Darkness Falls; Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own either Sonic the Hedgehog, or Phantasy Star Online. If I did, PSO would still be up, and Sonic would have a good 3D game that came out after 2003.

AN: I've been toying with this idea for a while, and I know exactly where I want to go with it and how to get there, so I hope this is one story that I actually finish P. If you have any comments/questions/concerns etc, just leave a review or PM and I'll try to get back to you.

Space. Oftentimes called the endless void. Limitless. It represents what everyone wants, the ability to go on for forever. But several hundred million years ago, it was also known by another name.

The Black River. And it is within this river that the greatest ship ever built was condemned to be a floating mass. The people who built it long since vanished. Their might gave it structure and momentum. Their knowledge gave it life and rotation. But by their law, they gave it a name, a name that would be revered above all others.

Ragol.

And thus, this story starts.

--

"Sonic, get back here!" cried a young person. A pink hedgehog, to be exact. Speaking to a blue, something of the same nature thing.

"No way, I'm outta here!" said 'Sonic' as he was known. "See ya Amy!" and with that, he vanished within a blue blur. 'Amy' cried out again.

"What can I do to make him notice me…?" she trailed off. They had been aboard this ship, the Typhoon, tracking down metal robots known as the Metarex for several months now. Their goal was to get something called a 'Planet Egg' back from them in order to revive their planet.

Amy didn't get the logistics of the whole thing, but none of them actually did. What she did know though, was that their captain, Miles "Tails" Prower, had been on the same course for some time. He apparently had spotted a planet not far from their current position, and had decided to make their course there.

--

"No trace of her, sir."

"Hmm…fine. You're all dismissed. MRU, stay here so we can download the data."

"Acknowledge."

"Right, we'll be seeing you soon Principal!"

--

"So Tails, how long until we can get off the ship do you think?" asked a brown haired individual, much like a human, to what appeared to be a yellow two tailed fox. Appeared to be, at the least.

"I'm not sure, I'm thinking maybe one or two days. Hey, can you zoom in on the planet again? I want to make sure the atmosphere is breathable." Tails said.

"Sure." With that, the screen zoomed in at a fast pace, to where they could almost make out the rotation of the planet. Then they noticed something odd. Outside the atmosphere of the planet, they noticed a ship. Or what appeared to be a ship.

"Can we try to make contact?" Chris wondered out loud. Tails heard him, and snickered.

"Sure, why not?" With that, the Typhoon sent a friendly radio frequency to the unidentified ship, hoping that it would answer.

--

"Incoming transmission sir."

"Bring it up on the monitor. If it's friendly, we'll forward it to the Principal."

--

The screen suddenly turned into a giant picture of what appeared to be a human.

"Who're you? Where do your aggressions lie?" it asked.

Tails answered, "We are the crew of the Typhoon, and I am her captain. Our aggressions lie elsewhere, on robots known as the Metarex."

"The typhoon eh? Very well, we'll let you speak to our captain." the human asked again, and suddenly the screen changed to a picture of another human. This one was seated in a desk in front of him, almost covered in disks.

"I have been told everything already. What do you want?" he asked.

"We only want a place to land safely on your planet." Tails said. Suspicion was suddenly aroused when the man behind the desk upturned an eyebrow.

"It's not our planet, not yet. And if you can find a safe place to land, by all means do so. We have yet to find such a place."

"Would it be possible to meet in person?" Tails asked suddenly.

"Definitely. I'll send over four of my best hunters as a guide for you to get here. Hopefully one of them knows Ryuker…"

And the screen suddenly went blank. Tails barked orders. "Chris! Set data search for this "Ryuker" thing he said! I'll get everybody on board up here immediately!"

"Searching!" Chris yelled, typing what he thought was the spelling into the main computer mainframe. The intercom placed on the ship ringed out into what used to be silent air.

"Attention, this is Tails. We need everybody on board to come up to the captain's room immediately!".

