Chapter 2 (Emeral): A Dream of Memories

I first thing I saw was the guy who was speaking to me through the windows before. He was banging out dents in the metal casing of the machine that exploded (or at least I assumed it was, since it was smoking) with a hammer that was unnecessarily big. Seriously, it looked like it belonged on the field of battle rather than in a mechanics shop.

"I said everything's fine," he told me. It clearly was, surprisingly. Nothing was broken, other than the machine he was working on, and repair projects. The guy was a little bruised, but nothing too seriously. He'd be fine.

"Actually, I came here because I need a favor."

"Okay, what do you-" turned away from his machine, and saw me, "Holy smoke, you're a-"

"A robot, yeah. That's what I'm here for. My name's Emeral."

"Uh-uh, right. I-I'm Adam."

Adam was a mobain hedgehog with orange fur, furless arms and chest, and jade colored eyes. His quills were styled into six spikes, plus two spikes on his back, which was a common style for male hedgehogs, though these were incredibly short for male standards. He also had quills on his forehead styled into three small spikes. He was wearing a mechanic's uniform (the jacket was unzipped with no undershirt and the sleeves were pulled up, which was how I could make out the full details of him) that was the same color as the doors, and made to allow his back quills and tail to poke through, as well as white and green sneakers and white gloves.

My scanner said his hammer looked to be made of completely wood, though somehow still much stronger. It had a standard handle, about half as long as he was tall, and its head was shaped like a cylinder, about half a foot in diameter. The head was painted an emerald green color, but the head's faces and the handle weren't painted.

Adam spun the hammer around in his hand once and... it disappeared. Yeah, he just spun around, and it faded from existence. I didn't know how he did that, but I decided not to question it.

"S-so..." Adam tried to calm himself down, "...what do you need?"

"I need myself... looked at," I replied.

"Um, alright. What do you need checked?"

"Adam!" a new voice cried. "What did you do!? I was in the shower, and then I heard something explode!"

A mobain toad that was hastily getting his clothes on came down a nearby set of stairs.

"Sorry, that generator I was fixing up didn't hold the power very well," Adam told him.

"So you must be Rusty," I assumed.

"You'd be right," he told me.

He must have been named after the color of his skin, because it was a rusty red color. His eyes were a deep brown. He wore the same mechanic's uniform as Adam, though he had his zipped up. He wore no gloves and he wore sneakers like Adam, but these were black.

He studied me with great interest. "Say, you're a peculiar fellow. What's your story?"

"Why don't we sit down and I'll explain it to you."

It took me no longer than thirty minutes to explain what happened from when I woke up to when I showed up here. I didn't talk a lot about Sapphire, because I felt that wasn't important, but tell them I found her, and she'd be coming here soon after she was done with her stuff. I told them about me waking up, finding out that I was a machine, my weird functions, and the reason I came here.

"So you want us to you take you apart, at least a little bit, and check this stuff out for you," Rusty summed up.

"Yep," I said.

"Well, it's a good thing we're the best mechanics in town," replied Adam.

"Adam, we're the only mechanics in town, and our track record isn't that good either. Mostly because of you," Rusty told him.

Adam sighed. "Yeah, true."

"So, can you do it?" I asked.

"Probably, but it'll take a few hours," Rusty told me.

"Good, that's better than nothing."

"Okay, just go and lie on that work table, over there," Rusty pointed over to an empty metal table, "and shut yourself off. Can you do that, or because of how that mind of yours works, will it take a while for you to go to sleep."

"I can switch to computer mode," I replied, getting up and heading towards the table, "then I should be able to myself to deactivate myself like a machine. Plus, it should keep my feeling receptors from making me feel pain, thus waking me up."

"How will we wake you up when we're done?" asked Adam.

I got onto the table and lied down. "Just say the word 'Genesis.' I'll set that as the wake up code. Alright."

"Alright," said Adam.

"Now close your eyes, and sleep," Rusty said.

