I walked downstairs the next day, really hungry. The bed I had slept on was the most comfortable surface I had ever laid my back on.

Bella was up as well. She was also making a breakfast platter.

"So, Zathia," she asked groggily. "What do you want to do today?"

"Well," I replied. "Did we hire anyone to buy us stuff?"

"No," said Bella.

"Well, there you go," I said. "We could also spend the day meeting people. Actually, that sounds like a pretty great idea. Anyway, there has to be some kind of store around here somewhere."

So after we brushed our hair and prettied ourselves up the best we could, we went out.

It was a beautiful day. At least, in my opinion. And I'm a storm lover.

In other words, the clouds were really low and dark. I was quite startled when I saw a blue blur coming towards us. Not like I didn't know who it was, though. When he reached us, the blur went away.

"Hi, Sonic," I said. "Does the weather on Mobius work the same way it does on Earth?"

"It should," said Sonic, looking up.

"Where can we get food?" asked Bella.

Sonic sighed. "Silly me, I never explained it to you," he said. "but let's go to your house. This storm is looking pretty bad." So we sped home.

"Slowpokes!" he jokingly yelled after OBVIOUSLY beating us there.

"You cheater!" yelled Bella. "We can't run at the speed of sound!"

"Geez, just kidding with you," said Sonic. We walked inside and sat down.

"Zathia, Bella," said Sonic. "You are going to have to survive on food straight from nature."

"So," said Bella. "We start eating whole wheat bread, right?" Sonic's hand collided with his forehead.

"I mean," grumbled Sonic. "that after your current food supply runs out, you will have to pick fruits and veggies from local farms and orchards. You'll have to hunt if you ever want to eat meat again."

"Now, hold on," I snapped. "I would think that Mobius would be against hunting of its own inhabitants."

"One word," said Sonic. "Overpopulation. As long as you survive on 2 or 3 a week, it's all good." For some reason, I felt that him telling us this was quite odd.

"Well, gotta run!" said Sonic before zooming out the door, knocking over a potted rose.

"Come on, Bella," I urged. "Let's go pick some food for our pets."

"Nah," said Bella, turning on the flat screen TV and switching it to Bones. "I'll stay here. You go," I sighed, a little sassier than I wanted to make it sound.

"Fine," I said. "But it's your fault if Dr. Eggman does something to me."

"I'll take that," said Bella. "But it won't be my fault of you are struck by lightning." I looked outside. It was pouring rain now, and the thunder was roaring. I smiled. This was my kind of weather.

"It's a deal," I said before walking out.

Personally, I did not mind the conditions. I only walked about 100 steps before reaching a field of potatoes. With much difficulty, I picked about 10.

About 10 more steps took me to an apple orchard.

"Man," I said to myself. "a basket really would be handy here. So I started picking. Then, I heard footsteps.

And they were coming closer. So I stood there, frozen. My head turned to the direction in which they were coming from, fear-filled from head to toe. And the shoes that appeared 5 minutes or so later were not shoes to be appreciated.

They were black and tall. That's all I could remember about the footwear, but the being had a red jacket on, and creepy looking sunglasses. You know who I'm talking about, right?

Eggbutt is what I call him. But the actual name, and the most popular, is Dr. Eggman.

He was looking at me. I knew he had something on his mind. But he didn't immediately grab me or something like that.

He casually leaned against an apple tree. I started walking away. That was when I heard it.

It was a really high-pitched scream. One I knew had to belong to a young girl. She screamed bloody murder, that's for sure. She screamed again, and this one allowed me to discover that it was coming from the direction of our house.

I looked back. Dr. Eggman wasn't looking anymore, right? No, he wasn't, so I dropped all the apples and bolted. My feet led the way, the fear pumping through every inch of me.

I got to the house, and sure enough, I was correct. Bella was being carried out, surely against her will, by that ugly robot, Metal Sonic. Trying to free her were Sonic and Shadow, Shadow trying the hardest. It was there that I got my first taste of how he felt about her. Sonic looked back and saw me.

"Zathia, look out!" he suddenly yelled.

Just nanoseconds after he said that, I was picked up. By Eggy. Yeah, I screamed, too. Then, he ran away.

"Zathia!" I could hear Sonic, Shadow, and Bella yell. It was useless, of course. For a minute or so, I struggled. I failed, and knew it would not be good to waste my energy, so I stopped. I was just so confused as to why he would want to kidnap me. It took about 5 minutes for us to reach his ship... thingamabobber.

Have you seen Sonic X? Well, it was his little flying ship thingy from there. If you have not, I don't know how to describe it, so use your imagination.

It was really cramped because of fatso Eggbutt. It was a really depressing ride, so I decided to do some sight-seeing. It was just the darkness of the trees below, until to my immense surprise, a new sight happened. It was one I had read about, yet I had never seen it until now.

It was a greenish-bluish aura. I looked it over, and someone was obviously casting it. It wasn't exactly how I pictured it, but I knew it either way. It was speeding our way. Without a second thought, I scrambled to the back of the ship, the side closest to this aura.

But at that moment, just as quickly as it had appeared, it disappeared. Gone.

Instead of sighing sadly and losing hope, I only became more aware. I had the urge to do whatever was possible to find out what was going on down there, so that's what I did. My eyes would not come off of the ground. This desperate searching proved to be worth it, as a sight came into my view that made me furious.

On the ground, running at the same speed as the ship was in was the robot. Metal Sonic was down there. It wasn't him that activated my internal flames of anger; it was what he was carrying. Or rather, who he was carrying.

You could classify his load as black and white. One of them, the black one, had traces of red that I could barely make out, with a white tuft of something on the chest. The other, the whitish-silverish one, was, well, all white from my viewpoint, but had that weird do or whatever on his head, but those boots... those had it all coming together. To my great dismay, Metal Sonic had kidnapped Shadow and Silver. They looked like they were knocked out, too. My only questions now were this.

1. What can I do to save them?

2. Where's Bella?

I assumed what she was already in her prison. Wherever it was...

My love for Silver pretty much compelled me to watch Metal Sonic for the many hours, it seemed, that we went. I was almost asleep when we finally came upon... I really don't know. I felt a sharp pain in my arm, and once again, the world around me faded away, and silence commenced.

Author's note: I'm pretty sure I was sick when I wrote this chapter. Something about having a runny nose and sitting in Algebra 1, writing this on lined paper, has always stuck around in my memory... and yes, some of us went through an Algebra 1 class in 8th grade.