Time had passed by slowly since the last events from Eggman's evil scheme of destroying the world, yet again. Too slowly for Sonic's liking, Tails noted, as he saw Sonic running out that goddamn door for the thousandth time that month. Sonic was desperate for a fight, anything that could test his limit. Everyone else could have taken a sweet long vacation before duty called. But they had decided to train even more than last time. Eggman's plan might have succeeded if they didn't have that unyielding determination of justice. And yet, a feeling of dread settled upon everyone as they had yet to have heard anything from Eggman.
It was all too calm.
At the moment, Tails had decided to search for the rest of the chaos emeralds. They had three at their disposal for the moment. It was always good to have a good power backup, in case everything else went wrong. He had spent that whole entire month upgrading his airplane and other necessary gadgets. His airplane was now able to reach five hundred miles per hour, making it necessary to have stronger materials that are able to withstand such speeds. With the help of a chaos emerald, it activates a force field that protects it from heavy blows.
"Man I am starving right now. I could really use some energy food at the moment. Chili dogs wouldn't go badly for me at the moment," the blue hedgehog entered, going straight to the refrigerator. He closed it as he saw all that was in there was uncooked vegetables and leftovers from a week ago. He wasn't the cooking type, nor Tails. Tails just gave out a loud sigh as he continued to go back to his work. "Tails, where's the chili dogs making machine, it isn't where it used to be half an hour ago?"
"In the shed house, where it belongs." It was a loathsome gift for Sonic, really. He had wasted a lot of time fixing that machine for Sonic. Too many times that he had finally decided to put it somewhere that didn't get in the way of his work, even though there was enough space for a classroom in there. But in his mind, that machine took too much space. He yet again sighed when he saw that dreadful machine back in its little pristine corner of glory. Goddammit, he thought.
"Tails," Sonic drawled as he gave his fox friend a creepy smile. He kept going at it for half a minute now, but for Tail's it felt like an eternity.
"For the love of Chaos! Sonic you have the speed of sound. Go buy yourself the chili dogs." He turned around to see Sonic already gorging on a plate of chili dogs. He growled as he saw Sonic just grin with crumbs falling from his mouth. "I don't even see the point of stuffing your stomach with unhealthy foods. You're going to get fat."
"He's already fat," said a voice as a pair of footsteps entered Tail's workshop. There went Tails' morning for some sweet quiet morning. He should really start working on a soundproof barrier for his lab.
"What, this handsome body? You must be crazy Shads. Hey, Ames." He waved as he ignored Shadow's glare.
"Morning Sonic, back from your mini excursion around the continent?" He merely shrugged with a cocky smile, rendering Amy to start walking to Tail's minilab sector. "Hey Tails! How's that chaos emerald locator going? Still stuck on how speeding up the sequence?"
"Nope past that the moment you left. Any news back in Central City? You guys seem exhausted." He asked already taking his goggles and lab coat off. He noticed Amy frown at Shadow as he merely shook his head in response and gave a deep sigh.
"You haven't seen the news?" Tails merely shook his head as he went ahead to produce a hologram from his watch, another one of his inventions. He was met with a reporter in front of the Museum of Ancient History. Green smoke was evident across the scene as injured citizens were transported to ambulances. He saw a brief glance of his friends helping the G.U.N. officials. Knuckles was helping break down the rubble, while Rouge was busy locating the injured due to her super hearing. Shadow and Amy were carrying the disabled to near medical posting around the museum.
"The hell happened there?" Sonic asked, stopping midway from biting a chili dog. He no longer felt like eating, as a feeling of guilt had settled on his stomach. It got worse as he saw a little boy fainted in Shadow's arms. He frowned, in confusion. How could he have not noticed being so close to the city? The event from yesterday, it seemed so real to be fake. His surroundings have been altered yesterday, to the point he didn't know it was all an illusion.
"We don't exactly know. At first, we thought it was Eggman. We tried contacting you Tails, your medical robots would have been much help. We then called Sonic, but he had answered saying he was battling Eggman back in Night Babylon." Shadow and she both took of their wristwatches, handing them back to Tails. "But then we noticed the transmission was from a few months ago. Only the time had been changed." Amy continued as she patted Sonic's soldier.
"Well, what happened?" Tails placed the watched on his x-ray machine, already scanning what was wrong with them. The light turned green, signaling nothing was wrong. He turned to the hedgehogs and shrugged. It certainly wasn't the watch that was malfunctioning. The radio transmission they had received was from months ago, just sent over again. It was strange indeed.
