Chapter 12

I'm kinda surprised Eggman's letting me get this far into the base without sending whoever this surprise person is after me, thought Sonic as he raced down a winding corridor deep inside of Eggman's jungle base. So far the only opposition he had faced had been a few Swatbots, which he had dispatched with little effort. From what he had seen, the base looked to house a production line, with an odd sort of robot being the main object being produced. The robots he had seen off-line waiting to be awakened were covered in orange armor, with a ball-like body and a domed head with what appeared to be Eggman's likeness etched onto their faces. As Sonic exited the corridor, he screeched to a halt, having entered a large open room. But it wasn't the room that had stopped him in his tracks, but rather it was the sight of the other person at the other end of the room.

"Welcome, Sonic. I trust you didn't have much difficulty making it this far?" asked Eggman as he stared back at Sonic.

"Not much of a welcoming committee if you ask me," said Sonic, crossing his arms over his chest. "I thought you said you had some surprise person in store for me to take on?"

"Indeed I did. He is actually just beyond this door," said Eggman, motioning to the door behind him. "You may come out now my mechanical creation." The door made a loud clang noise, then slowly started to rise. Sonic watched on in curiosity as the door revealed first the robot's sneaker-like feet, followed by its metallic legs. Next the silver armored body was unveiled, but it wasn't until the robot's face was at last uncovered that Sonic felt a chill course down his spine. The robot calmly walked into the room and up next to Eggman. "Well, aren't you glad to see your original robotic copy?"

"So you rebuilt him after all this time," said Sonic as he stared into the orange fly-like eyes of Silver Sonic. He recalled with vivid clarity his first encounter with Eggman's original mecha bot when he was still a kid. He had barely survived the encounter, only coming out alive when he had lured Silver Sonic into a trash compactor. Now the deadly mecha bot stood before him, looking as pristine as the day he had been unleashed upon the hedgehog.

"Yes. And I upgraded his combat abilities and AI matrix as well. He won't mindlessly chase after you like he did before, but rather come at you with a sense of strategy," said Eggman.

"I see. Still, I've grown a lot stronger since I took him down the first time. He won't get the better of me," said Sonic, taking an offensive stance.

"That has yet to be seen," said Eggman. He then walked over to the door Silver Sonic had exited from and walked into the command center just beyond its entranceway. He then turned back around to face Silver Sonic again. "You are my last line of defense, Silver Sonic. I'll be watching from here. Do not fail me." With that, the door closed again, leaving the two combatants alone in the large room.

"Well, it's been nearly a decade since I tangled with your metal butt. Let's see what you've got," said Sonic. He then dashed forward, closing the distance between the two in a split second. As soon as he had gotten right up in Silver Sonic's face, he performed a backflip, kicking Silver Sonic solidly in the head, snapping it back. Sonic then immediately zipped back to the far side of the room. Silver Sonic merely lowered his head back to its normal position, showing no real signs that the attack had done any damage. Silver Sonic then shot forward from his spot as the wheels on his heels peeled out, closing the gap between the two of them just as fast as Sonic had before slamming hard into the blue hedgehog, ramming him into the wall of the room as Sonic let out a cry of pain. Silver Sonic then immediately retreated to his original spot, watching as Sonic stood on his hands and knees, trying to recover from the blow.

"Alright…Not too bad," said Sonic as he slowly got to his feet. He then charged Silver Sonic, curling into a spindash as he rapidly closed the distance between the two. But before the strike could land, Silver Sonic curled into a ball and shot forward, mimicking Sonic's spindash as the two collided, sending Sonic flying backwards and slamming hard into the wall. Sonic fell to the floor, dropping to a knee in pain. I forgot he could do that, which makes my spindashes hardly any use. And that first attack I made didn't affect him at all, thought Sonic as he slowly rose to his feet, now beginning to wonder if he really could defeat Silver Sonic a second time. Silver Sonic then aimed his right arm towards Sonic, brandishing the laser cannon built into his wrist. Spotting the cannon a split second before it fired, Sonic barely dodged in time to miss the laser blast that Silver Sonic fired at him. Racing around the room as Silver Sonic tracked him and continued to fire, Sonic leapt at the far wall, pushing off with both feet as they touched it, shooting high into the air. Silver Sonic followed after him as Sonic flipped through the air, but the shots all went wide as Sonic took aim with a drop kick. This time, instead of curling into a ball, Silver Sonic instead fired thrusters in each of his feet, flying up and out of the way of Sonic's attack before he could connect.

