Sailor Moon Fan Fiction / Sonic Series Fan Fiction ❯ The Red Star in the Darkness ❯ Chapter 10

Chapter 10

I knew right away that this wicked, evil old voice had belonged to that Freddy Crugger wanna-be; Ixis Naugus. Before I could even say anything, a ring of gray fog completely surrounded the four of us, blocking our view of the warehouse that we were in. Each of us looked at the horrifying mist and Knuckles said, "Be very careful guys. Ixis surrounded us with this fog to do something other than scare us."

I agreed with Knuckles. So, I started to pick up a piece of long wood that I had found on the floor and waved it through the gray fog, when all of a sudden, the wood was engulfed by frozen chunks of ice. When the ice got really close to my hands, I had to drop what was left of the wood and let it fall to the floor. After seeing the frozen wood hit the floor, it shattered into about a thousand pieces like a glass cup.

After that, I said to my friends in a loud voice, "Guys, don't get any closer to the fog! You'll become an ice sculpture if you do."

As I stepped away from the icy, cold gray mist, I took only about four steps when I was stopped by something sharp on my back. When I turned my head around to see what it was, I saw that Sonic's sharp spikes were jabbing my back and it was real lucky that they didn't fully submerged into my spine. I also saw that Knuckles and Tails were having the same problem as well.

"Ouch! Sonic, did you ever consider getting those spikes cut off of your back?" Knuckles said to the blue hedgehog, with a voice that sounded both angry and annoyed at the same time.

Sonic said, "Ixis must've cast this spell so that we wouldn't try to escape."

That was when Ixis' old voice started to reply. "That is correct, Quickster. You, the fox, the echidna, and the human boy may have eluded me once before, but now with the power of your friend Shadow at my command, there isn't any hope of escape for any of you." The cold black fog started to spread out wide until the opening of the old building was as wide as an outdoor basketball court.

When the fog stopped spreading away from us, Ixis began to emerge from the ice cloud while still inside of Shadow's body walking very slowly. When he was about twelve to sixteen feet away from us, he then stopped the black hedgehog from moving any further. As soon as he had stopped, I looked into Shadow's eyes and saw that they still had the same possessed red glow that they had a while ago.

Ixis started to raise Shadow's right arm and forced his own voice out of the black hedgehog's mouth as he said, "Now stop trying to waste my time and just hand over the Star Sword along with the four remaining Chaos Emeralds, rodents. If you do, I'll unconditionally release your friend Shadow from my control and leave you in one piece."

That was when I took two steps towards Ixis and asked him calmly, "What in the world are you talking about, wizard and why do you call it the Star Sword? As a matter of fact, how do you know about it?"

The entity inside of Shadow the Hedgehog answered, "I'm talking about the sword that controls the awesome power of the Chaos Emeralds, human! The same one that you used to defeat me a while back. A mere mortal like you could never comprehend the great power that the weapon possesses."

That was when the entity made the black hedgehog to give off a soft evil laughter for a moment. When he finished, he then started to speak again. "You see, when I was still a royal wizard for a kingdom on your friends' world called Mobius, I accidentally found an underground ruin hidden deep inside the castle. Among the ruins was a stone scripture which was written in an ancient language which was far beyond anything that I could understand. It took me almost two decades to be able to decipher the scripture's meaning. But when I had finally translated it, I began my search for seven of the Chaos Emeralds in order to gain a weapon that contained the ultimate power. That is the sword that is now known to me as the Star Sword because it came from beyond the very stars themselves!"

That was when I finally understood what Ixis meant when he said about me having a weapon called the Star Sword in my possession. `If that's the name of the sword that's on my back right now, then what would Ixis want with it?' I thought to myself as I used my hand to reach out and pull the Star Sword from its' hilt.

Just when I was about to pull out the sword, I was stopped by Sonic's voice when he had started to say to Ixis. "So then why would you want to get out of Shadow's body just so that you can get your dirty grubby hands on Miguel's sword and the four remaining Chaos Emerald? So that you can use their combined power to conquer our world as you had tried to do before? Is that it?" From the way that I had heard Sonic's voice sounding a bit angry like that, I could tell that he wasn't too happy to hear Ixis' mad plan and who can blame him? In a comic book of the Sonic series, both he and Tails lost a friend during the final battle with Ixis, but that was just another story that's just too sad to tell.

