Departure
When you say "Arizona" to someone who has never been to the state, they'll most likely think of dried cacti, dessicated sand and gravel, and a host of scorpions and rattlesnakes, ready to strike at you in the blazing heat.
And they would be right.
Arizona (or at least in Phoenix) was a hot, bleak oven surrounded by purple mountains and an oppressive blue dome of sky that seemed to flatten those who dared live beneath it. The scratchy landscape was all scrub and stone, grit and dust, heat and mirage. Of course, it only looked like this in the outskirts. The suburbs were actually pretty nice, if not a little bland (all the houses looked the same, with the same lawns, same gardens, same cars, same people). Only the two rainy seasons brought any sort of respite from the baking weather, and that only lasted for a few days.
The summer monsoons were actually an awesome sight to see. Or at least, that was Tyler's opinion. He loved to watch the lightning fork out of the swollen purple clouds, or see the walls of dust sweep across the distant Phoenix skyline. But the rain was the best, since it was the only thing that lowered the temperature. The sheeting, pounding rain that splashed in gutters and flooded drains. The rain that fed the cacti and made them bloom into life, and liven up the formerly lifeless flowerbeds of the neighborhood.
It was the right time of year for the monsoons to return. And Tyler couldn't wait.
...
Sonic found the rain to be more of a challenge than an annoyance; they made everything slipperier as he grinded across the mossy limb of a tree. Angel Island was having its usual light shower of rain before the microburst actually hit, and Sonic was enjoying every minute of it. The jungle of Angel Island filled two purposes for him today. 1: For an obstacle course, since it was much more challenging to weave through trees than to run in an open field, and 2: To tick off Knuckles enough to engage him in a spar. Man, were those fun. Especially when Sonic won (which usually happened).
He flipped off of the branch onto the moistened forest floor and set off at a light, 500 mile-per-hour jog, sucking scattered leaves into the wake of his path. He wove through the trunks, and found that the trees were thinning out; a sign that he was nearing the edge of the floating island. He reached out and grabbed a sapling, swinging around it, and sling-shotting himself back into the thicket of rainforest to avoid toppling off of the landmass.
He swerved around the trees again like a motorcycle through heavy oncoming traffic, looking around as he did so. Angel Island's rainforest looked different tonight as the sun set behind the clouds. The shining green leaves began to turn teal as the evening light leeched into them. Sonic finally stopped, digging his heels into the earth and plowing up a shallow trench from his rapid deceleration. Something was wrong; it wasn't quite evening yet, so it shouldn't be this dark already. A shadow was passing over the island.
Sonic quickly ran up the face of a tree trunk and stopped at its highest point. He thought that one of Eggman's ships had flown overhead, but he would've heard the roar of igniting plasma from the engine; it was almost silent now. It was an immense wall of thunderclouds, piling up rapidly in the sky, blocking out the final rays of the sun. As a spear of lightning shot out and struck the earth far below the island, Sonic's gut instincts told him that the storm may not be...normal. But then again, what was considered normal here, anyway? He abandoned these thoughts as he saw the summit of the Master Emerald shrine poke up through the canopy of darkening trees, and decided that Knuckles hadn't been bothered in a while.
...
The late summer heat of Phoenix struck Tyler like a falling sandbag as he stepped off of the school bus. Thank god that it was supposed to storm again tonight; he knew he wouldn't be able to take the temperature much longer.
He walked down the sidewalk towards his house, his ears full of the sounds of droning cicadas from the trees that lined the street. He looked away from the blinding sunlight reflecting off of the heated cement sidewalk and noticed the shelf of bruised clouds in the distance. Good. I was right, he thought.
He opened the front door to his two story house (which was identical to all the other two story houses) and walked inside, slipping his backpack off and dropping it to the floor, grateful for the air conditioning. He walked to his kitchen and chugged a bottle of water from the fridge, cooling him down. Finally relaxed, he slumped against the kitchen's island. It was the first weekend of his freshman high school year. He didn't have homework to do, or friends to hang out with since he'd moved here over the summer.
He let his eyes wander across the granite counter top, and saw a yellow post-it note from his mother. Since both his parents worked late nearly every day, post-it notes became a convenient form of communication from them.
Tyler, the note said, Both your dad and I will be late tonight. Again. Sorry. There's leftovers in the fridge. Samantha and Stanley (his younger twin siblings) are at Grandma's house. Please, please, please clean the shed. We found a nest of geckos in there. Just drag it out onto the lawn or something and hose it down. Love you, Mom.
Yeah. I love you too. Tyler thought.
...
