Chapter 7: Misunderstanding
--

Metal-Sonic strode outside of the Launch Base near the northern Black Mountains. This base was formerly used to prepare the Death Egg for launch into space. Now it was converted into a mass-production base for aircraft. He stood upon an overhanging balcony and looked at the preparations below.

Thousands upon thousands of crimson battle drones were entering formation. They all bore a likeness of their human creator. Gold-colored drones stood in front of every regiment. Taller, leaner and more avian-like robots dotted the grounds like commanders on the battlefront. Past the battle ranks, several ships were being carted out of construction bays and even more were being constructed inside. The blue robot high above watched the ships as they were being carted out, each bearing a likeness of saltwater fish. There were some of sharks, manta rays and swordfish.

Metal-Sonic secretly despised the cosmetics of the design, but he knew that the design was essential for the plan. Who the fleet represented was not to be a secret by any means. Operation Firestorm was almost ready, and would begin by the end of the week.

Metal-Sonic strode back inside, and peered at a glowing white gem contained inside a glass bell jar. The White Chaos Emerald, one of the seven powerful Emeralds of the planet. The more the robot hedgehog looked at it, the more he desired its power...which is why he kidnapped Frosty the Chao. The chao demonstrated a potential for great power with the Chaos Emeralds, but the demonstration she was forced to show for the robot was next to fruitless as one Chaos Emerald was not enough to effectively demonstrate any exceptional power that this chao could express. More Chaos Emeralds were indeed needed.

The problem was...where to get them? Metal-Sonic knew he made a strategic error when he first kidnapped Frosty with the White Emerald. Data stated that there was at least one more Emerald within the Cyclone walker itself, and he knew it. He had stolen the Yellow Emerald himself three years before back on the space colony ARK. Metal-Sonic repressed a shudder in his frame. The ARK was a cursed place he wished never to see again.

Back on track, he knew he would have to go back to the hedgehog and the fox to steal an Emerald. The fox always kept one inside the Cyclone as a power source. The hedgehog himself has been carrying the blue one since it was found in Mystic Ruins and counted it as his personal favorite.

Metal-Sonic strode away from the White Emerald in the jar, although he found it to be a wrench to leave. He made a mental note on it later, and was secretly thrilled at the thought. For years, Metal-Sonic had been upgrading his metal body piece by piece, steering to be as close to living and as far away from robot as possible. He flexed his claws, and felt neuro-impulses pulse through underneath his bio-metal shell, which tightened in response, rising in spots and sinking in others. The data Shadow had given him on the space colony ARK was truly showing. Professor Gerald truly was a genius to come up with such a metal. Perhaps with more adjustments, he could even use Chaos Emeralds. By a master in the arts of Chaos, he was able to use the global Chaos Aura to draw the energy needed for basic powers, but for anything more advanced, a Chaos Emerald was imperative. He could now hold them without fear of instant shutdown, which was a step in the right direction.

He soon reached a computer terminal and accessed it through the Mecha-bot wireless network. "Computer, display satellite global cartograph of Möbius, Mercator projection X-axis," Mecha commanded through the network. The voice her bore was still robotic through the network, but he knew that was to be expected in an electronic network.

"Acknowledged." The computer replied then displayed a rectangular cartograph of the entire planet. Mecha was always amused at the immense distortion of the geographic landscapes as it neared the poles, but distortion of any kind is unavoidable when making a flat map from a sphere-shape.

"Computer. Uplink to satellite and scan all Möbius for Chaos Emeralds. Display coordinates of location and notify me when complete."

"Affirmative. Notice: scan may take at most twelve hours for one hundred percent completion. Advance?" The computer asked.

"Affirmative."

The computer proceeded in the global scan, and Mecha departed. The computer could do the task without supervision. He returned to the small pod containing the Chaos Emerald, and after staring at it for some time, he lifted the covering off and took the Emerald out of the containment pod. In the privacy of the control chamber, he stood staring into it; half trying to figure out how to use it and half amazed at its power.

As he looked into it, he began to feel some sort of sensation, he couldn't describe it. It almost felt as if this Chaos Emerald was trying to tell him something. Mecha almost blew this off as nonsense, but the Chaos Emeralds were so mysterious that nothing could really be certain. His trainer told him to truly use a Chaos Emerald, you have to wash away anything occupying your mind and let your feelings do the work. Metal-Sonic was still new to this body and could not grasp that concept; it wasn't like opening a port in your mind to let the energy in.

