DISCLAIMER: I do not own Sonic the Hedgehog. All characters shown here are property of SEGA.

Author's Notes: This chapter was a struggle, I'll admit. There were so many times where I didn't know where I was going to go next, but I think I really pulled together and wrote something to be proud of. (I spent almost an entire day working to finish it, and I think it paid off!)

I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

There wasn't anything he could do to stop it. He had gotten overwhelmed, the newcomer with the mask had somehow electrocuted him, and he was too weak and exhausted to do anything when Sonic was suddenly surrounded by static. He started calling out Tails' name, asking where he went, but he hadn't moved.

I'm right here, he responded silently, feeling too drained to form words. I'm right in front of you. Why can't you see me?

Every time he tried to move an inch, his pained muscles would scream at him, keeping him glued to the ground. He could only watch as Sonic stood up and turned towards the five who had brought them to this point, screaming in his mind for Sonic to run. He didn't have to stay and fight them, they could escape and find Amy or Knuckles or someone to help them in this fight.

And then Sonic just started screaming, he was screaming in pain from something Tails couldn't see, and no matter how hard he tried, there was nothing he could do but watch in horror. It couldn't have lasted longer than a few seconds, but they seemed to drag out for an eternity. And even when it stopped, everything only got worse. Sonic crumpled to the floor, still breathing but alarmingly still.

He already knew that he couldn't force himself to stay conscious for much longer, but he desperately wanted to see this through. As it was, though, he could only manage to weakly cry out Sonic's name, reaching forward with what little strength he had. That was around the time he drifted in unconsciousness.

When he woke up, Sonic was gone.

And so was everyone else.

Immediately he tried to pull himself up, but did so a little too quickly and ended up right back where he started. He tried a second time, slower now, and managed to bring himself to an unsteady stand. He looked around wildly, trying to find any trace of Sonic, Eggman, anyone that was there what felt like both minutes and days before.

"Sonic!" he yelled, his voice hoarse and pained from the dull ache of his injuries. "Where are you?!" Feeling his heart quicken by the second, he broke out into a run, trying to ignore any pain he was still feeling. Sonic had to be somewhere; he could only hope that he hadn't been taken, hadn't—no, he couldn't think like that, Sonic wouldn't go out without a fight...

The battle from before flashed through his mind. What had that masked foe done to him? His only consolation was that he had managed to lead the civilians to safety before the battle even started.

Suddenly remembering his communicator, he came to a stop. Desperately tapping it multiple times, he tried to get a signal out, but Sonic just wasn't picking up.

"Come on, Sonic, where are you? Answer me..."

Only a short month beforehand, Knuckles the Echidna had been peacefully relaxing on Angel Island. Everything had seemed right with the world; the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the Master Emerald was safely perched on its pedestal, and Sonic hadn't bothered him in weeks.

Not that he didn't enjoy getting to talk with one of his closest friends, but Sonic could be a bit... much at times, especially for someone like Knuckles. It took a bit of recharging before he was ever ready to interact with people again, even with people he cared about, and Sonic was especially boisterous and draining to be around sometimes. He had been told several times that this was called "being an introvert," but he failed to see the point of such elaborate labels for different kinds of people.

He was just thinking about what kind of havoc must happen on the surface on a regular basis, and how glad he was to be able to avoid it on the serenity of Angel Island, when his thoughts were promptly interrupted by someone yelling.

"Knuckles!" they cried. He immediately jumped up from his relaxed position into a fighting stance, darting his gaze back and forth in an attempt to find the intruder. And find them he did; in the sky. He felt himself relax when he saw who it was.

Flying above was a pale, currently glowing hedgehog with quills that seemed to ignore the laws of gravity, as did the rest of him. It was Silver, an acquaintance of Knuckles'. (He hesitated to call themselves "friends," but they were far from hostile.)

"Silver! I haven't seen you in a while—" he began, but he found himself being cut off.

"Oh, thank goodness! You're still here!" Silver yelled, descending upon Knuckles. He sounded panicked for some reason, but Knuckles couldn't begin to guess why.

"Uh, yeah? I spend most of my time here," he replied, feeling more confused by the second—especially when he remembered exactly why he hadn't seen Silver in so long. "Wait, what are you doing here? I thought you returned to the future after the Time Eater was destroyed?"

