A Thousand Suns

by Lordoftheghostking28

Mark and Monica return to Mobius when a long-ago threat arises again. Will they put an end to the threat...and the person responsible for all this?

1. Chapter 1

GhostKing here, telling you this stuff before the real story. I OWN NO ONE EXCEPT MAH OCs. Which would be Ice, Mark and Monica, and whoever else you don't recognize. Ok? For about who sings the song, it's called The Catalyst … it's Linkin Park, the best band EVAAAH. Anyway, that's enough of my ramblings. You're probably gonna want to read now. Here we go, Chapter Uno…

XxXxXxXx

MONICA

God save us everyone,

When we burn in the fires

Of a thousand suns,

For the sins of our hand,

The sins of our tongue,

The sins of our fathers,

The sins of our young…

For a while I've been crazy about this song. I love songs with meaning, and this entire album has been absolutely awesome. Unfortunately, Mark thinks otherwise.

"Monica! Turn that down!" He yelled from the computer, where he was playing some sort of first-person zombie shooting.

I turned the volume down on the speakers by one notch. Not a very big difference, but he seemed to think it was. I glanced at the back of his head and wondered where the years of our lives were disappearing to.

We were both sixteen now, and still twins. Bummer. Mark had grown about six feet so he now towered over me (He was really proud of that) and weighed about as much as a twig. The kid was really underweight...But even though he had grown a ton, he still had the same 13-year old face from so long ago. No chance of sprouting a beard for some time. To make up for the loss of facial hair, he began to grow his hair on his head down past his ears. I thought he looked a bit like Justin Bieber.

If Mark was just getting lamer and lamer, then I was the complete opposite. Over the last two years, my face had changed from the kid to the young woman. I had a sort of intoxicating effect on boys, even though I hated all of them and never wore any makeup. I kept my blondish brown hair back in a long ponytail. Overall, I was almost a completely different person.

But one thing that hadn't changed over the years was our parents. Description wise, they were still the same, save a few streaks of gray in their hair. But sense our last adventure, they had hardly let us out of their sight. Sometimes I really began to get annoyed by that.

To save face,

How low can you go?

Talk a lot of game

And yet you don't know.

Static on the way

Make us all say "Whoa!"

The people on top push the people

Down low.

Get down,

And obey every word.

S-

"MONICA!" Mark shouted. "I'm shooting zombies! Keep it down! The fate of the world rests on my shoulders!"

"Yeah, sure." I smiled, turning off the computer monitor.

Mark sat there, shock written all over his face. "What the freaking heck?"

"This is the freaking heck." I whacked him with a pillow.

"I'm gonna kill you!" Mark laughed, grabbing another pillow as I ran out of the room.

We eventually ran into our parents downstairs and we got into an all-out pillow fight. It was rather fierce. My dad almost fell out the window.

Eventually we all collapsed on the ground, laughing and nursing multiple bruises and cuts from running into things.

"I never saw that coming." My mom laughed.

"Me neither." I admitted.

"Well, then. I'm going to make dinner." My dad said, going into the kitchen. "Italian tonight!"

"Yes! My favorite!" Mark and I shouted at the same time, pumping our fists into the air.

XxXxXxXx

Meanwhile, on Mobius, something sinister was at hand.

"Why…why are they killing us?" Blaze asked in a daze. "Where did they even come from?"

She watched from her perch high in a tree as a group of people in white lab coats stormed a small building. A loud scream emitted from it. Blaze turned away and tried to make out the faces of the people in the opposite direction.

One caught her eye.

It was the man that Monica had sentenced twenty years to jail two years ago. Back before the portal never opened again. But here were intruders, obviously not native to the planet.

The portal was opening again.

But why?

Blaze jumped out of the tree and kept to the shadows as she made her way away from the building and the other people. If they could find out why it was opening again, they could once again meet up with Mark and Monica…and once again save their worlds together.

Blaze was just about to reach the main road when they spotted her.

XxXxXxXx

MARK

I woke up that night from a terrible dream. Most of it had to be from all the zombie shooting earlier that day. But there was one part of the dream that made me worry…

"You're up, too?" Monica's voice from above took me by surprise.

"Nightmares," I muttered. "you?"

