "Arrgh!! Stop!! Let me go!!" Sonic gasped. "So, we're finally free to leave this drafty cell?" said Professor Pickle, standing up. Tails stared at him in confusion. "Huh? What are you doing here, professor?" he asked.

They hurried up the stairs while Spiny was still unconscious. "Dr. Eggman was interested in the research I was doing into the Chaos Relics." Pickle explained. "Huh? What're Chaos Relics?" Sonic asked. "They're ancient artifacts that were created a long, long time ago. I'd better gather my research notes before I go. Now where did Eggman stash them...?" the professor muttered, looking around. Metal Eggman was sprawled on the floor, looking rather dizzy. "My metal moustache! Y-you'll... pay for... thizzzz..." he buzzed. "Here they are! My notes on the Chaos Relics. The gauntlets. The boots. The cards. The wing. The tailbands..." Pickle mumbled. "The tailbands!?" Tails gasped. Pickle nodded. "Yes, the Chaos Tailbands. Tails, I believe you're the only one who could use them." he said. Amy sighed. "Aw, that's old news! What's Eggman want with the others?" she asked. "I'm not entirely sure he wants them for himself... The Covenant of Despair is also after them." Pickle explained. Sonic shrugged. "Well, we'd better get to 'em first, I guess! Where are they?" he asked. "They were hidden throughout the world. My research was about to take me to the ruins of Sandopolis when Eggman kidnapped me." Pickle stated. Tails nodded. "Sandopolis? So, we need to go to Angel Island." he reasoned. "Quite right, Tails! Those old echidna ruins are housing an ancient secret about the Chaos Relics, by my reckoning!" Pickle smiled. "Then we'd better hurry on over there! Before Metal Eggman wakes up!" Sonic said. "I HATE that hedge-hog! Bzzzzzzzzt... Sniii-iiii-vl-yyyy-yyyy!!" the robo-Eggman babbled as Sonic, Tails, Amy and Professor Pickle exited the base, followed by SPOT, who was finished chasing Jolt around now. Once they were gone, Ridley the Coati emerged from a hidden door. "Did you hear that, Metal Eggman? They're off to Angel Island." he muttered. "Scratch! Grrrrrounder! Behooooold! My latest brrrrilliant scheme!" Metal Eggman mumbled. "So, you're saying it's up to me to follow them? Very well, sir. I understand there's no time to properly report this to the real Eggman." Ridley mused, heading on his way.


Kosmo had gone to Angel Island, and found his way to a crossroads in the mountainous region of the island. There, he discovered Fera, Zeke, and Vortex facing off against Dr. Nammad, Agent 64, and a number of GUN robots! "Looks like Carrie was right." he mused as he approached Fera. "Kosmo! Good timing!" Fera said, focusing her attention on Dr. Nammad. "You're hopelessly outmatched, humans! Lay down your arms!" she warned. "What should we do, doc?" Agent 64 asked with concern. Nammad seemed deep in thought. "I don't, uh, really want to waste perfectly good uh, ammunition so, uh, quickly..." he muttered. Just then, Silver jumped down from a ledge on a nearby cliff, landing between GUN and Despair! "Stop! I won't let you get away, Covenant of Despair!" he shouted. Zeke groaned upon seeing Silver, but otherwise kept his mouth shut. Fera glanced at Kosmo. "Take care of him." she ordered. Kosmo was hesitant, but he called out to Silver. "Hey, you!" Silver stepped towards Kosmo and frowned. "Not now! Can't you see I'm busy here!" he said. Kosmo was about to say something in response, when Rainbow came up behind him! "Viola!! I found you! Now..." As Kosmo turned around, Rainbow stopped short. "Oh, wait, you're not Viola... EEEEK!! Three!!" she screeched! "Owww!! My ears!!" Kosmo growled. Dr. Nammad was watching this and looked bored. "Maybe we should, uh, retreat during this diversion." he muttered. "Kosssmo issss taking too long! Let'sss do ssssomething!" Vortex hissed. Fera rolled her eyes and jumped at Silver, knocking him aside with a darkness-charged kick! He was surprised, and tumbled into the nearby cliff wall! Meanwhile, Kosmo was herding Rainbow away from Despair a bit. "Go away!! Don't eat me! I didn't mean to bother you, mister freak!" Rainbow stammered. "SHHH! It's dangerous here." Kosmo whispered, ignoring anything she was saying. "...huh???" Rainbow gasped. "Oh, all right! Get that, uh, Beetle up here! I'll show them how I, uh, modified it." Nammad said. At that moment, things were about to get even dicier, as Sonic and company arrived!

"Huh? Wha? Hey, it's crowded up here!" Sonic observed. "Oh. Uh... It's, uh, Sonic the hedgehog. Just like Col. Gunner, uh, said." Nammad mumbled. "Hold that thought!" Sonic said quickly, dashing straight for Kosmo! "KOSMO!!! What are you scheming!?" he shouted. "Are you... with the Covenant of Despair?" Tails asked. Silver stood up shakily and looked at Sonic in shock. "Guys! You're ignoring the real threat!" he yelled. Fera noticed Professor Pickle with Sonic's group and glared at him. "Sonic... You brought a human here. You're against us!" she snarled. Kosmo gulped. "This isn't going to end well at this rate." he muttered, morphing into gargoyle form quickly and lifting Rainbow into his arms. "Hey, huh?!" she gasped. "All right, flying out! Let's go before they make a mess!" Kosmo said, taking to the sky! "Wait!! Three, lemme go! Take me back!! I gotta find my siiiiister!!!" Rainbow protested. Tails gasped. "He... He's kidnapping that girl!? SPOT, do something!!" he shouted. SPOT flew after Kosmo and fired some laser blasts, but they simply struck the cliff and caused a rock slide, blocking anyone from pursuing Kosmo! "Enough! These delays are getting on my nerves!" Fera growled. "I, uh, quite agree!" Nammad added. Silver decided there was just one solution. "Sonic! Let's team up!" he suggested. "I'm afraid you're all, uh, too late." Nammad said as a simple GUN beetle flew in front of him. "Huh? That's just a little baby-bot. I can take those without a hammer." Amy remarked. "You'd be wise not to underestimate Dr. Nammad!" Agent 64 warned. Nammad smirked. "OK, little uh, Beetle. Use Chaos Avalanche." he said. "Do what now!?" Sonic gasped. "I'd take cover! This area isn't stable enough for that!" Pickle warned. The robot started to glow, and the cliff started to shake as rocks started tumbling from above! "Yikes! I'd better move while the getting's good..." Silver said, rushing off in the direction Kosmo had gone. With the modified beetle tearing the cliffside apart, Fera quickly gave up on trying to fight Nammad as well, and hopped on Zeke's back to escape instead. Sonic and the others were forced to scatter, while Nammad and Agent 64 slipped out in the confusion.

Sonic wore a grouchy frown as he found himself carrying Professor Pickle to the desert region of Sandopolis. They soon met up with Tails, Amy and SPOT, who had beaten them to the desert due to Sonic's efforts to make sure the professor made it through the avalanche safely. Shadow and Omega were there as well. "Ah, here comes Sonic now..." Shadow muttered. "Sonic! Why won't you ever carry me like that!?" Amy pouted. Sonic put down the professor and shot everyone a dirty look. "Sorry to trouble you, Sonic..." Pickle muttered, "Ivan Nammad was never this cheeky when he was my student." he said. Tails chuckled softly. "Wow, professor... I had no idea..." he sighed. Shadow crossed his arms impatiently. "So, what's this nature walk you got organized, Sonic?" he asked. "We're going to check out the Chaos Relic ruins! Or something..." Sonic said. "The pyramid. We must go to the pyramid." Pickle stated. Omega pointed into the desert. "Eggman robots and Despair agents are ahead. We came to investigate." he reported. Sonic smirked. "Think Eggman and Despair are playing nice after Anubis blew up that digital castle?" he wondered. Shadow shrugged. "Let's just get moving. Obviously, the action's at this pyramid." he said. Tails turned to Amy. "We'll go on ahead! You watch the professor, Amy!" he suggested. "Hey! I wanna go with Sonic!" Amy protested, "Make Omega watch the professor! He's the slowest!" she snapped. "At least I can handle undersea navigation." Omega said. "Excuse us for needing to BREATHE!!" Amy growled. "...huh?" Sonic and Tails said at once. Shadow started to leave without them, so Sonic, Tails and Omega quickly took off after him! "Stay with Amy, SPOT!" Tails shouted. As they ran, they could see a metallic blue figure in the direction of the pyramid. "...Metal Sonic!?" Sonic gasped. The robot spotted them, and emitted an angry buzzing noise, prompting several spiky sandworm robots to leap out from beneath the sands and start soaring towards them! "At last, Eggman's robots! Prepare for obliteration!" Omega said. "Errr, yeah. Great, Omega." Sonic sighed.


