A bit of perspective-changing for this chapter, and quite a few future ones too. Some situations just call for third-person narrative. :) Enjoy, and stuff.

CHAPTER 9: HELLRAISER

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Third-person perspective

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Kai flew past Sonic's cell, trying to look at him without actually turning his head so as to avoid hinting his curiosity. Unfortunately for the chao, Sonic saw him immediately and looked up.

Looking self-conscious, Kai raised a tentative paw and waved.

Sonic, of course, waved back.

"Hey, something's going on," Lucas said, approaching the cell's side window. On his way there, he noticed Kai hovering in the hallway, and the two exchanged glares.

The blue blur ignored them, looking around for whatever 'something' was going on, thick quills swinging with his motions. "Nothing looks different to me," he concluded.

As Kai flew away, Lucas turned back to the window. "I guess someone quite a ways across the top floor said a large group of androids was coming this way, and people passed the message on. Usually there's no more than one or two of them."

"Oh yeah? Should I keep passing on the message, then?"

Lucas shrugged awkwardly. "Actually, I have a strong feeling it was meant for you."

"Hah, thought you might say that," Sonic said, looking a lot less uncomfortable than his neighbor did. "I get that feeling too."

"They said something about an examination. I don't know why, but I guess Eggman's got the androids checking people out for something. Maybe to figure out if they're strong enough for him, or whatever. Quite a few people have been taken there already, but I haven't yet, so I don't really know much about it."

"Well, I guess I'm going to find out. Sounds like the only reason there are more robots coming for me is because the usual one or two won't be enough to keep me under control!"

"You look like you have a plan."

The hedgehog laughed. "Who, me? I never have a plan. That's why my plans work."

"What?"

"Makes sense if you don't think about it."

"So what are you going to do?"

Sonic just held his gaze. Wait for it.

"Oh, right."

"It all depends on what they do. Can you see them yet?"

"What, you can't look yourself?" Lucas asked.

Sonic made a face. "Sure, guess I could. But you're already up there, and I'm sitting down over here. Really, I'm just asking you to turn your head. But if you have a neck problem or something…"

"Idon'tseethem," Lucas snapped. Both males fell silent momentarily. "…But I hear them."

"The suspense," Sonic muttered, voice laden with sarcasm, though it was directed at Lucas more than the situation. He got to his feet, heart already pumping a little faster, adrenaline pushing against the biological release gates. It was an exciting sensation he hadn't experienced in a while.

As he had always done, he harnessed it… nurtured it.

For the first time, the blue blur realized how stiff his legs felt. He wondered if he would have a chance to actually use them now. It had been such a long time since he had even bothered to stretch them. It occurred to him that he probably should have been doing that anyway to keep in shape, but in the midst of the situation, it had just never been a priority.

He stretched them now, simply because he could. Lucas was watching him out of the corner of his eye.

The androids' footsteps were getting closer. Hearing them clearly now, Sonic approached the front of the cell and stood on his toes to peak through the bars. There were four of them; less than he had expected and less than he had hoped for. The top floor was alive with chatter now. Most everyone had been there for weeks or months, and knew there was rarely reason for four androids to be sharing the same task.

Nobody remembered the magnets in Sonic's limbs until he was pulled suddenly against the panel on the back wall, smacking against it with a metallic thud.

"Sonic!" Lucas grasped the window bars in a white-knuckle grip. The hedgehog didn't respond at first, eyes squeezed shut in sudden pain. "Whoa… are you okay?"

After a moment the blue blur opened his eyes and looked down at one of his hands. The magnetic plate was pinching his skin against the wall. He tried to pull away, but couldn't budge. "I forgot about this thing," he mumbled under his breath.

"Sonic the hedgehog," said one of the androids as it reached his cell. The other three came to a halt behind him. "You will be coming with us for a few brief moments. Doctor Robotnik wishes to x-ray your musculoskeletal and genetic structure so that he can better understand why your body is so receptive to Chaos energy, and to determine the cause of your speed."