Growing more and more puzzled at the Emerald as this sudden display of "behavior" (Metal-Sonic could not come up with a better term immediately), he sat the Emerald back in its containment pod and placed the bell-jar back over the shining white gem. His bewilderment did not lessen, but it was soon joined by unanswered curiosity.

Metal-Sonic turned away, disappointed with the unanswered questions that were now just being processed through his bio-nanite processor of a brain. He checked the computer's progress and saw that it found nothing yet. Slightly annoyed he turned away.

With astonishment, he realized he had just performed an illogical emotion. He had just performed an act of impatience. He knew that the scan would not be complete until the end of the day (six hours to be precise) but he checked it anyway. Annoyance was not an illogical reaction, but it was in this case. It was a simple emotion for a complex reason...for a computer.

Could his upgrades have been more advancing then he had previously foreseen? Thinking illogically stemmed from emotions, and robots would not display any emotions unless prompted to do so by programming. He was acting like a living creature, but made up of machines. He was semi-living.

Not sure what to think of the sudden show of irrational annoyance and the thought of being able to display such emotion, he turned back outside to watch the preparations for Firestorm. Wirelessly linking to the network again, he checked the progress of Firestorm at the other bases around the world.

Good. Everything was going on schedule or ahead of schedule. Saturday morning, a remote signal would be sent to the bases, commanding the ships to lift-off. By Saturday night, the Egg Fleet would be united and nothing...not even Sonic who's on a wild goose chase after what was intended to appear to be a secret weapon.

The world will fall, and the human colonies...the invaders...would be the first to go.

- - - - -

Deep inside a dark abandoned base in the Northern Black Mountains, a human, a hedgehog and a bat sat in various pieces of furniture surrounding the only source of heat in the immediate area, a coil heater. Rouge had shivered for a while, but the shivering slowed as the heat oozed throughout her body. Shadow sat stock still as did the human, who called himself Viper. There was only one other, and he, being a robot, stood in one corner, his motor systems on idle to conserve power.

Rouge had watched Viper depart the room and come back without his weapon suit and was wearing jeans, and to her surprise a sleeveless shirt, although he wore a thick black leather jacket over it, unzipped. He wore black gloves, but there was something strange about his left arm. The glove was padded and went well past his wrist. It gave his left arm a look that it was bigger then it really was. Other then that, nothing else was really remarkable about this human except his venom-yellow eyes, which seemed to glow in the dim lighting of the room.

Viper got down to business. "I find it strange that two people and a robot would even bother to go up into this godforsaken mountain range. You'd better have a very good reason." His voice hinted like he was fiercely territorial.

This wasn't the first male he encountered that acted this way. The last one she met had a flying chunk of real estate and was a bit of a knucklehead. "Hmph, well, you're the tough guy around here, then? Why should I tell you?"

One of Viper's eyes twitched in annoyance. "I'd say you owe me one for this morning."

Rouge had no retort for this one.

"So, what's the story?"

"Oh, if I must." Rouge sighed with exaggerated annoyance. "Simply put, we're here to find a Chaos Emerald."

Rouge looked at Viper again, who was peering at Shadow as if trying to read him. Shadow was glancing back. Rouge soon got the impression that these two knew each other, or more so one knew the other and the other only felt like he met the one but forgot him. The fruit bat could guess who the one was and who the other was.

Viper looked back at Rouge. "A Chaos Emerald? I can tell you already have one; why another?"

Rouge peered at Shadow, and Viper got the hint. It wasn't for Rouge; it was for Shadow.

"And that's the only reason you three are up here? For a Chaos Emerald? That's all?"

Rouge hesitated. It would seem rather foolish to a third party to go up into one of the most inhospitable regions of the world for just one Chaos Emerald. You had to have one heck of a good reason to do so.

Omega saved her. "It is for our mission."

Viper regarded the eight-foot robot for the first time. "Mission? What mission?"

Omega saw no reason to conceal it. "To destroy Dr. Robotnik."

Viper looked the red and black robot up and down. He could tell it was of Robotnik's designs. "You're a renegade then? I didn't think robots were capable of overriding their master programming."

"I was never subdued by such programming. I was activated with the simple instruction to guard a stasis pod and for no other purpose." Omega's eyes lid up several candelas in indignation.

"What's your call-sign?"

"E-123 Omega. I am the last and most advanced E-100 series robot, the ultimate."