"Oh come on!" shouted Sonic as he landed underneath Silver Sonic, who aimed his laser cannon down at Sonic and began to fire it again, the blue hedgehog having to once again start racing around the room to avoid it.

"So do you like the new upgrades I gave him?" asked Eggman's voice as a speaker in the room crackled to life.

"Upgrades my fuzzy blue butt. You just copied everything about my friend Cody," said Sonic as he continued to run around the room.

"No sense wasting a good design. That troublesome robian was a giant thorn in my side during our first hunt for the Chaos Emeralds a year and a half ago, but I couldn't help but be proud of what the Mechanizer had produced, even if he broke free the instant the mechanization process was done," said Eggman's voice as Silver Sonic finally let up on the laser blasts, lowering back down to the floor again as Sonic returned to his original spot.

"Just because you copied my friend's abilities doesn't mean I can't get around them," said Sonic, a smile forming on his face. "And he may be able to copy my spindash ability, but I can get around that as well."

"Like I believe that for a second. You already tried your own spindash move as well as a point blank melee attack and both failed miserably," said Eggman. "But, if you truly think you can take down Silver Sonic, then by all means show me how."

"If you insist," said Sonic. He suddenly curled into a spindash, but while standing still. He hovered barely off the ground by some unseen force as he rapidly picked up speed spinning in place. At the same time, a faint blue glow was starting to emit from his body that was steadily growing in intensity the longer he spun in place.

"What are you doing!?" cried Eggman's voice as Sonic continued to perform the maneuver. Finally, Sonic stopped spindashing and assumed a runner's starting position. However, the blue glow remained present as a smile spread across Sonic's face. "Charge him with your spindash Silver Sonic! Crush him now!" Silver Sonic immediately curled into a ball before spinning out and shooting towards Sonic.

"Too late," was all Sonic said before he blasted forwards at Silver Sonic in a spindash of his own, breaking the sound barrier instantly as he closed the gap between the two of them, Sonic plowing right through the ball of metal like it was air before uncurling and coming to a stop where Silver Sonic had been standing. Silver Sonic uncurled from his spindash only to fall to the floor in two separate pieces that sparked for a few seconds before exploding in a small flash of molten metal. "And that, Eggman, is my new move. I like to call it the Light Speed Attack. You can thank my chao friend Comet for showing me that my spindashes use my body's chaos aura to create a field around me that protects me from harm, as well as how to use this field to draw on the chaos energy in the air around me to increase my speed and spindash's power several fold for a brief instant by drawing it directly into my body."

"Curse you Sonic! I swear this isn't over!" shouted Eggman's voice before the speaker cut out.

"Just because you want to believe it doesn't make it true Eggman," said Sonic as he walked to the far end of the room, lining up with the door Eggman had used to exit the room. He then charged the door, curling into a spindash as he rammed it, the door crashing to the floor in the next room as Sonic walked inside. He could tell by all the monitors and computers that he had reached the command center for the base. But Eggman was nowhere to be seen. His ears suddenly picked up a familiar humming noise that was growing fainter by the second. Running over to the observing window, he looked out over the giant hanger the Egg Carrier had been kept in, spotting Eggman's hovercraft making a swift exit from the base. "Great…He got away again," said Sonic with annoyance. He then gave a sigh before turning around and taking in what was around him. "Oh well. Guess I can always trash everything in the base and make him unable to use it again."


In a hidden room just beyond the base's command center, Eggman watched from one of the many monitors that showed the inside of the base. He had his hovercraft go on autopilot to make Sonic think he had fled the base, when he had in fact hidden in his private quarters. He watched as Sonic started to systematically destroy each of the computer mainframes, taking in a large breath before letting out a big sigh.

"It would seem I've completely underestimated everything that could've gone wrong with this day," said Eggman as he turned away from the monitor, walking over to a fairly comfortable recliner and sitting down in it, reclining it back as he went over everything that had transpired in the last few days. The room had many such accommodations, including a fridge, oven, several lamps, and a bookshelf filled with books amongst the monitors and communications equipment. For now, he was content to wait in the room till Sonic had finished whatever he was planning to do to the base, then he would see about salvaging what he could from it. "I knew it was going to be a challenge with Sonic getting involved, but it was a risk I had to take to lure out the Freedom Fighter's emerald. And at first the ploy worked beautifully. Sonic gathered the emeralds and I stole them from him, easy enough. But today, everything went wrong. First the Egg Carrier was destroyed, then Chaos was defeated, and now my base of operations for this area is going up in smoke."

