The Epic Adventure

by NetRaptor

A long fic based on Sonic Adventure. Sonic heads south, looking for trouble, unaware that on the Floating Island, the Master Emerald has been smashed by a mysterious monster. But this is only the beginning ...

2. Part 2

---

---

Chapter 12: Shadows of Dark Creatures

---

The doctor stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind him. Knuckles stalked up and watched the floor lights blink up to 3, then jumped into the other elevator.

The third floor was the hotel's restaurant, and it was quite busy. Knuckles looked about the elegant room and tables, and spied his quarry striding toward a large stage in the center of the room. Knuckles hurried after him.

The stage was used for plays and orchestra productions, but at the present it was empty. A perfect place for a confrontation. "Robotnik!" Knuckles barked.

The doctor turned and regarded the echidna coolly. "Well, hello Knuckles! How nice to see you again."

"Cut the pleasantries," Knuckles growled. "Hand over the emerald piece."

"Oh," said Robotnik innocently, "this isn't what you're after." He held up the white chaos emerald, recently stolen from Tails.

Knuckles looked at it in surprise and realized for the first time he could hear no ring coming from it. "Uh, I guess you're right." 'Not what you're after'? How did Robotnik know what he was looking for?

"That's okay, though," the doctor said, turning away. "I can use you as a guinea pig to test it. Chaos, come forth!"

As an astonished Knuckles watched, a large puddle seeped up through the bricks and formed into the same creature who had smashed the Master Emerald. This time, his right arm was much thicker and had a cartilaginous skeleton inside it. He glared at the echidna with his blank green eyes as Robotnik said, "Here's a snack, Chaos!" He tossed the white gem at the monster. Chaos lifted a hand and caught it, then promptly melted into a puddle. A few seconds later he re-emerged, this time with both arms reinforced. His head was now out and down on a thickened neck, and his horns, which had before extended down his back, stuck out to the sides, like the head of a hammerhead shark.

"Bravo my friend!" Robotnik applauded. (His applause was echoed by the patrons of the restaurant outside the stage, who thought it was some sort of skit.)

"Huh!" Knuckles snorted at the monster. "Changing shape won't scare me! I'll bet you're not so tough."

"Sic him, Chaos," Robotnik replied, and promptly backed off the stage. It was just the echidna and the beast.

Chaos 2 stumped forward on his short legs, a hot pink light encircling his brain, visible through his watery flesh. Knuckles circled the stage, on his guard and wondering if the shovel claws could be used as weapons. It looked like he would get the chance to find out. Chaos turned with him, green eyes always following his prey. Suddenly he stopped, whirled in a half circle and whipped out with one arm. It stretched fifteen feet in a curve toward Knuckles, the three fingers glowing with the hot pink energy of the brain. Knuckles ducked it and ran at Chaos, who remained with his arm out for a moment. Knuckles aimed a terrific punch at the monster's big head, and his claws splashed though his forehead and struck the glowing brain.

The energy that held the water in the beast's shape gave out, and Chaos melted into a wide puddle. Knuckles leaped and glided to a dry spot a few feet away. The water had a greasy, unwholesome feel.

Chaos slowly pulled his molecules back together and re-formed into his original shape. Knuckles, aiming for another hit at his head, dashed forward and punched. This time Chaos blocked the blow with upflung arms. Knux retreated out of reach, and the beast growled, a sort of, "Grr-un!"

"Ha!" Knuckles replied. "You're not as strong as Doc makes you out to be!"

The monster blew himself up like a ball, his shape melting into a huge sphere of water full of bubbles, with his two emeralds floating above him. He began to bounce in slow motion, each blow sending out a small shockwave of electricity. "Pitiful!" Knuckles snorted. He leaped and shoved the ball with all his strength. It smacked into the ceiling and fell to the floor, not quite losing its shape, and shrank back into Chaos. Again he growled at Knuckles, and Knuckles growled back mockingly.

Another lashing arm. The echidna dodged and homed in for another blow to the head. This time Chaos did not have enough energy to reform himself. He socked into the floor and vanished, although the chaos emeralds remained floating in the air, showing he was nearby.

Knuckles was surprised by a round of applause and a few whistles. He looked about and saw that everyone in the restaurant had been watching his fight. Some people were even standing beside their chairs to see better.