"Well," Sonic mused, "going fast tends to have a prerequisite of being at least somewhat fit. You should tell him that. It might speed things along a bit."

"Clever hedgehog, he does not want the speed for himself, but for his warriors." Sonic couldn't tell if 'warriors' was meant to refer to robots or humans.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you are currently physically incapable of doing anything about it."

The hedgehog frowned. "Touché."

The second android stepped in front of the first, reaching for the lock on Sonic's door. There was a golden key in its right hand. It confirmed what they had suspected all along; Sonic's cell was separate from all the others in the prison, only to be opened by that single key.

It was one of the most mentally agonizing moments in the blue blur's life, watching that door swing open, trying to peel himself off the wall to reach it, getting nowhere. The four androids filed in, a sneer on the face of the one with the key as he approached. Sonic could swear its blue-lit eyes got a little brighter at his misfortune.

"I will stand guard," said the android, closing the door but not locking it, "just in case you three cannot keep a grip."

"Will do."

And then the three androids grasped his limbs in a quick, simultaneous motion. There was one at each arm, and the other at both of his feet. The key-holder made a quick motion with its other hand. Sonic felt his weight collapse downward and realized he was free of the magnets. His extremities ached as blood flowed back into the areas that had been pinched against the panel. With the prospect of escape right there in front of him, he struggled with everything he had, trying to twist out of their grasp.

It was a fruitless endeavor. The androids had the same unbreakable grip as when they had captured him. As they carried him out of the cell, he came to terms with the fact that this wasn't how he was going to get away. Like before, he would try to look for an opportunity, since he couldn't make one himself.

He winked at Lucas as the group passed by his cell. The man had calmed down somewhat, leaving his face unreadable.

As they went, the prisoners who saw him started whispering to one another, some concerned, others curious. "Thanks for passing along the message," Sonic said to them, making his voice loud enough to carry over the rumble of whispers. "Hang in there, okay? We're all going to get out of here."

To his delight, they didn't look nearly as lifeless as he had pictured them. He had half-expected stony glares, dead wills, decomposing spirits. But only a select few had been bitter… and unfortunately, it was always those kinds of people that were the most vocal. He had let the downers represent the rest of the top floor mistakenly in his mind. So many other people up here weren't like that at all. They were focused and grimly determined, trying to survive, like he was. "You hang in there too," said a teenager about his age.

"Heh, I suppose that's fair," he said with a grin, turning his head to face him. Why had Lucas thought everyone had lost hope? Sonic realized it had only been an assumption, based on their relative silence. But really, what was he supposed to expect?

The thought crossed Sonic's mind that they should be determined together instead of isolated.

The androids turned down another hallway, a separate branch off the main spiraled corridor of the prison. There were more cells, laid out in the same pattern as all the rest. Just as Sonic wondered if he was known yet in this area, he heard a gasp, followed by his name murmured in quiet surprise. Then: "Hey guys, look!"

As he was escorted down the hallway, people approached the bars to watch him. Every now and then, Sonic could make out some of their hushed words: "I didn't know he was in here," "How did Eggman manage to capture him?" and "Is that really Sonic?"

They turned yet again, this time into a smaller spiraled hallway. Sonic mapped out the prison's design in his head: there were two main paths that ran parallel to one another as they coiled their way up throughout the building, and perpendicular paths that connected the two every few hundred feet. Pretty simple, Sonic thought, for scientific genius who wanted to prevent peoples' escape. Maybe he was so confident in his creations that he didn't care if the design was easy to figure out.

"Right down here," commanded one of said creations. They turned down a dark path between two cells that Sonic might not have noticed otherwise. Just as he began to wonder if there was a third spiral, he heard a door swing open.

His heart dipped as it occurred to him that they could be moving him permanently from his cell. If he had to be held captive, he didn't want to be all by himself. Lucas had become his friend.