He closed his eyes, wanting nothing more than sleep to claim him since he knew it would be at least a couple hours before Sonic would leave. But sleep was a luxury he realized he couldn't afford. Not when there was still one avenue left to achieve his goal. Slowly getting out of the chair, he walked over to communications unit. Turning it on, he tuned in the signal of his secret shipyard located nearly half a continent away.

"Come in Snively. Answer me," said Eggman into the mic. Several seconds ticked by before the comm crackled with static before a voice answered back.

"Reading you sir," answered Snively's voice over the speaker.

"Good. I want to know the status of the fleet," said Eggman.

"We are still on schedule sir," said Snively. "While most of the ships are still about six months from being ready to launch, we will have the Egg Carrier Two ready for launch within the next twelve hours." A smile worked its way across the doctor's face at hearing just the news he was hoping to hear.

"Excellent. Have it launch as soon as it's ready and rendezvous with me at the Mystic Ruins base. I'll have my plans come to fruition yet," said Eggman.

"Sir…Does that mean that you won't be using Chaos to destroy the city like you planned?" asked Snively.

"Do not bring up that failure of a creature to me ever again, do you understand?" asked Eggman, his voice heavy with anger.

"Perfectly sir," said Snively's voice with a hint of fear in it.

"Contact me on this frequency when the Egg Carrier Two is ready for deployment," said Eggman.

"Of course sir," said Snively before Eggman cut the transmission.

"So in the end, I'll just do what I should've done from the beginning. Nothing fancy, nothing special, just straightforward destruction by my Egg Carrier," said Eggman. He then returned to the recliner, sitting back down. Knowing now that his plans would come to pass, he closed his eyes and waited for sleep to come to him.


Mighty sat at the foot of the Master Emerald shrine ruins, eating a light snack of a banana he had liberated from one of the nearby trees. As he popped the last bite of fruit into his mouth, the sound of the nearby underbrush rustling caught his attention. Looking over to where the noise was coming from, he spotted Knuckles walking out of the forest and into the area of the ruins.

"Hey! You're back!" shouted Mighty as he got to his feet and ran over to the crimson echidna. "Did you find the last shard?" Knuckles only response was to smile as he reached into the sack and pulled out the large fragment.

"Sure did. Also brought back a little something extra," said Knuckles as he turned the sack upside down, the six Chaos Emeralds inside the sack falling to the ground at his feet.

"Wow…Where did you get those?" asked Mighty, recognizing the Chaos Emeralds sitting at Knuckles feet.

"Let's just say I'm keeping them safe from a certain water creature," said Knuckles as he started walking towards the shrine. "But that aside, I'll feel a lot safer about having them once the island's back in the sky."

"So did you have to take on Eggman to get all of these things?" asked Mighty as the two started climbing the stairs.

"I'll tell you the whole story, start to finish, once the Master Emerald is whole again," said Knuckles as they reached the top of the stairs. He walked up next to the Master Emerald, placing the final shard in the empty space in the giant gemstone. Closing his eyes, he willed the shard to combine with the Master Emerald once more, the giant gem flashing brightly as the shard merged with it, finally restoring the Master Emerald to its original form. Almost immediately, the whole island began to shake slightly, causing Knuckles to smile really wide. "It's done. The Master Emerald is whole again and the island is starting to rise out of the ocean. It won't be but a few minutes before we're once again back up in the sky where we belong."

"Been a long time in coming," said Mighty.

"That it has my friend," said Knuckles.

The hour was nearing two o'clock in the morning when the door to Sonic's penthouse room opened, a weary blue hedgehog walking through the entrance. He flipped on the light for the room, immediately spotting the sleeping form of Tails resting on top of his king-sized bed. Smiling, Sonic walked over to the bed and reached down, softly nudging the young fox.

"Hey Tails. Wake up little bro," said Sonic softly. Tails groaned, then opened his eyes and looked up at Sonic.

"Oh Sonic…It's you…" he said sleepily as he sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep before you got back."

"It's alright. It was a busy day," said Sonic as he sat on the bed next to Tails. "Stopped by a diner a new friend of mine showed me on my way back here. From the sounds of it, you had a pretty exciting evening."

"You already know? I'm sorry I did something so reckless," said Tails, realizing Sonic had heard about his fight with Eggman earlier in the evening.

"It's okay," said Sonic. He then reached a hand up and placed it on the young fox's shoulder. "I couldn't be more proud of you big guy. I know Sal's not gonna be happy you took on Eggman, especially all by yourself, but the fact remains that you had the courage to stand up to him when I couldn't be there and you came out on top. And you saved thousands of people at the same time. If that doesn't show Sal you should no longer be treated like a kid, I don't know what will."