Kosmo had descended into a cave to escape the dangers above. However, now they found themselves in a cavern of bubbling lava and weak rock walls and floors. They were in Lava Reef Zone. Rainbow backed away a bit once Kosmo put her down. "Well, ha ha... This has been fun, Three, but I better get looking for my sister, now..." she stammered. "Your sister? Why would she be here? ...Is she with the Covenant of Despair?" Kosmo asked. Rainbow stopped backing away and stared at him. "Huh? You care??" she murmured. "Wait up, Kosmo! We need to talk!" shouted Silver as he dropped down into the cavern after them! Kosmo turned toward him defensively. "Hold up, Silver! FERA hit you!" he shouted. Silver looked at him strangely. "Huh? I know. I'm here to work on stopping the Covenant of Despair's plans." he said, "If you're not exactly with them... would you consider helping me stop them?" he wondered. Rainbow looked at him with awe. "Umm... Aren't you scared of him, Shiny?" she asked. "Why would I be?" Silver asked. Kosmo was surprised as well. "You really aren't scared of me? Not even a little? You don't hate me or anything??" he asked. Silver didn't even think about it. "No. So, uh... Could you lend me a hand? I don't really know what the Covenant of Despair is after here." he said. Kosmo thought for a moment, then nodded. "All right." he said. Rainbow smiled a little. "Well, it's settled! We're going the same way, so I'm in, too! Follow me, Three!" she grinned, running off ahead! "H-hey... The name is Kosmo!" he stammered, following her along with Silver. They were soon stopped at a sea of lava. "...Great..." Kosmo muttered. "Heeheehee! Look at you guys staring out at the fire pit! Can't you fly?" giggled someone above them! Looking up, they saw Whisk the Divine. "You again... Are you following us for giggles?" Kosmo asked. "Huh? Who're you? Gwaaa! Who am I!?" she shouted, flapping around in a panic. She then teleported down next to Rainbow. "Eeek! How'd you do that!?" she gasped. "Um... Do you have amnesia?" Silver wondered. "Huh? Oh! I'm Whisk! Hey, where am I?" Whisk said. Silver sighed. "Maybe we better bring her with us. She seems confused." he said. Kosmo shrugged. "I guess I better get started flying us across this..." he sighed.


As Sonic, Shadow and the others stepped inside the dark Sandopolis pyramid, Tails flew up and pulled on a primitive light switch to make the torches on the walls light up, and Professor Pickle quickly located a section of the wall with hieroglyphics that interested him. "Sonic, listen here! Granted, my ancient echidnaese is a bit rusty, but, loosely translated, this says: 'Hero Who Seeks The Truth; You must pass Three Trials to be deemed worthy...'" he said. "Hmm... Could these trials be a way to open the Chaos Relic ruins?" Shadow wondered. Pickle turned and nodded. "It's a place to start. I found more information. 'Trial the First: The Sands Of Time. Escape, Lest You Be Lost To The Sands Of Time For Eternity.'" he explained. Tails had SPOT's back opened up, revealing a keyboard and a screen for him to work with. "I'm setting up SPOT to be able to translate these hieroglyphs, in case we get separated from Professor Pickle." he said. They proceeded deeper into the pyramid, and soon came across what was surely the first trial, the Sands of Time. Quicksand was shifting extremely fast, and would surely swallow up anyone who stepped in it in seconds. However, the sands were solidifying in places, forming safe walkways which would, moments later, return to quicksand. "You'd have to be a quick one to get through here..." Shadow smirked. "...Race ya!" Sonic chuckled, and the two hedgehogs were off on a contest to see who could navigate the quicksand maze the fastest! "Sonic!! Aw, I better follow in case they get sucked in..." Tails said, snapping his fingers at SPOT so that the robot would transform into hover-scooter mode. Tails hopped on and started to follow the speedy hedgehogs. "Watch over the professor, Amy!" he said. "Not AGAIN!!" Amy whined. Omega fired up his thrusters and started hovering over the sands as well, leaving Amy to pout. Sandworms leapt out of the quicksand as they made their way across, but Sonic and Shadow just bounced off their heads and kept moving, outpacing the quicksand every step of the way! "Slick moves, guys!" Tails said, flying past them. "Hey! That's cheating! Come back here!" Sonic shouted, leaping ahead to some stable sand a distance away in order to regain his lead! Soon, they set foot on the other side, and all of the quicksand solidified, which was fortunate because Shadow had to stop to fish out Omega, since his thrusters could not carry him all the way across. "Eggman will pay for giving me inferior thrust..." he mumbled. "You can come across now, Amy!" Sonic shouted back, only to receive no response. "...Amy?" Both Amy and the professor were gone! "...Um... Good thing SPOT can read the hieroglyphs, huh?" Tails muttered.


Kosmo's group soon found that Dr. Nammad had not come to Angel Island alone. GUN agent patrols were roaming around Lava Reef Zone, though none of them could be sure why. "We don't have time to deal with a grouchy military. How do we get past them?" Silver wondered. Kosmo started to glow, and in a moment he was in the form of his Agent 16 disguise, a purple-haired GUN spy. "Eeep! A yellow-eyed human!" Whisk yelped. Kosmo sighed and pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his coat pocket. "...Don't ask how these got there. I keep them in my sock." he muttered. "I thought you morphed them..." Rainbow said. Kosmo glanced out at the GUN Agents and nodded. "Wait until I get them to look away, then sneak by." he said, tiptoeing out to meet his fellow agents. He first met up with an agent with purple shades and red hair. "Huh... Agent 16! What rock have you been hiding under?" he asked. "Oh... Gunner has me lookin' for those experiments he's so fixated on. How's working for Nammad, Agent 77?" Kosmo replied. Agent 77 sighed. "I dunno, I just got transferred from Drol. I think he finds my shades too flashy." he grumbled. The other nearby GUN Agents started to gather around to shoot the breeze with "Agent 16," giving the others a bit of a distraction. "Wow... Three's really popular as a GUN guy. Who'da thought it?" Rainbow mumbled as she, Silver and Whisk slowly snuck past the GUN agents. Silver stopped to use his psychokinesis on some boulders on the other side of the agents, tossing them against the wall to create a loud noise! "What was that!? We'd better check it out!" Agent 77 stammered. Kosmo watched the others go and smiled. "I'll hold down the fort, fellas..." he said, turning to follow Silver and the others. Once they were safely away, Kosmo morphed back to normal, and then was startled by someone loudly calling his name nearby! "I've been looking all over for you, Kosssmo!" Some nearby rocks were revealed to just be Vortex colored brown, and he startled everyone when he reverted to his normal colors! "Well, now that I have your attention... Let'sss have a little talk." Vortex hissed.


Chapter 18 - Shadows of Chaos
Stage 11-12(Hero & Dark 6) - Molten Sands
Minor Boss 7 - Shadow Chaos

Note: Sonic the Hedgehog and related characters are (c) SEGA and 
Sonic Team. You knew that, right?
GeneX and related fanchars are (c) 2BIT (TheGreatGator), the author.