He was relieved when the light flicked on; it didn't look like another cell. He was in a white room full of screens, and some kind of oval pod in the center. The room was circular, and he had a feeling it was at the center of the floor.

One of the androids closed and locked the door behind them.

Looking more closely at the screens, Sonic saw that they contained records of other prisoners. There were names listed, and sub-lists below each one in tiny text. He squinted, but couldn't read any of it. Figuring he had nothing to lose, he looked over at one of the androids holding his arm. "What's all that say?"

"What, on that screen there? It's genetic information about the prisoners, of course."

Sonic could have laughed. "And that one?" He gestured with his head to a screen with several human-shaped diagrams. It had arrows pointing to specific areas.

"It highlights the areas of the body known to be altered by Chaos energy."

"Ahhh," the hedgehog said, letting his eyes wander. There was a similar diagram of a brain, and arrows pointing at various aspects of that, too. He had thought Eggman was only interested in why he could utilize Chaos Emeralds. But he was collecting data about everyone…? "So Eggster really is making progress in this, he just hasn't learned quite enough to know how to strengthen his army with Chaos energy yet. Am I right?"

"Yes, you might put it that—"

"I don't think we are supposed to say this much, you know," one of the other androids chimed in. It was the mean robot of the four, the one who had sneered at him earlier. "The doctor never set any specific rules for that, but I just have a feeling…"

"Of course, of course. I figured it was okay since he has been secured at the prison for nearly two months now."

"This is true, he is not likely to escape. But still."

"Yes, you are right. Let us proceed with the examination."

At the press of another button on the remote, the blue pod slid open. "Sonic, this machine is not harmful. It will hold you in place and scan your body, kind of like an x-ray or whatever the medical equivalent is called. It is going to collect data on you in the same way it has done so on some of the prisoners already."

"Oh, just put him in it already," mean-bot said.

Suddenly, the hedgehog remembered something. "Hey, quite a while ago, I heard one of you guys tell Kai that the machine wasn't ready for me yet. Were you talking about this?"

"Indeed we were. Eggman told us to make reinforcements to it before using it on you. Though I can't imagine why; you don't seem that strong."

Wisely, Sonic kept his thoughts to himself.

He was pushed into the machine. They quickly closed the sliding door. It was dark. He felt some mechanical device seeking his feet, probably to hold him in place. The androids began to give him instructions so that the machine could get an accurate read. They got as far as telling him to stay still when he tensed his quills, curled over and began spinning.

Stay still. Hah, like hell I will.

The blue blur's sharp spikes grinded into everything around him: the floor, the mechanism that had been trying to hold his feet, and tons of other scanning tools in the tight pod he was encased in. It was all anonymous junk to him.

He could feel the machine vibrating with his motions, being shaken apart from the inside. It strained and groaned, relentlessly trying to complete the process it had started. The effort was a waste of electricity. Barely five seconds had passed when the thing surrendered. Pieces of dead material crumbled down on Sonic as if making one last attempt to fight back. They merely ricocheted off his spinning form, his protective spikes and high velocity allowing none of them a chance to do him harm.

When he uncurled and opened his eyes, he was in the brightness of the circular room again, the pod nothing more than a pile of debris around his feet.

Sonic didn't stop there. Before the androids could react, he curled in a ball once more and launched himself along the wall, wondering what in the world Eggman was thinking when he made this room round.

Screens and diagrams shattered like glass as he rolled over them at the speed of sound, riding the wall around and around like a tornado. He couldn't help but think that he was glad he had remembered to stretch his legs.

He landed again. The room had been reduced to an unrecognizable pile of glass, plastic and metal. Not one screen had been left untouched.

Meanwhile, the four androids were still making their way towards where he had stood a second earlier.

Snickering to himself, he went for mean-bot. The droid was just turning to face when Sonic jumped and landed a kick on its head. Wires snapped as it separated from its body, clanking against the empty white wall and falling to the floor.

