Chapter 30: Plucking Narcissus, Part 2
weredrago2
"Cowabunga, Shadow the Hedgehog..."
- Location
- Florida
Ruby Haze
Chapter 30: Plucking Narcissus, Part 2
When one guy declared to the other that they're not going to stop fighting until at least one of them was dead, that tended to be when the conversation ended. Mighty and I were past the point of talking this out, staged to duel in an active volcano for Enerjak's amusement, and the subtle bits of the Ruby were locked away while I was in dragon mode. It didn't matter that the sun was out there, because the dire conditions of Red Mountain and the light being blocked were 'close enough' for me to go weredragon. I'd need to bring the armadillo around to see things my way by force, kicking and screaming.
"Bring it on!" I roared, driving my hand towards him!
My arm swept wide, scraping against the walls with a long claw swipe. Mighty ducked out of the way, charging at me with a reckless haymaker of his own! I flapped my wings, taking myself upwards as he punched a large dent into a cliff face. Both of our attacks triggered steady trickles of magma to leak out from the sides of the molten pit, the 'safe' sections inside the volcano to dwindle. The environment was definitely too much for me to survive as my normal self, so I had to work with what I had in dragon mode.
I delivered a jab to the back of Mighty's head while his back was turned, but my hand bounced off an incredibly dense concentration of subdermal plating. The armadillo's shell deflected the attack like it was nothing.
"That was dirty!" Mighty growled, yanking his hand out of the hard stone.
Mighty whirled around and rushed me a second time, after which came the most brutal brawl I'd ever experienced. I had a feeling he'd be the most difficult member of the Chaotix to deal with, and in spite of that I'd underestimated the level of danger Mighty the Armadillo represented. He'd swing at me, I'd try to swing back with the same level of intensity. Joints popped, ligaments stretched, bones were rattled, and muscles burned. Each attack drove another quake through the volcano, kicking up clouds of ash and lumpy pillars of igneous rock. Several of those boulders would make their way into our hands as blunt instruments with which we'd use to pummel one another until they turned to rubble.
Our fight gradually traveled far away from the crater, the rising tide of magma causing what were once stable rocks to float and ferried us further into the subterranean caverns deeper into the volcano. These tunnels were hardly dark, illuminated by the burning embers, hanging torches, and red hot skulls along the cliffs that expelling infernal gouts of flames. The odor of sulfur and brimstone was overwhelming, and the ecosystem was infrequently broken up by machinery from Robotnik's failed conquests. When I thought that the hostile terrain would give Mighty pause, he rolled off one of the natural ramps and skipped across the magma on his shell to deliver a nasty uppercut!
Savage kicks, bites, headbutts, and fireballs were thrown in for variety. There was little finesse to either of our techniques. I wasn't that experienced at hand-to-hand, having eventually drifted towards using melee weapons before the claws came in, but right now I had five knives on each hand and I was rapidly running out of reasons not to use them. I could tell that Mighty rarely had the opportunity to fight with other people at his level, having to steadily unwind more and more of the mental restraints he'd bound around his strength to avoid hurting anyone. Restraints that were steadily wearing away.
I had to admit, I was less worried about Mighty's well-being after he punched me in the head hard enough to snap one of my horns off.
When an opening made itself known, I raked my claws across Mighty's chest. The end result was a couple of gashes and only a light trickle of blood.
"That hurt!" Mighty yelled, from the fresh pain of the grazing wounds.
I thought Metal wore him down! How is he this strong?!
He's going for a grapple!
Mighty stretched his arms wide for tackle, but I snatched his extended hands and pushed Mighty towards the magma before he had the chance!
"You're not giving me a lot of options!" I shouted, struggling to pin him down with my mass.
Exposing the armadillo's lungs to the fumes leaking out of the volcano was the only 'gentle' way I could secure a knock-out. At first, it looked like I had enough of a size advantage to bring him to his knees, but Mighty wasn't budging. At all.
"You really thought your weight class was gonna carry you through?" Mighty asked, in an unimpressed tone. His eyes were bloodshot from smoke, and he was seeing red. "Pathetic!"
Suddenly, Mighty rammed me in the stomach and burst free of my grip! With the wind taken out of me, I was unable to stop him from grabbing me by the arms and pulling them, hard, until the rest of my body was dragged along by the momentum of my elastic limbs!
"I thought you'd be a better workout!" he groused, before bringing my arms upwards and bashing my body onto a stony plateau with enough force to go through it!
I went straight back into the molten drink, my eyes awash in a bright orange glow as I fought against the waves to resurface!
"You're gonna make me feel bad if this is too easy!" I heard Mighty taunt as I went under.
It was hard to describe the viscous current as anything less than perilous, more akin to a boiling mudslide than anything approaching water.
"Ha! Not so invincible after all, Scarlet!"
Bruin? Barbe Vis?!
I couldn't even sputter out a response. I clawed against the fragmented ceiling of the magma river, but the rocks above me made me feel as though I was on the wrong side of a frozen lake. My wings were more of an impediment than anything else, dragging me further down into the geothermal riptide.
