Sonic Series Fan Fiction ❯ The Fallen ❯ The Fallen ( Chapter 1 )

The Fallen

Entry to 2003 NetRaptor Fanfiction Contest

By Brian Bloomfield

Part One

Sally's fingers raced across Nicole's keyboard. She had a grave look on her face as she downloaded words from her brain to the computer before her. She had been keeping a log of recent events and was updating it.

"June 3rd. Robotropolis has been devastated. It is the first time we have been able to spare Sonic, and his report was startling. Most of the big buildings are down. No factories are running. All power is out. The robots--even SWATbots--are wandering around with no orders.

"We heard the earthquake was a 9.2, then heard later it was a 5.4. It sure wrecked Knothole, whatever it was. We have no electricity and no running water. Many of our huts collapsed. There is one dead and

fourteen injured, and we are preparing for aftershocks."

Sally leaned back and ran one hand through her hair. Nicole, being battery-operated, was the only computer for miles that worked. From her position on the ground she could see across the village. Freedom Fighters and villagers alike were poking through the rubble, looking for anything worth keeping. Everyone was in a sort of daze.

The earthquake had struck the previous afternoon. No one had rested much since then, and were living in terror of the inevitable aftershocks.

"Sonic," someone called. Sally turned to see Tails, a bandage wound around his head, standing unsteadily beside a tree.

Sally jumped up and went to him. "Tails, you shouldn't be up. Go lie down."

Tails let himself be turned and escorted back to where the other

injured people were. "But where's Sonic?"

"He went to Robotropolis."

"Why?"

"Because--" Sally stopped and swallowed her words. Sonic had asked her not to tell Tails. "Just because," she finished.

Tails gave her a cold, somewhat superior look. "They're looking for Bunnie, huh?"

Sally was startled. "How did you know?"

"I may have a concussion, but I'm not stupid," said Tails. "He's been worrying ever since he saw what happened to Robotropolis."

*****

Sonic raced down the abandoned city street deep inside Robotropolis. The only inhabitance of the devastated city were the 'bots, and with the main computer offline, they just wondered around, no mission, no objective. As he sped past a group of SWATbots just standing in the street, a shiver when down his back.

'This place is mondo-creepy' Sonic thought as he turned down a alleyway and stopped. 'Sooner I find Bunnie, sooner I can go home.'

Sonic grabbed a manhole cover in the ground and pulled as hard as he could. After a few tries, it finally moved out of place and he dropped it onto the ground. The clang reverberated through the empty alley around Sonic. He looked down into the dark and foreboding hole and shivered. Grabbing the edge, he swung himself onto the ladder and began to make his way down to the water tunnel below. Once safely on the edge of the underground stream, he pulled out the map. At the end of the tunnel was another manhole. A building beside that was Bunnie's last reported location before the quake.

'Even if she's not there, she couldn't have gotten far.' Sonic put the map away and pulled out a glow stick. All the flashlights were in use in Knothole, or they were broken. He cracked it and waited until the comforting green glow was bright, then started his journey down the tunnel.

*****

Sally was still updating her log when Rotor rushed in, followed by Antoine. They both were carrying what looked like large, rolled maps.

She stopped typing and shot Rotor a questioning look.

He smiled. "Me an' Antoine were looking through the old archives and found these."

Sally took one and opened it, she immediately recognized the outline of Mobotropolis, before Robotnik's takeover. She shook her head in confusion. "What is it?"

"Geological maps. Using the information Nicole picked up from the quake, we can map a estimation of aftershocks."

Realizing the importance this could hold, she immediately saved her report and stepped away from Nicole. "By all means."

Rotor sat at the keyboard and typed while Antoine rattled off long chains of numbers from the maps. After a few minutes, they finished. Rotor loaded a list of possible aftershocks and their locations.

"We're in luck Princess. Most of these will be very quiet. One however, will be kinda rough, but we're far enough away from it's epicenter that'll..."

"Wait!" Sally spoke quickly. "Where will it strike?"

Rotor typed a little more and brought up a map of Robotropolis. "It'll be a 2.9 and it'll hit in sector 12 of Robotropolis in 4 minutes."

Sally looked at the map and turned a very unhealthy color. Just a few hundred feet from the epicenter was the main water tunnel in Robotropolis. The tunnel Sonic had to go through.

*****

Sonic was approaching a S-curve in the tunnel when his glow stick suddenly began to pulse softly. He stopped puzzled, and walked forward a little bit. The pulsing increased in intensity. Sonic backed up and the soft glow returned to normal.

"What the hey...?" Sonic said softly to no one in particular. He shook his head and continued forward. He had to investigate.

Soon the glow stick was wildly strobing. He continued on, a little unnerved. Without warning, the glow stick died and started to become icy in his grip. He dropped it in suprise letting it clatter to cement before rolling into the water. He reached into his pack for another glow stick, but found the remaining were frozen solid.

'This is too bizarre...' Sonic thought. He continued forward in the dark. Soon, he thought he saw a soft green glow in the tunnel ahead.

*****

"What's wrong, Sal?" Rotor asked, confused by her reaction at what he thought was good news. She picked up a piece of paper and handed it to Rotor. He quickly read it and looked back up at her. She was fingering her golden wedding ring.

"If Sonic's in that tunnel when the quake hits..." Rotor began. Sally nodded. He didn't need to say anymore. If Sonic was in the tunnel when the quake hit, the tunnel would collapse, crushing her husband under tons of rubble and steel. They'd never be able to find the body.

*****

Sonic rounded the curve and stopped, shocked. Floating above the water was a glowing sphere, green energy arching across it's silver surface. Mist drifted down from it onto the water's surface.

"What in the world?" Sonic murmured, slightly alarmed by the unknown. He had never seen anything like this. His hands began to feel cold and clammy.

"Man...Sorry, Bunnie, but I am outta here..." Sonic began to turn when he thought he felt something. He saw the water was trembling slightly.

*****

Rotor looked at Nicole's screen as small lines on a graph began to move slightly. The countdown clock in the corner reached zero. The lines built in intensity.

"Here we go..." Rotor croaked. Sally gripped the back of the chair tightly. Her knuckles were a deathly white.

*****

Sonic heard a rumble and the world began to shake around him. Oddly, after a few seconds, the trembling lessened. He looked back and saw the sphere was glowing brighter and brighter. Energy began to arch to the water's surface. A deathly silence settled around him as the trembling stopped completely. He turned and began to quickly make his way back down the tunnel when a bright flash of light came from behind him. He was turning when a massive rumbling began to fill the tunnel. Then the world exploded. A high pitched whistling filled the air as the sphere burst into fire. The shockwave knocked Sonic off of his feet. Looking at where the sphere had been, Sonic saw something. Barely conscious, Sonic's last thought before he passed out was 'It kinda looks like...sand...'

*****

Rotor stared at his monitor. "What in the world is going on?" Sally shook her head. "It's as if the quake keeps...hesitating...that's impossible, the sensor must be faulty!"

Rotor looked at the growing reading and shook his head. "No, something else is going on...something we've never seen before." Rotor turned towards Sally. "It's like something is absorbing the quake's energy. And if he's still alive, I bet I know who's responsible for this."

*****

"Phoenix armed for detonation, Doctor."

In the darkened control room in the middle the ruined city, Robotnik sat, bleeding, semiconscious, at the only active computer in the room. He concentrated on making sure he finished his last task.

