A Rose Too Far

Chapter 1: Hidden out of Sight and Mind

A bulkhead opened to reveal another brightly coloured circular corridor that were so retrospective of Eggman's Bases. "This man must seriously bat from the other side of field" she thought to herself as she looked around the red, yellow and green lines that stretched the wall. Here red, racing striped, boots made little noise on the painted mettle floor. Why was Sonic even here if Eggman presented no threat at the moment? Well, she'd find out soon enough and be able to see her favourite blue hero. She sighed and glanced longingly into thin air. A short, brown furred rabbit followed behind, a small blue and yellow choa floating above her right shoulder. She glanced up at Amy and shook her head. She was used to her doing this and it could get quite annoying as she wouldn't respond to anything anyone else said for a period of time.

"I know he must be close, just call it my girlish intuition!" Amy said conformingly.

"Yeah right, girlish intuition my…" grumbled cream as Amy opened another bulkhead by typing a command into a wall interface.

As the door opened Amy caught a glimpse of a blue object disappearing quickly through another door and the twin tailed fox tails reaching for something in mid air.

"Wait Son- Oh hi Amy, Cream!" said Tails, quickly changing his facial expression to a broad grin.

"Who was that?" Asked Amy, a false grin on her face.

"Um… no one" said tails rather too quickly.

"No were did that little blue shit disappear of to now-" questioned Knuckles angrily, as he walked through another bulkhead, but cut off when he saw Amy standing hand on hips.

"What little "Blue Shit" are we talking about here Knuckles?" Questioned Amy, her temper rising.

"Um… I meant yellow shit, and there he is! Hi tails!" he said, also, with a forced grin on his face.

Another bulkhead in the circular room slid open to reveal a fuming Eggman.

"I swear when I get my hands on that hedgehog I'll…" He stopped and looked at the small crowd that had gathered in the room. "Why, isn't this a charming little reunion!" He said, quickly changing his temper.

"Tails, Knuckles, and why of course, Amy and Cream dears" he said giving a small bow. "I wonder if you would tell me the location of a certain blue friend of mine so I could partake in tearing him limb from limb."

"Wha?" said knuckles looking confused.

"I want you to tell me were Sonic is so I can beat the crap out of him" Said Eggman changing his tone.

"So Sonic was here!" said Amy turning to Tails and Knuckles. "Why was he in your base anyway Eggman" she asked turning on the doctor.

"He seems have got it into his little blue head that I'm not allowed to have any more experimental laser weapons after the whole "splitting the earth into 6 different pieces thing". Like I'd make that mistake again" He said throwing his hands in the air.

Tails let out a small giggle to which Eggman pointed at him and quickly snapped "Shut up!"

Another one of the bulkheads snapped open to reveal the stony face of Surge the hawk who looked completely unsurprised to see them all in one place. He looked remarkably like his cousin only bulkier and more muscular.

"Alright?" he said in his deep cockney accent as he stepped through the hole. Everyone nodded. "Good. Now I was wondering weather any of you would know were Sonic is right now?" "He owes me a beer you see."

"I though you lost your wager? Sonic made it in here alright didn't he?" asked Knuckles.

"I think the challenge was that he had to get in here the way I would do it" Surge corrected him. "And somehow I don't see myself running at 300 miles per hour headfirst into a robot".

"Ah" said knuckles drooping slightly. "He went that way" he said pointing through a door on the right next to the one Eggman had stepped out of.

"Thanks!" yelled Amy and sped off quickly in the direction knuckles had just pointed.

Surge looked at the ground and shook his head then ran on in the same direction as Amy.

"Sonic!" Wait up!" yelled Amy as she saw him desperately hammering at the controls of the heavy steel door in front of him. The door had been severely dented which suggested Sonic had already made other attempts to escape. Behind her she could hear Surges gruff voice shouting "Oi! Sonic mate! You owe me a drink!"

Sonic looked up, saw Amy with surge following quickly behind and started to type faster. The door suddenly clicked open and Sonic made an attempt to dash through it but what he saw made him stop dead in his tracks. Amy and Surge came level with him and also stared blankly into the room in front of them.

There was a pool of water in the centre of the room but it was what was in the water that scared them the most. The water parted to reveal the tall, blue, transparent figure of the rouge choa Chaos. Eggman ran up panting from the way they had just come. "Nothing to see here, bye!" he said slamming the door in front of him so the room was again out of sight.