I was resistant to being instantly fried by the magma as a dragon, but without my force field or any other magical intermediary to protect me, that meant I was drowning instead of burning. Drowning experiences were becoming a recurring note, but I didn't know if I could pull myself out of the drink this time.
"If you're serious about helping us, then let me know when you're willing to man up!"
I just need more time to fix everything!
"Yer big n' strong, so what're ye holdin' back fer? Put yer back into it!"
I'm trying!
Trying isn't good enough! I can't help anyone if I'm weak!
♦ !̵!̷
I surged through the magma with a renewed vigor and tore right through the surface! With a wild snarl, I ripped open more rents in the tenuous earth below and filled the air with destructive streams of fire!
"Throwing a tantrum?" Mighty said coyly, eyes flashing green. "Why don't you fly over here and face me like a mobian!"
One of those thrashes was different from the rest I did for show. I stomped down on the edge of the rocky platform where Mighty stood, flinging him towards me! He rolled into a ball, and I used my tail to lash him back against the crumbling pillars with a vicious bounce.
I noticed a pattern as we fought. Mighty would roll up into a ball to block, and pop open again when he was ready to counter. That wasn't working for me, so I changed the rules.
Mighty rebounded, and I struck him again with a two-fisted swing. He hit a half-melted mechanism that sunk into the magma. After a third battering with my foot, Mighty uncurled from his ball form and kicked off the wall with his feet!
"Take this!" Mighty called out, trying to slam two fists down on me!
I brought my hands forward, one over the other, and snatched the armadillo from the air! Pressing my hands together, I rolled him back into a ball once more!
"Put me down!" Mighty shouted, unable to uncurl with my hands keeping him trapped!
Being a superpowered armadillo, Mighty's shell could clamp down with tremendous force. The muscles that made him tighten up into a sphere were much stronger than the ones that'd let him open again. With my hands locked on him, he was invulnerable and helpless.
I raised Mighty over a jagged hunk of hard stones that caught my eye, and bashed his carapace against them. Repeatedly. Harder and harder, causing scuffs and bruises to crop up across the surface of his unbreakable defense with each impact. His shell could be as tough as he wanted, but with nowhere else to go, the rest of that force was running through his relatively unarmored body.
I wasn't fighting Mighty like a mobian. That wasn't in me.
I wasn't even fighting him like a man. I was far past that.
I was fighting like a monster, and a loud crack was all I needed to know that this fight was over. I set Mighty down on a stable rock, suspended over a sea of molten death. A wet, ragged cough from the armadillo told me he was at my mercy.
"Ray…" Mighty muttered weakly, before his eyes slowly closed.
Ray? Did something happen to--?
It was enough to rouse me from my enraged state.
Mighty! If I killed him--!
--Then it'd be a mercy compared to letting him stay under Enerjak's control.
He wouldn't be my first. He won't be my last.
I never wanted to--
"I left you alone for a @#$% hour, and this is what you got up to?!"
My train of thought was interrupted by a very irate Archimedes poofing onto my shoulder!
"Archimedes? What're you doing here?"
"Making sure you don't go too far. With beating the hex out of Mighty or renovating the whole Queendom."
"Queendom?" I looked around, taking in details that I was previously too distracted to take stock of. This new crop of tunnels that lined the interior of the volcano, rather than being vacant, contained numerous small buildings of an unmistakably Hellenistic style. I thought it was a trick of perspective, but these structures were miniscule. "Oh no."
It didn't take long for me to figure out that those were fire ant tunnels, as mobians similar to Archimedes were scurrying around to repair the parts of their village that were the most impacted by the seismic activity. Tears and rents had ravaged the place, and more sections had unglued themselves as we spoke.
"Welcome to the Molten Mounds. I'd roll out the welcome mat, but as you can see, we've got our hands full trying to avoid a total collapse."
I looked at the damage, stunned.
"Did we do all of this?"
Archimedes let out a frustrated huff.
"Red Mountain's been actin' up since you-know-who came back to town, but you two gettin' into a slugfest down here sure as Aurora didn't help any." He looked towards Mighty, a flash of concern appearing across his face. Before I could say anything, Archimedes teleported to Mighty's side to check his pulse. "He's alive. You broke a couple of bones stopping him before he brought the whole place down, but he'll walk it off."
"That's all I needed to know."
Archimedes' antennas flickered back and forth, faintly glowing in the cavern. A handful of fire ants separated from the rapid response swarm and carried Mighty down into the tunnels to safety.
Is he talking to the other ants with those?
"The Queen ordered an evac to the deepest parts of the island until the tremors pass. It's bad down here, but it'll be much safer than what's happening topside."
His antenna twitched again.
The fire ants are psionic. Archimedes has been relaying intel back to someone else.
"If I knew you lived in the volcano, I would've tried to move the fight away from here," I said after a pause, which I needed to process that new information.
He shot me another annoyed look.
"I didn't expect to see you down here, either. Enerjak has a bone to pick with our kind, and the Fire Ant Council was hoping he wouldn't notice we were still around."