"After years of fighting, I finally have been defeated..." Robotnik thought out loud in the desolate control room as he entered commands into the machine. Snively was gone, killed in the quake.

Robotnik continued. "But not by those meddling morons in the forest. I have been defeated by the city I ruled with an iron fist. Now, that city rules me." Robotnik pressed enter, watching data pour by on the monitor.

"But, before I bid farewell to this planet, I have a gift." Robotnik pushed a button labeled "Buildup to Detonation" and a timer clicked on marked for 30 seconds. He let his finger rest on a button marked "Commit".

"Now is the time for the Phoenix to burn." Robotnik sputtered with his dying breath. He smiled coldly.

"At least I'll finally get that blasted hedgehog..." Robotnik pushed the button as he stopped breathing. The click was like a scream in the silent control room. The timer began to count down silently. A distant rumble could be felt.

*****

In the tunnel, the sand sphere was beginning to rotate rapidly. It flattened out into a disk shape with a bump in the middle. This bump began to turn blood red.

*****

In the control room, Robotnik slouched over the console, the timer on the panel reached zero.

*****

In Knothole, Tails, having been released by the doctor, was standing on the last standing lookout tower, watching Robotropolis when he saw a giant explosion, flames licking the coal-black sky.

'That would be Sonic, making an exit.' Tails thought at first. Then as he watched, something strange began to happen. What looked like a violent sandstorm began to build over the explosion. The storm began to push it's way outward and envelope the city. All the buildings in the storms path began to crumble. In a few minutes he watched the storm envelope and destroy the entire city in a sort of hypnotic trance. He was shaken back into reality by a single thought.

'The storm's heading for Knothole.'

Before he even knew what he was doing, he jumped from the lookout tower and flew quickly to the hut Amy and Rouge shared. Running in, he found them both making repairs to the wall in their kitchen.

"Quick, get to the Tornado!" Before he could explain, he was out and running towards Sally's hut. He was driven by a single, riveting thought.

"When that thing gets here, we better be gone."

*****

Sally was gaping at the sight before her. She had just seen a dust cloud destroy her city...and her husband. She had no doubts Sonic was dead. When Tails barged into her hut, Antoine and Rotor were already gone, leaving her alone to bear witness to the carnage of the storm.

"Come on, Sally! We've got to go!" Tails grabbed her arm but she shrugged him off. He stared at her in wonder.

"What's wrong with you! We need to leave, NOW!" Tails grabbed her arm again but she pushed him off.

"Run Tails, run while you still can." Tails gazed at her in amazement.

'She's gone mad.' Tails thought as she turned back to Nicole to watch the storm build. He turned and ran from the hut, heading for the Tornado. He wanted to stay and make Sally come with him, but he knew he couldn't.

He knew he was out of time.

*****

Tails ran up to the Tornado and leaped in, slamming the cabin door shut behind him. Amy and Rouge were in the passenger compartment, strapping in.

"Hold on, this is going to be rough." Tails said as he walked into the cockpit. He jumped into the Pilot's seat and began starting the Tornado's engines. Once started he aligned the plane with the runway and pushed the throttle all the was forward. The Tornado hurled down the runway as the edge of the storm reached the other side of Knothole. Pulling back on the yoke, the Tornado began to gain air. The plane began to jerk as the tail caught the edge winds of the storm, which had already consumed half of Knothole. Tails flipped on the afterburners and the Tornado surged forward. Behind the rising plane, Knothole disintegrated.

End of Part One

Part Two

Rain was thundering against the ground in the abandoned ruins of Station Square. It had been in a state of desolation since the beginning of the Great War. No one knew what had happened to the Overlanders there, one night they had just disipeared. The buildings were in a state of pitiful disrepair. One building, however, looked well-cared for. The white paint looked like it was fresh, flowers bloomed out front, and the building stood tall and sound. It was a church. The front doors opened out into the rain and reveiled a jet black creature clother in a robe. His white gloves pulled back his hood reveiling his face. He shut his maroon eyes and looked up into the refreshing rain. He stayed like this for several moments, thinking back to the day he had died.

He had been on his way to Station Square, when he ran into a convoy of Robotnik's robots. They had overtaken him and followed their programming, leaving him for dead after 15 grewling hours of "interrogation".

After this there was a blank, then he had woke up, lying on a grave, his name on the stone. It had terrorfied him at first, waking up in an abandoned city, but over the years he had become accoustomed to the isolation. He had taken up the priesthood of the church, restoring it to it's former splendor. He now spent the days worshiping or reading.

But not tonight, tonight he stood in the rain and he listened. It was the same voice that had guided him since he awoken, the voice full of love and compassion, like a mother talking to a child.

"Prepair. You have company coming."

Over and over the voice repeated itself. Finally, after a few minutes, the voice stopped, and he walked back inside to change his soaking robe. He had a lot to do.

*****

A hour later, in the graveyard of the church, rain continued to pour down upon the earth. All was still, the water pooling on the ground in the night. In the back corner of the graveyard, something, almost unseen, moved. For a moment longer, all was still again. Then a dirty white glove pushed thru the muddy graveyard soil. A red arm clawed for purchase, dragging a red echidna out into the night.

Gripping a wound on his stomach, the echidna wailed in agony. Inside the church, the priest raised his head. He thought he had heard something.

*****

"Give us your money punk!" The leader, Knuckles thought he was the leader, demanded, shoving Knuckles roughly against the dirty brick wall in the dark alley. Knuckles grinned.

"Please..." Knuckles said. Did these punks realize who they were dealing with? The guarding of Angel Island had no time to deal with punks. Knuckles gave the idiot a swift uppercut, knocking him backwards. Before he realized what had happened, he heard a sharp crack as another punk stepped forward. Knuckles felt something wet on his shirt. He looked down and nearly passed out.

`Ohnononono...' Knuckles thought as he became lightheaded. He slid down the wall and the gang stepped forward and began searching him for money, jewelry.

`Can't they even wait until I'm dead?' Knuckles thought. He slid into blackness.

*****

But not tonight. Tonight Knuckles was very much awake, and in pain. Oh the PAIN! His shouts of agony tore through the silent night like a banshee, delivering the news of torture for all to hear. He gripped his midsection for what seemed like forever, before passing out.

When he slowly came to, the first this he noticed was that he wasn't in pain any longer. The second was that he was dry and warm. He sat up in the cot he was laying on. Next to him was a bookcase, filled with hardback volumes, all dog-eared and well-worn. On his other side was a fire place, keeping the room warm on the chilly night. He stood up to find no evidence he was ever wounded. At all. No scar tissue, just perfect skin covered with red fur. He also found himself in a robe.

"Where am I, a church?" Knuckles thought out loud.

The door opened and a black hegdehog walked in. "As a matter of fact, you are." The hedgehog reached out his hand. "I'm Shadow, the priest here. Welcome to Station Square."

Shaking Shadow's hand, Knuckles introduced himself.

"Knuckles."

Shadow laughed a little. "Well, you seem to be alright. Would you like something to eat?"

A few minutes later, both of them were sitting down at the wooden table in the kitchen. Knuckles was full of questions.

"Where did you find me?" Knuckles asked, putting a spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth.

"Outside, in the grave yard." Shadow said levelly, sipping a cup of coffee. Knuckles let his spoon clatter loudly into his empty bowl.

"Wait, what do you mean in the graveyard?" Shadow put his coffee down on the table and pulled his hood up.

"I want to show you something. Follow me."

