|  Author | Topic: Edge of Time - Ongoing fanfic project (Read 200 times) |
shalethefox
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|  | Edge of Time - Ongoing fanfic project
« Thread Started on Aug 26, 2007, 1:55am » | |
Well, here it is. The first featured fanfic by Edgewalker_001, Edge of Time.
The story takes place in an alternate multiverse called Realmspace, for background information on specifics and general questions, you can just IM or PM me.
The main characters are Edge, Sash and Shale (The former being an altered human, sporting fox ears and a tail, and the two latter being anthro foxes.)
I'll add new chapters as soon as I write them.
Prologue
Grey.
It was always gray, neither black nor white. "Kind of like life itself, I guess." He used to remark. He was Edge, captain of the mercenary ship "Voidstalker", and the greyness he remarked on was the depths of Realmspace visible from his cabin window. The grey light had a most peculiar tint to it, as if seen trough dirty glass. Most modern ships had a built-in compensator module, projecting a starry sky image on the inside of the reality bubble they float surrounded by, but the Voidstalker had its module powered down to conserve energy. "Besides..." Edge used to say "The two of you aren't exactly bothered by a little grayness, and there's always drapes." The only "two" he could be referring to was the head science officer Sash, and the ship's computer, Blue-7. Blue-7 was technically the owner of the ship, as an advanced AI, she had many of the same rights as organic beings in the universe she originated from, she had however given up her ownership rights to Edge when the two of them first met. Sash, being the head science officer and second in command to Edge, was the only other organic lifeform on the ship. He had a slightly gloomy outlook on life and used to complain that no matter how advanced a civilization got, they always managed to get into needless wars and end up destroying themselves a few thousand years later. Nontheless he always managed to find a solution to any problem.
Standing there, gazing at the ebbs and tides in the solid grey background, Edges mind wandered back to the day before, when he accepted the assignment that had now taken him into this grey void. He remembered the space station over Kennestecia Prime as if he was standing there right now, smelling the cigar smoke that filled the recycled air. The source of this smoke was a seemingly eternally glowing cigar held by the man standing in front of him, the prime minister of the Kennestecia system. The prime minister was a bald, beak-nosed man that looked more at home in an old horror movie than on the ruling council, but he was nontheless known for being a fair negotiator. "So?" The prime minister asked, taking a meaningful glance at Edges sidearm "you are the mercenary?" "Yes, Mr.Prime Minister, I am the mercenary captain you requested. My name is..." "No need for introductions..." The bald man cut him off "I know who you are" He finished
after a long pull on his cigar. "Then my work should be much easier, just name the mission and I'll name my prize" Edge responded.
"I need..." The prime minister said, deliberately extending the last part "A chaos emerald"
"Why did I even agree to this stupid job?" Edge sighed. The official reason for their mission to the Mobian complex universe was to rescue the inhabitants of a timeline about to rewrite itself, the true reason remained known only to Edge and his crew. As the grey void kept pouring by at snail's pace, Edge stood watching. He was still standing there when the ship entered the Mobian complex.
Hundreds of years in the future, a wraith made its way trough a seemingly secure research complex, gently sidestepping security systems and keeping out of sight, Shadow the hedgehog made his way towards the central laboratory entrance. Having heard about the successful trial of the prototype serum developed there, Shadow was determined to give his life another chance. "Maria..." He whispered, moving closer to the entrance "Your wish to see the world may yet be fulfilled..."
The guard at the door never understood what happened, one second he was standing guard, the next he was unconscious on the floor. Shadow quickly dragged him out of sight, relieving him of his keycard on the way, and hurried inside. This was not the same Shadow that helped defeat Solaris, in his lifetime no being such as it had ever existed, the flames of disaster extinguished, Solaris had ceized to exist long before becoming a threat. This was the perfect world left untouched, arguably built on the lives of all those living in the branches cut in order to create it. As Shadow dissapeared trough the door, a pair of eyes were following him intently from a rooftop a square mile away. A raccoon, wearing a fashionable hat, adjusted a small slide at the side of his glasses to bring the zoom level back to normal. "Interesting..." he mused before once more resuming his watch of the city.
The central building was a maze of small storage spaces, corridors and different laboratories, but Shadow knew that if they wanted to keep something valuable stored, it would most likely be in the reinforced cold storage area 52 floors below ground level. So he immediately made way for the elevator shaft, he'd had to look around for years to find someone who could give him the exact floor plans, but the serum had been researched for nearly a century now, years was nothing in comparison. And now the final test results showed green across the board, totally safe for human use. Of course, more tests would have to be taken, and that could very well end in another ten years before the cure was available. Shadow had no idea if he would be able to stand another ten years, his heart ached, and the regret he had pushed down for so long was replaced by anger again, anger at himself for failing her. No, failing them. He was back on the ARK, beating at the armored glass of the capsule wall, seeing the soldier hesitate, shake, and then finally pull the trigger.