"I don't know." Monica turned over in her bunk so she was staring at me upside-down. "But I've got this weird feeling…"

"I guess that's how you'd put it." I responded.

"I think your dream was just from all that zombie killing earlier today." I didn't need light to tell that she was smiling. We knew each other too well.

"That doesn't explain your bad feeling." I retorted.

"It could just be our awesomely awesome twin psychic connection." She said sarcastically.

"Now you're sounding like Silver," I said. "maybe we're both just thinking about what happened about three years ago."

Monica grew silent. That was very unlike her, but people who knew her well would know she was deep in thought. Finally she asked, "What was your dream about?"

"Fire," I nearly whispered. "everywhere."

Monica just about fell out of her bunk. "You're joking. That was what I was dreaming about."

"A house went up in flames to begin with…" I started.

"…I saw someone dying…" Monica continued.

"…the fire took a shape…"

"…and then it lunged at me…"

"Us, Mark. Us."

A moment of silence. Both Monica and I had had the same dream. Although this wasn't the first time, it was by far the most scary. Monica was terrified of fire ever since the lab burned down and she was nearly killed. I, too, had developed a phobia of the thing, although it wasn't as severe. Monica won't even let our parents light a fire in the fireplace.

"What do you think it means?" Monica asked.

"It think it means it's time to play Stage Five: Level Two again." I said.

"We've tried that so many times I lost count! I swear I could play that stage with my eyes shut and win fifty times over!" Monica protested.

"We've got to try." I said. "Just for a while. If nothing happens we can go play Black Ops."

"I still find it weird that we own every Sonic game for the Wii/GameCube...and then we have Black Ops. What a nice combination." Monica snickered.

"Go away. I was sleeping before you started talking to me." I grumbled.

"Whatever." Monica said.

XxXxXxXx

Even though we owned Black Ops, nothing had ever happened before. Like, say, for example: We go into the freaking game.

Perhaps that was a good thing.

"Monica! Zombie at eight o'clock!" I warned, firing the last of my ammo at an oncoming zombie. I began knifing them next.

"Nice catch, Mark," Monica's eyes were narrowed on the current fight in front of us. She wasn't one to go down easily, as I've found out over the years.

We began our Saturday morning by playing Black Ops. Even though we agreed last night to play Sonic games first. Oh well. We're sixteen. What do you expect?

"Aw, crap." Monica announced a bit later when our defenses were beginning to fall. "Stupid fast zombie…"

So after that delightful game of zombie massacre we switched games.

"Here, I'll prove to you that I can play through this stage with my eyes shut." Monica said.

And she did. It was rather impressive. But literally as soon as she completed the level I heard something from upstairs. Mom and Dad couldn't possibly be back yet… could they? Mom was off at friend's house and Dad was at work.

"What was that?" Monica heard it too. She put the game to the menu and headed for the stairs. "Mom? Dad?"

A muffled thump answered her. Without waiting for me to say anything, she ran up the steps. I followed, hoping that we didn't accidently play any zombies out of Black Ops and they were now overrunning the neighborhood.

No one was in the living room. All clear there. No one in the kitchen. Monica crossed over to one of the drawers in the kitchen and drew out a long knife. "Just in case." She whispered, glancing nervously towards the last room on the first level.

We entered into the room at the same time, ready for action. Who we saw made Monica drop her weapon with a loud clatter, causing the 'intruder' to jump and fall against the wall.

I left Monica's side and ran to Shadow's. He seemed disoriented and on edge and jumped back from me. "Who are you? Where am I?"

"Shadow, it's us! Mark and Monica!" I said. "What's going on? Why are you here?"

Shadow blinked hard. "…Mark?"

"What's going on?" Monica asked.

"Monica…that scientist that tried to kill us…he's on Mobius."

I thought Monica would collapse. Instead she quickly sank into the nearest chair. "You mean that guy I called Ice?"

"Him and his Nanobots,"

This time I nearly fell. "How? How did he get to your world? What's going on here?"