Robotnik stepped back up on the stage. "Chaos' strength is not yet perfected," he told the echidna. "So what if you defeated him now? Soon he will be unstoppable."

"Yeah?" Knuckles said with a smirk, flicking water off his shovelclaws. "That still doesn't faze me, you hear?"

Robotnik turned and began to stride away. "I know something that might," he said over his shoulder. "It's about Sonic."

"What about Sonic?" Knuckles asked.

Robotnik stopped and turned. "He's after the pieces of your emerald, too."

"Now, why would Sonic be after the Master emerald?" Knuckles asked, eyes narrowing. He didn't know what was harder to believe--that Sonic was against him, or that Robotnik was telling the truth.

"Listen, fool," Robotnik said, beginning to sound irritated. "You're not the only one on a wild goose chase. Sonic knows about the power of the Master emerald. He wants it for himself; to battle my little pet, of course." This was followed by a ghastly grin.

"I don't believe it!" Knuckles exclaimed, although the tone of his voice proclaimed almost the opposite.

"Belive it," Robotnik affirmed. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some business to attend to." He tuned and made for the elevators. Knuckles let him go. The story was almost believable ... Sonic COULD be after more power to help him defeat Chaos. That aspect didn't bother Knuckles too much--Chaos was an evil beast who meant nothing but harm. But for Sonic to be after the Master emerald shards without asking ...

Knuckles retrieved his knapsack from the lobby, bought himself a ticket for the midnight train and returned to his island for the night. Tikal, Chaos and Sonic were a bit too much to handle all at once. He would return tomorrow.

* * *

Sonic awoke to a world of ghostly shapes and white mist. He sat up stiffly and shivered. Where in the world was he? He was freezing cold, and water had condensed on his fur, soaking him. He stood and looked about. After a few minutes he remembered the casino, Robotnik stealing the emerald, being gassed. He and Tails must have slept out all night. So they were still in Station Square, on a foggy morning.

He looked about for Tails and realized for the first time the fox was gone. His stomach lurched. What if Robotnik had kidnapped him? What if Chaos had come along while they were asleep and ...

His fears were assuaged by a familiar voice calling, "G'morning, Sonic!" The hedgehog turned to see Tails come walking out of the mist with a Styrofoam cup in either hand. He handed one to Sonic and warned, "Be careful, it's hot."

"What is it?" Sonic asked, popping open the lid and sniffing the steam.

"Hot chocolate," Tails replied.

The two stood on the damp sidewalk, sipping the rich, dark liquid and feeling the warmth spread through them. "Oh, that's good," Sonic sighed, wiping his mouth. "How you feel this morning?"

"Not bad, considering I got my emerald stolen right off the bat." Tails's blue eyes flashed in fury.

"At least the other one's safe," Sonic said, thinking of the emerald hidden in the hanger in the jungle. "Eggman must really be desperate." He blew a cloud of haze into the chilly air. "I feel better now. Let's go get breakfast and figure out a battle plan for today."

The two read tourist brochures over a large breakfast of syrup-soaked waffles, with bacon and eggs on the side. The two decided unanimously to spend the day in the snow-capped mountains, checking for chaos emeralds, and come back that evening to go to Twinkle Park.

Sonic found a newspaper lying on the next table and read Tails the headlines: "Killer Whale Smashes Docks." "Tornado Demolishes Wind Power System." "Hedgehog Foils Monster."

"That's us yesterday," Sonic grinned. "Windy Valley. More like Tornado Alley!"

It was not until the two had bought tickets for the mountain-bound train that Sonic remembered the reason for their extra cash. He winked at Tails, and the two moseyed in the direction of the gift shop.

The clerk from the day before was there, and greeted them as they entered the store. "Hello there! Come to claim your shoes?" Sonic grinned and nodded.

Tails put in, "I'd like the anklets, too."

"All right, just a minute." The clerk vanished into the back room for a moment, and returned with a shoebox in one hand. This he gave to Sonic, and to Tails he gave the anklets.