After Sonic had finished talking, Ixis started to laugh fiendishly loud through Shadow's voice. The entity stopped and responded to the blue hedgehog. "Ha! Don't try to flatter me Quickster! That pitiful world of yours is no longer of any interest to me! What I now desire is this world that we're in right now, the planet that these mortal humans call Earth. Once I have the powers of both the Star Sword and the seven Chaos Emeralds in my command, Shadow will no longer be of any use to me. Once I have that great power under my control, I will pull this whole planet into the Zone of Silence where I will be its powerful new ruler."

After hearing Ixis' little speech, I had saw Sonic coming to my right side while Knuckles and Tails were on my left, each having a serious look on their faces. I also saw them getting ready for any attack Ixis might try to use against them.

"That's never going to happen to this planet, Ixis." Tails started to speak to the mad sorcerer's spirit.

Ixis responded calmly to the young fox's voice. "And why is that you two-tailed simpleton?"

That was when Knuckles answered for Tails, "`Cause the four of us are going to get you out of Shadow's body..."

Then Sonic added, "...and then we're going to stop you from unleashing your mad plot..."

That was when I had I pulled out the Star Sword with both hands and pointed the silver blade at the Ixis entity that was still in Shadow's body while saying, "Once and for all."

Suddenly, a minute later, Ixis started to cackle louder than he had did before and his evil old voice echoed throughout the gym-sized building. He then stopped his crazed laughter and said, "You four fools actually think you can defeat me without harming your friend Shadow in the process? Don't forget that I'm still in possession of his body as well as his power."

That was when Sonic responded to Ixis' words by saying in a serious tone of voice, "Shadow would rather want his friends to defeat him than be your mind puppet, Ixis,"

A moment after Sonic had finished talking, I saw Ixis force a smile on Shadow's face, and I knew that it wasn't good. So I readied myself and the Star Sword for any attack that the old wizard would plan to unleash upon us. I noticed that Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails were doing the same thing, and when I had turned my attention back towards Ixis, he started to say together with a low soft cackle in his voice, "Hee hee hee hee hee! So you fools are willing to hurt your black friend in order to save this world? Even if I do...this!!"

That was when I saw Ixis forced Shadow to raise his right arm and pointed it towards us. Then before the four of us had saw it coming, a ring of fire appeared out of nowhere and surrounded the four of us in an inescapable flaming wall so that we wouldn't try to escape. As I was still pointing the Star Sword's blade at Ixis, I had soon noticed that it was deep within the wall of flame. However, as I watched the flames continue to engulf the blade with its intense heat, I saw that it didn't lose its silver shine as it would with an ordinary blade. When I pulled the blade out of the firewall, I noticed that it still remained unharmed and was still as good as new. Suddenly, while I was rotating the sword and stopped moving it when its blade pointed towards the concrete floor, I heard Ixis' old voice ordering me to stop what I was doing. But, something inside me said to go on.

Then I held the handle of the sword very tightly with both of my hands and raised it towards the sky as high as I could. I started to ram the rotated sword blade towards the ground. As soon as the silver blade was completely submerged deep into the cemented earth, a shock wave that was shaped like a golden ring appeared from where the blade stood. As I continued to hold onto the Star Sword's golden handle very tightly, I saw the ring-shaped shock wave grow and spread rapidly throughout the entire inside of the storage building, extinguishing the ring of fire that surrounded the four of us. It also caused the gray mist that kept us from escaping before to disappear as well.

After I pulled the submerged silver blade up from the ground, I turned my attention towards Ixis and saw the angry expression which was forced onto Shadow's face, and I knew immediately that he was not very happy about what I had done. The Ixis entity made Shadow point his hand towards me and force his own angry old voice out of the black hedgehogs' mouth as he shouted towards me, "Impossible! A mere human boy like you shouldn't be able to harness the Star Sword's intense power let alone neutralize my spells with a little energy wave! It just can't be!"

As I turned my attention towards the Star Sword, I thought to myself while examining the weapon. `Whoa! The Star Sword's blade hasn't been scratched a bit and I was able to break Ixis' spells by creating that powerful shock wave! So I wonder if I can use this sword's power to get Ixis' dark spirit out of Shadow's body?'

As I thought about what to do, Sonic told me, "Miguel, I hope you have other tricks like up your sleeve, because Ixis is coming your way! So get out of the way right now!"