The Nanobots were what I hoped to be just a thing of the past. Last time we met up with Sonic and the gang they were framed for kidnapping us when really we joined together to find Eggman before something… bad… happened. But, as usual, the bad thing happened anyway. The leader of a cruel band of scientists—who Monica nicknamed Ice on account of his eyes and not knowing his real name—nearly killed Silver in an experiment involving something called Nanobots; robots that were so tiny a red blood cell would appear as big as the world is to us. Once injected into a living organism's blood stream, the Nanobots would flock to the most vital organs in its body; the heart and brain. The ones in the brain would delete or alter any memory the injector wishes to tamper with. The ones around the heart were only there for a last resort; if the controlled organism resists, the Nanobots would eat through its heart, killing it instantly. They would either be forced to act as slaves to a more-than-likely deathly cause or die themselves. After Monica saved Silver from Ice, she returned to the lab to help save the others along with mark, but Ice locked her and Shadow into the burning lab. They just barely escaped alive.

"Nothing good. He…he got Blaze," Shadow nearly whispered. "and me."

"Oh no…" Monica was so pale I thought I was looking at a ghost. "How did you get here, then?"

"I had at the most ten seconds to grab an Emerald and escape here after he injected me. But now…if he tells me to do anything…I'll be forced to do it. As long as I'm away from him I'm… not effected." Shadow explained.

"What about Blaze?" I asked barely loud enough to hear.

"I don't know." Shadow whispered.

"The others?"

"Safe, for the moment."

"What about your entire world?"

"…"

"This isn't good."

"We have to go back there." Monica spoke up. "We have to stop Ice. A menace like him should never be around anyone or anything alive."

"I don't know if I'll be able to take you with me." Shadow said. "I only have one Emerald."

"Well, it's gonna have to do," I decided. "we're going with you."

XxXxXxXx

"What I don't understand is how they've gotten so many of us already." Tails whispered. He and Sonic were perched up in a tall tree, witnessing the horror below.

"It's because they got just one of us…and look what happened. But I do know what we can do for the time being. We need to warn Silver and Knuckles before Blaze reaches them first." Sonic began jumping to lower branches. "Tails, hurry. We weren't exacally concealed anyway."

Tails nodded worriedly, but he began following. In the distance he vaguely made out a cloud of smoke…

XxXxXxXx

MONICA

I grabbed a small pocketknife and stowed it in my side pocket. I hoped I wouldn't be able to use it, but then again…

"Ready?" Mark asked. As far as I knew, he didn't seem like he was bringing anything.

"As ready as I'll ever be." I answered with a nervous smile. I turned to Shadow, who was waiting impatiently for us by the door.

"Let's go!" Mark said. He seemed a bit too excited about the whole thing…must be all that zombie shooting he did earlier.

"Be prepared for anything," Shadow warned, holding the yellow Chaos Emerald out in front of him. "and I mean anything."

Both Mark and I nodded. We've been through some pretty scary times. We should be able to escape this and finally bring Ice to justice.

"CHAOS CONTROL!"

A bright flash of light engulfed us. I shut my eyes tight, and when I opened them I found myself in a semi-dark room. A quick glance around told me that we were in danger.

"MARK!" I grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the reach of a nearby scientist. We backed up against the wall with nowhere to run.

"Perfect. Good work, Shadow."

I recognized the voice only too well. I clenched my fists, hoping for a chance to strike at Ice's smug face. He walked up next to Shadow and seemed to stare into my soul.

"As you probably know by now, Shadow didn't go to your world out of his own free will. The Nanobots are so strong they can still be controlled even when we're on separate planets. I specifically wanted you two here to witness the change." Ice's smile got even more smug, if that was possible. I wanted more than ever to rush forward and knock him into next week.

"Now I know what to expect when people say expect the unexpected." Mark muttered.

"Don't talk." One of Ice's nerdy minions commanded.

"So…why do you want us, exacally?" I asked innocently. "Because if I remember correctly, you tried to kill me in a fire."

"Because," Ice laughed coldly. It sent shivers down my spine. "because you started this invasion, Monica. You and Mark. Didn't they, Shadow?"

The expression on Shadow's face took me by surprise. It was one of pure hatred and resent. If I could back up any more, I would have.

"You will die for what you've done," He hissed, taking a few steps forward towards us. "you killed Maria."

"We…what? No!" Mark squeaked.

"Destroy them, Shadow." Ice commanded. He and his group of scientists backed out of the room. There was an electronic click and we were left to face our friend.