"Thanks Sonic," said Tails, smiling slightly. "When we get back, I want to be the one to tell Sally about what happened." Here, he chuckled a little to himself. "After taking on Eggman, talking to Sally seems like a walk in the park."

"You sure you don't want me to help you out?" asked Sonic, a little surprised Tails was willing to take the full force of Sally's reaction head on without him.

"I'm sure. You were right. This trip was something I needed to do, if only to finally find the courage to face the world by myself without relying on others to bail me out when I get in over my head," said Tails.

"I've always known you could do it if you put your mind to it Tails. You need to give yourself more credit than you do. It was because of you we were able to take on the Egg Carrier and save Amy. And you alone saved the city from Eggman's final attempt to destroy it," said Sonic.

"I know…I'm still letting it all kinda soak in at this point," said Tails. "By the way, your phone has a message on it." Sonic looked over at the nightstand where the room's phone sat. Indeed, the message indicator light was blinking.

"Might as well check it," said Sonic as he got up and walked over to the nightstand, pressing the messages button on the phone.

"Hey Sonic!" said Amy's voice over the phone. "Tails was kind enough to tell me where you were staying, so I thought I'd let you know I made it home safe along with Gamma. He's thinking of heading back out to the Egg Carrier to save his brother from Eggman's control tomorrow. Also, we wanted to know if either of you have heard of an orange furred echidna girl named Tikal…" At hearing the name and description, both Sonic and Tails looked at one another as the message kept playing, now totally ignored by the two mobians.

"Amy saw that girl too?" asked Tails.

"I think I did as well," said Sonic, realizing that even the girl's name sounded familiar to him somehow.

"I thought it was just a dream, but if Amy saw her, then she must be real," said Tails.

"I agree," said Sonic. "We'll meet up with her tomorrow and find out what she saw, try and piece together what in the world is going on. For now, I'm ready for a good night's sleep. Trashing one of Eggman's bases always wears me out."


"Over here you two!" hollered Amy, waving her hands to flag down Sonic and Tails as they rounded the corner of the street leading to Amy's apartment. It was nearly noon by this point, both Sonic and Tails having visited Comet and Drake in the Chao Garden that morning. Both of the chao had been happy to see them considering that they hadn't checked in with them in nearly two days. They had both dodged the chao's questions about where they had been since they had last saw them, making both the chao suspicious, but each had brushed it off knowing that if they needed to know that they wouldn't keep them out of the loop.

"Hey Amy. Where's Gamma?" asked Sonic as he and Tails walked up next to her.

"He already headed out towards where the Egg Carrier crashed into the ocean. I tried to get him to stay behind to talk with you guys, but he said he didn't want to waste any more time," said Amy. She then immediately embraced Tails in a giant hug, causing the young fox to recoil in surprise.

"What was that for?" asked Tails as Amy broke the hug.

"For saving all of us last night, silly," said Amy. "I saw what you did on the evening news."

"I only did what I knew I had to do," said Tails, smiling sheepishly.

"Still, it was very brave of you to stand up to Eggman all by yourself. I heard Mayor Pepper's wanting to find out it was you that saved the city," said Amy.

"Think we should tell him it was me?" asked Tails, looking over at Sonic.

"That's up to you bud," said Sonic. "But just fair warning, if they find out it was you that did it the press will have your name known across the world."

"Well, people all over the world know who you are and it doesn't seem to bother you at all," said Tails.

"True. Like I said, it's completely up to you," said Sonic.

"Oh my gosh! It's you!" shouted a female voice across the street. The three of them all looked over to where the voice had come from to see a girl in her mid-twenties come running towards them, a small camera slung around her neck and a press badge clipped to her shirt.

"Guess you don't have a choice in the matter after all Tails," said Sonic as the girl came up beside them.

"Oh I hope I've got the right kid," said the girl, instantly taking a picture of Tails with her camera.

"Hey! Some manners go a long way you know," said Amy, causing the girl to look over at the pink hedgehog. She then lowered the camera, smiling sheepishly.

"Yeah…You're right. That was very unprofessional of me," said the girl.

"I'm guessing you're with the local news?" asked Sonic, pointing at the badge.

"Sort of," said the girl. "My name's Linda. I work part time with the local news station, covering a few small stories a week. I'm sorry about how I reacted, I just thought this was my big chance to cover a top story for the news station for once."

"It's alright. I'd be happy to answer any of your questions," said Tails.