As Sonic, Tails, Shadow, Omega and SPOT explored the pyramid, the floor beneath them suddenly collapsed, sending them plummeting into Lava Reef Zone! As Tails gently hovered down with his spinning tails, he looked worried. "I hope this didn't happen to the professor. He's too old for this kind of thing." he said. Shadow looked around the lava-heated caverns with a serious expression. "We need to find a way back to the pyramid." he grunted. Suddenly, Sonic started to run ahead. "I see someone in trouble!" he shouted. Up ahead, on a bridge of rocks in front of a waterfall of lava, Espio the chameleon and Charmy bee were surrounded by fiery Gohla robots! "Pitiful Eggman robots! Step aside and allow me to handle them!" Omega shouted. Instead, Shadow stayed put and tossed Chaos Spears at the small, orb shaped robots, smashing them one by one while Sonic tried to find an opening in their orbiting fireballs. "Hey... You don't have to hog all the action, Shadow." Sonic frowned. Espio bowed politely as they all gathered around him and Charmy. "Thanks for your help." he said. "Yeah... Well, good news guys. I found Tails." Sonic said. "They were looking for me?" Tails mumbled. "Aw, that case was closed a while ago. We decided his own robots did it!" Charmy chuckled, making SPOT stare at him awkwardly. "Right now, Vector's got us checking out these ruins on some Despair related hunch. But the floor caved in on us and dropped us in this lava pit." Espio reported. "I CHOSE to follow you, klutz!" Charmy teased, flying around playfully. "You wouldn't happen to have found a way back up, would you?" Shadow asked. Charmy snickered. "Well, you could fly through the holes in the roof!" he said. Sonic and Shadow shrugged, and started to lead Tails and Omega away. "By the way... Why isn't Amy with you?" Espio wondered. Sonic stopped short. "Huh? Did you see Amy?!" he asked. "She was wandering the pyramid near where we fell." Espio said. "With some old guy." Charmy added. Sonic and Tails sighed. "At least we know they're okay..." Tails said. As they walked off, Charmy turned to Espio. "Hey, how come Vector never goes on these missions?" he asked. Espio shrugged. "He gives some lame excuse every time. Now he's dusting the office..." he muttered. Charmy giggled. "I say he's scared! It's been so long since our last adventure that he's gone all wimpy!" he said. Espio sighed. "Then we'll have to see that he regains his courage... Even if it takes something as petty as name calling!" he muttered, heading off deeper into Lava Reef, with Charmy following.

To their surprise, they found a stairway leading back up to the pyramid. Once there, Tails immediately went looking for a light switch, and once the room was illuminated, they found the chamber they had arrived at guarded by Shadow Chaos! "Huh? Is this... Chaos?!" Sonic gasped. Tails couldn't believe it. "Not again! It's that monster from the frozen ruins!" he stammered. Shadow Chaos approached them slowly, glaring at them. "Well, what do you think it wants?" Sonic wondered. "Revenge, maybe?" Shadow mused. "That's Shadow Chaos. It is a dark manifestation of Chaos that was released from the Chaos Shrine." said a voice in a nearby doorway! "Who??" Sonic mumbled, looking at the coati in the shadows. "Ridley! What are you doing here!?" Tails wondered. Ridley leaned against the wall nonchalantly. "More important, what are you going to do about your short-tempered friend over there?" he asked. Shadow Chaos hurled its arm at the group like a whip, forcing those fast enough to jump over it, but striking Omega! "Creature is hostile! Preparing to terminate!" he yelled. Ridley nodded. "Dr. Eggman's research states that Shadow Chaos is more volatile and prone to anger than Chaos. Watch out." he said. Sonic glanced at Ridley with alarm. "Eggman...? Errr, never mind, I'll get back to ya." he mumbled. Suddenly, making matters worse, several hands wrapped in black bandages burst out of the sand! "Whaaaa!! Now what!?" Tails screamed. Mummies wrapped in black bandages rose up from the sand, glaring at them! "Well... Those weren't here last time I visited..." Sonic muttered.

Omega pulled in his hands and replaced them with lasers. "I will dispose of the bandaged intruders! You defeat the liquid life form!" he said. As Omega opened fire on the mummies, Sonic ran at Shadow Chaos. "All right, ya black drip! I'll knock the ink outta ya!" he shouted, leaping at Shadow Chaos with a homing attack, only for the "black drip" to jump back and evade it! "Huh? Hey, he's quicker than Chaos 0..." Sonic muttered. Meanwhile, the mummies were shrugging off Omega's bullets and kept coming at Shadow and Tails. "Gwaaaah!! You can't kill the undead!!" Tails yelled, hugging SPOT in his panic. Shadow scoffed. "If they died once, what's so scary about them?" he said. "Their inability to expire again." Omega replied, making Shadow look at him funny. "In this case, it appears logical." the robot said. While they were thinking of what to do about the mummies, Sonic was trying to corner Shadow Chaos. It would jump away and attack from a distance with its stretchy arms, forcing Sonic to jump back, too. "That does it... Eat spinning hedgehog!!" Sonic quickly curled into a ball and went into a spin dash, charging straight for Shadow Chaos! Surprised, the black Chaos tried to stop Sonic by shooting globs of black water from its hands, but Sonic sped past them and smashed into Shadow Chaos, exploding him into a puddle of black sludge! "Ick!! This thing's even more gross than the real Chaos!" Sonic groaned, shaking the gunk from his fur. While he was distracted, the black sludge started to reform behind him, casting a shadow over him. "He's behind me again, isn't he?" Sonic muttered. Suddenly, he was grabbed up in Shadow Chaos's stretchy, almost tentacle-like arm! "Aaaaugh!! Little help, guys!?" Sonic gurgled. However, they were busy watching Shadow tear through the mummies with his various Chaos techniques, sneaking up on them with Chaos Control, breaking them up with Chaos Spear, and burning them to a crisp with Chaos Blast! "...Now I'm scared of Shadow." Tails murmured. Fortunately, during this Sonic was able to spin his way out of Shadow Chaos's clutches and land on top of the creature, exploding it again!

Ridley clapped as Shadow Chaos slunk away. "Nice moves, hedgehog." he said. "Uh, thanks..." Sonic muttered. "I think he was talking to me." Shadow scoffed. Sonic ignored him and turned his attention to Ridley. "You work for Eggman? So what do you want here?" he asked. "Ah, that would be telling." Ridley smirked. Tails stepped forward. "Hold it, Ridley! I bet you know a lot about Eggman's plan! Like what he wants the Chaos Gauntlets for!" he shouted. The coati rolled his eyes. "Can't you just be happy I sprung you out of jail, fox boy? If I hadn't suggested you and Eggman play nice, you and Knuckles would be stuck." he pointed out. Sonic growled at him. "Hey! Because of that, I got tossed in jail!" he snapped. "You got out, didn't you? I'm not here to toss you back in if that's what you're concerned about." Ridley shrugged. Sonic crossed his arms. "Anything Eggman's up to concerns me. It never ends well." he said. "For him. By the time he figures that out, I'm sure it'll be too late. So long!" Ridley said, turning to leave. "Halt, agent of Eggman!!" Omega shouted. Ridley turned and raised his hand. "Chaos Splash!" A ball of water, shining with chaos energy, shot from his hand and exploded against the top of the doorway, splashing water down and obscuring their view of him for a second, which was all it took for him to escape! "Sorry, Omega. He's gone." Sonic said. "Who knows, maybe we'll run into Metal Sonic again." Tails added. "It is no use trying to cheer me up..." Omega grumbled. Sonic started to look around now that the coast was clear. "I wonder if those mummies were the second trial? Well, we won't know until we find more of those hieroglyphics. Grab SPOT and let's get looking, Tails!" he said, heading through the doorway Ridley had escaped through. Shadow looked in the direction Shadow Chaos had escaped. "I wonder... just what is that creature...?" he muttered before following after Sonic.


Vortex was now leading Kosmo, Silver, Rainbow and Whisk through Lava Reef Zone, talking while they walked. "I'm ssssorry Zipp tried to kill you. I guesss now he'ssss tried to kill everyone." he said. Kosmo followed with his arms crossed. "And you say YOU want to help me? Yeah, and Bucky's a human." he scoffed. Vortex led them to a stairway before turning to Kosmo. "Our creator hasss hisss own plansss... He'd much prefer to think of you asss friend rather than foe." he said. "He is NOT putting me back in a cage!" Kosmo growled. Vortex sighed. "Perisssh the thought." he hissed, motioning for everyone to head up the stairs. "Where are we going?" Silver asked. "And will there be drinks? This place is so HOT!" Whisk whined. "Sssstick with me, Whisssk, and you'll be okay..." Vortex said, blushing a little. "I saw that! Five's got a thing for Angel!" Rainbow teased. Vortex yanked Rainbow by the arm forcefully. "Ssssilence!!" he snarled. Rainbow made a motion as if to zip her lips. "I gotcha. Secret." she grinned. As she skipped up the steps, Vortex scratched his head. "Who told her I wasss Experiment 5?" he groaned. Up the stairs, they found themselves in a long hall within the Sandopolis pyramid. The lights were dimming since the last time Tails lit them, but there was still some light left. "Thisss pyramid isss the ssssubject of Dessspair'sss raid." Vortex said. "Are they looking to swipe a mummy?" Whisk wondered. As Rainbow looked around, she saw a special-looking tablet covered in hieroglyphics. "Hey, I can read these!" she gasped. "Seriously!?" Silver gasped. "Well, I haven't seen words like this since I was a kid, but... It says something about passing three trials to prove worthiness." she said. "Three trials? What the..." Kosmo muttered. "Read the lassst part." Vortex said. Rainbow shrugged. "Trial the Second: The Sentries of Sandopolis. The Sentries Shall Annihilate All Who Are Not Worthy to Pass." she said. There were statues resembling Chaos all along the hallway. "I wasss afraid of thisss... It'ssss Chaosss Sssshrine all over again!" Vortex hissed.