My hand fell onto the small knife in my pocket. Even if I didn't use it, it was still good for threatening. I drew it out and angled it so it caught the dim light. "Don't make me hurt you."

Shadow laughed and pulled the Chaos Emerald out of his quills. "What's a puny blade going to do to me?"

"Probably a lot. Monica's holding it." Mark said unhelpfully.

I got into a fencing stance. One of my main strengths in combat was close hand-to-hand. Give me a sword or knife and I'm almost unstoppable. But then again…I've never fought my angry Chaos controlling friend.

"Check the doors, Mark." I hissed, taking a few steps towards my opponent. I saw Mark nod out of the corner of my eye and leave.

"Shadow, listen to me." I started. "We didn't start this invasion. It was Ice. You're being controlled by the Nanobots. Snap out of it. Remember all we went through together?"

For a brief moment I thought I saw a glimmer of remembrance in his eyes, but it was gone just as soon as it appeared, replaced by hatred again. He took a few more steps toward me and I held the knife so if I felt like lunging, I would stab him through his head. "Remember? Earth! We escaped into the woods with everyone else!"

Was that a flicker of doubt?

"You lie," he finally said. "that never happened."

"It did." I insisted. "It really, truly did happen."

"They're all locked, Monica." Mark squeaked from across the room.

I figured the only chance of us surviving would be to knock the Chaos Emerald from Shadow's hand. And I had to do it before he started attacking us with it. This was going to be fun…

I lunged to the left, throwing him of guard but not enough to get him to drop the Emerald. Shadow jumped backwards and raised the gem and shouted, "Chaos, Con-"

Mark ran at him from behind and managed to shove him into the wall. The yellow Emerald bounced twice and rolled towards me. I shot towards it and scooped it up, feeling an odd energy course through my arm and throughout my entire body. It was powerful. I felt like I could blow this entire room to bits.

Shadow thrust his elbow into Mark's stomach, knocking the wind out of my brother and causing him to double up with pain. The action made rage flare up in my heart and I clutched the Emerald in my hand and shouted, "Chaos Spear!"

Twin bolts of energy shot out of my hand and hit the door behind Shadow, just barely missing his head. The door burst open and alarms began to blare. I saw two people running down the hall, screaming.

A genuine look of shock was plastered to Shadow's face. But I didn't give him a chance to say anything. A Chaos Spear to the chest sent him crashing in a corner, unconscious. I grabbed Mark's arm and hauled him to his feet.

"Monica, let go of the Emerald!" He grabbed the Emerald from me and stowed it in his sweater's pocket. Instantly, the rage and power I felt disappeared, leaving me feeling…normal again.

"How did I do that?" I wondered out loud. "I've held the Emeralds before…why didn't that happen then?"

"No time for that now! We need to get out of here!" Mark recovered enough to bolt towards the door. I glanced back at Shadow, but there was nothing we could do at the moment. I turned to follow my brother.

XxXxXxXx

Tails found the others on top of a tall building. He quickly landed and was instantly greeted by Knuckles, who looked about ready to knock him off back into the skies.

"They didn't get me, I swear!" Tails squeaked. "I couldn't find anyone else. They're all hidden away."

"So as far as we know, you, Knuckles, Sonic and I are the only ones not taken over by Ice?" Silver took a pair of binoculars and searched the horizon. "More fires. I hope Blaze and Shadow are ok…"

"I can't guarantee they are." Sonic muttered from where he was leaning against a generator. "Knowing Ice for that brief time…he seemed like he actually knew what he was doing."

"Unfortunately," Knuckles sighed.

The four of them didn't speak for a long time until Silver said quite loudly, "I see someone! Wait…two people! They're heading this direction!"

"Get ready." Sonic was standing in a flash. "We might have to fight."

"Wait…" Silver said. "I don't think we have to worry about fighting…"

"What do you mean?" Tails asked.

"I mean that those two people might be able to help us!" And with that, he literally threw the binoculars in the air and flew towards the distance.

"Is he crazy?" Knuckles demanded.

"Hard telling." Sonic muttered. "Come on. He might need backup."

XxXxXxXx

MARK

It wasn't very hard getting out of the base/lab thing. Just a few turns, up a few flights, fight off a few guards…and we were seeing sunlight again. But something didn't seem right about this place…

"Do you sense that?" Monica whispered, taking in our surroundings. "There's an intense evil around…"

"I see something." I said. "In the distance. Is that fire?"