Tails the Fox sat at his desk in his dimly lit workshop as the storm's first drops of rain drummed on the roof above him. The workshop was fairly large, with metal shelves and racks filled with gadgets along the walls, echoing the noise. The rain pacified him slightly as he sketched a new sleek plane model for his next aircraft. He couldn't see the storm, however, since most of his home was underground. But he could hear the drops bouncing off of his metal roof on the level above him. The lead in the mechanical pencil he was writing with snapped. He clicked the end of the pencil to get more, but none came. He shook it, hoping to hear the rattle of more lead sticks inside it, only to hear nothing.
He sighed as he got out of his chair, and walked to a cabinet next to his medium-sized television. Tails had left it on earlier, but had muted the sound so he could concentrate on his work. He opened the cabinet and rummaged around for more lead, but couldn't find any. He settled for a fine-point pen. As he went back to his desk, the television screen changed to a weather update on the news. He quickly grabbed the remote and un-muted the television, flicking his tails in unease.
"A heavy storm system is quickly approaching Westopolis," the weatherman said. "People are asked to remain indoors, and be wary of lightning and high winds." He motioned to the map of Westopolis behind him as an image of a thundercloud advanced upon it. The weatherman was handed a piece of paper by someone off screen. "We've just recieved word that our meteorologists are now encouraging people to stay away from windows. The wind speeds have gotten so high that debris is starting to cause some damage. Let's take a look at Westopolis now."
The screen changed to a live image of Westopolis, a large industrial city very close to Tails' home. The camera recording the image must have been on a building's roof, since Tails could only see skyscrapers and towers of the city's skyline. Beyond the skyline was a menacing shelf of purple clouds, swollen with rain and lightning, lit from the side by the dying glow of the sunset. The storm had already struck the suburban areas.
I forgot to pick up Sonic! Tails thought, remembering that he had dropped him off on Angel Island several hours ago. If he was going to fly off and retrieve him before morning, then he'd better do it now before the storm hit.
...
The thunderstorm came that night, right after the sun had finally shrank under the horizon. It was insane; Tyler had never lived through anything like it. It sounded like someone was dropping several tons of glass marbles on the roof judging by the hammering noise of the rain, and the hail was even worse; a window had cracked in his living room from it. He'd been able to tape it shut, but his parents would still have to replace it. The thunder that accompanied the bright blue-white flashes of lightning was loud enough to shake the dishes in his cabinets. Even the wind was trying to tear his house apart with the way it whistled and blew against the walls, making the support beams creak.
Tyler sat on the couch, straining to hear the sound of his television over the wail of the wind and battering of the rain. But he didn't have to worry about the volume long, since the power in his house abruptly cut out.
"Crap!" he said aloud from surprise. The lightning flashed again, briefly basking the room in an electric blare. In the afterglow of the flash, Tyler was able to locate a drawer in the side table next to the couch and pull out a flashlight. Okay, I've got a light. Good. The phones are cut out, so I won't be able to call my parents. And my cell phone is out of battery, and the charger is in Mom's car, which isn't here. Great.
Tyler was startled as a loud cracking sound cut through the muffled noise of the storm. He hesitantly walked over to the entryway near the front door and saw that the rectangular window had been cracked by the hail, just like the window in the living room. Tyler sighed from worry as water leaked through the crack. At least the streetlights are still on, he thought. But in the orange glow of the streetlights, Tyler saw his dad's cheap shed out in the middle of the street.
Earlier that day, he'd pulled out the light, plastic shed from his backyard to the front yard, just as his mother had asked. But he'd left it out front to dry after he'd hosed it off, and forgotten about it since now. The wind had actually been strong enough to blow the shed out into the street, where it would probably be a hazard to cars. Tyler thought it would be fun to run out into a storm like this and retrieve it, and against his better judgment, he did just that. He opened the front door with some difficulty as water, leaves, and twigs blew inside and around the door jamb. He finally opened it and bolted outside, letting the door slam shut in the gale.
...
Sonic paused at the base of the small, gray crumbling stone pyramid, festooned with ivy. An ancient ramada had been erected at the top, sheltering the Master Emerald and its guardian, Knuckles the World's Most Gullible Echidna (which Sonic thought was a much better title than just 'the Echidna'). The dying sun in the sky was eventually outshone by the viridian glow of the Master Emerald, reflecting its own light silently off of its various facets, pulsing the light in the rhythm of Angel Island. From the base of the pyramid, Sonic could see that Knuckles was napping against the surface of the gem, unaware of the huge storm about to hit. It was only courteous to alert Knuckles of the storm, right? Sonic quietly ran up the pyramid and leaned over him.
"HEY KNUCKLES!" he shouted, then immediately stepped backwards as a spiked fist shot out, narrowly missing him.
"Sonic! Don't do that!" he growled, standing up and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
"I just wanted to say hi, and that you should probably take cover before that storm hits." Sonic said, pretending that his feelings were hurt. "I thought I was being nice."
