War of Chaos: Story of Ishntknew

By: Shadow the Hedgehog 2099 

***Author’s Comments*** A couple quick things to note: the “War of Chaos” fan fiction is to be read under the preconceived notion that all the “Story” chapters occur at roughly the same time and come to the final chapter at the same time. Any time/space discrepancies are unintentional and unplanned, if one of those just so happens to occur between the different story paths, so be it—a wizard did it. 
 

      “It doesn’t make any sense!” A tall, powerful, yet slender brown-headed, brown-eyed humanoid robot shouted in frustration, “I’ve run test after test after test and he’s still just a hedgehog!” He whipped out a large sword from his right hand and brought the blue, shimmering blade through the head of the black and red hedgehog, Shadow, and dropped the dead body to the floor. When the body landed on the ground, it vanished—and Ishntknew found himself standing in a large, steel grey lab. “When I run the trial data from the doctor’s database I find myself easily trumping him in every aspect of physical combat,” Ishnt analyzed out loud, “Yet, I find myself uncertain of these results. I’ve seen Shadow battle and I know any day now, I’ll be his next opponent. What makes him so powerful?” He sighed and looked over towards the door, “I must find out,”

      He stormed out of the test room, grumbling about the uncertainty between what he had seen and what he had tried. He realized that data had its limitations, including that which Dr. Eggman had collected during his many encounters with the athletic mammal but he still questioned what he had seen even in the rare times where he fought side-by-side with Shadow. He sighed as he strolled down the hall and looked up as he heard his creator’s voice cackling.

      Eggman howled with laughter, “No elevation is too high for Doctor Eggman—Genius Extraordinaire—from getting what he needs! A simple lightning rod, some bait and some manipulation got me everything I need to use Chaos to my highest expectations… with the sole exception of those elusive Chaos Emeralds…” he paused a moment in thought as he recalled having awoken Chaos from the Master Emerald, dropped Angel Island to sea level once again, tricked Knuckles the Echidna into giving up the Chaos Tablet and having held off long enough for Shadow the Hedgehog to exhaust himself by dealing with his siblings. “This is too easy! Now, I must find those Chaos Emeralds and use Chaos’ awesome power to take over the city—and then the world!”

      “Dreaming big again, I see, Doctor,” the tall, brown-haired robot stated as he walked in, “Have you forgotten we have neither the Chaos Emeralds nor Shadow out of our way yet?”

      “Ishntknew! What excellent timing, my friend!” Eggman grinned, “When Shadow returned from destroying the ARK, the Chaos Emeralds came back with him! Now is the perfect time to gather them up and establish my glorious empire! How can this be any easier?!”

      “I guess I can’t quite answer that one,” Ishnt smirked, “So, can I be of any help?”

      “I’m so happy you asked!” Eggman howled with laughter, “Yes! The emeralds have scattered in and around the city and now would be a perfect time to go gather them all up! I’m going with Chaos to stir up a little havoc and maybe find one myself!”

      “Very brazen of you,” Ishnt folded his arms across his chest, “You’re that confident in that weird creature’s power, then?”

      “Yes I am!” Eggman exclaimed happily, “What’s the worst that could happen? We have a god of destruction on our side!”

      “What’s the worst that could happen?” Ishnt pondered, “Shadow intervening with our plans again—that’s what,”

      “Pish-posh!” Eggman exclaimed, “Shadow won’t be a problem when I get those emeralds! No one will be a problem then! Let’s see… How about you head to the western part of the city and I’ll go emerald-hunting more towards the east?”

      “Sounds good to me,” Ishnt nodded, then turned and exited calmly. He snickered as he strolled along, “This should be easy enough. I can sense the Chaos Emeralds when I get near them—thanks to Eggman’s upgrade. I guess my best bet is to start in the city then!” He chuckled as he walked calmly off the Egg Carrier. He casually strolled into the rain, uncaring of his hair’s condition and began his hunt. About half an hour passed as he walked through the vacant pre-dawn streets of the city but suddenly felt a powerful presence not too far from where he was standing. He rushed to see what it was that beckoned him and he found a gorgeous yellow Chaos Emerald lying behind a dumpster. “What an ironic place to find such a treasure!” Ishnt smirked as he claimed the gem and stuffed it into a coat pocket.

