Soleanna New City, evening

Sonic got off the trains at the New City station, stretching impatiently as he walked out the doors. It had taken some convincing to get himself a place on the train in the first place, even despite his reputation - apparently they'd barely gotten the trains back up and running since the festival last night, and even then only for Soleannan citizens wanting to get back home or to work, in limited numbers. He could see GU soldiers standing guard near the station entrance, along with some of the Soleannan royal guards.

After Amy's timely rescue, Sonic had run through the streets of Castle Town searching for any sign of the Egg Mobile or Elise, but there was nothing - once again, Eggman had somehow managed to vanish into thin air. Frustrated, he'd wandered the streets until he received a call from Tails telling him he'd made it back safely and was waiting in the New City with Knuckles.

It didn't take him long to find them. Tails and Knuckles were waiting for him just nearby in a small plaza, mostly empty of people, Knuckles turning a strange flat object over and over in his hands as he talked. Sonic waved as he approached.

"Yo, Tails, Knuckles!" he said. "Why're we meeting over here? Thought we were all closer to Castle Town."

"I led those mechs from the desert on a chase as far away from you as possible," Tails said, looking proud of himself. "By the time I lost them, I was closer to here, so I thought it'd be easier for us to meet up here. Knuckles was in the area anyway."

Sonic shrugged. "Fair."

"And by the way," Tails said, "we know what happened with Elise - or at least, that Eggman has her."

"What? How? Did you see him flying away? When he grabbed her he just disappeared, I couldn't chase - "

"We didn't see him," Knuckles said, waving the thing in his hand around. "We know because of this."

Sonic frowned. "What is it?"

"One of his robots found me near the outskirts of the city and wanted me to give it to you." He tossed it over and Sonic caught it easily - it was some sort of flat computer pad, with a screen and a single button. Sonic glanced at the others, who crowded around to see, and pressed the button.

A holographic image extended upwards from the scene, displaying a grainy orange miniature of Eggman, standing and staring forward with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Sonic the Hedgehog," tiny-Eggman said, smiling nastily. "We're both busy men, so I'll make this brief. If you want me to return the princess, then you must give me your Chaos Emerald. Meet me at my base nearby, in the White Acropolis. I've installed a tracker on this device to guide you to it. Oh, and if you decide not to show… I can assure you times will not be pleasant for your new friend."

Eggman disappeared abruptly, replaced by a simple arrow on the screen, pointing like a compass somewhere to Sonic's left.

"He's pretty cocky," Knuckles said in disgust.

"It's most definitely a trap," Tails said as Sonic slowly pulled out the emerald. It glittered deep blue in the dim light from the few sunrays still visible over the skyscrapers of the city. "I don't think for a second Eggman will actually honor his agreement."

Knuckles snorted. "Yeah, not like he ever has before - "

"I'm going."

Tails and Knuckles looked over at Sonic in surprise as he stared into the emerald's depths.

"Sonic?" Tails said.

Sonic looked up at the both of them and grinned. "Well, since Eggman went to the trouble of telling me where he took Elise, I think I should thank him personally."

Knuckles began to smile back. "I could get on board with that."

"Wait," Tails said, running after Sonic as he started down the street, following the arrow on the screen. "Can't we just stop and think about this for one second? Since when has Eggman ever just told us where his base is?"

"Never."

"Exactly." Tails voice was full of exasperation. "So why go there right away? Maybe we should do a little more research before we charge in. Knuckles, haven't you been tricked more than once by just believing what Eggman told you - "

"Hey," Knuckles said irritably. "Don't go there."

"Look," Sonic said, rounding a corner and watching the arrow adjust itself. "Normally I might agree with you, buddy, but right now we've got a scared hostage waiting for us to break her outta there. And I'm not about to wait around and twiddle my thumbs while that's happening."

He didn't feel the need to mention his worries about Eggman's supposed plans with the Flames of Disaster - whatever those truly were.

Tails grumbled a little, but offered no more resistance, and together the trio made their way through the city, following Eggman's directions to his base.