Sonic lifted the lid from the shoebox and breathed the fresh odor of clean leather. He pulled aside the layer of crinkly tissue paper and lifted out the red sneakers. Their lining was soft and smooth to the touch. He removed his dusty, faded shoes and slipped his hot feet into the new pair. They were cool inside, and conformed to the contours of his feet with comfortable precision. He pulled the tongues tight and latched the whit straps, then stood. The heels were perhaps a quarter of an inch higher than his old shoes, and a hair heavier. The large yellow air chambers in the heels were a nice touch, as well. He walked about the gift shop, admiring his feet in a tilted mirror along the wall. The crimson and white were fresh and clean compared to his old shoes--he hadn't realized how dirty they were. His new shoes felt so good he couldn't wait to get out and run.

Meanwhile, Tails had clamped the anklets to his heels. He paced about the shop a few times, trying to figure out how to activate them, then as an afterthought picked up the instruction sheet. It turned out that the insides of the anklets had a small switch. All he must do was slap his feet together to turn them on. He did. His feet shot forward with a whoosh and he landed hard on his tails.

"Whoa, whoa, not in here!" the clerk warned.

Tails swiftly shut them off. "Sorry," he said, blushing to the ears under his fur. "Sonic, got the money?"

"Right here." The hedgehog had already dished out his hard-earned cash. The total came to 650 dollars, which left them with fifty dollars, plus the modest amount Sonic and Tails had brought from home.

"Not bad," Sonic commented as they left the store. "Let me put my old shoes back in my room, and we'll run around a bit. We got an hour before the train gets here."

The beach in front of the Sunset Resort witness quite a show as the two played in the slowly clearing fig and learned about their toys at the same time. Tails decided it was best not to activate his anklets at all while running, as he inevitably fell over backward. Flying was another matter--he could fly as fast as Sonic could run, which was really something.

Sonic could find nothing special about his sneakers at first. If anything, their extra weight slowed him down. But a chance spindash revealed what those special heels were really for; a spindash created a tremendous amount of energy, which was captured in his shoes. This was released in the form of a speeding dash that was dangerous in its strength. "Awesome!" he announced to Tails. "Watch this!" He promptly dashed himself into a palm tree that was hidden by the fog. "Good going, graceful!" Tails called.

A train whistle drew them back to the station. This train was bound for the White Tip Mountains, directly east of the city. The ride was tow hours long, and once they stopped to take on an extra engine. Then up they went, puffing up the mountain in a series of switchbacks and tunnels. The passengers found their ears popping from the ascent.

Gradually it grew colder, and patches of dirty snow appeared in the shade of the evergreen trees. Tails spied more snow on the north side of a ridge above them. Then they plunged into a black tunnel. For half an hour they could see nothing but the inside of the train, hear nothing but the amplified train noise around them. They began to climb steeply.

Suddenly they popped into brilliant sunlight. "Wow!" Sonic exclaimed, gluing his nose to the window. There were ascending a steep mountainside, and all about them was snow and rock. "Wow!" Tails echoed, pressing his face to the window as well. "Look up there! A ski lift!" Sure enough, in the distance rose a line of what looked like telephone poles with tiny chairs suspended from the wires. "Sonic, can we ski?" Tails exclaimed.

"Sure, if they have a rental place," Sonic replied. "I haven't skied in years--or snowboarded. Yeah, that's what I'M gonna do." He chuckled in anticipation.

At last the train pulled into the station and the attendants opened the doors. Sonic and Tails charged out. It was not terribly cold--perhaps thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit, and the sun was shining. Sonic drew a deep breath of the thin air and blew it out in steam. "C'mon, let's find the lodge!"

"Weren't we gonna look for emeralds?"

"Sure, but we're gonna need boards to do that. C'mon!" The hedgehog led the way off the wooden platform, along an icy path and up the hill toward a sprawling, snow-roofed building with smoke rising from its chimney.

All-morning lift-tickets were 10 bucks apiece, and equipment rentals were another twenty. "This had better be worth it," Sonic grumbled as he shelled out his remaining cash. "Sixty bucks! Outrageous!"

"No kidding," Tails muttered. "This'll break us if we're not careful."

They hung their lift tickets around their necks, then picked out their equipment. Sonic selected a bright yellow snowboard with red and blue designs on it. Tails picked out a pair of sparkly silver ski-boots and silver skis. Then the two headed for the hills.