They looked down the hall ahead of them. "Doesn't look so bad... Maybe the sentries are out on a coffee run." Kosmo said. "The sssstatuesss are the sssentriesss." Vortex hissed. Silver shrugged. "Well, we have to keep moving! Sentries or no sentries!" he said. As they started down the hall and passed the first pair of Chaos statues, the statues started to turn in place, facing them! "Omigosh! The statues are moving!" Whisk gasped. "I TOLD you!" Vortex growled. The Sentries of Sandopolis started firing strange beams from their eyes, forcing the group to scramble past them! Rainbow, however, ran around in circles for a few moments in her panic. "Don't zap me! Don't zap me!!" she yelped. Oddly, they didn't even look at her. Kosmo observed this and, once they were safely past the first pair of statues, he morphed into his echidna form. "The sentries didn't shoot at her, so maybe they like echidnas." he figured. He tested this theory right away, stepping back in front of the statues. They ignored him, just like Rainbow. "Well, we're safe." he said to her. "Great for you..." Whisk sighed. Suddenly, the lights went out! "Oh, just great! Now we can barely see!" Silver groaned. Making matters worse, a white shape emerged in the darkness. It had angry black eyes and pointed ears. "EEEEK!! GHOOOOST!!" Rainbow yelled. Several more ghosts started to emerge, and then began to chase the group down the hall! "Run for it!! Wait, the ssssentriesss!!" Vortex yelped, jumping as a beam came at him! Rainbow looked around and saw a pull-chain near the wall. "What's this do?" she muttered, jumping up and pulling it. The lights came back on, but not very brightly. "Aw, this light switch is broken!" she sighed. Whisk teleported past the sentries as they fired at her and ran over to Rainbow. "Let's hurry! I don't know where we're going, but I don't like it here!" she panted. "You need to see a head doctor, Angel. We're obviously going that way." Rainbow pointed. Looking ahead, Kosmo could see there were still several sentries blocking their path, and the lights were rapidly flickering. "I wonder if I could destroy those statues? ...Probably take too long with these ghosts." he sighed.

They continued down the hall, Kosmo and Rainbow dashing ahead to search for light switches while the others evaded the sentries' beams. There weren't quite enough light switches to compensate for the fact that the lighting mechanism seemed to have been damaged, so the group ended up chased by the ghosts periodically. "Thissss isss getting old!" Vortex hissed, turning to the ghosts in the darkness. "Wait... What are you doing?" Silver wondered. "Chaossss Hole!!" Vortex used Chaos energy to create a small black hole, which started to suck in nearby objects straight away! The nearest sentry statues ahead popped out of their bases and flew into the hole, and the ghosts started fleeing away from it! "Yessss, now who'sss fleeing in terror!?" Vortex smirked. Kosmo pulled a switch to turn the lights on, then looked back. "What in the...? Are you insane!?" he shouted. Whisk was flapping against the pull of the black hole, but was losing ground. "Nooo!! I don't wanna go in theeeere!!" she wailed. Silver grabbed her with his psychokinesis, holding on to the base of the broken sentry statue to brace himself. "Can you stop that thing!?" he shouted. Vortex glanced back at Whisk and gasped. "R-right away..." he stammered, raising his hands to the hole and concentrating on it in order to make it disappear. Rainbow then poked her head out from behind the other busted statue. "Is Two the only one of you guys who isn't the least bit scary?" she groaned. Before Vortex could answer, Kosmo stepped past the last pair of sentries. "Before you do anything crazy again, let me see if there's an off switch for the statues!" he shouted. However, the statues all returned to their neutral positions on their own now that someone had passed the trial. "Hey, that was fast, Kosmo." Silver said. "Uh, yeah... That's me. Gettin' things done." Kosmo muttered.

Beyond the second trial, Vortex looked around and found a stairway leading back down to Lava Reef Zone. "Come with me, everyone. There'ssss a quick sssstop we mussst make." he said. They climbed down and found themselves in a large chamber with small steam geysers in places on the floor, and a huge cliff overlooking the area. From the top of the cliff, Zeke the dragon soared down and blocked the stairway they'd come from! "Well, well! You've done great, Vortex! There's Kosmo AND the white hedgehog!" he cackled. Zipp flew down as well, hi-fiving Vortex on arrival. "We've still got it, 'Tex!" he smirked. "Eeep... What's going on here?" Rainbow yelped. "Class reunion, maybe?" Whisk said hopefully. "Nope, we've been betrayed." Kosmo groaned. "Funny, I was going to say that!" said Fera the wolf, who was standing at the foot of the cliff with several uniformed Despair Agents! "Well, I wanted to find the Covenant of Despair. Thanks, I guess..." Silver muttered. "Don't thank me. I wasss sssent to take you out." Vortex hissed. Kosmo glared at him. "Me, too?" he growled. "That remains to be seen..." Fera sneered, marching her group of agents toward them. Their group was surrounded, and Silver wasn't about to join up with Despair. With Kosmo's allegiance unclear at best, this was shaping up to be a deadly trap...


Chapter 19 - Beyond the Lava Reef
Stage 11-12(Hero & Dark 6) - Molten Sands
Minor Boss 8 - Fera the Wolf

Note: Sonic the Hedgehog and related characters are (c) SEGA and 
Sonic Team. You knew that, right?
GeneX and related fanchars are (c) 2BIT (TheGreatGator), the author.


Sonic, Tails, Shadow, Omega and SPOT found their way to a tablet similar to the one Rainbow had read about the second trial from. Tails had SPOT translate the tablet, and he read the translation to Sonic and the others. "Trial the Third: The Chasms Of Oblivion. Press Onward With All Speed, Show Your Conviction, Or Fall To Fiery Oblivion." he said. Sonic chuckled. "Pay up, Shadow! I told you those mummies were the second trial!" he grinned. "This doesn't prove that." Shadow pointed out. "Whatever..." Sonic said, looking ahead. There were several unstable-looking bridges teetering over the fiery lava pits of Lava Reef Zone below. The bridges were spaced out so that whoever crossed them would have to jump between them. "I guess those are rigged to collapse..." Sonic muttered. "Affirmative." Omega said. Sonic glanced at Shadow with a smirk. "Rematch? You kinda had to double back to rescue Omega last time." he said. "Maybe the others should wait here." Shadow suggested. "I will scan for alternate routes." Omega said. Sonic and Shadow started across the bridges, which rapidly started to crumble as their feet touched them! While Tails and Omega watched them, though, some robots started coming up behind them. They were GUN's Bomb Hawk robots, a variant on the large flying Hawk robots which was equipped to drop bombs! Omega and SPOT detected their approach and turned around, immediately aiming weapons at them! "Huh?? Waaa! GUN robots!?" Tails yelped when he looked to see what the commotion was. "Dr. Nammad has ordered this area cleared of interlopers! Prepare to be removed!" one of the robots said. Omega immediately blasted that robot, and the other robots started tossing bombs in retaliation! "I will show no mercy to hostile GUN robots!" Omega said. Tails jumped back to avoid the explosions as SPOT brought up a shield to protect him. "Thanks, SPOT, but I can handle this! Go into offensive mode!" he ordered. As SPOT retracted the shield, Tails jumped forward and whipped his tails at the nearest robot! "You asked for it, GUN!" he shouted. "Do not enter my firing range, fox boy..." Omega grumbled.