A blue blur flashed as Sonic ran into the room, looking confused. Amy was shortly after him, followed by Cream, Cheese, and Cosmo. Knuckles ran into the room afterwards. Tails started explaining what was going on.

"We caught sight of a planet not that long ago, so we started heading there. However, orbiting this planet was a very large ship. We made a connection, and now they are sending 'hunters' here to guide us over there."

"That's all good and all Tails, but what does that have to do with us?" Sonic asked, impatient to get back to running somewhere.

Tails looked as if he was going to answer, but something stopped him. He slowly pointed to the front of the bridge. Everybody turned around to see what looked like a bunch of lights from the ground, combined with a small circle of lights on the ground. Red lights. Out of this, stepped three humans and one robot.

The robot spoke. "Greetings. Self-Unit is known as MRU 031."

One of the humans, a short black haired individual, with what looked like a flowing robe around him, was next in line. "We really need to train you better mroo. I'm Chaos, a force. Mroo here is a ranger, so don't get confused."

The next human in line, only appeared to be a human. But instead of a robe like the last one, this one was female, and almost looked like an elf in a way. She was dressed barely adequately, but they all could see how strong she really was. "Hi! I'm Suikoshi, but almost always known as Sui! Don't mind Chaos, he's always like that. I'm a hunter, just so you know."

The next in line had what appeared to be a large vest on his chest and back. His blonde hair flowed far down the back, almost giving him a feminine look to him. "Hey. I'm Seraph. I'm a ranger, much like MRU. We're the ones that were told by the Principal to bring four of you back. Any volunteers?"

"Obviously the captain should." said Chaos. "Anybody else wanna join?"

Tails raised his hand. "One question. He said he was sending hunters, but you all fall under different names with only one hunter…why is that?"

A variety of expressions occurred in the four. Chaos laughed. Seraph stood there unflinchingly. Suikoshi chuckled as MRU answered, "Forces, Rangers, and Hunters as a group are known as Hunters, even though a group is already called that."

"Ok. That answered it I guess…I'm captain, so I'm coming. Anybody else?" Tails asked as he stepped up to meet the four otherworldly people. Sonic shrugged.

"Hey, if my little bro's going, then so'm I!" Sonic said excitedly.

"I'm going too!" Amy squealed. If Sonic was going, then so should she. After all, she was Sonic's true love, was she not?

"Ok…so we have three. Is that all, or is one more going?" Seraph asked, taking a look at the rest of them. He spotted Chris. "Hey you!" Chris looked up. "Yeah you! Want to come with us?"

"Sure I guess…" Chris said, slowly getting up off his chair and walking to where the four otherworldly beings were. "So, where we going and how do we get there?" he asked, eyeing the lights with an intelligent eye. They were still going, with almost no sign of weakening at all.

"Simple. Chaos'll go last, MRU will go first. Chaos has to go last just so you know, as he made it. What you do is step into the pipe, and look up. Feel the energies in your body, and pull them into the lights. In your view, a large white light should come down from above and that teleports you. To the rest of us however, it simply appears that you're disappearing. MRU, go first and show 'em how it's done." Suikoshi explained.

"Affirmative." The large robot strode casually towards the lights, and suddenly vanished. Sonic looked around, wondering where he was and how he did that.

"We just explained it…maybe MRU wasn't the best for a demonstration…here, uh…human guy, what's your name?" Seraph asked.

"Chris."

"Ok, Chris. You go first then. MRU will be on the outside of the portal, and he'll tell you the rest of the stuff when you're there." A nod and the human stepped forward, using their explanation to the best he could. All of a sudden, it happened. He didn't know how, but he somehow did it. A large white light appeared out of nowhere and struck him, bringing him along with it as it went back. He stumbled out of the receiving end, only to run into MRU.

To the rest, he just disappeared. "Yep, just like that!" said Chaos, breaking the mood of incredulousness almost instantly.

"Oh oh! I'm next!" said Sonic.