The hedgehog stumbled as he landed. He had expected his kick to be met with resistance, and the complete lack of it threw him off. Instead of trying to right himself, he let himself fall and kept rolling. Maybe they broke easily, but these robots were still built to capture, and he couldn't stay still for one second.

Limbs of the three remaining robots slammed down behind him as they tried to catch him mid-roll. He could feel the thuds through the floor.

Sonic jumped toward the wall and launched himself off it with his feet, throwing himself over the group of androids. He barely touched down before speeding around the room as fast as he could. Space was limited, but even a hundred miles per hour was enough to mess up the robots' perception. He saw them turning, their eyes following his movement about six feet behind where he actually was.

Another opportunity.

Still running, he curved in on an arc only he could pull off at such speeds and ran straight for the closest android. When he was within five feet of it, he dropped down and slid, kicking its feet out from underneath it. Moving fluidly, he transitioned back to his feet again and then leaped, pushing himself off the wall in the opposite direction to home in on the android's head.

At the last second, the android pushed off the ground and caught Sonic's kick with both metallic hands. Using the hedgehog's momentum to its own advantage, it whipped him in a semicircle toward a mess of destroyed screen, the motion twisting his ankle. He slid into the debris, unable to stop himself. Pieces of it scattered and spun on the floor. Some hit his skin just right to pierce into it, introducing themselves with sharp, precise pain.

"Unh…!"

"He is disabled. Get him – now!"

The three androids came at him at once, one from the front and two from the sides. They were clear and crisp in his vision, and the light from the ceiling suddenly felt assaulting and abrasive on his eyes. Pain had a tendency to make things more intense like that.

He pushed himself up on his elbows, about to get back up. The motion drove a sliver of debris further into his arm. He winced and hissed in air through his teeth. Blood seeped out around the obstacle indifferently, hitting the floor below in droplets.

Sonic could feel his pulse throbbing repeatedly in his twisted ankle. He didn't even have to stand on it to know it had been injured too.

The one on the right was going to get to him first. It was within feet of him, one arm already extended out, making the reach.

The door back to the hallway was across the room. It was locked. But if he defeated the androids, he would be able to wait until another prisoner was brought up to the scanner, and make an escape…

But that, of course, demanded evasion.

No time to wait on endorphins. He had to move.

The robot's arm came within reach. Sonic held fast before it could attempt the same and pulled himself up by it. "Thanks, buddy! I appreciate it!"

Surprised by his sudden action, the android lurched back, withdrawing its attempt to immobilize him. Taking full advantage, Sonic pushed off his better foot and threw himself at it, not letting it gain any ground. It didn't recover in time to defend itself from the oncoming assault as Sonic rammed its head repeatedly with a flurry of punches.

It was enough to disorient the humanoid. While it stood there useless, the blue blur sprung into the air once more and let gravity pull him down on the thing feet-first. The pressure immediately broke its neck, making wires split and sizzle.

"You've got to be kidding me," one of the two remaining androids said as its comrade fell forward with a clank. "This is a disgrace!"

Sonic turned to face them, tugging the sharp wedge out of his arm and discarding it carelessly. He held his weight heavily on one foot, but made the position look like a casual shifting of weight. "You seriously thought I was that much of a wuss?" he asked through heavy breathing, scratching his nose. "I was just waiting for that fella to get close enough!"

Said fella reached forward from the ground with one last effort, head still hanging limply from strained wires, and grasped Sonic's aching ankle. "Is this close enough for you?" it asked snidely as the hedgehog went rigid, eyes screwing shut.

Then the android short-circuited, its blue eyes flashing sporadically several times before going dark.

The thing was finished. Defeated and unmoving. But the dead grip was locked in place around Sonic's ankle.

