Chapter 7: The Search Part 1
Silver, coming out of the portal, fell ungracefully onto the ground.
"Ow," he got up to see that Blaze and Mephiles had managed to land on their feet. He felt stupid. However that feeling was suddenly overtaken by amazement at the world that he saw before him. He had never seen grass before. The world was so full of life and beauty in complete contrast to the world that he had known. He could see the blue sky covering the entire land. It was better than he could have ever imagined. Why would someone want to destroy something so beautiful and true? This truly was a land of promise. He could tell that Blaze had a similar reaction.
"I must attend to other business in this realm, however you two must try and find the girl and kill her. Then I will take you back and you can enjoy the world for what it should have been," said Mephiles, as he walked away to the large forest behind them.
"Well we should get start searching, Silver," said Blaze as she started to walk in the opposite direction. Silver followed in her stead.
He was debating wherever he could really kill that girl if he saw her. Obviously she was a monster. She had doomed the world by awakening Iblis due to her choices wherever planned or by accident. Did he have the moral authority to kill her? He and Blaze were the only true authorities left, other than Mephiles, but he was a different matter altogether.
He needed to use his knowledge of what was going to happen in order to better the world. The end justified the means in this situation without doubt. One girl was not as important as the entire world. However he still felt uneasy about it.
"Blaze is it really right to kill someone, even if it means saving the world?"
"I don't know, but what choice do we have?"
That was true, they had no choice. He never had a choice. He didn't choose for his parents to die before he knew them. He didn't choose to be born in that world. He didn't even choose to meet Blaze. What was there left to believe in? God? Hope? Or the all devouring burning hell that awaited you in the form of Iblis? However now he had the chance of reversing what had been written into the book of fate.
Despite being plagued with negative thoughts, Silver enjoyed looking at the tall trees as they passed by them. They were just so magnificent and he could see that the life forms in the forest were entirely dependent on the trees. It was a beautiful ecosystem.
However after they had walked for an hour, Silver could feel his need for water start to escalate. Of course it was a feeling he was used too, as clean drinking water was sparse in the world ravaged by Iblis.
He then saw two figures in the far distance, one red and one looking like the water he so desperately desired.
"Blaze look, there are some people over there."
"Yeah, I see it too."
As they got closer to the figures, he saw that it was a red echidna and some weird creature made of water.
Knuckles initiated the conversation that undoubtedly was going to occur.
"I've never seen the likes of you around here. Are you from around here?"
Silver was trying to figure out what he wanted to say, as saying you were from the future probably wasn't a good idea. However Blaze saved him the trouble from responding.
"We are merely looking for someone who was a dear friend of ours, she is a pink hedgehog. Perhaps you know of her."
"You know Amy?"
"Yes, we were friends of her, but we haven't seen her in years and we missed her so we were trying to figure out where she lived." Blaze hoped this bluff worked.
"Amy's never talked about anyone from her past," Knuckles said inquisitively.
"Well we didn't exactly leave on good terms," said Blaze, with a fake guilt stridden face.
Knuckles had never heard Amy talk about these people before, but then again he didn't really know her that well. These people seemed friendly enough.
"By the way, my name is Blaze and my friend here is Silver."
"Hi!" said Silver with a smile, however internally he felt guilty over the fact that he and Blaze were deceiving these people in order to find the girl. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made.
"I'm Knuckles."
"My name is Chaos."
"Uh, are you made of water?" asked Silver
"How could you tell?" said Chaos.
"Silver, was that really necessary?" said Blaze.
"What! It had to be asked, people aren't normally made of water, you know! Plus, I'm thirsty!"
"I have existed for thousands of years, Silver, but even I do not know the origins of my existence."
"Ah, how interesting," said Silver. It appeared that they had met a most interesting duo.
"So what brings you two, out and about in the forest," said Silver.
Knuckles and Chaos exchanged glances.
"It's a long story."
