Shadows of the Future
Chapter Thirteen
Between the Darkness and the Light
(Explanations, rating, and disclaimers can be found at the beginning of Chapter One.)
"Sonic, you, Tails, and Number Twelve go sabotage that ship as much as you can," said Electra after they'd all gotten over the shock. "Knuckles, you, Amy, and I will try to find the Dark Master. I assume it's somewhere in the Palace, but how we're going to discover where I'm sure I don't know..."
"That won't be a problem," said Knuckles quietly. He was strangely subdued and withdrawn ever since Lorinda had died. He also seemed rather weak and tired lately. "I have an ability to sense whenever a Power Gem of any kind is nearby. Get me into the Palace, and I can find it."
Electra blinked in surprise, looking at him appreciatively. "Well, THAT'S a handy little trick. Okay, so is everybody clear on their assignments?"
Five heads nodded.
"Go!" said Sonic, his eyes sparkling. "Let's DO it to it!"
* * *
"So," came a deep, throaty female voice that might have once been sexy, were it not so hoarse, "I see you've FOUND us." A ragged figure staggered into the dim, flickering light cast by the purple artificial torches of the three Mobians.
Electra's first impulse was to feel pity for this pathetic creature. Her once-beautiful garments were torn and shredded, blood was drying on her formerly glossy black fur from a cut in one of her legs, and she walked with a pronounced limp. "Yes, us," cackled the former Queen in a voice that spoke of true madness. Whatever tenuous hold she might have once had on her sanity, it was quite gone now. "Me--and my best friend!" She flung herself protectively over the Dark Master, stroking it as if it were a pet. "No, we won't let ANYTHING happen to you, my precious," she soothed, an insane gleam in her eyes, "we won't let ANY of the nasty people hurt you. Not ever." She giggled again and then lay back, crooning softly to herself, "my friend, my friend, my bestest bestest of friends...diamonds are a girl's best friend..."
"She's gone MAD," whispered Electra to Amy.
"It might be a trick," said Amy, her eyes wide. "I wouldn't trust her. Not after all the nasty things she's done."
"Electra," whispered Knuckles in her ear, "the machinery seems to be just of the normal electrical variety and not anything fancier. You can control the flows of electrical currents, right?"
"Yeah..." said Electra vaguely. "But I don't think I can do a very precise job..."
"All you have to do is reverse the flow on the Dark Master's machinery so that energy is flowing OUT of it and INTO the Master Emerald back on the Island, instead. Think you can do that?"
Electra nodded grimly. "No problem. The trouble will be getting past HER--" she cocked her head towards the babbling evil Queen "--so I can get close enough to do it."
"Leave that to me," whispered Knuckles. "Oh, honey, dear!" he called out to Riku-Dari. "I'm back!"
"You're back! Oh, my sweet, sweet little Anansi," cooed the Queen. "Have you brought me a present? We're living in a material world, you know, and I AM a Material Girl!"
"Yes," lied Knuckles. "I have a really wonderful sparkly expensive present for you, right here. But you'll have to come over here and get it."
"Why don't YOU come over HERE?" pouted the Queen, batting her eyelashes up at him. "Come play with me!"
"No, YOU come HERE or no present!" said Knuckles, beginning to get a bit annoyed. Suddenly he changed his tactics. "Dance with me, my Queen?" he asked, gallantly taking her hand and attempting to pull her to her feet.
WHAM!!
He was thrown back against the wall of the shadowy chamber as the Queen rose slowly to her feet. All trace of madness was gone from her eyes, replaced by a cold, unreasoning fury. "You think you're so smart." She sneered at Knuckles, walking slowly towards him with her razor-sharp claws unsheathed. "Don't underestimate me, my 'sweet'. I may no longer be Queen, but I am still Riku-Dari! Raised to be the leader of a warrior-people! Guardian of a Master Emerald, just like you. Orphaned at an early age and forced to fend for myself, just like you. We are TOO much alike, Knuckles, you and I. And because of that, one of us will have to DIE!!" Her eyes had changed from bright orange to a glittering black, just like the Dark Master. WHAM! Another bolt of black light blasted from her outstretched palm, slamming the already-weakened red echidna against the wall yet again. The Dark Master must have transferred some of its power to her as a last-ditch protection maneuver.
Knuckles tried valiantly to stand up and try again, but he just couldn't. He had already been severely weakened by the draining of his own Master Emerald, which, as the jewel's chosen Guardian, his life was bonded to, and now, his body just couldn't TAKE this kind of punishment much longer. He was just so weak....his vision was blurring...sound was fading in and out all strange...his feet were going numb...