Soleanna New City docks, evening

Silver's bout of melancholy had taken him all the way across Castle Town, into the train station there, and on a strange trip to a location people called the New City. He hadn't questioned it, just wandered through the buildings there on a halfhearted continued search for Blaze, too tired and discouraged to even notice the grandeur that might have stunned him just a few hours before.

Eventually he found himself near a cliffside that rose high above the city, leading up to some kind of mountain nearby. At the edge of the cliffs sat docks that extended out into the endless water of the ocean, boats with colorful sails tied up to the wooden platforms and people out strolling, chatting, laughing, though Silver could sense the faint tang of underlying fear in the air. The thought that these people had no idea of the hell awaiting them in just one more day's time only made him more bitter, and sitting there on the steps, instead of watching the sunset before him, he hid his face in his hands.

And he sat.

"So this is where you are."

The one voice he'd been most desperate to hear since arriving here sounded behind him, and his heart squeezed as he lifted his head.

"I've been looking for you. I would imagine you haven't just been sitting here this whole time."

Blaze sat down at his side, and even though his spirits immediately lifted at seeing her again, he found he couldn't quite look her in the eye, guilt eating away at him.

"What's wrong?" she said evenly. "You're never this upset."

He swallowed. "Well, uh, Blaze…." Silver took a breath and voiced the thought that had been nagging at him ever since his encounter with Sonic. "To kill someone to save the world… someone innocent… is that really the right thing to do?"

Silver could feel her eyes boring into the side of his head. "What did you see?"

She knew. Of course she knew. He'd encountered something that had shaken her resolve, something which he knew she would find to be a liability. Before he even realized it he found himself on the defensive.

"Look, I saw… I saw a guy who didn't even know who Iblis was, who saved a princess from a madman just because he was there, and I saw a girl who cared about innocent lives, who was willing to die to stop me from killing him. That's what I saw. And I didn't do it. I let him go."

There was a long silence during which he still couldn't meet her gaze, just stared out at the darkening waters along the horizon.

"You're so naïve."

Silver's ear twitched.

Blaze sighed and stared with him into the ocean. "Whether it's right or wrong, I can't really say…. But what I do know is: if we don't take this chance, the future will remain exactly as it is. And I can't stand for that."

She looked at him again, and this time, he returned her gaze. Her amber eyes burned with intensity like her fire. "One life for the life of the world. If we have to, we can feel guilty afterward. But I, for one, would rather feel guilty in a world free of pain."

Silver bit his lip. Looked at the ground. Looked at her, her coat so old and tattered from years of wear but still well taken care of after all this time, a reminder of what they'd been through. Looked at his own gloves, the markings on them so familiar to him after all this time, given to him by his father just before he died.

"What… what if we're wrong?"

"I guess that's a chance we'll just have to take."

Silver took a deep breath, and nodded.

He stood suddenly, heart quickening, realizing how little time they still had left. If Mephiles was right, they still had until sundown tomorrow, but that wasn't much time. Blaze stood with him.

"The Iblis Trigger's real name is Sonic," he said quickly. "He's fast, but not a strong fighter. He hangs around with another hedgehog named Amy, and I know she's looking for him. And he's fighting someone named Dr. Eggman, who attacked the city and kidnapped their princess."

Blaze raised an eyebrow. "It sounds like you've been busy. I was, uh, mostly lost this whole time."

He ignored her embarrassment, knowing she'd prefer it that way, and instead said, "So since he's after Eggman, let's sneak into his base. Maybe we'll learn something new."

Blaze nodded and turned, leading the way away from the docks. "Well then, let's get going. And hope that we can find this base soon."


The arrow led Sonic and his friends to the mountain that Castle Town and New City nestled against, that the train led through - the White Acropolis, it was called. It only continued to point directly at it as they walked, even though Sonic kept expecting it to change direction, lead them somewhere new, a roundabout path to the top. As they walked, Sonic related the story of Silver's attack and Elise's recapture.

He was just beginning to wonder if Eggman had really sent them a compass that would just force them to climb their way to the top anyway, when Knuckles peered down an alley at his side and stopped.

"Hey, guys," he said. "Think I found what we were looking for."

Sonic and Tails stepped up behind him to see that they alley connected directly to the rocky cliff face, and in the side of it, a tunnel appeared to have been carved. It only took a glance down at the arrow to confirm that it was pointing directly into the alley.

