Me: Sorry about the wait! I was publishing new stories and stuff.

Tails: Well, here it is!

She Returns

Tails tossed and turned in his bed, groaning.

"No, not the zombies! PLEASE not the zombies!" He jerked frantically in response to his nightmare. Suddenly, a flash of bright light woke him up. "What? Who could be making something that bright at this hour?" He checked the clock, which said 3:30. He shook his head and got out of bed.

Once outside, he looked around.

"Where did it come from?" He walked towards a spot near his window and felt the ground for anything weird. Suddenly, a voice startled him.

"Hi Tails." He jumped a foot in the air and turned around slowly. Cosmo was there, smiling gently. Tails gaped widely as she moved closer. "B-b-b-b-b-but you d-d-d-died! How did you-?" She smiled and hugged him. "It's good to see you too, Tails." He blushed deeply and hugged her back. After awhile, She released him and looked at him brightly. "It's... complicated Tails. Can I come inside?" Tails nodded quickly. She smiled and walked to the door. Tails followed, wondering how this could be. Once inside, Cosmo sat down and Tails sat across from her in a lounge chair.

"So how are you-?" She smiled and explained. "When I sacrificed myself to destroy the Metarex, I was saved before the blast could kill me." Tails cocked his head to the side. He was over the shock that Cosmo was alive, even though Damien told him about it. "But you were a tree! It's not exactly easy to move a tree without-" She finished his sentence. "Teleportation. He teleported me onto his ship because he knew you wouldn't be able to handle my death well." Something occurred to Tails at that point. "The only way he could have saved you would be if..." He stopped and gasped. Cosmo nodded slowly.

"Chris was the one who saved me. He wanted you to be part of the organization, but he needed to wait until his absence wouldn't be noticed. It took him awhile to send someone down. He chose me because he thought it would be a pleasant surprise." Tails sat back in shock and thought about all this when Damien suddenly walked in. He paused for awhile before sitting down in a chair.

"... I see you heard her story. You're probably still wondering about Chris." Tails nodded. Damien sighed. "Well, it's complicated. When Chris first touched the Chaos Emerald you got on Earth, something inside of him awoke. He hid it from you and the others, which worked because of Eggman's constant schemes and Sonic's happy-go-lucky nature. After you left, he set to work building Deathgroup. He studied seemingly fictional worlds and, using all of his powers, visited one of these worlds. There, he recruited several million beings known as Heartless and Nobodies and genetically experimented on them. After doing all this, he repaired the portal to Mobius and left. Only one other person knew about all this." Tails nodded slowly. "Helen. She would have noticed something at some point." Damien grinned.

"What you don't know is that she's actually Maria Robotnik." Tails gasped and protested. "Maria died on ARK! She was shot by GUN!" Damien shook his head. "Shadow was created so Gerald Robotnik, her grandfather, could experiment with immortality and save her from NIDS. It was a neurological disorder that was incurable, at least until he perfected a special potion. He had succeeded in administering it to Maria when GUN came in and raided the place. The potion had side effects that enhanced her intelligence and gave her special abilities... at a price. She developed a dark side and went berserk, killing several GUN members before realizing she could do more damage undercover. She pretended she was dying from a gunshot wound and sent Shadow to Earth to help the people there. Sort of a last chance for GUN to wise up and stop the carnage. She pretended to fall dead and, when no one was looking, teleported to Earth, where she brainwashed a family into thinking she was their child and waited for the right moment. She finally met Chris and, after a period of time, joined GUN as a secretary, preparing to betray them and destroy the organization entirely. It has gotten corrupt, so we have several contingency plans to destroy it as well. Thanks to Maria, most of them are quite simple." Tails sat back and took this all in. Finally, he had a thought.

"Are there more than 7 Chaos Emeralds?" Damien paused, considering this. He looked at Cosmo, who shrugged. Damien turned back to Tails and nodded. "There are more than 7, but no one knows the location except for us." Tails nodded and stood.

"Tell me their location."

Tails arrived at the Master Emerald shrine. They had told him that underneath it was a vault containing the Emeralds. "They were made as backups," Damien had said. "The originals were fine, but they made more in case they were destroyed. They then made the stupid mistake of not telling anyone the location, making them lost forever. We only found as a result of a Chaos scan in the shrine area. At first we thought the signals were fallout from the Master Emerald, but we soon realized the readings were too big to be simply fallout." Tails approached the emerald from behind, sneaking up on Knuckles. He took out a blowgun and placed a sedative dart in it. After firing it into Knuckles' neck, he lifted the emerald and looked inside. There was a corridor with crystal lamps that glowed dimly. Nodding he went inside, heaving the emerald over the entrance.

DUN DUN DUN! I can't believe you knocked out Knuckles!

Tails: Hey, he doesn't even sleep! I was giving him well-earned sleep that he needs desperately!

Me: Whatever. Please Review!