Theme Song: "Razor Sharp" by Pegboard Nerds & Tristam
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"LAND YOUR VESSEL, NOW!"

Joe and Nate ignored the loudspeakers from the jet planes behind them and sped the ship up some more. Up ahead of them, a blockade of helicopters took form.

Joseph snorted. "They're not moving."

"Shame, 'cause we are- at full speed." Nathan smirked, pushing the lever all the way forward.

The exhaust's fierce howling can be heard from inside as the ship accelerated forth at full power. Loose items in the ship rattled and rolled away as this meteor soared towards the line of helicopters. The planes from behind dispersed for the helicopters to take fire. The ship tanked every bullet heading its way, while it sounded like an ordinary hailstorm from the inside. Nathan and Joseph's smiles widened.

"Alright!"

"WOOO!"

They blasted through the blockade, a couple of helicopters exploding and the rest bumping into one another, causing some to crash after getting their propellers caught together. The Loose Cannons high-fived, enjoying their high-speed and high-risk chase. Upon taking control again, an unexpected missile struck the front of their ship, a jet flying away subsequently. Their ship spun backwards rapidly, then they felt another impact of the same force on the left side of the ship which made them spin diagonally, alarms sounding off now. The duo unstrapped themselves, letting themselves float around in the ship's descent.

Nathan then summoned his wings, "Abandon ship!"

"Aye, aye, other-captain!"

Nathan grabbed Joseph's arm and kicked off a wall to shoot out of the exit seconds before the ship crashed through a dumpster truck.

"Let's do this!" said Nathan.

He threw Joseph high above him with one arm, allowing him to transform. Joseph just finishing, he caught the wing of the fighter jet right from the air. Joseph tore off the entire wing letting himself fall back down to the streets with it in his hand, and the jet instead spiraled to its doom. Joseph landed with a roll in the middle of a squad of G.U.N. soldiers. Upon getting to his feet again, he hurled the scrapped wing at one of the soldiers shooting at him. Bullets continued to pierce his pelt, tempting his patience further. He charged towards one of them and smacked the weapon out of her hand. Joseph too held an oath for women, so he let out a long threatening roar in her face to scare her off.

The other male troops continued to fire in her defense, and a stray bullet managed to strike Joseph's eye. He shuffled back, growling at the burning sensation with his face covered. He walked over to a nearby sedan and with a one-armed heave, he flipped the vehicle in the air towards the squad, crushing two of them. While distracted, Joseph retreated into an alleyway to deal with his wound. As blood flowed out, Joe proceeded to dig through his eye until he finally pried out the bronze bullet. His eye now started to heal, so he wiped his hand on his body and leaped onto a brick wall and climbed to the top.

He pulled himself up and the troop continued to shoot him from below. Joseph stepped away from the edge, and suddenly, he heard something with a flick of his ear. He turned around to and a missile from a helicopter was nearing him- opportunely however, Nathan had dived in from the sky in front of him and cut through the warhead before it struck them. The explosion blossomed and Nathan continued his flight to evade the flames- Joseph grabbing onto his arm again on time. They landed in an empty street, scoping the area.

"What now?" wondered Joseph.

"Well, it looks like they're covering the whole city, and being that we're still in it, we haven't actually escaped yet." replied Nate.

A faint ringing was now heard from inside of their heads. They steadily rotated in place, trying to find where the strongest signal was coming from. Instead, they noticed that no matter where they looked, the sound crescendoed and the pace quickened.

"What the hell?" Joseph confused.

"Sounds like its-" Nathan began, but Joseph nudged him.

A dark purple stream of water flowed through their feet and coated itself down the road. The earpieces shouted in their ears one last time as it would when it had found a Chaos Emerald.

"-coming to us..." Nathan finished.

Joseph's long hairs rose. "This isn't just water, it sorta feels like there's somethi- Oh shit!"

The thin layer increased into a voluminous wave that lifted the hunters off and down the rest of the street. They arose to the surface and tried fighting the current, but its strength was overwhelming. When facing down the stream, cataracts of the same water poured out through the windows of every building. Joseph went to grip onto the side of a nearby window, but a force of water blasted him back into the stream.

"JOE!" Nathan called over the roaring waters.

When Joe looked over, Nathan gestured him to go under the water. Joseph pinched his snout and let himself sink after Nathan. Under the aureate waters, Joseph spotted Nathan spiked into the street in a skiing position, trying to fight the current, but his upper body couldn't keep up. Joseph pushed himself downwards and latched onto Nathan's leg when he reached him. Joe's grip was too infirm against the waters, but when his expression of doubt caught Nathan's attention, his best friend gave him his approval.