Sonic and Shadow sped through the bridges, jumping from one to another as they collapsed. With their speed, this test was a simple matter, and soon they landed on the other side of the chasms, Sonic stepping on the stable ground at the end mere seconds before Shadow. After the last bridge finished collapsing, they felt a loud tremor coming from somewhere below, and a platform attached to a cable slid out of the nearby wall, providing them with a way back. "Wait, there's no way forward?" Sonic stammered. "Sounds like some mechanism below was activated." Shadow muttered. Sonic peered down below. "You think Amy and the professor might head there?" he wondered. "It's our only clue." Shadow sighed. The two of them hopped on the platform and rode it back to the other side, where they found Tails, Omega and SPOT standing among a lot of busted robot parts. "GUN made it to the pyramid..." Tails panted. "Man, you guys sure slowed me down, Shadow." Sonic muttered. Shadow rolled his eyes. "Well, it seems the three Trials opened up something below. We'll have to find a safe way down." he said. Tails nodded. "I'm sure we passed some stairs leading down on the way..." he recalled. "What about Eggman's robots in the pyramid?" Omega wondered. Sonic, Tails and Shadow started to walk away, ignoring him. "I thought it was a valid question." SPOT's monitor read. "Stupid meatbags..." Omega grumbled.


Down in Lava Reef Zone, Kosmo, Silver, Rainbow and Whisk were surrounded by the Covenant of Despair, led by Fera. Zeke, Vortex and Zipp were there as well as some additional uniformed grunts. Fera glared at Kosmo with her good eye. "So here you are. How dare you defy my orders and run off!" she growled. Kosmo was silent, so Rainbow decided to try her luck. "Um... Howdy. Can I ask you something?" she said. Fera scoffed. "I'm busy, girl! Leave me be if you know what's good for you!" she shouted. Silver looked like he was about to speak up, but Kosmo did instead. "Stuff it, Fera!" he snapped. "Wh-what!?" Fera gasped, "Oh, I see how it is. That hedgehog over there has been messing with your head." she said, pointing at Silver. "I think you're the ones messing with people's heads!" Silver growled. "Yeah! Let my sister go!" Rainbow shouted. Fera stared at them. "Your sister...? Kosmo, what rubbish are they telling you?" she asked. Kosmo looked taken aback. "They don't have to tell me anything! Fera! Why would the covenant abandon an innocent fur and leave her for dead?" he growled. Fera crossed her arms. "Hm? Don't be so naive Kosmo. This is war. Casualties are inevitable." she said. "Duh!" Zipp chuckled. Kosmo started to growl furiously. "You... are no different than that snake Gunner!" he snarled. Zeke shook his head. "I'd watch what you say, Kosmo. She's no wimp like half the Covenant of Despair!" he muttered. However, that warning came too late. Fera was fuming! "Y-you... c-compare me... to GUNNER!?!?" she stammered. Vortex backed away a bit. "Sssshoot, hit the deck..." he hissed, while the other Despair grunts followed suit. Fera's body erupted in dark energy, and she hurled a ball of darkness straight at Kosmo! "I'll teach you some respect!!!" she screamed. Kosmo was knocked backward into Zeke, who pushed him away. "Grah! Now you've done it, morphy!" he grunted. Whisk raised her hand nervously. "Do I have to be caught up in all this, too?" she whimpered. "What do you think, traitor sympathizer!?" a random grunt shouted. "Hey! Leave her alone!" Vortex yelled. The Despair members started moving in to rough up Kosmo's friends, while Fera planned to punish him herself!

"You will learn your place! Kneel before the Covenant of Despair!" Fera had charged some dark energy, and fired it at Kosmo from her hands as a black beam of darkness! He quickly morphed into a bat and started to fly around, evading the beam and heading towards her! She ceased firing her beam and started tossing dark energy balls at him, knocking him away as he got close! As Kosmo fell to the ground, he changed into a bull and started to charge at her! "Are you kidding?" she smirked, jumping on his back and hanging on as he tried to shake her off! Meanwhile, Zeke had charged at Silver, only to be psychically tossed into the other Despair agents! A uniformed frog, Corky, jumped out of the way and hopped towards Rainbow. "Hello, girly! Whose side you on?" he grunted. "Not yours, Mr. Toad." she said. Corky bared his creepy sharp teeth in rage. "Mr. Toad!!? I hate people callin' me dat!!" he shouted, lashing his tongue at her! However, Rainbow caught his tongue and gripped it tightly! "Hah! I knew a toad would do that!" she chuckled. "I'b nogh a thoad!!" Corky protested with his tongue stuck outside his mouth. "I can't understand you, Mr. Toad. Give up, or I'll stick your tongue in one of those steam holes!!" she threatened. At the same time, Zeke was leading the minor Despair grunts in a charge at Silver and Whisk! "Bwaaaa!! What's happening!? Why are you gymnasts attacking me!?" Whisk yelped. Silver used his powers to toss some of their magical and weapon projectiles back at them, but some were getting close! Finally, Vortex couldn't watch anymore. He stepped in front of Whisk and raised his arms. "Sssstay away from her, you ssscum!" he hissed. Zipp's jaw dropped, and he wasn't sure how to react. "Dude, Fera'll kill you!" he stammered. "That wolf isss not my massster!!" he shouted, firing Chaos Inferno at some Despair mutts as they got a bit too close to Whisk! All the while, Kosmo kept trying different forms in his fight with Fera, but her dark powers did well to keep him at bay. Now, he was tossing his tail transformed into a mace at her, while she teleported around him! "Stay still, Fera!" he growled. "You seem to be tiring, Kosmo. Perhaps you are not as powerful as our master thinks." she taunted. Suddenly, she noticed the sorry state her allies were in after being battered by Silver, Vortex and Rainbow. "Grrrr! Those weaklings!" she snarled. Kosmo glanced back and chuckled. "I'm still better than most of your covenant." he said. Fera sighed. "Fine, Kosmo! Do as you like! I have more important things to do than mess around with an idiot like you!" she said, "Those of you who are NOT creations, come with me!" she shouted, leading most of her reinforcements away. "H-hey!! What about me, Fera!?" Zeke stammered as he was left behind. "Do you know what she's up to?" Kosmo asked him. "You kidding? She trusts the experiments about as much as you do." Zeke sighed. Rainbow went up to Zeke excitedly. "Oooh! What's your number?" she asked. "No way. I've heard about you. You're not calling me 'ten, ten, ten...'" he said hastily. "Good to meet ya, Ten!" Rainbow smiled. "Let'ssss jussst follow her trail." Vortex suggested. Kosmo stared at him, but Whisk smiled. "He's got my vote!" she said. "Can I come?" Zeke asked. "No way!" Silver shouted. Zipp fluttered beside Zeke as the others started after Fera. "Guess it's you and me, Zekers." he said. "I'm gonna find Fera. You go shoot yourself for calling me Zekers." he growled.

Kosmo, Silver, Rainbow, Vortex and Whisk continued through Lava Reef Zone, and came across a series of lava streams, with chunks of rock floating along the streams. "Oh, neat. Rafts. We don't have to fly across!" Whisk said. "It doesssn't look very sssafe, but Dessspair mussst have passsed here." Vortex said. "Well, thanks for the info. I guess we're going that way, too." said Espio as he and Charmy came up behind them. "What the!? Oh... It's only you, Espio..." Silver muttered. "Hey, why's this crowd hanging around Kosmo? Aren't you scared he's gonna EAT ya?" Charmy wondered. Kosmo growled softly and turned to the lava streams. "That's it! This place is too crowded for my taste! I'm going ahead!" he said, jumping to one of the rock chunks floating in the lava stream. "Oooh, wait! You can fly me across if the platform melts!" Rainbow shouted, jumping after him. "Come on, Charmy..." Espio said, jumping to the next rock platform. "Hey! We were here firssst!" Vortex hissed, leaping after them. With Silver and Whisk following behind, the group started a race from platform to platform across the lava floes, none wanting to be overtaken by the others. Eggman's Gohla robots were floating around the edges of the streams, and tried to fling their fireballs at them as they jumped by! "Whoa! Bad robot! I'm gonna sting you!" Charmy shouted, flying after one of the Gohlas in frustration. Whisk teleported to another of the robots and kicked it into the lava. "Ooops, I hope no one comes looking for that ball..." she muttered. Kosmo morphed into an echidna, and he and Rainbow started to glide ahead of the others. "Follow me, guys! I think we're almost there!" Rainbow giggled. There were still more robots along the way, but Espio went to work taking them out with his ninja stars. "Sssshow off!" Vortex hissed. Soon, they reached the other side of the lava streams, and as Silver floated to solid ground last with his psychokinesis, he noticed everyone stopped, looking nervous. "What's up?" he asked. There were piles of metal GUN crates ahead of them, meaning GUN had set up camp nearby.