Just below the lodge was the 'bunny hill', where all the rookies learned to ski and ride the lift. There were lots of kids and instructors, and once in a while an expert would skim by like a low-flying bird. Sonic tore down pell-mell on his board, nearly mowing down two struggling youngsters. Tails began at a gentler pace, half afraid he had forgotten how to ski. To his relief it all returned as soon as he began to descend. Before long he was 'stemming Christy' like a veteran, relishing the creak of the snow beneath his skis.

Sonic, scorning the bunny hill lift, went on down the mountain in search of the expert runs. He fell several times on the slope, as is the way with armature snowboarders, but fortunately Tails was too far behind to make snide comments. Sonic was up and waiting at a big lift when his sidekick finally showed up, panting and snow-flecked.

The lift was the triple-chair kind, and the two rode up with a human skier. It turned out his name was Jeff and he worked as a ski instructor. They talked about skiing, snowboarding, the disagreeable icy crust on the snow and which runs were the most challenging. "I'd advise you don't go down the south side of the mountain," he told them as they neared the top. "All of those are black diamond expert runs, and they get really dangerous in the afternoons, when the sun has been on them all day. Avalanche trouble." Then they were at the top. Jeff glided away down the hill and they didn't see him again.

They played all morning, Chaos and Robotnik driven clean out of their heads. They stopped for hot chocolate at eleven-thirty, then decided to ski one more slope before their lift tickets expired. Sonic made for the black diamond runs on the southern slopes. Tails, of course, went with him.

The air was unusually warm and still, they noticed. The run was in the bottom of a canyon most of the way down, then passed through an icy tunnel and emerged in a wide, rocky slope. "This is the longest one, according to the map," Sonic remarked as they stood at the top, gazing down. "We'll have quite a ride."

"I don't like the way it feels," Tails replied dubiously, shifting a little on his skis. "I'll bet we start an avalanche or something."

"Ah, don't be such a scaredy fox!" Sonic scoffed. "Nothing'll happen. Last one down is a rotten eggman!" He leaped off the edge with a "Yee-ha!" Tails hesitated a split second, then followed.

The small pressure of their passing dislodged a few crumbs of snow that rolled down the slope a little way. These knocked loose bigger chucks, which tore loose slabs, which launched half the mountainside downhill.

Sonic heard an odd rumbling behind him and looked over his shoulder. His yell of fearful surprise alerted Tails, and the two began to pour on the speed like never before.

The slope was nearly vertical in places, and panicked skiers and snowboarders could achieve extreme speeds in seconds. This they did, tearing down the mountain with the avalanche consuming all at their heels. The thunder of the falling snow and rock filled the canyon, shaking the snow beneath their feet.

Ahead the run vanished into a wide blue tunnel. "Don't stop, Tails!" Sonic yelled. "C'mon! C'mon!" They plunged into icy dimness. The snow was frozen into ice, and they could get little traction. The two simply slid down it, trying to avoid the walls and stay erect. The tunnel was long and straight, but such was their speed they shot through it in perhaps ten seconds.

Blinding sun on white snow. Sonic cast a glance over his shoulder and realized the avalanche had stopped at the tunnel mouth. "Whoo-hoo, we made it!" he whooped to Tails. "Race ya!"

"What do you think I've been doing?" Tails yelled back.

Now the danger was past and the canyon had receded into an open slope dotted with rocks and trees, they began to play. They pulled 280s off rocks and 360s off small cliffs, wherever they could manage a jump. "Nah nah, I'll beat you down!" Tails yelled, leaping into the air and spinning his tails. His momentum shot him away down the hill. "Cheater!" Sonic yelled after him, cutting a long curve in the white crust.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere it seemed, a squadron of small fighter planes appeared, swept low over the hillside and dropped a curtain of bombs. Sonic and Tails were travelling so fast they barely glimpsed the jets, and the bombs and explosions missed by a mile.

"What the heck was THAT?" Sonic hollered, not daring to look back at his speed.

"I donno!" Tails yelled back. "We're almost to the bottom. Hey--!" The fox's ski snagged on something and threw Tails completely off his feet. He fell and rolled in a cloud of snow, skis and tails flying. Twenty feet later he came to a stop, lying stunned on his back.