"You sure Tails? Once the lid's blown off this, there's no stopping it," said Sonic.

"Yeah…The people have a right to know who it was that saved them, as embarrassing as it will be to have my name out there," said Tails.

"Fantastic!" said Linda. "Well, first off, let's start with the obvious question. What's your name?"

"You want my real name or the name all my friends call me by?" asked Tails.

"It would be nice to know both," said Linda. Tails sighed, realizing his real name was about to become public knowledge.

"Well, my real name is Miles Prower, but all my friends call me 'Tails'," said Tails. As Linda started to ask Tails more questions, Sonic motioned to Amy to walk away from the conversation and join him.

"I hope Tails doesn't let this fame go to his head," said Amy once they got out of earshot of the two of them.

"Nah. It won't change him a bit I imagine," said Sonic with a smile as he watched the two talk. He then turned and faced Amy. "So you said in your message to my room that you and Gamma saw a girl echidna named Tikal the other day?"

"Oh yeah. I almost forgot about that," said Amy.

"I want to hear every detail. Leave nothing out, alright?" asked Sonic. Amy then started going into great detail everything that she had seen and Gamma had told her.


The calm ocean waves lazily lapped at the red hull of the Egg Carrier, its giant body floating peacefully several miles off the coast of Emerald City as Gamma walked along the main deck of the ship. He had arrived only a few minutes ago, yet he knew Beta had to be somewhere on the ship. Last Gamma had seen of him, Eggman had been heavily modifying Beta. But he had not seen Beta flee the ship when it had been abandoned by its master. As Gamma reached the same platform that Sonic and Knuckles had battled Chaos upon, his audio sensors picked up a faint humming noise coming from behind him. Turning around, he came face to face with Beta who was hovering several yards above the deck of the Egg Carrier. His entire lower half was gone, replaced by hover jets. Both of his laser cannon hands had been refitted with powerful plasma cannons.

"Intruder sighted. Engaging target," said Beta, aiming one of his plasma cannons at Gamma, firing a blast of plasma energy at the red robot. Gamma leaped backwards from the energy blast, the ball of plasma slamming into the deck and blowing a gaping hole in the ship's armored shell.

"Beta! Stand down! I am your brother, E-102," said Gamma, hoping to stop the fight before it really got started.

"E-102…" said Beta, pausing for a second. "Cross referencing files…E-102 failed to stop the hedgehog Sonic. E-102 considered failure by Eggman. Orders are destroy on sight." Taking aim once more, Beta fired another blast from his cannon. Gamma entered his vehicle mode and zipped out of the way just before the blast ripped another hole open in the hull.

"Very well," said Gamma as he rose back up to his full height. "If you will not stand down, then I will force you to stand down." Gamma then took aim with his own laser cannon, firing several shots at Beta, who dodged to the side, the laser blasts going wide. Beta then fired his cannons at Gamma again, this time firing randomly at the platform so as to make it nearly impossible for him to dodge them all. Gamma tried his best to dodge each of the blasts, but one grazed his left arm, blowing it off and leaving him with only his cannon arm left.

Running a quick systems check told Gamma that he wasn't seriously damaged, but he would need to be repaired as soon as possible. Taking aim with his laser cannon, Gamma started firing at Beta randomly as well, mimicking Beta's own attack plan. And as was the case with Gamma, Beta was unable to avoid all the random shots as one clipped him in his left hover jet, causing him to go spinning wildly out of control. With Beta no longer able to dodge effectively, Gamma took aim and fired one more shot at him. This time the laser bolt struck home, piercing Beta's chest as the robot crashed to the platform, coming to a rest in an unmoving heap.

"Beta…Neutralized," said Gamma as he started walking towards Beta. As he reached the fallen robot, Beta suddenly raised both of its cannons at Gamma, firing them as a double blast of plasma energy blew a giant hole right through Gamma's chest as the blast knocked him to the platform's floor. Beta then fell limp as the last of its power reserves gave out. A few seconds ticked by before a grey Flicky bird emerged from the hole in Beta's chest. It then flew over Gamma, looking down into the robot's eyes as Gamma stared back. It was then Gamma realized that he had been right about the Flicky birds inside both himself and Beta belonging to the one that was with Amy, a picture of the grey Flicky, a pink Flicky, and the blue Flicky flashing in his mind a few seconds before his systems finally shut down. The grey Flicky continued to hover over Gamma's body when, a few seconds later, a pink Flicky bird flew out of the hole in Gamma's chest, joining the grey one. The two of them chirped between themselves for a few seconds before the both started heading in the direction of Emerald City.