Knuckles explained how he was the guardian of the Master Emerald, which has the power to stop the Chaos Emeralds from being used. Chaos had been the first guardian of the Master Emerald, thousand of years ago. Then he was sealed in the Master Emerald; Knuckles didn't give the details. However he then further explained that a demon-like creature had come to steal the Master Emerald and abuse its power. He angrily explained, his fist hitting a tree, that he had lost to this creature and that had forced Chaos and Tikal, who was another person who had been sealed in the Master Emerald, to break the giant emerald from the inside. Since the Master Emerald was broken, the pieces as a defense mechanism, scattered randomly across the earth. His and Chaos's duty was to find the pieces of the Master Emerald and restore the emerald to its former state.
"Well how about, if we help you find the pieces of the Master Emerald, then you can lead us to where Amy is."
"Well, we don't really need help, but I guess a little help wouldn't hurt when we're dealing with that monster."
Marriage!?
She couldn't believe it. Sonic the Hedgehog wanted to marry her. Her head was swiveling in joy.
"Sonic, of course I'll marry you," she said, "but first please tell me, this isn't a dream!"
"Amy this is very real, if you don't marry me, I will die."
"Oh Sonic, you're so romantic."
What she this dense?
"Amy, look at me." Sonic grabbed her shoulders so that she would look him right into his eyes, "I have to tell you the reasons why I'm doing this."
As Sonic told the story behind the dreadful curse, Amy's normal optimistic exuberance seemed to deflate as he delivered the truth.
"The curse forces me to marry someone in seven days and you're the only person I could ask." Sonic's cheeks felt hot from saying that last part.
Even though she was marrying Sonic and that should have thrilled her, it wasn't for the right reasons. It wasn't for the reasons she desired deep in her heart.
"Sonic you do love me, right?" she asked, unsure how he would respond.
"Amy, I don't even know what love is, it's not something that I really understand." That was about as honest and upfront that Sonic had ever been about this kind of matter. He understood love in the sense of brotherly love, the kind of love that he felt for Tails and his other friends, that sense of protectiveness, but he didn't quite understand romantic love.
"Honestly, I'm always been surprised over the years for how you can feel so confident in your feelings for me. I mean why was it so important for you to want to marry me?" asked Sonic.
"A part of me always thought you would run away for good. That's why I had to have you for myself because what girl wouldn't want you? How could I not love you? You've saved me so many times to count. When we first met on the Little Planet, I had no friends, no parents, and I found myself always alone, but my tarot cards told me that I would meet you there. You were my first friend. You were cooler than any person I had ever met, even though I could tell you were annoyed when I first talked to you. At least you listened. No one ever listened to me in the past. The reason I always wanted to marry you, because I never wanted to leave you. I always wanted to be on your mind and in your arms," she admitted with a slight blush.
"Amy, I don't like you in the same way that you like me, but there isn't any other girl I trust more than you. I will go on dates with you, simply because I know it will make you happy, but you have to let me be free, that is all I ask," he pleaded.
He liked doing things his own way. That was one reason he was not very interested in dating. It was too restrictive. He never liked to do things out of a sense of obligation; he did things because he enjoyed it. He didn't stop Eggman because he felt a commitment toward helping the people; he did so because he got a thrill out of fighting Eggman. It was more of a hobby. Then after that he would go around exploring and adventuring for whatever the world had to offer, and spend time with friends. He wanted to do that forever. That was the ideal vision for his life. Marriage did not fit in that equation.
"Sonic, of course I will respect your space, I would never want you to be something you're not. All I ask from you, is for you to promise not to run away from me," said Amy.
She then came up and hugged him, taking him by surprise, but it was not one of those infamous death hugs, but a hug of feeling and understanding.
"Amy, I promise never to run away, despite the circumstances, I'm still your friend. I apologize that I have to ask you to do this, considering we're both too young for this, especially you," he said, reciprocating the hug.
"Sonic, there is no need to apologize. It's just in your nature to explore and there was no way of knowing that would happen to you. I've never been happier." And she meant it as she smiled at him. She was going to be wed to the one she loved.
They then heard Tails shout to them, "Guys we need to get a move on, we don't want that thing to be getting its hands on any more Chaos Emeralds!"
Sonic and Amy then descended down the stairs to get ready for the adventure.
The Egg Carrier 3 was fully operational. Eggman laughed.
"My finest creation is finally complete!"
