Chapter Three

Sonic was running. Running over an ocean of green semi cut grass.

it was truly an amazing sight. watching everything and, at the same time, nothing pass at (for most) impossible speeds.

He loved it. There was only one thing he enjoyed as much and that was-

Sonic grinned. Four flying Eggman Robots were moving in on the hedgehog.

"Finally made it to the party!" Sonic called to the Robots. They responded with a hail of lasers. Sonic dashed to the left and right, dodging the lethal weapons. This next part was his favorite. He jumped up, smashed through the lead robot, and hit the last two with an arial-spindash.

He looked behind him to see the metal scraps fall to the ground and the now free birds fly away.

Sonic looked ahead to see a bridge over a raging river. Sonic stopped him self just before running on the bridge, and saw seven red piranha like robots jump from one end of the bridge to the other.

Sonic crouched down and waited... waited... waited... waited... waiting still... waited... until... it's coming... waiting... and then, as if late on que, all the piranhas emerged from the Water.

Sonic rolled into a ball, and shot across the bridge, destroying the robots, and collected a line of rings.

Sonic heard the metal splash in the water, and the freed lizards scurrying across the bridge.

as Sonic was exiting the bridge, a wall of fire shot up, blocking his path. Sonic shrugged

"There's more then one way to the other side" He said before jumping in the river. As he had expected, there was a trench leading under the gate. Sonic dropped to the ground and began a slow run. after a few feet, a bulldozer-robot jumped from under the dirt, hitting Sonic who lost his rings.

Sonic grunted.

As the robot turned away, Sonic smashed it and continued his run.

Then a feeling came over Sonic. his lungs began to feel as if they were being crushed.

He needed air. He desperately kicked and squirmed through the water, frantically searching for a source of air.

Then he saw it. An air bubble in the distance. As he approached it, it hit an overhanging rock, and dissolved. Sonic frowned he didn't know how much longer he had.

3...

The pressure continued to his stomach. his whole body starved for oxygen.

2...

did it usually take this long to release air. he had only a couple more seconds.

1...

there one was! Sonic rolled forward and breathed in the bubble.

He then moved on to the end of trench. No! Sonic thought. The trench ended in a tunnel leading the wrong way. Sonic decided to bite the bullet and take the current up the path.

It ended in a small decorative pond in the middle of a large casino. Sonic smirked. He could use a few rings. Sonic jumped up out of the Water and ran through the casino until he came to a large bowel like dip with a slot display in the center. He rolled down one end, shot up the other, and landed in the slot machine

Spin, Spin, Spin

EggMan

Spin, Spin,

EggMan

Spin,

EggMan!

Several spiked balls shot at Sonic from a cannon. Before they could hit him, Sonic jumped out of the way. Sonic landed and looked up at the slot machine. Can't be unlucky twice, Sonic thought.

He jumped back up and hit the switch.

Spin, Spin, Spin

Jack Pot

Spin, Spin,

Jack Pot

Spin,

Jack Pot!

Two hundred rings shot from the cannon and into Sonic.

Sonic jumped up and landed on the ledge. And standing there, was the black hedgehog with blue spikes. smileing at Sonic.

He tried to jump at him, but couldn't move.

Black Ray Changed from Black to a blurry red. The now red hedgehog raised his hand, where a black spear shot out, and hit sonic square in the chest.

"NO!"

the great blue hedgehog dropped to the ground, dead.

Sonic awoke and shot up on the couch. He tried to get up, but the pain in his chest kept him down.

he decided to just lie down, as he had these past two weeks. How he longed to run as he had in every dream since arriving here. And they all ended the same way: Black Ray kills him.

Sonic wasn't much of a thinker, he preferred to run and deal with issues when they showed themselves. but he had been wondering this whole time how he had survived the attack that would kill any one else, or how Black Ray was able to "Shut off" Shadow's Chaos control, but not Sonic's.

Even without that, Black Ray matched Sonic's speed, and had much stronger Chaos control then perhaps even Shadow (Shadow couldn't shut off Chaos control) Sonic should be dead, Even Tails had said this. Tail who had left on some unknown errand and left Sonic crippled and with Amy.

even Knuckles disappeared, leaving no word on what Eggman was doing with his "perfected Shadow clone".

