Chapter 1: The Queen Commands
Two centuries after Miles "Tails" Prower founded Prower Enterprises, the mega-corporation still reigned unchallenged throughout the world. The CEO Lady Veronica Prower was a direct descendant of the eponymous founder of the company. The trail of paperwork flowing through Prower Global Enterprises clearly placed Veronica as the executor of all its important affairs, but public appearances of either Veronica herself or her two children were rare to the point of some media soures questioning whether the woman really existed at all. With power lying in the Prower name, it is certain that if the family line should end, it would be in the company's best interests to continue to broadcast the claim that a Prower remained at the top of the command chain, true, but Lady Veronica was alive and in good health. According to her, she was simply "too busy for that kind of nonsense."
The head office of PGE was located in downtown Central City, not far from the Memorial Chao Garden, which was supposedly visisted regularly by members of the Prower family, though the media spies would claim otherwise as they constantly failed to get footage to verify the claim. Rumour had it that one reporter managed to get his hands on a bunch of child-like drawings left by the statue of Sonic the Hedgehog, and subsequently was fired, sued, and left an insane homeless wretch. The Prowers made no effort to prevent rumours of that nature, and for all anyone knew, it was true.
Apart from the senior board of advisors and her own staff, the only people who ever met Lady Veronica Prower regularly were the three heads of the science department of PGE: The rabbit Ramon Ichorson, the echidna Lillian (the Echidna), and the human Ernst von Casselton. Each of them geniuses in their respective areas, and likely the only three people alive who could question and criticize Lady Veronica's decisions without endangering their employement, economy, reputation and lives - in that order.
Such a thing was happening right now. The windowless office in the sub-basements of the gargantuan PGE head office building was filling with a tense silence as Veronica considered her brightest brains' objections.
"Why not?" she asked.
Veronica Prower dressed for function rather than form, but with a figure like hers, even in these later years, and a pair of overpaid fashion coordinators, that beige suit would draw awe and attention in any crowd. She was easily twice the height of her famous ancestor, and although she retained the twin tails of family fame, she had most likely never attempted to leave the ground by anything other than conventional means. At this point, those untrained tails wouldn't be able to carry her either way, so it was just as well. Her eight-year old son, on the other hand, was flying all over the place, and his five-year old sister was already trying.
"Why...why not?" Ramon Ichorson repeated, looking towards his colleagues for inspiration as to how best word himself.
Ramon was over seventy, yet still as short and stout as an animaloid child. Though possessing the highest IQ of the three, he wasn't very good at communicating his thoughts to others.
"The ethical problems are of course a great concern," said Lillian the Echidna, coming to the rescue. "But even putting that aside, we must consider the problem of obtaining a sufficient amount of speciments with high enough quality to be usable in the experiments. It's just not viable at this time."
Echidnas had a reputation of being gullible hard-headed creatures. Lillian was undoubtedly the most intelligent echidna ever born. If her family had not abandoned Angel Island two generations ago, she might never have had the chance to tap her incredible potential. Although far removed from the original echidna clones created by Miles Prower, Lillian's fur was as white as her lab coat, and her body near identical to the original female echidna clones. It was as if the cunning of Rouge the Bat, the mother of the echidna girl who'd offered the DNA that served as a base for all of the clones created, had been concentrated across the generations to produce a girl with intellect astounding by more than just echidna standards.
"However," said Ernst von Casselton. "IF a sufficient number of speciments COULD be obtained, and the nature of the research kept secret enough until it produces a positive result, then yeeees, it might be done."
Ernst was the renegade of the three. His willingness to attempt risky experiments and get beneficial results more often than not made him a very valuable member of Lady Veronica's top three. He was also the one least likely to raise any ethical objections whatsoever. One would expect the balding old man to have a potent German accent, but as it happened his English was excellent. He missed the mad scientist stereotype by a large distance.
Veronica nodded. "Speciments will not be a problem," she said, "nor will keeping the media at bay. What of Subject Zero?"
"It is in fine condition," Ernst answered. "We have had to keep it subdued for long periods at a time, as it does not respond well to containment conditions. One more day should suffice to gather enough data to work with. You may send it back, then."
"Good," said Veronica, nodding. "Its caretakers have been asking about it. I've told them the treatment at the hospital went well, but that it is being kept for observation just to be on the safe side. Another week, and I'd probably have to do something about them if they kept it up."
"It was a pleasure to work with Subject Zero," said Ramon. "A chao reborn so many times without the ageless benefit of a Chaos chao evolution is...ah...is unprecedented. W-what was the name of it, again?"
"Cheese," said Lady Veronica Prower.
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Dr. Eggman Nega has escaped from prison!
It was all over the news within the hour. The evil criminal mastermind had been captured by the combined efforts of the heros Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat, plus a number of GUE agents. Just a week ago they'd raided Nega's pyramid base in the desert East of Central City and apprehended the villainous scientist. It was still unclear how exactly Nega had managed to destroy the outer walls of his cell and summon his Negamobile to extract him before the guards could respond.
The news reached Silver and Blaze while they were having dinner at their favourite restaurant in the city.
Silver caught the chunks of hot toppings dripping off his pizza slice with his psycho-kinesis before they splattered on his lap. Stains in the fur were far more of a hassle to an animaloid than stained clothes were to a human - so this was by no means unnecessary use of superpowers.
"Nice catch," said Blaze, still waiting for her food to arrive. Her particular taste in food required a little bit more preparation time. Pizza toppings that would burn any ordinary throat to cinders were inexplicably abscent from the menu.
"Thanks."
"Did you hear?" came an obnoxiously loud voice from the next table. "Eggman Nega's escaped from jail! No, really. I just read it on my wrist-all. Look!"
Blaze sprang to attention, while Silver didn't budge. She moved to start running, then noticed her partner was still sitting put.
"What are you waiting for?" she asked. "Didn't you hear what that obnoxiously loud guy said?"
"HEY! Oh, er...sorry." The guy was as much a regular as Silver and Blaze were, and had enough past experience to immediatelly back down when he recognised the cat.
Silver looked unusually thoughtful. "Blaze, don't you think that sometimes...some things are more important than rushing off to save the world all the time?"
Blaze gave him an odd look. "It's just pizza," she said. "I'll grab a hot dog on the way, now come on!"
"Oh...alright," said Silver, standing up to follow her.
This sort of thing happened often enough that the waiter cleaned their plates off the table without pointing out that they hadn't paid for their food. They both always paid up in full, including tips, eventually.
The reason for Silver's change of attitude was a lengthy adventure across history that from Blaze's point of view only lasted about ten minutes. By the end of it, Silver had not only gained knowledge of many arcane secrets of the past, but also many disturbing details concerning his own future. So far he hadn't told Blaze about any of, for fear that doing so might upset the future somehow.
Silver would never forget about Pia. He'd be happy to forget all about that dastard Pretorious, though.
-
In a dimly-lit laboratory far underground, Cheese the Chao slept in drug-induced silence. The children and descendants of Cream the Rabbit had cared for the chao well across the generations - well enough that every single time that particular chao reached the end of its life cycle, it was reborn with full personality and all traits intact.
Panning away from the sight of the steel cage containing the 200 year-old chao, one would witness dozens of massive glass tubes containing flourescent blue liquid of an alien nature.
Project Succession was now well under way. Lady Veronic Prower would see to it that it reached its end without obstruction, no matter the cost.
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End of Chapter One.