It was all he could do to drag his foot across the floor, the disabled robot trailing on it heavily. Crippling him. Weighing him down like lead. Seconds passed in merciful but tense slow motion as he struggled against its grip, leaning down to try and pry the locked fingers open with his hands, shaking his foot back and forth as if that would ease the process. Just as he thought he might be able to wiggle out of its frozen grasp, there was cold pressure on one of his arms.

"Sonic, this is unacceptable," said the android who had grabbed him. "You have destroyed two of our comrades." Unexpectedly, it struck him across the mouth with its free hand. Sonic yelped in surprise, then swung his head back to offender with an affronted glare. The other remaining android removed the dead one from his foot almost insultingly easily, and then grabbed his other arm, rendering him helpless again. "You will be returned to your cell now."

The blow had split Sonic's lip. Unable to wipe blood away with his hands, he accidentally on purpose spat it out on the one of the robot's feet. If the act was perceived at all, the robot didn't react.

As he was escorted roughly back to his cell, there was an announcement over the intercom that Sonic had all but forgotten about until that point. "Attention all patrol androids," came Eggman's impatient voice, "cancel the examinations of all prisoners on the top three floors until further notice. I have received a warning from the network that there is a problem with the scanner. There is no point risking the escape of prisoners if the device is malfunctioning. I am heading down soon to find out what the problem is, so listen for another announcement; operations will resume shortly."

There was a second of silence as people hesitated, making sure the announcement was indeed over. Then a sudden, unanimous cry erupted… a cry of triumph.

Sonic looked at the people looking at him, unrestrained passion in their eyes as they clapped and yelled. Finally, something good had happened. Hope had been restored, if it had ever been gone at all.

They went down the connector hallway and back toward the outer spiral. As they approached, the hedgehog could hear a chant forming, steadily rising in both enthusiasm and volume…

Son-ic, Son-ic, Son-ic, Son-ic…

His grin threatened to swallow the rest of his face as he tilted his head to look up at one of the androids. "You should be thanking me you know," he said. "You guys get a break now. Hah, just wait'l Eggman sees how big that 'malfunction' really is."

There was a storm of applause as Sonic was brought back into his hallway. It was one of those bizarre moments where the blue hedgehog was reminded he really was a famed hero. But that wasn't what mattered.

Just before arriving at his cell, they passed by Kai. He was standing on the floor off to the side, watching curiously but not intervening at all. "Smile, little guy!" Sonic said. "Have some fun with the rest of us!"

The two androids shoved Sonic roughly back into his cell and slammed the door. Lucas was leaning on the window, shaking his head and smiling. "You're insane."

"If I can get a response like that from you, then I'm doing my job!" The hedgehog grinned broadly.

"I suppose I should have expected no less of you, Sonic. Well played."

"Felt good to break some stuff," the hedgehog said. "I needed some excitement."

"Everyone heard Eggman's announcement. I knew it could only mean one thing. And Eggman doesn't even get it yet."

"Hah, I wish I could be there to see his reaction."

"I know, me too. Hey – what's that little bastard doing there?"

Sonic followed Lucas's gaze and turned around. Sitting shyly in a front corner of the blue blur's cell was Kai. Upon being seen, he flew upward toward the bars, making to leave. "Aw, he just wants to chill out, don't you, Kai?"

"Sonic, don't be stupid. He's Eggman's chao. He probably just wants you to think he's turned over a new leaf."

"So, what?" Sonic said. "What's the big deal either way? Let's not put a damper in the celebration right now, eh?"

"Whatever," Lucas muttered curtly. "So how did you do it, anyway?"

Sonic shrugged cheerfully. "I just kinda obliterated the place. Simple."

Lucas looked at him dryly. "Good story."

"You had to have been there. Too awesome for words, I'm telling you." He cleared his throat. "In all seriousness, though, I did find some things out."

Lucas asked the obligatory question: "Like what?"

"Well, for one, these super-tough android guys? They shatter like glass. They're hard to evade, but if you can manage to land a hard blow, they're pretty much down for the count. I'm thinking we can find ways to destroy them from in here, even.