Arriving in Lava Reef Zone, Sonic found the GUN camp quickly. GUN Agents were gathered around a cavern where the rock walls seemed to change to a bluish crystal color. "That must be our destination." Shadow said. "It looks like the Hidden Palace..." Tails realized. Sonic stayed back, out of the GUN Agents' sight. "So, how should we get in?" he wondered. "Eliminate all impediments in our path!" Omega suggested. "They're GUN, Omega! They can't help it if they're getting orders from Gunner!" Tails protested. Suddenly, the GUN Agents started to leave their posts, heading over to check out someone else nearby! It was Agent 16, Kosmo's GUN Agent disguise! "Well, they obviously weren't expecting to see that guy..." Sonic muttered. "Let's hurry by while they're distracted!" Shadow said. While Kosmo was chatting with the guards, he noticed Sonic, Tails, SPOT, Shadow and Omega sneaking their way to the cavern. "Wha....ooooh, is that the time? Uh, yeah, I'm under orders to relieve you guys now." Kosmo stammered. "What... by yourself?" one of the agents muttered. "Well, who's gonna make it down here? You guys should move up to the pyramid..." he replied. However, a loud crash was heard as Omega stumbled over a GUN crate. "Stupid human clutter!" he yelled, forcing Kosmo to point frantically to maintain his cover. "DUDES!! It's one of Eggman's robots!!" he shouted. "Where!?" Omega stammered, making Sonic and Tails slap their foreheads in annoyance. "You, Omega..." Shadow sighed. "It's Sonic! Don't let him reach Dr. Nammad!" one of the GUN Agents shouted. "SHOOT! It's Experiment 3!! I'm outta here!!" shouted Kosmo, quickly morphing back to normal before the GUN Agents could turn around. "Gaaaah!! Monster!! What've you done with Agent 16!?!" they shouted. "Wha? He ran, didn't you hear him?" Kosmo stammered. Sonic and the others proceeded into the cavern, only looking back briefly. "Did... Kosmo just help us??" Sonic stammered. Shadow shrugged. "Anything's possible..." he said with a knowing smirk.

Inside the cavern, they found themselves in the Hidden Palace where Sonic first laid eyes on the Master Emerald. Not far from the entrance, they found Professor Pickle standing before an open doorway, one that Sonic and Tails definitely didn't remember. "Professor!" Sonic shouted to get his attention. "Ah, Sonic... You're just in time!" he said. "The GUN blockade outside seems to imply we're late!" Shadow said. Professor Pickle nodded. "Well, it's a matter of perspective. Amy couldn't wait for you any longer and ran into this secret room here." he said. "Amyyyy...." Sonic sighed. The professor had a dire look on his face. "The... um... others got here first. Sonic, I'm afraid Amy is in danger!" he informed them. "Then we'd better hurry inside!" Tails said. Sonic glanced back. "Kosmo will be here any moment, I bet..." he murmured, "So, SPOT, you better stay with the professor. Get him outta here if Kosmo seems dangerous." he said. SPOT stepped beside the professor and sat down. "I will do my best." his monitor read. "Right... Well, then, I'll stay here and investigate this part of the ruins a bit." the professor muttered. Tails glanced at Sonic. "Kosmo just helped us. Do you really think he'd harm the professor?" he asked. "This talk is wasting time! Eggman's robots could be in there right now! We must proceed!" Omega declared, stomping into the secret doorway. Shadow shrugged. "There's enough to worry about without worrying about Kosmo. Let's keep moving." he said.

Kosmo, Silver, Rainbow, Vortex, Whisk, Espio and Charmy entered the room moments after the others headed through the secret doorway. "Some stealth back there, Kosmo..." Espio muttered. He and Charmy hurried through the secret doorway without stopping to notice Professor Pickle, but Kosmo stopped and glanced at him. "What's with you?" he wondered. The professor looked over at him and smiled. "Ah, did you come to research the ruins, too?" he asked. Silver scratched his head. "Um... no. C'mon, Kosmo, let's go." he said. "Ah, so you're this Kosmo Sonic was talking about..." Pickle muttered, "You don't appear dangerous." Rainbow's eyes lit up. "Oooh! Speedy's still here! He can help us!" she said. As they started toward the door, the professor spoke up. "I wouldn't go in there. There are GUN Agents and menacing animals in black uniforms... Perhaps you should wait out here with me and SPOT. It'll be safe here. We can discuss the mysteries of the ruins while we await Son--" he was interrupted by Kosmo. "I'm not afraid!" he said. "Maybe Whisssk sssshould wait here, though." Vortex mumbled. Pickle nodded. "Merely a suggestion. I only want to help you." he said. Kosmo glanced at him curiously. "Why would you do that? ...You don't know me... or any of us." he said. Pickle smiled. "I'm a teacher. It's in my nature." he explained. "Hm? Your... nature...?" Kosmo muttered. "Yes... Think about it, Kosmo. What would you say is your nature?" Pickle mused, turning back to his examination of the nearby ruins. "Huh...? This guy... He's asking me questions like Shadow..." Kosmo thought as he and the others started into the secret doorway. "...Strangely nice, for a human..." he mumbled. The professor smiled to himself as they peacefully walked past him. "You know, SPOT, I think he actually has a good nature. Perhaps he just needs people to approach him with kindness rather than fear..." he said.

The secret door first led to a familiar mural, depicting a certain hedgehog battling it out with a massive machine holding the Master Emerald. However, this was a duplicate mural, and there was a path beyond it leading to an even more elaborate display... but that display was rapidly being demolished by the actions of the people who'd gotten there first!


Chapter 20 - Hidden Palace Brawl
Stage 11-12(Hero & Dark 6) - Molten Sands
Boss 11 - Anubis
Boss 12 - F-8S Hotfoot

Note: Sonic the Hedgehog and related characters are (c) SEGA and 
Sonic Team. You knew that, right?
GeneX and related fanchars are (c) 2BIT (TheGreatGator), the author.


Behind the familiar mural of the hedgehog fighting for the Master Emerald, there was a larger, more elaborate mural depicting all of the Chaos Relics. Drawn on the mural were several golden objects including a pair of gauntlets, a deck of cards, some winged boots, a shining cape, a sword, a key, and two familiar gold rings. Several drawings on the wall had been blasted, making it impossible to tell what they were, but it seemed apparent that there had been at least ten drawings there, and possibly more. An orange GUN walker was shooting at Zeke and Zipp near the back of the room, and Amy was backed to the wall, caught between them. Fera, Dr. Nammad, and Agent 64 were watching the battle, while Fera's backup was busy battling it out with Nammad's robots. Sonic ran right past the distracted grunts and approached the doctor. "Hey, Dr. Nutjob!" he shouted. Tails, Shadow, Omega, and Kosmo's group were not far behind. "Fera! What are you doing!?" Kosmo yelled. "Were you, uh, addressing me?" Nammad muttered to Sonic, turning around. Fera turned to Kosmo as well. "Go away, you treacherous worm! Unless you'd care to help us trash the place..." she said. Espio and Charmy were looking around from the back of the room awkwardly. "Rats! They came all this way just to blow the place up!" Charmy groaned. "It's probably best to go back and report this to Vector..." Espio muttered, the two of them heading out before things could get any further out of hand. "Wait, why would Despair want to trash this place?" Tails wondered. Dr. Nammad shrugged. "Ask, uh, them. I can only assume it's to, uh, stop us from discovering the, uh, secrets of this place." he said. Silver pointed an accusing finger at him. "Hey! Hold on! Your mech is causing a lot of damage, too!" he shouted. "Silence, hedgehog! I won't, uh, tolerate any back-talk from civilians! I'm, uh, wiping out these terrorists!" Nammad snapped. "What a human way to spin it!" Kosmo growled. "Shiny! Three! Stay focused!" Rainbow stammered. Sonic stared at her. "Shiny? Three?? They're all buddy buddy now?" he muttered. Tails tapped him on the shoulder. "Sonic! You should stay focused, too! Don't forget Amy!" he said. Amy was clutching her hammer nervously. "I'm glad SOMEONE noticed me back here!! That mech and that dragon are having a grudge match and I can't get through!" she shouted. One of Fera's companions, Anubis the jackal, stepped away from the battle with the GUN robots to further block Amy. "You will not escape! You pesky hedgehogs have been following me for too long. This pyramid will now be YOUR tomb!" he snarled.

