When the flash faded, Amy kept her eyes closed for a few seconds, listening around her. She expected to hear wind blowing through trees, or the sound of water on the nearby shore, or even the cooling fan of a desktop computer. At the very least she expected to hear Sonic's voice, as he would have come here instantly. When none of these sounds emerged, Amy opened her eyes and gasped.
Hell had broken loose.
The workshop itself was in pieces. Every piece of technology inside was torn apart, the interiors burning. The trees had shattered, and the water behind her was silent, as though paying its respects. Amy carefully regathered her nerves and stepped inside carefully. She carefully whipped up a weak wind with her wings, trying to put out the flames that had ignited in many a computer as she looked around.
"Don't try. You'll just spread the flames."
Amy spun to see Sonic at a workdesk. In his hand was a (fortunately) undamaged blueprint. "These flames aren't normal. Look at them. They're shadow flames." Indeed, when Amy turned to the fire she had been blowing, there was darkness swirling inside it. "Zyx has destoryed Mobius. I thought it was just Station Square and that he had yet to tear apart the rest of it. But no, a quick flight has revealed the truth. The most modern thing you'll find untouched is a canyon." He closed his eyes. "I'm just glad that most of these blueprints haven't been destroyed."
Amy closed her eyes as well, then turned away. A small aquamarine object was resting just outside the workshop. She carefully stepped over to it and picked it up. It was one of the Chaos Emeralds.
But no sooner did she pick it up than it started to glow. Amy released it, but it slowly levitated, spinning and glowing radiantly. Remembering Hiriana's crystal, she pulled it out, folding her wings inside her dress as she tossed the crystal to Sonic, saying, "You might want to hide those." Sonic snatched it out of the air and hung it around his neck, causing his wings to fade as the shine from the Chaos Emerald started to intensify.
When it faded slightly, there was the illusion of the other seven Emeralds around it. An orb of light was in the center of them, and as Amy and Sonic watched it, it expanded, taking the shape of a rift. Sonic held his hands up in a defensive shape as a figure coated in flames shot through the portal, wielding a staff with a curved headpiece and a jewel resting on its head.
The cat turned to Sonic and Amy and swung with her staff, launching fireballs towards them. Sonic dashed out of the way, while Amy ducked and rolled. Speeding away from the conscutive blasts of the stranger (who obviously thought Sonic was a more dangerous target), Sonic kicked off a rock and dashed into a nearby cave, holding the blue Chaos Emerald and concentrating. "Please," he muttered, "let Shadow be able to recieve from non-Chaos-experts." He smiled when his vision flashed black.
The sound of fireballs raised his head, and he realized he was in Zyx's cave. He dashed out full-throttle and found himself transitioning into a spindash, slamming full-throttle into the cat and knocking the staff out of her hands. Bad idea; the flames were still going, and Sonic found his quills burnt.
"Get off, hedgehog!" she shouted, her voice muffled by the flames, as she grabbed Sonic and threw her towards Amy... who was holding the staff?! "No! The Jeweled Scepter! Give me that!" She shot towards Amy, but the pink hedgehog leapt out of the way, and the flames on her arms started to increase as she swung into a throwing motion.
"Sol Spear!"
An arrow of white, lavalike energy almost identical to a Chaos Spear shot towards Amy, who only managed to dodge it by millimetres. Shadow chose that moment to come flying in with Silver and Infera at his side, and all three of them dodged the flaming arrow as Shadow returned it with a Chaos Spear. The cat dodged that and spun towards Shadow, who formed a Chaos Blade in his hand. The stranger responded with shining white molten energy, flowing from the flames until she was holding a sword of pure magma energy.
Amy stepped back. "OK, now I'm really confused. Chaos, mimicked with magma...?"
Shadow held his blade defensively and called, "Drop your sword and lower your flames and reveal yourself."
The cat gave a violent call of, "Or what, hedgehog?" Although it was directed at Shadow, it was Silver who responded by turning her with his psychokinesis, revealing the Chaos Emeralds in their team's hands; Sonic's blue, Amy's aqua, and Shadow's red, before dropping her and taking a defensive stance, his psychokinetic rings glowing. Infera likewise took a stance, the flames burning on her hands.
"Your choice of weapon is not the wisest," she stated to Infera, "but I will comply to your request." The magma blade in her hands thinned and vanished as her flames dropped, revealing a lavender cat with a simple purple robe. She raised her head and opened her eyes. "My name is Blaze."
Sonic was one of three staring at her. Holy sweet deja vu, he thought, she looks like Percival! Did someone hack into my memories and materialize them? Rotating his gaze, he saw Silver also watching Blaze with enhanced interest, completely ignoring Sonic. He turned to Amy, then at Infera, but only when he reached Shadow did he find curiousity, obviously from her lavalike Chaos Spear and magma-formed Chaos Blade.
"Where are you from," Infera asked, "and why have you come here?"
Blaze closed her eyes. "I am a princess from an alternate dimension," she explained. "Devestating distasters had been taking place in my home, killing nearly everyone on the planet, and an associate of mine offered an explanation; that a similar disaster had been occuring in a dimension of chaos, and it had caused a reaction in mine. Using the power of a geological relic, the Jeweled Scepter -" and at that she turned to Amy accusingly before continuing "- and a fiery treasure, the Sol Emeralds -" again she paused, causing seven emerald-cut gems to surround her in a flurry of energy "- I was able to come here, looking for the cause of the disaster."
"Well," called a voice, "you found it all too quickly. So sorry to say it, but I'm going to have to kill you and take those gems from you."