Sonic looked up as he heard pounding down the hall.

"Sonic? Are you alright?" Amy asked coming around the corner.

"Yeah Amy" Sonic said "I'm fine"

"I heard kicking and mumbling, I wasn't sure if it was another dream."

"Dream? What dream?" Sonic asked

"Oh Sonic, you and I both know you've been having nightmares!" Amy shouted angrily.

"There haven't been any nightmares, but the air blower thing keeps making strange noises"

Amy crossed her arms "It's an air conditioning, and fine. suit yourself" She walked toward him. "Let me feel your ribs" She said walking over and feeling his chest.

Sonic felt uncomfortable with this kind of attention. He preferred to save the vulnerable person, not be one.

The upside of every thing was that Amy hadn't through herself at Sonic. She was afraid Tails would tell Sonic of something she would prefer no one know.

"They feel alright" She said "Maybe you'll be on your feet in the next couple of days"

Sonic's mood brightened

"Couple of days?" He asked. Amy looked as if she thoroughly regretted what she had said.

"Or weeks... Or Months!" She said, tripping over her words.

Sonic slowly got up to his feet and smiled. "I'll go with days" he said slowly walking across the room to test his feet. it felt wonderful to stand, to move. he never wanted to sit again.

"You should sit" She said standing up. Sonic frowned

"I like standing, thanks" he Said. The two stood in silence for a minute, Sonic shifting his wait on each legs while Amy twitled her thumbs.

"You want some breakfast?" She asked. Sonic considered it for a moment

"Yeah" he said nodding, anything to get his mind off his need to run.

it was like a drug he had grown addicted to. if he was forced to go on much longer he saw no point in life.

Sonic slowly limped into the kitchen after Amy. Just to use his feet and get out of the room was incredible. He watched as Amy pulled a fresh pork sausage roll from her fridge and began cutting it.

Sonic often grew tired of Amy's incessant chasing and usually avoided her altogether.

Butit was certainly sweet of her to take care of Sonic these past weeks.

"I'm gona' go run" He said to her

"Run?" She asked, raising any eye brow.

"Or walk" he conceded. "Stay inside, I promised Tails I wouldn't let you out."

"Fine" He said. Sonic began limping around the house, mostly in circles, but all it did was make him want to run even more.

After simply walking for forty minus, Amy called him to the Kitchen (He had mostly avoided it during his walk. He limped in there to see Amy had set the table with a spread of breakfast dishes. Sonic was never that hungry aside from the occasional chili dog, but even he needed food. Amy served two plates and handed one to sonic who chose to eat on his feet.
"aren't you going to sit?" Amy asked. Sonic cocked his head.

"I've sat enough these past week all I need to".
"Fine" Amy said, frustrated.

the two sat in silence. Sonic would toy with his eggs and only eat a bite every few minutes.
It had been this way since Sonic had gotten there. Amy had mostly gone with it. At least he wasn't running away. Sonic was fine with it in the beginning, but Amy being quiet seemed wrong. Like she should be chasing him. It was a fine system. Amy goes after Sonic, Sonic runs and complains about it.

Growing tired of the silence (after all, he always had the sound of the wind in his ears) he decided to initiate conversation. "so..." he said, realizing he should have thought of a topic before speaking.
"so?" Amy repeated, looking up with her emerald green eyes. Sonic tapped on the table. "this house. I thought you had a place in the city?" Amy looked down at her food
"it's my inheritance. It's been sitting here for a few years. A friend finally convinced me that some work like this would, you know" she shifted in her chair "so here it is."

Sonic nodded. He never stood around for conversation, so he didn't know how to reply. The deepest conversation he had ever had was with Tails about the Chaos emeralds, and when Sonic got board he ran off.

Sonic pushed away his plate. "That's enough for me." He said walking out of the room.

Amy shook her head and crossed her arms. She had always had the illusion of being able to "tame" Sonic and get him to settle down. these past couple of weeks had proven to show her that it wouldn't be an easy task.