"Well, don't think we need this anymore," Sonic said, tossing the computer pad playfully at Knuckles. Tails stifled a snort as Knuckles missed the catch and the pad went clattering to the ground. Looking vaguely embarrassed, Knuckles made sure to step on it and grind it into the pavement as he walked forward, a satisfying crunching noise heralding its destruction.

The tunnel was rocky for a few feet, but quickly changed to smooth metal, taking a sharp turn at the end into a small room with a large computer set against the opposite wall. It looked like some kind of lab, with desks and chairs against the other walls and a strange circuitry-laden circle set into the ground.

"It's some kind of… teleporter, I think," Tails said, stepping forward. Sonic and Knuckles stayed back, recognizing a master at work. He moved to the computer, pulled up a chair to reach the console, and began tapping away. A few seconds later he nodded and turned back to them.

"Yep. Teleporter. Told ya."

Knuckles folded his arms. "And I assume it leads directly into Eggman's base?"

"Well," Tails said, turning back, "it looks to me like the coordinates are set nearby, about halfway between Castle Town and New City. That's where the White Acropolis is - so, yeah, safe bet."

"Then let's get this baby working," Sonic said, stepping forward.

"It's already primed. I think it must have been used recently…."

Knuckles frowned, stepping up next to Sonic in the middle of the circle on the ground. "That's weird, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Tails said, hopping off his chair and coming to stand with the other two, "but considering we're knowingly walking into a trap anyway, we probably don't have anything else to worry about other than the standard… trap… stuff."

Sonic chuckled.

"It's initialized," Tails said, and around their feet the edges of the circle began to light up. "I'd say brace yourselves. This technology looks a bit… outdated."

Sonic took a deep breath as a strange sensation spread over him, like dissolving, and after a few seconds, the room disappeared into brightness only to be replaced by a different room - similar in that there was another circle inscribed on the floor, but looking distinctly more military. The console nearby was merely a keypad, no display, and the room was otherwise mostly bare.

"This must be it," Tails said, stepping off.

Beyond the room they had landed in lay another hallway similar to the one they'd left behind in the New City, with a doorway leading out into the open. Sonic shivered as they stepped out and a rush of bitingly cold air hit him - the ground was covered in snow, and the sky was by now truly dark.

"Pretty cold place for a base," he said.

They had emerged into what looked like some sort of helicopter landing area, huge and open. Sonic raised an eyebrow at at signs of some kind of scuffle in the snow, which apparently hadn't been otherwise disturbed since - large gashes were cut into the ground, snow tossed around, and there was a huge dent in one of the surrounding walls, but the snow looked stiff, as though this had happened at the very least several hours ago.

"Wonder what happened here?" Knuckles said in a low tone.

"And no greeting party, either." Sonic scanned the skies, their surroundings, but everything looked empty and dead, as though the place was abandoned. It gave him a distinctly creepy feeling.

"Called it," Tails said. "Everything about this smells like a - "

" - trap, I know," Sonic finished. "But we're going in anyway."


It didn't take long, walking the city's streets, for a strange feeling to come over Blaze.

Everything felt too… familiar. She and Silver had never been here, not in this world, not in this time, but as they turned corner after corner, a distinct sense of déjà vu began to sweep through her. Her tail began to twitch, then lash in earnest, until finally Silver gave her a sidelong glance.

"What is it?" he said. "You're, uh, a bit agitated."

"I know this place," she muttered. He raised an eyebrow.

"Come again?"

"I know this place." She turned to face him fully. "Don't you?"

He just stared blankly.

"This… this has to be it. The city ruins. This is where we spent all our time, fighting Iblis, looking for a way to beat him. This is it. What it looked like in the past."

Silver's eyes went wide, and he stared around with a dawning look of both wonder and horror. "That," he said after a moment, pointing at a nearby skyscraper. "That's where we stayed that one night, when the phoenix hit me with the fireball… right up there, in one of the old offices." He touched the scar on his shoulder, a long-lasting reminder of that incident, and almost seemed to wilt. "Oh, oh man…."

"And," Blaze said, her ears flattening slightly as an idea came to her, "that's our ticket into the base."