      Ishnt looked up at the rain pouring from above and noticed its lessening as he quickly picked up on the trail of yet another Chaos Emerald, “Jackpot!” he grinned as he took off in the general direction of the power source. When he arrived at the scene, the rain had just let off and he saw an athletically-dressed Kindarspirit heading towards an indoor tennis court. He snickered and began walking faster to close distance with her. Before he was able to get too close, Kindar noticed him and took off into a mad dash towards the court, and he began running right behind her.

      “You’re not going anywhere, little lady!” Ishnt grinned as his sword extended from his right hand.

      “Go away!” Kindar demanded as she twirled around and to Ishnt’s shock, she was holding a small teal flicky bird in her hand that had a strange locket around its neck. She whipped out her laser sword’s hilt and stuffed her tennis racket into the holster and extended the blade, tucking the little bird into her hair.

      “Please,” Ishnt snickered as his left hand shifted into his usual buster gun and aimed it at her.

      “Go ahead and try!” Kindar dared, “I’ve trained in sword arts that were specially for stopping guns!”

      “You da’ boss,” Ishnt sneered as he let out a volley of wild shots, and to his surprise Kindar managed to parry them with relative ease. Ishnt sighed and then shrugged as he dashed forward as a blur and began going blade-to-blade with the blonde lady. This lasted for a matter of minutes as Kindar was clearly too passive to be any real threat to Ishnt and he began laughing. In her frustration Kindar suddenly broke out her tennis racket and let Ishnt have a good, hard whap across his face, sending him reeling back and then she took off into a mad dash. He growled in frustration when he suddenly got a call from Eggman on his communicator. He tapped the button and answered right away.

      “Hey, Doctor! I found a Chaos Emerald!” Ishnt exclaimed.

      “Oooh! Excellent! Bring it to me right away!” Eggman laughed joyously.

      “Easier said than done, Doc,” Ishnt grunted, “That blonde girl has it! The one who knows Shadow!”

      “That’d be… Uhh… Kindarspirit if I remember right!” Eggman chuckled, “Well, she has a laser sword but should be little or no match against you!”

      “Easy for you to say,” Ishnt sighed, “She hit me with her tennis racket,”

      “Oh,” Eggman pinched his nose to try and stop from laughing.

      “She’s heading towards the indoor sports gym where she plays,” Ishnt explained, “I’m going to follow her. She has a flicky bird with her, and it’s carrying one of the emeralds! Ishnt out!” He then hung up and began chasing after the blonde lady. For the while, she had evaded him as the indoor courts showed no sign of the girl and her bird friend. Frustrated, but never one to be beat, Ishnt hastened his search about the city. Fruitless hours of hunting were all he was given in return for such effort. Finally, he stopped to sit down in the shade of a tree for a moment and tried to think where she had gone. He had lost all sight of her trail and couldn’t think where she might’ve gone off to. Time rolled by only a short time more before he saw something in the sky. He stood to get a better view of it and looked up in time to see Shadow the Hedgehog plummeting through the air. “Well, this’ll be interesting,” Ishnt snickered as he set off to the impact zone.

      As he arrived he saw exactly what he had hoped, as Shadow and Kindar had already regrouped, bird and all. Just as quickly, he heard Kindar yelp, “It’s Ishnt!”

      Ishnt quickly activated his communicator and said, “Doctor! I’m about to engage Shadow and Kindarspirit… can you get the Egg Carrier here and get ready to beam me up?”

      “That’s great news! Make sure you get that emerald, Ishnt! I’m on my way!” Eggman replied and hung up.

      Shadow twirled around and saw the walking towards them, “I got it, you get going with the bird, Kindarspirit,” Shadow declared.

      “And let me guess,” Ishnt sighed, “You’re going to try and stop me from getting the bird, aren’t you?”

      “Oh, I’ll give ya the bird all right,” Shadow sneered, making an obscene gesture at Ishntknew.

      “That’s not funny,” Ishnt sighed, “Forget it! This is where your meddling ends!”

      “Bring it on!” Shadow exclaimed, getting poised for the fight. Ishnt extended his right arm into a sword and rushed at the tiny black hero and tried to bring the blade straight down on him, but Shadow somersaulted around his attacker and leaped up to bring his foot into Ishnt’s back, causing him to stumble forward in surprise. Ishnt then quickly turned around and threw a punch, but fell forward when Shadow had already returned to the ground and delivered a swift kick to his left shin, knocking his best foot out from under him, sending Ishnt into the pavement below.