I glanced around, trying to figure out where I might be able to assist with the evacuation in spite of my more ponderous size and limited toolkit. Another tremor ran through the tunnels, followed by a green luminance, and I saw a clump of the ceiling come loose! I reached out and grabbed the loose rocks before they could land on a group of fire ants trying to flee from the disaster. When the whole roof looked like it was about to give way, I froze the ceiling in place with a blast of ice.
"That's not gonna last down here!" I shouted to them. "Move it!"
Numerous fire ants in light armor crawled out of the holes in the tunnels and stacked atop each other, interlocking their limbs so as to construct new support beams over the ceiling. I took to the air and raised my hands up to assist them and hold the roof up, but I could feel a mounting pressure pushing against us.
The pressure intensified, the overhead space giving way until my feet were back against the ground. Struggling against an occult hand that was pushing down on the mountain. If there was any doubt before as to who was doing it, a psychotic cackle ran past the tunnels and through my mind.
Enerjak! Set aside your feud with the insects and face me!
Are you nuts?! We can't fight him down here!
"Scarlet!" Archimedes called out. I turned my head to see that he was gesturing towards a large tunnel that wasn't there before. "This way!"
"Not… yet!" I grunted, trying to buy as much time as I could for the fire ants to escape. The wounds I'd picked up against Mighty were taking their toll, and I was brought to my knees from the accumulated pain!
"Oh, for the love of--!" Archimedes hopped onto my snout! "We're all out except for you!"
My vision was briefly covered in red smoke, and when the smoke cleared, I saw that Archimedes relocated us to a new cave that was covered in cyan stones and bright blue crystals outgrowths. In front of us were a series of ancient echidna ruins and a red, glassy sphere on a stone altar, surrounded by bands of gold.
"You're a real load to lug around, y'know that?" Archimedes grumbled. He used my nose as a springboard to reach the ground.
When I identified my face as having a cartilaginous nose again, I noticed my snout was gone. Then, my wings and tail. Looking up, I could see that the ancient echidna teleporter had a large skylight above it, transforming me back to normal. The energy that built up in the power gem attached to the Ruby released at once, and instantly restored me.
⟁ ♦ 50
"Take the warp pad," Archimedes said weakly, having been exhausted by the jaunt. He crawled over to the side of the teleporter and smacked it, causing a red beam of light to fire straight through the skylight. "The plan we cooked up to take care of Dimitri isn't gonna fly while he has his eyes on us, so I'm giving you a shot to try your idea first."
I approached the lightbeam. I could only hope that they got the machine ready by now, because I only had the one shot to get him towards it.
"Dimitri was Enerjak's old name, wasn't it? Before he went cuckoo for chaos energy."
Archimedes let out a tired chuckle.
"You catch on quick, don't you? My predecessors jotted down Dimitri as the brother of the first Guardian, and the reason we have a Guardian in the first place. Because no matter what intentions they had going into it, for good or for ill, not everybody can handle unlimited power when they have their hands on it."
I nodded, understanding his point. Enerjak was something I could still become.
I will never become him.
That's not as comforting as you think it is.
I channeled the power of the Phantom Ruby through my body an additional time. From the heart, which I bade to beat faster, allowing the energy flowing through the rest of me.
What's going on?
I have half a tank of energy, and you need fifty rings to go super.
Don't forget, I also need seven chaos emeralds I don't have.
It worked fine in Efrika. I need another edge that'll make me stand up to Enerjak's whole 'turn me into salt' thing you mentioned, no matter how long it lasts!
That wasn't a super state. It was a cry for help! And I answered.
You're… what, the Phantom Ruby's autopilot?
I felt something bristle at the notion.
I'm me. I'll help out again, but this time, I don't even have rings to hold my form together!
Can't I burn the power gem? Heavy said it could mess with spacetime. Mix that with the Phantom Ruby, and… I don't know, fake a super mode?
Wishful thinking. No power gem could give you that much power… but it might be enough to protect you from Enerjak for one attack. Then it'll be worthless.
I can work with that.
You keep saying I can't hold back. Losing your nerve?
No. Those limiters were put there for a reason, and the black streaks on the Phantom Ruby mean they're irrevocably broken. I need to do this fast, or I'll be unraveled by the chaos force for writing a check I can't cash. End of story.
I took a deep breath. In, and out, feeling my power well up. Accepting that the only way I could stop this madness was to confront it head-on, I stepped through the stream of light.
The teleportation effect was unlike anything I'd experienced, even when I was using the Phantom Ruby to get around. I felt my whole body become weightless, my constituent atoms suspended midair before being transmitted in a straight line though the volcanic mountain and towards the sky.
All of that upwards momentum was suddenly halted in its tracks when a gauntlet wrapped in gold and lapis lazuli snapped its way around my neck.
"At long last, I've caught the meddlesome pest that's been vexing me."
My eyes fluttered open, and I was face to face with Enerjak. An echidna in gold and blue armor of a vaguely Egyptian bent, with a helmet that framed emerald green sclera and a wide grin fit only for a madman. In his other hand, Enerjak held a green scepter capped with the head and sharpened beak of a predatory bird.