"What do you mean…?"

She started down the street at a quick pace, Silver stumbling slightly behind her to keep up. "Don't you remember? When our benefactor showed us the past, he took us to a lab at the edge of the city. 'In the past, this room held a working teleporter. It led to the military base on the mountain nearby.' He was showing us our way in, and he didn't even know…."

Blaze heard Silver gasp behind her, and his pace quickened with excitement. "You think that's his base?"

"Whose else could it be? It's our best shot."

"And you remember the way?"

"I think so," she said, turning another corner, trying to remember how the area had looked in their time, matching it up with what she saw in front of her now. A shattered storefront in her time, scorched almost beyond recognition, turned out to be a classy café in this time… a line of burned out husks of card then, a busy street now… a gap leading to the lava pits below, now a dusty sidewalk….

Her ears twitched, sensing openness to her right, and her head swiveled - an alley, with a tunnel at the end.

"Here."

With one last glance at each other, Blaze and Silver started down the alley, toward the room that had started this all for them.


White Acropolis Base, night

The base was eerily silent and empty as Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles made their way to the center. Robots stood at the ready at every doorway, but none attacked unless they got too close - otherwise, they simply stood in their groups, silently watching. Searchlights littered their path, sweeping great bright circles of light over the snow, and several caught the trio in their beams, but nothing happened. Despite his anticipation of some kind of ambush, it still sent shivers up Sonic's spine.

The trek to the base's center wasn't long. The base itself seemed to be leading them there - some doors were shut tight, blocking the way, while others were left conspicuously open. They passed through one, then another, and another, the empty base full of what looked like abandoned GUN equipment and vehicles. Knuckles had just begun to mutter "I don't like this" as they passed into yet another open area when the thud of a door slamming shut behind them made Sonic halt.

A searchlight stood in the center of the area, trained on them, alarms wailing. From over the high wall, mechs descended - standard white ones with guns and cannons, larger hulking ones, rolling crab-like ones, what looks like just about every new model of mech Eggman had designed. Sonic cracked his knuckles as the mechs formed up around them, guns locked, and heard Tails and Knuckles getting ready behind him.

"Told ya it was a trap," Tails said.

"We never doubted you for a second, buddy." Sonic grinned and dug the heels of his shoes into the backed snow behind him. "Now let's get started."

They fought like a well-oiled machine - they'd faced worse odds than this, and despite the robots' numbers, they knew how to fight together. Sonic realized quickly that the majority were targeting him, presumably seeking the Chaos Emerald that Eggman so dearly wanted, so he decided to make a target of himself, running around the robots and luring them in close enough that Knuckles could take them down with a vicious punch, or Tails could lob one of his ring bombs into the center of a group. He gritted his teeth as the activity put some strain on his injury, but he didn't feel any more blood, and soon the last robot lay in pieces at his feet, Knuckles dusting his hands together in satisfaction at his side.

"The doc always was bad at ambushes," Sonic said, giving Tails a lopsided smile. Tails rolled his eyes.

"All right, all right. I guess that wasn't so bad."

Sonic glanced across the way, where he could see a locked door that could only lead to the base's main center of operations. "Think you can get that open?"

Tails began to jog to it, Sonic and Knuckles following behind. "Definitely." He slid open a panel next to the door and began tapping. Knuckles stretched.

"That was nice," he said. "You two've been holding me back from all the action around here ever since the festival. Good to cut loose."

"Sorry, Knux," Sonic said as Tails stepped back and the door slipped open. "Now that we know what he's after, we'll start bringing ya along for all the adventures."

The corridor beyond was dimly lit, but Sonic could see a light emanating somewhere from the end. He led the way down, their footsteps clanking on the metal beneath their soles as they made their way inside.

"Eggman's probably holding Elise in some kind of cell or prison," he said as they walked. "This looks like an old military base, they always have stuff like that. Just gotta find it."

"At least Eggman's not trying to blow the place up this time," Tails whispered.

The light up ahead came from a circular room that, from the entrance looked completely barren. They emerged into the center, and it didn't take long for Sonic to glance upward and find Eggman smirking down at him from a raised alcove in the wall. Consoles blinked behind him, and a wall of glass separated him from the trio.