      Ishnt angrily forced himself back to his feet and turned his left arm into a cannon and aimed it towards Shadow and set off a series of blasts but the black hedgehog hopped and danced around the deadly projectiles and quickly closed distance to strike Ishnt in the chest with a flying kick. Ishnt then bunted Shadow off with the flat of his blade and then turned it again to try and slice the hedgehog in half but Shadow fell back, curled into a ball and rolled back out of Ishnt’s range, so the robot aimed his gun and shot Shadow, sending the hedgehog flying down the city street. Shadow crashed down after taking out a trashcan and a mailbox but then stood up and readied himself for Ishnt’s next assault. Shadow then waited for Ishnt to close distance and tried to swing his sword horizontally at him, but as he did, Shadow jumped high into the air and curled up again and allowed his black, spiky body to crash down on the robot, knocking him flat and then used his inertia to bounce off Ishnt and landed a few feet away.

      “Had enough?” Shadow mockingly shouted.

      Ishnt slowly got up, clearing his head, “I’ll take you apart any day of the week!” Just then, rather bad news for Shadow came up, “But you might want to look over your shoulder, hedgehog!”

      “Huh?” Shadow gasped as he quickly peered over and there stood Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts all holding Kindar and her little bird friend captive, “Kindarspirit!” Shadow exclaimed.

      “Give up now, Shadow,” Ishnt demanded, “If you do, I promise nothing bad will befall your blonde friend,” Shadow silently stood in thought. “How about it, Shadow? Are you going to take me up on my offer?” Ishnt asked, seriously.

      “Yeah,” Shadow sighed, frustrated, “I give, just don’t hurt Kindar,”

      “Good choice,” Ishnt smiled and he then walked past Shadow and as he passed he stopped to whisper, “There are bigger things happening now than you and me. We’ll finish our fight another day—but for right now, your friend has something we need,” and with that, Ishnt and the other three robot assistants were taken up via tractor beam from the Egg Carrier that had just arrived overhead and vanished into its red hull. Ishnt had only just arrived with his captive as Eggman addressed him.

      . “Oh-ho!” Eggman exclaimed joyously, “You really know how to make my day, don’t you, Ishnt?”

      “Well, it was easy,” Ishnt smirked, “Here’s the bird and the girl!”

      “We’ll beam Chaos up from the mountain springs in the Red Mountains,” Eggman planned, “Then we’ll worry about these two, but for now, lock them in a cell and make sure they stay there this time as well! (Ooo-hooo! I am on a roll today!)”

      “Certainly,” Ishnt smiled, leading Kindar and her flicky bird down the hall.

      “You are such a creep,” Kindar growled as her arms were pinned to her side by Ishnt’s powerful hands, “Why did you need to capture me?”

      “Doctor’s orders,” Ishnt smirked, “But if you really must know, it’s because of your bird friend. That’s all I’m going to say about that,” he told her as he roughly shoved her into a prison cell and locked the door, “And I swear I’ll kill you if you tell anyone about that tennis racket thing,” he scowled as he walked away.

      Eggman set down the microphone and turned to see Ishnt having just returned from imprisoning Kindar, so he said, “Use the elevator and go give our guests a ‘warm’ welcome, Ishntknew!”

      “With pleasure!” Ishnt smirked, hopping onto the round platform and being brought up and out of sight to the top deck.

      Just as Shadow and Fiona had the door to the main control room in their sights, a platform rose in front of them, with Ishntknew standing on it and he already had his weapons ready. “So, ready for round two, Ishnt?” Shadow declared.

      “No!” Fiona declared, “Leave him to me!”

      “You crazy?!” Shadow gasped.

      “I’m serious!” Fiona growled, “If Eggman attacks, you’ll need to keep your strength up!”

      “You’re going to challenge me?” Ishnt snickered, “Fine then, but it’s your funeral, tubby!” Ishnt then hopped down from the platform and got ready for Fiona, who extended a thick fire sword from her rune on her arm and likewise got poised for battle.

      “Don’t hang around here!” Fiona ordered to Shadow, “Go on inside and find Eggman! You said he still has Kindar, right? Go save her and make sure Eggman doesn’t get any more emeralds!”