Sonic swept by him, turned his board sideways and grated to a stop. He unlatched one foot and hopped back up the hill, toward his sidekick.

Tails sat up and brushed the snow from his fur. He had lost both his poles, and both skis had come off. One ski was a good ways down the slope, near Sonic, and the other was up the hill where he had snagged it. Tails stood in his cramped boots and trudged up the hill to recover his gear.

"You okay?" Sonic called.

"Yeah," Tails called back. "Can you grab my ski?"

"Sure."

It was very quiet and still now that they had stopped. The only sound was their feet crunching in the snow and their panting breath. Tails wondered why ski boots were so comfortable while skiing and so uncomfortable while walking. Now that he had time to notice it, his feet were freezing. His entire front half was freezing from the wind of speed, and tingled with his racing blood. He grabbed up one pole and used it to climb with, then the other. Now only his ski ... It appeared to be caught on a rock of some kind. He lifted his ski clumsily and kicked the rock. To his surprise it came loose and rolled a few feet. A green, shimmering rock.

Sonic thought Tails had been shot from the way he yelled. Sonic jumped and looked toward his sidekick to see Tails dance around, waving his poles and yelling incoherently. "Tails, what's wrong?" Sonic exclaimed.

The fox ran and stumbled down the hill toward him. "An emerald! An emerald!" he was gasping. "I tripped over it! Look!" He thrust it into Sonic's hands.

Sonic stared. "It's the green chaos emerald, all right! Whoa! What luck!" He tilted it, letting the multiple facets of the gem catch the sunlight.

"Do you think those planes knew this was here?" Sonic said abruptly, gazing up the mountain toward where the bombers had gone. Tails turned and looked uphill apprehensively. "Eggman," the two murmured.

A moment later the two had re-donned their gear and were flying down the slope. No more fun and games--they expected at any moment to be attacked by a certain hovercraft.

But at last they reached the bottom of the mountain, and nothing had happened. Sonic breathed a sigh of relief as they hitched a ride on the lift for the last time that day. "Well, we got an emerald," he told his sidekick. "Now let's go get lunch and see when Twinkle Park opens."

"Sounds good to me," Tails agreed. "I wonder what those fighters were for?"

They puzzled over it as the lift bore them upward, through trees, over rocks and snow, and at last to the lodge at the top. Neither had any real ideas, other than maybe Robotnik had taken a potshot at them. (Or Metal Sonic, perhaps.)

They turned in their skis and tickets, picked up their shoes and headed for the train station. "Boy, I'm froze," Tails said, folding his arms and shivering. "I'm all wet from falling down."

"It'll be warm on the train," Sonic assured him. "Just a second. Our tickets were two-way." He left Tails standing in the sun and walked away toward the ticket booths. Tails waited, wondering if his wet fur would smell on the train as it dried.

Sonic returned, an odd look on his face. "Um, Tails," he said, "the train's on strike."

Tails stared at him. "What did you say?"

"The train's on strike," Sonic repeated, as if he couldn't believe it himself. "Just started a couple hours ago. Nobody's gonna work until they get higher wages and better conditions." He stamped a foot resoundingly on the wooden platform. "What about US, those jerks? What about all the other people who need the trains to get around?"

Tails turned and looked down the empty tracks. "How're we gonna get back to Station Square?"

"Walk, I guess," Sonic replied. "Mystic Ruins is closer, though." He jerked a thumb in the direction of a beaten path curving away into the trees. "People are supposed to hike up here all the time. We'll take the trail."

They headed down the mountain without ado. Tails, wanting to warm himself somehow, airlifted Sonic and activated his anklets. The two shot down the mountain, Sonic whooping with delight. After several minutes Tails landed to catch his breath, then did it again.

Thus they made it back to Mystic Ruins at one-thirty in the afternoon. The trail approached it from the south, so the two swung by the hanger and had a late lunch before going any further.

Sonic pulled out the chaos emeralds, red and green, and looked at them as he ate. "Haven't seen these suckers in years," he muttered. "Tails, I got an idea. How about we show these to those explorer guys and see if they've found any?"

"Okay," Tails replied. "But when you're done, I'm gonna put 'em in my plane, and we'll fly back to Station Square."

