Blood Bonds

Part 28 - They Show Their True Colors

"All we need is the Chaos Emerald, and the bombs will go off in... about five minutes. That should be more than enough time to get out of here." The octopus guised as Nutmeg carefully looked over the small box which remotely controlled the explosives. She carefully pulled out the magenta gemstone and pressed it into the cavity in the back of the device. A little yellow light on the top began blinking rapidly, and the squirrel smirked in smug confidence.

"Hold it!"

The outcry made all three villains spin around at once. Cyanic, Scarlet, and the three heroes of Mobius stood at the end of the hall, staring them down. The cyan hedgehog slowly began walking towards them.

"Nutmeg, what's going on here?" She gave the suspicious squirrel a chance to explain herself.

"Oh, just a little project my trainees and I were working on." Nutmeg returned her penetrating stare with a pleasant smile. "Why's the base on lockdown?"

"I think you know exactly why, Mimic." Whisper's whisper was low in volume, but it was harsh enough to be heard across the hall.

"Nutmeg..." Mephiles muttered, trying to draw the squirrel's attention his way.

"Why Whisper, how could you accuse me of being him?" The squirrel's smile quickly began to lose all pleasantry and instead form into a taunting smirk. "Wasn't it his fault that your squad-?"

"Don't." The honey-colored wolf brandished her Wispon threateningly as the four Dark Arms hid behind her.

Mighty glanced between the members of his group as they slowly began advancing toward the trio. "Okay, can we all agree that's Mimic?"

"A test question..." Cyanic piped in once more. "Nutmeg, who are the evil poptarts' ally?"

The supposed Head Mistress regarded her with little interest. "I don't know, who?"

"You, you cockroaches." Scarlet answered shortly, and promptly rocketed down the hall at them.

"Mimic!" Mephiles declared, and the squirrel cast a quick, irritated glance at him.

"What?!"

"The Chaos Emerald, if you would be so kind..."

Juke merely laughed at his implication and stepped forward between the two, snatching the remote to slide it into his back pocket while brandishing his black blade at the same time. "I didn't suffer a week of this orokana yūjō gakkō for my plans to go to waste. Mimic, use your power booster!"

Even before he commanded it, the pink squirrel's eyes darkened and her body turned silver and grew, revealing the shapeshifter's form to be Zavok. Whatever power booster Juke was speaking of was not clearly visible, but it seemed that Mimic was unafraid to engage in battle because of it.

However, Scarlet dodged the bulky Zeti's fist and went straight for Juke as the rest of the group followed her down the hall, joining in the fight. "You got something you want to keep away from us?"

"Begone, Harinezumi!" He barked, slashing his blade at her. "You have no Chaos Control to help you now!"

Sonic kept an eye on Mephiles as he and Mighty took on the muscular shapeshifter, Whisper spotting them from behind with her Wispon. She summoned her wisps and strategized their placement as she fired light beams from her rifle, intending to stun her opponent. Mimic knew the trick well from past experience and dodged each of her shots as he smacked Sonic's spin-dashes out of the air and slammed Mighty out of the way with his tail. His special tool apparently granted him immense power comparable to the Zeti he impersonated, and he took the three of them on with ease.

Behind them, Scarlet ducked as Juke's blade swung over her head, and tried kicking his feet out from under him. He merely leapt over her leg and knocked Cyanic's hand out of the way, who had attempted to catch him off-guard from behind. The two sisters stood side-by-side, slowly cornering the lynx. Juke studied their determined gazes, then looked over at Mephiles, who stood some ways back, watching the fight in interest. The lynx pulled out the remote and plucked its power source out. The girl's eyes were trained on his hands as he pocketed the device, glancing at the mouthless hedgehog once more.

"Kyachi!" Juke exclaimed in his native tongue, flinging the gemstone well over the girls' heads.

"I'll assume that meant 'catch,'" Mephiles chuckled, snatching it out of the air. His hand instantly changed upon coming into contact with the rock, and black and crimson crystals protruded all over his body, revealing the prince of darkness' true form.

"Uh, oh..." Cyanic muttered as the monstrous entity began cackling.

"No!" Scarlet made a move towards him, but Mephiles swung a spiky, clawed hand up. She grunted as a blast of dark magic shot through her torso and knocked her back against the brick wall. The paint and mortar cracked and crumbled upon her impact, and the black hedgehog slid down, sitting on the ground in a heap as she clutched her abdomen in pain.

"Scarlie!" Cyanic darted over, forgetting about Juke. "Are you okay?!"

Her sister gave her a pained grimace. "No...? Ow..." She attempted to get up with the aid of her sister, then gave up halfway and sat back down, hugging herself. "...I don't think I can fight right now."

"Looks like we've got a larger target on our hands right now." Mighty commented as he stepped back from Mimic and watched in perturbed amazement as the ground beneath Mephiles began to darken. The lights overhead, too, began to flicker out, casting the hallway in an eerie darkness, and the entity causing it all hovered ominously, his palms facing outward and the emerald disappearing into his form. Everyone's eyes were drawn to the floor as each of their shadows suddenly sprang from the ground and detached from their feet, standing up on each silhouette's own accordance.

"What the...?" the armadillo's confusion didn't last long as his shadow clone socked him, hard, in the face.

"There's a reason he's called the prince of darkness," Sonic laughed nervously as he jumped out of the way of his own shadow's homing attack. "...but this complicates things a bit."

The cyan hedgehog, after helping Scarlet to safety, faced the villain who had injured her sister, a peeved glare on her face. "Okay, first of all, how dare you?" Her shadow clone leapt at her, but she roughly grabbed it by the arm and threw it into Juke, knocking both fighters down. "And to think we wasted F.V.R. on the likes of you!"

Scarlet's shadow clone stepped between them, and Cyanic was tasked with the difficulty of fighting it instead. Whisper fired another shot at Mimic, before realizing with a jolt in her heart that the Dark Arms were nowhere around. She looked down the hall and saw the small aliens darting about, seemingly in search of something.

"Wait...!" She called, reaching out after them, then tightened her outstretched hand into a fist, looking back at the fight behind her.

Hershadow clone had been easy to deal with, but to the wolf's dismay, she realizedthat the silhouetted figures were regenerating, multiplying. The others weretoo busy fighting with them to notice the fledglings gone astray. Whispersighed, strapping her Wispon to her back, and sprinted after the youths.