"The evil is there." Monica said. She seemed distracted. "I have so many questions now. I don't know which ones I want answered first."

"We'll start with how you can control the power of the Chaos Emeralds." I said. "We'll work our way off from there. Which direction now?"

"That way," Monica pointed away from the fire. "it's safest…for now."

And on that happy note, we continued forward. I wondered how exacally Monica could use the power of the Emeralds while we walked. Was it from the power that saved her…it passed on some energy to her and she just adapted it? So many questions, so few answers.

For example: What the heck is making a beeline towards us?

"Um…" I muttered. "Should we run?"

"Running sounds good." Monica agreed. We turned left and began running as fast as we could.

But before we could get very far Monica muttered something along the lines of, "OUCH!" and she hit the ground hard. I spun around, ready to attack, to see someone I thought I'd never see again.

"Monica! Monica! You're back! This is great!" Silver squealed. He had apparently tacked Monica to the ground in a huge hug and he looked about ready to cry with happiness.

"Yeah, I'm back," Monica muttered, her face buried in the grass, muffling her words. "and I sort of want some answers."

"I really missed you!"

"We've established that."

"Why is Ice here? I thought we got rid of him! I don't like that guy!"

"That's what we're trying to figure out."

"Monica?"

"Yeah?" Monica sounded annoyed.

"Are you gonna stay until we get rid of him?"

"Of course. Silver?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you ever gonna let me up?"

I began laughing, but quickly shut up with Monica shot me a death glare. She got up, brushing dirt and grass off her shirt. But Silver had sent her skidding across the ground, so her red shirt had green grass stains on it.

"You look like Christmas." I snickered.

"Can it; you baby faced, thirty-foot-tall, clumsy giant."

I felt some heat rising in my cheeks, but my attention was drawn away from that fact when I heard the yell of, "Silver, that the heck were you thinking-MONICA! MARK!"

I turned to see Tails land from flying and rush over towards us, closely followed by Knuckles and Sonic, both of whom looked equally surprised.

"How did you get here?" Knuckles asked.

"Shadow." Monica muttered. "He came for us…but he had been injected with the Nanobots…we were almost killed."

"Blaze was too." Sonic said.

"So we've heard."

There was an awkward pause that lasted a whole of thirty seconds, broken by Tails' observation: "We should go back to the building because we're really exposed out here. I don't want anyone else to get captured by Ice."

"So you don't know his real name either?" I asked.

"Never heard it." Silver piped up. "Although I wouldn't be surprised if his name really was Ice."

We came to a huge building after about twenty five minuets of walking. Tails pointed to a small door and we entered that way to get up to the roof. From up there we discovered their makeshift camp. A few small tents were nestled against and between generators, providing hidden shelter if it was needed. There was a small box that was full of canned goods and a few extra blankets and pillows. We had it made up here.

"I'm guessing you want to know what's been happening around here lately." Sonic said. "This place's changed a lot since you were here."

"I believe it." I said.

"You see those fires?" Knuckles pointed in the distance, where more smoke was rising into the sky. "They've been popping up all over, mostly from the Flames. Last time you were here…this was going on but it hadn't spread over where we were yet. Now nearly half the planet is destroyed thanks to this."

"And to make matters worse there's a really creepy fire demon thing." Silver said, digging through the box of food. "Ooooh, hey! Peaches!"

Knuckles rolled his eyes and continued. "Like he said, there's a 'creepy fire demon thing.' This thing has a name, and it's been the one to blame for the fires. It's literally splitting the world apart."

I saw Monica cast a nervous glance at the fires that could be seen. I could only imagine what she was going though. First the lab…and now a whole planet being consumed by fire.

"It's called Iblis." She whispered.

"How did you know?" Silver asked. "Did Shadow tell you about him?"

"I…I just…know." Monica said. "I don't know how or why. I just know."

"Sixth sense?"

"I'm not sure."

"Monica's been able to control the Chaos power of the Emeralds." I interjected. "Earlier today…Shadow attacked us, thinking we were to blame for the Nanobots. She managed to get ahold of the Emerald and use its power, but it was like it was trying to take control of her."