"Radio transmissions weren't able to reach their destination. A strange phenomenon with the artifacts brought from the new island is a speculation of Knuckles. He believes they were somehow interacting with the chaos emerald I had in hand." He brought out his green chaos emerald, a bit duller than usual. He turned to look at Sonic, a questioning look in his eyes as he crossed his arms. "What happened? You weren't there. And you obviously weren't fighting Eggman."
"I think I was in a trance." Sonic simply took out his chaos emerald, it's shine gone like Shadow's emerald. He turned to Shadow, scrutinizingly looking at him. He waited a moment before a moment of apprehension dawned on Sonic. "You didn't see it, did you now? You came here to ease your doubts." Shadow merely nodded, already taking a seat.
"Trance? Shadow is that why you were heading-"
"North of Central City." Sonic finished Amy's sentence, a dark look now settling on his face as he came to the realization. Something had the power to alter their realities. His question now was why? Was it the chaos emeralds, or were he and Shadow the intended target? It made sense, they were the strongest opponents. And yet it didn't it. His friends were more than capable of taking any target. They weren't weak. They had grown stronger over the months, even Cream for crying out chaos!
"What did you both see?" Tails and Amy asked simultaneously.
"It's what we didn't see. I didn't see nor hear the explosions go off. I only saw the green fireworks and smoke." Sonic said, already shoving chili dogs to ease his discomfort. (He ate as a coping mechanism, a habit carried over from his childhood.) The explosions seemed like fireworks to him. He had gone to check them out, just in case anything went wrong. He arrived at the museum that wasn't supposed to be there, police and G.U.N. soldiers already surrounding the perimeter. They had clearly told him he wasn't allowed there, yielding Sonic to leave.
They turned to look at Shadow, waiting for his part of the story.
"I could hear a damn thing in there. The ringing was too much, I couldn't block it out. I just saw the green smoke filling the museum and Rouge was already calling reinforcements. If it weren't for Knuckles and Amy dragging me towards the damage, I would have met you, faker."
"But who would have such power? And why would they do it?" Tails wondered, the feeling of dread returning to disturb the once peaceful moment he had a few minutes ago. It was one to alter one's reality while physically connected to such machine. But to do it without it? It was unlike Eggman to do so. Someone else was toying with them. They were lurking in the shadows, waiting for a simple miscalculation from them. One simple mistake.
"Simple. The artifacts were probably the intended target. They had just arrived a day before the attack." Amy said as she leaned forward, placing her face between her palms.
"You guys keep mentioning artifacts. Where did they come from? Where are they now?" Sonic asked.
"Rouge is borrowing them, without Knuckles awareness," Shadow smirked. The bat had really been drawn to the shiny artifacts, despite them being too weird for her tastes. Not that he knew what her tastes were, but he had a broad idea of them. She spent hours talking about jewels and treasures when he and Omega were on missions with her. It was practically drilled into his head.
"You see Sonic, here is where it gets weird," Amy started and glanced at Shadow. He had stood up to make himself some coffee. He raised a cup with a questioning look and she nodded. "We were at the museum to look over some newfound artifacts that were dug up in some island. I told Tails about it, an island that appeared around 50 years ago. Nothing is really known about the island. Some explorers were sent to learn more about this island." She was handed her coffee along with some cookies.
"The explorers hadn't returned until 10 years later. Based on G.U.N. reports, it wasn't safe to touch. Investigators weren't sent afterward." Shadow continued feeding Tails with the information as he sipped on his black coffee, burning his tongue in the process. He sighed once again, just about to put a cookie in his mouth. "They've spent a lot of time trying to hide that damn island. They believed it had something to do with the incident in the Space Colony ARK fifty years ago." He gave a hollow chuckle, as the rest just stared back warily. "They really made sure no one would find that damn island."
"There isn't any other source, apart from G.U.N.? I don't really trust an organization full of secrets." Tails meekly asked, cautiously looking at Shadow, who had his eyes closed as he sipped on his coffee. Amy nodded as she reached for the powdered jelly cookies that she asked Shadow to pass over. After finishing one cookie, she looked at Tails.
"The investigators' point of view. Those guys had gone to the island and investigate it. So they must have known some valuable information. Pure logic." She chewed on another cookie. "Shadow here, having access to the files was able to find out who they were."
"And have you talked to them?" Sonic asked.