      Shadow reluctantly nodded and cautiously skated around Fiona and Ishnt, both of whom let Shadow go by. “You know you’re going to regret letting him go, right?” Ishnt grinned, “You really think a bloated beanbag like you can stop me?” he taunted, lifting his sword up and pointing its tip towards her.

      “Well you big-headed windbag,” Fiona returned, “We’ll have to see if you can handle me!”

      Ishnt smirked, “This’ll only take a moment,” He then rushed forward as a blur and struck towards Fiona’s large torso but she met his sword with her own and turned him to the side and kicked him in the stomach, throwing him down the deck from his own speed plus her power. Ishnt grunted as he got up and recomposed himself and aimed his gun at her and began firing wildly. Fiona held the rune above her head and a wall of fire engulfed her, blocking the blasts cold and then dropped the wall just as quickly and was right back at attacking the tall robot again with her sword. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, fat hedgehog?” Ishnt grinned as he parried and countered with his own sword, “Well~ you won’t need to worry about your width for much longer! I’m about to cut you down to size!”

      Fiona easily saw Ishnt’s horizontal swing coming for her, so she placed her blade vertically and stopped it and then slashed back at him, attempting to remove his arm but only took off a bit of Ishnt’s blue jacket, “I prefer the term ‘big beautiful hedgehog’, actually!” Fiona quipped. Ishnt then hopped back and then back forward again, bringing his sword over his head and down towards the girl, but she curled into a ball like the hedgehog she was and rolled around behind him, unfurled and then punched Ishnt hard in the shoulder, throwing him to the deck.

      Ishnt got up and got into a defensive stance before saying, “I underestimated your power. Fine, but that power is powerless in our presence!”

      “’Our’?” Fiona wondered, “There’s only one of you!” Ishnt then rushed forward and tried to slash down at her, but Fiona parried it and turned his blade down into the deck, rendering him unable to pull away from Fiona bashing in his side. After numerous hits to his side, causing a rather large dent in it, Ishnt finally removed his sword from the deck and struck Fiona across the face with the flat. Fiona spun on her toes from the hit and Ishnt reeled back and kicked Fiona hard atop her head, dropping her flat to the deck before Ishnt grabbed her ankles and hurled her down the deck towards the door. She crashed down violently as a small trail of blood went down from her lip and she opened her eyes in time to see the tall, humanoid robot in the air about to stab right down for her heart so she held up her rune-ed hand and launched a huge wave of fire from it, sending Ishnt out of the air and crashing to the deck, half burnt and his new coat ruined.

      Ishnt quickly patted out the fire, but was thoroughly angered from having his coat turned to dust, so he rushed at Fiona without another word and tried to stab at her repeatedly and in spite of her gargantuan size (granted her species is naturally short anyway) she still managed to dodge and parry the more fatal strike but ended up with numerous cuts down her arms and shoulders. Finally it was to much and Fiona angrily head butted Ishnt right in his stomach, dropping him flat on his back, gasping as he tried to reorient himself. Fiona used the moment she had bought to back away from him and tried to catch her own breath but Ishnt was back on his feet in no time and back after her again. Ishnt ran for one final sweep towards her head, but Fiona went under his blade and threw her entire strength and weight behind her fist and drove it into Ishnt’s chest, throwing both of them in opposite directions down the deck.

      Both fell flat, too exhausted and beaten to rise anymore, just in time for the Egg Carrier to beam up Chaos Four, and Dr. Eggman came up to the deck. From behind him, a hole was knocked in the deck from Shadow the Hedgehog and the sudden arrival of Knuckles the Echidna right behind the round doctor.

      “Eggman!” Shadow shouted at the round scientist.

      “I don’t have time for this!” Eggman yelled into the air as he rushed his hovercraft into Fiona, knocking her flat and causing her to drop her purple emerald and then Ishnt reached into his bag and took out the yellow emerald and they both were fed to the water monster. “Agh! Ishnt! You had an emerald this whole time?! Why didn’t you give it to me sooner?!” Eggman shouted in frustration.

      Ishnt shrugged, “I was keeping it as a just-in-case measure, Doc. I was gonna fork it over as soon as we had the other six, but desperate times call for desperate measures!”