"Ok. Just walk on in the pipe and do the same thing you think he did." Seraph stated, pointing towards the pipe, as it was now known. The lights haven't changed, and are still continuing on. Sonic walked up, and felt that the pipe was drawing out something in him that he didn't notice before…something that expands on the power that the Chaos emeralds give him. Almost as if he's going super.

He wasn't, of course. But it still felt like it. When he focused on those energies, the same light that hit Chris hit Sonic, teleporting him along at speeds only he could reach normally. At the end of the light, Sonic's feet abruptly struck the hard metal floor of the other ship. His eyes still adjusting, he saw some basic shapes and identified what appeared to be MRU and Chris, but he wasn't sure.

"Sonic! Over here! Your eyes adjust fast, don't worry." Yep. That was Chris alright. Sonic, still disoriented from the instant teleport, stumbled his way over to the two shapes, slowly regaining concious vision. "Wait here for the others. That's what MRU told me anyways." Chris explained.

"Negative. My objective was to inform you to stay until Chaos bursts." MRU stated, the monotone still there. "When he arrives he will explain everything."

So with that, the two of them patiently waited for the others to arrive. The third was going stir crazy, and started running in circles.

--

When MRU disappeared, it was excitement. When Chris disappeared, it was anxiousness. When Sonic disappeared, it was nervousness. Tails volunteered to be next, but Seraph said that they had told MRU that one of them would be coming next, followed by the two other 'volunteers', and then whoever was remaining, and then Chaos.

"Why are you last?" Amy asked, nervousness abating by simply talking. Chaos just laughed.

"I go last because I'm the one that made it. This pipe you see here is the product of a force technique that's very useful in my opinion. However, when the maker goes through it twice, it closes. But everybody else can go through it infinitely. It's quite helpful." Chaos explained, stretching his arms. He continued. "But most of the time it goes to a predetermined destination on the Pioneer 2. This time, the principal made sure I had the coordinates for the warp before he let us go. I will never forget that shouting match…" Chaos sighed blissfully, lost in the memory.

"What shouting match?" Seraph turned around to ask. He didn't remember a shouting match, besides the one where Chaos kept trying to alter MRU's programming with force techniques. He wasn't sure what to label it, so he just put it under 'shouting match'.

"You don't remember!? You know, the one where you and the principal were all yelling at each other that no matter how hard we tried, we found no sign of Rico?" Chaos sighed again.

Suikoshi looked semi-embarassed, "It's Chaos. Everyone says forces are insane…I'm wondering if that rumor is true…"

Seraph just looked at her. "True that…true that…well, anyways, you two will come after me." Seraph said, pointing to Tails and Amy. With those as his last words to the group, Seraph warped out of there using the pipe. Nervousness returned to the atmosphere. Tails started walking towards the lights, seeing that they didn't really do anything to him. He tried emulating what Suikoshi had explained, but it hadn't done anything for him. But soon enough the light hit him.

The feelings of the teleportation, Tails thought, were remarkebly close to that of the giant rings found on the Floating island. But there he was skipping across dimensions. Here, he was skipping across not space time, but just space. Quite an odd feeling when it all came down to it.

All too soon Tails felt his feet touch the ground. Unlike the others, he didn't have a sense of disorientation, blurred vision, or any of the other side effects. He saw the others standing there, waiting for him. But before he could even leave the space where the pipe resided, a weight appeared on his back and knocked him down to the ground.

"Amy, may I ask why you're sitting on top of me?" Tails asked, trying futily to push her off. Her face screamed sorry and she leapt off of him, screaming apologies. "Amy it's ok." Tails said, trying to calm her down. He mumbled a bit.

"I'm sorry. What'd you say?" Amy asked, trying to lean closer to hear what Tails was mumbling.

"nothing…nothing at all." Tails said quickly, covering it up. Seraph walked up to the two.

"Hey, now that all you guys are here" Amy cleared her throat, "Sorry. Now that all you guys and girls are here, all we have to do is wait for Chaos and Suikoshi. They'll be here probably soon. You can tell when Chaos is coming because the pipe will close." Sure enough, the pipe closed. Suikoshi warped in, and almost immediately ran towards them.