Joseph's grip tightened and he pushed out his claws into Nathan's leg. Nathan let out a bubbled grunt, but nodded again. Joseph hesitated, then moved his next arm up Nathan's leg, clawing into him once more, a darker fluid seeping out. Joseph now curled his body to claw into the ground, allowing Joseph to work the rest of his way up easier. Now at Nathan's hips, Joseph quickly released to push Nathan to a stand, but the current ruined his balance again.

He flipped backwards, but Nathan caught his leg, and with a full squat jump, Nathan pulled himself and Joseph out of the water. Nathan's ascent was wobbly with his wet wings, so before he lost control, he swerved his flight into a building to land inside a demolished bathroom. The brothers-in-arms wheezed strenuously on the floor.

"I'm sorry, Nate."

"Nah, it's OK, Joe. You needed- aw, HELL NO! I'm going back in the water."

"What? Why?"

"Look what I landed on!"

Nathan sat up and reached to his shoulder for the brown and orange diaper.

Joseph gagged, "Oh, I will gladly push you in myself."

They gathered themselves to a stand; Nathan finding something to clean himself off, Joseph taking a glance around. The stalls of the bathroom appeared to have exploded, as fragments of porcelain littered the floor and a thin stream of the dark fluid trickled out of the building.

"As I was saying, it feels like the water is like, polluted with the energy of the Emeralds." noted Joseph.

"And something else. It was dark, like those creatures from Ansem." added Nathan.

Spontaneously, the ground rumbled, rocking the buildings they stood in. A thunderous crackling and snapping traversed along the road in their direction, and through the fracturing ground, geysers were formed consecutively through the rifts.

Then, a chilling, beastly shriek was heard across the city. The earpieces started its tracking again, picking up in speed by the second as it did before. Another cry resounded, and Nathan and Joseph took to the rooftop to get a view. As the ringing escalated, something was beginning to rise over the city towers.

The figure was the same color as the water, but it had a head. It was reptilian with two aqua-colored horns along its snout. More, and taller horns followed down its spine, and from its side, tendrils of the water took form and surrounded its aquatic body like an octopus. It's cold narrow eyes opened and it let out an echoing screech. As it rolled its head, a brain-like organ was on its head within a cone-shaped membrane.

"What the f- You know what man, I just came here for some rocks, man! Now you got me fighting dragons? Shit, man!..." beefed Joseph.

"That thing might have an Emerald." said Nathan.

"Wwhhyyyyy?"

"Duty calls, Joseph, and we're the only ones who can pick up the phone right now."

Off in the distance, the fleet of G.U.N. aircrafts halted their searches for the Loose Cannons and directed their attention to the monster. They unleashed all of their ammunition at it, but its fluid body absorbed each bullet. It opened its mouth and with a slight jerk forward, a jetstream of water shot out and obliterated several aircrafts out of the air.

"Ah, fine, I guess we do gotta answer this phone." whined Joseph.

At the locale of the destruction, other heroes have just arrived.

"Is that Chaos?" Tails gasped, steering his biplane out of the beast's view.

Sonic stood on the top as he usually would, taking in the sight. "He looks than before. How is he in this form anyway? There's no way he found all of the Chaos Emeralds that fast."

Tails chuckled, "Jealous much?"

"What? No! Just bring me in so I can handle this!"

"Get on the right wing!"

Sonic did so and kneeled down as Tails maneuvered the Tornado behind Perfect Chaos.

Tails neared in and turned to Sonic, "Here we go!"

In a quick two jolts of the steering bars, Tails catapulted Sonic off his wing and over the skyscraping target.

Sonic cheered, "WOO-HOO!"

When in a perfect range, the hedgehog balled himself up and rolled out a Homing Attack towards Chaos' brain. Sonic ricocheted off it and Chaos let out a screech of pain. Chaos noticed a blue ball land on a floating piece of concrete above the flooded ground.

"Hey, big guy," Sonic greeted, "Ready for round three? No matter how this goes, I still win best two-out-of-three no matter what! So, I suggest you- WHOA!"

Sonic bounded up into the air as one of the appendages was thrown his way, but Chaos wound up shattering the concrete platform instead. Sonic spun down into the tentacle, rolling along it towards the body. As Sonic's set method for defeating Perfect Chaos, Sonic didn't expect the change in water quality to have an effect on the battle. A dark void entrapped his body within the tentacle and put him in a stinging paralysis. Sonic's body jolted and contorted, then he was recklessly thrown into the waters.

"Sonic!" Tails called from the sky.

Close to the same fate, Chaos blasted a blue beam from his mouth that scraped off the entire underside of the plane. Orange and black fumed out from the now descending plane, while Tails could only control its pivoting. He leaned the plane over to Chaos' head and kept it steady in that direction. In hopes to jump out right before the plane crashed into Chaos, the latter stopped Tails with another beam that incinerated the Tornado- forcing the fox to jump early.