"And I did!" Silver confirmed, at eye level with Knuckles now that he had landed. "But not long after I got back, things started... changing. It was fairly small at first—compared to what happened later, at least—buildings were suddenly repurposed, others just straight-up disappeared, and—and—" the hedgehog looked like he might start hyperventilating any moment now, his eyes wide and gestures erratic. Knuckles was starting to grow concerned.

"Whoa, whoa. Silver." Knuckles said, gesturing him to tone it down.

"Huh?"

"Silver."

"Yeah."

"Breathe."

"Okay."

With that, Silver took a deep breath, letting it out in a huff that clearly had a lot of stress behind it. Knuckles never spoke with Silver much, so he couldn't be certain if it was normal for him to panic easily or if something was really wrong. From what he heard of his story, though, it sounded like it might be pretty dire. Enough for him to go back in time over it, for sure.

"Now, let's start over. Buildings started disappearing, and then what happened?" Knuckles pressed.

"Alright, so, as I was saying—AHH!" He suddenly let out a yelp and jumped in the air, like something just startled him, and Knuckles instinctively looked behind him to see what Silver was so freaked out by. It was probably the last thing he was expecting to see: ancient echidna structures, towering over the two of them and perfectly intact. But what really got Knuckles panicking was that, scattered in various places around the buildings were other echidnas, fully alive and acting like nothing was wrong.

"This is... Pachacamac's village... from the past..." He said, stunned by what he was looking at.

"Pacha-who, now?" Silver wondered, before suddenly seeming to realize what that meant. "Oh, right, that chief echidna guy! I learned about him from history books!"

He hadn't really been listening to what Silver said. It was all hard to process. Knuckles, along with one extremely secluded clan, was the last of his kind after the series of tragedies that befell the echidnas. So how was this possible?

Then he remembered Silver's strange ability to time travel. He turned to Silver and shook him around a little by the shoulders.

"Silver, did you just time-travel us into the past?!" He demanded.

"What?! No! My powers may do a lot of things when I'm freaked out, but never teleport me through time!" He replied defensively. Knuckles let go of his shoulders and started absentmindedly walking in the village's general direction. He felt a burst of frustration coming on and decided to roll with it.

"Well, then what's going on here, then?!" He yelled, not really expecting an answer. That was when he noticed that the buildings and echidnas occasionally emitted a strange, red glow of sorts. It looked entirely unnatural and he had nothing to really compare it to.

"I don't know, but this is what I came here to find out about!" Silver responded, sounding urgent again. His tone quickly changed to one of alarm, however, when he continued. "Uh, Knuckles! You got something behind you!"

Knuckles, broken from his burst of confusion and frustration, spun around in a defensive position. His mood quickly changed to one of exasperation, however, when he saw what Silver had been freaking out about.

"That's just Chaos. You know, the guardian of the chao? He's pretty harmless. Rare of him to leave the Emerald, though," he added, knowing that Chaos couldn't stray far from the Master Emerald and only seemed to do so when any of the local chao were in trouble.

That was when Chaos punched him.

It wasn't exactly the most painful punch he had ever gotten to the face, but Chaos was also made of water, and water had a way of pushing you around with enough force. So, in the span of a second, Knuckles found himself falling backwards and sputtering profusely, now thoroughly annoyed.

"Harmless, huh?!" Silver sasrcastically remarked, helping to pull Knuckles back on his feet. Knuckles gave him a look.

"I won't deny he has a temper," he grumbled, "but I know how to put him in his place!" With that, he took a swing at Chaos, which collided with a mighty splash. His second punch, however, completely missed its target as Chaos contorted his body to make a wide, empty circle in the center of his body. His moment of unbalance gave Chaos the opportunity to push him back with a wave of water again. Silver took this as an opportunity to step in.

"Hang on, I've got this!" He assured. Knuckles wanted to protest that he had this under control, but the more sensible side of his brain was telling him that it was stupid to deny help when he needed it. He didn't always like that side of his brain.

Silver, his body glowing a bright cyan as it always did when he used his telekinetic powers, took ahold of Chaos right as he was about to attack. "Gotcha!" He exclaimed triumphantly, shaping Chaos into a large ball and keeping him suspended in midair. His victory was short-lived, however, when a small droplet Chaos had left behind on the floor suddenly extended into a whip and slapped Silver aside, breaking his concentration and releasing Chaos from his mind grip.