It without question was an improvement from the first two Egg Carriers. The first Egg Carrier had been largely unsuccessful due to how that pesky fox that managed to fly onto it with Sonic onboard. The second Egg Carrier, he'd rather not think about. However along with the progress he had gotten into project RPE, he truly was going to be an unstoppable man. Not even the world's fastest hedgehog or the ultimate life form would be able to stop him!
Project RPE simply stood for Robotic Produced Emotion. Technically speaking he had started the project a while back with E-102 Gamma. He had differentiated E-101 Beta and Gamma simply by programming Gamma to feel human emotions while Beta did not have that programmed. His hypothesis before he had begun was the Beta would be superior to Gamma, because emotions would hinder Gamma's ability to fight and do orders.
However he had been surprised when Gamma beat his brother Beta in the fight that he forced them to do against one another in order to get the one-spot invitation onto the Egg Carrier. He would have programmed the same thing into E-103 Delta, E-104 Epsilon, and E-105 Zeta too, but he had already finished making them and he was far too busy in trying to perfect his Chaos project.
However something went amiss with Gamma. Gamma had betrayed him. He didn't find out it about until he had seen the videotapes captured by his cameras aboard the Egg Carrier (after it had crashed and was floating on the ocean) of Gamma and the upgraded Beta fighting to their deaths, resulting in both of their destructions and freeing the birds trapped inside. Why did this happen? Clearly Gamma had produced more than just feeling human emotion; he had developed the capacity to have free will and this in theory had allowed it to reach new potential heights of power and effectiveness.
He then programmed this into E-123 Omega and Metal Sonic. However he made sure that none of his newer models of robots had animals powering them anymore, he didn't want a repeat performance of Gamma being a martyr, besides this was the new age and he had more practical ways of powering the robots without requiring little creatures.
The way that Omega acted for the few weeks after he programmed him, had concerned him and so he decided to shut him down and put him in one of his storage rooms. However he should have been more concerned with Metal Sonic. Metal Sonic had betrayed him so swiftly; he didn't even have time to react. Metal Sonic had replaced him with a robotic clone of himself in order to pose as him, so that he could get his personal revenge on Sonic. He had punished Metal Sonic severely after that incident.
That was when he realized that he needed to punish the robots that he gave free will by torturing their minds and bodies just like you would a human. He then had built pain receptors in the inside of Metal Sonic. Then he had a remote from whence he could deliver immense pain to the artificial mind of Metal Sonic if he disobeyed or didn't do something to his liking. However it wasn't working as well as he had hoped, as Shadow had trounced Metal Sonic yesterday. However with the new upgrades that he had given the metal doppelganger; he was sure to be successful.
However he had to consider that new figure that had appeared on the scene, which had both concerned and fascinated him. He then hacked into the government database to see what was behind the figure that had stolen the Chaos Emerald from the federal bank. The results were lacking with information, but Eggman figured if that thing was after the Chaos Emeralds, then eventually it would come after him too. After all he had a Chaos Emerald as well. He then would capture the thing whatever it was and make it do his bidding. He chuckled, as he held the yellow Chaos Emerald, knowing that it was time to make his move.
It was another one of those days at the office where nothing happened. Vector grumbled as he sat in his chair listening to his music through his headphones. Their move to Station Square was suppose to increase their revenue, since more people lived here than their previous location. However if anything, their profits had plummeted. Didn't anyone in this city need a detective?
Then the phone ringed. Vector stood up suddenly in surprise as he nearly knocked over his chair. He picked up the phone.
"Is this the Chaotix Detective Agency?" an adult female voice came out.
"Yes ma'am, you're calling the right place. Just tell us what you need," said Vector.
"You see I lost one of my precious gems in the Jagged Mountains north of here while I was taking a hike up there. I will reward most generously if you can get that gem for me."
Vector could just imagine the piles of green money that would litter their floor. He burst with excitement.
"Well, we'll get right onto it! Just tell me what it looks like!"
"It is a large red diamond shaped gem."
"Do you need anything else?"
"No, that will be all."
"Then we will call you back once we find it, good bye."
Vector after hanging up the phone called out to Charmy and Espio, "We've got a job boys! We're heading up to the mountains!"