"Cool."

The leader of the Mystic Ruins group was busy working on a small cart on tracks that wound into a cave in the mountainside. He looked at the emeralds and shook his head--he hadn't seen any gems like that. Sonic thanked him, shrugged at Tails and turned to return to the hanger.

Barring their way was Knuckles.

The echidna had been up since dawn, wandering in the bottoms of the Windy Valley canyon. The canyon, at its far end, broke into stands of rock, pillars and cliffs, some of which spouted fire and sulphur. For this reason the area was known collectively as Red Mountain. The wind tore through it at vicious speeds, and there were only a few of the biggest windmills here and there, all turning steadily. Knuckles had fought the wind, gliding from clifftop to clifftop, watching hawks soaring above him and wishing he could hover like they could. He recovered a grand total of four small fragments in the course of the day. Weary and beginning to despair of ever repairing the Master emerald, he glided back to Mystic Ruins, heard voices--

--And saw Sonic with something green glinting in his hands.

Dr. Robotnik's words returned to Knuckles in a rush. "He's after the pieces of your emerald, too." The echidna harbored just enough suspicion in his heart to believe it.

"Knuckles!" Sonic exclaimed, forgetting all about the emeralds in his hands. "Man, it's good to see you again! How are you?"

The echidna leaped forward and swung a fist that would have laid the hedgehog out if it had connected. Sonic dodged and retreated a few steps, wary once again. "What's up, Knux? Something bugging you?" His eyes lingered a second on the gleaming shovel claws. He had better watch out for those. Too bad he couldn't show his former friend his shoes.

"No time to explain, Sonic," Knuckles growled. "Hand over the emeralds you have, right now!"

Sonic was instantly on the defensive. He and Tails had worked hard for those. "I'd like to see you take 'em!" he challenged.

A battle ensued. Tails stood back and watched, half wanting to join in and half wanting to hide. Sonic spindashed, leaped, ducked and dodged, biting his tongue against the insults that rose to mind. To taunt an already angry Knuckles was to welcome still more punishment. Knuckles struck at Sonic again and again, aiming his blows at the hedgehog's head and hands. Although riled, his mind was clear. In the bottom his his heart he had no wish to hurt the hedgehog--at least not seriously. But if Sonic wouldn't relinquish his handful of shards, then he must be pounded until he did.

A cruise-missile punch and a spindash connected, and both opponents his the ground, stunned. The emeralds flew from Sonic's hands and bounced to a stop several feet away. Tails ran to pick them up, was something struck him in the back and knocked him sprawling. He lifted his head and saw with horrified anger that Robotnik, in his little hovercraft, had knocked him down and was picking up the emeralds with a small tractor beam.

Tails leaped to his feet. Sonic and Knuckles were climbing groggily to their feet, blinking at Robotnik in disbelief.

"Like taking candy from a baby!" Robotnik laughed cruelly, holding aloft an emerald in either hand. "You three performed wonderfully! It's a good thing for me you're so gullible."

Sonic looked at Knuckles, mouth open. "Don't tell me he tricked you again!"

"Me?" Knuckles exclaimed angrily. He saw plainly that Sonic had only had two chaos emeralds and not Master emerald fragments at all, and felt rather ashamed. "What about YOU?"

"Way to go, Knucklehead," Sonic said sarcastically.

"You're all idiots," Robotnik chuckled. "Looks like we shall have a bit of fun here in a moment. Here Chaos, here boy!"

Sonic, Tails and Knuckles watched with disgust as a huge puddle seeped out of the grass, rose and solidified into Chaos, both arms reinforced, head down and eyes glaring. "Time to eat, Chaos!" Robotnik called, and tossed them emeralds to the monster. Chaos caught them in his hands, then melted into a puddle. Slowly more water was pulled out of the ground, deepening and widening the size of the small puddle. Then Chaos rose again and congealed.

"Look, he's changed again!" Tails cried.

"Nobody ever cuts us any slack," Sonic agreed.

Chaos was now a fifteen-foot shark with a knife-like tail-fin. He stared at them for a second with eyes that had more shape and depth than before, then leaped away on his fins and plunged into the nearby pond at the foot of the cliffs.