"But that's the good news," Sonic continued. "The better news is that the machine I destroyed used to be for collecting data about peoples' compatibility with Chaos energy. There has to be more of them, since this place has an insane number of floors. But still, it'll slow Eggman down a lot."

"You lost me," Lucas informed him.

"Chaos-enhanced army. You're going to hear that phrase a lot, because that's what Eggman's after, here. He's collecting that data so he can figure out how to use Chaos energy on people against their will. He wants to make them stronger, probably so they can combat G.U.N. and take over the nation. And it's like I suspected before…" Sonic looked at his neighbor solemnly through the bars. "I think he thinks his enemies won't be so quick to attack if it means hurting innocent people he manipulated."

"What, can these Emeralds mind-control or something?"

"No," Sonic said, "but the controller of the Emeralds is the one who… well, has control. Peoples' minds wouldn't be taken over, but they'll still be forced to do what Eggman wants, if he can get them to use Chaos energy. They'll be like puppets."

If he can get them to… but… how?

"This is sick."

"Yup. But we're making progress, now, aren't we? We just have to be patient and wait for opportunities like the one that just came up. In the meantime we can try to disable as many androids as possible."

"Patient," Lucas muttered. "You."

Sonic scoffed. "Hey, I've got the upper edge between the two of us."

"Oh, please."

"See? Impatience, right there."

"What was that you said about not putting a damper in things?" Lucas asked sarcastically. "Take your own advice. Hey, what're you doing?"

Sonic had approached the front of his cell. As Lucas watched, he gripped the bars on the top half and lifted himself off the ground by them, resting his feet on the concrete the iron rods were built into. "Hey!" he shouted out, his voice echoing up and down the hallway. "You all know who this is now, right?"

Before he had finished the sentence, people had begun yelling out their responses and cheers. Lucas just shook his head, but even he couldn't keep from smiling.

"Listen… the only way a ruler can be successful is if people choose to follow! People are just as responsible for the rise of Eggman's monarchy as they could be for the destruction of it. So if we do what we can right now, and never give up, we've already got the upper edge."

"Say something good," Lucas grumbled in the background. "This is reminiscent of the kind of cheese you read on posters in school hallways."

For his part, Sonic happily ignored him. "Most of you probably understand what Eggman's up to now. If Eggman can figure out the mystery of what makes someone able to use Chaos Emeralds, he might be able to come up with a way to control you with them. Eggman's not just planning to make an army out of you, he's trying to figure out how to make the Chaos Emeralds compatible with everybody. Sounds good in theory, but that much reckless strength is only going to cause destruction. At the moment, though, he doesn't know all the factors involved in utilizing the Emeralds, which is good for us. And with the scanner destroyed, everyone on this floor is safe anyway."

Someone a few cells down asked, "Does he have any of these Chaos Emeralds?"

"I dunno," Sonic called back. "I'm going to assume he does just in case. If he doesn't, he still has other peoples' data that he can implement when he does get a hold of one. So it's a problem either way."

"But you just destroyed that machine! I thought he didn't have that data anymore."

"Yeah," Sonic said, "but who said that was the only one of those machines? This place has an uncountable number of floors, so he's gotta have more lower down. What I did'll slow him down but it won't stop him. The androids are the ones who take people to these scanners though, so if we can find ways to defeat them, we're in good shape."

"So why did he want scan you if everyone already knows you can use the Chaos Emeralds?"

Sonic took pause. That was a good question. "My only guess is that he wanted to compare me to everyone else and see if he could find any common factors, or whatever." Technology is so not my specialty. "All the data from that scanner has been destroyed, so we don't really need to worry about that anyway."

The exchange went on for several minutes, nearby prisoners asking strings of questions to get in the know. When Sonic finally climbed down from the bars – carefully to avoid further harming his tender ankle – Lucas was watching him with a conceding smile. "What?" the hedgehog asked.

