Shadows of the Future
Chapter Two
Symptoms
(Explanations, rating, and disclaimers can be found at the beginning of Chapter One.)
Sonic stepped carefully through the red-tinted gloom. Deep inside the Island, the area known as "Lava Reef" extended for miles and miles. Miles of endless, treacherous caverns of crumbling brown rock and occasionally blue crystal, miles of toxic gasses in the air, miles of deadly exploding rocks and walls studded with six-foot-long metal spikes. The only light in this place was an ominous reddish one from the lava that surrounded the floor--and sometimes went UNDER it--lined the walls, and occasionally even fell from the ceiling in a deadly parody of a waterfall! Slow and sluggish for now, it still burbled loudly enough to set Sonic's nerves completely on end. And in some places, it had burned the floor completely away to nothing but a thin crust, where any foolish enough to step on it would instantly die...
Sonic shook his head, and flexed his spines up and down on his back several times to help air out his fur. It was so ungodsly HOT down here! The first time he had come here, he had at first been struck by the uncanny beauty of the glowing blue crystal caves. Then he had wondered who MADE these caves, and why, and what was up with all the spikes in the walls, anyway? Then he had been frightened to death that he was going to die, and wanted out.
But right now, all he REALLY wanted was a tall, cool glass of iced tea.
With sugar.
And a squeeze of lemon.
Sighing, Sonic took a moment to rest before going across a thin bridge that led over a molten magma pool. He was in good shape, but the oxygen down here was in short supply, so he tired easily. He was planning to go back to the Hidden Palace and report soon, anyway. He hadn't found any sign of any kind of machinery that could take power away from the Emerald, and besides, it was obvious that nothing and no-one could operate well in this heat for long. The energy-thief--if there WAS one--would have been smart enough to find a better hiding place.
But then again, maybe that was exactly what the thief WANTED them to think.
With a groan, Sonic pulled himself back to his feet, noticing as he did so that the bottoms of his sneakers had started to melt and stick to the hot stone floor! He had just managed to get free and was taking one step towards the bridge when--
WHAM!!
A small but surprisingly heavy shape slammed into him from the side. "WHAT the..." he exclaimed angrily, attempting to extricate himself from his attacker. The lava in here was glowing a bit dimmer than in some of the other chambers so it was rather difficult to see. "Tails? Is that you?" He yanked his hand back as he encounted rather sharp spines on the person's back. "I thought you were at your birthday party..." He trailed off as the realisation hit him.
Spines?!
Tails didn't have spines!
"Oh, Sonic, I'm SO glad I finally caught up with you!" gushed the little pink hedgehog, hugging him tightly.
With a sneer of annoyance, Sonic attempted to pry her loose. "Amy, I've got no time for this, I have to finish searching Lava Reef..."
"WAIT!!" she yelled. "Don't go across that bridge--it'll crumble out from underneath you and dump you straight into the lava!"
Sonic rolled his eyes. "You and your imagination, Amy..."
"I mean it!" she exclaimed, seeming genuinely upset. "I came into this room from a different angle--I saw that bridge from the side. I'm telling you, it may look solid from the top, but from the side, it's as thin as paper!"
Sonic still felt she was exagerrating just a bit, but he picked up a nearby heavy-ish rock and tossed it at the bridge anyway, just to be safe.
CRACK.
Hisssssss....the rock plunged straight through the bridge, which now no longer existed, and melted instantly upon contact with the red-hot magma below.
"Whoah..." Sonic backed up a step involuntarily, turning rather a sickly shade of powder-blue.
"See?" said Amy proudly, batting her eyelashes up
at him. "I CAN be useful."
Sonic winced inside, remembering painfully all the times he had thought--or even said aloud--that Amy Rose Hedgehog was a useless little annoyance, or worse. And here she had just saved his life! He felt like a first-class heel.
"Um...Amy?" he scuffed his foot on the floor. "I--I'd like you to travel WITH me until we get out of here. And..." he fished around in his backpack, "I want you to have this."
It was a large, thin, glowing gold hoop about as big as Sonic's head, but it shrunk down automatically when it came near Amy's hand, so that it was now exactly the right size to fit on her finger.
"A RING!!" she shrieked in happiness. "You want to marry me!!!"
"Uh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." Sonic backed away a step, sensing another hug coming on. "It's a POWER Ring, Amy. I'll keep you from being killed in this dangerous place as long as you have it. Of course, there are some things it can't protect you against--pits, crushing ceilings and floors, drowning--but you'll be a lot safer WITH it than without it."
The entire second half of his speech seemed to have gone RIGHT over Amy's head. "You mean you DON'T want to marry me?"
Sonic supressed a groan and started walking further on into the deadly caves, the depressed smaller hedgehog trailing behind him like a pink shadow.
* * *
Espio crept silently through the underbrush of what had once been a tropical paradise--the "Angel Island" coast. There was certainly nothing "angelic" about it now, he reflected sadly. It was all dying, rotting away. Even though he was not the Guardian of the Floating Island, only one of its residents, he could understand the look of pure pain he had seen in Knuckles' eyes.