Numbly, Knuckles followed Shadow back out into the freezing night. It had stopped raining and was still dark, but Knuckles could tell from the charcoal grey sky it was almost dawn.

Shadow stopped next to a grave. "This is where I found you." He pointed down to the hole in the ground, just big enough to let a person through.

Knuckles went down to his knees in shock. "...how..how am..how...?"

Shadow got on his knees and wrapped an arm around the trembling echidna.

"Come back inside and I'll explain." Shadow said softly to Knuckles. Knuckles didn't move.

"I'll just say this. You are choosen. Just as I am." Shadow got to his feet. "Come inside, and I'll tell you your fate." Shadow turned and walked across to graveyard. Knuckles heard the oak church door open and close. After a few more minutes of thinking, Knuckles followed.

Inside, they both sat down at the table again, Shadow pouring Knuckles a cup of coffee. They both sat and waited. Finally, Shadow began to speak.

"Knuckles, the planet is in grave danger. Dr. Ivo Robotnik was killed in a earthquake on the southern continent, but he activated a weapon of sorts before he died. A sand storm is building, massive. Right now it covers almost half of the southern continent. Eventully, it will engulf the entire planet, destroying everything and everyone in it's path." Shadow paused to drink his coffee.

"We both were killed. I woke up in almost the same place you did. After a while, I got used to the idea. I took over this church, and that's when I heard her voice. Destiny. The mother of creation."

Knuckles looked at Shadow in suprise. Shadow thought the look was a skeptical look.

"We've both been awaken for one purpose. We are here to stop the destruction of Mobius. During my time here, I have gained insight into some things. I have come to realize that all life is precious. Overlanders and Mobians alike." Shadow stood.

"After this is all over, you can do what you wish. You may return to the planet, to Destiny's cradle. Or you can live forever. It's entirely up to you. We are the only ones who can do this, Knuckles. But we won't be alone either. Do you accept?"

Knuckles took a drink out of his coffee and nodded his head solomly. A puzzled look crosed his face.

"Who's going to help us?" Knuckles asked Shadow smiled.

"Three very special people."

*****

Tails leaned back in his seat and yawned. He was almost done setting up the plane's autopilot, then he could go back and take a nap. He had been flying the plane for ten hours, trying to decide the plane's safest course. He flicked a switch, laid down the flight operations handbook, and unbuckled the straps that held him in. He got up and walked back into the main cabin. Amy and Rogue looked up at him.

"I've set the autopilot to take us to a city on the nothern continent. I wanted to get us as far as posisible from the storm. The city is barely inside the Tornado's range, but we'll make it.

Rouge handed Tails a bottle of water and he took it, eagerely. After drinking from it, he sat down in one of the seats.

"What's the name of the city?" Amy asked, curiously.

"Station Square." Tails replied, reclining the seat and stifling a yawn.

"I'm gonna catch a few winks, is that alright?" Both of the girls nodded. Tails closed his eyes and was out almost like a light.

He woke what felt like a eternity later. Amy and Rouge was shaking him and yelling at him.

"I'm up!" He snapped, pulling the seat into it's normal position. He was going to say more, but he heard a buzzing that silenced him. It was the master alarm, sounding out of cockpit. He jumped up and ran forward, but he knew it was futile. Before he even knew what was wrong, the master alarm had told him enough. They were going down.

*****

Knuckles was outside, about to go with Shadow to the abandoned shopping centers inside the main city to find some clothing. He was already getting sick of wearing robes. Shadow also wanted some new atire. Knuckles had his own reason for going besides clothing. He needed a weapon. He could fight with his fists well when he needed to, but what he really wanted was a oak staff. Maybe he'd be able to find one, or at least a sutible substitute. He looked up to the clear sky and for a second, almost thought he saw something. He shrugged it off and called into the church.

"Shadow, are you ready?"

*****

Tails couldn't believe his eyes. He also couldn't believe he had done such a stupid, idiotic thing. In his rush to take off from Knothole, program the flight instraments, and find a landing location, he had left the afterburners on. And they used the fuel faster then the regular engines. And now he was out of fuel. He looked at his radar and saw they were approching the southern coast of the nothern continent. Ten miles in was the Station Square airport. He did a quick slope calculation and came to the conclusion he had already known: there was no way he could make the airport, not without another five minutes of engine time. He deactivated the autopilot and began to stear the Tornado toward's the grassy plains to the west of the city.

`Stupid! Your a veteran pilot, for Destiny's sake! How could you do suck a idiotic thing?' He asked himself as he lined the plane up with the coast.

"If you had engine's you could make a vertical landing!" Tails hissed to himself as he shut down the computers, no longer needing them. He turned in his seat, screaming back into the cabin.

"Brace for crash landing! We're going in hard!"

*****

Shadow walked outside and locked the church door. Knuckles jogged over to him and pointed in the sky, to a object veering away from the city.

"What in the world is that?" Knuckles asked, curiousity in his voice. Shadow smiled.

"Those are our friends. We had better go meet them. We can wait to shop until we have been properely aquainted." They both began to walk in the direction the plane was headed.

*****

Tails tightened the straps around him and watched the altimeter fall stedily. When it reached 100 feet, he pulled back on the yoke as hard as he could and dropped the landing gear.

"We're landing!" Tails yelled. He watched with increasing nervousness as the needle descended to 50...40...30...20...10...

Metal screamed in torture and the plane lurched forward and skidded across the grass. The plane tilted and for one terrorfing moment he thought it was going to flip. But at the last moment the rest of the momentum bleed away as the landing gears dug into the muddy ground. Tails breathed in relief. He unbuckled the straps and made his way to the cabin to see if Amy and Rouge were alright.

Amy coughed roughly and unbuckled her seatbelt. She stood uncertainly in the dark cabin and looked around.

"Rouge? Tails?" Amy asked uncertainly. This was just too much for her. All her friends were dead and she was on another continent fleeing from a cloud of dust! Suddenly, she felt very tired. She sat down again and began to cry silently.

"Amy?" Tails questioned the dark cabin when he entered. He pulled a portion of the wall aside and flicked a switch. The cabin was floded with red emergency lighting. He saw the young hedgehog sitting in her seat, crying. He went over to her and hugged her.

"I know you've been through a lot Ames..." Tails spoke softly. She looked at him with glistening eyes.

"I'm just so sick of it, Tails.." Amy whispered. "I'm sick of war, sick of being alone, I'm sick of everyone dying. Most of all, I think I'm sick of false hope..." Tails shook his head.

"I know Amy. I know. But we're almost at the end now. Just a little longer, then we can rest." Amy began to laugh. For some odd reason, Tails began to laugh with her.

"Tails, where's Rouge?" Amy drew back and asked. A questioning look crossed his brow then he turned and began looking for the white bat. They found her, unconcious in her seat, a small box laying a few feet away. A small bump on her head was all that remained of her accident.

"She'll be fine. Let's carry her outside. Fresh air will do her some good." Amy nodded in agreement. They picked up Rouge, opened the hatch, and took their first steps onto the northern continent.

End of Part Two

Part Three

Shadow and Knuckles crosses the plains outside the city a hour later toward the wreckage of the Tornado. Outside the cargo plane, they watched three people setting camp. One was building a fire, unpaking things Knuckles assumed was food, and the other two were setting up a tent. The one cooking, a white bat Knuckles could now see, looked up and saw the two walking towards the Tornado. The bat pointed and said something to her fellows, who looked up in their direction.