"AAIIIEEEEEEE!!!" came a scream of agony, and for a change it wasn't him. Knuckles forced his eyes open just in time to see a bolt of lightning hit Riku-Dari straight in the back. She whipped around to see Electra standing behind her. "You think you can get rid of me that easily?" shrieked the former Queen. "I'm not the kind of girl who gives up just like that!" and she lunged for the yellow hedgehog.
Electra gulped. That blast should have KILLED any ordinary person! She'd been saving up her power for days! But even though she'd made a direct hit--Riku-Dari's smoking clothes and bristling fur attested to that--the madwoman was somehow still alive! HOW had she...?
Electra's gaze fell upon a group of large, glittering gold rings laying on the floor. Rings. Where had they come from? Then she noticed that the decorative gold bands that had been on the ends of Riku-Dari's head-spines were missing. But if they were them, then how had they changed size...?
"POWER RINGS!" she exclaimed to herself, and made a flying dive for the pile. She managed to capture just ONE before they all dissolved. The former Queen shrieked in rage when she saw what Electra was doing and aimed a blast of energy at her. It missed by a milimetre, and she aimed again. How am I going to fight her? Electra wondered. Even with this Ring for protection, I don't have any available weapons! What can I use to--
WHAM!
A heavy THUD rocked the room as a gigantic hammer came down, directly on the Queen's head.
And she was gone.
"Way to go, Amy!" said Electra as soon as she had recovered from her shock. "I'd almost forgotten you were here! Wow, you just made her disappear with that thing, I didn't know it could do THAT!"
"It can't," said Amy somberly. "I--I mean...it didn't...last time..."
Electra was tempted to ask her exactly what the story was behind THAT, but she shook her head and went over to the machine. Gotta keep my priorities straight, she told herself. She bent down next to the machine, located the cable that must be used for the energy transfer, closed her eyes, put her hands on it, and concentrated.
And the results were startling.
Instead of flowing backwards at the same rate it had been going, ALL the energy came surging out of the Dark Master in a huge rush. Within seconds it must have recharged the Master Emerald to its full capacity, but it kept going AFTER that. Electra took her hands off the cable and stepped back a pace in alarm, but whatever was happening, it was obviously out of anyone's control now. The Dark Master was now pumping its OWN energy out. It kept going...and going...and going...the demonic black light shrunk down into nothing but a dim spark in its core, then faded out entirely. The entire gem darkened, then lost its ordinary gemstone sparkle, and turned a solid, flat, blank grey, like a pale lump of lead. Then that dull grey surface started developing cracks, and the entire thing collapsed in a pile of dust.
* * *
The rumbling in the Hidden Palace abruptly stopped, as did the stomach-lurching fall of the Island. Four pairs of hands that had been holding death-grips to the undersides of marble furniture unclenched, and four heads peered out cautiously.
"Look!" said Espio. ESPIO?! Bunnie blinked and did a double-take. Yes, Espio! The little purple guy was not only awake, he was dancing around with glee as if he had never been sick! "The Master Emerald! It's recharging!"
Sure enough, it was. The tiny green spark inside its core got bigger, and bigger, and brighter, and brighter, until it was its own normally glowing self again.
And then, something odd happened.
A WAVE of energy came crashing out of the Emerald, knocking them all backwards. It didn't HURT them, exactly, but it gave them all the strangest tingling feeling. Bunnie and Mighty's fur stood all on end, the other three just looked dazed. "Hey!" Charmy yelled happily. "My wing's healed!" He did a couple of joyous loop-the-loops in the air.
"WHAT was THAT?!" demanded Espio, brushing himself off as he went to look out the window. He clambered up the wall using his naturally sticky hands and feet and smiled at what he saw. The twisted vines and dead brown muck of Marble Gardens was beginning to turn green and healthy again. He could only assume the same thing was happening all over the Island.
"I don't know," said Vector thoughtfully. "But I'll bet Knuckles and the gang had something to do with it."
* * *
"Well, here we are," said Tails, twirling around to see the entire room. "The engine room." They had a much easier time getting into the giant spaceship this time around, as the guards were all scattered in total confusion, trying without success to get the population of the City of the Stars quieted down.
"Wow, this place is HUGE," gasped Sonic. "I mean it's way PAST way past huge! How on Mobius are we gonna be able to wreck enough of it to make a difference before the guards find out what we're doing?"
"I don't know," said Number Twelve, who had basically been the engineer of the New Radicals, which made him quite valuable for this job. I really should ask him what his real name is one of these days, thought Sonic to himself. "But let's get going." He prepared to yank a wire out of the engine pit.
"WAIT!" yelled Tails. He hated seeing any machine this magnificent destroyed, and it had suddenly occurred to him that maybe they didn't HAVE to destroy it. "DON'T wreck it. I got a better idea..."
* * *
The ship was huge, all right. There was no WAY that only three people could have searched the entire thing themselves in such a limited amount of time.