"I'm just glad I'm not on the receiving side of your retaliation. Here I thought you never made plans."

The hedgehog just laughed.

xxx

Night hadn't even fallen yet when Lucas destroyed two androids from inside his cell. The first one had fallen victim to a large cup of water he'd had from lunch that day. Many of the H-series robots that resided in Meka Tower were catered specifically to inside environments. As such, Eggman had overlooked the notion of making those ones waterproof. The second one had set Lucas's dinner on the ledge at the front of his cell, where the bars met the concrete door, and had gotten just close enough in doing so for Lucas to grab its head and twist.

He had gotten all his meals taken away for the next day, but it had been well worth it. Sonic promised to share food with him, anyway.

"Hey folks," the man called to all who could hear him, peering out the front of his cell as much as he could. "Sonic's right, these androids are a piece of cake! I just took out two of 'em. Eggman will probably catch on and fix their flaws eventually, but until then, don't be afraid to do something about these guys. And use water! It gets between the cracks real fast, and most of them weren't built to be immune to it!"

"You're becoming more like me by the day," Sonic remarked.

"Don't flatter yourself."

"Hey, after destroying that scanner, I'm owed a few bragging rights, don't you think?"

Lucas gave a noncommittal grunt. "The right kind of person doesn't use them."

"Oh, chill out. I was just kidding, pal."

"I still don't understand the big deal with the scanner, anyway. I mean, like you said, there's bound to be more. Eggman'll probably just take the prisoners up here down to the other floors that have them, you know?"

"I still don't understand the big deal with those androids, anyway. I mean, there's tons more of them. Eggman'll probably send more out to replace the ones you killed, you know?"

Lucas glared at him.

"Aw, that's all you got?" Sonic asked innocently. "I was hoping for a better wit contest tonight."

"I wasn't trying to undermine that you destroyed it, you know," Lucas said in an offended mumble. "That wasn't directed at you. I was just saying that there's still so much we'll have to do before putting a dent in anything."

"Not really. We're already putting a dent in it. I mean, I haven't seen any androids go by with prisoners since earlier today, and even if there are more scanners, it'll be a much longer distance for them to travel. Plus, less androids to travel it." He winked. "Not to mention, all the data on that scanner was destroyed. That's gotta count for something."

"To what end?" Lucas asked. "I'm not trying to be negative here, but I honestly don't get it. How can x-rays or DNA tests or whatever possibly tell him anything about peoples' functionality with the Chaos Emeralds?"

Sonic drew a breath to respond, expecting himself to have a response by the time he started talking like he usually did. Then it dawned on him.

Eggman could only make so much progress by way of his scanners, because someone's ability to use Chaos energy wasn't based only on their biological structuring. It was also based on emotion, Sonic knew, because he had experienced that connection directly every time he had ever used the Emeralds. They turned thoughts into power.

Only the strongest and most willful of emotions – notably pure benevolence and pure hatred – could unlock the power of the Chaos Emeralds. Anyone could use them to strengthen objects or devices… but people could only access their power themselves through emotion.

For a reason he couldn't explain, Sonic felt uneasy.

It should have been a relieving thought. Eggman was missing a huge piece of the puzzle and didn't even know it. But it unnerved him. After all, who was to say Eggman wouldn't realize that and change his tactic? He was, if nothing else, an intelligent man. But even if the doctor did figure it out, that didn't mean it was the end-all, be-all of this fight… right? After all, it wasn't like he had control over people's emotions.

Sonic leaned on his hand, trying to figure out why the notion bothered him so much.

xxx

"Nothing starts until you take action!" –Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog 2006

xxx

IN CHAPTER 10: Tails and Espio go up to Angel Island to see Knuckles for themselves and, erm, I'm having a really hard time thinking up a good preview today. XD

Thanks for reading! Hope you guys liked this one, I thought it was fun. ^^ Feedback appreciated, as always. Happy reading/writing!