There was a moment of silence. I thought I could hear the burning in the distance.

"It's got to be from when Shadow revived her from the smoke." Tails said at last. "He gave her an Emerald to give her strength to live…it must have passed some power onto her. She might not be able to control a fraction of the power that Sonic, Silver or Shadow can control, but still. She can probably use complete Chaos attacks too."

"I knew it." I said proudly.

"But she's got to be careful or else the power can take control of her."

"That's why I'm holding onto the Emerald." I pulled it out of my pocket. "I can't feel any power or do anything with it, but sometimes it tells me things."

"What kind of things?" Silver asked.

I gave him a creepy smile. "Evil things…"

"Stop it, Mark." Monica hissed as Silver's eyes got wide and scared.

"I'm kidding." I laughed. Silver looked relieved, but still a little spooked. "When we were in the lab…I could sense it telling me things, even guiding me. Monica could too."

"Weird. Most people can't use the Emeralds even like that." Knuckles muttered, mostly to himself. "Well, one thing's for sure, you two are a great addition to our side."

"Anything else about this place?" Monica asked, glancing behind her at the fires in the distance again. "Anyone or anything we need to watch out for?"

"Watch out for fire, Iblis, Ice, those dumb scientists, Nanobots, anyone injected with the Nanobots; which would be Blaze and Shadow and a whole lot of others, and probably Eggman. But we haven't heard from him in a long time." Tails said.

"Right. Got it." I said. "So what's our plan?"

"Right now…it's to survive." Sonic said. "We were taken by surprise by the fires and Ice; and Blaze was our main plan-maker."

"You're pathetic." Monica sighed. "Blaze didn't make every plan, did she?"

"Well…" Knuckles thought for a while.

"There was that one time when we planned a sneak attack on Shadow without her…" Sonic snickered.

"Yeah, but you ruined that." Tails rolled his eyes.

"That plan wasn't really thought out!" Sonic protested.

"Yes, it was. You just couldn't shut up." Silver said.

Monica facepalmed.

"Ok, for right now the plan is to survive until we come up with a plan. Sound good to everyone? Good." I decided.

"You're an even worse planner than Knuckles." Sonic cracked up.

"At least I don't snort in complete silence, unlike someone I know." Knuckles retorted.

"This is hopeless." Monica sighed.

"You're telling me." I snickered.

XxXxXxXx

"How could you let them escape?"

"The girl…Monica…she can use Chaos power too."

Ice stopped directly in front of Shadow and stared down at him with his daggerlike eyes. "I commanded you to destroy them, and you didn't."

"I couldn't stop them."

"You can't stop this either," Ice hissed. "you're going to feel the worst pain you've ever felt."

This was what most of the scientists called 'phantom pain.' No harm was done to the victim's body physically. It was all in their head, caused by the Nanobots. But it sure seemed real, judging by the violent reactions. Shadow screamed and dropped to the ground, curling into a small ball, trying to block out the agony.

"Stop," Ice said harshly and clearly. Shadow relaxed slightly as the Nanobots released him from the pain, but he knew there'd be more.

"You will not let them escape again. If you fail…" Ice trailed off. "You want to avenge those who died right?" he said instead.

"I'll die to avenge them." Shadow struggled back to his feet.

"Then go and bring them to me. You'll meet up with another who will help you with this task, just in case it is beyond your ability."

"I will not fail."

"Let's hope so."

XxXxXxXx

MONICA

I couldn't sleep that night for two reasons. One: was it just me, or were the fires drawing closer? And two: Knuckles was the loudest snorer I've ever herd, which is saying something.

"Shut up, Knuckles, just shut up!" I heard Mark mutter, but a few seconds later he began snoring.

I wasn't going to sleep at all. That much was apparent.

"Screw this," I whispered, drawing my knees up to my chin and staring out over the darkened world, where it was only lit up by the fire. I wondered if it would draw closer by morning.

"Oh, you can't sleep either?"

I jumped at Tails' voice. He crawled out from one of the tents and sat next to me, his fur ruffled from tossing and turning. "I don't think we have to worry about the fire if that's what you're worried about."

"How fast does it spread?" I asked.

"On average…well…no one knows. No one really wants to go near it. But I've heard it's engulfed whole neighborhoods in a week at least." Tails said. "But we'll be long gone before it reaches here."