"E-100 series. I didn't think that series made it past E-105 Zeta."

"It has." Omega, even though his robotic features prohibited facial expressions, looked curious. "Query: how do you know E-105 Zeta."

"As someone in my profession, I usually find myself stealing data from other networks. I had seen activation instructions for the E-100 series, but only up to Zeta. Anything past that was cancelled as soon as that Robotnik saw that the series would fail...or at least, what he saw as to have failed. It's surprising to see you active, let alone still assembled."

Omega's eyes dimmed. So Dr. Robotnik had planned on destroying him even before he was even given a chance to be activated. That was two marks against Dr. Robotnik. Omega's eyes brightened in thoughtfulness at the destruction he would cause for this treachery.

"So, a Chaos Emerald for a mission against Dr. Robotnik, and this Emerald is for Shadow." Viper peered back at the moody black hedgehog. He hadn't spoken a word since he arrived. He then peered at Rouge. "You have a Chaos Emerald tracker?"

"You're quick," Rouge replied, holding up a gadget that looked like a glorified stopwatch.

Viper offered a hand, silently demanding it over for a while with his eyes. Rouge saw those eyes shimmer in the dim lighting and saw that he meant business. Handing it over with a "I want that back, dearie," she watched as Viper took it without a word, got up and strode quickly to a series of computers. He wordlessly hooked up some wires to a console and watched as the computer was processing. Rouge didn't notice the computers before, and marveled at the amount of software it must have. It dawned on the bat that this probably was not always Viper's hideout.

"What was this place?" She ventured, and half-expected not to answer.

"A seismic observatory for the human colonies, but when the earthquakes grew worse without any scientific explanation, it was abandoned. That was before I came to this planet."

"You're from Earth."

"Yes."

The computer was done processing and it showed a digitally-enhanced satellite picture of the Northern Black Mountains. The Chaos Emerald location was a green blip on the map.

"Your Chaos Emerald tracker truly is really efficient, zeroing on a Chaos Emerald within centimeters..." The human cast a dark glance at Rouge, as if accusing her of stealing this technology from someone and wanted to know who exactly. It made the bat uncomfortable. How had he known? Viper continued, "...but there is one issue that is crucial."

Rouge perked up, and Viper saw one of Shadow's ears perk his direction. Omega, although not knowing why, was also listening. He would fathom this later.

Viper press a couple of keys on the keyboard and all watch the satellite photo become a dotted wireframe. It then started to scroll to the side, showing a three-dimensional complex wireframe of the range, and Rouge noticed one crucial thing: the Chaos Emerald blip was not shown to be on the surface, but far beneath it.

"The problem is that it doesn't show whether the Emerald is on the surface or no. I had a hunch, and it was right. The Chaos Emerald is located nearly two miles beneath the surface of Mount Buio, the tallest and by far the most dangerous mountain of the range. Convenient." Viper said the last part with utmost distaste.

Disconnecting the Chaos-energy tracking device, he said "If you're going to go after it, now would be a good time to go. It is ten miles walk through the mountains, and it's hard enough without the traugans and the earthquakes."

Rouge then popped the question. "Well, then, since you know so much about this place, maybe you should be our guide." Rouge fluttered her eyes.

Viper was not impressed. "As I should, as you three wandered through there blindly, but for any favor in my field of work, there is always a price."

Rouge smiled; a human just like her. She never did favors for free either. "Oh? What's a guy like you want from us?"

"In return for helping you find a Chaos Emerald, find ME a Chaos Emerald, any color will do."

Rouge battered her eyes once. Humans can't use Chaos Emeralds, so why want one? Maybe he just wants to sell it for a spectacular amount of profit, she thought to herself. "Ok, handsome, you got yourself a deal."

Viper didn't move, secretly annoyed at Rouge's flirty behavior; Shadow just grunted. He didn't see why this human should have a Chaos Emerald whatsoever.

Eventually, Viper moved outside the room, and Rouge followed him, just for curiosity sake. Shadow and Omega remained in the room.

Rouge watched as Viper came to a door that looked like a warehouse gate, and thought it was a way to get outside. She was in for a surprise. Viper grasped the bottom lip of the gate and heaved it upwards violently. Noisily sliding on metal grooves, Rouge saw what the gate really contained and was blown away. It was a hall-way like room, filled with shelved, each containing large amounts of weaponry. Rouge had never seen so many firearms in one place besides museums or gun-shops.