Sonic dashed away from Dr. Nammad and swiftly tackled Anubis away from Amy! "You want a pesky hedgehog? You got it!" he said. However, Kosmo suddenly dropped down between them in gargoyle form! Sonic raised his fists, but Kosmo pointed toward Amy. "Go! She's stuck in that crossfire, dummy!" he shouted. Sonic scratched his head. "If this is a trap, I'll--" However, Fera suddenly flung a bolt of darkness at Kosmo. "Grrr, YOU!!" she shouted. "Okaaaaay... Not a trap..." Sonic said, running for the GUN mech, which was shooting jets of flames at Zeke. "Hey, hothead!" Sonic shouted. Zeke dropped to the ground and rapidly flapped his singed wings. "Arrrrrgh!! This mech is crazy!!" he yelped. "And me without a bazooka." Zipp sighed. Dr. Nammad glanced at this scene and smirked. "Oh, uh, good. We're winning. Hotfoot, kill them all. The uh, girl, too." he said. "Wh-what!?" Kosmo stammered, turning away from Fera and Anubis suddenly. "You see? Humans are scum." Fera grinned. Silver stepped forward. "Kosmo, she's just trying to mess with your head!" he said. Suddenly, Agent 64 stepped in front of Dr. Nammad. "Doctor... The girl's just an innocent bystander!" he said with disdain. "Who's in, uh, charge here?" Nammad said, glaring at him. Anubis was taking advantage of Kosmo's indecision to try to sneak up on Sonic, but a Chaos Spear stopped him and alerted Sonic! Shadow jumped beside Sonic and glanced at Hotfoot. "I'll take care of this. You handle Anubis, Sonic." However, Hotfoot ignored the hedgehogs and charged at Zeke, making him panic and grab Amy hastily. "Waaah!! What're you doing!?" she shouted. "Human-err-hedgehog shield! Hedgehog shield!!!" Zeke screamed. Kosmo swiftly flew between Hotfoot and Zeke, morphing his tail into a fox tail to give the cockpit a swift tail whip! "Not so fast, scrap metal!" he growled. Observing this, Anubis turned to both Sonic and Shadow. "How amusing... Well, let's see if I can finish with you in time to destroy your girlfriend myself!" he snarled, creating fireballs in his hands!

As Hotfoot started to target Kosmo, something truly unexpected happened. Bolts of lightning streamed across the room and struck the mech, stunning it! "Get...away...from my experiments Nammad!!" Dr. Nammad turned with a start when he recognized the voice. "B-b-b-Bucky!!" he stammered. Kosmo stared for a moment, then shook his head. "I can handle this myself old man!" he shouted. Bucky pushed past any Despair or GUN forces in his way as he made his way through the room. "Huh? Bucky's here now!?" Sonic stammered. "You've got your own troubles!" Anubis growled. However, Fera saw Anubis facing both Sonic and Shadow and got an idea. "Bucky... I believe Kosmo's right. Let him handle Nammad. I hereby order you as an Agent of Despair to kill Sonic the Hedgehog!" she declared. Bucky stopped short, and the eyes of Vortex, Zipp and Zeke fell on him. "What?" he gasped. "You heard me... Or are you disloyal as well?" Fera sneered. Bucky looked around. "As well as who-- I mean... Very well, Fera..." he sighed, marching over to Sonic and Shadow, sparks starting to crackle from his fingers, "Sonic... I'm afraid this is the end for you!" he shouted. Making things even more dangerous, Metal Sonic came blasting into the room, accompanied by Char and Alpha, who immediately went flying towards Kosmo! "Wheeeee! Robot power! Hiya, freak face!" Alpha chuckled. "Hahahaha! If it isn't the guy that tried to eat us all! Let's gang up on him, Alphie!" Char giggled. Dr. Nammad looked a bit confused. "Eggman's robot? ...Whatever. It's, uh, helping." he sighed. "Ooops... He must've followed me..." muttered Ridley the coati, who was hiding behind the mural at the front of the room. 

With intense battles shaping up, everyone started picking sides. "Metal Sonic! You dare show yourself again!? Now I will prove myself the superior robot!" Omega shouted, "Then, that crazed robot is next!" Silver, Rainbow and Whisk looked particularly worried about Kosmo. "He can't handle all of them alone... I have to help!" Silver said, rushing to join the battle with Hotfoot and Alpha. "Viola... What are you mixed up in...?" Rainbow whimpered, "Wait right there, Three! I'll help out, too!" she said, attempting to follow Silver, only to be blocked by Corky the frog. "Not so fast, lassy! Ya pulled my tongue, and ya snapped it back like a yo-yo a' pain! Now I git to do the same ta you!" he growled. Meanwhile, Tails started running to help Sonic, but Zipp got in his way! "Hey, squirt, you aren't planning to pick a fight with my boss again, are ya?" he said, pointing a gun at his head. "Don't make me squash ya, Zipp! You tricked me back at Chaos Shrine, and I won't let you mess with me again!" he warned. "Funny... Let's see how cute you are with bullet holes..." Zipp growled, forcing Tails to run as he started shooting at him! Whisk was looking around, seeming a bit dazed, but then looked at Kosmo and Silver. "Oh! They... They look familiar... And those robots are after them! No! I'll stop 'em!" she said, only to have her tail yanked by Vortex before she could go. "It'sss not our fight! If we want to do ssssomething, we sssshould help our creator!" he suggested. Whisk looked around. "Huh? Wha? The creator is in here? But if he created the heavens and everything, why's he need our help?" Whisk wondered. Vortex sighed in frustration. "Massster mussst fix your mind..." he sighed. A number of GUN robots surrounded them at this point, so plans to help the others would have to wait. As the battle lines were drawn, Carrie walked nonchalantly into the room. "Well, now... This IS interesting, isn't it?" she muttered. Dr. Nammad's modified beetle blocked her way as she came up behind him. "Intruder! You dare sneak up on Dr. Nammad!?" the beetle yelled. "Who?" Nammad muttered, turning around. Agent 64 shrugged and concentrated on Kosmo while Nammad was distracted. "Guess I'm in charge... Hotfoot! Stop Experiment 3 at all costs!" he ordered.

Red energy spheres attached to Hotfoot's legs started to glow, charging the mech until it fired a burning laser in Kosmo's direction! He flapped out of the way, still in gargoyle form, but started getting pelted with shots from Alpha! "Hey! Outta my way jerky jerks! I can't see anyone's mittens in front of my face!" the crazy robot shouted. "Hey! Leave him alone!" Silver yelled, grabbing Alpha with his powers! His concentration was broken when Char smacked him in the head, and Alpha started shooting at him, too! "Ha! No one gets the jump on us!" Char said, sticking out his tongue. Agent 64 watched this nervously. "Hotfoot might be in trouble if Eggman's robot turns on it... Better send in some bombers." he said. Thus, as Kosmo attempted to approach the flamethrowing Hotfoot mech, he soon found himself circled from above by several Bomb Hawks! "Oh, just great..." he grumbled. Kosmo backed off as bombs came raining down towards him, and he morphed into a Flicky as Hotfoot started charging its mighty heat laser again! "I'd better be hard to hit right now..." he tweeted. Seeing the bombers, Silver smiled. "Just what I need!" he said, grabbing a nearby robot with his powers and hurling it at Alpha! "Whaaaa!! Watch where I'm flying!!" he shouted, turning to blast the robot that was tossed at him. "Alphie! Focus! It was Silver!!" Char shouted. "If hitting a Chao didn't feel wrong, I'd toss you next..." Silver sighed. Meanwhile, Kosmo the Flicky flew above some of the Bomb Hawks, and Hotfoot fired its heat laser straight at them, the beam piercing right through the robots and forcing Kosmo to fly hastily out of the way! He then morphed into his own, purple version of Hotfoot while he was above some more bombers, crushing them under the weight of the heavy mech form! "He... He can copy Hotfoot!?" Agent 64 shouted, panicked. The mech backed away a step, unsure how to react. However, Kosmo could not copy its weapon systems, and could only shoot weak lasers from its guns. "How do you charge that thing?" he chuckled, morphing back to normal. "Get him!!" Agent 64 yelled.