"NO!" Shadow's anger exploded within him again, he'd thought to leave his old life behind him after facing his unlikely father, but the images still haunted him. Opening his eyes, he saw the main elevator door lay in a puddle of molten metal on the floor, he cursed under his breath at the loss of self control and stepped trough the gaping hole. "Great..." he remarked "The power was automatically cut, if these pathetic
humans think they can stop me with something as simple as a non-functioning lift, they have seriously underestimated the abilities of an ultimate life-form..." Shadow spun into a ball of motion, ripping trough the floor, turning a dead-end into a freefall trough the elevator shaft. He pulled a luminously purple gem seemingly out of nowhere and with a few seconds to spare cried out "CHAOS CONTROL!". His fall was stopped as if he had hit an invisible wall, and he gently lowered himself to the ground. By now alarms were going off all around him, and the shrill blaring of klaxons mingled with the sound of running feet, Shadow merely blasted the door open, looked around, and then took off down a corridor, trusting his airshoes to bring him to the cure long before any pursuer.
When the "Voidstalker" reappeared into normal space, the first sight to meet it was a massive asteroid, appearing to be perectly round, it was actually in the shape of a half-sphere, the space colony ARK. Normally, the "Voidstalker would have been spotted by the station's sensors long before appearing, but as the space colony now lay abandoned, only one console flickered to life at the newcomers sudden appearance. A digital clock visible on the front began counting down, 30 minutes.
"We have now arrived in the Mobian complex" a female voice declared, rousing Edge from his momentary hypnosis. "And all is prepared for you to join me at the bridge" as usual, there was a hint of longing in those words. Blue-7 had been the first of a new class of shipwide AI control systems, complete with additional software including advanced empathy emulation algorithms, allowing her to fit into the crew as well as any biological crewmember, unfortunately, this programming was shown to have significant glitches when she fell in love with Edge, a prisoner at that time, and killed her entire crew to free him. Somehow, this incident also undid several layers of command and control protocols, allowing Blue-7 to take control
of the ship.
The UG-4799-01 Voidstalker, namesake ship to the Voidstalker class of light destroyers was equipped with the most precice weapons systems available at the time of construction, sporting two heavy molecular disruptor cannon emplacements and a number of rail gun emplacements to deal with shielded opponents, torpedo launch bays are also available front and aft and the ammunition fabrication plants on board can create a practically unlimited supply of rail darts and torpedoes. In addition the shield generators are both cooled by liquid helium and reinforced to survive concussive damage. The two matter fabricators (or fabbers as they are mostly called) both supply their individual nanofactories for production of everything from food to ammunition. In short, the "Voidstalker" was a state of the art, self-sustaining ship.
"Yeah, yeah... I'm coming..." Edge replied, his quarters were near the top of the ship, on the command level. The bridge doors was only twenty steps away, ten if he really hurried, he knew this by heart from the countless times he'd been called to the bridge in the middle of the night because of some concieved threat or tricky situation that couldn't be handled without him. This time, the object at the center of the viewscreen was the ARK, floating silently in space. Two blue dots were marked on the image, as well as one green flashing square near the center. "That's the old space colony" Edge remarked "But what are those readings? It looks as if something is broadcasting a signal on the lower subspace band from the old control room" "Affirmative" Blue-7 filled in "The blue dots mark coordinates recieved from the signal, one marks an old storage chamber and the other a teleport relay station near the upper C deck"
Shadow burned trough the next two doors using his chaos given powers, he was close now. The smell of frost and a biting chill in the air told him that he'd found the cold storage chamber, he immediately started looking for the serum.
"But who would send an encrypted message on a subspace channel in THIS universe?" Edge asked, a little more surprised than he showed. "Unknown, the signal uses a UG standard emergency encryption algorithm, and contains only these coordinates" "A trap? Yes... Most likely, noone here would benefit from the extended range offered by subspace transmissions, so for them to invent the technology, and then imitate one of UG's emergency codes seems HIGHLY unlikely" Sash mused, the fox was sitting bent over a small monitor, his fingers flying over an equally diminutive keyboard as he was muttering to himself. "The chance of that happening would be close to zero, right?" Edge asked "I'd give you the answer..." Blue-7 started "But both you AND the fox have informed me that numerical information with a higher decimal count than five are normally ignored by biological lifeforms..." She almost sounded hurt at this "And I'd SO hate to bore you..." she finished. "Sash? Is there any other information in the signal?" Edge turned to Sash to discover him jumping around, clutching his paw. "What happened?" he asked "The whole bloody signal happened!" Sash snapped, the signal strength just got boosted by 400% and it overloaded my console" "Any danger to the ship?" Edge asked "No, none that I can think of. It's still just sending those coordinates"
"Then let's get over there" Edge replied.
Shadow finally found what he had been looking for in one of the cabinets, a small vial of a greenish liquid marked "NIDS-115 Antiviral sample". He put the vial back into its refrigerated cylinder and slid it into a free slot on his belt, turning, he saw the company guards assisted by GUN military units block off the doors. "Surrender or be destroyed!" the leading officer bellowed, Shadow merely smirked.