She watched as Viper stepped into the weapons arsenal room and start buckling on various holsters, two on his thighs and one impressive on around his back, strapped to the front of his chest. It looked like it could hold two weapons at once. There were black flat knobs along the straps that went over the human's right shoulder, the holster itself and then the strap that went low underneath Viper's left shoulder.

Then, mechanically and almost reverently, he holstered various weapons into their proper holsters. He saw a silver handgun go into Viper's left-leg holster, and it was the biggest handgun Rouge ever saw, and assumed it was of the Desert Eagle family. An SMG went into the right leg holster. A shotgun and battle rifle filled the two holsters on his back. Rouge saw him pick up two-silver colored rods, one in each hand, that appeared insignificant compared to the weapons around. When Viper activated them both, amaranth-colored beams of energy swished out, and with a flick of the wrists he twirled the weapons around with a hum, and then deactivated them with another swish. Rouge was amazed. Viper had lightsabers, and those were worth hundreds of thousands on the market for their rarity, and prized among sword specialists for their ease of use. He slung these onto hooks on his belt.

Rouge thought he was armed to the teeth enough, but Viper didn't seem to be done yet. He looked at the far wall and Rouge followed his gaze. Mounted high as if they were the prizes of the weapon collection were two giant swords, each about five feet long from pommel to blade tip. One was two bladed and was stone-grey, as if it itself was made of stone; it looked almost gothic. The other was one-sided and looked "polygonic," The blade was the larger of the two swords and gleamed more in the light. One thing was true though; both looked heavy.

That didn't seemed to be an issue for the human however, as he took the double-edged one off the mount, and swung it around...with one hand. Rouge gulped; anyone who could do that with a two-handed sword was someone not to mess with. She watched as Viper swung it over his shoulder and over the hilt. As Viper took his hands off the hilt, Rouge saw that it stayed on, with no visible attachments to the holster. Then she remembered the strange knobs on the holster and straps. Could those have been magnets?

Viper stood with her back to Rouge, and seemed to savor the moment of his arming, as if was a preparation for war. Rouge decided now was a good time to leave. She was beginning to question the hiring of this human; he was clearly a weapons maniac, and no one would dare hold that against him as he could clearly show them what he was made of.

A few seconds later, Viper sensed that Rouge had left. He had a feeling that Rouge had seen him arm up and probably thought he was overdoing things, but Viper knew better. He was specially trained as an Elite Trooper, the special ops team of the Federation before he left the service to pursue the profession of a mercenary slash bounty hunter. In his line of work as an Elite or a bounty hunter, there is no such thing as overkill.

Back in the main room during the entire ordeal, Shadow watched as Rouge followed Viper a few rooms down, then looking at Omega, he got up and fished out Rouge's Violet Chaos Emerald from her bag. Sitting back in his chair, he peered into the Emerald's widest facet. He was soon growing conscious of his fur standing up on end on his arms as if charged with electricity and the tingling it made was annoying him. He willed himself to ignore it and continued to peer into the facet.

He was just looking for answers, and for some reason, he thought this Emerald would tell him. He didn't know how or why; he just tried. She was thus engaged when he saw something like a flicker deep inside the Emerald. It looked like a purple lightning bolt, striking over and over again. He peered at it closer, and unconsciously placed his other hand on the Emerald's side.

The Emerald now had a circuit. It was the battery and Shadow was the coil, and with nothing acting as a resistor, Shadow was now vulnerable to the Emerald's power. Shadow's mind would act as a resistor, but with it preoccupied, it was unable to suppress the energy. Electrical Chaos energy raced through one arm and out the other, racing constantly through the Emerald and through Shadow's body.

Shadow was not feeling the power, but was experiencing it in a whole new way. He felt as if he sank into the Emerald, and all the sudden, he was seeing things that would haunt him in nightmares.

He saw himself lying dead on the side of a mountain, pierced in two places. He saw himself racing through an open highway pursued by cops and fighter jets. He saw himself standing over the burning ruins of a city, smiling in triumph with five Chaos Emeralds encircling him. He saw himself racing across a flying battleship towards a blue monster with claws. He saw himself facing a black star-shaped thing with six arms and one eye, shimmering red. He saw himself, glowing a bright cream color, racing towards a lizard-like monster with a yellow glowing hedgehog right beside him. He saw himself fighting a white hedgehog, holding a talisman-like object with a glowing white jewel embedded in it. Last of all, he saw a human girl with yellow hair and an expression that was kind and gentle...bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest, and he saw and heard the cadence of her last breath.