"Good to know," I muttered.

"Is there a way to destroy the Nanobots?"

His question took me by surprise. Was there a way?

"I don't know." I said instead. "There could be…but I'd have to get inside that lab."

A few seconds of silence, broken only by the loud snores.

"I swear, if I get ahold of a baseball bat…" I growled, pounding my fist into my palm. "He's gonna be out so cold for a month he won't even snore."

XxXxXxXx

Eventually the sun rose. Tails and I pretty much stayed where we were for the remainder of the night.

"You won't believe the dreams I had," Mark groaned, pulling himself out of a tent. "I dreamed something happened and we all lived on a cloud or something."

"That's nice," I rolled my eyes. It was pretty apparent that he wasn't totally awake yet.

"I dreamed of ice cream!" Silver piped up.

"I hope you dreamed me eating it."

"No, actually it fell in the fire."

"What a waste."

"So what's our plan, if we even have a plan?" Mark interrupted, yawning. "Just sit here?"

"Unless you can think of one." Knuckles said. "We're no match against the Nanobots."

I grabbed a can of pears and set to work opening it. "Sooner or later we have to do something. Ice is after us, and he came pretty close to succeeding in his evil plans last time. We can't let him succeed this time, and we can't really do anything if we're sitting here doing nothing."

"...Good point!" Silver said.

"But we can't do anything about those taken over by the Nanobots. We need a way to deactivate them or something." Mark said.

"Maybe we can short circuit them somehow?" Knuckles suggested.

"That's a possibility." I nodded.

Sonic took that moment to crawl out of his tent, grab a can of peaches, and try dragging himself back in. Mark grabbed his foot and pulled him into our group. "Come on, Sonic. We need everyone working on this."

"I'm tired," Sonic muttered.

"Too bad."

"Can you think of any ideas on how to override the Nanobots?" Tails asked. "We think we can maybe short-circuit them."

"Yeah…that sounds good. Can I sleep now?"

"You can sleep when you're dead." Knuckles growled.

I rolled my eyes and stared out where the fire was smoldering in the distance. Was it closer? Great, now I'm all paranoid.

"I think we should head back to the lab," Mark said. "we've got a Chaos Emerald, and most of us here can control the Chaos attacks. We might have a chance."

"Keyword is might." I muttered.

"Is that really the only plan we have to work with?" Tails sighed. "Well…it's better than nothing."

"So we're going to invade?" Silver squeaked.

"I think that's the only thing we can do at the moment."

"So when do we head out there?" Knuckles asked.

"Now."

XxXxXxXx

MARK

We began heading off the way we had come the previous day. The fires in the distance seemed to be brighter, lighting up the atmosphere and making morning come too early. Monica was checking supplies that she had put in a small bag, making sure we had everything we could possibly need.

"Ok…food…water…First Aid…Chaos Emerald…um…May I ask why there's duct tape?"

"In case we need to tie someone up." Silver said. "Plus I can do cool things with it."

"Ok then…" Monica rolled her eyes and lifted the strap of the backpack over her shoulder.

We walked in silence for a while. I could tell that the quiet was making everyone nervous, so I did the lamest thing ever.

I started a sing along to a Linkin Park song which only Monica and I knew.

"You fail," Tails laughed.

That was true. I sounded like a dying bear or something. No American Idol for me…

So on we went, still in silence but with lighter spirits.

"What powers them?" Sonic said after a while.

"Excuse me?" Monica asked.

"The Nanobots. I mean…where do they get their power source?"

That made me think. The Nanobots were about a trillion times smaller than a red blood cell…and most of their structure seemed to be for communication and responding to commands. Where would its power source be? How much energy did all of them together use up?

"What if it acts like a parasite," Tails started. "draining the energy from its host? But there's so many of them…who knows how much energy they steal away."

"If that's the case, then I think the prisoners of Ice are in more trouble than we originally thought." I said at last. "Now we really need to get a move on."

All of us began to walk faster. Was that a building in the distance? Or just another column of smoke?

Either way, I was ready.

A/N: I hope you understand what they just sort of figured out. So the Nanobots are powered by the host, or so they think. Sorry the beginning was a little slow. The following chapters will be better, I promise. Remember to review!