SoBR Chapter VII

Chapter VII
- Head over Feet –

"This isn't possible!"

Indeed… Eggman really wasn't able to understand it at all. There she was, a mysterious girl, which have appeared out of the nowhere and obviously teamed up with Shadow and constantly causing trouble in the ranks of the GUN army. And now this fact, that she was actually nobody else then his cousin, Maria Robotnik, who officially died during the ARK-incidence fifty years ago.

He couldn't believe it. It must have been the messed up result of a malfunction caused by the over-floating mass of data-streams his machines had to work with since the Black Arms came to this planet. May the whole CPU have shot circuit?

No, this couldn't be… His works, his gadgets were all in perfect condition. Still, he got to make sure and with that, Eggman started the analysis a second and after this also a third time… just to get every time the same result; The identification was positive, the rate of possibility of truth laid every time at ninety-seven percent… Eggman had to admit it; there was only a tiny chance of system failure.

It was she.

"This is nearly impossible… Even though she would have survived the attack, how can it be, that she still looks like a twenty-years-old? She's suppose to be more then sixty old today!"

His eyes wandered over the screens in front of him, observing every detail of his computers analysis. It really did not make any sense. Even though, Eggman new about the possibility of using the time-warp-technique of Chaos Control, the chance that Maria could have be able to use it, by her own will power or with the help of machinery, was so small, it rendered the whole issue impossible.

"This is not making any sense…" the doctor spoke to himself, his look still fixated on the monitors.

"And even she would have been turn out to be an old woman today, the NIDS would have killed her years ago… Today it is curable, because of DNA-manipulations and with the help of hormones, but all who have been born with it, are suppose to die sooner or later."

After thinking of this further, the doctor figured that a change of plan might be necessary in order to reach his goal this time. Maria alive and obviously in possession of her entire memory, as he suspected… that really changed everything.

An evil smile appeared on his face. The decision was made very quickly.

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Glyphic Canyon… An old tale of long past eras of better times laid within the ruins of this place, a secret that just waited to be solved by all who were either brave or foolish enough to set food on the ground of this mystical area. Inscriptions of a long forgotten culture covered the walls and halls of the remaining ruins, leaving a very uneasy feeling in the viewer's eye the moment he saw it the very first time. They had been here for an eternity and nobody had even been able to solve its mystery until now.

Many came here, but most of them left the place with empty hands, frustration and the feeling that they shouldn't have come here in the first place. This feeling of discomfort was around all who came here and stayed for a very long time as well the moment they left. A few even went insane…

Fortunately this wasn't the case for Knuckles. The red echidna knew this place very well, knew all the hidden passages and traps. With ease he made his way through the ruin's maze of tunnels and halls, looking for some clues about why the Black Arms had came here at all. The normally a bit reckless echidna knew he had to be careful this time, because the aliens had many soldiers spread all over the place and let himself get caught was not an option.

Nevertheless he was able to follow the aliens without being detected by the Black Hawks, those strange, dragon-like, flying aliens of the Black Arms. They function as spies as well as troops for air strike attacks, in which they used energy-attacks as well as rocket launchers, plus their ability to fly was very developed and so they were able to stay in midair like a hummingbird as well as soaring through the skies.

Still… they haven't detected him and that was good.

Knuckles overheard a conversation between Black Doom and his troops earlier. The leader's order was to find something that was hidden inside this place, but unfortunately he haven't mentioned or named what it actually was, referred the thing just with the name of "it". It was clear that it must have been something, the black aliens knew very well, but others wouldn't notice it.

It could have been a stone in the wall, a relief or a hidden chamber, maybe even some plant or decoration. It could have been anything.

The red echidna noticed, that many of the soldiers remained close-by and inside the many halls this ruins had. Knuckles wasn't sure what was going on here, but he stayed on the Black Arms tails as good as possible.

As much as he wanted to fight, he knew it would have been a foolish thing to do so, attacking the whole alien's squad on his own alone. He had no problem with it and there was enough courage and bravery in his heart to do it, but what if he would get in trouble nonetheless? Nobody was here to help him yet and the soldiers of GUN truly had their hands full of their own. So it was just to observe everything for now.

He had asked some of his friends for help, but it wasn't that they could come here in a flash. Everyone had to make sure that they helped people in the cities and bring them to safety. The black aliens appeared everywhere and so it wasn't really surprising that things were not going as good as wanted. Knuckles knew his friends wouldn't let him down by any chance, but they couldn't rip themselves in half in order to help him. It had to work step by step. Nevertheless, he wouldn't give up hope yet.