"Shadow! Report!" said a harsh, monotone voice.

Shadow came to on the floor. Surrounding him were Viper now armed to the teeth, Rouge and Omega. Rouge looked shocked and afraid; Viper's concern hardened his face into a scowl. Omega's eyes were so bright that they weren't red anymore. He must've been the shouting at him to report.

"Give him air!" Viper said, shoving Rouge and Omega back. "Shadow, what just happened!?"

Shadow started to get up, and found this his arms and chest were burning, and his fingertips felt fat and were going through neural spasms. Was he electrocuted? How? Just a second ago, he was looking at the Chaos Emerald. Next second, he was on the floor. His memory was blank and buzzing.

"I...don't know. Was I electrocuted?"

Viper didn't answer. He merely peered at Omega who hadn't left the room, expecting an answer.

"My current programming is unable to diagnose what exactly happened, Shadow. All I can report is seeing you look at the Chaos Emerald, and then you put both hands to it and you went into convulsions. I had to knock the Emerald out of your hands to make it stop."

"Convulsions...like seizures." Viper spat as if he had a bad experience with that himself. Rouge heard that and wondered if he suffered from seizures at some point of his life.

Shadow was not sitting up, rubbing his arms in an attempt to stop the hurting. "I...had seizures?" His still-buzzing brain was trying to put together clues at what happened to fill up a gap in the memory, but was failing.

"Rub your chest; your arms will take care of themselves," Viper said.

Shadow proceeded to due so, massaging his ribs. Viper watched him with puzzlement, and then his venom-yellow eyes sought out the Violet Chaos Emerald, undisturbed. A sneaky suspicion crossed his mind.

"Each Chaos Emerald has its own Master Chaos Power, but right now, I don't know which has which." He looked at both Rouge and Shadow, seeing as if they knew anything. They did not, but Rouge made a suggestion.

"There is only one person that I would think would know more about the Chaos Emeralds, and that's Knuckles the Echidna, Guardian of Angel Island."

"Right. After we pick up the Chaos Emerald underneath Mount Buio, we'll find some way of contacting him." Viper said, mildly thinking that it would be easier said then done. "We'd better get a move on. Shadow, can you walk?"

Shadow gingerly picked himself, the feelings of an electric shock wearing off, and his chest and arms have stopped cramping. "Yes."

Viper carried an apprehensive look at Shadow, but shook it off. He picked himself up from his knees, unconsciously showing that the increased weight of the weapons he now bear didn't wear him down any.

"Fine, I'll take point and lead you through a pass there. Omega, keep your scanners at full range and have your Gatling rounds at the ready. You'll be the rearguard."

"Affirmative." Omega sounded pleased.

Rouge picked up the Violet Emerald and shoved it into her pouch, but not without casting a wary look at Shadow. She leaped onto one of Omega's shoulders and grasped a bar. Shadow remained on his feet; he was a deadly force to be reckoned with by his own right.

"Let's move. I want to be there before night encloses; these mountains are bad enough in the light."

Viper strode towards the entrance, followed by Shadow, then by Omega and Rouge. Once outside, Viper pointed towards a tall broad mountain, partially shrouded by clouds. "That's Mount Buio; its insides are a labyrinth of caverns and pits."

Everyone looked at the mountain; it looked like a mound of barren black rock, and it looked particularly evil. Partially shrouded in the clouds reinforced that thought. For Shadow however, it was something deeper; he had seen that mountain before...and for some reason; he hated the very sight of it.

- - - - -

"Where do you think these go?"

"I'm not sure; should we follow them, Amy?"

Amy and Cream were just voicing their thoughts about a line of train tracks that were traversing their path. Big didn't see anything special about them, so didn't speak up.

"It's really odd to see train tracks way out here in a jungle. Sounds really suspicious to me." Amy took a look at the tracks deeper. The rails themselves were shining in the sunlight, and there was little vegetation growing in the immediate area inside or outside the track. "Trains must still be coming through here too. Let's find out where these go!"

"But which way should we go?"

Amy stood still, thinking, casting a glance in either direction where the tracks led. If they picked the wrong direction, they could be going down this track for days. They could be doing that going the right way as well, but from right where they stood, it was impossible to know from where they stood right now...or was it?

