Chapter 4

Sally awoke to a harsh light penetrating her eyelids. She blinked against the orange stars now flooding her vision as her eyes struggled to adjust to the sunlight which somehow now seemed much brighter than what she had seen earlier that day. She looked about her to see what the others were doing. Sonic was nowhere to be seen, neither was Tails. Rotor was setting Nicole up and Antoine was standing around doing seemingly nothing.
'Hey guys…what just happened?' Sally asked Rotor and Antoine.
Rotor looked up from Nicole's open circuitry 'You've been unconscious for about 2 hours Sal'; I'm just setting Nicole up to work. She seems to have crashed.' He clipped the cover back over Nicole's circuitry 'I'm glad Nicole is shielded from high energy bursts, but she still got a little scrambled, with any luck this should fix things' he clicked the switch on the side of Nicole and her screen hummed to life.

'Checking vitals' Nicole's voice sounding eerily robotic now mentioned to no-one in particular.
'Warning, Rotor, heavy damage sustained to primary power source, switching to nuclear battery and solar storage'

'Nicole, where are we?' Sally walked over to Nicole and retrieved her from Rotor.
'We are in Knothole, year 245' Nicole answered Sally, her regular voice taking over now as she finished setting up.
Sally blinked in surprise 'Rotor are you sure Nicole is working alright? Nicole, run diagnostics'
'She is working fine Sal' I triple checked her'

Sally sat down, she needed a minute to steady herself, was she really in the past? The year was 3228 when they had seemingly teleported from the face of Mobius. That could only leave one possibility open, that they had done the impossible and travelled through time.

-

About fifty miles away Sonic was exploring the region. He had come to a very densely packed jungle. He looked up at the tall trees standing imposingly above him. Standing at approximately several hundred feet tall, he had never seen these trees before. Sonic had to stop still and appreciate the many beautiful colours and species of flora that lined the outside of the jungle. At the back of his head the voice of his late uncle Chuck was saying that incredible beauty is an excellent cover for extreme danger.
Sonic had set out south whilst Tails had flown north to scout the area. Sonic thought to himself for a minute whether he should take a short expedition into the jungle and see if he could find anything that would give them a clue where they were…or what time period they were in. He still was not sure if Nicole had been malfunctioning when she said they were in the year 245 but still…he could not deny that what she said would match up with their current predicament.

'Well, I'm here now, so I may as well take a look whilst we're still here, no tellin' when we'll go back. 'Sides we need some food and water' he took a leisurely running pace into the jungle. Time once again felt as if it were slowing down and everything instead of becoming a blur seemed to pass by with incredible sloth-like speed. A flood of cool liquid filled his head again whilst he darted between trees and hopped from branch to branch avoiding dense undergrowth on the jungle floor.

Sonic passed by several strange looking creatures. They looked particularly menacing but did not even see him as he passed them. Sweat beaded his forehead though as the humidity hit him like a monsoon and he soon found himself feeling quite thirsty.
About this time Sonic could smell something cooking and slowed to a stop leaving a trail of burning dead leaves in the undergrowth. He did not worry about starting a fire here, the flames soon died down from the humidity.
'I smell something cooking, which must mean there is intelligent life here after all…' he thought to himself and started walking in the direction the smell was emanating from.
Being a jungle it was difficult to locate precisely where a smell was coming from but he soon found the way. The thought crossed his mind suddenly that he did not know the way back now. He really should have thought about how he was going to get back before he ventured into the jungle. Now he was likely going to have to just keep running back in the general direction he came from and hope that he finds the way out soon. With a normal Mobian this might have been a problem but for Sonic, his super-sonic speed would make it a minor inconvenience as he could navigate through long distances in the jungle in relatively short periods of time.
He brushed some vines out of the way and stepped under some dead tree branches to be confronted by an odd sight. A clearing in the jungle with a large pyramid shaped structure in the middle that rose above the tree tops in a peak. There were from what he could see Echidnas walking around the structure. The Echidnas seemed to be rushing about talking loudly among themselves and appeared to be having some sort of celebratory party.
He stopped dead, dumbfounded at the scene playing out in front of him. The Echidnas were an endangered race back in the great forest. The only Echidna he had ever met was his friend/occasional nemesis Knuckles. Yet there were many of them right here all wearing traditional tribal clothing. The males wore nothing at all bar some jewellery made from hollowed out nuts and shiny stones. Some had their faces painted white whilst the girls wore dresses made from silk and decorated with bright feathers.
One of the Echidnas, a young girl stopped and looked at Sonic. Their eyes made contact and the rest of the Echidnas soon stopped and stared at the unusual blue intruder. The talking hushed down to a whisper among the Echidnas and Sonic found himself feeling very self-conscious as from his experience with Knuckles, Echidnas were a very violent species with a history of war.

The young girl slowly approached Sonic. Sonic could not help but notice how stunningly beautiful this girl was, her fur was more of a pinkish hue than red and had some brightly coloured bands of unknown material tied around her spines. Two rather large looking Echidnas marched behind the girl. By the way they kept a respectable distance Sonic figured that this girl must be an important Mobian here.
'Hello stranger, what brings you to our camp?' The girl asked Sonic in Mobian. Granted the accent was a little odd sounding, she still made perfect sense to Sonic.
'I…I don't know how to explain…well…you see…um…this is going to sound crazy but' Sonic struggled to find the words 'me and some friends have gotten lost and we don't know where we are, we are trying to get back home' Sonic realized how strange he must sound now to these people.

The girl stared at him curiously for a minute before responding 'You do not sound like you are from here, where do you come from?'
'Well…we come from…the future' Sonic mentally checked himself as the two large Echidnas with the girl scoffed at what he said.
'You come from the future? Well, I don't think you are a threat to us. You are welcome to stay with us as long as you need until you feel better.' She responded to Sonic thinking he must have hit his head 'You will have to speak to my father though, but for now, call me Tikal. These are my fathers people and you are now a guest of the Echidna tribe'

Phew, this was a fun chapter to write. I am off to bed in just a moment as it is almost 11pm here in England.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I hope to be writing chapter 5 very soon. Please leave me some reviews or critical feedback so I can improve if need be/it will be encouraging for me.