Edge's first impression after stepping off the teleporter's pad was loneliness, the huge station was totally abandoned, and here and there little things were left behind. A broken record lay in one corner of the transport center, a teddy bear had been carelessly dropped between two broken floor panels and dust and cobwebs covered everything "Cobwebs?" Sash remarked "On a space station?" They must've brought some Mobian insects here when they transported supplies" Edge guessed "And the spiders and insects have probably..." He stopped cold at that instant, a distant sound brought his ears up "What was that?" He asked Sash "What was what? That clanging sound? Probably just the bulkheads settling..." Sash replied, shining a flashlight down a dark corridor, revealing nothing except more cobwebs, dust and broken furniture. "Well the other coordinates we recieved should place the storage area two floors above us" Edge said "And we still don't know if all those rampaging experiments were destroyed in the GUN raid that totalled this place..." Sash filled in "So we might run into some trouble... As always"
Panel countdown: 10 minutes
When the GUN backup unit arrived at the scene a few seconds later, they discovered a veritable bloodbath, except of couse for the blood. Scorched guards lay strewn across the floor, some breathing, others not. Shadow threw the last guard into a cold storage rack and simply walked out of the room, discovering the three Hotshot units with the backup team, and dodging the second they opened fire, he seemed to skate straight trough their combined barrage. As he reached the feet of the closest one, he jumped, bashing right trough the cocpit, unfolding in flight and destroying the other two with a two-handed chaos spear throw. As the backup unit retreated, he pulled out the purple chaos emerald. Solaris may have been gone, but his destruction had gifted this timeline with a much less turbulent timestream, in his other hand he held the gray chaos emerald, his intent was clear.
"CHAOS CONTROL!"
The ladder to B deck was by no means an easy climb, lubricants from an old guard robot above had coated the pins in a slick, greasy layer and the shaft was way too cramped to attempt flying. As they reached the first hatch to lower B deck, they immediately entered to avoid further contact with the slippery ladder.
"This should be close to the central control room" Sash gasped "Why don't we go there and see if our mysterious friend is still around?" "Good idea" Edge replied "Maybe we can finally get some answers about this signal"
The panel's countdown was now down to five minutes, thirty seconds.
Sash was pointing his pocket scanner at pretty much everything he saw, taking readings of air pressure and humidity while humming happily. "Why so cheerful?" Edge asked "Wasn't it you that said there might still be some nasty critters around here?" He continued "I know, and there appears to be a large amount of insects, spiders, and mice infesting this place. Which should mean that whatever experiments may be left is NOT anywhere close by." Sash replied. As if to prove him wrong, a section of the roof was suddenly blown in, burying the entrance to the control room in debris, a spherical ball of a blue liquid, crowned by a skull-like head hovered down trough the hole. "It's an artificial chaos!" Sash screamed "I don't care what it's called, just tell me how it's hurt!" Edge replied, drawing his pistol. "Awww... C'mon c'mon c'mon..." Sash worked furiously with the scanner while the liquid monstrosity moved closer. "There, the head, aim for the head, maximum power!" Sash suddenly screamed. Edge didn't waste any time, and put a full powered laser shot trough the opposing Chaos head before it could respond. The creature seemed to explode, breaking down into smaller pieces. "Now run! Before it reconstitutes itself!" Sash exclaimed "Which way?" Edge asked "Any way, just get away from it!" "Ok, then let's take the shortest route to the storage area, it should be up that ladder over there." As the two of them dissapeared up the ladder, the last pieces of the shattered chaos merged together.
Panel countdown: 3 minutes
The next floor was a mess from the fight between GUN forces and the experimental chaos, and Edge and Sash had to stop and turn around in several of the corridors because of wandering chaos and collapsed walls, before eventually reaching the door to the storage area. "Ok" Edge said, after trying to open it "It's locked, now what?" "Let me try opening it" Sash said, stepping forth. At that same instance, the countdown reached zero, and the door unlocked itself. "That's great Sash! How'd you do it?" Edge asked, amazed. "I'm not quite sure..." Sash answered, confused. The door continued to open automatically, revealing a single stasis pod. "Is this what I think it is?" Edge asked "If you were thinking some kind of suspended animation equipment, then I'd say you're right." Sash answered "But who or what's in it?" He continued, walking over and attempted to wipe the dust from the observation window, the instant he got close to the device though, its wake-up cycle was activated. Steam suddenly hissed out from broken seals and the pod swung open, clouding the entire room.
A figure emerged from the cold mist, a light grey two-tailed fox.
"W-who are you?" Sash stammered. "I am Shale, Shale the fox" The newly awakened answered
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shalethefox
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| | Chapter one - Gathering Storm
« Reply #1 on Aug 26, 2007, 1:57am » | |
And here's chapter one, also allready written... Don't you just feel special? XD
Awwww... It seems I need to split it into two, apparently it was a bit too large for a single post...
Chapter 1 - Gathering Storm
The outside hull of a space station may not seem like the ideal place for a picnic, but the only guest on the surface of the ARK was positively gorging himself. The creature had followed the Voidstalker to the Mobian complex by latching on to its hull in the same way it was now tightly pressed towards the metal exterior of man's greatest acchievement in space. The solar radiation bathing the small crystalline shell was rapidly absorbed and devoured.
The creature was a Wyming Clam, one of space travel's most well known parasites. Known for surviving conditions that would kill most other lifeforms instantly, the Wyming Clams survived and flourished on spaceship hulls, floating debris, and space stations. The small creatures posed no immediate threat to a starship, as they survived on the excess energy given off by onboard systems and solar radiation, they were originally thought to have lived in asteroid belts and then being spread by mining ships. Truth be told, noone cared about the Wyming Clams.
This particular Wyming Clam had no idea that it was currently in a very bad spot, if it had known or even contemplated the danger in latching onto this particular piece of metal then it might have simply ignored it and floated on towards the asteroid belt, but Wyming Clams only cared about food, so it was a completely hypothetical concept for it to percieve any danger. Three meters of hull plating and four decks further down Sash gasped in amazement. If it had been possible for the clam to hear that tiny noice trough the metal, it might have decided to let go and move closer to the sun instead, but as it was now it simply stayed put, flickering with contentment at all the energy it recieved.