"You say that as if you think at all. Now get off my land."
"I can't. This island floats, remember?"
"I know. My first sentence still stands."
Sonic rolled his eyes. "Tails will be here in a few minutes. I'll be out of your fur by then."
"Good, 'cuz --"
Knuckles was interrupted as an enormous peal of energy was released from the Master Emerald, the force of it knocking both of them over in a shower of green concentric waves.
"What the--" Sonic began, until the Master Emerald vibrated, shaking the whole Island with it. Pebbles and loose stones danced up and down from the vibrations on the pyramid's summit.
"Knuckles! Do something! Calm it down!" Sonic yelled over the rumbles. Knuckles placed both of his palms against the Emerald and closed his eyes, muttering something in a dead Echidnian language, hoping that he'd be able to calm the gem down. It didn't work.
Sonic and Knuckles both started floating for a second, along with more pebbles and twigs. The branches of the plants of the forest bent upward with them. After a moment, they both fell back down, and the air was filled with the creaks of branches falling back into place.
"...What was that all about?" Sonic asked. Knuckles placed his palms against the Master Emerald again, and his eyes widened in shock as a trickle of frantic abstract concepts flowed into him.
"...Something's pulling the Master Emerald off of the Island. And we weren't floating...we were falling. The entire Island is falling--" He was cut off as they both started levitating again. "Oof!." he said as he landed. "...It's going to fall all the way in a few minutes, according to the Emerald." he said, grimly.
Sonic stood up, dusting his blue fur off, grinning as he did so. "I wouldn't worry about that too much." he said.
"Why not?" Knuckles demanded. Sonic pointed over his head, and Knuckles turned around. A blue and yellow patterned biplane was landing at the base of the pyramid, its engine noise hidden by the pulsations of the Master Emerald.
"Come on!" Tails called from the plane's cockpit. Sonic and Knuckles couldn't hear him, but they knew what he meant. They both scrambled down the pyramid and into the plane as the rumbling vibrations began again, on a much larger scale.
"You guys okay?" Tails asked as he quickly turned the plane around and flew it off of the island. The other two nodded.
Sonic twisted in his seat to view Angel Island as it slowly descended in the sky, heading on a direct collision course with the earth below. Since the island was mostly flat on the bottom, it would land more-or-less upright, keeping it safe. But what about the Master Emerald? Sonic thought. Knuckles can't just leave it there...
There was a miniature explosion on Angel Island as it fell, releasing a shockwave of green light into the overcast night sky, and pushing the biplane forward slightly and rattling its motor. The Master Emerald burst off of the island in a blazing green comet, streaking off into the wall of clouds over the nearby city of Westopolis. Without the Master Emerald, Angel Island fell completely, crashing into the ground in a mushroom-shaped cloud of dust and debris. Sonic tried not to look at Knuckles' face as it happened.
...
Tyler only had to walk seven yards to pick up the shed. Seven measly yards. That was all. But it was a freaking trek with all the water and wind that pelted against him. Rain lashed at the pavement as if it were trying to gouge out the concrete, and the wind was so powerful it nearly made him lose his footing. He stumbled over to the shed, slipping twice in ankle-deep flows of water rushing around him and gurgled angrily in the gutter drains. The streetlights flickered, went off, and then came on. His clothes and shaggy hair were plastered against him, making him look like some sort of humanoid penguin as he staggered through the water. There was no sky; just a flat, black ceiling that seemed to only hang a few feet above the roofs of the home in the neighborhood. Lightning flashed briefly, and an enormous clap of thunder shook him.
This was a bad idea. A really bad idea. But he was already at the shed, so there was no point in turning around now. He didn't want to lift it up, since the wind would most likely rip it out of his hands like a kite. Instead, he dragged it back towards his house.
The wind suddenly became sharper, more intense. A low rumbling sound, like a jet engine, growled through the storm. Half of the streetlights went out, plunging the sodden road into a half-darkness.
A huge vertical column of writhing, twisting debris and water bore down on him from the end of the street. WHAT THE HELL!? Tornadoes don't happen here! What's going on!? The vortex was not like the ones you see in the movies. This one was very skinny, only as wide as the street, but it undulated and writhed like a crepe streamer in the wind. The wind suddenly changed direction, and now headed towards the twister. The shed flipped up off of the ground, knocking into Tyler. The shed's doors were open, and he fell in as it closed and latched from the outside. The tornado passed over it.
When it dissipated out of the street, the shed, and Tyler inside it, were both gone.
...
Eggman faced his plasma monitor intently with his fat chin resting on his hand, taking in the severity of the storm.