My first instinct, the same as everyone else's, was to bring my hands around his and try to break free from his grasp. Around us was the eye of a mounting storm, the black clouds that have metaphorically hovered over the island making their existence more literal.
"An overlander?" Enerjak observed, his voice possessing a strong, enervating quality to it that demanded one's attention. "I was told by my new prelates to expect a dragon, but such ignorant lessers are bound to make mistakes when left unattended. Was it your kind that sent that irksome machine to test my power?"
"Hands off!"
Enerjak tossed me away, and waved his staff ostentatiously.
"You presume to make demands of a divine being? Since you went to the effort of overcoming my four champions, and making quite a show of their defeats, I'll let you have your piece before rendering judgment!"
I halted in place midair, the two of us standing high above the island.
"I'm giving you this one last chance to stop whatever sick game you're playing. You have no right to subjugate others to your will, regardless of what powers you possess!"
Enerjak laughed. When I tried to look him in the eyes, all I saw were eleven green chaos emeralds. They were separate, individual chaos emeralds, and yet, they were also a single whole in the shape of an echidna. Both at the same time, and something else.
In fact, looking at Enerjak almost felt like I was looking at--
"Is that all you sought to expend your words on? A futile appeal to morality that has no bearings on the rights of a god?"
I slowly shrugged. I didn't expect it to work, but I could feel that I needed a few more seconds before I was ready to really kick off. The Phantom Ruby was glowing brighter, my curly hair sticking up on the ends. The power gem on my hand melted away, like another ring fueling my stone of power. With its dispersal, I felt an invisible energy barrier enclose my body, denser than anything else I'd put together.
"You aren't a god, Dimitri. You're an echidna in super mode with delusions of grandeur."
His manic smile drooped, yet it remained beyond the proportions that his face should be physically capable of supporting. The dark clouds drooped ever closer, and I could see that Enerjak was toying with an emerald green bolt of lightning in his hands.
"I will not broker such disrespect from a hairless ape. Have you anything else to say before I have that irreverent tongue of yours cut for flippancy?"
"One last thing."
"Then say it, and prepare to face the wrath of a god!"
Ready?
Ready.
Then let's do it!
♦ !!
We shoved our fingers into Enerjak's eyes, creating a direct connection to the emeralds in his body! Feeling our power gem barrier rapidly evaporate under a torrent of emerald green lightning from the sky, we ran through the fastest incantation in our entire life.
"TheServersaretheSevenChaosChaosisPowerenrichedbytheHearttheControllerexisttoUnifytheChaos!"
We were wondering where the Master Emerald was supposed to be in this dimension. This version of how the game was played, and how the pieces were arranged on the board were much different from what we were expecting. Enerjak helped us answer that question.
"MASTER EMERALD! HEAR OUR PLEA! LEND US YOUR POWER!"
This universe didn't have a Master Emerald yet, because Enerjak was holding them hostage. We felt somewhere between seven to eleven jolts of limitless, infinite chaos energy jolt through our hands, through the veins, past the soul, and into the Phantom Ruby.
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ !!
We disengaged from Enerjak and forced the boundless expanse of energy to settle down before it could split us in over half a dozen directions. We didn't have enough of a grasp of the Master Emerald's power to wrangle all of the constituent emeralds away from Enerjak, but we had just enough pull to use them as a jumpstart. Tikal's Prayer was the best way we had to get them to listen to what we had to say.
"What are you doing!?" Enerjak demanded to know.
We released all of the energy that'd accumulated at once, exploding into a brilliant star of mystical power! An inhuman dynamo, a magenta blaze of phantasmal chaos energy that burned like the plasma of a ruby star.
All of our doubts and divisions were set aside, as we were now unified in purpose.
Enerjak was knocked backwards by the energy we were putting out. Without a set of rings controlling the flow of power, nothing was holding us back now.
Which was bad because, in spite of the light show, this wasn't all the way to a genuine super state. This was a neon imitation. Enough to put on a good show, a good front, until we completely fizzled out. The candle that burned twice as bright burned half as long, and we were an infinite amount of times burning past twice as bright.
Were we Infinite? It took us a moment to decide that we weren't. The name didn't suit us.
We were a Phantom Scarlet, because that's all that we'd be if we didn't wrap this up quick. Blast shadows imprinted on the walls of history.
"Showing you what we're made of!"
♦ ꝏ
- - -
Chapter 30: Plucking Narcissus, Part 2
When one guy declared to the other that they're not going to stop fighting until at least one of them was dead, that tended to be when the conversation ended. Mighty and I were past the point of talking this out, staged to duel in an active volcano for Enerjak's amusement, and the subtle bits of the Ruby were locked away while I was in dragon mode. It didn't matter that the sun was out there, because the dire conditions of Red Mountain and the light being blocked were 'close enough' for me to go weredragon. I'd need to bring the armadillo around to see things my way by force, kicking and screaming.
"Bring it on!" I roared, driving my hand towards him!