"Do I even have eyelids," I laughed. But as I prepared to go to sleep, I found that I did. Two pieces of rounded metal, one for each eye, made to act as shutters for my eyes.

I switched to computer mode, and shut myself down.

I had another dream. I didn't know how, since I was in computer mode. It was like the last one, where I couldn't control myself, but I felt that I could, like a memory.

The area was dark again, but it was different. I heard machined running in the background, and lights were blinking on and off. I was in some sort of spot light. I was facing some strange orange, pudgy looking robots, about three of them. They were beating me up, well, hitting me, not doing much damage (probably on purpose), but I wasn't fighting back. I couldn't move a part of my body.

A voice behind me yelled, "Fight! Why don't you fight?!"

I didn't speak. I couldn't.

"Dang it! You piece of junk!" He walked towards me. "Fine, just give me back the Chaos Emerald you took from me!"

No reply.

"Grrr... What a piece of JUNK! That's it! I've already used your data to create a robot that does what I say. So... I don't need you anymore."

Then the setting changed. I was lying on a beach now, still unable to move.

I heard a voice in the distance, but not the same one as before. "Man, I'm so bored."

The owner of the voice appeared in my vision. He was a mobian hedgehog with cobalt blue fur, emerald green eyes, and furless arms and chest. He wore no clothing other than white gloves, and red shoes with a white strap and gold buckle on each one. He had a regular six spike style with his quills (and yes they were regular length), and two on the back.

He ran up and looked in my direction. "Huh? What's that?" He ran over to me. "Wha- it's a robot!"

I stared at him, still unable to do anything.

He got a worried look on his face. "Are you alright?" he asked. He grabbed my hand and helped me up in a standing position.

I still didn't move, my hand stuck being raised in front of me.

"Hm, I wonder if it's busted." He looked me over. "Geez, look at all this dust. I wonder how long it's been here."

I started to twitch a bit, answering his call (which I didn't understand why, but I was reliving a memory, so I didn't to think about too much).

"Hey! Are you alright?" He replied.

I began to move, finally, and I lowered my arm.

"Hey! It's moving now! Need any help? Can you walk by yourself?"

No reply.

"Can't speak, eh? Well, it figures. Can't except much from ol' Eggman. Well, let's get you over to Tails' place, so we can help you out!"

I began to speak. "Show... power... or I sh...all ob...ey... Sha...ll conqu...er a...ll..."

"Huh, what did it say?" replied the hedgehog. "Show it my power...? Like this?" He got a smirk on his face. "Heh heh..."

He started running the beach, but he did it at speed faster than sound. I didn't know how I knew it was that fast, how my eyes could keep up, but I barely could. Sudden, words popped in my robotic vision. Shill... Copy... Processing... Then I knelt down to him.

He looked over, and noticed what was happening. "What... whoa!"

"I sha...ll not ...represent ...and become... of all..." I said. The words in my vision changed to Link established while I said it, then they disappeared.

"What? What's it saying? I wonder if this thing can even be fixed. I better take it to Tails before it blows up. Follow me!"

I got up and did as he said. He guided me was the town next to the beach. It was a suburbs town that was pretty neat and clean. Children, both human and mobain, were running around playing a game of tag. Someone was working on a wood project in his open garage.

The hedgehog stopped in front of a house painted blue with a yellow. "Here we are! This is Tails'..."

A bright flash appeared in front of us. When it faded, in its place was hedgehog that looked similar to the one I was with, but his fur was black with red stripes on his arms, legs, around his eyes, and on the top of his quills. His eyes were red and his chest was covered in white fur. His quills were styled a little differently, the quills on the sides being curved slightly upward, rather than down like normal. He still wore white gloves, though he had gold rings on wrists, which were holding small, black-and-red pads on his wrists. His shoes looked high-tech, and his also wore the same gold rings and black and red pads and his ankles.