Somewhere below it, a stasis pod popped open. A figure emerged from the cold mist, a light grey two-tailed fox. "W-who are you?" Sash stammered. "My name is Shale, Shale the fox" The newly awakened answered.
"And that name is supposed to mean something to us?" Edge asked. "I might be your worst nightmare." Shale responded, his voice cold and unfeeling. Sash involuntarily took several steps back, putting distance between him and Shale. Edges hands now rested close to his weapons. "Or I might not, who are you guys anyway? And where am I?" Shale's cold demeanor was gone, a confused smile on his face instead. "You don't know where you are?" Sash asked. "But we found you in that stasis pod... And from all the dust on it, I'd say you've been here for years..." He continued. "That's strange, the last thing I remember is... Looking out trough a green glass wall, there were two persons in the room, a man and a girl..." Shale looked puzzled at this. "I know I should remember their names, but I don't. This is all so very confusing" He continued. "Am I suffering from... Amnesia was it? Yes it was." "I have no idea who you are, but was it you that sent the distress signal to our ship?" Edge asked. "Distress signal? Ship? What are you talking about? I remember about... Flight controls and... Path calculations, yes, that's it. Path calculations." Shale answered, still confused. "Path calculations? As in flight path calculations you mean...? You're a pilot?" Sash asked, confused himself. "A pilot... Yes, I know how to fly many varieties of atmospheric craft as well as the Griffon variety of space defense fighter." Shale responded, as if reading a resume. "Griffon you say... I wasn't aware you had any fightercraft on this station..." Edge mused. "Station? So we are on a space station then? The ARK?" Shale asked, excited now. "Yes, we are indeed on the ARK." Sash answered. "But the griffon is the newest model of space superiority fighter in our arsenal." He continued. "How can you be knowledgeable of it if you originate in this world?" "Don't ask me." Shale answered. "I don't even know where I come from, much less
what I'm doing here."
Shadow was excited now, for all the years he'd spent living off the hope to
finally see Maria again, he'd never believed the day would come. Then he'd gotten wind of the NIDS serum being developed right under his nose, and planned this day for the better part of a century. He stood on the tallest spires of the metro tower, rising over Station Square like a solemn mechanical finger covered in glass, the tower was an unnatural landmark in a world of asphalt and metal. Shadow extended his hands, one chaos emerald in each, and began focusing, bringing his will to bear on the raw chaos energies unleached. The metro tower seemed to burn in the night, like some bizarre torch stuck into the heart of a civilization built on plastic and glass. As he let go of the emeralds, they began to spin around him, performing their own dance in rythm with the cold chaos flames. The skyline burned green.
Back aboard the Voidstalker, with Shale confined to sickbay until it could be determined if his amnesia was treatable, Edge paced back and forth on the bridge while Sash was completely caught up in his scanner readings. "The time distortion threatening this timeline will reach us in precisely 4 minutes 32 seconds" Blue-7 informed. "Then let's launch the time fork, shall we?" Edge remarked, referring to a time buoy. "The wave will hit us from this direction." Sash said, pointing towards the ARK. "Placing the buoy in that general area will ensure a safe transferral of the new template." He continued. "Timeline template downloaded to buoy matches copy in memory." Blue-7 confirmed. "The new timeline created by the forking effect will contain all life-forms from the original, except for energy bioforms classification "Mephiles" and "Iblis", who will be annihilated" She continued. "So... We're once again playing god?" Edge remarked. "It would seem that way." Blue-7 responded. "And who is to say that we are wrong?" She continued. "Not the people living in that timeline, anyhow... If it wern't for us, they'd be toast in..." Edge began. "3 minutes, 24 seconds." Blue-7 finished. "Ok, we have delayed this for too long anyhow, launch the buoy!" Edge ordered. "As you wish, buoy is away." Blue-7 responded. A small console unfolded next to Edge, showing the buoy's launch. "Do we have a signal from time fork one?" Edge immediately asked. "I am currently recieving such a signal." Blue-7 responded. "Automated systems check reports no errors with the buoy."
As the small buoy drifted by the Wyming Clam something unusual happened, the clam suddenly stopped feeding, folding its energy collectors tightly inside its shell as it unlatched from the station, heading back towards the Voidstalker. Who can truly say what goes on inside the small brain of such an overlooked lifeform? Perhaps it was frightened by the close passing buoy, perhaps the shadow of the ship happened to interrupt its feeding, or perhaps it was actually looking for shelter under the Voidstalkers shields. This is impossible to tell, after all, noone cares about the Wyming Clam.
"The time buoy is in position, it's transmitting loud and clear." Sash reported. "Now we just have to wait..."
As the Lone Star mercenaries waited for one time distortion to hit, Shadow was well underway with creating another. The chaos emeralds spun around him like two solid bands of color now, one gray, one purple. The spiral of green flames had attracted every eye on ground level and higher to stare at him, "And for once." He thought. "It did not matter."
"CHAOS CONTROL!"