"Just you watch, Eggman!" Sonic yelled, shaking a fist. "We'll beat him! C'mon Tails, we'll whup that sorry fish!" He wheeled and pelted for the pond, Tails hot on his heels. Knuckles stood and watched them go, undecided whether to help them or walk away.

"Don't worry," said Robotnik's voice close at hand. Knuckles jumped--he had forgotten about him. "After Chaos has four emeralds in him," Robotnik continued, "he can devour flesh. You need not worry about those pests again."

Knuckles gave him a fiery look. "Eggman," he spat, deciding that it was a good nickname after all. "I ain't no coward."

"Then why are you cowering back here while Sonic and Tails give Chaos battle?" Robotnik sneered.

Chaos 4 found the pond only a feet feet deep, but as Sonic and Tails were up to their necks in several places, he decided it was deep enough.

The surface of the pond was covered with a mat of lilypads and slime, and Chaos could swim beneath it without a ripple. He preferred to come up behind the hedgehog and try to knock him senseless with a furious tail-slap. The fox he simply ignored, deciding him neutral.

Sonic leaped clear of a lashing tail, gave a yell and spindashed at Chaos. There was a huge splash, and Sonic found himself standing in muddy water up to his waist. "Missed!" he exclaimed.

Tails leaped into the air and looked into the pond from above. "There he is!" he yelled, pointing to a far corner of the pond. Without waiting for Sonic, the youngster dropped and lashed the water with his tails. He felt them connect with something solid, then was thrown backward as the water beneath him exploded upward. Chaos' head appeared above the water--the disturbed water was too murky for even his eyes.

"Hit his brain!" someone yelled. "Now! Now!"

Sonic leaped into the air, spun himself and crashed into the beast's forehead. His whirling spines struck the glowing brain, and Chaos' form vanished with a mighty splash.

Knuckles landed on the muddy bank nearby. "He loses energy when you hit his brain!" the echidna called. "Watch out, here he comes again!"

Sonic whirled in time to duck a fearsome blow that would have split his skull. He dove across the pond, panting, hoping to get enough space to turn and attack again, but Chaos snarled and gave chase, moving through the water with the swift grace of a manta ray. Tails and Knuckles leaped into the fray.

Tails struck another glancing blow, attracting the monster's attention momentarily. Chaos reared himself out of the water, brain glowing so brightly he seemed to radiate light from his whole body. Tails cowered down, momentarily unable to think of what to do. Suddenly Knuckles leaped between the terrified fox and Chaos. "Back off!" he yelled, and dealt the monster an uppercut that splashed through the lower jaw and upwards into the brain. Again Chaos melted.

"Way to go, Knux!" Sonic applauded from across the pond.

"Don't look now," Knuckles replied, "but now he's after me. Get him, you two!" The echidna leaped and glided across the pond, a pink blur following almost in his shadow. Sonic and Tails gave chase.

It was a strange picture they made. The three appeared to be yelling, jumping and splashing in some sort of game. "Tag, maybe?" one human asked his companion as they gazed down at the pond. They watched as the three bounded, splashed, fell and got up again, yelling incoherently all the while. The second human shrugged and circled his ear with one finger. "Mobians. They're nutty. C'mon, let's go."

Tails dealt the last blow, finally landing one to the head as Chaos was about to pounce on Knuckles. The monster melted for the last time and sank from view.

The three stood up to their knees in muddy water, mud-splattered and dripping, but triumphant. "We did it!" Sonic whooped suddenly. "We whupped that lousy shark!" The three cheered wildly, and Sonic led the way in climbing out of the water and swaggering up to Robotnik's ship.

"I think you picked the wrong critter for a weapon, Eggman," Sonic told him. "I've had more challenge fighting you!" He punctuated this with a scornful, "Ha!"

Without warning the sun vanished, as if it had been snuffed out by a cloud. The three looked up at the sky and gasped, momentarily stunned. Floating overhead and seeming to fill the sky was a monstrous aircraft. It was shaped like no machine they had ever seen, but it had Robotnik's style written all over it. Aside from a quiet rumble of engines, it made no sound.