"No, we haven't. But it turns out one of them were known to be an acquaintance of Dr. Gerald Robotnik. G.U.N. doesn't know about it. It was thanks to the coded diary Dr. Gerald Robotnik that Shadow decoded a while ago. He was able to recognize the name." Amy said and stared at the plate were the cookies were at. A frown of bewilderment was painted on her face a she looked up and focused her view on Sonic. Sonic stared back at her, trying to figure out what was going through her mind that made her look at him like that. She just shook her head as she smiled gently at him.
It was silent for a while. Only the constant sips and clicking keys from Tails computer were heard.
"Do you think Eggman had something to do with it?" Sonic asked the unasked question
"It seems to advance for the Doctor to experiment with illusions. He's more lenient on physically crushing his enemies." Shadow said.
"Oh well. We'll just have to wait for him to show." Tails said as he stood up from the yellow-velvet couch.
"I am going to take a nap outside in the hammock. Wake me up when Knuckles and Rouge arrive." Amy said while stretching. Then she exited through the back door, gleefully smiling. She had beat Shadow to the hammock, knowing it was the only place he spent most of his time in. He smirked as he saw her retreating form.
"Have you added an extra hammock there?" Shadow inquired as he looked at Tails.
"Well, since most of the time our friends come over bruised and tired, I added those hammocks to relax and repose. If you want a blanket and pillow just lift the fox stone and the tree will reveal it." Tails said as he was typing the questions he will later ask the explorers of the strange island.
"Nice," the black hedgehog said, feeling lucky to finally sleep a little. He didn't really need it since he was the Ultimate Life Form. And after sleeping for so many years, sleep was at the bottom of his priorities. Yet it was nice to relax for a while and let some tense shoulders loose. Even he had his limits. He then followed the pink hedgehog's suit.
"Well Tails, I will be out for another run. Anything you will need?" Sonic asked as he walked out the front door.
"Yeah, just pick up the box from Mr. James. They're some things I need for new upgrades. Also some more treats. Amy and Shadow finished them." He gloomy stared at the empty box of his favorite cookies. He really ought to hide them better.
"Alright. See ya," and he rushed out the door leaving a gust of the wind behind.
The room felt empty once again. Tails sighed, already running back to his machinery. The enemy, whoever it was toying with them, they better be prepared. They weren't backing down, no matter how many times they fell. They always knew how to get back up.
"Has it been done?" asked a cloaked figure.
"Yes. It won't take long now," said the other figure, barely visible from the dark room. They turned to leave, the sound of the heavy door slamming after them.
"Are you sure about this, miss?" asked a small squirrel girl. Her brown eyes stared in fear as she saw through the palace windows the terror that propagated throughout the kingdom. It was getting closer now, far too close to call it safe in the kingdom. Pandemonium Doom, they call it, a prophesied evil known to come and devour the sun. By who, no one exactly knows. But rumors always held some truth.
The shadows, they emerged from the ground like flames, consuming everything in its path. Its origin wasn't known. But the place it came from, it was from the deep murky waters surrounded by the lifeless and frigid mountains. The sun, it didn't shine as bright as usual, and only the light seemed to make it go back to its home deep below the earth. Soon they thought, there wouldn't be a sun anymore.
And if the shadows got to a living being, their reasoning was devoured. It spread like a disease and nothing seemed to work against it. Only reversing time seemed like the only option.
"Yes, it must be done." replied a solemn voice. She carried the weight of this kingdom on her shoulders. At such a young age, and the princess was willing to die protecting her kingdom.
"If you must. But such drastic measures…are you willing to go?" she asked in the dark.
"It's been a while now since the last time. We have no other option but to drop another." She finally whispered staring at the glowing stones. They always did come back to their guardian.
"Then I wish you luck on your journey." She finally whispered as she stared at the flames that surrounded the cloaked figure. She saw her friend turn around with a sincere smile as a single tear dropped on the flames, sizzling as it disappeared in an instant. Fear was written in her eyes as she saw the light surrounding her.
"Don't cry, I'll return… I promise." The frail girl went to hug her cloaked friend but in an instant, the princess had vanished, like the tears had done so earlier.
"No!" she screamed at the top of her lungs and sobbed like there was no tomorrow. The flames died down and soon the shadows consumed the room; in its usual way. 'If only, if only' she thought over and over again. She heard the door slam, a cold breath falling on her face.
If only I was stronger.
And before she knew it, the darkness engulfed her, her eyes devoid of light.