Chapter 5: A co-op escape

Sonic and Shadow continued journeying forward unknowing of what lay ahead. "So Sonic, what do you think the aliens were planning to do with captured mobians?" Shadow asked calmly hoping Sonic might have picked up some info from past experience escaping the aliens from before. "Sorry Shads, I'm afraid I know just about as much as you do right now..." Said the cobalt hedgehog with a sound of worry and his ears flattening against their owners head. Shadow noticed Sonic's expression and became immediately confused because never once had he seen such a depressed look on the blurs face. Then the dark hedgehog realized he shouldn't have asked that particular question. "I'm sure they are fine, we'll find them." He said trying to pull Sonic back out of his rare episode of depression. "Yeah your right, I'm sure they are safe. They just need to hold on a bit longer for us to find them." A smile returning to the azure hedgehogs face.

Eventually they came across a dead end with another metal door standing in their way. "Back up Shads, leave this to me!" Sonic said with confidence. "He-y what?" Before Sonic could touch the metal door he felt Shadow pulling him away from it. "Don't be so reckless! There might be aliens on the other side!" Shadow said in a loud whisper. Sonic crossed his arms pouting a bit, but nodded to him in agreement. The Ebony hedgehog placed his left ear against the door and could hear the aliens speaking in a foreign tongue from the other side. He waited until hearing the steps of the aliens fade from the room. "Ok Sonic, the coast is clear now." Shadow said giving a thumbs up. Sonic placed his hands on the door and it melted in nearly an instant leaving them free to proceed into the new room.

At the back of the room they saw a larger than normal window and carefully peered out of it seeing into another room that was next to them. They could see a larger than normal metal door that had an electronic message on it.

Door 0 Center

Experiment: Kouryu

Element: Earth

Status: Contained

"The doors message is in English, weird... And what the heck is a Kouryu?" Shadow asked looking at Sonic blankly. "Well, based on what I saw on your door; It's most likely the name of whoever is trapped inside that room..." Said the blue hero looking to their right, his heart nearly stopping at what he saw. Shadow walking up to him "Sonic what's-" he looks up at the two metal doors side by side in front of them; both of them read:

Door 6

Experiment: Tails

Element: Fire

Status: Contained

Door 7

Experiment: Knuckles

Element: Water

Status: Unknown

The blue hedgehog snapped back into reality, his voice now filled with panic "unknown?! What does it mean by unknown?!" The cobalt speedster said as he hastily melted the metal door without a second thought. Sonic rushed into the room and froze. The ebony hedgehog rushed into the room from behind "Sonic wait-" in the middle of the room stood a giant red beast. It looked like a tortoise with a snake wrapped around its body, both the tortoise and snake were glaring down at the two shocked hedgehogs with amethyst glowing eyes.

"Kn-Knucks?" Sonic said with a small shiver. "Move!" Yelled Shadow as both hedgehogs swiftly dodged a striking attack from the snake. Sonic stood up "what are you doing you knucklehead?! It's us!" Now confused and upset. The beast started shooting large bubbles of water at the blue hero, but he expertly evaded them. "Chaos Sphere!" Shadow shot a charged chaos sphere at the tortoises shelled back trying to distract but not harm it. The dark hedgehog smirked when it turned to him enraged, then Shadow suddenly realized he made a mistake. "Urgh!" Shadow dropped to one knee breathing heavily, pain overtaking him. Using his chaos power seemed to make him have an attack. The faint hedgehog tried to steady himself, but everything in the room was now spinning and he couldn't make sense of anything at the moment. "Shadow!" the cobalt hedgehog yelled to him. The Red snake lunged for a strike at Shadow... "No!" Was all shadow could hear as he felt sonic push him out of the way...

Shadows vision returned and he was stable again. He looked next to him and horror struck as he saw the snakes fangs were pierced deeply into The blue hedgehogs shoulder. Sonic was smiling to him "Guess I should have moved a little faster..." said the blue hero before closing his eyes completely. Shadow acted on instinct and quickly spin dashed at the snakes throat causing it to release sonic as it recoiled from the blow. Shadow rushed to his blue counterpart and tried to support his head from the metal floor. "Come on faker! Cut it out, wake up! ...Sonic!" The blue hedgehog opened his eyes and The dark hedgehog sighed in relief. "You shouldn't make me get so damn worried. You're a lot of trouble, you know that?" Shadow said as the blue speedster chuckled a bit while stumbling shakily to his feet.

"Are you alright?" the dark hedgehog asked with real concern. "Apparently so." Said the blue hedgehog with the usual cockiness back in his voice. The Red beast was now charging an attack; Most likely meant to finish them off. The two hedgehogs nodded at one another and started charging up a spin dash. Sonic's spin dash was different this time; Light seemed to gather around his spinning form causing him to glow a bright blue. Sonic broke his spin dash, but was standing still and had the blue light all around him. "Ready? Go!" Sonic yelled as he went back into a spin dash while launching his attack along with Shadow at the same time. The hedgehogs both crashed into the side of the tortoises shell causing the beast to completely flip onto its back trapping the snake beneath its weight. "What are you gonna do now knucklehead?" Sonic taunted as the red beast roared in anger from being stuck on its back. The blue hedgehog tried to avoid the snake while looking into the tortoises violet eyes. "Come on knucks, I know you've got to still be in there..."