The bands merged into one, not purple or gray, but a deeper grayish dusk, like the color of realmspace. And then exploded into green brilliance, when the glare died out, Shadow was gone. Three things happened in that same instant of timeless time, Shadow elliminated his sole reason to ever visit the past, the Princess Elise of a distant past extinguished the flames of disaster, and two time distortion waves started heading towards the one timeline inhabited by the Voidstalker.
A beeping sound snapped Edge out of his boredom. "Is it time?" He asked. "Not for another minute, but you'd better come see this." Sash replied. Mumbling, Edge walked over to Sash's console to get a better look. "What is all this?" He asked, pointing at two lines visible on the console monitor. "Those are time distortion waves, and we're in the middle." Sash explained. "What?" Edge asked. "You mean to tell me there's another distortion heading this way from the opposite direction?" "Indeed, that is what my instruments show me." Blue-7 responded. "I would suggest raising the shields and reinforcing the temporal dampeners until we can determine its effects." She continued. "Of course, we need whatever protection you can give us!" Edge responded. "We might not even exist in the altered timeline."
The distortion waves closed on the space station and ship from two directions, the past and future may be subjective things, prone to change when something is altered, but when two things as big as the destruction of a world and the prevention of a tragic death clashed, uncertanity was written in stone. The time paradox created by Shadow's trip to the past and the time buoy floating in both waves paths didn't help either.
"Shields are raised, time distortion dampening field is holding at 100% saturation." Blue-7 informed. "Can we get out of here before the second stormfront hits?" Edge asked. "Negative, energy is beeing redirected to maximize the field." Blue-7 replied. "What she means to say is, we don't have enough power to engage our D-field." Sash explained. "It's impossible to jump to Realmspace."
The waves seemed to pick up speed as they approached, the future wave had already cut Mobius orbit and was proceeding trough the planet like a wall of water, drowning pasts it had never stopped to ponder. The planet seemed to ripple and shift under its influence, casting shadow images of planets large and small in every direction as its timeline frayed like an ancient rope.
"This is definately not good." Edge remarked, looking at the planet trough the viewscreen. "The future wave seems to be going back trough time, altering everything it touches, and it's a fair bet that the past wave will have similar effects." "And all the while, we're stuck here like a clam waiting to be baked." Sash muttered. "The readings I'm getting from the planet indicate at least a hundred different new timelines, all with completely rewritten history and even small differences in..." At this point the past wave hit the time buoy, unleaching a sensation that pierced even the protective field of the ship. One single clear note rang out in everyones mind as the transferral of the time template completed. A few seconds later, both waves hit the ARK simultaneously, shattering the note with the sound of breaking glass.
To say that the two waves collided would not be technically correct, they both embodied changes in the actual timeline itself, travelling like ripples on the surface of water, and like ripples they affected each other, casting a fishnet like interference pattern over the new timelines. Events were altered, kings dissapeared from their beds, presidents were shot down by bullets from future wars, time and space itself quaked. And then, as rapidly as it had begun, the interference pattern reached the end of its effective range, dissolving into nothingness. It left behind a collection of scarred worlds, displaced trough time and plauged by the natural conclusion to chaos. War had once again reached Mobius.
And as everyone knows, war never changes.
Edge opened his eyes, it didn't change much. "Great..." He thought. "I've gone blind." Then he noticed a small light shining off to the side of his vision and shifted his head, revealing a console with a few buttons shining weakly in the darkness. His left side felt slick with what could be blood, but for the moment he felt no pain. "Sash?" He called out. "Are you OK?" The only reply he got was a muffled grunt from the other end of the now-dark bridge and a few scraping sounds. "Hold on, I'll try to get the emergency lights online." He tried standing up, only to slip and fall in the same slick wetness that had soaked the left side of his uniform. He felt the smell of synaptic liquid immediately this time. "So that's what happened." He muttered. "The bridge control circuits overloaded." He shook his head in the darkness, this could take days to repair.
In a distant future, a chaos emerald fell from the sky, streaking trough the atmosphere like a purple meteor before finally coming to a rather abrupt halt when it hit the hard ground, it lay there, its inner radiance illuminating a small circle of an otherwise gray world. Everything was covered in dust, even the sky itself seemed to go from brown to gray as sand and dust was blown overhead in large clouds. The emerald lay in the middle of a partially destroyed city, its inhabitants long since dead to famine, plague, and the folly of war. This world had been scorched by atomic fire in a far past, and all that remained were ghosts and whatever scattered life could survive in a world suddenly gone mad. The chaos emeralds soft purple glow momentarily intensified as a small seed landed next to it, the seed immediately sprouted roots and dug into the earth, a new life born in a world of ash. A few days later a forest covered the city ruins.