When I quickly turned my attention back towards Ixis to see what Sonic meant, I saw that the entity forced Shadow to run towards me, reaching for the golden handle of the Star Sword. I tried to avoid Ixis by getting away from his path but before I even got the chance, the evil wizard was already in front of me, forcing the black hedgehog to grip onto the swords' handle. I held onto the Star Sword's handle using all of my strength to pull the weapon away from Shadow in order to keep it from falling into Ixis' evil hands.

As the two of us continued to pull the Star Sword's handle to see which one of us would possess the powerful weapon, the sword suddenly started to glow with a golden light. Then all of a sudden, saw sparks of electricity starting to surround the long powerful sword and realized that Ixis was being electrified by the jolt of electricity while he continued to grip onto the golden handle.

As Ixis continued to have Shadow the Hedgehog hold onto the Star Sword, I soon noticed that I too was still holding onto the sword's handle with both of my hands and that I didn't get touched once by the electric current as it continued to surge all around the sword. As I watched Shadow continue to hold onto the Star Sword's gold handle, I noticed his whole body vibrate as sparks flew off of his black body and I knew for a fact that whatever pain Shadow felt, Ixis must have felt it too. I kept holding onto the Star Swords' handle with all my strength watching Shadow being electrocuted. I had seen a dark ghostly figure instantly jumping off of Shadow's back and retreated from the scene as if it were in pain like a weaken snake. When I found out that the shapeless spectre was Ixis' dark spirit, I turned my attention back towards Shadow noticing that the sparks stopped appearing and saw him falling towards the hard floor.

When Shadow hit the ground, I put the Star Sword down on the ground and walked towards the smoking hedgehog who was lying unconscious on the floor. As soon as I was near Shadow's body, I didn't hear or see any signs of life coming from him. I heard Sonic and his friends coming towards me and that was when I had asked the gang with a shaken voice, "Guys is Shadow...?" Before I could even finish the sentence, I suddenly saw Shadow start to move at a steady pace. The sudden burst of the black hedgehog's life almost gave me a heart attack for a moment, but then my surprise turned into relief when I saw that he was still alive.

As I saw him trying to get himself off of the ground with an easy pace, Shadow started to say to himself in his own voice, "Ugh! Oh, my head. What happened to me and how did I get here?"

Before I could speak to the black hedgehog, Sonic stopped me by saying to Shadow, "Your body was taken over by that horn-headed Ixis while your mind was shut off for a while."

When Shadow turned to see who was speaking to him, he saw me instead and then asked, "Who in the world are you, kid?"

Just when I was about to answer Shadow's question, Sonic walked up to him and said, "The kid is named Miguel, Shadow, and he was the one who used his Star Sword to get Ixis' spirit out of your body."

That was when I responded to the blue hedgehog's words. "Sonic, when Ixis tried to grab onto the sword, he was shocked by its incredible power and then I saw his dark spirit jump out of Shadow's body and flee from the scene."

That was when Knuckles said to me, "Well, it looks to me like the Star Sword itself has recognized you as its one true owner Miguel. That also explains why you weren't touched or even shocked by it's electrical energy like Ixis was."

Shadow got to his feet and was a bit shaken up when he tried to stand still on his own. He extended his arm towards me and started to say with a sort of apologetic look on his face. "Sonic and his friends had told me about their adventures with a human like you, that could use the powers of the Chaos Emeralds to defeat the original Dr. Robotnik and Robo-Robotnik in order to save your reality. I just never thought that it would be a kid like you. But anyway, I would like to apologize for any harm that I have caused you and the others while I was possessed by Ixis, Miguel."

I responded to the black hedgehog's apology by taking Shadow's hand with my own and giving him a friendly smile on my face. As I shook his hand I started to say to Shadow, "You don't have to apologize for anything, Shadow. I already know that those attacks were really caused by Ixis in the first place. Somehow, I was able to sense his dark spirit being emitted outside of your body. So don't beat yourself up over it, I knew that it wasn't really your fault."

Just when I saw Shadow to put a smile of his own on his face, it immediately turned into a panicked one for some reason. I guess whatever I had said to him must've spooked Shadow when I had mentioned the name "Ixis Naugus" in the sentence. Shadow suddenly started frantically asking the four of us with a tone of panic in his voice, "Guys, did any of you ever give one of the Chaos Emeralds to Ixis when he took control of my body?"