In a red light the creature had vanished and left an unconscious knuckles in front of them. "Knuckles!" Gasped the blue hero. Sonic and Shadow tried to gently shake him awake until they heard some aggravated grumbling. "What-huh? What the heck... where am I? Sonic? ...Shadow?!" Knuckles asked surprised as he stumbled to his feet. "That was one heck of a dream I had... That's it, no more meh burger for me for a veeerrry long time!" Said the confused echidna. "Aliens, snakes, spaceships, I don't even want to remember this one..." Knuckles continued on. "I hate to say it, but none of that was a dream unless we are having the same one." The azure hedgehog spoke up. Knuckles looked at Sonic getting ready to ask if he was joking or not, but stopped and winced when he saw the cobalt hedgehogs bleeding shoulder. "Whoa, what happened to you Sonic?!" The red echidna asked in surprise. "You happened yo-" Shadow started but the blue hedgehog held him back. "Easy there Shads. Remember it wasn't on purpose..." Sonic said calming the dark hedgehog down a bit. "I did that?! How? I don't remember anything about attacking you Sonic..." Said the ruby echidna, ashamed that it was his doing. " It's alright, you didn't do it on purpose knuckles. You were already out of control when we came into this room." The blue hero said trying to stop his friend from feeling guilty. Shadow stood behind sonic with his arms crossed clearly still upset with Knuckles, but deep down knew it wasn't his fault. Shadow walked over to Sonic and untied the bandana from around his neck. "H-hey what are you?" "Hold still faker..." Shadow lightly growled as he bandaged Sonic's right shoulder. "Hmph, troublemaker... Who'd of thought this dumb thing would actually come in handy?" The dark hedgehog chuckled slightly.

"Thanks Shadow..." Sonic said, now much more content.

"Oh no! Tails!" Knuckles suddenly snapped awake and blurted out. The blue hedgehogs ears twitched at hearing his little brothers name. "Tails was carried away by those aliens!" The Red echidna was now recalling his memories with horror. "Don't worry, he should be in the room next to us." The ebony hedgehog stated calmly. "That's right! Let's go and save Tails!" Sonic said as he quickly ran toward the exit of the room but stopped dead in his tracks. Shadow and Knuckles could see a dark figure looming over the blue hedgehog. It grabbed and threw him across the room but the blue hero felt Knuckles and Shadow catch him.

"Not this again!" Said Knuckles readying himself for a fight. The dark hedgehog growled and started charging up a spin dash. Sonic calmly tried to judge the situation based on how much power he felt when the alien threw him. Worrying that a spin dash wouldn't work he decide to try a different strategy and held out his hand until it began gathering a bright blue light. He then held his entire arm back saying "Chaos Wind!" before throwing his arm back forward again. A small blue tornado of air whipped up around the alien and sent it flying out of the nearby window. The creature shrieked before disappearing into nothingness. The ebony hedgehog and red echidna watched impressed by the unexpected attack. "I thought you needed a chaos emerald to do that?" The dark hedgehog started "I didn't even know he could do that?!" Said Knuckles remembering that he saw Sonic create blue tornados before, but not summon them from a distance.

"I've been practicing control of my chaos energy" Sonic said with a smirk. "Now let's go and save Tails before we attract anymore unwanted attention." Said the blue blur as he proceeded to melt the metal door to Tails' imprisoned room. Shadow and Knuckles follow him into the room and look ahead to see Tails in a tube filled with liquid. "Just like Knuckles and Shadow" the blur mentally told himself. He carefully spindashed the glass capsule open and Shadow caught the unconscious fox who fell from it. The twin-tailed fox started to stir and awoke to seeing the dark hedgehog holding him up. "Sh-Shadow? What are you doing?" Asked a partly awake Tails. "Fox hunting" said the ebony hedgehog with a smile. "Huh?!" The fox asked nervously. "Don't worry little bro! He just means we're here to save you." Sonic said as Tails turned to him seeing his brother giving a thumbs up. The two tailed fox had a few tears fall from his eyes as he ran to Sonic and gave him a big hug. "Sonic, I knew you would save us somehow!" Said the young fox with tears still streaming down his face.

"It's ok little bro, we are getting out of here." Sonic reassured him. Tails wiped away his tears and nodded to his friends. "I'm ready, let's go!"

End of chapter 5!

I found some errors I wanted to change for the elements listed on the four beast for my previous chapter. They have been updated and changed.

No this is not set in a specific sonic universe. I just thought throwing in some boom stuff was funny at the time. :p I'll be using most everything I have knowledge on in my fics as a whole rather than a specific universe unless it is otherwise specified.

How will Sonic and his friends get out of the facility and back to earth?

Find out next time on- oh wait wrong story...