Blaze and all five hedgehogs turned to see Zyx standing over them, still untransformed and with his quills loose but coated in a dark aura. "Sure, I'm not able to find the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald is in hiding, but I should be able to utilize your little treasure easily enough." He transformed into pure darkness, flying down and speeding around Blaze before rematerializing and arcing his arm over his head, shouting, "Eat darkness, princess!"
A shot of pure darkness shot towards Blaze, but she was able to dodge it with such profession that the darkness seemed to move with her body, flying over her without even coming close to her. Zyx, however, coated the Jeweled Scepter in darkness, pulling it out of Amy's hands and into his own without even looking at Blaze. "And I emerge again!" he shouted as his body transformed, three times. First it took a similarity to his Chaos form, except the surrounding aura was a fiery red. This caused the Sol Emeralds to disperse in a blur. Then it was his Master form, again with the red aura.
Then the quills frayed, forming horns and hell as a scythe appeared in his hand. When the energy faded, gold was murky grey, black was corrupted amythest, and his eyes were black, Xed with grey. He twirled his scythe and shouted, "Fear the Reaper!" His blacken eyes, however, widened when he saw Blaze still standing. "What?" he shouted angrily. "How did you survive the darkness?"
Blaze took a combative stance, flames igniting on her hands. "Me? Survival is second nature." She spun, coating in semifamiliar blue energy as she shouted, "Sol... CONTROL!"
The world turned blue as time slowed, and Blaze rushed forward, coated in blue flamelike energy, and grabbed the Jeweled Scepter, then reappered in the center of the circle of hedgehogs and took a battle stance, ending the time-warp. Zyx saw the Scepter in Blaze's hands and gave a laugh, twirling his scythe. "What shocks me," he said, grinning, "is that you're too naive to fear the Reaper."
"Wrong," she corrected, twirling the scepter in response. "What shocks you is that I'm tough enough to fight against a bad hair day."
"Fool!" Zyx snarled. "An echidna I know tried the same thing when he drew power from the Chaos Emeralds of this dimension!" He raised a hand and added, "Look what became of him!"
In Zyx's hand was the spike of Knuckles the Echidna.
Blaze closed her eyes, holding the Jeweled Scepter in both hands. She started to coat in red energy, concentrating on the ultrapowerful relic, then slowly started to levitate. "Sol..."
Sonic saw what was coming. "Dinfire!" he shouted. "Shadow! Contain it!"
"I can't!" was the strained, unfortunate reply. "It's not Chaos!"
Blaze's eyes opened, and she spun, pointing the Jeweled Scepter towards Zyx as she shouted, "BLAST!"
The energy around blaze took a flamelike shape for a nanosecond before expanding in a deadly red shockwave. Yet despite this, it was surrounded by a thin layer of white before it even really expanded, slowing it's expansion to a crawl, and one had to only look in Silver's remote direction to see his hands glowing like lightning. He shouted in a greatly strained voice, "Shadow! Get us out of here!"
"CHAOS, CONTROL!"
A flash of blue energy emitted from each of Sonic, Amy, Silver, Shadow, and Blaze before they left. The blast, however, was left behind, and Zyx vanished in darkness as the shockwave passed him.
In Silent Canyon, the five of them reappeared, and Silver and Shadow gave simultaneous exhausted sighs before falling to the ground. Sonic and Amy gasped in relief, but Blaze turned furiously on Silver.
"You!" she shouted angrily. "Why did you stop my Sol Blast? That little storm could have been killed! But you stopped me! Why?"
Sonic and Amy walked up to Blaze's sides and said simultaneously, "If there's no risk of judgement by firsts?" Blaze gave a semiconfused nod, and Sonic laid a hand on the crystal around his neck before he and Amy revealed their wings, then simultaneously struck Blaze in the forehead, knocking her down. Silver approached her and asked, "Think about it, Blaze. He called himself a reaper. That in itself is warning enough, but he held up the knuckle of the strongest creature in this dimension." Turning to Sonic and Shadow, he added, "Not including alien defenders and Chaos artists, although he could have held up the skull of either of them." The two other hedgheogs shrugged, and Silver continued, "Do you really think that a little renamed Chaos Blast is going to kill him?"
"Yeah, I noticed your little Chaos paralelled my Sol arts," Blaze stated, trying to change the subject.
"Not the point!" he shouted. "You try and kill him and you're only going to kill yourself! Reaper is the only way to describe him! He's immortal!"
Blaze rose angrily. "Well, I'm going after him if I have to go through all five of you, so why don't you just kill me now and save that reaper the trouble?" Silver responded by raising a hand, and Blaze was paralyzed not by shock, but by psychokinesis as she was raised into the air. Silver swooped his arm around and held it back as though he was charging a blast, and Blaze simply stared at him as an orb of faint energy appeared around his hand.
But the attack ended there. He stared carefully into Blaze's eyes for a long time. Blaze seemed to stare back. Then the glow on the psychokinetic rings on his hands faded, and the orb vanished as Blaze dropped down, still looking into Silver's eyes. Silver, however, turned away.
"Very well," he said. "Go after him. But don't blame me when he's holding his scythe to your neck." Blaze stared at him for a few more seconds, then dashed off, boosted by flames. Silver likewise started to dash off, but Sonic let him put a bit of distance before dashing over to him, cutting him off with his wings. Shadow and Amy respectfully kept their distance.
"What are you doing, Silver?" he asked. "You were preparing to kill her, but you cut yourself off. Why?" Silver turned away, small tears starting to form in his eyes when he turned back. His reply was like a bombshell.
"Because she's her," he stated. "Blaze is the one from my memories."