"You're late," he said.

Knuckles' head snapped up and he glared. "Well, we had to deal with your little pets," he said, waving a hand dismissively. "Some ambush."

"Where's Elise?" Sonic said.

Eggman snorted, making his mustache quiver. "My, aren't we impatient." He reached to his left and casually pressed a button, then stepped to the side.

Sonic heard the sound of machinery working, saw something rising up from the floor next to the doctor - and his spines bristled as he realized what it was.

Elise, sitting in a chair, strapped by her wrists to the armrests, looking around wildly as her ride came to a stop level with the upper floor. Her eyes fixed on Sonic's and widened. Even when she'd been in his arms, bullets whizzing inches past them as he ran sideways fifty feet above the ground, he'd never seen her look so scared.

"Sonic!" she cried, her voice muffled by the glass.

Instantly he was tense, ready to spring, ready to shatter the glass and break her restraints and kick Eggman hard enough to crack whatever shell he kept his cold, dead heart locked up inside, and he felt his friends do the same beside him. Eggman just lowered his brow dangerous, his finger hovering over a second button.

"Ah, ah," he said, all trace of humor gone from his voice. "You'd better not move, or your princess might get a nasty shock. I think you'll find I'm in no mood to play around this time."

Sonic froze in place.

"Now - the Chaos Emerald."

Sonic slowly reached behind him, pulling the blue emerald out, the same one Elise had thrown to him the night of the festival. He held it up, his eyes never leaving Eggman's shaded glasses.

"Place it there."

A small round pedestal rose from the floor beneath Sonic's feet, an indent in the top, just big enough to hold the emerald. His eyes flicked from Eggman's finger, hovering over the button, to Elise, shaking her head vehemently at him, and back to Eggman.

He stepped forward, placed the emerald in the indent. A cap slid over it as soon as his fingers left its surface, hiding it from view, and the pedestal retracted back into the floor, sliding smoothly back into place, it's edges hardly even discernible from the rest of the metal plating around it.

"There," he said, heart pounding. "You've got your jewelry. Now let her go."

Eggman just grinned widely, and an unpleasant feeling spread through Sonic's stomach.

Then he slammed his finger down on the button.

"No!" Sonic screamed, but Elise only flinched as if startled, not hut - and a pinkish energy barrier appeared instantly, surrounding Sonic and the others in a circle in the center of the room, trapping them. A loud buzzing noise reverberated through his head, making it hard to think. Knuckles' eyes widened at his side, and Sonic watched as he directed a solid punch at the barrier only to stumble back with a pained cry, shaking his hand as if burned. The edge of his mitt was scorched from the contact.

"It's no use," Eggman said, sounding positively mad with glee. "It's far too powerful for you to overcome."

Tails was right - too right - the ambush was just a diversion, and the trap….

"Now allow me to introduce you to my latest invention! This is the Solaris Prototype."

At his words, Elise's eyes grew huge, and she began to strain uselessly against the cuffs holding her in place. "No!" she screamed. "No, let them go, whatever you're doing, whatever that thing is don't use it - "

She was panicking, near hysterics, and even though Sonic felt like panicking too, not knowing what Eggman was about to do to them, he called up to her. "Elise! Elise, listen to me! It's going to be okay, we're all going to be okay, just hang tight - "

Then Eggman's hand closed around a lever and he pulled, and a burning pain spread across Sonic's body - he yelped as the sensation spread from his skin all the way to his core, gasping for air, feeling as though his entire body was melting, separating, leaving nothing behind -

- and then everything was gone.


Elise sat in place, transfixed with horror, breathing heavily. Her wrists hurt from the cuffs, but she continued to mindlessly pull at them, unable to process what she had just seen.

Sonic, his friends, melting into thin air, vanishing as though they'd never existed, just gone….

"Ahh, my dear princess," came Eggman's voice from her right, and she vaguely registered the cuffs sliding away, leaving her suddenly free. "You played your part beautifully. They fell right into my trap."

No….

She'd been the bait, never at any true risk of harm, and now the others…. Elise felt herself sliding out of the chair, falling to the floor on her knees and pressing her hands up against the glass. The room beyond was empty, empty….