And suddenly a flash of blue light came rushing from the top of the hill on the opposite site of the ruins location. It passed by Knuckles position after a few further seconds and stopped almost in front of him. The guardian raised his head and smiled. Finally!

"Took you long enough to get here, Sonic." he said with a bit of sarcasm in the tone of his voice.

"Nice to see you, too, Knux."

His friend just smirked over this comment, shrugged and got in his knees, so he wouldn't give away their presence to the Black Arms. The blue hedgehog looked around him first before he did so.

"So… What's the word? Any news?"

Knuckles shook his head.

"They haven't done anything after this ugly guy gave them the order to secure the whole place. All I know is, that they are looking for something."

"Which is…?" Sonic asked with a somewhat annoyed expression. He was sick of being surrounded by mysteries, which couldn't be solved. But Knuckles wasn't better with this, too.

"How should I know?! They haven't said anything about it. He just said "Go, find them" and that's it."

Sonic sighed.

"Great…"

"Don't give me that!" Knuckles almost screamed and the next second he actually realised what he was doing. Fast he put his hands over his mouth, the eyes wide opened.

"Damn…" he said in horror. Did he just now blow their cover? With guilt in his eyes he looked up to Sonic, who sighed again, shook his head and put his hand on Knuckles shoulders. The echidna only gave him a confused look.

"Knux…" Sonic said, now with sarcasm in his voice. "I hate to disappoint you, but the aliens are gone already." He smirked and turned around, ready to speed up.

"Hey, Knuckles, are you coming now or not? Don't cha wanna follow them?"

"Hrmph…"

Knuckles stood up and tried to hide his embarrassment from his friend. He took deep breath, clenched his fists and grinned widely.

"If that means bashing some aliens, count me in!"

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It had been three hours already since she encountered the commander. She had calmed down over this time, but wasn't able to speak about it with Shadow the moment she was returned to her cell. The guards haven't said a word and she had remained silent as well. Now it was time for her to face him again… she just didn't know it yet.

All the time, she thought about a way to get out of this mess. No matter what now, she had to return to the ARK as soon as possible.

Before he outburst in the commander's presence, she overheard a conversation between him and one of GUN's generals that the Black Arms were able to bring all the remaining five Chaos Emeralds in their possession, which means that they will attack the GUN Headquarters very soon in order to get the two Chaos Emeralds the GUN troops took from Shadow when they injured him in Westopolis. The leader of the Black Arms, Black Doom, knew this… And Maria knew what he was up to the moment he would have collected all of them.

Reaching the ARK as fast as possible was the most important thing she has to do now. The weapon that was hidden inside… the Eclipse Cannon… it was the only weapon that was powerful enough to destroy the Black Comet.

Unfortunately… in order to do this, Maria was in need to the seven Chaos Emeralds herself. Even though, she has been told that the weapon can be fired without all the seven Emeralds, Maria knew about the overwrite-protocols and passwords in order to activate the manual controls, taking the energy from the ARK life-support-systems, but it would never be enough to destroy the alien's ship.

All the seven Chaos Emeralds are necessary, so the Eclipse Cannon could be fired at maximum power.

But how to do this…? She was trapped inside this cell, deep down in a high-security-zone and there wasn't a chance of getting out by using brute force and hope to stay alive. She wouldn't even make it until the elevator. No chance.

Shadow has been sleeping for a while, still exhausted from the wound in his chest. He tried to focus his energy earlier, wanted to know how weak he still was. Yet he was stopped by Maria, had to admit to himself, that it wasn't enough at all. He could barely stand on his own, not to mention forming a Chaos Spear. It pained him being so helpless…

When Maria was brought back to her cell he had waken up from his little nap. The moment he looked at her face, he realised that it didn't went so well. He asked her, but she just said that she wouldn't want to concern him with this.

"What are we doing now, Maira? I won't stay here." he said with a bit of frustration in his voice. Maria aka Maira raised her head and looked at him before she spoke, let out a little sigh of frustration herself.

"Honestly… I really don't know Shadow… I have no idea how we are suppose to get out. All I know is, that we HAVE to get out."

"One Chaos Emerald and we would have been out here for hours already…"

"Don't feel depressed Shadow." Maria said with a comforting smile. "It wasn't your fault that you've lost the two Emeralds back in Westopolis."

The black hedgehog nodded slightly. "Perhaps, yes… but now we are in trouble and I dragged you into this mess as well…"

"No, Shadow. I brought myself into this. Besides… I am hacking the mainframes of the GUN mother-computers for years now. I'm much longer involved into this then you might think."