`How funny we must look in these robes.' Knuckles thought. They continued to walk towards the group until they were standing ten feet away. No one said anything, Knuckles and Shadow drew back their hoods.

"Hello." Tails spoke shortly. He stood up and walked over to Shadow in the dying light of day.

"It looks like you've had a...a little accident." Knuckles spoke, his lips curving upward in a small smile. "Are you all right?"

Tails nodded. "The landing was a little rough, but we came through. Rouge got a little bump on the head but..."

Knuckles looked up at the bat and recognized her immedietly. He closed his eyes against the sudden recognition.

*****

"Give us your money punk!" The leader, Knuckles thought he was the leader, demanded, shoving Knuckles roughly against the brick wall at the end of the dark alley. Knuckles grinned.

"Please..." Knuckles sighed. Did these punks realize who they were dealing with? The guarding of Angel Island had no time to deal with punks. Knuckles gave the idiot a swift uppercut, knocking him backwards. Before he realized what had happened, he heard a sharp crack as another punk stepped forward. Knuckles felt something wet on his shirt. He looked down and nearly passed out.

`Ohnononono...' Knuckles thought as he became lightheaded. He slid down the wall and the gang stepped forward and began searching him for money, jewelry.

`Can't they even wait until I'm dead?' Knuckles thought. He slid into blackness. The last thing he saw was the woman who had shot him. She a white bat, dark gray wings, and deep blue eyes.

*****

"It is you..." Knuckles spoke in wonder. Rouge looked at him and froze, terror in her eyes. He watched as she struggle with a past she had forgotten...

`Or tried to forget on purpose...' Knuckles thought to himself as she slowly backed away from him.

"No." Was all she said to him. "I watched you bleed to death." Tails and Amy turned to look at their comrade.

"Rouge, do you know these men?" Amy asked innocently. Knuckles snorted.

"I would hope she knows me. After all," Knuckles took a small step towards her. "She does have my blood on her hands."

Rouge began to tremble out of fright. She was confronted with the imposisible, and did what any rational person would do. She passed out cold.

When she woke, she was inside the cargo plane alone, or so she thought. She drew in a sharp breath when Knuckles stepped out of the darkness toward her.

"Please don't hurt me!" Was the first thing out of her lips. She mentally berated herself for it, she hated when she showed any weakness. Knuckles sat calmly next to her.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I would, however, like to know exactly what possesed you to cut my time on this planet short." He turned sideways toward her. "Yes. You did kill me. I don't fully understand what has happened yet, but I do know I am alive now, and I know I am here on a mission. I also know I am going to have to work with you. The storm you are running from, it's spreading." She watched as he stood up and sighed.

"If we can't stop it, it will consume everything on this planet. Shadow is outside telling the same to the others." Rouge shifted uneasily in her seat.

"I am ready to let bygones be bygones, but first I think I deserve a reason." Knuckles stood and waited for an answer. He was startled to watch tears begin to stream down her face.

*****

Tails sat his head on his fist and chuckled. "So, what your telling me Shadow, is that you and Knuckles are here to save the world, and we're here to help." Shadow nodded and Tails began to laugh.

"Well, I'm more then willing to help, Tails." Amy said, startled that the normally calm Tails was acting this way towards Shadow.

Shadow smiled flatly. "You should be more then willing to help too, Tails. After all, all your plane needs is a refuel and she'll be good as new."

Tails' head snapped towards Shadow and he stopped laughing. He locked eyes with the obsidian hedgehog. Shadow stood up and motioned for Tails to follow him. Tails complied readly.

When they were out of hearing distance of the camp, Tails eyed Shadow suspeciously. "How did you know about our..fuel problem." Shadow smiled and pointed to the sky.

"People who are brought back to life by Destiny tent to...hear things. Knuckles doesn't, since he's only been back a day, but before long, he will." Shadow placed a hand gingerely on Tails' shoulder.

"It wasn't your fault you left the afterburners on. You are the person responsible for saving two other people. Minor screw-up's are accaptable." Tails smiled.

"Thanks" Shadow nodded at him.

"No problem." They walked back to the campfire.

*****

Rouge continued to sob and Knuckles began to feel sorry for the bat. She finally stopped to gasp air. "I..I..." She began to stutter between sobs and sharp breaths of air.

"I didn't mean to hit you!" She finally gasped out, sobbing even worse. Knuckles looked confused, then it his him.

"You were aiming for the thug because you were an undercover cop..." Knuckles spoke softly.

She nodded hard, then calmed herself to explain. "After I killed you, I ran, leaving Station Square. I traveled to the Southern Continent where the war was, thinking that no one knew me." She laughed a little, which Knuckles saw as a good sign. "I was thinking maybe I could somehow redeem myself, atone for my sins..." Knuckles places a hand on her chin and lifted her face to make eye-contact. Rouge saw honesty and symphony in his eyes.

"Help us, and you won't have to." Knuckles said simply. Rouge drew him into a tight hug, murmuring thank you over and over. He hugged her back.

A few minutes later a composed Rouge and Knuckles walked from the plane and joined the others beside the fire.

Knuckles nodded at Shadow, something unspoken passing between them.

"We had better head back." Shadow said. "We'll come back in the morning and we can begin to plan then." Knuckles and Shadow stood and began to walk into the night when Tails stod and signaled the to stay.

"We have extra food and extra sleeping bags. Just stay here and we can get to work in the morning." Shadow nodded, and he and Knuckles sat back down.

"Well," Shadow said, turning to Knuckles. "It looks like we'll look for supplies tomorrow.

*****

In the morning, Rouge and Amy were cooking breakfast for all of them, Tails was making minor repairs to the plane, and Knuckles and Shadow were consulting a map of Station Square.

They finally agreed on a route to take and joined the others for breakfast. Once breakfast was over, Shadow informed them of the plan.

"You two," Shadow said, pointing to Rouge and Amy. "You will be in charge of heading to the city center. That's the shopping district. You will need to find weapons and non-perishible goods. Canned food, freeze dried fruit, that sort of thing." Turning to Tails, he pulled a key out of his pocket.

"When they abandoned the city, everything was left where it was. This is the key to the militia supply depot on the northern edge of the city. There should be enough supplies to refit the Tornado, and a way to get them back here."

"Knuckles, you'll go to the clothing store across from my apartment and pick up items for you and me. Just guess my size. And finally, I'll go fine a way to transport the stuff Amy, Rouge and Knuckles will find. Is that ok?" Shadow asked, tucking the map away.

"Sounds fine to me." Rouge said. Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Ok." Shadow said. "Let's go."

*****

Tails walked up to the black door hidden at the back of an alleyway. He pulled the key from his pocket and opened the locks. Pushing the door open, he found a small room filled with dust. Venturing inside, all he found was a dead plant and a cheep plastic chair. He scoffed as he picked up the plant off of the chair.

"Armory? Yeah right!" Tails threw the plant against the back wall and was going to leave until he realized the plant went through the wall. Tails walked up to the hole he made and looked inside. He smelled oil and dust at first, but couldn't see anything until he turned on his flashlight. Rows and rows of barrels of what looked like jet fuel, and rachs of parts. In the corner was a cargo truch with a trailer attached to it. On the other side of the warehouse were a set of garage doors and a forklift.

"Well," Tails said to himself as he climped through the hole. "Might as well get started. Looks like I've got a lot of searching to do."

*****

Amy looked in awe at the selection of arrows layed out in front of her. She had already salvaged a bow gun to replace her old one.