"That's a new one," Knuckles commented. Silver gave him an annoyed look, which Knuckles decided to ignore. "It looks like we're going to have to work together on this one. Can you get me a shot at his brain?"

"Probably, but you'll have to act fast!" He warned, locking Chaos' movement in place again as his only indicator of when Knuckles should act. Thankfully, he wasted no time making his move, charging towards Chaos with an outstretched fist.

His attack didn't get the chance to collide, however, because Chaos fizzled away the second he got close enough. And so did the ancient echidna village. He couldn't process what was going on and it was starting to drive him nuts.

"Where did Chaos and the village go?! What's going on?!" He yelled, wishing someone would just explain things to him already but beginning to feel like no one was going to.

"I can't say for sure, but it looks like whatever's been affecting my time really is originating from here and now," Silver responded, reminding Knuckles that he still hadn't explained why he was here in the first place.

"You keep mentioning something going on in your time, but what is it? And what made you think to come back here?" Knuckles asked, hoping that maybe he could finally get some answers.

"Oh, right," he began. "Well, you see, I was trying to figure out why all those buildings were suddenly disappearing and being replaced with ruins, but no one seemed to think there was anything strange about it. I was starting to think I going nuts or something, but then people started disappearing, too!" Knuckles felt his eyes widen in shock at that, but he didn't interrupt.

"Sometimes, they would vanish right before my eyes, even as they were talking..." He was getting that look in his eyes again, like he was recalling some kind of horrible nightmare. He even started floating again, which he could only assume was one of those things Silver mentioned his powers did when he was scared. Hearing the details of his story, Knuckles couldn't really blame him. "And then—I would get these flashes," he continued, "flashes of everything around me in ruins, the few buildings that were standing being built in Eggman's name."

"Eggman?!" Knuckles couldn't help but exclaim. "You mean to say that in these... flashes, you saw a world where Eggman had taken over?!"

"Yes! And then they stopped being just flashes, Knuckles!" Silver abruptly took Knuckles by the shoulders, desperation painfully apparent in his eyes. "The world around me just got stuck that way! There was barely anyone left! There wasn't anyone I could go to for help, but..." He took another deep breath and let go of Knuckles before continuing.

"The statues were of Eggman, which meant that whatever was messing with the world had to be starting in this era. You seemed like the resident expert on the supernatural, guarding the Master Emerald and all, so I figured that if I was going to ask anyone for help, it would be you. I know we're not exactly the closest of friends, but—"

"Don't worry about that," Knuckles interjected. "We don't have to be friends for me to help you. From what you're saying, this is going to affect all of us. I don't know if my "supernatural knowledge" is going to be much help on its own, though..."

"The Chaotix!" Silver suddenly exclaimed. "They're a detective agency! Maybe they can help us!"

"Good thinking!" He agreed. "Let's go find them right away!"

With that, the two took flight away from Angel Island and down towards the surface.

It had been seven months since Silver came to the past, and six months since Sonic had vanished after his encounter with Eggman's latest ally. In that time, the visions Silver had described were becoming reality. Slowly but surely, Eggman launched enough successful attacks on the population to achieve what he had long sought after: complete world domination.

He had been met with resistance, of course; but even with so many powerful individuals opposing him, they had been overwhelmed by the sheer power of Eggman's robots and the mysterious, masked figure that seemed to show up almost everywhere there was an attack.

Everything had been lost, save for a few secluded areas that Eggman hadn't bothered with destroying yet. During his many attacks, the people who had fought back had been organized into an official resistance, led by Amy Rose herself. The Resistance was smaller than it used to be, but its founding members were still intact: aside from Amy, the Resistance was comprised of Knuckles, Tails, Silver, Espio, Vector, Charmy, and Rouge, along with anyone else who was brave enough to join.

Currently, all of the founding members (save for Knuckles and Rouge, who were both elsewhere with their separate duties) were gathered in a single room, preparing for when they had to make their next move.

Vector, the leader of the Chaotix Detective Agency, entered the room through one of the sliding doors. He was shaking his head in disappointment, having found very little to smile about on the mission he had been on just a few moments earlier.

"Eggman's army is unstoppable!" He found himself saying. "The people are quickly losing hope and giving in to despair. Sonic was the one everyone looked up to, and without him..."