"What did you do to them…?" she breathed, her voice sounding far away to her own ears.

"Oh, rest assured, they're not dead."

In spite of herself, her heart fluttered with hope.

"Yet."

She heard the clack of Eggman's boots on the metal floor behind her as he came up to stare out the glass with her, as if they were friends looking together upon some beautiful landscape beyond. His eyes shone behind his glasses. "They've just been teleported by my glorious invention to another time." Malicious glee filled his voice. "Who knows where they'll end up? It could be the distant past, or far future…."

Cold, sick dread washed through Elise.

"But," he continued, eyeing her where she sat, "my machine still requires some fine-tuning, as you can imagine. In fact, what my machine needs in order to be complete is your power."

The heat stirred faintly in Elise's chest once more, and a memory flashed in front of her eyes, of the shield of flame appearing around her and Sonic in the desert, protecting them from harm. "My power," she said carefully, avoiding his gaze.

"Yes," he said giving her a smile that was perhaps supposed to be mock-fatherly but only sent chills down Elise's spine. "I can finally complete my plans, once I have all the Chaos Emeralds… and you, the princess of Soleanna. That's all I need to revive the Flames of Disaster."

Elise swallowed, trying to extinguish the heat in her core.

"And with their power, I will be able to control everything - everything you see around you, everything in this world." He stepped closer to her, and she leaned away. "So you would be wise to remain on my good side."

Elise's head turned slightly at the sound of a door sliding open behind them.

"Doctor," said a metallic voice. "We have additional intruders on the outside of the base, making their way further in. A Mobian hedgehog and cat."

"Hmm?" Eggman said, and Elise turned to see a pair of robots standing in the doorway out of the control room, Eggman glaring at them. "Well, that's just annoying. I suppose I can test my backup security guard against them with my new emerald…."

He turned back to Elise, who only stared at him dully, steeling herself. "Why don't you two escort our guest here to some more comfortable quarters in the basement? I'm sure she'll find them more than suitable for her royal tastes."

Elise ignored him, beginning to numb herself as she always had, walling her emotions away, becoming a shell until she was able to process what she'd seen. But this time she found a crack in her own defenses, and something she hadn't felt in a long time was shining through.

Hope.

The robots seized her arms and hauled her up as Eggman walked out of the room, but Elise only continued to stare out at the empty room behind the glass as they began to lead her away. Words were echoing through her head, but this time, they did not tell her not to cry.

"Nothing starts until you take action."

Sonic and the others were gone, lost in the streams of time, and for the moment, here in the present, Elise was alone. She would have to do something. Whatever happened, Eggman couldn't win.

This time, instead of hardening her heart, she hardened her resolve.


Unknown location

It didn't take much exploratory walking for Shadow and Rouge to figure out that they were in some kind of long-abandoned, ruined facility high up on a hill. Shadow's original concern had been the idea of being transported somewhere against his will, having had far too much of the like happen to him in the past, but the eerie emptiness and quiet of the pace began to get to him within minutes. All around him, there was nothing but the empty howling of the wind, no signs of life anywhere, and the air was perpetually, strangely hot, as though he and Rouge had been dropped into an oven.

He found himself glancing over his shoulder more than once, even though there was never anyone else there.

Shadow was content to follow Rouge's instincts, which within only minutes of walking led them to what seemed to be the innermost building of the facility. He couldn't help feeling a strange prickle of déjà vu as they entered the building through a large hole torn in the side of it, as though it had been ripped into by some strange vicious beast. But he had never been here before… unless he had, and his memory of the incident was simply missing.

Shadow grimaced at the thought.

"Ahh, finally," Rouge said, rounding a corner and stepping over a metal door lying off its hinges into a room lined with what looked like ancient computer consoles. Most were dead, but Rouge stepped up to the only one that still appeared live, bringing it to life after a few moments of tinkering and swearing. Shadow had a look around the rest of the room as she worked - the opposite wall appeared to have once held a large window looking out onto a larger, sunken circular room beyond, perhaps some sort of scientific testing chamber, but the glass had long since been shattered, and the room was dark, stained from what looked like decades of abandonment at least.