My arm swept wide, scraping against the walls with a long claw swipe. Mighty ducked out of the way, charging at me with a reckless haymaker of his own! I flapped my wings, taking myself upwards as he punched a large dent into a cliff face. Both of our attacks triggered steady trickles of magma to leak out from the sides of the molten pit, the 'safe' sections inside the volcano to dwindle. The environment was definitely too much for me to survive as my normal self, so I had to work with what I had in dragon mode.
I delivered a jab to the back of Mighty's head while his back was turned, but my hand bounced off an incredibly dense concentration of subdermal plating. The armadillo's shell deflected the attack like it was nothing.
"That was dirty!" Mighty growled, yanking his hand out of the hard stone.
Mighty whirled around and rushed me a second time, after which came the most brutal brawl I'd ever experienced. I had a feeling he'd be the most difficult member of the Chaotix to deal with, and in spite of that I'd underestimated the level of danger Mighty the Armadillo represented. He'd swing at me, I'd try to swing back with the same level of intensity. Joints popped, ligaments stretched, bones were rattled, and muscles burned. Each attack drove another quake through the volcano, kicking up clouds of ash and lumpy pillars of igneous rock. Several of those boulders would make their way into our hands as blunt instruments with which we'd use to pummel one another until they turned to rubble.
Our fight gradually traveled far away from the crater, the rising tide of magma causing what were once stable rocks to float and ferried us further into the subterranean caverns deeper into the volcano. These tunnels were hardly dark, illuminated by the burning embers, hanging torches, and red hot skulls along the cliffs that expelling infernal gouts of flames. The odor of sulfur and brimstone was overwhelming, and the ecosystem was infrequently broken up by machinery from Robotnik's failed conquests. When I thought that the hostile terrain would give Mighty pause, he rolled off one of the natural ramps and skipped across the magma on his shell to deliver a nasty uppercut!
Savage kicks, bites, headbutts, and fireballs were thrown in for variety. There was little finesse to either of our techniques. I wasn't that experienced at hand-to-hand, having eventually drifted towards using melee weapons before the claws came in, but right now I had five knives on each hand and I was rapidly running out of reasons not to use them. I could tell that Mighty rarely had the opportunity to fight with other people at his level, having to steadily unwind more and more of the mental restraints he'd bound around his strength to avoid hurting anyone. Restraints that were steadily wearing away.
I had to admit, I was less worried about Mighty's well-being after he punched me in the head hard enough to snap one of my horns off.
When an opening made itself known, I raked my claws across Mighty's chest. The end result was a couple of gashes and only a light trickle of blood.
"That hurt!" Mighty yelled, from the fresh pain of the grazing wounds.
I thought Metal wore him down! How is he this strong?!
He's going for a grapple!
Mighty stretched his arms wide for tackle, but I snatched his extended hands and pushed Mighty towards the magma before he had the chance!
"You're not giving me a lot of options!" I shouted, struggling to pin him down with my mass.
Exposing the armadillo's lungs to the fumes leaking out of the volcano was the only 'gentle' way I could secure a knock-out. At first, it looked like I had enough of a size advantage to bring him to his knees, but Mighty wasn't budging. At all.
"You really thought your weight class was gonna carry you through?" Mighty asked, in an unimpressed tone. His eyes were bloodshot from smoke, and he was seeing red. "Pathetic!"
Suddenly, Mighty rammed me in the stomach and burst free of my grip! With the wind taken out of me, I was unable to stop him from grabbing me by the arms and pulling them, hard, until the rest of my body was dragged along by the momentum of my elastic limbs!
"I thought you'd be a better workout!" he groused, before bringing my arms upwards and bashing my body onto a stony plateau with enough force to go through it!
I went straight back into the molten drink, my eyes awash in a bright orange glow as I fought against the waves to resurface!
"You're gonna make me feel bad if this is too easy!" I heard Mighty taunt as I went under.
It was hard to describe the viscous current as anything less than perilous, more akin to a boiling mudslide than anything approaching water.
"Ha! Not so invincible after all, Scarlet!"
Bruin? Barbe Vis?!
I couldn't even sputter out a response. I clawed against the fragmented ceiling of the magma river, but the rocks above me made me feel as though I was on the wrong side of a frozen lake. My wings were more of an impediment than anything else, dragging me further down into the geothermal riptide.
I was resistant to being instantly fried by the magma as a dragon, but without my force field or any other magical intermediary to protect me, that meant I was drowning instead of burning. Drowning experiences were becoming a recurring note, but I didn't know if I could pull myself out of the drink this time.
"If you're serious about helping us, then let me know when you're willing to man up!"
I just need more time to fix everything!
"Yer big n' strong, so what're ye holdin' back fer? Put yer back into it!"
I'm trying!
Trying isn't good enough! I can't help anyone if I'm weak!
♦ !̵!̷
I surged through the magma with a renewed vigor and tore right through the surface! With a wild snarl, I ripped open more rents in the tenuous earth below and filled the air with destructive streams of fire!
"Throwing a tantrum?" Mighty said coyly, eyes flashing green. "Why don't you fly over here and face me like a mobian!"