"Despair is a luxury we don't have!" Silver snapped, sounding harsher than he was intending. "I've already seen how this will all go down if we don't stop it, but that doesn't mean I'm going to just give up!"

"Silver, calm yourself," Espio prompted. "They're frightened. Not everyone has your absurd willpower, you know."

"It's not absurd!" he protested. He seemed to deflate soon after, his eyes downtrodden. "But you're right, as usual. I can't expect everyone to risk their lives in a war this dangerous. They're not prepared."

"Isn't that the whole reason we provide basic weapons training?" Tails pointed out, typing away at the laptop that rested on the table. His expression was dark, and he hadn't looked up from the computer screen in at least five minutes. "Those Wisps haven't been helping power our new weapons for nothing, you know. We have plenty to go around."

"I think he meant emotionally, Tails," Amy suggested. "And we of all people should understand how inspiring Sonic was and how... how hard it is to have him disappear." Her tone and expression grew increasingly saddened, breaking her attempt at eye contact with Tails. Any mention of Sonic only seemed to make things worse, for herself and others.

"Stop making it sound like he's never coming back." Tails replied, sounding colder than anyone would have imagined six months ago.

"That's not what I meant, Tails," Amy said earnestly, "I've chosen to believe that Sonic's still alive, but the civilians don't have that kind of faith."

"Faith isn't going to get us anywhere, Amy!" Tails suddenly yelled, whipping his head around to look at Amy head-on. "Believing that he's alive isn't enough anymore! Sonic isn't going to come back unless we find him, which for some reason, no one seems to be doing!"

"You know why we can't search for him!" Amy shouted back. "We barely have enough people to keep Eggman from taking what we have left, let alone enough to organize a search party!"

"Stop it, guys!" Charmy interrupted, looking distressed by the tension in the air. "You two are such good friends, this isn't the time to fight with each other!"

Tails seemed to back down. His head was hanging and his face showed all kinds of anguish. He stole an apologetic look at Amy.

"I know," he said quietly. "I'm sorry, Amy. I shouldn't have lashed out at you. It's just..."

"You're upset. I understand. And I'm sorry, too," she responded, feeling as guilty as Tails about being so harsh. The last six months hadn't been easy, but that was no reason to start turning against each other.

"So," Charmy resumed awkwardly, "aren't we supposed to be getting a new recruit today?"

"Yes," Silver replied, looking relieved that the tension was being broken. "A survivor from the city, right?"

"Here, I'll access the file," Tails offered, prompting everyone to turn their attention to the computer's screen, which was being displayed in a larger size on the wall. On it was the photo ID of a red wolf, no older than Silver and sporting a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. He had an awkward smile and seemed to be holding up his glasses by the side when the picture was taken. On the side was information regarding his age, occupation ("student," unsurprisingly), background and other such information. This, of course, included his name, which was apparently "Gadget the Wolf." Nothing seemed to indicate he was any different from the average civilian, aside from the fact that he was apparently in possession of a grappling hook of sorts.

Tails had just closed out the file when one of the doors opened and Knuckles entered. He looked about as cheerful as everyone else in the room, but it was obvious he had missed out on the brief outburst between Tails and Amy.

"Hey, everyone. Glad to see you're all still alive," came his graceful opening comment. "Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of good news to bring. Eggman's forces have chewed through our defenses at Green Hill, and the resistance in the city is reporting that whoever it is that finished Sonic..." He quickly realized his error as everyone became increasingly downcast at the mention of Sonic's name. He, too, found himself breaking eye contact with the rest of the group. "Sorry. I'm still not used to saying that."

He turned away from the group as he continued. "Whoever it is has got them all running in fear. All except this brave kid," he motioned towards the door, which opened to reveal the wolf from the file, "who survived the battle and made it here in one piece. Meet our newest recruit!"

The recruit in question looked a bit overwhelmed, which Knuckles decided to remedy by giving him an encouraging slap on the back. He must have hit a bit too hard, however, because Gadget found himself toppling forward and trying to regain his balance.

"Hmm. Doesn't look like much," Charmy commented as he approached the newcomer.