Sonic and Shadow found themselves evading fireballs and bolts of lightning as Anubis and Bucky started their assault on them! Setting a wall of flame to separate himself from them, Anubis started to cast a spell. "Agents of despair, rise!! Break their bones while I burn them to ashes!!" he called, waving his hands over the ground. Suddenly, several mummified hands wrapped in black bandages burst out of the ground! "Pay up, Sonic. Seems the mummies were with him." Shadow said. Bucky zapped the hedgehogs quickly while they were distracted, stunning them briefly. "You don't stand a chance against us both, Sonic!" he growled. "I got bored, like, twelve threats ago!" Sonic panted. As Bucky and Anubis were about to assault the stunned hedgehogs, Tails jumped in and struck Bucky with a tail whip! "Gah! Prower!!" he yelled. "Leave Sonic alone!!" Tails shouted. Zipp had tried to stop Tails, but GUN's robots intervened, and now he was busy trying to keep them off his tail. Anubis pointed at Tails, and the mummies started to approach him. "What!? M-m-mummies again!?" he stammered. "You will suffer for interfering..." Anubis growled. His smugness was interrupted by a homing attack to the face! "Put a sock in it, mummy boy!" Sonic said. Anubis retaliated by shooting jets of flames from his hands at Sonic, who sped around, taunting him as he evaded the fire! Shadow smacked Bucky with a Chaos Spear, prompting him to take to the air, firing streams of lightning from his fingers as Shadow sped out of the way as well. "You shouldn't have interfered, Shadow! It's a waste to destroy Gerald's creation!" he yelled. "Hmph... Just try to destroy me, old man!" Shadow scoffed. During this, Tails was frantically fleeing from the mummies. If Omega couldn't destroy them with explosives, he didn't expect he'd have better luck. "Go away! Go away!!" he cried, dodging and weaving between Anubis's flames and Bucky's lightning as he ran. Little did he notice, the mummies were being burned and broken by those projectiles. However, Bucky soon gave up on Shadow and zapped the panicked Tails! "Hey! You dirty rat!" Sonic yelled, jumping away from Anubis to go after Bucky!

Rainbow had goaded Corky into using his tongue again, and managed to tie him up with it, to his aggravation. Omega and Metal Sonic had reached a stalemate when the Covenant of Despair agents in the room decided to try to eliminate them, and rapidly began to regret it. Vortex, Zipp and Whisk were rapidly taking out the GUN robots in the room. This left Hotfoot, Anubis and Bucky. Silver managed to grab Alpha again and hurled him at Hotfoot, confusing and angering the robot. "Stupid mech! You hit me! Now you go BOOM!!" With Alpha suddenly distracting Hotfoot with a gunfight, Kosmo took advantage of this chance to target the machine's energy spheres. "Let's see what happens when I blow these up! Kosmos!!" The powerful beams fired from his eyes struck one of the energy spheres as Hotfoot was charging it, causing the mech to backfire and explode! Meanwhile, Sonic and Shadow kept the pressure on Anubis and Bucky, but both of them kept attacking relentlessly. Tails backed off for safety's sake after recovering from Bucky's attack. Sonic and Shadow soon found themselves standing back to back between Bucky and Anubis. "That's it... Let's wrap this up, Sonic..." Shadow panted. "All right... Ready, set..." Sonic muttered. As Bucky and Anubis launched more attacks their way, Sonic bounced high into the air, while Shadow vanished with Chaos Control! In their confusion, Bucky and Anubis didn't see their attacks coming at each other right away! "Gaaaaaah!! Impossible!!" Anubis wailed as Bucky's lightning zapped him! Bucky howled in pain upon being struck with the flames, and Carrie looked to him in panic. "Oh! Bucky!" she gasped. "Time I made my move..." Ridley said from the shadows.

In the aftermath of the battles, Kosmo and Silver turned their attention to trying to save Amy from Zeke. "Wait... What are you gonna do to me when I don't have a shield anymore?" Zeke asked, refusing to release Amy from his grip. At the same time, Fera was stepping in to deal with Sonic. "You're a much bigger pain in the butt than I imagined, Sonic." she growled. "Leave him, Fera! We're wasting time!" Bucky panted. "I'm not one of your mindless creations, rat!" Fera snarled, "You can't boss me around!" Just then, Amy stomped Zeke's foot and smacked his face with her hammer, attempting to escape from him! "YEOW! Why you little!!" Zeke howled. "Amy! I forgot about Amy!!" Sonic gasped. "Hm...? Oh, very well. You go, then. While you're gone, we'll annihilate this place!" Fera grinned, making Sonic hesitate. "Shadow and I can take care of her!" Tails suggested. However, Ridley suddenly blocked Sonic's path! "Well, you've no time for shenanigans right now, hedgehog! I suggest you clear out!" he said. Sonic was surprised by him, and a sudden Chaos Splash in his face slowed him down even more! "Yaaaah!! Water!!" he cried. Meanwhile, Dr Nammad's modified beetle had its gun trained on Carrie, and she wasn't putting up a fight, so he turned his attention to the matter at hand. "Let's take advantage of all the, uh, diversions and have the, uh, beetle finish the job..." he muttered. However, Carrie was sick of standing idly by. "One side, doc! Comin' through!" she said, attempting to shove past him and make her way to Bucky. Nammad grabbed her arm and flung her in front of the beetle again. "I warned you not to, uh, interfere a moment ago, didn't I? Beetle, use Chaos Avalanche." he ordered. Agent 64's face turned white. "Wait! Stop!! YOU'RE CRAZY!! You'll bury us all!!!" he shouted, catching everyone's attention. "That sounds bad..." Silver muttered. "You don't scare me! I'm Experiment 14!" Carrie shouted, her fists glowing as she prepped an attack! "Fourteen, no!" Bucky shouted, causing Carrie to seemingly fumble, resulting in a pitiful punch that didn't even dent Nammad's beetle. "That's uh, it? Seriously Bucky?" Nammad mumbled. Fera smirked. "But I can finish it off, no problem!" she chuckled.

Agent 64 started to run like crazy, heading for the exit to the chamber. Dr. Nammad apparently intended to bury everyone inside the secret room so that they could never get in GUN's way again! With the situation looking dire, Shadow pushed Ridley aside so Sonic could go after Amy! "Sonic! This dragon has awful breath!" she cried. "...Hey!" Zeke frowned, only to get kicked in the face by Sonic seconds later, who then started to carry Amy away. Kosmo, meanwhile, had morphed into his own speedy hedgehog form, and dashed over to Carrie, picking her up and taking her away from Dr. Nammad! "Kosmo? You came to rescue me?" she stammered. "You seemed to be in trouble..." he said. Nammad was a little surprised by this, but it only made him want to hasten his attack. "Uhhhh... FIRE!" he yelled. "Let's try to make a massive explosion!" Fera smirked, approaching the beetle while charging dark energy, planning to strike it while it was using Chaos Avalanche! "Shiny! We gotta get outta here!" Rainbow cried, rushing over to Silver. The tremors caused by Chaos Avalanche drew SPOT and Professor Pickle's attention, and he ran into the room as Omega, Metal Sonic, Char and Alpha were leaving. "Retreat!!" Omega yelled. "Sonic!? Tails!? What's happening? The cavern is shaking!" the professor panted. "Eeeeek!! Teleport power! Do something!" Whisk cried. "Wait, Whisk! Over here! I have an idea for you!" Bucky shouted, drawing her near most of the others. Kosmo took Carrie out of the chamber without looking back, while Zeke, Ridley and most of the Covenant of Despair were fleeing as well. As Fera fired a beam of dark energy at Nammad's beetle, Whisk began to glow brilliantly at the same time a terrible explosion rocked the chamber! Agent 64 waited for a moment in Lava Reef Zone, and the only one he saw emerge from the cave was Dr. Nammad. "Sir! How did you get out?" he asked. "Gotta be the, uh, shoes." he said, pointing at smoke trails coming from his boots, "Gunner should be, uh, pleased. We seem to have neutralized quite a few, uh, threats..." he grinned.

To be continued...    ...    ...    ...    BZZ BVZZZ ZZZT!!!

The crumbling of the ceiling in the secret Hidden Palace chamber knocked open a part of the back wall, next to the Chaos Relic mural. Here stood Fera, safe after the explosion. "It seems I've located the true secret chamber..." she said, stepping into the dark room. Some dimly lit torches revealed a partially worn mural at the back, quite similar to the mural of the hedgehog battling the robot for the Master Emerald. This one, however, depicted two echidnas, on opposite sides. Between them, a hooded figure adorned with a crown stood mightily, red eyes piercing through the blackness covering his face. Fera gasped, seeming to recognize the echidnas in the mural. Parts of the mural were worn, and seemed to hide objects in each person's possession. Fera shrugged and blasted the mural to pieces using her dark magic, dusting her hands once that was done. "Mission accomplished..." she sighed, teleporting away. One chunk of the mural remained intact, depicting an echidna cloaked in an aura of darkness...

STILL to be continued...