"I would of never seen anything like this..." Amy whispered to herself as she loaded an silver-tipped arrow into the gun. She made it click home. She put it away, picked up two quivers of arrows for herself, and selected weapons for the rest of the group.

*****

Rouge walked up and down the abandoned supermarket pulling canned goods and boxes of food off of the shelfs into the cart. She had already loaded up on bottled water, the cart waiting at the store's entrance. She stopped pulling down boxes and looked behind her.

"That's the second time I've thought someone was watching me...as soon as I finish up this cart I'm heading out of here. This'll be plenty."

She turned around and resumed selecting items from the shelf.

*****

Knuckles was now dressed in a white cotton shirt, khiki pants and a black trenchcoat. Across his back hung a oak staff he had found in an adjucent store.

`I know Rouge's getting weapons, but I just couldn't resist. It's in perfect condition for cripes sake!' Knuckles picked up the sacks containing new attire. He was walking toward the glass exit of the store when he suddenly picked ua a very pecular feeling, something that he shouldn't of had in an abandoned city.

He had the feeling he was being watched.

Slowly, he turned around and saw something skitter across the floor and into the men's clothing racks. Knuckles walked out of the department store quickly soundly shutting the door behind him.

"Shadow, hurry up." Knuckles whispered to himself.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

*****

Shadow was speeding down the deserted boulivare in a hotwired white cargo van. He had already picked up Amy and was now speeding toward where Rouge was. He pulled in front of the building to find Rouge waiting with two shopping carts. Amy and Shadow jumped out and started loading the stuff. Halfway through the second cart, Shadow spoke.

"How did it go?"

Rouge shrugged. "I just got this weird feeling like I was being watched."

Shadow creased his brow. "Watched?" He asked.

"Yeah, but when ever I turned around, I didn't find anything." Shadow lifted the last cart into the van and closed the doors. Amy and Rouge got in, but he stayed behind for a moment. Something was troubling him.

"I'm forgetting something important..." Shadow thought, the crease in his brow deepening. He meditated a moment longer when the answer suddenly came to the front of his mind with the force of a gunshot.

"Oh Destiny, Directive 4!" Shadow whispered to himself. If that's true...

Shadow ran and jumped into the driver's compartment. He started the van and stomped on the gas, sending the van flying forward. Amy and Rouge looked at him in amazment.

"What are you doing?" Rouge asked. The van was going 90.

"We have to get the Knuckles and get out of the city! I just hope Tails is done with his refit!"

Amy shook her head in confusion. "Why?"

Shadow hit the dashboard. "Directive 4. I for got about Directive 4!"

*****

Tails pulled the cargo truch along the Tornado. He had found the fuel, and he was happy because the truck had a refueling system. He quickly hooked the truck up to the Tornado and began pumping fuel.

"Thirty minutes." Tails guessed looking at the gauges. He still had time to repair the damaged landing gear. He hauld the torch under the plane and began his work.

*****

Knuckles reacted purely out of instinct. As soon as he saw the robot plowing forward through the store, heading his way, he launched himself into the air. Benethe him, he heard the glass shatter as the robot broke through into the spot Knuckles had been only a second before. Knuckles kicked himself off of the building into a midair spin. Halfway to the ground he pulled his oak staff. He landed on his feet and was immediatly attacked by the robot. He parried blow after blow from the mechnical tendrils. he didn't even remember moving, he just went with it, expertly blockin blow after blow. Finally, he started forcing the robot back against the wall. He blocked one last blow, then kicked the robot hard in the head. It flew into the wall, face first, smashing it's CPU. It went dead instantly. Knuckles was about to put his staff away when he looked back inside the store. Ten more robots were lined up, ready to attack.

"Uh oh."

*****

"What's Directive 4?" Rouge nearly screeched. Shadow had just took the van around a turn going 60, almost tipping it.

"Before he died, Robotnik had robot's deployed on all continents. Directive 4 is a rule set into each robot's CPU, it's brain, as it's made. Simply put, if Robotnik ever dies, the robot kills everything in sight." Shadow took another corner, then continued. "Right now, that's us and..."

"Knuckles!" Amy yelled. Shadow looked up ahead and saw Knuckles in the street. The first word that popped into his mind were warzone.

*****

Knuckles continued to parry, duck, and block each and every blow the 10 robots sent his way, but he was beginning to tire. In the 2 minutes he had been fighting the 10, he had only dispatched 2.

"I'm not going to make it.." Knuckles realized. His brain instantly responded to that statement.

"What, are you kidding? We're getting out of here. So move it!"

Knuckles deciced to save the mental battle for later and save his skin now. He jumped over a blade on of the bots sent his way. It sliced through a bot behind him, disabling it. He brought his staff down on a bots head, shutting it down. It also cracked his staff.

"Oh no!" Knuckles thought then he felt himself lifted off the ground and pulled into a vehicle. Rouge set him down as they sped away. Knuckles sat back and began to pant. He glanced angrily at Shadow.

"You never said anything about robots bent on killing me. I think I would have remembered something like that."

Shadow took an exit out of the city and turned off of the road into the grasslands. The plane was about a mile away. Shadow slowed down.

"I didn't know they had been activated. I'm sorry, but at least your safe."

"Yeah? Well, I'm without a waepon again and-"

"No. Amy picked you up a Steel Staff. So your fine on weapons. What about clothing?"

Knuckles pulled a bookbag off of his back. "I got one pair of clothes in here for you, and the stuff I'm wearing, but I lost the rest of the stuff."

"That's fin-" Shadow broke off when he checked his rear view mirrors. Knuckles felt the van pick up speed. He got up on his knees and looked out the back window. Hundreds of robots were marching quickly out of the city, heading toward them.

*****

Tails opened the cargo door on the Tornado as he saw the van headed toward him. He had just finished disconnecting the fuel truck and was about to start the engine. The van rushed into the planes hold and Shadow leaped out of the truck.

"Get us off the ground, I'll take care of the door!" Tails was about to ask why when he looked out of the door and saw the army. He turned and charged through the plane towards the cockpit. Within seconds, the group heard the engines roar to life as the door shut. When the door shut and locked, all they could hear was a dull hum.

*****

Tails rushed through the startup checklist, skipping proceedures that could wait until they were up. He turned the engines over to vertical takeoff and throttled up. The Tornado was slowly lifting off. He pulled the landing gears up and double checked everything was clear of the plane.

"Go, for Destiny's sake, go!" Rogue screamed from the back of the plane. Tails looked into the mirrors and saw the robots were almost on top of them.

"See ya." Tails chuckled to himself as he pushed the throttle forward to 50%. After they were up, the engines switched over to regular flight mode. Tails expertly banked the Tornado until they were heading south, over the ocean. Behind them, the robots fired fruitlessly at the plane. The Tornado was heading back into the storm.

End of Part Three

Part Four

In the wreckage of Robotropolis, something was stirring. The winds of the storm had long ago left the city as the storm moved outward, but the storm had crippled the city none the less. Robotnik's throne city, which he himself designed, was now in ruins. Building were toppled by the voracious wind and eroded to shapeless forms by the sand. Through all this destruction, a metallic hand shot up out of the wreckage. Slowly, shoving the stripped metal away from her, Bunnie sat up and began to cough heavily. The sand had been everywhere, and she had breathed some in, although she had kept as far under the storm as posisible. She reached into the manhole she had just climbed out of and hauled a knapsack out. She took out a canteen of water and drank, careful not to waste a single drop.