"You've been keeping chaos here all along after that thing turned on you!" said Sonic angrily.

"My my, you catch on quickly" said Eggman sarcastically. "Well I had to give him somewhere to live didn't I. If I let him live in a pond or lake outside he would go round terrorising everyone and I would get the blame. Also after that little event in Station square the "lord of chaos" hasn't been completely stable and might hurt himself if he were to overdo it."

"So basically, you're keeping him in there for his own good?" said Sonic puzzled.

"Whatever the Doctor orders!" said Eggman crossing his arms. "And you'll love what I've ordered for you" he said rubbing his hands together then pressing a button that he had just pulled from his pocket.

Three E-type robots teleported in surrounding them. Eggman took a step back and let his robots move in for the kill. There was a beep on Surges wrist display unit and he peered at it hastily.

"Sonic, according to this were only three floors down from the roof" he said still concentrating on the robots around him. "You should be able to easily break your way outside. Take Amy with you, I'll deal with these bastards"

Sonic gave a nod to signify he understood, scooped Amy into his arms and took off just as the Robots closed in. Surge dodged the first one and smashed it in the back with his heavy boot. It stumbled but managed to retain its balance. Its counterpart fired its heavy energy weapon that hit Surge square in the chest causing his all over body shields to fail as he was blasted back down the corridor. He felt a cold metal hand lift him up and smash him into the nearest wall. As he looked up he could see the outline of Eggman followed by the three huge robots before slipping into unconsciousness.

Amy loved these moments. Her in Sonic's arms while they drifted up into the sky. She looked at his face and could see he was concentrating heavily on the space in front of them. But rather than just stare straight ahead showing no sign of emotion as he usually did this time he looked down into her face. Just briefly, but long enough for their eyes to meat. That moment seemed to last forever before Sonic hastily looked back up again and cleared his throat. "I think I'll put you down here" he said.

Of course he had no choice where he could put her down because he wasn't actually flying but just free falling. Luckily enough they landed in a shallow stream that was enough to brake their fall. Although Sonic didn't usually take to water very well this was shallow enough for him to sit up in and still have most of his body above water.

Amy stroked his hair trying to get some of the wet out not realising here own glove was soaked as well. Sonic didn't exactly fell comfortable letting someone do this to him but something told him to stay and enjoy it; which is exactly what he did.

Surge awoke, strapped to a lab chair, the usual light floating above his head almost blinding him. He heard Doctor Eggman's villainous laugh from a dark corner of the laboratory. Surge tugged on the tight mettle straps but they didn't budge at all. "There's no point struggling, Sonic would know as he's been in this predicament more than once before. You appear to have taken his place this time however."

"You know me" said Surge with effort. "Never miss a chance to try something new."

He had to struggle to get the words out as there was a large metal strap across his chest that was cutting into his ribs.

"Oh, you'll enjoy this new experience then" chuckled Eggman as he stepped into the light.

"You see robots, however useful they may be, have never been quite as powerful as a fully living organism". Surge looked around for any means of escape not really taking in what was being said to him.

"I have learnt this from many past experiences and am now ready to take it to the next step by creating my own "living" servant" This time Surge heard and his heart skipped a beat. He knew what was coming next. "But unfortunately I have neither the ability nor the recourses to create life myself so I need a ready made template for the success of this little project". Surge struggled even more as a piece of formidable looking machinery lowered towards him.

"When I accidentally transformed Sonic into the Werehog I kept a record of his DNA patterns during the change, stored on my mainframe". "It was a very interesting read". Said Eggman smirking. "But if only I could recreate the process and mange submit the being to my control… Oh wait I can" he said a broad grin appearing on his face. He hit a large red button and a series of electronic woops and starting alarms could be heard. The machine began to spin ferociously sending bolts of purple energy sparking off in random directions. A purple beam shot out straight into the centre of Surge's chest. He struggled and began to scream as the beam grew brighter. He could feel his body being pumped with powerful energy. His muscle structure began to change, his feathers became razor sharp. He began to grow in size, breaking the metal bonds that strapped him down. He let out another scream, but not of pain, but of rage. It seemed more like a growl. Eggman was laughing hysterically his face illuminated by the almost blinding purple light. Then almost as though a switch had been flicked everything turned off. The room was completely pitch-black and the only sound was that of a heavy breathing coming from the centre of the lab. "Hawk?" questioned Eggman into the darkness before him. "Yes master" came an incredibly deep mutilated voice from the depths of the gloom.