If only they could get their sense of direction, they could have an idea. They weren't too far from the coast; it was very well known that the Mystic Ruins jungles rimmed the coast up to the foothills of the Mystic Blue Mountains, which stood as a dividing line between the Mystic Ruins and Sapphire City.

Looking around, she looked at the trees and mushrooms all around, then at the moss growing on the sides of the trees. Summoning all her education in high school biology, she recalled that moss grew on the north side of the trees away from the sun's rays in the northern hemisphere. The problem was that in the jungles, sunlight rarely reached the ground so moss could really grow whatever, but in this clearing with the train tracks, sunlight could get through.

She looked at her watch and saw it was sometime after ten. The sun should still be in the eastern sky, but the trees were obscuring where it was.

"Cream, can you do me a big favor?"

"Yeah!" Cream replied.

"Can you fly up and see where the sun is?"

"Ok!" Cream was too young to understand what significance of this request, or even think about how off it really sounded, so she just did as she was told like a good little girl Aunt Sally told her to be. Flapping her droopy ears like wings, she rose off the ground. Thanks to her Chaos Aura, although she did not know this, she was gifted with the power of flight, much like Tails was. Cheese followed her up, ever the faithful chao of her mistress.

Cream had to fly over one-hundred feet to get above the treetops, but once she cleared the forest canopy, she shielded her eyes and looked towards the sun, but not at it, for it hurt her eyes.

She drifted back downwards to where Amy and Big were waiting, but failed to account for any amount of wind that could've knocked her off course. Thankfully, the wind wasn't too strong to push her far so she landed twenty-five feet away from where she had lifted off. She was still along the tracks and could see Amy and Big (the latter more so), so she ran towards them, Cheese flying behind.

"The sun is that way!" Cream said, pointing towards the left side and some behind her where she ran.

"Ok, then let's go that way!" Amy said, pointing the other direction.

"Why?" Cream asked. Amy seemed suddenly very sure.

"Because if the sun is that way..." Amy pointed to where Cream had pointed before. "...that was is east. I have a feeling that these tracks lead somewhere important along the coast, which is west. That way..." Amy pointed the way she herself had pointed after deciding which way to go. "...is west, and where the coast is. Let's follow the tracks that way!"

"Okay!" Cream and Cheese said in unison.

"Okie-dokie," Big said.

The team headed west, careful to follow the tracks, and listening for trains. It was not safe to be near train tracks when a train was about to bulldoze through.

They had not been walking long when some distance ahead, there was a flash of light. All stopped to watch as someone materialized out of the flash. Soon afterwards, there were three more flashes in succession, and each one dropped off another person, much different looking then the last. A fifth flash happened that dropped a plate-like object. The result now showed a bee, a hot-pink chameleon, a tall crocodile and a red-backed armadillo were now standing on the tracks. They seemed to be talking to each other

"Who are those guys?" Amy thought aloud.

"I don't know," Big said. "Should we ask?"

"Maybe we should," began Cream. "Perhaps they know where these tracks go."

"Okay then, we'll ask them."

- - - - -

The Chaotix had beamed onto the railway in the jungle and were looking around. Espio spoke first. "This isn't where we're supposed to be."

"I didn't want us to beam too close to the base," Mighty said. Since the base is on the edge of a mountain range and if we tried to teleport too close there, we'd end up either on top of the base or on the side of a cliff."

"Thanks for the consideration," muttered Vector.

"Guys, we're not alone," Charmy said. "Look!"

All looked to see a pink hedgehog in a red dress and boots, a floppy-eared rabbit, a blue chao and a morbidly obese purple-furred cat were walking towards them.

"Who are they?" Vector said.

"No idea," Espio said. "But those smaller two are just girls. I doubt they pose any threat, or mean any."

"We should ask to see what they're doing here. This seems a bit out of the way for two girls and a fat cat to be just strolling," Mighty said.

"Ok, ok, we'll ask," Vector sighed, and prepared for the three strangers' approach.

When they got close enough, Vector spoke right away. "Excuse me, missy. Is it all right with you if I ask you something?"

The pink hedgehog, Amy, looked affronted. Missy!? Her reaction soon dictated the comedy to follow. "If it's about a date, it'll have to wait..."

"Date!?" Vector cried out, temper flaring despite his reptilian nature. "You think this is a joke, you little brat!"

"It's not nice to call people names!" the rabbit, Cream, shouted back, arms at her hips and ears laid back in anger. Cheese, her chao, mimicked her.

