Sorry for not updating earlier, but rest assured that I will not stop writing a story until it is finished. Also, I would appreciate some constructive criticism. I have only recieved one review thus far. I do read all reviews, and would like to know what you think of the story so far. Any suggestions, such as checking spelling more often or problem with the plot is much appreciated and I will act immediately on it. Thank you, and enjoy the next chapter.

Caught in the Middle of a Tug-of-War

"No way is that mutant escaping jail-time!" Detective Tawashi howled with rage, "You know what he can do Astro, I promise the minute you have your back turned he'll be the end of you!" "I talked to him detective, he's not like that. He's got a good heart", Astro was worried, if they didn't get out of the station soon, then Sonic would be locked up. Permanently. "How do you expect people who don't know they're doing wrong to do right if you don't let them?" Tawashi had had enough, but he was beaten on two crucial points. One, he was fighting with someone who had saved his life more times than he had fingers; Two, Astro hit the mark on that last strike. Putting Sonic in prison would rile up another debate on rights, using him as a weapon. Tawashi was risking another war, but this time humans and robots would be on both sides.

The reason? How far your rights really extended. It would be devastation. Astro's eyes lit up suddenly, "Hey, I have an idea, how about you confine him to the city?" "What?", Tawashi had not thought of an argument for that, it was perfectly reasonable. Now that they knew who they were dealing with, Tawashi knew that they had the technology to confine him to their general area. Nevertheless, the detective was not about to let the child best him. "I admit I didn't think of that before, but if he so much as puts a toe out of the city, my officers will shoot him to the ground." It was an empty threat; they both knew how fast Sonic was. If that hedgehog decided to leave before he was collared, it was not a question of how or why, but when he decided to leave.

The meeting stretched on for several more long hours until the detective finally capitulated. They agreed on the following terms: Astro would help Sonic look for the chaos emeralds so long as Sonic remained within two miles of Metro City or Astro himself. Astro received a new attachment just for the occasion. It was a sort of tracker. If Sonic wandered off too far, he would receive a nasty zap for his troubles. They left the police station in Dr. Tenma's car, driven by Arg. Nora took care of Zoran, and although Astro saw her every day, he missed Nora's constant nagging for him not to hurt himself.

As soon as he saw Arg though, his old memories, which had been blocked, flooded in. From Toby, to Hamegg, to President Stone, all the way to the robot recycling facility he had been shut down in. Arg had helped him overcome such struggles, as he usually did. It comforted Astro, to see that after all these years; Arg was still up and running. "Hi, Sonic and Astro, how did the meeting go?", Zoran greeted them, waiting in the seat by the window farthest from them. Astro sat in the center seat, then motioned Sonic to sit next to him.

Sonic gave a heavy sigh as he sat down and tugged at his electric collar. After a while he said, "How can you people just stand there while your world is falling apart? Don't you care about your own safety? I get that every world ends sooner or later, but I think right now it's much, much later. This collar is also bad, I feel like as if that Tawashi guy wants me to act as a pet. I mean look, a collar? Just how obvious can you get?" Astro stared at him, confused with what he had said, so he told Sonic, "Why do you care so much about us? Is it because of the emeralds?" Sonic shrugged and said, "Do I really need a reason to help someone out?" Astro was surprised, he had always had a reason for everything he did, yet the hedgehog acted serious when he said it. Arg decided to take that moment to make himself known, "what happened that scared Detective Tawashi so much, Astro? Is that little animal really the cause of the blue flashes?"

