So guys some of you may not like the fact that I'm bringing Blaze and Marine into the story. However do note that they will be integral parts of the story, same with other characters that I have brought or will bring in.

Chapter 9: Dimension

"It's okay, you didn't know it would turn out this way."

Vanilla was at the empty villa with Amy. There was no trace of either Tails or Cream. They had disappeared without a trace.

"How stupid must I have been to allow two young children to go on a vacation alone?" Vanilla cried out, tears in her eyes. Amy put her arm around the significantly taller one, clearly struggling to do so.

"It's okay, what's happened has happened. We should focus on searching for them," she assured. Vanilla sniffed and nodded. It hadn't even been a day and the two of them had gone missing. Vanilla was worried that Cream would miss hearing her mother's voice, so she called, but there was always no answer. She went to the Villa with Amy tagging along, only to find Cream's phone lying on the ground, screen shattered into smithereens. The both of them checked the whole house, but neither of them were found. Amy was worried as well, but knowing Tails and Cream, she knew that they were able to handle any situation well.

"I'm such a bad mother..." Vanilla said, sighing and shaking her head. Amy pat her shoulder.

"You are a great mother. Making mistakes is part of life, as long as you learn from them, and become a better person," Amy said. Vanilla felt better. She nodded, wiped her tears, and the both of them started to look for Tails and Cream.

Timeshift

One moment they were unconscious, the next moment they were having tea with the ones who rendered them unconscious.

Not just any tea, tea that Cream had brought along for the vacation. In a shallow cave not so high up a mountain, sitting on a huge gray rock.

Tails was working away on his Miles Electric, while the other three sat silently. One was even sleeping.

"Any results?" one of them asked, folding her arms in frustration.

Tails simply shook his head and continued pressing numbers into the device. She rolled her eyes.

"I thought you said you were a genius," she mumbled. Tails glared at her, unimpressed.

"I'm a genius in mechanics. And even so, it's not everyday a crazy dimension travelling duo knocks you out and asks you for help figuring out how she got to this dimension, how to get back to their own dimension and why you ended up with a piece of memory you don't even remember." Tails said, clearly angered.

"We're not crazy!" She yelled back. "And look in the mirror before calling others crazy. Why the heck do you have to tails? And what kind of name is Tails? You sound and look like a freak, you crazy nerd!"

Tails froze. From young, he had always been verbally abused by everyone who saw him at Westside. He never knew who his parents were, and such things happened even at the orphanage he was sent to. Despite running from the orphanage, the other normal children would bump into him on the streets. The beatings and nasty comments would come crashing down onto him. His life before meeting Sonic was a nightmare, one that would forever be a part of him. Her words hit him hard. He wanted to cry, but bit his lip to stop himself. He opened his mouth to say something, but only air came out of his dry throat.

"That's enough, Blaze!" Cream yelled, startling her. Cream rushed to Tails and wrapped her arm around his shivering body. She then glared at Blaze angrily, her teeth gritted in rage. " Anything you want to say to him?"

Blaze opened her mouth, ready to fire back, but it shut quickly. She knew that she had hurt the kid big time. She knew because she had been there. She sighed.

"I'm sorry, Tails. I lost control of myself just now. I appreciate you trying to help us, I really do. I have no right to speak to you in such a manner," she said. This seemed to work, as Tails' body loosened up slowly. He nodded, and got back to work without saying anything. Cream shook her head at Blaze, and Blaze shrugged, giving her the look.

"yawn... did I miss anything?" the sleeping raccoon had awoken from her deep slumber. Cream and Blaze couldn't help but to laugh at her confused face staring out at everyone. Even Tails let out a small chuckle. The raccoon raised an eyebrow.

"What's so funny?" she asked. This caused the two of them to laugh even more. She waved her little fist in frustration. "Tell me!"

"I think I've got something," Tails said, causing all three to turn towards him almost instantly. "Blaze, you said that when you woke up here, Marine was next to you?" Blaze nodded.

"And that piece of memory only involved Silver and you?" He received another nod.

"Well... it seens that there is something quite special about you..." he said, rubbing his chin. Blaze raised an eyebrow.

"Special...?" she questioned.

"I'm not an expert on superstitious stuff, but science shows that there is a reason both of you appeared here at the same time..."

All of them looked at him confused as he continued to scroll through the device.

"And the last person you came into contact with was Silver, right?" Blaze nodded again.

"Marine, how are you connected to Silver?" he asked.

"We spoke once or twice," Marine replied, shrugging. Tails rubbed his temples for a good while, amd the three of them gave each other anxious glances.

"I don't know how this is even possible..." he groaned.

"What is possible?" Cream asked. Tails looked up at them.

"You know when Eggman sent Chris back to his own world?" This time only Cream nodded.

"When Chris entered his world, his capsule interfered with a dimensional link." he tried to explain. "A dimensional link is created when someone or something from a dimension is travelling to another. The interference caused a disjoint in the two dimensions affected, which caused the same people at the same time from each dimension to be shuffled. And there was a 50/50 chance that this Blaze would land here, and that the Blaze from the other world would land here. The other Blaze was meant to travel to your dimension, but because of the interference, the dimensional link was redirected to Chris' world. Since this world is the source of the interference, and Chris' world is the receiving end, these four worlds' dimensional links with each other were mixed up, causing you to teleport over here, and the other you to teleport to Chris' world."