"What kind of people call any question an offer to date?" Mighty said back.

"It's not nice to tease my friends!" Big's ears laid back.

"This is all a big misunderstanding!" Espio said, seeing that the situation was quickly accelerating out of control.

"You betcha it is! Do I look like a brat to you, mister!?" Amy's spines were bristling as if electricity were pouring through them.

"Well, you're acting like one!" Charmy retorted.

Wrong answer! Amy yelled in rage and whipped out the biggest hammer the Chaotix had ever seen and Vector was on the wrong end of it as it slammed down on his head. The rest moved in to intervene, but Cream, Big and Cheese joined the slugfest. Charmy was overwhelmed by the chao, who dashed into his face like a dragonfly.

Mighty was soon wrestling Big who was winning by his bulk. Espio was given a knock over the head like Vector, but was quick to get away from a second one. Mighty somersaulted from under Big, who fell onto his belly with a smack, just as Charmy was finally able to get Cheese off of his face and shoved him away, causing the chao to spiral into the air.

Espio was tackled from the side by Cream, but thanks to his ninja skills was able to get her off. Mighty was Amy's next target, but Mighty had the advantage. He caught the hammer's head and shoved it back, which caused Amy to stumble backwards into Big, who wasn't affected thanks to his own bulk.

The fight continued unabated for a few more minutes, until both teams grew too tired to fight any more and backed away from each other, panting hard and glaring poisonous looks at the other. Their energy was spent, but their tempers were not.

"What...is your problem!?" Amy gasped, her hair strewn in all directions and covered from dirt head to toe.

Vector was rubbing his head where a lovely knot was developing on the top of his skull. "What makes you bash people in the head!?"

"We were just trying to ask what you were doing wondering a jungle! Is that a problem!?" Charmy panted, rubbing a place where Cheese had bitten him.

Amy's eyes widened. "That's ALL!? That's what we were going to ask you!"

"What!?" Mighty blurted out.

It dawned on them that the fight was for nothing at all, over one big misunderstanding gone horribly wrong. All of them felt their frustrations being replaced by complete embarrassment.

"I don't get to say it much," Espio started. "...but I told you so."

"Shut up," was the universal response.

Amy had to swallow before talking again. "I'm sorry about fighting! Can you forgive us?"

Cream stood besides Amy. "Please?"

Big was gingerly rubbing his arm where he received the business end of Charmy, so to speak; it would smart for quite a while. "I'm sorry too..."

"Apology accepted," Espio said.

"Yeah, I'm sorry for all this mess too." Charmy looked incredibly sheepish.

"Now that's all done, let's get out of here, guys," Vector said. He wanted to pretend this never happened.

In silent agreement, the Chaotix started down the railroad.

"Wait!" Amy called out to them. "We're going that way too! We'll go with you!"

"No!" Vector quickly blurted out. "We're going to a dangerous place that only professionals like us can deal with it."

"Is it a base of Dr. Eggman's?" Amy said, fishing for a response.

Charmy blanched. "How did you--" then instantly clapped hands on his mouth, but it was too late.

"So you are!" Cream said. "We'll go with you to rescue Mr. Big's friend!"

"Froggy!" was Big's reply.

"No! We won't have some kids following us around getting us and you killed!" Vector said, his temper rising.

Amy bristled, and made a noise like a high-pitched moan, but much more forceful and through bared teeth. The hand holding the hammer twitched spasmodically.

"But we have to rescue Froggy!" Cream pleaded, not at all minding being called a kid. After all, she was only ten. "Please, Mr. Big misses him terribly. We have to get him back!"

Vector was not at all perturbed. "If you want to go and get yourself captured or worse, that's your problem! We have business to take care of! C'mon, Chaotix, let's go!"

Vector was not at all sorry for leaving the strangers behind, but did feel a twinge of pity for yelling at them. Forcing it down, he marched down followed by the others. They had a job and they couldn't have any random yokels giving them the trouble of day.

Back behind, Amy was still seething. "Oh, that guy! What kind of big shot does he think he is!?"

"I think he just doesn't want us to get hurt..." Cream said quietly. "What are we going to do?"

"Well, I'm not going to let some gator with an ego tell ME what to do! We're going after them and find Eggman's base! There we can find Froggy!"

"Ok!" Cream, Cheese and Big cheered.

Amy marched ahead, fixed in her intentions and irritation of being called a kid.