`Hard to tell when I'll be able to find an unpolluted suppily next..' She thought to herself as she put the canteen away. She looked at the desolation around her. Looking in the direction the great forest had been was an even big shock to her then the ruins already surrounding her. The forest was completly gone. As far as she could tell, there was nothing but dirt where the majestic forest had once been. The storm had sucked everything up and had hauled it away. She closed her eyes and felt tears welling up. They fell silently as she thought of her fallen comrades.

She sighed heavily, slinging the backpack over her shoulder. No time to worry about that, she thought.

`I need to see if there's anything I can find out about this storm.' She turned and headed to where she guessed Robotnik's control room had once been.

*****

Locking their destination into the computer, Tails walked back to join the others in the main cabin. They were about 30 minutes out from Station Square.

They were heading back to Robotropolis.

They were going to try and stop the storm.

If it could be stopped.

"Well, according to what I know at this point, what we need to stop the storm we will find in the ruins of Robotropolis." Shadow took a drink of water and shook his head. "Unfortunatly, that's all I know."

Knuckles nodded. "Robotropolis is where the storm started, so it makes sense that's where it will end."

Nothing more was said, as Tails entered and sat down with them. "Well, the course is plotted and I estimate that we'll hit the storm sometime tomorrow, around 9 AM."

"Well, then there's no reason for us to still be awake. We've had a long day, let's get some sleep." Rouge said, yawning. They all agreed and went to different chairs around the cabin. It was the only place to sleep. As Knuckles was reclining, he tried to shake off an uneasy feeling he had gotten during the day. It was the same feeling he had gotten in the store earlier. He was drifting to sleep when it hit him. The feeling ment the same thing to him as it had in the department store.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. He just didn't know what.

*****

Knuckles drifted on the edge of sleep for a few seconds before realizing what had woken him up.

Something cold and metallic was pressing into the side of his head. Reacting out of fear, he shoved himself forward as his attacker pulled the trigger. He heard the bow plow into the seat behind him and the man cursed softly. Knuckles sent a punch toward his attacker, but it was blocked easily. The attacker punched Knuckles hard and sent him flying across the cabin into the right side. Before Knuckles had time to stand again and prepair for another attack, Tails flipped on the lights to the main cabin and shot a robot with his handgun. Sparks flew from the robot's chest and he dropped to the floor, shaking violently.

Knuckles looked on in shock. His head was pounding.

Tails holstered his gun and walked across the cabin. Amy was unbuckling herself and looking at Tails.

"What's going on Tails? Where's Shadow?" Amy asked, terrorfied.

Rouge came into the room from the back of the plane and crossed over to Knuckles, who was nursing some very tender ribs.

"He's in the cargo hold." Amy started back.

"No!" Rouge shouted. "Don't go back there." Her head drooped a bit. "It's...you don't want to see it."

She helped Knuckles up and went with him to a seat. She gave him an ice pack and some Tylonol from the plane's first aid kit.

"Why didn't it attack sooner?" Knuckles asked himself as Rouge layed him down on an emergency stretcher in the back.

"We didn't even realize it was on board. No one did. Tails didn't kill the CPU, he just shot the motor control unit. We'll have answers soon." Before she left, Knuckles grabbed her arm.

"How did Tails know where to shoot?" Knuckles asked. She shuffled her feet and smiled sheepishly.

"When you live less then 10 miles from someone bent on taking over the world, you learn everything you can about them."

*****

ACCESS CORE CONTROL

access denied

ACCESS CENTRAL CONTROL

access denied

ACCESS MAIN MEMORY LINKUP

access denied ; sysop access required

Tails frowned at the screen. After five hours of trying to get information out of what was left of the bot, he just knew one thing for sure.

Even though the city of Robotropolis was in ruins, the city's computer network was very much alive.

"It's something I should of realized as soon as those robots attacked us in Station Square. Robotnik's robots can't move without an uplink to the main computer. During the quake and the days following the quake, that was destroyed. But apperently, somewhere in Robotropolis, a new computer has taken over." Tails told the others. "I'm willing to bet that's where we'll find how to stop the sand storm."

Knuckles snapped his fingers. "If it's not the place where the storm is controled." When the others casted looks of doubts at him, he continued. "Yeah sure, a controlled sand storm sounds crazy to you. I'll bet you someone said that very same thing about Robotisization 20 years ago. And I think we know that's very real." Rouge nodded.

"If we can get into the city and find the computer, then it should be a snap to stop this thing, right?"

Amy nodded. "Hopefully."

*****

Bunnie tripped over a metal cover slightly loose from the ground. She had been searching for 3 hours, trying to find anything that could help her out.

"What the-" Shen started to say, then realized something odd. Although the tempature couldn't of been more the 75, the air she felt coming out of the slight opening was at least a full 10 degrees cooler. She realized what this had to mean. The other side of the panel was air conditioned. Air conditioning meant power. She looked around quickly and found a piece of metal bar. It took her 15 minutes, but eventully she pried the lid open. There was a ladder leading down into darkness. She looked at her sack of few supplies and decided to at least go down.

"If I don't find anything, I can always come back up." Bunnie said to herself as she grabbed the ladder. She started her decent into darkness.

*****

ACCESS MEMORY BACKUP

access denied

ACCESS RANDOM MEMORY GROUP

access denied

Frustrated, Tails was about to give up. He sat back and rubbed at his eyes. "There's just one more thing I can try, I guess." He said quietly. He leaned forward and began to type.

ACCESS COMMUNICATION MODEM

access granted: >_

Tails stared at the blinking cursor. He couldn't believe his eyes. He had access to Robotropolis' entire remaining computer system. He started by accessing the camera system. To his suprise, one was still active. He brought it up onto his screen.

Bunnie was on the monitor.

*****

Bunnie was in a small underground room. It was an empty room, except for a computer console in the middle that sat on a metal desk. The monitor took up an entire wall of the room in front of the console. She was about to go over and check the computer out when she heard the camera whir to life. She jumped when someone spoke to her a few moments later.

"Bunnie! Your alive?" Tails' voice echoed through the little room. She turned and looked at the camera.

"Tails? Can you hear me?" Bunnie asked eagerly.

"Yep! Just stay put, we're only six hours out from the city now, I just activated the afterburners."

"Oh thank Destiny! Tails, everything around here is destroyed...wait...did you say we?"

"Yes. Rouge, Amy, and a person named Knuckles is with me. Don't worry about that now though. What we need to worry about is the storm that destroyed Robotropolis and Knothole. We were the only ones to escape. Somehow the storm is being controlled by Robotropolis' computers. We have to find it and shut it down."

Tails waited a few moments, waiting for Bunnie to reply. Instead she stepped to the side, reveiling the monitor she had been standing in front of. It showed a map of the globe. Almost half of it was covered by the storm. In the right corner of the screen `Project Phoenix' flashed in red. Tails was silenced instantly.

"Tails...is this what you were looking for?" Bunnie whispered in awe.

Tails closed his eyes, smiling, thinking that it was all almost over.

"Yes, Bunnie. Sit down and I'll guide you through how to shut it down.

*****

Bunnie drew back the chair and sat uneasily at the terminal.

"Ok, Bunnie. Just hit the function 8 key and it should bring up a system menu, unless Robotnik changed anything.

Appearantly he hadn't, because a menu popped up and one of the choices was `System Shutdown'.