She knew it was a give-away to tell him that, but she couldn't help it to leave him in the dark like this. It was so obvious which question would come from him next…

"You hacked into the GUN-network? For what?"

…and so it did.

"Information about several things…"

Shadow gave her a strange look. He began to turn suspicious on her and Maria knew that she would be trapped in this conversation, if the trap hasn't snapped her already…
She started to feel uneasy. Shadow on the other hand didn't realised her nervousness at the first, his mind was still simply too foggy as a side effect of the fever.

With half-opened eyes, he turned his head a little to the door of his cell before moved it back in Maria's direction and asked for further details.

"Such as?"

He opened a little bit wider then normal. She expected him to ask this, but now that she was confronted with the question itself, it was overwhelming for her. Her mind was almost a blank state. She didn't know what to say in the first moments.

A dangerous situation…

Maria knew, if she remained silent for too long, she would risk blowing her cover. In order to prevent it, she would lie if she couldn't help it. It was to early for Shadow to know. As much as she wanted to tell him the truth, she simply couldn't do it under these circumstances, not in this situation and not now that the commander already seems to know the truth about her.

Mentally she cursed herself for being so incredible reckless, giving away her most precious secret: Her identity.

Maria didn't realise it until now, but she had been a fool to burst out like this. Oh, how she wished she had been able to swallow the anger now. A little panic started to awake in her the more she thought about it. What if the commander plans to confront Shadow with her, with these facts?

She couldn't deny it anymore: She was trapped.

"Information about… the ARK-incidence."

"What?!"

That woke up the black hedgehog from this sleepy state. With disbelieve on his face he looked inside the young woman's blue eyes. He didn't understand the reason for this behaviour. Maria on the other side of the energy-field had closed her eyes for a moment and opened them with a touch of sadness again. This time Shadow saw the emotions, reflecting from her sapphire blue eyes. Yet, he couldn't explain.

"But… why? For what purpose?"

He was confused. It made no sense to him at all.

This girl knew him from the start, that's something he realised by now. It wasn't the case that she just knew him from the television or the newspaper, she knew him for a longer time, because of her hacking in the GUN system.

Obviously her hacking gave her access to many different secrets of GUN. So it wouldn't be that surprising if she would have come along his own file when he was still trapped in Prison Island.

Shadow heard once about a hacker called "the Wind-Dancer". He got this information from Rouge when she and Eggmans E-series robot Omega teamed up with him against doctor Eggmans creation, Metal Sonic. The bat told him that this hacker has been able to hack through the system and into the most secured databanks, containing data about him, Eggmans schemes and creations, as well as the events during the ARK-incidence and all that concerned the space colony after the attack as well.

So… could this be? Could this woman be "the Wind-Dancer"?"

He wasn't able to think it all through as he heard guards walking over the corridor. Shadow could tell that they were stopping in front of his door and the next moment the door of his cell has been opened.

A quick look into Maria's cell showed him that both of their cells were opened. It was just the same scenario like before: Four elite-soldiers came inside the cells and told them to get ready for some questioning. Only this time, a pair of armed GUN Beetles was escorting them as well. The commander knew the potential within Shadow and the power he possessed. He wanted to make sure that there are no mistakes to be done.

Still what good would it do Shadow when the thought about escaping from the place? He had seen the structure of the building himself. He knew it would have been suicide to try it and so he remained calm and did what he was told.

Maria didn't say a word and just responded by following the guard's instructions as well.

The moment they stood on the lift though, one of the soldiers who Maria recognized as the same soldier who brought her back to her cell last time, broke the uncomfortable silence.

"Do you know why the commander want to have a word with you again, miss?" he asked but never faced the girl. Maria wanted to give him a smile of pure sarcasm, but couldn't bring herself to do it, not to mention that the soldier made no intentions to turn around anyway.

"I can imaging that, yes. But why does he want to see Shadow as well?" Maria's look wandered to Shadow who tried to hold his balance.

"Shadow is in no condition to answer any questions. He's barely able to stay awake. How about giving him some medical attention instead of asking him stupid questions about the Black Arms?"

The soldier was visibly shaken for a moment, almost turned his head to face her now, but he resisted at last. Maria couldn't help but give a little smile. As it seemed, she hit a wounded spot. So… all soldiers weren't on the commander's side then…

Shadow on the other hand was a little bit confused by Maria question. It was only a matter of time he would have been questioned by the commander himself, so why did she ask for medical help for him when he was about to get done with it? Little Shadow knew that the girl had her motives, but he didn't realise it. He didn't realise that she didn't want to give the commander a chance to confront Shadow with her true identity. The soldier didn't realise it either, though… he thought of different things.