It took Edge a long time to get to the bridge control console, slipping several times on the slick fluid covering the floor. When he finally reached it, he immediately punched the emergency override button, and then entered his command code to activate the lights. The powerful wall mounted light panels flickered to life immediately, revealing the full extent of the damage. A thick cable, leaking more of the same clear fluid that covered the floor hanged from the roof, the surrounding roof panels seemed to have been scorched black from the discharge. Sashs station was a mess, and only the tails of the fox in question were visible, protruding from a white ball that Edge guessed was another safety mechanism gone wrong. "I know what you're going to say, just push the red button." Sash said, his voice muffled trough the protective shield. "Ok, but this thing'd better not try to chop my head off again." Edge replied, referring to the last time Sash's coat had developed a glitch and tried to behead the captain after shifting into a monstrous form. "Don't worry about that, I have worked out all the bugs in this form, aside from the fact that it has to be deactivated from the outside." Was Sash's muffled reply. Edge simply sighed and pushed the button, ready to jump aside at the slightest hint of trouble. The white ball simply seemed to flow outwards to the sides while simultaneously shrinking, revealing Sash completely unharmed. A few seconds later it had completely reverted to Sash's normal labcoat. "It is kind of freaky it can just do that..." Edge remarked. "Oh, not at all." Sash began. "The individual nanites can assemble themselves in any structure from crystal to polymer-like..." He continued. "Save the science lesson for later." Edge sighed. "Right now I need you to patch that." he continued, pointing to the dripping cable. "Oh great..." Sash remarked. "This could take hours..." "Do we even know what happened after we lost power to the shields?" Edge asked. "Well, the temporal dampening field saved us from the effects the wave may have had on the ship, but we were most likely thrown into one of the alternate timelines by the shockwave of the temporal collision." Sash answered. "So..." Edge exclaimed. "We have no idea when we are..."
On the Mobius of this timeline, the inhabitants had never even heard of either the evil dr. Eggman or the heroic blue hedgehog that opposed him. Ivo Kintobor was a scientist specializing in the field of quantuum dimensional physics, and Sonic had never been born. Project Shadow had been cancelled due to low funding and the Shadow prototypes still remained in stasis aboard the ARK, under heavy GUN security. This left only one thread untied, and it was completing its fifty year pendulum swing right at this moment. Gun had retrofitted the eclipse cannon with an alternative energy source, great banks of chaos drives filling the interior of the cannon altar chamber. They provided significantly less energy than the chaos emeralds, but as these had been lost in times immemorial noone had a better idea. The ARK was fitted with rows upon rows of torpedo tubes and heavy laser cannons, this was a world waiting for an imminent attack.
Off in the distance, a shadow momentarily blocked out the stars.
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shalethefox
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| | Chapter one, part 2
« Reply #2 on Aug 26, 2007, 1:58am » | |
Several hours later, Sash completed his repairs of the damaged control circuit, he wiped his eyes with the back of his paw and nodded to Edge. "Everything should be working now." He said, replacing the last panel and snapping it in place. "It would appear so." Blue-7 remarked suddenly from a nearby console, startling Sash. "Bridge controls are fully operational again, bringing main viewscreen into focus." The screen wavered for a few seconds, then flickered once and locked into a crystal clear representation of the drama taking place outside. As the stunned onlookers observed, a spread of torpedos were launched from the space colony, impacting with larger black shapes after a short flight and lighting up space with a fiery orange-red. "We've appeared in the middle of a warzone..." Edge finally said. "But who's fighting who, and more importantly who's side are we on?" Sash asked. "I have no idea... I guess we'll just have to see who fires on us first." Edge replied.
In Sickbay, Shale just now began to wake up from the aftereffects of his long-time stasis, he was laying on a rather comfortable bed, while a multisegmented scanner headband attached to a large computer nearby was examining his brain for injury, so far it had found nothing. The shockwave from another nearby explosion fully roused Shale from his sleep. "What was that?" He asked, not expecting an answer. "That, was the result of a misfired warhead detonating approximately 200 metres of our starboard bow." Blue-7 immediately responded, her image appearing on a monitor close to his bed. Blue-7, like most other AI constructs manning warships or other space-faring vessels, did not have a physical form, but instead communicated trough a 3D representation projected either as a hologram or (More often) appearing on a viewscreen or monitor. Blue-7 had chosen a beautiful vixen as her 3D avatar, and Shale found himself momentarily unable to look away from her dark brown hair, he had never seen another fox aside from Sash, and for a moment he felt extremely lonely. If Blue-7 noticed the look on his face, she choose not to care, dissapearing with a simple "All crew are required to report to battlestations, you appear healthy, and your piloting skills will prove useful on the flight deck, trough the left coridor and then to the right." "Wait, what do you mean by..." Shale started, but Blue-7 was already gone. "Great..." Shale thought. "Now I'm drafted..."
The interior of the ARK was a state of controlled chaos, much like the altar room, with its immense energy accumulators. GUN personnel was running this way and that, carrying reports and equipment, measuring the energy levels of various devices, and preparing spacecraft for takeoff. The small number of GUN fighters patrolling the perimeter of the station had so far failed to notice the Voidstalker thanks in part to its sensor masking system still being active, but mostly because they were constantly attacked by waves of small black creatures. Fire from the laser batteries that dotted the ARK thinned their numbers conciderably, but the fighters were still hard pressed to keep them from infiltrating the station. The Black Arms, for it was indeed them, had launched a series of smaller, frigate-like ships from their home, and were using these to shoot down any torpedoes that threatened the Black Comet itself, ever moving closer to Mobius.
"Well, it looks like these black fellows have the upper hand." Edge commented. "And since neither side seems willing to pay us for assistance, I'd say we pick whatever side seems most likely to posess a chaos emerald, and take it." He continued. "Well, that seems like an attempt from you to sound cool and amoral while in reality only wanting to help the weaker team out..." Sash remarked. "It sure is, and since I'm the captain, that's what we'll do..." Edge replied. "Bring us about and plot a course for that black hunk of rock, we have a pináta to break open..."