Tails fixed his body to a diving position and splashed into the dark water in search of Sonic. In moments, Tails emerged pulling a faint Sonic out of the water. He spun his tails above the water and flew into a hole on a nearby building for safety. Sonic awoke, hacking vigorously from the excess water in his throat.

Tails repositioned him to sit up. "Are you OK?"

"Yeah," Sonic coughed again, "Thanks! There's something different about him, and the water. It kinda feels like it's mixed with something."

"I wish I had my equipment with me to analyze some samples..." Tails shook his head. He then pointed to the sky, "Look!"

Nathan arrived and dropped Joseph above Chaos. Joseph landed and tried to claw onto the darker part of his head- assuming it was solid. Instead, his entire hand sunk in and he wound up sliding off its back and into the water.

"Shit." Nathan murmured.

He braked himself to face Chaos and from his holsters, his pistols liquified and remolded within his hands into a sniper rifle. Aimed for the brain, he a shot a bullet, but Chaos leaned slightly to evade, and the bullet only grazed the membrane. Chaos shook out the sting and flung a tendril across the air, whacking Nathan out of the way.

"These guys are like a papercut: we keep getting them at the wrong time!" groaned Sonic.

"HELP! MOMMY!"

A tree had just flowed into the area from what used to be an intersection and little red-haired girl in a torn, dirtied yellow dress, and one shoe was clinging onto it for her dear life. The tree then turned over, rolling the girl under the water.

Sonic gasped, "No!"

In Sonic's eyes, the world slowed down, as he dashed to the wall on his left, and when close, his left leg tilted parallel to the wall, then his right leg followed. Running along the wall now, his legs met a corner and he was now on the back wall- and he could also see Tails' head slowly turn away from the outside to follow where Sonic was going. Sonic stepped again on the wall on Tails' right side. Tails finally saw Sonic and ducked when he heard Sonic yell, "Look out!"

In Tails' view, Sonic was faster than a bullet. For Sonic however, he felt like he was slowly flying as he dove across the building's gap in a corkscrew (still parallel to the wall), and landed on his feet again on the outside of his building. Before he lost his momentum, his feet picked up in speed again and he zipped along the sides of the buildings. In just four seconds from when he saw the girl sink, he was already close enough to spring off the building and perfectly land on top of the log.

Perfection was ruined however when the log spun back again, drowning Sonic now and flipping the girl back on top. Another tentacle crashed down at the edge of the tree, launching the girl in an arc over the waters and the tree vertically. Sonic stood up on the log and in a thoughtless leap, Sonic dove towards the girl to protect her from Chaos' next attack- even if it meant taking the hit.

"I CAN'T SWIM!" the little girl cried.

Her traumatized face peered up and another massive tendril was honing down on her before she could make the water. Sonic close, but not enough, rolled forward to propel himself, and as soon as her foot topped the surface of the water, Sonic grabbed her wrist- and opportunely, Tails had just made it to grab Sonic's legs and pull them both away from as Chaos struck the water, splashing them as they rose. With all his might, Tails held on and twirled his tails faster and faster to reach the closest rooftop. He checked his surroundings for one, but instead he panicked. Sonic felt his body being yanked and thrown higher into the air with the little girl. An orange ball of energy swatted Tails away, taking the hit for his best friend and the young one.

"Tails!-No, NO!" Sonic yelled, as he felt the little girl's hands leave his.

Suddenly, a shadowy figure soared over each of them and yanked them out of the air. Soon after, they were placed next to each other on a rooftop.

The little girl threw herself onto Sonic in tears. "Thank you, Sonic, thank you! I'm sorry I wasn't brave! My mommy told me to be- to be brave, b-but I wasn't! I'm sorry, but I can't swim!"

"Shh, shh, hey kid, calm down. Do you like secrets? Wanna hear one? But you gotta promise not to tell anyone!"

The girl pulled herself off, wiping her face and sniffling, "Mmhm."

Sonic leaned closer to her ear and whispered, "I can't swim either!"

The girl's sparkly brown eyes widened. "Really?"

"Not everyone's perfect kid, not even heroes. But hey, whenever you do learn how to swim, just remember that you're already better than me in something!"

Sonic's ear twitched as he heard a click. He looked to his side and his rival and savior in black, Nathan had the sniper aimed down at him. Sonic heard another metallic sound and he pushed the girl behind him.

He clamored, "Nathan, wait, STOP!"

*😵😱

Sorry for the wait! Now guess what? You gotta do a little bit more! 😂

Don't forget to vote if you liked, comment your thoughts, and share with others who might like this story! Thank you. Last chapter of "Part I" coming soon!