He had seen...something else...in his eyes, too...
Espio shook his purple head as he slinked among the palm trees, a shadow among the shadows, failing to find any clue as to what was going on. He had lived on Floating Island ever since he could remember, and had been friends with Knuckles even longer than THAT, and he had no idea what was wrong with either of them--the place, or the person.
And he also had no idea which problem worried him more...
He let out a cry of shock as...something...slithered across his ankle. There weren't supposed to be any dangerous creatures in this part of the Island! He looked down to see what it was.
It was not an animal; it was a plant--and it had tight hold of both his legs!
Espio figured this out JUST as he was slammed forcefully to the ground and the vines started dragging him across the murky forest floor. He turned invisible out of reflex, then felt silly as he realised that plants couldn't see in the first place. Desperately he tried to yank the vines free, then attempted to bite through them, and sever them with his horn. Nothing worked.
Then he saw where the vines were dragging him--and why. Oh, gods! It was a gigantic, monstrous tree, with a gaping...the only word for it was mouth!--and huge, sharp, deadly-looking wooden teeth! And its jaws were moving, by themselves! The vines were just this hideous creature's tentacles!
In a final burst of fear-born strength, Espio managed to snap the vines holding him and dashed away from the tree-thing as fast as he could go.
But not fast enough.
As a parting shot, the tree-thing tossed a flurry of needle-sharp red spines at him, each 6 inches long, with beaded tips. He managed to dodge most of them by ducking behind a rock but a few found their target. He immediately began to feel dizzy.
"Poison," he muttered, and began to stagger weakly. He had no idea where he was going, he just felt he had to get AWAY. What was HAPPENING to this place? he wondered again. It seemed that it was even worse than they had thought--not only were things dying, but the ones that weren't were becoming twisted and evil!
Espio found himself on one of the many bridges that spanned the great Hydrocity lake at its narrowest point, and instantly regretted it. The same malaise that was affecting the rest of the Island's machinery had also weakened the ancient bridge's preservation spell, and now the three hundred years plus of being exposed to a hot, humid, wet climate had finally caught up with the wooden bridge. In other words, it was rotted away to practically nothing. It caved in completely beneath his weight like wet paper, and dumped him into the lake.
Espio's last semicoherent thought before he sunk beneath the waters was to wonder how this strange plague was affecting Knuckles...
* * *
Bunnie finished her tour of the Launch Base and put her hands on her hips, surveying the huge futuristic complex. "Way-ell, Ah've done searched this en-tah place, and Ah still don't know what in the whoo-hah is happenin' ta this heah Ahsland." she declared. "At least Ah've got hayalf of mah job done, now Ah just have ta go search thayat lil' ol' Skah-Castle thang." Bunnie glanced around. Only problem is, I don't know where it is from here and Knuckles never told me, she thought. How am I supposed to get there--ah! Her eyes lighted on one of the ubiquitous transporter devices that the echidna-people had left behind all over the Island. "Now that's moah lahk it!" she exclaimed, clanking over to it on her robotic legs. "Ah wondah how you're s'posed ta work these newfangled contraptions," she pondered, staring at the transporter. Knuckles hadn't explained that, either.
Feeling rather self-conscious, she cautiously poked one of the four elegant twisted-wire poles that surrounded the transporter ball, then felt silly when nothing happened. Then she climbed inside past the wire guard-rails and stood on top of the dimly-glowing sphere.
"Uh, take me to the Skah Sanctuary?" she said aloud, feeling sillier by the minute.
Something must have triggered it, because suddenly Bunnie felt the strangest tingling feeling. She looked down at herself and gasped when she realised that, from her metal feet up, she was quickly dissolving into nothing but light!
Before she had a chance to cry out, she had melted into part of the glowing transporter beam and was being shot high above Floating Island.
After the initial shock, she discovered that--somehow--she could still see where she was going! She could see the Island falling away from her, still looking like the jewel it used to be from this distance. Even though she was insanely high in the sky, she was lighter than air itself, so she did not at all feel as if she was in any danger of falling.
Wow! she thought in awe. I LIKE this!
Higher and higher she rose, until she could see the towers and delicate minarets of the Sky Sanctuary above. Closer and closer to it she came, until the transporter beam had almost reached a ledge on the lower floor of the ruined city.
And then...it just...stopped.
Bunnie suddenly felt heavy, very, very heavy as the beam of light bearing her upwards gave out entirely and faded away, and her physical body came back with a vengeance. The ledge she was supposed to have landed on was still about 50 feet away. Even with her robotic arm's stretching ability, it was just too far.
NOW that scream Bunnie had been saving up came out.
"AAAAEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIiiiieeeeeee...!!!!"
She fell through the open air, helpless, the ground a dot hundreds and hundreds of feet beneath her. She was absolutely terrified. She'd always been prepared to die young, as a Freedom Fighter, but not like THIS! Not like--
WHUMP.
Bunnie shook her head dizzily and looked around at her surroundings. Somehow, she was still in the sky but she wasn't falling anymore--how was this possible?