"Neither do you, Charmy, but I still find a use for your pointy butt!" Knuckles teased in response. Charmy just chuckled and felt relieved at the new, far less depressing atmosphere. Knuckles picked up a red, oddly-shaped weapon off of the table and handed it to Gadget. "Here, kid, take this. We're depending on you," he added.

"What is it?" Gadget asked. He hadn't seen anything like it before. Tails, the one responsible for designing the weapon in question, took it upon himself to explain it.

"That's a Wispon," he answered. "They're a series of weapons that are powered by the Hyper-Go-On energy from the Wisps who volunteered for our cause."

Gadget had to admit, that sounded pretty cool.

"Interesting," he muttered to himself, pointing the Wispon away from the group in attempt to figure out how to hold it. "So, how do I get it to—WHOA!" Without warning, flames suddenly burst from the opposite end of the weapon and he found himself struggling to keep it steady. "How do I turn it off?!" he yelled, wondering how he hadn't set anything on fire yet. That was when he realized that the flames were shrouded in a cyan glow, courtesy of Silver's telekinesis. He was holding the flames in place.

"Let go of the trigger!" Tails yelled in response like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Since Gadget couldn't even tell what part of flamethrower he had pulled to ignite it, he simply opted for dropping it on the floor.

There were a few sighs going around the room, and Gadget only chuckled awkwardly in response, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Definitely going to need training," Espio commented.

Operating a Wispon, as Gadget soon discovered, was a lot simpler than he thought it was going to be. There was the trigger, which his finger comfortably rested on, and there was a button on the side that activated a small explosion of sorts that was supposed to help him gain elevation. Yes, the Wispon was easy to navigate once he knew where everything on it was. The problem was everything else.

The flamethrower, he could handle. It was impressively straightforward. But the second he pressed the side-button, he was launched backwards with incredible force and smacked into a wall. Espio, who had taken it upon himself to train Gadget, calmly reminded him that he was supposed to aim the weapon downwards, so he would end up in the air instead.

Grumbling, he pulled himself up and did as he was instructed, only to find himself careening through the air. Unable to keep a grip on the Wispon, he had to be caught by Espio before he landed on the hard pavement. His training had been going on for hours, and it looked like it was going be another several before he figured this out. That was when Amy entered the room.

"How's the training going?" She asked, and Gadget immediately felt himself tense up. The leader of the Resistance, one of the people he had looked up to over the years, was checking on him. And he didn't even have any real progress to report!

"It's going smoothly so far. The new recruit has effectively figured out the mechanisms of the Wispon, and he has all but mastered the flamethrower." Espio reported, causing Gadget to look at him in disbelief. Sure, he knew what the triggers did, but he was hardly proficient. He had just been blasting himself into walls a minute earlier!

"I wouldn't say mastered," he remarked, "but I think I've got the hang of it."

That last part was a bit of a lie, as he had only gotten the hang of one half of the Wispon's functions, but he wasn't about to make himself look incompetent in front of his commander.

"That's good to hear, because I have a mission for you two," Amy announced. Immediately, he felt he had been caught off-guard. There was no way he was ready for a mission as he was, but at the same time, he had joined the Resistance for a reason. He wasn't about to back out of a mission once it was offered to him.

"What do you need us to do?" Espio asked.

"Rouge still hasn't returned from her recon mission," Amy explained, a hint of worry in her voice. "She hasn't contacted us in too long. I need you two to check out the area around the Chemical Plant where she was stationed to see if it's safe to send more people in after her. Espio, you can get in undetected, and Gadget here can cover for you in case things get dangerous. Do you think you can handle that?"

"Of course," Espio confirmed. "We'll get on it right away."

Okay, Gadget, he thought to himself, you can do this. You just have to patrol the perimeter and blow up anything that attacks you until Espio gets back.

The Chemical plant was somewhat bleak, but that was hardly surprising. Gadget had yet to encounter any problems on his patrol—other than his own nerves, of course. He almost wished something would show up just so he could release some of his horribly pent-up stress, but he knew that was stupid.

And perhaps just because of how stupid it was, the universe decided to supply him with two surveillance drones that immediately started blaring alarms. There goes the recon mission, he thought bitterly, aiming his Wispon at the drones and setting them ablaze. About two seconds afterwards, he heard Espio's voice in his intercom.

"What happened?" He asked, but there was an edge to his voice that told him that he was not happy in the slightest.