Meanwhile, Shale was rapidly walking down the corridor leading to the main launch bay, he was wearing a pilot's uniform he'd found in a locker room on the way, goggles had replaced the scanner band, and Shale had instead tied his blue bandana around his right arm, somehow feeling naked without it. As he reached the end of the corridor, he stood before a gigantic pressure door that he trough the same strange certainity he'd felt before about the uniform knew was the main access hatch to the launch bay. He walked up to the door and punched in a combination on its keypad, feeling like he'd done it a hundred times before. The door seals unlocked with a hissing sound and the gigantic metal slab was retracted into the ceiling, allowing access to the flight deck. Shale stepped trough the door rapidly and made his way to the first fightercraft on his immediate right, it was a Griffon class heavy fighter, with hooked wings and four protruding gun barrels immediately under the thingypit, it looked like an ancient bird of prey, its brilliant emerald green color scheme marked it as a mercenary craft. Its wings were adorned with a pair of small particle gun towers, providing a nearly perfect field of fire. Shale lifted one gloved hand and placed it on the side of the nose, somehow he knew that this was his ship, he'd never seen it before, but he knew that it pulled slightly to the left during rolls, and that its leftmost tower servo was a little sluggish thanks to pressure on one of the fluid lines. "I know this ship better than I know myself..." He remarked. "I just hope that my amazing spree of predestination will get us all out of this alive."
On the bridge, Edge was laughing like a madman as the Voidstalker suddenly raised shields and blasted out from its hiding place under the ARK. "Bring all Railgun emplacements to bear, blanket those smaller ships... Creatures... Whatever! And transfer control over the forward secondary armaments to my console, I'll deal with any of those frigates that attempt to slow us down, Sash, you run trough the pre-firing check for the MD cannons, we'll need them soon." Edge was positively beside himself with joy that he would finally get the chance to engage an enemy in space, shouting orders left and right and pointing at several maps for reference. "I'm on it." Sash responded, in a calmer tone." The cannons should be charged and ready when we get within range." The Voidstalker joined the battle a few seconds later, appearing like a bull in a china shop, railgun emplacements spitting metal death in all directions, slicing trough the massed groups of winged, insect-like creatures. Edge swung the heavy rail cannons into position a few seconds after that, locking onto the closest enemy frigate and pushing the firing button. The cannons glowed blue for a second, charging up, and then the opposing frigate simply seemed to shudder, then blow up from within as the explosive shells detonated. "Yeah, take that ya lowly space-faring landlubbers!" Edge jokingly commented. "Captain Edge is here to clean your clocks..." "Oh dear..." Sash thought. "I wonder if he's finally lost it this time?"
Shale jumped into the thingypit of the Griffon, he now heard the unmistakeable pings of rail weapons being fired, as well as a deep hum from the Voidstalkers engines powering up. "Well." He thought. "This is it." In front of him was a control panel with hundreds of unmarked buttons in different colors, some of them were glowing softly with a green light. Gripping the stick with one hand, he experimentally closed his eyes and lifted his other, pushing the first three buttons that came to mind, then opening his eyes, allready the thingypit hatch was closing, the engines coughed to life, then revved up with a crescendo whine. The ship started moving, he didn't have to think long to remember that this model utilized an automatic link to shipboard systems in order to launch, and that he was right now being towed to the launch elevator. Disengaging the safety came next, his hand moving by reflex to hit another button off to the side, causing a rectangular assortment of buttons on the other side of the panel to display a small menu of armaments. He pushed the goggles down over his eyes, activating the built-in HUD system. The display read "All flight systems operational." As the fighter was disconnected from its rail and the platform started to rise, Shale gave a thought of thanks to whomever taught him to fly.
The Black arms retaliated against the Voidstalker almost immediately, an assortment of biological weapons detonating harmlessly against shields designed to deflect rail weaponry. The smaller creatures aimed to breach the shields by diving trough them, but they were mercilessly beaten back by massed rail fire. Someone on board the Black Comet must've realized the need for greater firepower. "Incoming torpedoes!" Sash yelled out as yellow blips suddenly appeared on his screen. "They've gotten serious quicker than I'd hoped." Edge replied. "Is the cannons ready to fire?" "Almost, I'm channeling energy to the firing chamber accumulators right now." Sash responded.
As Shale cleared the platform and took off, Edge's voice reached him immediately over the comlink. "Shale, good to see you can get one of those heaps of junk off the deck." "I do what I can..." Shale smirked. "Now you've got a perfect opportunity to prove yourself useful, there's a spread of torpedoes closing on the ship, and we can't spare the railguns, they're close enough to overloading their energy grid as it is." Edge explained. "We'll handle anything coming this way, you've just gotta keep those torps off us." "Well." Shale thought. "That doesn't sound too difficult." He extended his free hand, grabbing the throttle to his left and pushing it all the way forwards with one fluid motion, the inertial dampeners immediately kicked in and Shale felt only a fraction of a second of pressure as the small ship accelerated towards its top speed.
Edge saw Shale's ship taking off towards the Black Comet at max speed, dodging the first waves of attacking blackness by diving under their path. "He sure looks capable." He muttered. "Let's just hope he won't try something stupid..."