"Ok, now select System Shutdown and press enter." Tails spoke easily. `After this, all we have to do is pick up Bunnie and leave. I'm sure we'll-'

Tails thoughts were interupted by a blaring alarm. Loking at the screen, he saw that Bunnie now was bound to the chair by steel clamps. On the screen, a box flashed `Enter Password'. A timer was counting down from thirty.

"Tails!" Bunnie yelped. "What's going on? Get me outta here!"

Tails brought up a new window on his computer and tried to override the security program. He punded keys frantically as the computer rejected his efforts over and over.

Bunnie struggled against her restraints and found it was useless. They held her fast. She gave up and watched the screen as the timer reached zero.

*****

All the alarms went silent to Bunnie as a very familar glass cylender slid over the chair she was still restrained in. She started to scream.

"Tails! Pleese help me! Do something!" Bunnie started fighting against the restraints again, trying desparatly to escape. She knew it was imposisible.

A dirty burnt odor hung in the air as the Robotisizer charged. It's energy crackled inside the chaimber, mocking her. He heard a whine as the system reached full capacity. Activating, it consumed her in a blazing white fire. She screamed in agony, but never heard herself. Her mind was already lost.

Tails stared on his amazment. He was too shocked for a reaction. He just sitting there, thinking. Not about anything in paticular, because the brutal truth in his mind was too much for the young fox to handle.

`You killed her. You told her to go over to the computer and start pushing buttons, and you killed her.'

`That's not true,' Another part of his mind told him. `She did it of her own free will, and she didn't just start pushing buttons.'

`SHUT UP!' Tails roared at himself. He put his head into his hands and began to cry silently, a gasp of air being heard every now and then.

*****

Across the barren landscape of Robotropolis, the setinals were coming to life.

It wasn't something that had happened by accident. Bunnie's robotisization had triggered many alarms. The first was that the computer that controlled Project Phoenix, the sand storm, was now very carfully sealed off. The now robotisized Bunnie quietly stood guard inside the room. But the sentinals, they were something else entirely. They were much more dangerous. Thousands of them poured across the Robotropolis landscape, ready to protect the last stable thing they knew, the computer that controlled them. The had been Robotnik's last project before the earthquake, and they were posisibly, aside from the Phoenix, Robotnik's greatest achivement.

They were workerbots. Robotisized Mobians.

But they were much more then that. Their arms had been striped off and replaced with plasma blasters. Their legs had jet boosters attached for limited flight. Their CPU had been upgraded, and they had a very powerful AI program, modeled after Dr. Robotnik. They were as creul and as evil as the doctor at his best.

The sentinals were deployed. And they were ready to fight and be destroyed.

And the storm raged on, half of Mobius now consumed.

End of Part Four

Part Five

Amy looked nervously out of a side window of the Tornado. Now only a short time away from Robotropolis, she had desided to look out and see the storm for the first time. The sand was swirling through the air below, violently decimating anything it came in contact with. Tails had told her that there would be a break in the storm over Robotropolis because of the way wind flowed. She had her doubts.

`How can he know? This isn't like anything anyones ever seen before...I'm going to go talk to him about this.' Amy shut the blind on her window and stood up. She made her way forward.

When she walked in, Tails still had his head buried in his hands, but he had stopped crying. She walked over to him and kneeled next to him. She placed a hand on his shoulder but he shook it away.

"Leave me alone..." Tails said in a low voice, full of misery.

"Tails...what's wrong?" Amy asked quietly. `Oh Destiny.' She thought at first. `There's no break in the storm.' But he pointed at a screen shortly, and when Amy looked at the monitor, she gasped. Bunnie stood in the middle of a room, not moving at all. She was robotizised.

"Tails! What happened to her?" Amy asked, shocked. He raised his head slowly.

"I-I told her to shut the computer down...and ...it triggered an alarm...I didn't mean for this to happen!" Tails was crying again. "It's not like I pushed the button myself, I didn't want her to die!" Tails was sobbing by this time. Amy layed a hand on his shoulder.

"Of course you didn't kill her Tails! It was that stupid man. The same man that killed our friends. The same man we've been fighting all these years. Robotnik, even in his death. Tails, I know it hurts, but we've got to press on. We have to see this through to the very end, even if we don't succeed."

Tails looked disgusted. "Why? Why do we? What did we do? What's to keep me from just quiting right here and now?" Amy looked unsure of herself.

"Because we need you Tails..." She looked up and looked him right in the eyes. "...Because I need you. I need you to see this through with me because...because I love you. Don't give up on me." Her eyes sparkled with unshead tears. She shut her eyes and put her head down. A moment later she felt Tails kiss her lightly on the forehead and embrace her in a tight hug.

"I won't Amy." He whispered to her. "I'll see this through to the very end. I'll see it through for you."

*****

Knuckles figited nervously in the cargo hold where him and Rouge were prepairing the weapons. She was cleaning Tails' gun and he was checking Amy's bowgun. Neither of them touched Shadow's things, stacked neatly in the corner.

`Come on, Knuck. Just say something...' Knuckles thought to himself as he placed Amy's bow back into it's case. He took a deep breath and turned to Rouge.

"Rouge..." She turned to him. "...If we get out of this alive...a prospect that seems kinda doubtful right now..." She nodded gently. Knuckles continued. "...would you like to have dinner with me?" Rouge dropped Tails' guncase back onto the table. She stood there in shock not sure what to say.

Knuckles shifted on his feet nervously. He was about to tell her to forget it and rush off when she responded.

"I'd love to."

Knuckles started to speak but was interupted when the intercom clicked on. "Knuckles," Tails said. "Come to the cockpit. You should see this." Knuckles turned and rushed out the door, leaving Rouge to pack.

When he got to the cockpit, Tails was ready to shut off the auto pilot. He turned when he came in and pointed at the monitor on the control panel.

"I'm picking up something from Robotropolis. This stupid storm is interfearing with the scanner, but I do know it's an electronic signal of some kind." Tails paused and looked glumly at Knuckles. "...A big signal."

"But I thought the city was destroyed!" Knuckles asked confused.

Tails leaned back in his seat and sighed. He began to speak. "When I was 12 I was taken into my first real mission into the city. When we were there, I was nearly killed when I almost walked down an alley. It was booby-trapped, and the only reason I'm here is because Sonic caught me in time and checked the alley. According to the scanner, a brick of C4 was waiting for me." Tails looked back at Knuckles. "That taught me one thing; there is a lot of nasty stuff in that city, most we don't know about." Knuckles nodded, following Tails' thinking.

"So why can't a hidden army be one of them, right?" Knuckles asked. Tails nodded.

"That's what I think it is." Tails shrugged. "Oh well, we'll know in 10 minutes. We start landing then."

*****

Rouge looked over the assembled boxes carfully. She had just finished loading up their equipment and was about to take it up to them. She picked up two cases and sat them down again after a moment. She walked over to a corner and found something she had seen before. A case of Dynamite.

A few minutes later, Rouge carried all the equipment forward for every one to equip themselves. The case of Dynamite was open. Half of it's contence was now missing.

*****

The crew was now assembled in the forward cabin, ready to meat their fate with whatever courage they could muster. Tails was the only one missing, setting up the planes navigation system to land on auto. Knuckles stood nervously, looking out the window as the storm began to lighten just under the plane. Tails walked into the cabin.

"I set the computer to hover the plane just above the surface, until we get out. Then it'll go back up until I signal it to come back down to pick us up." Everyone nodded silently. They all stood there nervously, until Knuckles cleared his throat.