"I've been spotted!" Gadget exclaimed, although he felt that should have been obvious.

"Alright, stay calm. We might be able to make this mission count for something if we work together to clear a path to find Rouge, but you'll have to rendezvous with me first. Do you think you can handle that?"

His first instinct was to shrug helplessly, but he was preoccupied with blowing up the swarm of robots that had started closing in on him, and Espio wouldn't have been able to see him, anyways. So instead, he had to respond with words.

"I'll do my best!" was all he was willing to offer in response. He made a break for the nearest open path he could find, holding down the trigger with a firm grip. He may as well give Eggman as much trouble as he could while he was there, as payback for everything he had ruined. That thought above all others fueled him as he rushed forward, swinging on anything he could get his custom grappling hook to latch onto, burning anything he came across.

Eventually, he came across a set of rails. He couldn't be sure what their purpose was, but he hadn't spent a whole month practicing to grind on rails to impress his friend when he was eight years old for nothing. He grinded across and flipped between the rails with ease, the real concern cropping up when he came across a large chasm. There wasn't anything in sight that he could grapple onto, and he was sliding too fast on the rails to consider any other options.

Which meant he had to choose the option that was most likely to get him killed: he had to launch across using the Wispon.

He jumped as high as he could and, holding onto the Wispon as tightly as he could, smashed the side-button. Immediately he was sent flying, performing several out-of-control front flips in the process. He kept pushing the button, though, and even though he was screaming in panic the whole way, he eventually made it across the gap. He also hit a wall and landed on solid ground. It hurt, a lot, but at least he wasn't falling hundreds of feet to his death. That had to count for something, right?

Then he realized that the floor he had landed on was moving. It didn't take long for him to figure out why: he had landed on a train. A train that was currently heading for a tunnel that Gadget had no chance of fitting into whatsoever. He may as well have been riding towards a wall.

Desperate for a solution, he looked around wildly before spotting a metal beam above him. With any luck, he would be able to grapple onto it and lift himself out of danger.

When his hastily made plan actually worked, he was tempted to let out a shout of victory. That temptation quickly diminished when he looked to his left and saw another train charging towards him. In a burst of adrenaline, he launched his grappling hook in front of him and was shocked when it actually latched onto something. He could have sworn he was experiencing some kind of whiplash when he was harshly swung away from the train, avoiding being slammed into oblivion by mere inches.

He hit the ground, rolling a couple times before sliding to a stop. Groaning from the pain of being thrown against solid metal at least four times in succession, he managed to pull himself up. He could feel himself shaking from the after-effects of getting so close to his own demise; a feeling that was getting far too familiar for his liking.

What was he even doing here? He jeopardized a mission by getting caught so easily, nearly got killed by two different trains, and he barely had a solid grasp on his own weapon. He wasn't helping anyone at this point. But there was no point in turning back now; he owed it to Espio to at least try to get him to safety. Although at this point, he wasn't sure he would be able to be of any use.

He pushed forward, destroying the remaining robots in his path and struggling to keep his balance on the next set of rails he came across. He was starting to think that his own nerves were going to be the death of him.

Thankfully, it wasn't long until he met up with Espio.

"Espio! We have to get out of here!" was what he decided to open up the conversation with. He couldn't of a place he would want to be any less than where he was right now.

"Agreed. But I don't have the best news, I'm afraid," Espio began, clearly unhappy and somewhat concerned with what he was about to say. "I searched all over the facility. Rouge wasn't anywhere to be found."

He woke up to a bright light shining in his eyes. He quickly shut his eyes again to try to block it out, but it seemed to burn through either way. It took him a few moments to gather where he was, or more specifically, what he was in. The walls were extremely closed in, curved, and from what little he could see, transparent. He felt like he was floating, which made sense once it clicked; he was suspended in a capsule, with bright white lights from the surrounding room shining all around him, like a bunch of spotlights.

"I see you're awake," an annoyingly familiar voice said. Sonic didn't even have to see him to recognize who it was.

"Eggman. You sure know how to make your guests feel welcome," he snapped. His sarcasm was falling on a particularly dry note, feeling more agitated than humorous at the moment. "What am I, the star of your own little personal party?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," Eggman sneered. "I even whipped up a nice little present for you. Do you like it?"