One of those thrashes was different from the rest I did for show. I stomped down on the edge of the rocky platform where Mighty stood, flinging him towards me! He rolled into a ball, and I used my tail to lash him back against the crumbling pillars with a vicious bounce.
I noticed a pattern as we fought. Mighty would roll up into a ball to block, and pop open again when he was ready to counter. That wasn't working for me, so I changed the rules.
Mighty rebounded, and I struck him again with a two-fisted swing. He hit a half-melted mechanism that sunk into the magma. After a third battering with my foot, Mighty uncurled from his ball form and kicked off the wall with his feet!
"Take this!" Mighty called out, trying to slam two fists down on me!
I brought my hands forward, one over the other, and snatched the armadillo from the air! Pressing my hands together, I rolled him back into a ball once more!
"Put me down!" Mighty shouted, unable to uncurl with my hands keeping him trapped!
Being a superpowered armadillo, Mighty's shell could clamp down with tremendous force. The muscles that made him tighten up into a sphere were much stronger than the ones that'd let him open again. With my hands locked on him, he was invulnerable and helpless.
I raised Mighty over a jagged hunk of hard stones that caught my eye, and bashed his carapace against them. Repeatedly. Harder and harder, causing scuffs and bruises to crop up across the surface of his unbreakable defense with each impact. His shell could be as tough as he wanted, but with nowhere else to go, the rest of that force was running through his relatively unarmored body.
I wasn't fighting Mighty like a mobian. That wasn't in me.
I wasn't even fighting him like a man. I was far past that.
I was fighting like a monster, and a loud crack was all I needed to know that this fight was over. I set Mighty down on a stable rock, suspended over a sea of molten death. A wet, ragged cough from the armadillo told me he was at my mercy.
"Ray…" Mighty muttered weakly, before his eyes slowly closed.
Ray? Did something happen to--?
It was enough to rouse me from my enraged state.
Mighty! If I killed him--!
--Then it'd be a mercy compared to letting him stay under Enerjak's control.
He wouldn't be my first. He won't be my last.
I never wanted to--
"I left you alone for a @#$% hour, and this is what you got up to?!"
My train of thought was interrupted by a very irate Archimedes poofing onto my shoulder!
"Archimedes? What're you doing here?"
"Making sure you don't go too far. With beating the hex out of Mighty or renovating the whole Queendom."
"Queendom?" I looked around, taking in details that I was previously too distracted to take stock of. This new crop of tunnels that lined the interior of the volcano, rather than being vacant, contained numerous small buildings of an unmistakably Hellenistic style. I thought it was a trick of perspective, but these structures were miniscule. "Oh no."
It didn't take long for me to figure out that those were fire ant tunnels, as mobians similar to Archimedes were scurrying around to repair the parts of their village that were the most impacted by the seismic activity. Tears and rents had ravaged the place, and more sections had unglued themselves as we spoke.
"Welcome to the Molten Mounds. I'd roll out the welcome mat, but as you can see, we've got our hands full trying to avoid a total collapse."
I looked at the damage, stunned.
"Did we do all of this?"
Archimedes let out a frustrated huff.
"Red Mountain's been actin' up since you-know-who came back to town, but you two gettin' into a slugfest down here sure as Aurora didn't help any." He looked towards Mighty, a flash of concern appearing across his face. Before I could say anything, Archimedes teleported to Mighty's side to check his pulse. "He's alive. You broke a couple of bones stopping him before he brought the whole place down, but he'll walk it off."
"That's all I needed to know."
Archimedes' antennas flickered back and forth, faintly glowing in the cavern. A handful of fire ants separated from the rapid response swarm and carried Mighty down into the tunnels to safety.
Is he talking to the other ants with those?
"The Queen ordered an evac to the deepest parts of the island until the tremors pass. It's bad down here, but it'll be much safer than what's happening topside."
His antenna twitched again.
The fire ants are psionic. Archimedes has been relaying intel back to someone else.
"If I knew you lived in the volcano, I would've tried to move the fight away from here," I said after a pause, which I needed to process that new information.
He shot me another annoyed look.
"I didn't expect to see you down here, either. Enerjak has a bone to pick with our kind, and the Fire Ant Council was hoping he wouldn't notice we were still around."
I glanced around, trying to figure out where I might be able to assist with the evacuation in spite of my more ponderous size and limited toolkit. Another tremor ran through the tunnels, followed by a green luminance, and I saw a clump of the ceiling come loose! I reached out and grabbed the loose rocks before they could land on a group of fire ants trying to flee from the disaster. When the whole roof looked like it was about to give way, I froze the ceiling in place with a blast of ice.
"That's not gonna last down here!" I shouted to them. "Move it!"
Numerous fire ants in light armor crawled out of the holes in the tunnels and stacked atop each other, interlocking their limbs so as to construct new support beams over the ceiling. I took to the air and raised my hands up to assist them and hold the roof up, but I could feel a mounting pressure pushing against us.