      Knuckles grunted, “That means your friend, Kindar, has the last one!”

      Shadow nodded, “Yeah! But we have bigger issues on our hands!” Shadow then skated over to his tired-out fiancée and helped her to her feet.

      “I’ll save Kindar,” Fiona tiredly whispered, “That’ll be easy—you guys need to fight Chaos!” Just as she said that, Chaos had just finished swallowing the two newest additional emeralds and shifted into a massive scorpion-like monster with a massive guillotine-tail and large blade-like claws. “I’m sorry I can’t help more,” Fiona whimpered.

      “Get going! Save Kindar and get outta here!” Shadow grunted, pushing her in the general direction of the door as Knuckles and he went after Chaos Six.

      Ishnt folded his arms in frustration of having been ousted when he heard Eggman shout out , “Oh! This is too rich! Crush them, Chaos!” Shadow and Knuckles confidently nodded to the other and began moving in towards the hulking monster together. “Where do you two think you’re going?!” Eggman laughed as his chair began shooting out strange bomb-like robots.

      “Those things look kind of funny,” Knuckles commented.

      “There’s smoke coming off of them?” Shadow wondered aloud, “Wait! That’s not smoke, it’s steam! They must be ice robo-bombs!”

      “Ice?” Knuckles thought aloud as well, “Are you thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’, Shadow?” Shadow merely grinned as he leaped through the air and grabbed one of the ice bombs in mid-flight and kicked it into the open mouth of Chaos Six, and its entire body froze up.

      “No way!” Eggman shouted, “I can’t believe this!!!”

      “Now, Shadow!” Knuckles called out loud as both he and his hedgehog companion charged into the ice monster and broke it into pieces.

      “No! My invincible Chaos creature got iced out of the picture?!” Eggman gasped, “Noooooooo! I was only a single emerald away from winning this time!”

      Suddenly, the entire ship began to shake violently, “Hey! What’s going on?!” Knuckles gasped.

      “This reeks of feminine mishap,” Shadow sighed, as he peered over his shoulder towards the door just as Fiona and Kindar (and her little bird friend) came running out of the passage. Kindar was carrying a piece of the Master Emerald, which she promptly gave to Knuckles. “Hey! The last piece! Thanks!” Knuckles grinned.

      “What did you two do?!” Shadow grunted.

      Fiona grinned innocently, “Well, we got into a little fight down there with Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts—and well, it was near the ship’s generator and…” she trailed off. Shadow and Knuckles stared at them, deadpan.

      “No!” Eggman cried out, “It keeps getting worse! The power supply’s going haywire! I’m getting out of here!!!” Eggman turned his hovercraft around and attempted to fly away.

      “You’re not going anywhere, Doc!” Shadow yelled out and began viciously skating at him. Shadow attempted to tail the doctor by using a large burst of speed to try and aid his valiant leap, but came up short and plummeted to the Mystic Ruins below.

      Ishnt paused for a moment as he watched all the rest of the fighters jump, glide or pilot a plane to escape the massive Egg Carrier before saying, “Well, I guess that does make me chopped liver,” Ishnt stared down the long, vacant deck as he watched it plow into the earth below, just beached on the shore of a beach not far from the Mystic Ruins. The robot recomposed himself as he pushed himself back to his feet and dusted his last remaining clothes off and went back inside the Egg Carrier to check on the incompetent three robots. Seeing them in pieces, Ishnt sighed and put them back together and ordered them to begin repairing the carrier. He then returned to the deck before activating his communicator and after a moment’s pause he got through to Eggman.

      He got a groggy, tired-sounding Eggman on the other end, “Hello?”

      “Good to hear you, Doc,” Ishnt replied, “I’ve repaired the other robots and we’ve begun repairs to the Egg Carrier. Shall we go after Shadow next?”

      “No!” Eggman declared, angrily, “We have a new target! We have to stop Chaos before it can become its ultimate form: Perfect Chaos!” Eggman then angrily hung up.

      “What was that all about?” Ishnt asked, placing a hand on his hip, “So, maybe he has come to his senses about the puddle… but I thought it was destroyed in the fight,” Ishnt paused as he viewed the beach around him, “Then again, you can never be too careful. Let’s see what this ‘Perfect Chaos’ is all about then…” 

--To be continued…