Tails walked down the hall of the abandoned Space Colony Ark. He had spent the last week trying to figure out more about Black Ray. He had spent weeks trying to find a Chaos Emerald. It had been strange taking this little adventure without Sonic, but Sonic was in no condition to help. After he found an emerald he traveled to the location of Sonic's battle with Black Ray and used a detector to find where Black Ray had teleported. finally, he detected an opening in the Chaos Zone, and tracked it to the Ark.

That hadn't been an easy task seeing as he couldn't use Chaos Control. First he had tracked Shadow to Westopolis who had lost his Chaos Control and was hunting Black Ray himself. the two (Along with Omega, a robot Shadow had grown fond of, and Rouge) began creating a device to open a rift in the Chaos Zone. when that was done, they traveled Black Ray's route until arriving at the Ark.

Tails left to the main control room while Shadow, Omega and Rouge stayed to watch for Eggman or Black Ray. taking a final left, Tails walked into the control room where, as Tails suspected, everything was up and running. He walked to the computer and begann hacking into the files. After a few minutes, he got into the computer on Eggman's base. "Perfect" He said to him self.

As he had had guessed, Eggman was using the ark, and he was accessing his own main computer.

A few quick codes, and he was in Egg Man's database.

Tails pulled a small device from his glove and plugged it in the computer.

[Software detected] came green words on the screen. fallowed by a [Input Key Words_]

Tails thought for a moment before typing in "Black Ray" a window came up with reading: [Security code required] Tails hit the switch on the decoder he had used to break through Egg Man's fire wall which quickly filled the password. a series of files came up. The first was a plan to hold up a research lab, the next was a journal log. Tails clicked it and began reading

"My plans are in place. tomorrow evening will be the beginning of the end. How poetic, hohoho. it all began when my scans from the space colony ark picked up traces of Black Arm Energy-"

"Well, well, you sneaky Fox." Came a voice behind him. Tails turned around and saw Eggman sitting in his floating Egg-mobile with a laser gun pointed at his chest.

"I could pull this trigger now and have one of you pesky rats out of my life. It's what I've aspired to all these years" Eggman began putting pressure on the trigger.

"What is this about the Black Arm energy?" Tails asked

"Never you mind my business" Eggman said, firing the laser

Shadow ran into the room and pushed the laser gun out of the way. As a result, the laser hit the computer screen, shattering the glass and damaging the inner components, shutting it down. Omega followed in with Rouge, and shot down the Egg-Mobile.

"Permission to eradicate the doctor?" Omega asked

Shadow shook his head "He's not worth it. I would tell him that this is a warning, but the Doctor's 'genius' mind couldn't comprehend can live, but only because he will never be a true threat to the humans" Shadow looked at Tails. "What did you learn Miles?"

"Not much, and nothing more given the state of this computer." He said picking up a shard of glass.

"I could-"

"No time" Shadow said preparing an escape pod. "A pack of robots are on their way, and without Chaos control it could be a dangerously violant fight"

Tails nodded and followed Rouge into the pod.

"Me and Omega will follow" Shadow said, ejecting the pod to the planet.

Rouge and Tails stood in silence for a minute.

"y' know Tails, You never told me, Who was the ring for?"

A minuscule tear made it's way under his eye "Did I need to?"

Rouge Nodded slowly. "yeah" after a moment she followed up with "What did you learn?"

"Not enough for a final conclusion, But I have a theory" Tails began "Egg Man detected some sort of Black Arm energy source in a research facility which he used to perfect a Shadow clone, and sent it to kill Sonic. Now remember, this is a rough theory, and I plan to accumulate more information"

"One quick question, Why wasn't this "Black Ray" here?" Rouge asked

"That's the problem" Tails said, scratching his head "Egg Man obviously knew we were here. he was prepared to kill me, Why not have his clone do it?"

Mean while, this "Clone" had undergone torture for the past two wees. and finally,

his eyes changed from pearl to Red.

"Chaos control!" he shouted, He was instantly teleported to a different room.

This time he would not fail, and Sonic the Hedgehog would be killed