Still maple-ing (it's awesome)

--Still on the road--

It was getting late and some were beginning to nod off.

"I'm tired" Liz complained having already completed her book many times over.

"You do know that there are beds in back," said Maxwell not taking his eyes off the road.

"Wait!" Interrupted Hannah, "So I could have put Tails in a bed instead of having him drool over me all this time?"

"Well you didn't ask."

Hannah reluctantly got up and put him to bed as Liz also decided to pack it in.

"So where are we going?" asked Amy who was still awake.

"We're going to stop in Chicago to pick up some old students who live on the campus during the school year," replied Maxwell.

--The S.S. Nightmare (the name of the giant ship)--

In the mall were our favorite pink, black, red, and green foxes.

Lark and Cree were just standing there as Celsia and Apache piled on their arms bag after bag of anything that caught their eyes.

"Isn't this a little… much?" asked Cree as he was slowly buried in bags.

"Nonsense," replied Celsia as she placed a very large, and expensive looking, bag in front of him.

"How are you planning to pay for this," said Lark whom was buried to his shoulders.

"It's on you guys," The girls said simultaneously.

"And your total comes to," said the chao behind the counter as a very very long stream of receipt came from the register and Cree's and Lark's mouths dropped to the floor.

--2 minuets later with Jack and Discordia--

"WHAT!?"

Jack turned around and asked, "Did you hear something?"

"No," Discordia replied monotonously.

They saw Cree and lark staggering with massive piles of clothes.

"I think my arms are going to fall off," said Lark.

Cree began to tip over and fell over with a loud crash.

"Oww," said Cree sitting up from the pile rubbing his neck.

"Ohh Cree! Are you ok?" asked Celsia coming to his side.

"Yeah. Just my neck is sore."

"Here, I'll massage it out," she said getting behind him.

"Nah I'm fine," he replied hastily remembering her demonic strength.

"Oh ok! Hey lark. Could you take Cree's stuff for him," said Celsia.

"What! Why me?"

"Because Cree hurt himself and I don't want him to hurt himself again"

Lark grumbled and saw Jack and said "Hey you!"

"Who?" Jack replied turning from his cheese ray.

"Yeah, you. Could you help me with that?" Lark motioned to the other pile.

Jack just stood blankly for a second and said, "OK!" He snapped his fingers and a chao in a forklift came and lifted all the stuff as well as Lark's stuff.

"Thanks. By the way who are you?" Lark began stretching.

"Name's Jack!" He Shook Lark's hand and tipped his hat.

--Outside Ohio--

Maxwell Had decided to sleep and left Espresso to drive. Fortunately for them he was a decent driver. The only problem being that he couldn't reach the pedals and used a medium length dowel that he would hold down on the gas and move it to the break. They were doing fine otherwise. Until they were pulled over by a cop who was relatively calm, unlike sonic who was the only one up and hiding under one of the seats.

The cop had the usual uniform, black shades, and a no-nonsense attitude. He took off his shades and said to espresso "Aren't you a little… short to be driving?"

"Uhh." Stated Espresso for lack of a better word then he shrugged.

"Do you know you were going about twice the normal speed limit"?

"What's a speed limit?" Espresso asked completely clueless.

Instead of an answer the officer reached around the front grill and pulled out a white sign that read 'Speed limit 45' and held it up to Espresso, "That is a speed limit."

Espresso cocked his head to the side still oblivious to the trouble he was in.

"How old are you?" the officer asked Espresso.

"Seven!" He stated.

"And who let you drive this illegal vehicle?" the cop was getting impatient

Espresso turned and yelled into the back "MAXWELL! A guy in a uniform wants to talk with you!"

Maxwell came up and looked at the officer for a moment. He went to the glove compartment and came out with a brick proceeding to drop it on the gas pedal and leaving the cop in their dust.

Maxwell turned to Espresso and said, "Next time, don't stop." And went back to bed.

Sonic almost wet himself from the sheer speed combined with the fact that he had twelve cups of coffee so he didn't have to sleep in the same room as Liz.

Unfortunately for him the caffeine wore off as soon as he found the bathroom and used it.

"Oh well, I guess I should go to bed too. Liz can't be that bad when she's unconscious." He thought to himself assured that he'd still be in one piece when he wakes up… if he ever does. He gulped, nervous.

When he got to the bedroom there were curtains pulled over all the beds but one. The beds were arranged on four walls with three in each wall that were basically square holes in the wall with mattresses in them like… ((AN: just use your imagination))

Sonic noticed one was slightly open and peeked in to find the sleeping form of his tormentor, Liz. Luckily for him she was asleep and seemed harmless and almost… innocent looking. It felt very unusual as Sonic leaned away, his eye twitching slightly. Then he noticed that there was a small key on her paperclip necklace but he dismissed it.

"If only she could be like this all the time" he wished. He got into the empty bead above her, unfortunately for him. Hopefully he would wake up before her... Or at all.

--Back at the S.S. Nightmare--

All the dark chao and Dark Omochao bots were running around busy doing something.

Cree turned to Jack and asked, "What are they doing?"

"They are preparing for principal Imperious' arrival." The bottoms of Jack's shoes glowed a soft blue and he did some sort of super jump up to the ceiling and stuck there with his feet before running off into a hole on the ceiling.

"That was weird."

A dark chao jumped onto a box and pointed out the window into deep space at a large and ominous looking ship and yelled "HE'S COMING!"

--End… for now--