"But why did Blaze and I end up here if she wasn't in any dimension travel?" the raccoon asked.

"I'm not very sure on this. My only guess is that her travel was unintentional, and it only happened as a chain reaction to the interference. Why you were teleported here, I don't know, but it's most likely because of your relationship with either Blaze or Silver."

"Thank you for that very long and impossible to understand explanation, but why do I have this memory?" Blaze asked, tapping her foot impatiently. Tails rolled his eyes.

"Well, according to you, the Blaze in that memory faded away and exploded in the sky. My only hunch is that that other Blaze was going to travel to your dimension, but right when she did, the interference came in, so both Blazes would get each other's memory that involved an identical trigger item, which in this case is your friend, Silver. That also means the Blaze currently in Chris' world has your Valentine's memory with Silver." Tails explained, holding back a giggle. Blaze noticed this and rolled her eyes, trying not to be bothered by that. Just then, Cream gasped.

"Wait, you said that you remembered absorbing this flame that destroyed your world, right?" she asked in a soft voice. Blaze nodded, and Cream's eyes widened.

"So if the other Blaze is going to Chris' world with that flame..."

Everyone's eyes widened almost at the same time.

"That means whoever Chris is, his world would be devastated by now," Blaze whispered, hanging her head. Everyone was silent.

"I'm not trying to make you sound selfish..." Tails broke the silence with a soft voice, almost a whisper. "But hey, your world's saved at the end of the day, right?"

"My world doesn't deserved to be saved," Blaze said softly, closing her eyes and letting out a long sigh. Marine's eyes widened for a second or two, but reality soon hit her and she nodded grimly. "Our world doesn't care for those below us. It's like chess. The horses, kings, queens and so on live perfect lives, while the pawns struggle to feed themselves and their family everyday. And they don't care about society. Only themselves matter. A world like that really deserves to be destroyed."

Cream gazed at the floor, her mind racing with thought. She could imagine a world with two worlds in it. Chris' world was different than what Blaze just described.

"Even so, it doesn't deserve to destroyed," Tails spoke up. "At least there are people who care about their families. People who would put their families first. A world with that deserves to survive, no matter how hard it may be." Deep down, however, he couldn't imagine Chris' world as a wasteland of flames. He had spent quite a while there, and had grown to love it. Whether Chris was still alive or not, no one knew.

Timeshift

The two of them walked under the hot sun of the afternoon, dragging every step across the bright green grass. Sweat trickled down their foreheads as they headed towards their destination. The destination that would change his life forever.

Soon, they were standing in front of a towering chunk of metal. It looked ancient, yet untouched. The surroundings were silent, too silent for comfort. Not even the wind blew. He gazed at the gigantic structure, memories rushing through his head.

Once you're cured, we can go down there together.

Shadow, I want you to bring those down there happiness. A chance to do something great.

Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog.

He squeezed his eyes shut and grabbed his forehead, letting out trembling breaths as he did so. A hand was placed on his shoulder.

"You don't have to enter if you don't want to," she reassured. He shook his head and removed his hands.

"I'm fine," he said softly, slowly opening his eyes. She gestured for him to proceed with a smile on her face, but she was extremely worried for him. This could easily make him go crazy, depressed or even kill himself. But the truth can never be hidden forever.

Their footsteps echoed along the heavy steel walls of the abandoned ship as they headed deeper into the structure. The woman stared down at a device, her face devoid of emotion.

"Take a left," she said calmly. Every turn he made, he studied the passage that faced him from top to bottom. They were so familiar yet so foreign. The both of them shuddered when they saw a body in a police uniform lying in a pool of blood. And the body was human.

"Here we are," she said, and the ebony hedgehog stopped in his tracks. Facing them was a dark grey door, rusted by age. On it was a sign that read "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY". She placed a circular device on a keypad by the wall, and within seconds, the door opened, releasing a long, ear deafening creak as it scratched across the floor. She sighed under her breath as he walked into the room. Dangling cables hung from the ceiling, and the walls were lined with blank computer screens, littered with massive cracks. Bits of glass threating to stab anyone who touched it were scattered all over. A colossal structure stood in the middle of the room. It had massive pipes pumping something into a chamber. The walls of the chamber were several layers of metal, with openings that fit the pipes nicely. He couldn't believe that the pipes were still working despite what the ship had been through.

She stepped forward and retrieved a laser cutter from a table and plugged it into a battery so big that it could fill a car boot entirely by itself.

"Stand back, honey," she instructed, and he obeyed, standing to the side. She then proceeded to saw a square hole in the thick walls of the chamber. Once a clean cut was made, the cut out piece fell onto the floor with a massive clank. Freezing cold air immediately rushed out of the chamber. She grabbed a black colour circle from inside the chamber. Upon closer look, he realised that it was a CD.

"You made me come all the way here to retrieve a CD?" he asked, disgruntled.

"Wait til you see what's in this little baby," she replied with a wink. He rolled his eyes. "Now that our work here is done, mind to bring us back?"

He held out his hand and watched as a glowing emerald slowly formed on his palm. Once it was solidified, he held onto the bat's shoulder.

"Chaos Control!" With that, the two of them disappeared in a flash.