"About time, we did something," said Espio, who was polishing his shuriken.
"Yeah! Yeah! An adventure! An adventure!" chanted Charmy as he buzzed in with excitement.
"Hold your buzzing till later," said Vector as he grabbed the hyperactive bee preventing him from moving anywhere.
"So what exactly are we going to be doing up there Vector? Seems a rather odd place to be," said Espio.
"Well Espio, we're gonna get our hands on a large red gem that some lady misplaced up in the mountains, and then we'll have more than enough money for the monthly bills!"
"Large red gem…doesn't that mean it could be a Chaos Emerald?"
"Espio, it isn't our place to care wherever it is a Chaos Emerald or not, all we need to do is do the job and get the money," said Vector as he continued to grip the squirming bee with one hand.
"Whatever you say boss," said Espio as he shrugged.
"The Jagged Mountains look quite dubious for travel," remarked Espio as he observed the dangerous peaks and pathways of the daunting mountains that seemed to stretch on for miles up ahead of them. He could see faintly see the white tops of the mountains where the freezing altitude settled in.
"I though ninjas had no trouble climbing mountains, Espio," taunted Charmy.
"I was referring to travel for the normal individual," said Espio with slight annoyance, "it really does seem odd though that a woman would be hiking up there."
"Well that lady is a rich, so she probably pays a bunch of people to make sure that she is safe, beside there actually is a safe hiking path according to this map," said Vector, pulling out the map and showing it.
"Hmm, well I guess we've gotten to a good start considering we haven't lost the map yet," said Espio
"That's the spirit Espio!" said Vector
"Something about this doesn't feel right though," said Espio. He could almost feel them approaching a dark aura that awaited them on the path. However a ninja never gives up on his mission, no matter how scary.
"Oh, c'mon Espio, what's the worse that could happen?"
They took the safe path according to the map. They started from the bottom of the mountain and went up the elevated path. Espio could see why someone would want to hike up around the mountains, as it provided such a magnificent view of the land around you. However that feeling of an evil presence never left his senses, even though the road had remained safe the whole time.
"So, the lady took this path," said Espio. Espio wanted this journey to be over as soon as possible.
"Yep, this is the only safe path through the mountains, so the emerald must have been dropped around somewhere here," said Vector.
Then as they turned around a corner, they saw it. The dazzling red Chaos Emerald was before them.
"Woohoo! That's our money boys!" Vector said, as he ran toward it and grabbed it.
Espio was on edge. Then he saw it. A demon almost from folklore, a silver, purple figure floated over them with menacing red, yellow eyes.
"Well it looks like there are three idiots, trying to retrieve something that isn't theirs," said Mephiles
"Who the heck are you!?" said Charmy.
"I am Mephiles, Mephiles the Dark. Not that it matters, considering you're all going to die. Well, maybe if you hand over the Chaos Emerald I might consider sparing your lives."
"There's no way I'm giving you my money. The Chaotix never surrender a mission!" said Vector.
Espio made his move.
"Vector, Charmy, stand back!" He then hurled a shuriken directly toward Mephiles that lodged directly into his forehead. They all stared in shock, as Mephiles laughed and pulled it out without a single drop of blood spilling.
"What kind of monster are you!" said Espio.
"Monster? Like I lack some sort of flawed sense of justice? Like you pathetic selfish beings are capable of making morality that you follow. Only the gods have the authority to decide what is good and evil, because quite obviously your kind is only capable of destruction. But enough talk! Now I will kill every single one of you and wipe your blood and corpses upon the face of this mountain!"
"Yeah! You and what army!" said Charmy
Mephiles then raised his hands, and an army of small black shadow creatures materialized around them.
"Ah!" shouted Charmy in surprise.
"You just had to say it," said Espio, shaking his head.
A/N: Well this chapter took a lot longer to write than I expected, partially because of my ridiculous workload at the moment. I'll try to the get the next chapter out as soon as possible. I'm not particularly satisfied with the scene between Sonic and Amy in this chapter. Sonic arguably might be a bit out of character. I think I depicted Amy well though. A lot of action will be happening in the next chapter, so be excited.