"Shadow!" spoke the blue hedgehog in surprise.

"Huh, Sonic the Hedgehog..." replied the black hedgehog, who must have been Shadow. "Sorry, but I don't have time to play with you now." He started speaking to me. "Hey! Can you hear me? Respond!"

I didn't respond.

"No! You must have already established a Link."

"Shadow!" the blue hedgehog, who was apparently Sonic, called out.

"Hey! You... over here!" Shadowed continued with me.

I still didn't respond.

"Won't listen to me eh?" Shadow replied. "In that case... I'll destroy you with my bare hands!"

"Hey, stop that!" Sonic intervened.

"Get out of the way, and give me that robot!"

Sonic smirked. "You didn't think I would simply say 'yes,' did you?"

"Hm, then I will destroy you too..."

Then the dream faded.

Voice activation code: "Genesis" imputed. Beginning activation. Activation in... 5 seconds, 3 seconds, 1 second...

My eyes opened. "Activation complete."

"Emeral, are you okay?" Adam asked.

I switched back to default mode and sat up. "Yeah, guess it must be strange hearing me talk in computer mode."

"It's strange hearing a robot talk like a normal human."

"Yeah, true."

I thought about my dream. Unlike the last one, I still remembered it, but only somewhat. It was hazy and hard to make out the details. It was difficult trying to think about what happened in the dream again.

Rusty came down the stairs, holding a few sets of blue prints. "How do you feel?"

"No different than before. Everything feels like it's working right." I got up and moved around bit to make sure I was right. Yep, nothing felt wrong. "Were you able to find out anything?"

"Yes." Rusty put the blueprints on the table I was just lying on and opened them up. They were all of my body.

"We did some reverse engineering on you," Adam stated. "We didn't completely take you take apart, just enough to assess what made you tick."

"It wasn't easy, I'll tell you that much. And even though I carefully traced these blueprints as I did it, putting you back together in the exact same way as before... proved to be even harder."

"Well, you did a good job. What did you find?" I asked.

"Well, you know how you said you can think like a human."

I nodded.

"Well, your body is built like a human, too. Well, a mobian, let's say, since it's more accurate, but still..."

"Your computer and memory drive, for starters, is built like a human or mobian brain," Adam continued, "Is made in separate parts, each positioned like how the different parts of the brain are arranged, and each part works like the corresponding part of the brain."

"So my mind really is like a... mobian's, in a sense," I said.

"Yeah, it's still a mechanical brain, though," Rusty continued, "But it has some incredible fire walls. We're not sure if it's because of the fact your mind works like a mobian, but seems it's impossible to access the data. I tried to access it, even attempted to hack into it, but I couldn't get in."

"Alright, that's good, at least I can't be reprogrammed." But I thought about how I could've lost my memories then. Even if my mind did work like a mobian, it wasn't like I could get a concussion.

"What else is there... oh yeah. Your energy core..." Adam continued.

"Like me guess, it's also like the mobian body."

"Yeah, it's placed where the heart is, the upper left chest area, but it doesn't beat like a normal heart, not that you would need it to, being a robot."

"It has enough energy for 24 hours, and that Chaos Drive recharges pretty quickly," Rusty said.

"Chaos Drive?" I wondered.

"Do you know about the seven Chaos Emeralds? Seven gems of wonder with seemingly infinite energy said to be able to turn your thoughts into power," Rusty told me. "Well, special crystals were made to hold some of those Emeralds energy. Those are Chaos Drives. They're pretty much weaker forms of Chaos Emeralds, with limited energy, but as long as they're not completely drained, they can recharge with no needed energy input when shut off."

"So I have one in my body, powering me," I concluded, "and if I sleep, it recharges. And I have about a day's worth of energy."

"Yes, another mobian similarity. But what's strange about this is that most machines that use them have only two Chaos Drives. One to act as the main power source, another smaller one to act as a backup, in case the energy from the main one runs out of energy, so it can be used to recharge the main one."