And so maybe that is why nobody noticed the pathetic, ragged, black-furred figure limping its way through the garden deck...
* * *
"Wow," breathed Amy in awe.
"Well," said Electra, still a bit stunned. "Guess we don't have to worry about THAT any longer."
"Come on," said Knuckles. He stood before them, strong, tall, practically bursting with energy. His Emerald was healed, and he was healed. He was himself again. For REAL this time. The energy that coursed through him was not tainted with an evil spell; it was the jewel of his ancestors made whole. As Electra looked at him, she could have sworn he even looked a little bit...REDDER than he had before. As if somehow full health had kicked his colour up a notch.
"Grab onto me, you two." he instructed after they had wound their way back through the Palace. They did as he said, confused, as he climbed the wall of the building. "Now hang on tight," he warned them, and leapt off the roof of the palace, going into a smooth, effortless glide. "Let's go see how Sonic and company are doing with that spaceship."
"Wait," said Amy from where she sat on Electra's shoulders. "If the evil Emerald has been destroyed, then...what's powering the city?"
* * *
Jolt clung to the pipe, high above the floor, with one hand and held the precious part in the other--the reglar--regu--the thingie the rebels needed for their machine--until long after the guards had left with her four buddies. She didn't MEAN to desert them, she really didn't, but she was just so scared...and when the guards hadn't thought to look UP, she realised that she didn't DARE make a noise or else the rebels wouldn't have the part anymore! So, much as it bothered her to do it, she had remained silent and let the guards think that they only needed to capture FOUR prisoners, not five.
Feeling incredibly guilty, Jolt had clambered part of the way down the pipe and then just LEAPT the rest of the way to the floor--squirrels were good at that--and was now trying in vain to find her way to the machine. Boy, the streets are CROWDED today, she thought. I wonder what everybody is so upset about?
She soon pushed this out of her mind as she had more pressing matters to think about. The machine, she told herself. I have to get back to that machine. I have to get this part where it belongs before it's too late!
But she quickly realised that she had NO idea where the generator was! Between the noise and confusion of the crowd, the unfamiliar layout of the streets, and her own faulty memory, she was completely lost! "Was it down this street?" she asked herself. "I KNOW I'm supposed to turn left here...or was it right? Oh, what's the use! I have no idea where I am!"
But after she sat down and cried for a moment, she got back up and went on. The parents of Jolene Miranda Gonzalez, the spoiled, pampered heiress, would have gaped in surprise to see their little "cupcake" acting this way. Jolt herself would have been surprised, too, had she stopped to think about it. But she was far too busy.
Exhausted, she forced herself to trudge step after weary step through the milling, endless streets. This thing--the anti-regla-whatever--was so HEAVY. And she felt like she'd walked for MILES now. Where WAS that stupid machine? It HAD to be around here somewhere. She paused a moment to catch her breath.
She couldn't.
No matter how hard she tried, she just COULDN'T quite get enough air into her lungs. Am I dying? Jolt wondered. But no; as she looked around at the crowd, she realised that everyone else was having the same problem she was. What the heck...?
Then...she looked...up.
And gasped.
The sky--the entire SKY!--was flickering in and out like a T.V. channel with bad reception. And a strong wind started to blow over her. She desperately clung to the nearest wall, but she was so dizzy, and she couldn't hold onto the heavy part with only one hand anymore...
"Come with me if you want to live." said a strangely flat, metallic voice above her.
Jolt looked up to see--Number Six, the robot! "Boy, am I glad to see you!" she said in a hoarse whisper as the metal arms picked her up with ease. He evidently had some kind of magnets in his feet because the wind wasn't affecting him. "Take this," he instructed, placing a mask over her face. Jolt breathed deeply. Oxygen. How she'd missed it.
It turned out that they were close by the machine. But by the time they reached it, the wind was INCREDIBLY strong, the air had gotten bitterly cold, and people were passed out in the streets! Soon they'd all be dead.
"The part!" yelled Jolt. "Put it in! Hurry!"
The robot did so, and Jolt leapt over to hit the "on" switch with the last of her strength.
At first, nothing happened.
Then the sky came back, nice and solid. Or what Jolt now realised must be the city's dome-shield, designed to LOOK like sky.
Then it got warmer.
Then air started pumping out from the city's environmental units, people started waking up, and everything was okay again.
"It works!! It works!!" cried Jolt, jumping up and down for joy. A couple of passerby stared at her funny, then continued on. "Everything is okay! Except..." and here she sobered, "except that I have no idea where my friends are..."
"My sensors are picking up two life-forms with non-echidna DNA approaching the large spaceship at the Launch Base," reported Number Six, "and two more already inside it. Shall I take you there?"
"PLEASE!" grinned Jolt, and climbed up onto his metallic back.