The first wave of attackers was easily dodged, but as he passed it, he noticed that all nearby Black Arms changed their target priority to him. "It sure is nice to be noticed." He muttered between clenched teeth as he narrowly dodged an incoming missile from one of the larger, frigate-like enemies. Suddenly his comlink spluttered to life again, revealing an incoming call using an unencrypted radio signal. "Unidentified spacecraft, this is Bravo wing of the Guardian Unit of Nations, we are here to render assistance." Looking up, he saw five of the Mobian spacecraft blast their way trough the attacking Black Arm forces. "Damn... They choose a mighty bad time to play heroes..." Shale muttered as he checked his energy reserves, so far so good, the battle had only taken a little over 1% of his ships total energy reserve. "Energy!" The thought suddenly struck him. He could use his ship's energy as a weapon in more ways than one! With a flick of his left hand, he flipped the switch to open the release valve for emergency venting of drive plasma. "Now..." He thought. "I just need to make myself a target..."
"What is he playing at?" Edge wondered aloud. "He hasn't fired a single shot at those torpedoes, and now he's wasting ammo picking off flies?" True enough, Shale was flying in a lazy zigzag manner in the path of the torpedo volley, darting off here and there to pick off the small creatures that harassed the fighter pilots of Bravo wing. "He's transmitting." Sash suddenly said. "He's telling all fighter pilots to retreat towards the station, crossing his earlier path. Now why would he do that?" "Oh damn... He can't be serious!" Edge exclaimed.
"I repeat, all fighter pilots, retreat towards the station, crossing my earlier flightpath. And close your collector ports before that, unless you want to fry your engines." Shale transmitted. As expected, this led all the smaller creatures into a single clumped mass behind him as the torpedoes closed. He waited another five seconds for the creatures following him to change direction, and another two for the last fighter pilot to clear the line, then he jammed the stick forward and left and went into a wild spinning dive. He pulled the stick back, breaking out of his improvised evasive move in an Immerman turn like fasion, and then flipped the switch cover for the afterburners open. "Now then..." He mused, looking back at the space born creatures. "Here's something you can't do..." He flicked the valve closed, cutting the plasma stream he had allowed to escape into space off at its source, and then immediately pressed the switch.
The initial explosion temporarily blacked out the Voidstalkers viewscreen, as a precaution against eye damage, when it flickered back online again, space itself seemed to burn. "That insane son of a pregnant dog..." Edge snickered. "That was a Crazy Ivan." "A crazy who?" Sash asked. "Just forget about it, the important thing is that he pulled it off, and that not only rids us of the torpedoes that got caught in the blast, but they won't be able to fire new ones for at least a minute. It's impossible to get anything trough that ionized gas cloud" Edge explained. "That is all well and good, but did you see if he survived?" Sash asked. "Well... No... But I'm sure he wouldn't have attempted that if he wasn't absolutely sure that he'd live." Edge replied. "But you don't even know him, maybe he was the reckless sort?" Sash persisted. "If I hear you using the past tense again before we know for certain, you're going to have patrol duty for a week..." Edge replied. "But..." Sash began. "In a spacesuit, in the actual lookout..." Edge said with finality, Sash wisely didn't open his mouth again.
With the way to the Black Comet clear, and energy to spare from the railgun grid, the Voidstalker was now heading for its enemy at full sublight speed. Shale watched the ship pass trough the hot gas cloud like a dove trough smoke, its shields a wispy outline against the swirls of ionized gas. "Now I just need to join them at the comet." He thought, looking over to the energy display, it read 3% energy, just enough to get there and land if he was lucky. "I guess luck is all I can count on..." He sighed as he eased the slightly scorched ship into a course for the comet.
"Now the fun part begins..." Edge gleefully exclaimed. "Taking our enemy apart in new and interesting ways... Are you sure the cannon won't affect a chaos emerald?" He asked Sash. "If my calaculations are correct, the cannon wouldn't be able to affect anything withing 50 feet of a chaos emerald." Sash replied. "The energy distortion effect is simply too great." He explained.
"Good..." Edge said. "Then fire, as soon as we're in range!" He ordered.
The Voidstalkers twin Molecular Dissolution cannons (Called "Molecular Disruptors" by some, and abbreviated as "MD") worked using a complex energy net structure to cut the bonds between the individual molecules in a target, the downside to this was of course their limited range, as well as the fact that they could not penetrate any form of energy shield. Aside from these limitations, they were still weapons to be feared, and the Black Comet was unshielded.
"The target is within range." Blue-7 reported. "You may fire when ready." Edge ordered again. "MD cannon prefire check completed, all systems go." Sash filled in. "Aiming..." Blue-7 intoned. "Firing MD cannons one and two..."
To say that the sight of an MD weapon being fired was beautiful would be an understatement, the original green rays streaked out from the forward mounted cannon barrels, turning into a rainbow of colors as they struck their target, the rippling colors travelled up the length of the beams and threw colored mist troughout the entire area. Then the mist seemed to catch brilliant multicolored flames, and the area burned in silence.
Once the light receded, what remained of the black comet was a gigantic black structure that must have spanned the entirety of the comet's interior with all its spires and towers.
"I'd say that is slightly more than 50 feet..." Edge remarked. "It must posess a shield of some kind, or it would have been dissolved as well..." Sash replied. "No..." Shale said, having just entered the bridge behind them. "It was created using a chaos emerald." "Of course, the structure is so uneven that the beam couldn't lock onto it..." Sash explained. "Well then, then the questions are, how do we destroy it and how to get our hands on that chaos emerald?"
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