"This is definitely a strong microburst," the news reporter said, delivering his information from windblown street in downtown Westopolis. Lightning flashed in the sky behind him between the skyscrapers. "Reports of damage are already being...reported. At this time the most surprising incident involves a plastic shed...er, um..." The reporter fumbled with his dialogue as it began to hail, peppering him with tiny grains of ice. "The light shed was reported to have carried by high winds several hundred feet above the city. The plastic shed in question was empty, and crashed into the Soleanna Embassy's main window." The screen cut to an image of the Embassy, with it's sculpted front lawns and ornate fountains. The majestic Baroque building was flawless, except for the jagged gaping hole in it's central stained glass window.
"No reports of injury as of yet. However, there have been several Chaos Emerald sightings," Eggman stiffened in his chair, making it creak in protest. "Eyewitnesses are reporting that at least four Chaos Emeralds, including the Master Emerald, are orbiting around the storm. This just goes to show how unusual and violent this microburst is. In the heart of the action we have our field reporter, Ms. Ricki—" Eggman turned off the monitor. Why not pay Westopolis a little visit? he decided.
...
Tails had an audio newsfeed linked to a speaker in his biplane, and turned up the volume when he heard the report.
"We should probably head to the city and see what's up. Chaos Emeralds don't act this way without a reason." he said.
"What would make the Emeralds react so strongly that it would rip away the Master Emerald?" Sonic asked Knuckles.
"I can't say. This has never happened before, as far as I know..." he trailed off, still preoccupied with losing his home.
"We need to land outside of the Westopolis. The storm is revolving around the city, and this plane can't handle those high wind speeds." Tails told them, raising his voice to be heard over the plane's engine, which gotten louder as they began to descend.
They landed under a large tree (hoping that it would shield the biplane somewhat) and headed into the city. The sky above the towering buildings was dark; both from the night sky and the heavy, rain-soaked clouds. The streets were empty of people and Animals (animals that could speak, that is). Fletcher Plaza was in the center of the city, where the heart of the storm supposedly was. So it made sense to go there. The Plaza was a wide downtown street, flanked on all sides by hotels, restaurants, cafes, and boutiques. Gigantic advertisement screens lit up the square more effectively than any streetlight. It began to drizzle lightly as the three of them entered the Plaza, and the misty air made it difficult for any of them to see orbiting Chaos Emeralds that were supposedly flying in the sky above them.
Eventually, a layer of cloud blew out of the way as it depleted itself of water. Out of the gloom, the Emeralds made their appearance, forming a glowing, multicolored ring of energy that pierced through the clouds, several hundred feet in the air. After pulsing one more burst of light, brighter than the last, they faded and scattered, making the advertisement screens flicker slightly.
"Well that was a bust," Sonic said.
CRASH.
They all jumped at the loud noise behind them. Apparently, something small, but heavy, had landed on top of a parked car, shattering its windows.
"Woah," Sonic gasped, realizing what, or rather, who, had fallen. "Is he okay?!"
...
It hurt.
A lot.
More than a lot.
But not too much.
Just a lot.
Did that make sense?
Tyler didn't care. What he did care about was that he was confused and disoriented. The thing he lay on was hard and cold and smooth...and wet. The air smelled wet. Like rain! That's what it was. It was rain.
"Woah," someone said, near him. "Is he okay?" It was a guy's voice, he was sure. He opened his eyes, and realized he wasn't wearing his glasses.
"Are you alright?" the same voice said. Apparently, it was addressing him.
"Sonic, of course he's not okay! He landed on top of a car!" a deeper voice said.
"Calm down, Knuckles. I don't see you helping." the first voice retorted. Tyler hoped for that person's sake that 'Knuckles' was just a nickname.
"Guys, knock it off and help me get him off of here!" a third, higher voiced added. He felt someone tug at his right arm, one tug at first, and then several tugs from different people. It hurt, but he said nothing. He heard their feet shuffle and jingle through pieces of broken glass. They carefully set him down on...a curb? Was he still in his neighborhood? No, he was in...a city street? Why was he here?
He looked around him. The buildings were too tall for them to be in any Arizona city. The sky was dark and cloudy and swollen from the storm like a bruise. He could feel the wet concrete beneath him seep through his jeans. Giant commercial screens were attached to the skyscrapers, filling the street with a neon glow that hurt his eyes.
He looked at the people who had pulled him off the car. He stared in shock as he realized that these people weren't human. One was a yellow-orange cat looking thing. The other was a thicker, red teddy bear looking creature with dreadlocks and big...paws? The last one looked like some sort of blue, cartoony porcupine.
WHERE AM I?
I really like this chapter now that it's been rewritten. It was pretty bad, believe me. Sonic was almost barely in it ^^' But it's fixed now, and that's what matters. This chapter was betaread by LupinAKAFlashTH, Loor101, and Frozen Nitrogen, in some form or another. Yay them! The other early chapters will be rewritten also to match the the style of this one. Hoorah.