Lucky thing she did, or Chaos would've fallen on top of her. "We saw what Amy did to you Tails, so I decided to see if Suikoshi was paying attention!" Chaos just smiled gleefully. Suikoshi glared at him, almost making him want to sink into the ground. But that wouldn't be any fun now would it?

Seraph broke the 'fight' up. "Let's get going, we brought four. Let's go…!"

"But I thought you guys were going to explain everything once Chaos was back!" Chris whined, wanting to know what was going on just that much sooner.

Chaos took this chance, "Ha! Told you MRU could be reprogrammed using force techniques!" MRU walked over to Chaos, making a lot of noise, and backhanded Chaos, knocking him to the floor. All while the others were walking away completely ignoring Chaos. "Besides kid, you will get your answers. Just talk to the principal, he'll tell you pretty much all you need to know."

That satisfied Chris, for at least the time being. He already knew much of the story, as he was there when this 'principal' had been talking to Tails. But everything still confused him, genius though he was. He wondered how Tails was putting up with all this.

Tails, was now starting to put some pieces together. There wouldn't be much reason for four complete strangers to arrive on a ship, teleport four of them away to another ship, just to meet their leader. Something was going on here. Something big.

The four in front, Seraph, MRU, Suikoshi, and Sonic all suddenly stopped. "Ok, remember the ryuker? This is something similar, but it doesn't go as far." Chaos explained from the back. Seraph went first as a demonstration. One by one, they all went in, until finally it was Amy's turn.

"Just like the ryuker?" she asked. She stepped into the portal lights anyway. Almost without thinking, she teleported to the receiving pad. This time, she wasn't as disoriented as she was the first time. Before she could ask why, Chaos landed on top of her. "Ouch! Damn those spines hurt like hell…" he swore. Not for the first time Seraph turned around and said, "Hey! Watch your swearing."

"What…it was only damn…" Chaos whined, once again acting like a little kid. It wouldn't surprise any of them if it turned out he was. There was a reason forces went insane. Trying to contain all the energy they could unleash into one vessel, it eventually had to go somewhere. And it went straight to their head.

They reached the Principal. Tails recognized him from when he was on the Typhoon's screen. "We have brought four of them, just as you ordered." Seraph stated.

"Good…good… Which is your captain?" said the principal. Tails stepped up.

"I am." Tails stated. His voice courageous, it hid the fact that he was currently nervous as hell.

"Ah, I recognize you. What is your mission around these parts of the universe?" the principal said, shifting in his seat a little bit.

"We are hunting a group of self-sufficient robots, called the Metarex. They steal a planet's life force in the form of a 'planet egg'. We don't know what they use them for, or why they need them." Tails explained.

"And you suspect that we may be harboring them, or they are endangering Ragol?"

"Not yet. We actually arrived here by accident, looking for some solid ground to put out feet on for a bit."

"That makes sense. We're about ready to do the same thing actually. This is the Pioneer 2, a group of refugees from a dying planet. Nearly two decades ago our planet sent out unmanned space probes, to look for a planet that we might be able to live on, having discovered that our own was dying. The probes found this planet," the principal pointed to Ragol, floating overhead, "We sent out our main team of scientists and other workers to work the land so it might be liveable for us. This crew was called the Pioneer. Nearly 8 years ago, they sent word that they had arrived, and to send the main wave of refugees on a second ship.

That ship was this ship, the Pioneer 2. In only one hour, we will attempt to open the communication lines between Pioneer 1, and Pioneer 2."

"How did you find out what the planet's name was?"

"We found some old engravings from an ancient civilization on the surface. For nearly a year, they had the brightest scientists work on deciphering them. The only readable part said, "This planet is named Ragol. Be…ship…". That's all they were able to work out."

"May we stay on the Pioneer 2 until you open the communication lines? I would like to see what that's like." Tails asked.

"Most certainly."