"Look, um..." He began nervously. "I really don't know much about this stuff, but I thought we could pray before we go down there."" He looked up at the rest of them. "I think it's what Shadow would have wanted."

Without a word, they all began to take hands. Knuckles bowed his head and closed his eyes.

"Destiny, today we embark on a journey into darkness in your name, to stop an evil which has consumed our world for many years. In this war, people have been injured. have died, and have been captured, but their faith in you has never wavered." The plane jolted shightly as their desent started.

"If we should win today, if we stop the evil in it's path, we will learn from our victorys, which are great, and our errors, which are just as great, and we never again will let anyone or anything rise out of the darkness and enslave our planet." Turbulence shoo the plane some more, rocking them on their feet.

"Destiny, we will die for our cause, we will kill for our cause, and we refuse to be defeated. May we succeed on our sacred mission. In your name, may we win." Knuckles disengaged his hands from Amy and Rouge's hands. He sighed heavily and sat down in his seat.

"Well," Tails began. "Now we wai-" A huge jolt shook the Tornado heavily and the alarm system came on.

"Warning," the nasal voice of the computer annunced over the drone of alarms. "Surface-to-Air fire detected. Automatic shielding activated. Evasive measures activated."

Tails quickly checked his sidearm and yelled above the alarm. "Parachutes, quick! The shields won't hold for long!" Tails ran back to the rear of the plane, the others following him rapidly. He yanked a parachute off of the wall and began to put it on. As the others began to follow suit, another jolt hit the plane.

"Warning, shilding now at 50% power. Immenent force field collaspe."

*****

Above the computer compartment, the laser turrets were firing at full speed, but the storm was interfearing with their lock-on. Inside the computer room, Bunnie Rabbot stood at attention. Her display flashed a single, simple message: PRIORITY ONE: PROTECT PHOENIX MAINFRAME

The laser gun on her arm rotated barrels, increasing the laser power. She was ready for the intruders. Nothing will interupt her master's plan. Nothing.

*****

Tails opened the rear cargo door as another blast hit the Tornado. They all jumped from the plane into the open air behind the plane. They were way past the outer edge of the storm and could see the city they were diving toward. The city itself was in ruins, as far as they could see. A sea of robotic soldiers stod ready as the laser turrets took out the Tornado. It blew apart in a ball of flame, wreckage flying everywhere. They all opened their chutes.

*****

Tails, upon hitting the ground, pulled out a machine gun Rouge had found and started shoting robots with it. Wave after wave came toward him, and he soon found himself running out of ammo for the gun. The robots never slowed down, just walked over their falled counterparts. He discarded the empty machine pistol and pulled his handguns, placing shots into the heads of the soldiers. Soon, he was out of ammo for those too. He started punching the robots, realizing he was fighting a futile battle.

`Well, at least I'll go out swinging.' Tails thought to himself as he ducked a punch from a robot and quickly came back up with a right hook.

*****

Knuckle disisipeared. The robots were ready to converge on his posisition, but as soon as he his the ground, it was like he just melted away. The soldiers stood there puzzled. His grey parachute lay flat on the ground. Suddenly, he burst out of the ground and brought a shotgun up to his hip.

"Dig it, man." Knuckles said to a robot in front of him as he blew it's head off with a blast from the gun. He quickly emptied the gun, switching to the staff.

"I hope the others are doing ok." Knuckles thought, knocking off a bots head with a sharp blow to the neck.

*****

Amy was running out of ammo. Her arrow quiver was now empty, and her last clip had five shots left. She quickly used those and started thinking quickly. She had only one idea to survive, and she didn't know if it would work.

"I hope Sonic knew what he was talking about." Amy murmured to herself as she jumped into the air and began to spin sideways, pointing her shoes downward. Hitting the ground, she burrowed down beyond the robots reach.

"Sorry guys. I'm out of the fight." Amy sighed, trying to get comfortable in her hideout.

*****

Rouge pushed the button on the EMP device she had brought and all the robots in a 10 foot radius of her dropped. Robots continued to pile up as they tried to walk toward their newly aquired target. She had seen the gleeming cover to the computer core from the air and turned to land near it. She tried to pull the cover open, but it was sealed tight. She pulled out a small cutting torch and cut a hole in the sheet of steel. She grabbed her bag and jumped into the hole.

Landing gracefully, Rouge saw the computer instantly. She tossed her bag against the machine and turned toward the exit. She came face to face with the robotisized Bunnie. She was sent sailing across the room by a uppercut from the solid metal fist.

"Going somewhere?" Bunnie asked in a metalic voice, dripping with comtempt. On the main monitor, a small window opened, reporting Mind Control, 5% complete.

"You all believe in Destiny." Bunnie spoke softly, walking over to the stunned Rouge. She was dragged roughly off of the floor by the back of her neck. Yelping in pain, Rouge was brought to Bunnie's face.

"Robotnik is the only GOD! Befor you leave here, you will be touched, cleansed of the flesh, the temptation, by his holy device, as I was." Bunnie dropped Rouge back to the floor and sharply kicked her in the ribs. "DO YOU SEE!?" Bunnie shouted at Rouge.

Gasping slowly, she thought of Knuckles, and what the future may have held.

`I'm sorry Knuckles.' Rouge sliently thought to herself as she pushed herself up and pulled a small remote out of her pocket.

"Yes," Rouge said strongly, pushing the button before Bunnie could react. "I see."

*****

Knuckles was thrown off of his feet by the shockwave from the blast. When he got back up, all the robots were offline. In the distance, the storm began to break up. He silently rejoiced. They had won. The planet was safe.

"But where did the explosion come from?" Behind him, Tails and Amy were recovering from the blast and the battle. He didn't see them. He didn't have to. Amy and Tails heard the echidna scream bloddy murder and tumble to the ground. Destiny had finally spoken to him.

End of Part 5

Epilogue

Journal Entry: April 16, 4371

It's been twenty years since that last battle, and my tale is finally told. After that, history on Mobius is short and sweet. The survivors of the storm, both human and mobian, banded together and left the planet on a giant ship, the Mountain Star, built in orbit. They hope that their desendants reach a planet in a few hundred years without the problems we have now. Since the storm, the weather has gotten worse and worse. The surface gets colder and colder as the winds keep the sand from fully settling. The sand is blocking the sun almost completely now. I am writing this by candlelight in my house in a small mining town I took over after everyone left. Well, almost everyone.

Tails and Amy took my place on Angel Island. Up their, above the clouds, is the last stable enviroment on Mobius. They have a family now, two children. One looks a little like Sonic, except he has two tails. I rarely visit, seeing the family is still painful for me. I'm not sure what kept them behind, but I know what kept me here. Rouge.

Even after twenty years, the pain is still fresh. After destiny delivered the news to me in one solid blow, she had never spoken to me again. Perhaps she went with the ship, to watch her children. Or maybe she has her own kind of guilt to carry.

Either way, I wrote this for Rouge. I'm leaving this on her grave tomorrow with some flowers I tend to when I'm not reading. I guess I needed a hobby of somekind.

I haven't had much experience with the master emerald or the chaos emeralds in over twenty years, but I'm going after them now. Yesterday I read in a ancient text about their ability to warp time.

Maybe I'm crazy, I'm hardly the one to make that assessment. But if there's even a small chance to go back, to somehow save her and still complete the mission, I'll try it. Any way it turns out, I'm sure I'll find somewhere to go home and someone to go home to.

Even if it is only in my mind.

END