Zoran shook her head, "even though he was still standing when I showed up at the fight, I don't think he could pull off something like that." Sonic had heard that mentioned before, and grew worried. He asked Astro, "a blue flash? I don't think I've ever seen one before, can you describe it for me?" Astro was confused and asked, "Aren't you the one who's been making them? If you make them, how can you expect to see them?" "I don't know, but something still doesn't seem right. Can you please just describe the blue flashes for me?" Astro sighed, "Fine. Once in a while, an area about one mile wide just turns blue. From the outside, it looks like a blue sphere. If you're inside, though, it looks as if anything outside turned blue, too. In fact, if you manage to take someone out of the sphere, they aren't going to stop seeing blue for at least a half-hour. Sometimes it lasts for two hours. We call this 'blue lag', anyway the flashes have been lasting longer and longer. The side effects have also been more severe, the blue lag can now last up to six hours, and sometimes people turn blue. Any robot other than me, Zoran, and a few others caught outside a building during a blue flash short circuit and explode. Robots with AI only short circuit, and can be fixed pretty easily. Anyway, I saw the air behind you turn blue when you tried to run away, and blue is not a normal color for a hedgehog. We thought maybe you've been causing them."

Sonic shook his head, "sorry, but the blue behind me is just an afterimage of my fur because of my speed, and I can't run on air, so running in a sphere is out of the question. Plus, my afterimage doesn't hurt anyone. You flew right through it when you followed me into the crater, and you didn't have any of that 'blue lag' thing. I think you got the wrong guy." This wasn't good news, and Astro had already noticed. Technically he should have 'died' by now, if Sonic was the cause. He had just hoped that it was a coincidence, and not his mistake. "Well, we can't do anything now" ,Astro said, "but maybe there are a few emeralds in Metro City. I'll ask the Detective to clear your name when we find enough evidence to catch the real culprit."

Sonic looked out the window, examining the area outside. He skimmed over the picturesque metropolis for anything even closely resembling a chaos emerald. He didn't see any. Giving up out of boredom he said, "I doubt it. This place looks too safe for an oversized diamond to appear. The chaos emeralds are usually found in the most dangerous and remote places imaginable." Astro looked outside his window, realizing that the city was in relative peace when no crooks were trying to steal or hurt somebody. Detective Tawashi had recently taken care of most cases, but there was still the occasional power-hungry madman for Astro to foil. The constant alien attacks were also keeping Astro reasonably active, though they had finally started to dwindle a bit. The city was almost too quiet. 'Where are Dr. Minimini, Micro Bear, and all the others?'

Now that Astro thought about it, no madmen had shown up for weeks. He was just a normal boy, for now. They arrived at Astro's house without incident, where a boy with brown hair and slightly lighter skin was waiting for them, dressed almost completely in blue, from his pants to his long-sleeved shirt. Astro smiled to his friend, and Reno smiled back. Sonic jumped out of the car, thinking 'Boy, it sure has been a long time since something fun happened around here, hope this new guy is friendly.' Astro and Zoran got out of the car next, a bit wobbly from the span of time they spent in it.

Soon they were in Astro's room, as he and Sonic sat at opposite sides of his bed, while Reno sat in a nearby reclining chair. "So, what happened? I heard that this guy got a little feisty when he was cornered.", he said gesturing toward Sonic, "why isn't he in a prison cell right now? I heard that the Detective did some major upgrades to the security system." He seemed harmless enough, so Sonic tried to decide if he should tell him about the chaos emeralds or not. He looked over his options, which weren't much to begin with. But before he could utter a word, Astro told him everything. "Oh, so you're looking for a big, shiny gem, right? I think I may be able to help you with that. See, ha ha!" , Reno held a beautiful emerald shard in his hand. The color exactly matching Sonic's own green iris color. Once the shard was out in the open, a static feeling filled the air, the gem glowing as if from its own radiance.

This was no chaos emerald, it was a shard of the Master Emerald. Sonic's eyes lit up with gratitude and worry. Knuckles guarded the Master Emerald, and Sonic knew that Knuckles wouldn't abandon his position for anything. Whoever wanted it would have to fight the guardian to the death. "W-w-where did you get that?", he said in amazement. Reno scratched the back of his head, smiling proudly, "I wandered into a red hedgehog who gave me this, saying to give it to a blue hedgehog. He also told me if I didn't meet him in three days, to carefully give it to Astro Boy."