"I'm sorry, miss, but I have been ordered to bring you to the commander directly and I can not refuse to my superior."

A moment of silence passed before he spoke on. His other colleagues remained silent all the time. They didn't dare to interfere with that.

"But… the moment the questioning is done, I will see that the both of you get attended to. Your medical team has returned from Central City and is already preparing for you."

'So they can inject us some sort of drug? No, thanks!' Maria thought after hearing these words.

She knew… when the commander indeed realised that she wasn't an ordinary hacker, but his former friend abort the ARK fifty years ago, then she would be deeply in trouble.

He wouldn't let them go. Not after she blew everything.

"Thank you, sir." she said, not really meaning it, but the soldier didn't notice.

"You are welcome."

It was just now that the lift stopped. The hydraulic door opened in front of them and the group walked along the short corridor, forward the command centre of the GUN headquarters. When both were brought inside, the commander was waiting there already.

Gabriel sat in his chair, both hands laid folded on his knees. His expression did not chance, but both, Maria and Shadow could tell that must have been very nervous, even when Shadow did not understand why.

With a glare toward Shadow Gabriel rose from his chair and stood in front of them. He raised an eyebrow when his look wandered from the black hedgehog to Maria.

"I hope you calmed down a bit now…" was all he said. His voice was calm enough to have a normal conversation with him, but still too nervous and filled with confusion to call him really cool. "I for my part did."

Maria couldn't help but chuckle a little under her breath. How ironic…

"Oh, please. Don't give me that. You are the one who isn't very calm at the moment,... so don't try to pull anything here. There is not use pretending. You are only fooling yourself, sir."

"…as you wish, miss." he said after a short pause. "Nevertheless to say, I demand answers from you nonetheless. And I won't let you go without them. I hope I made myself clear."

Maria swallowed a bit. The commander made use of his status. Loosing it was no option this time. At least not with Shadow aware of the situation. She couldn't do anything else but nod.

"I understand, sir…" she said with a steady look.

A little bit surprised Alan Gabriel turned around and sat back in his chair. A gesture with his hand offered both of them to take a seat. This was a little bit confusing for the girl and the hedgehog alike. Maria had expected him to be much more devastating after what had happened earlier. Not so, it was just the opposite.

And as for Shadow… it confused him to be treated like this. The soldiers had tried to kill him and Gabriel was their commander…, so why bothering of being polite. Even if it was because of her, that really shouldn't stop the commander from unleashing his fury upon Shadow.

Yet, both took seat in front of the commander while the rest of the soldiers stood around them with their weapons sharp. No chance they would let an uncontrolled outburst happen again.

"So…" he started with a serious and cold expression on his face. "…What are your connections with these black aliens?"

His look was on Shadow, who still had trouble staying awake. The fever must have raise again and he started to feel a bit jittery. Maria held on hand behind his back to let him sit comfortable enough for this "conversation". Her eyes were visibly filled with concerns and this drove the commander nearly mad.

"Answer me, hedgehog!"

"I don't have a connection…" Shadow said, but his words came out dim and exhausted. "Their leader, Black Doom, appeared in front of me,… telling me about an old promise I can't remember. I don't know… what this is all about, anyway…"

The commander narrowed his eyes, not believing on bit of it.

"Oh really? And how comes that my men have seen you collecting the Chaos Emeralds, when it is the alien, who looking for them? You don't want to tell me that you wanted collect them for yourself, do you?"

"But it's true…"

The man growled.

"You are not fooling me, Shadow… You are in --"

Suddenly a beeping came from the communication console and the commander broke up his speaking. Instead he turned his attention to the console and opened the channel.

"What is it?"

"Commander, sir!" said a voice over the com-link. Obviously it was another of army's soldiers.

"This is platoon-squad Iron Storm, squad leader Captain Derricks speaking."

"Ah yes. Derricks… I've awaited your call. Report!"

"Yes, sir. We were able to obtain the special cargo from Westopolis now. It arrived half an hour ago, at sixteen hundred. It was brought to the security chamber and is on your way now on transport-route zero-alpha."

The commander gave a little smile of satisfaction.

"Very good, captain. I wish to examine the cargo myself. Send to my office, the moment it arrived at point zero-alpha two."