"What happened to this place?" he wondered aloud, stepping back over to Rouge, who had just gotten a small monitor to flicker to life above the console.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," she said, straightening up and beginning to type. "Didn't look to me like there were any locals around to ask, anyway."

Her typing mostly looked like nonsense to Shadow, and he merely stood, folding his arms and watching her at work. After a few moments the screen lit up further and she gave a small grunt of satisfaction. "Got it. Okay, let's see… location data…."

She froze, staring at the screen.

"Shadow?" she said quietly.

He looked too. The same map of Soleanna that had been displayed on the screen of the teleporter room was on this screen as well… and their location, marked clearly as a dot near the coastline, was listed as….

"White Acropolis?"

"We're still in the doctor's base," Rouge said in disbelief. "But the landscape - the city…."

She refreshed, and refreshed again, and still their location remained constant.

A disturbing idea began to nag at the back of Shadow's mind, staring at the little red dot on the screen. "So then it's not where we are…."

She glanced at him, then slowly moved her fingers back to the keyboard and brought up another window - the system's internal date and time mechanism. Her hand flew to her mouth at the sight, and Shadow stepped closer, uncrossing his arms, staring at the screen, the tiny letters and numbers that told them everything they needed to know.

4216.11.23 11:42am

"It appears we've been sent through time, doesn't it?" Shadow said softly.

Rouge looked over at him, lowering her hand from her mouth and regaining her composure somewhat. "Yes," she said, turning back to the console and maneuvering away from the date/time screen as though the sight of it stung her. "Approximately two hundred years. Maybe more, depending on when this database was last updated. I doubt Eggman's still around by now to keep it running."

It wasn't the first time Shadow had found himself in an unfamiliar future against his will, but this time, it was significantly more problematic. Fifty years in stasis hadn't been enough to bring about the end of the world, but apparently two hundred years had been. Unpleasant thoughts began to form in the back of his mind and he resolutely pushed them back, determined to focus on the task at hand - whatever that might be from here.

"Well," Rouge said, shutting the screen down and leaning back against the console a little too casually, "at least we know we've arrived in the future. That means this Mephiles character has the power to control time - along with his creepy shapeshifting, apparently."

Shadow nodded and leaned with her, staring through the shattered glass to the opposite wall of the room beyond and thinking. "His power felt very similar to my own Chaos Control," he mused. "But…."

A strange noise cut him off, like some kind of electrical shock, coming from the room beyond the shattered window. Rouge grabbed his wrist immediately and pulled him to the side, crouching with him in the corner of the room. Her hand went to the nearly empty bomb satchel at her hip, and Shadow merely knelt, ears straining to hear what was happening beyond, unsure of what they might find in this strange new world, ready to fight if it was unfriendly.

A faint pinkish light flashed in the other room, followed by wild yelling, and several loud thuds. A few seconds of silence - and then a voice, the last one he would have expected to hear in a place like this.

"Boy, do I feel dizzy…." The voice was rather high pitched, prepubescent, and he and Rouge exchanged a glance. Her eyes had lit up slightly, and she stood, beckoning him to follow, her heels making distinctive clicks on the metal beneath her.

"Where are we?" said a different, rougher voice, and Shadow reached the edge of the upper room with Rouge to see three familiar forms on the ground of the circular room beyond, picking themselves up off the floor and looking around in bemusement.

"Oh," Rouge said loud enough for them to hear, and as one, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles all spun to stare up at her, standing with a hand on her hip, smiling down at them. "Look who's here! I didn't expect to see you guys in a place like this."

"R-Rouge?" Knuckles said, his cheeks going faintly pink.

"And the faker himself!" Sonic grinned up at them, dusting himself off. "Nice to see you two around."

"Hi," Rouge said pleasantly. "Long time no see."

Shadow merely stood silently and regarded them. Of all the people he might have wanted to encounter in the post-apocalypse, he couldn't say he would have wanted it to be them - though it wasn't out of dislike. They almost seemed too bright, too vibrant for a place like this. He didn't know how they might react to the view of the outside, once they exited the base.

So he merely nodded down at them, avoiding Sonic's gaze as he stared back expectantly. "We have a lot to discuss."