"You looked like you needed a hand," came a familiar voice from just behind her. "So it's a good thing I showed up, huh?"
Bunnie finally realised what she was lying on--the wing of a small, red, biplane--as she turned around to look at the speaker.
"Tails?"
* * *
The noises wouldn't stop.
Instead, they got worse and worse, until Knuckles thought his ears would break. Suddenly, he felt a great need to get home.
"Mommy," he whispered as he straightened up and looked towards the city. He didn't know how, but he was going to try to get home to his mother and father. Somehow, they would make everything all right.
But as the five-year-old echidna child started to creep his way through the forest, something astounding happened.
The strange lights in the sky--they were enemy fighter-planes but he was too young to understand that--had all reached their target destination--the City of the Sun. Its gleaming towers of marble and metal rose above the mountains and forests around it so high that they could be seen even from the edges of the entire Island, where Knuckles was. It was truly a beautiful sight.
But it wouldn't be for long.
The enemy fighters were shooting everything they had in one great salvo at the shimmering magical shield that covered the city like a glass dome, hoping to break it down through sheer force. As the horrified hatchling watched, the shield's glow began to flicker wildly--then fade away. Then cracks started to appear in it.
"NO!!" yelled Knuckles, because even he knew that that meant. His family was in danger! He had to go to them!
But before he could take another step, there was a TREMENDOUS explosion of light and noise from the direction of the city. It blinded him temporarily and he panicked. Then a gigantic shock wave swept through the Island. It knocked down trees and buildings everywhere and tossed the poor child around like a leaf in a high wind. His head was struck sharply against a rock and he blacked out.
When Knuckles awoke, the entire city was GONE--and so were the attackers.
And so he became the last of his kind.
* * *
Of course, he didn't know that at first. When he woke up, some three days later, at first he was so disoriented he didn't know what was going on. But quickly it came back to him in a terrible rush, and he ran, desperately, across the Island, back to his home, his family--or at least, where they USED to be.
Now there was nothing left of the City of the Sun but broken, dead chunks of marble strewn about the surrounding mountainsides, a carving on a wall here, an abandoned-yet-still-working machine there. The jungle-plants, having an exceptionally fast growth-rate in the Floating Island's lush climate, had already started creeping over the broken pieces of the city, giving it the look of an ancient ruin.
The birds chirped, the grass grew, the sun shone as if nothing had happened.
But there were no people.
No people at all.
"Mom?" called out Knuckles, his stubby legs stumbling in the rough terrain. "Dad?" He called and called, searching the city from top to bottom, before he eventually just gave up and collapsed where he was, sobbing himself to sleep.
* * *
When he awoke a second time, he had a new resolve. He was going to be the Guardian of the Floating Island. Never mind that he was only five years old. His logic was that if he kept the Island the way his people would have wanted it, if he kept everything the way it used to be as much as possible, then maybe, someday, they would come back, too.
And deep inside, where he barely even dared admit it to himself, he felt somehow guilty about not being with his parents at the end, as if somehow the explosion was his fault. It was ridiculous, of course, but he couldn't help it anyway. Naming himself the "Guardian" was his penance, in a way.
From then on, he took it upon himself to learn everything there was to learn about every inch of the Island, and for the next several years that is exactly what he did. Espio and other friends he met at different points during the way, who began to call themselves the "Chaotix" due to the fact that they were helper-Guardians to the Chaos Emeralds, assisted him in his tasks. But most of the work fell to the young Knuckles himself, and he wouldn't have had it any other way.
The Chaos Emeralds--and one in particular, the Master Emerald--were to have a profound impact on his life, though he didn't know it yet. He discovered the secret entrance to the Master Emerald chamber deep beneath the ruins of the city, in the Hidden Palace, early in his explorations. He as only seven at the time but he found it. And for the next entire year, he almost NEVER left the Chamber. You see, there were many, many tapestries, and also video monitor screens that stayed hidden in the walls until the proper command was given, that could show him pictures of his people. When he was looking at them, he didn't feel quite so lonely.
Also, he stayed in that chamber because he figured that since the Master Emerald was the Island's most important treasure, he should be right there to guard it.
Little did he know that at the same time, the Emerald was doing something for him, too...
* * *
Knuckles dropped the ancient book he was reading, startled, as Vector came rushing into the room. He was carrying a limp form in his arms. "Well, I didn't find anything in Hydrocity," he panted, as if he had been running very hard. "But I found something else..." he carefully settled the figure he was carrying on an ornate couch in the corner of the room.
"Espio!" Knuckles cried out in alarm, rushing over to his side. The chameleon had turned a pale lavendar colour, and he was thrashing around as if in the grip of some terrible fever. Long, nasty barbs were sticking out of his body at all points.
"You see those things?" said Vector, pointing to them. "Poison, I'll bet. They're barbed at the end--I don't dare take them out without a doctor around."
Knuckles sighed. "Well, we don't have enough time to get a real doctor from Knothole Village, but Bunnie is a nurse--I'll use the communicator to call her back from the Sky Sanctuary." He added under his breath, "Just hang on, old friend..."