A short moment of silent passed before the soldier replied. It was only a few seconds, but noticeable. Maria smiled again over the fact that Gabriel was not as much in charge as he wanted to make anyone believe. Some soldiers were questioning his authorities indeed after all, only that the commander himself hasn't noticed it by now. Otherwise all against him would have been fired by now…

"As you command, sir. Captain Derricks over and out."

By the words of "cargo" and "Westopolis" it made click by the two prisoners. Shadow and Maria, both of them suspected what this was suppose to mean. The black hedgehog looked at the young woman, who sat next to him with a bit of confusion and disbelieve, not certain if it was what he thought it was. His eyes held the question within when he looked at her: "Could this be?".

Maria's nodding was the only response he could get during this moment. What else could it be? The two remaining Chaos Emeralds had arrived at GUN HQ!

Well aware of the knowledge both of his prisoners had, Gabriel smiled with sarcasm. With resolute behaviour, he turned his attention back to them.

Well then, shall we continue?"

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"Wooohooooo!"

Sonic and Knuckles had fun when they dashed trough the ruins and bashed they way through the black aliens. And they showed it.

While Sonic used his speed to beat the enemies to it, Knuckles preferred using his pure strength, leaving no of the soldiers standing and broke even a few parts of the ruins by using them as weapons and projectiles. This way they had been able to reach the centre of Glyphic Canyon, cleaning the area from the intruders. But now that they drove most of them away… things appeared a little weird.

When they passed through the ruin's tunnels and halls at the end, both of them noticed that the aliens seems to guard especially the halls and places were some sculptures with green orbs on their top were placed.

They had passed by a few of this sculptures all ready by now and every time… there was something strange about them: All those orbs, which reminded both of them a little bit on jewels, were glowing with an unholy shine. But when they reached this point, the end of the ruins, there was an orb that did not glow.

Sonic stopped in front of the platform the orb was standing on and looked up to it. Knuckles was a little bit behind Sonic, still beating the living daylights out of the rest of the remaining Black Arms.

"What is this…?" the blue hedgehog wondered when he stepped closer to the orb. Just in this moment, Knuckles joined him on top of the platform.

"Any problems, Sonic?" he asked while cleaning his gloves from sand and dust by clapping his hands together several times.

"Well, this one seems to be broken or something… Look! Ain't gloving like the rest."

"A bit strange, yes." the red echidna and guardian of the Master Emerald shrugged his shoulders and stepped closer to the orb, examined the green stone from all sides. "Looks fine to me."

"Hmm… I wonder… Knuckles! Have you been here lately? Because I can't remember that I've notice this stuff glowing before or anything…"

Confused, Knuckles looked up into Sonics face, thought about the question for a moment. But then he shook his head.

"I dunno… haven't been here in a while and I actually never really paid attention to this things here anyway… Might be that they are suppose to glow."

Sonic crosses his arms and gave Knuckles a funny look. Both weren't sure about something, which means they are actually agreeing from once… that was rare.

"Think it's the best when I call in Tails for this." he suggested. "He's the fox when it comes to stuff like this."

Knuckles just nodded in agreement. An agreement twice a day? Geez…

"Yeah, it's the best I think."

With that the guardian hopped down from the pillar the orb was hold on. Before he did though, he gave the orb a slight touch by accident. When he starts to walk up to Sonic, the ruins around them start to vibrate. First slowly but more and more intense by the moment until it was so strong, both weren't able to stay on their feet anymore.

After a few more moments, it stopped. Sonic look fell of the now glowing orb behind them. Suddenly a nasty feeling started to grow inside him, a feeling that coming close to the stone, not to mention touching it, wasn't such a good idea in the first place. His look went straight on Knuckles just to find the red echidna staring at Sonic with disbelieve in the eyes as well.

"What happened, Sonic?"

Sonic got on his feet and walked across the platform to its edge. He had this fears when this strange earthquake happened.

"Honestly… I hope it's not what I think it is…"

After three more steps he stood at the edge of the platform and what he saw when he looked down, was beyond a joke. What he feared became true!

Stare in shock, Sonic just stood there and looked at the earth beneath his feet, only that it was miles away from him now. The entire ruin was floating through the air. At this point, Sonic was certain: The single buildings were nothing but alien airships!

Knuckles, who now stood besides Sonic and also stared down at he landscapes beneath, turned bleach by realising that he, obviously and accidentally helped the black aliens and did them a favour.

"Oh bugger…" Knuckles said and Sonic just replied:

"You got it…"