Astro had remained silent the entire time, his 'pupils' shrinking, his chest glowing blue, and his whole body twitching dramatically every few seconds. He looked like he was in deep pain, and his vision began to get pixilated. Reno looked toward him, worried, "Astro, are you okay?" The glowing in his chest started to fade, and he struggled to say, "Reno...put...th-th-that...thing...a-a-a-away." He quickly wrapped up the shard in a bundle of cloth and shoved it into his pocket. Astro slumped to the floor, panting hard and convulsing in pain as the effect wore away. "What was that all about?" ,Sonic asked Astro as he shakily raised himself up to his feet.

Then, he remembered the conversation they had in the car, and what he thought was just a small slip-up from Astro "Any robot other than me, Zoran, and a few others caught outside a building during a blue flash short circuit and explode." Sonic's eyes widened with bewilderment as he looked at Astro in a new light, "you're a robot, aren't you?" Now it was Astro's turn to look at Sonic with widened eyes as he found out he was already discovered. Poor Reno was hopelessly confused with all this, he looked toward Astro for help, "was he not supposed to know about you being a robot? I'm confused" Astro looked at the floor glumly. "Oh, I get it now. Those people are still giving you trouble, huh?" Reno asked Astro. "Trouble, like what?" Sonic asked, as confused as Reno was only moments before.

"Some people in this world think AI robots are trying to take over humanity. Recent events have riled them up again, just after he calmed them down." ,Reno told Sonic, "They found out about Astro's entire life from leaked portions of Dr. Tenma's journal. He was arrested and the police are allowed to check the entire household of the captured suspect, a few important pages went missing and turned up years later after everyone knew all about Astro. The only thing everyone didn't know was how he was constructed. Tenma destroyed all information on Astro's construction years before the police caught him. Anyway, these people that hate AI robots are insulting Astro with his own life, they want Astro shut down, permanently. They are using Astro's life as evidence for the destruction of all AI robots."

"Oh, I get it. Tell me though, what is the definition of AI here?" Sonic asked, he wanted to know why there were people trying to destroy things that could only follow orders, but Sonic also had a hunch that AI didn't mean the exact same thing on both Mobius and Earth. Reno happily replied, "AI means 'artificial intelligence' though in Astro's case, it means a whole lot more. Astro is an entirely new type of robot, one with a heart and soul. They can actually feel things, like human emotions and pain. Astro's the only one of his kind, though, other than Zoran and Zog. They have an alien energy supply called a 'blue core' while others have a special heart-shaped battery called 'kokoro'. The thing people are scared of though, is that these don't need to take orders. They have the power to rebel."

Suddenly Sonic understood both sides. Taking a side was a different matter, as both seemed reasonable choices. "What side are you on, Reno?" ,Sonic asked. Reno looked at him as if he was crazy and said "I'm with Astro of course, he's my friend after all." Astro sat in a corner of his room, farthest from Reno, who still carried the emerald shard. Sonic looked toward Astro, then Reno. Then he said, "I suppose you already know that I'm not from this world, right?" I told Astro I'm here to collect seven jewels and go home.

Now that I know this place a bit better, though, it seems like I'm going to need your help." Astro looked up, suddenly. His facial expression familiar only to Reno. "It's someone new, this time, huh?" ,he asked. Astro nodded, "It's at least a mile away." They heard several explosions in the distance. Then they heard a gruff, old voice, "ATTENTION METRO CITY, PLEASE GIVE ME THE ANTHROPOMORPHIC BLUE HEDGEHOG YOU ARE HIDING AND I WILL MAKE YOU'RE DESTRUCTION QUICK AND PAINLESS." Sonic's smile was never wider, "well, if it isn't an old friend of mine! I'm coming too, Astro, it's been a while since I've gotten to trash an evil robot. Especially the ones made by a 'little friend' of mine."