The pressure intensified, the overhead space giving way until my feet were back against the ground. Struggling against an occult hand that was pushing down on the mountain. If there was any doubt before as to who was doing it, a psychotic cackle ran past the tunnels and through my mind.
Enerjak! Set aside your feud with the insects and face me!
Are you nuts?! We can't fight him down here!
"Scarlet!" Archimedes called out. I turned my head to see that he was gesturing towards a large tunnel that wasn't there before. "This way!"
"Not… yet!" I grunted, trying to buy as much time as I could for the fire ants to escape. The wounds I'd picked up against Mighty were taking their toll, and I was brought to my knees from the accumulated pain!
"Oh, for the love of--!" Archimedes hopped onto my snout! "We're all out except for you!"
My vision was briefly covered in red smoke, and when the smoke cleared, I saw that Archimedes relocated us to a new cave that was covered in cyan stones and bright blue crystals outgrowths. In front of us were a series of ancient echidna ruins and a red, glassy sphere on a stone altar, surrounded by bands of gold.
"You're a real load to lug around, y'know that?" Archimedes grumbled. He used my nose as a springboard to reach the ground.
When I identified my face as having a cartilaginous nose again, I noticed my snout was gone. Then, my wings and tail. Looking up, I could see that the ancient echidna teleporter had a large skylight above it, transforming me back to normal. The energy that built up in the power gem attached to the Ruby released at once, and instantly restored me.
⟁ ♦ 50
"Take the warp pad," Archimedes said weakly, having been exhausted by the jaunt. He crawled over to the side of the teleporter and smacked it, causing a red beam of light to fire straight through the skylight. "The plan we cooked up to take care of Dimitri isn't gonna fly while he has his eyes on us, so I'm giving you a shot to try your idea first."
I approached the lightbeam. I could only hope that they got the machine ready by now, because I only had the one shot to get him towards it.
"Dimitri was Enerjak's old name, wasn't it? Before he went cuckoo for chaos energy."
Archimedes let out a tired chuckle.
"You catch on quick, don't you? My predecessors jotted down Dimitri as the brother of the first Guardian, and the reason we have a Guardian in the first place. Because no matter what intentions they had going into it, for good or for ill, not everybody can handle unlimited power when they have their hands on it."
I nodded, understanding his point. Enerjak was something I could still become.
I will never become him.
That's not as comforting as you think it is.
I channeled the power of the Phantom Ruby through my body an additional time. From the heart, which I bade to beat faster, allowing the energy flowing through the rest of me.
What's going on?
I have half a tank of energy, and you need fifty rings to go super.
Don't forget, I also need seven chaos emeralds I don't have.
It worked fine in Efrika. I need another edge that'll make me stand up to Enerjak's whole 'turn me into salt' thing you mentioned, no matter how long it lasts!
That wasn't a super state. It was a cry for help! And I answered.
You're… what, the Phantom Ruby's autopilot?
I felt something bristle at the notion.
I'm me. I'll help out again, but this time, I don't even have rings to hold my form together!
Can't I burn the power gem? Heavy said it could mess with spacetime. Mix that with the Phantom Ruby, and… I don't know, fake a super mode?
Wishful thinking. No power gem could give you that much power… but it might be enough to protect you from Enerjak for one attack. Then it'll be worthless.
I can work with that.
You keep saying I can't hold back. Losing your nerve?
No. Those limiters were put there for a reason, and the black streaks on the Phantom Ruby mean they're irrevocably broken. I need to do this fast, or I'll be unraveled by the chaos force for writing a check I can't cash. End of story.
I took a deep breath. In, and out, feeling my power well up. Accepting that the only way I could stop this madness was to confront it head-on, I stepped through the stream of light.
The teleportation effect was unlike anything I'd experienced, even when I was using the Phantom Ruby to get around. I felt my whole body become weightless, my constituent atoms suspended midair before being transmitted in a straight line though the volcanic mountain and towards the sky.
All of that upwards momentum was suddenly halted in its tracks when a gauntlet wrapped in gold and lapis lazuli snapped its way around my neck.
"At long last, I've caught the meddlesome pest that's been vexing me."
My eyes fluttered open, and I was face to face with Enerjak. An echidna in gold and blue armor of a vaguely Egyptian bent, with a helmet that framed emerald green sclera and a wide grin fit only for a madman. In his other hand, Enerjak held a green scepter capped with the head and sharpened beak of a predatory bird.
My first instinct, the same as everyone else's, was to bring my hands around his and try to break free from his grasp. Around us was the eye of a mounting storm, the black clouds that have metaphorically hovered over the island making their existence more literal.
"An overlander?" Enerjak observed, his voice possessing a strong, enervating quality to it that demanded one's attention. "I was told by my new prelates to expect a dragon, but such ignorant lessers are bound to make mistakes when left unattended. Was it your kind that sent that irksome machine to test my power?"
"Hands off!"
Enerjak tossed me away, and waved his staff ostentatiously.
"You presume to make demands of a divine being? Since you went to the effort of overcoming my four champions, and making quite a show of their defeats, I'll let you have your piece before rendering judgment!"
I halted in place midair, the two of us standing high above the island.
