The Unbearable Absence of Blue

'If I can just reroute these cables into another battery pack, maybe I can amplify the signal just enough to…'

'Dammit, why doesn't he just come home?'

It had been over a year since Tails had last seen him, a couple of months after the Lost Hex incident Sonic had left. He had told Tails that he was going to find the flattest and longest stretch of land he could, in order to beat his current land-speed record. Of course Sonic had gone and beaten this record once every six months for as long as Tails had known him. He recalled with fondness Sonic's excitement back when had first broken the sound barrier when he was eleven. That was almost a decade ago, now of course it only took Sonic a few seconds to accelerate to that speed, Tails had heard sonic booms more frequently than the clang of his own tools. It was a sound he missed now, aside from the occasional interruptions from Amy asking for the umpteenth time whether Sonic was back yet, he only had the sound of his tools and beeping computers to break the silence.

At first Tails had been glad, it wasn't that he didn't love Sonic (not that he'd ever tell him that, of course) but Sonic was somewhat overprotective. Sonic had a tendency to forget that Tails wasn't the little six year old that was constantly struggling to keep up with him anymore. Admittedly Tails could no longer physically keep up with Sonic, he could only spin his tails so fast after all, but in terms of intellect, strategy and the ability to create and control machinery, Tails often felt that it was Sonic holding him back.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing Tails? These weapons look pretty gnarly, they could do a lot of damage."

"That's kinda the point of weapons Sonic" Tails sighed. "I have attached several detectors, heat, radiation, electro-magnetic et cetera to assist the targeting mechanism which will limit any potential misfires. It has a highly complex virtual intelligence framework combines with a series of necessary safeguards to…"

"Tails" Sonic interrupted "Something with that many big words can only be trouble, I don't want you getting hurt."

"I'll be fine."

And he was. He had been building the weapons for the Tornado, for when it transforms into a mech. Hell, he had even beaten Dr Eggman in a mech vs mech fight, twice. Still Sonic was overprotective. As Tails remembered that little squabble, he realised he'd kill for some of that overprotectiveness right now, especially as he had just zapped his finger.

"Ah dammit!" he yelled as he shook his pained hand, he had forgotten to wear rubber gloves, a simpleton's error, his mind just wasn't focused today.

"Was that you Tails?" an annoying, loud and high pitched voiced shouted from outside.

Sighing, Tails dragged himself back to his feet, left the basement and went to answer the door.

When he opened it, he was surprised to find not just Amy but Knuckles too.

"Hey guys what's…"

"IsSonicback?" Amy immediately asked

"No Amy" Tails said with an exasperated sigh. "How're you doing Knuckles?"

"I'm fine but I wanted to ask you about something"

"Ok what's up?" Tails asked, somewhat surprised, Knuckles isn't usually the sort to ask for help.

"I've been using the Master Emerald, and it can't find any of the Chaos Emeralds. It's never happened before. You have a way of tracking them right?"

"Well, yeah but I doubt it's as effective as the Master Emerald, I'll go get the machine started, just to check, it's never been very specific though, it just tells you the general vicinity."

"Yeah I know, but the Master Emerald seems to be behaving as though the Emeralds don't even exist, it's like they just disappeared."

Sure enough when everyone got together in the living room to use Tails' computer, the Emerald Tracking Software came up completely blank.

"That's weird, I have no idea when the Emeralds fell off the radar, Knuckles do you remember the last time you were able to detect the Emeralds?" Tails asked, deep in thought.

"It was just after we awoke, you remember when you and Sonic dealt with Eggman's energy sapping machine from that Hex place? I was checking that the Emeralds were unaffected, they were fine so I haven't kept track since then." Knuckles answered.

"So around the time that Sonic disappeared". Tails said.

"Ooh, do you think they're connected somehow?" Amy asked energetically, she had perked up the moment she heard Sonic's name.

"Possibly, we need to ask someone who's more knowledgeable about the Emeralds.

"Hah, there's no one who knows more about those things than me!" Knuckles stated confidently, "I'm the Guardian of the Master of all Emeralds after all."

"Rouge knows a lot about them" Amy suggested

"What! Pbthh, all she knows is how much they're worth, she knows nothing about Chaos energy."

"I know someone we could asked" Tails said quietly.

"Oh no, you're not suggesting we ask…

As he walked up to the safe, he heard something, some pathetic human was trying to sneak up on him, his ear twitched he heard the man scrape a gun off the floor.

He also heard the noise of a bullet penetrate his skull, Shadow hadn't even needed to look. As he shook his head to get the splash of blood from his quills, Shadow prepared his bomb. Placing it carefully onto the safe, he took a few steps back and waited for the explosion. Walking over bodies as he made his way to a safe distance, he also took the time to wipe his gun and crouch behind an upturned table.

CRACK

Shadow walked back to the newly opened safe, within it he found rubies, diamonds, pearls, but no Chaos Emeralds.

"Dammit!" he yelled in frustration, immediately calling Rouge on his headset.

"Your intel was off! They're not here!"

"Well I told you the information was sketchy!" Rouge relied with annoyance "At least you managed to wipe out those guys, they were bad news"

Rouge was right of course, Shadow had infiltrated the headquarters of a notorious mafia group operating throughout Station Square, they had been drug dealers, weapons manufacturers, diamond smugglers, you name it. But this wasn't what Shadow had wanted.

"I'll be back soon, have better intel when I get back"

"But we have no leads, where will I sta…"

Shadow hung up, he and Team Dark had been working with GUN for some time, trying to get hold of an Emerald. GUN had a policy on keeping at least one Emerald in a secure location at all times to prevent the potential misuse caused by anyone who gained access to all seven. Of course this hadn't worked in the past, frankly Shadow originally believed it was a waste of time, but now he wasn't so sure. He normally had one with him but since he sent one up to the Hex to help out Sonic, he hadn't even seen one. He was impatient and the inability to Chaos Control his way around really slowed him down. He hadn't even been able to use Chaos Spears for a while, it's like all the Chaos Energy had gone.

# I wanna fly high

so I can reach the highest of all the heavens

Somebody will be waiting for me so#

After remembering who he had set this ringtone for he answered, a little perplexed that he would be calling him.

"Shadow here"

"H…hi Shadow" said Tails, sounding a little nervous. "I w… was wondering if we c…could talk to you about something"

"What?"

"It's about c…Chaos Energy"

"You're at your place, correct"

"Y…yes"

"I'll be there ASAP" Shadow hung up. If that little fox had any new information about what was happening with the Chaos Energy, Shadow had to hear it. He spindashed through the window ricocheted from the wall, using his hover boots the fling himself as fast as he could towards Tails' home.