"I can barely see three feet in front of me with all your stupid spotlights, genius," he retorted, before suddenly remembering the details of the events leading up to this point. Tails had been injured and suddenly disappeared. That was enough to send him into panic mode, but he tried to keep it cool in front of his arch nemesis. "Quit playing around and tell me what you've done with Tails!" he demanded.

"You're not in a position to be making those kinds of demands, hedgehog!" Eggman yelled, taking out his sudden anger on one of the spotlights with a firm sideways punch. That gave Sonic just enough visibility to make out Eggman properly, who was currently trying to compose himself. He also seemed to be holding a red gemstone in his other hand, but it didn't look like a Chaos Emerald, so he wasn't too concerned.

Eggman began stroking his mustache as he continued. "But in light of what I'm about to do, I'll give you the small consolation of knowing that your fox friend is perfectly safe… for now," he added cryptically. That did not sit well with Sonic at all. Just because Tails was allegedly "safe" didn't mean that he hadn't been captured along with him, and if that was the case, his first priority was to rescue him. Right after he rescued himself, of course; he couldn't do much from the inside of a capsule.

But alas, in traditional Eggman fashion, he wasn't quite done talking yet. And as much as Sonic prided himself on being able to tune out his enemies, it was starting to make it really difficult for him to plot his escape route.

"You, however, are going to be subject to a few tests, first," he continued. That caught Sonic's attention. But again, there was no way he was going to show his ever-growing anxieties to Eggman of all people, so his brain quickly scrambled to make a retort, instead.

"And here I thought you were just gonna launch me into space again." It might not have been the best response, but it served its purpose. It did little to calm his own nerves, though, bringing back the frightening memory of being ejected into the void, desperately thinking of ways to avoid his quickly-approaching doom. Which, for all intents and purposes, was exactly what he was doing now.

"A tempting concept, I'll grant you that," Eggman replied, "but not today. I have something far more important to use you for." He approached Sonic and held out the gem he was carrying. Sonic was beginning to think he should just break the glass now, but reconsidered it. Eggman was clearly about to explain at least a part of his plan, and that information could prove valuable once he got back.

"This little ruby," he continued, "contains enough power to rival that of the Chaos Emeralds." Sonic to suppress a gasp, but failed. His eyes widened in shock. The Chaos Emeralds were the most powerful known objects in the universe. This couldn't be good.

"But there's a setback; it's full power can only be wielded by someone that's inherently compatible with it. Now, I can't help but wonder..." Eggman looked directly into Sonic's eyes before finishing, "...if you're one of those people. Let's find out, shall we?"

Sonic took that as his cue to get out. He placed his hands on the back of the capsule to give himself some support as he ferociously kicked the walls that surrounded him. He felt his panic resurface when he realized that he wasn't even putting a dent in it. His kicks could crush solid metal; what was this thing made out of?!

Instead, he tried curling into a ball and rocketing around the capsule with as much force as he could muster in such a small space, but ended up the same results. If he wasn't afraid before, he certainly was now. He could hear Eggman laughing maniacally at his attempts.

"Don't waste your energy, hedgehog! You're going to need as much as you can get for what's coming next!" He gloated, obviously planning to build up this one moment as much as possible. Sonic stopped bouncing against the walls of the capsule and gave Eggman a glare.

All sorts of possible scenarios were running through his head as he tried to guess what Eggman was about to do, and he couldn't help but be reminded of the last time he was in the villain's clutches; suffice it to say that being mutated into a monster was far less painful than what had preceded it. The main difference was that this time, he had no advantage over his enemy prior to getting captured.

Placing the ruby in a small compartment held up by a short pillar that rose up near the capsule, Eggman flashed the most dangerous of grins at Sonic, who was unable to keep the fear out of his eyes even as he tried to keep a straight face. That was when Eggman pressed a button near the compartment.

And suddenly, there was a rapid electronic noise that filled his ears and a searing pain that flooded his senses. What Sonic couldn't have known was that this sound would be all he heard for the next several days, along with the progressively weakened sounds of his own screams.

Author's Notes: So things are finally picking up! I know Classic Sonic is nowhere to be seen in this chapter, but rest assured! He will show up in the next chapter!

Feel free to leave a review to let me know what you think! You can say what you liked about the chapter, what you think could use some work, or even if you just want to leave a short reaction or comment, any feedback is welcome!