"I'm giving you this one last chance to stop whatever sick game you're playing. You have no right to subjugate others to your will, regardless of what powers you possess!"
Enerjak laughed. When I tried to look him in the eyes, all I saw were eleven green chaos emeralds. They were separate, individual chaos emeralds, and yet, they were also a single whole in the shape of an echidna. Both at the same time, and something else.
In fact, looking at Enerjak almost felt like I was looking at--
"Is that all you sought to expend your words on? A futile appeal to morality that has no bearings on the rights of a god?"
I slowly shrugged. I didn't expect it to work, but I could feel that I needed a few more seconds before I was ready to really kick off. The Phantom Ruby was glowing brighter, my curly hair sticking up on the ends. The power gem on my hand melted away, like another ring fueling my stone of power. With its dispersal, I felt an invisible energy barrier enclose my body, denser than anything else I'd put together.
"You aren't a god, Dimitri. You're an echidna in super mode with delusions of grandeur."
His manic smile drooped, yet it remained beyond the proportions that his face should be physically capable of supporting. The dark clouds drooped ever closer, and I could see that Enerjak was toying with an emerald green bolt of lightning in his hands.
"I will not broker such disrespect from a hairless ape. Have you anything else to say before I have that irreverent tongue of yours cut for flippancy?"
"One last thing."
"Then say it, and prepare to face the wrath of a god!"
Ready?
Ready.
Then let's do it!
♦ !!
We shoved our fingers into Enerjak's eyes, creating a direct connection to the emeralds in his body! Feeling our power gem barrier rapidly evaporate under a torrent of emerald green lightning from the sky, we ran through the fastest incantation in our entire life.
"TheServersaretheSevenChaosChaosisPowerenrichedbytheHearttheControllerexisttoUnifytheChaos!"
We were wondering where the Master Emerald was supposed to be in this dimension. This version of how the game was played, and how the pieces were arranged on the board were much different from what we were expecting. Enerjak helped us answer that question.
"MASTER EMERALD! HEAR OUR PLEA! LEND US YOUR POWER!"
This universe didn't have a Master Emerald yet, because Enerjak was holding them hostage. We felt somewhere between seven to eleven jolts of limitless, infinite chaos energy jolt through our hands, through the veins, past the soul, and into the Phantom Ruby.
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ !!
We disengaged from Enerjak and forced the boundless expanse of energy to settle down before it could split us in over half a dozen directions. We didn't have enough of a grasp of the Master Emerald's power to wrangle all of the constituent emeralds away from Enerjak, but we had just enough pull to use them as a jumpstart. Tikal's Prayer was the best way we had to get them to listen to what we had to say.
"What are you doing!?" Enerjak demanded to know.
We released all of the energy that'd accumulated at once, exploding into a brilliant star of mystical power! An inhuman dynamo, a magenta blaze of phantasmal chaos energy that burned like the plasma of a ruby star.
All of our doubts and divisions were set aside, as we were now unified in purpose.
Enerjak was knocked backwards by the energy we were putting out. Without a set of rings controlling the flow of power, nothing was holding us back now.
Which was bad because, in spite of the light show, this wasn't all the way to a genuine super state. This was a neon imitation. Enough to put on a good show, a good front, until we completely fizzled out. The candle that burned twice as bright burned half as long, and we were an infinite amount of times burning past twice as bright.
Were we Infinite? It took us a moment to decide that we weren't. The name didn't suit us.
We were a Phantom Scarlet, because that's all that we'd be if we didn't wrap this up quick. Blast shadows imprinted on the walls of history.
"Showing you what we're made of!"
♦ ꝏ
- - -
Not too many notes for this chapter, save to note that the initial section takes from multiple Angel Island-adjacent levels. Lava Reef and Red Mountain were significantly implied to be close to each other, if not the same location, so I wanted to showcase that. The Ice Cap in Sonic 3 and the Ice Cap in Sonic Adventure were more or less the same place, so why not Lava Reef and Red Mountain? The Molten Mounds where the Fire Ant Queendom lived were also nearby, so I brought them together as a cohesive region.
Next up, the finale of the Enerjak arc!
Next up, the first Super Scarlet Special: Shattering Narcissus!
Thank you all for reading.
Next up, the finale of the Enerjak arc!
Next up, the first Super Scarlet Special: Shattering Narcissus!
Thank you all for reading.
♦ Want to support my work? ♦
PATREON | KO-FI
♦ Join the W2 Workshop Zone for previews and updates! ♦
W2 Workshop Zone Discord
This chapter has been brought to you by the following patrons and beta readers: Captain Nameless, C-Moon, Draconic Hermit, Dr.doom360, Justquestin2004, and N'Oni!
Thank you all for the continuing support!
PATREON | KO-FI
♦ Join the W2 Workshop Zone for previews and updates! ♦
W2 Workshop Zone Discord
This chapter has been brought to you by the following patrons and beta readers: Captain Nameless, C-Moon, Draconic Hermit, Dr.doom360, Justquestin2004, and N'Oni!
Thank you all for the continuing support!
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