The four of us shook our heads towards in response to his question. Just when Shadow started to calm down, a thought had occurred in my mind as I started to say to the entire group. "Speaking of Ixis, I doubt that horn-headed wizard would give up trying to get the rest of the Chaos Emeralds and the Star Sword away from us that easily, not without a fight he won't."

That was when the black hedgehog started to face me with a curious expression on his face and he asked me with a bit of confusion in his voice. "Speaking of the Star Sword, how did you managed to get it in the first place, Miguel? As a matter of fact, what would Ixis want with it to begin with?"

Just when I was about to answer his question, the voice of the evil wizard suddenly appeared out of nowhere like a loud boom as he had responded to the black hedgehog's question. "Ha ha ha ha ha! A mere rodent like you wouldn't understand or comprehend the power of the weapon that the human possesses. But what the boy had said a few moments ago is true. I won't rest until the power of the Star Sword and the Chaos Emerald are mine. I will then use my new found power to rid myself of your presence in this world. Once I have gotten the five of you out of my way, I will use the power of both the seven Chaos Emeralds and the Star Sword to plunge this planet into the Zone of Silence where my power will be absolute and there's not a thing you can say or do that will stop me. Heh heh heh heh heh!"

As Ixis' crude soft laughter echoed throughout the school gym-size building like a loudspeaker, I had gotten so annoyed by it that it made me shout to the dark warlock. "Actions are louder than words, Ixis. So if you're through talking your ugly mouth off, why don't you come out of hiding and show yourself, you coward!"

The only response that I got from the mad sorcerer was just crazed laughter that echoed throughout the building. Before I could even shout to ask the crazy wizard why he was laughing, a black fog suddenly erupted from beneath me and started to cover me in a blanket of darkness. When I tried to scan the place that I was in, all I saw was pitch black darkness and I couldn't see Sonic or any of his friends nowhere in sight.

`Now what does that horn-headed creep trying to do now?' I thought to myself as I was trying to figure out what Ixis was planning to do with me. `I know that whatever it is, it's not going to be as good as he...'

That was when my thoughts were interrupted by a pain in my head that felt like sharp claws of a cat were piercing through it. Whatever it was, the pain that was now spreading across my mind had become too much for me to contain any longer. That was when I started to scream in pain in order to be heard as the sound echoed throughout the area.

`This...pain,' I thought to myself as I had tried to control that pain that was spreading across my brain. `It's driving me insane! It also feels... familiar too. It's as if it's trying to make me go crazy on purpose in order for me to fight like a wild animal. Almost the same kind of pain that I felt when…' That was when I realized that the pain that I was feeling was the same kind of feeling that I had felt after I woke up in the house of Serena/Sailor.

`So it was Ixis that was causing the pain in my head that I felt in Serena's house earlier!,' I thought as I had tried to gain control of the pain's intensity. `Ixis tried to gain control over my mind and body so that he wouldn't put up much of a fight with me by putting all this pain in my head, just like he had done with Shadow before I had released him from that creep's mind control. Well, if he thinks I'm going to allow him to do that to me, he's in for quite a surprise because he's going to find out that I'm going to be too much for him to handle!'

That was when I started to concentrate on using my Chaos Energy to create a shock wave like the one that the Star Sword had emitted before. As my body began to glow with an aura of emerald-green energy, the pain started to grow much larger and more painful than it had before, but I kept on trying to gather more Chaos Energy despite that. As the Chaos Energy in my body kept on growing stronger, so did the pain but I still kept on trying. Just when I felt that the chaotic energy in my body had reached its peak the way that I had wanted it to, I started to let out a scream from my mouth that actually helped burst the cosmic energy right out of my body all at once.

As the shock wave that I had created started to weaken the blanket of darkness that once surrounded me, the pain that was in my head started to fade away as well. Then all of a sudden, the images of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow started to come into my view and I saw that the dark black shade suddenly slithering away from me like a frightened snake.

When I had collapsed on the floor trying to catch my breath, Sonic said to me, "Miguel, are you alright, man?"

I nodded to the blue hedgehog in response to his question. As I tried to catch all of the oxygen back into my lungs, Shadow the Hedgehog began to ask me along with a shaken tone in his voice. "Miguel...how were you able to resist being under Ixis mind control? "

I was about to answer the black hedgehog's question, when Knuckles' voice intervened as he started to say with a surprised and frighten tone in his own voice, "Never mind about that right now, guys. Look at the black mist that once surrounded Miguel. Looks like we're going to have other problems to worry about right now!"