"You do have those two crystals in your 'heart', but you also have eight other smaller Chaos Drives placed side by side where the lungs may be," Adam said, "They're not active, and we don't know what activates them. But they have enough energy to triple what you're already using."

"Another strange thing is the tubes there connected with," Rusty replied.

"Okay, explain," I replied.

"Those light strips on your body, those are kind of like veins," Adam told me.

"That's kind of creepy," I said.

"Well, blood is not flowing through them, it's water. Veins are just what reminded me of. But that water isn't normal water. There is some kind Chaos Energy flowing through it."

"There connected to your heart and extra Chaos Drives, slowing the usage of energy and increasing the speed of recharging," Rusty finished. "They also flow throughout your body, and that energy makes you faster, stronger, and more agile and durable."

"Or so you theorize, Rusty..."

"So what about those functions that give me extra human senses?" I asked.

"Oh, those... those are some very sophisticated devices that we don't understand, but what really confuses me is that third eye of yours," Rusty replied.

"I forgot about that, actually."

"Yeah, well, it's seems to be a scanning eye, though we're not sure why it's there, especially since you already have a scanning function build into main eyes."

"You also have these Nano-bots in your arms. I think they might be connected to that third eye, but that's just a theory."

"Maybe I can try to activate them," I said. I stood up and focused. ...Nothing. I switched to computer mode, and tried to find an activation code or something. Again, nothing. "I can't..."

"Don't worry about it too much," Rusty said. "Maybe it will come to you soon."

I sighed. "Thank you. But I do have to wonder, what was I built for?"

I heard voice outside, some calling for me.

"That must be Sapphire. How long has it been?

"About six or seven hours," Rusty answered, "it will be evening soon."

"Well, thanks for the help."

I started to leave, but then Adam stopped me.

"You don't have anywhere to go, do you? No home?"

"Yeah... but I was going to deal that that problem next."

"Well," Adam looked over at Rusty, and Rusty gave him a bag full of something. Adam turned back to me, giving me the bag. "I this place that just opened up a few weeks ago, located near the beach. It's secluded, but close to a good neighborhood. This should cover the price."

I opened the bag. Inside were a lot of small gold rings, about a thousand of them. "Why are doing this?"

"Well, in case something new about you comes up, we would like to know."

"Plus, it's a kind thing we wanted to do for you, and we had the money to spare," Rusty added.

"Thank you. I'll be sure to see you guys again," I said. Then I left to meet Sapphire.

"How was it?" Sapphire asked.

"Didn't find my memories, though I did find out more about my functions," I replied. "What about you?"

"I... I didn't remember anything, but the women who helped me said that if I find my twin brother, I'll eventually regain them."

"Okay, odd. Do you believe it?"

"Well, she was psychic, and she could see the future, but it was fuzzy to her, so she couldn't tell me everything. Plus, when she said I had a twin brother, I felt something... warm inside me, like I found a long lost friend. I felt as if I did have a twin brother."

"So, you essentially went to a fortune teller to find you memories."

"Well, not really, but... yeah," she chuckled.

"Well... since we don't know anything else, this is the only lead we have to your past, so we'll have to follow it. Did she tell you were he is?"

"She couldn't, but she said that... that he's not on the island... and..." she started to tear up.

"Hey, don't cry. We'll find him, and get your memories back."

"What about you memories?"

"Well, I'd like to find them, but... you're my concern right now."

She smiled.

"Besides, thinking about it now, I think I'd rather look to my future then the past, you know."

"What if you made a mistake in your past, and you can't remember it, and it comes back to haunt you."

"Then I'll fix it. Now come on, those mechanics were nice enough to give me money so we can buy a place for us."

"Wow, how nice of them."

"Yep," I replied. I just hoped I could keep her happy. As long as she was happy, I was happy.

She ran the pier, and shouted, "Come on! Let's go!"

I could smile, I would have. "Coming!"