"Behold my floating masterpiece, the Egg Carrier!" Robotnik said grandly, encompassing the craft with a sweep of an arm. "It is incredibly powerful, but it pales in comparison to the power of Chaos." As he spoke, a bright turquoise beam appeared from the ship high above and lifted his hovercraft into the sky. "Adieu, until we meet again, my friends!" he laughed, then vanished into the ship above. At once the beam shifted to the pond and lifted several hundred gallons of water out of it. This, too, was pulled into the Egg Carrier. Obviously Robotnik was taking Chaos with him.

As they watched, the ship slowly turned and crept in the direction of Sapphire Bay, accelerating until it was out of sight.

"Tails," Sonic said, breaking the silence, "go warm up your plane! We won't let him get away that easy!"

"Right!" the fox replied, eyes brightening with hope. "No, not the Tornado," he thought to himself as he pelted for the hanger. "I want to try out Mac's other plane first. Good thing I hid the Tornado ... Sonic hasn't seen it yet ..."

Sonic started after Tails, but was stopped as Knuckles spoke his name. He paused and turned back. Knuckles slowly approached, eyes downcast. "Sonic, I want to apologize. I shouldn't have thrown you off my island that day, but it's a long story and there's not time now." The echidna looked into his friend's face and saw the quiet joy in his eyes. "Do you think they'll let me rejoin the Freedom Fighters?"

"Knux," Sonic said, placing a hand on his shoulder, "we've missed you so much its pathetic. Of COURSE you can come back! The sooner the better. Really, as far as I'm concerned, you were back in when you pitched in to Chaos." He slapped the echidna's shoulder. "Now, I gotta go."

"Have fun," Knuckles said as Sonic turned to run. "I have some unfinished business of my own."

Tails was just opening the hanger doors as Sonic jogged up. "Wait here a minute, Sonic," the fox said, slipping inside. Sonic waited obediently, gazing at the dirt strip in front of the hanger and wondering if it were possible to take off in the rain, when it was a sea of mud. The minutes ticked by. Sonic tapped his foot idly. Every minute the Egg Carrier was getting further away. Where WAS that kid? He started forward, intending to find him--

--and was stopped as the ground beneath his feet jolted. Before him the dirt strip split down the center and slid apart, revealing a painted asphalt runway beneath that lifted to the level of the ground and locked. At the same time, the scattered palm trees tilted sideways, leaning away from the runway, turned by underground machinery. Sonic watched, agape.

The double doors slid open, and a red and white bi-plane emerged from the hanger, Tails seated proudly in the cockpit. "Hope on, Sonic!" he called as he taxied onto the runway. Sonic, still amazed but recovering, leaped lightly onto the tail section and sat down. There was no space for wing-riding on this plane.

Tails revved the engines, took off down the runway to gain speed, then pulled up the plane's nose. The black expanse of runway flashed by beneath the wings, then it was gone and there was only blue space. Sonic's head was snapped back as they ascended, but he managed to retain his balance. "Hang on, Sonic!" Tails yelled. "We're outta here!"

"I don't have anything to hang on to!" Sonic called forward against the wind.

"I can fix that," Tail replied, pressing a button.

A panel opened just in front of Sonic, and up popped an anti-aircraft machine gun. "Extra rounds are looped around the base!" the fox yelled as Sonic grabbed the gun's stock. "Make 'em count! We don't have many!"

"This ain't gonna be like chasing Wing Fortress," Sonic called. "We'll do him some damage this time!"

By this time Tails had circled and gained five thousand feet. Deciding it was enough for the time being, he set his course for Sapphire Bay in pursuit of the big ship.

* * *

Robotnik strode out of the entrance hall, still chuckling to himself. Behind him came Chaos 4, waddling on all fours like a lizard. The doctor entered an elevator, called Chaos to come in with him and rode the lift down to the belly of the ship, just behind the rear engines. "Welcome to the Hot Shelter," he said to his pet. "Make yourself at home.

It was his first mistake. Chaos' green eyes took in the vast tanks of tropical fish and underwater plants, and into the monster's head entered the first inkling that his master had no love of the sea. Why else would he imprison these fish on board his flying city? Slowly Chaos moved to the biggest tank, then melted, poured up the glass and into the tank. "Enjoy yourself," Robotnik said, grinning at the formless eyes that now looked out at him. Chuckling, he strode back to the lift.

Metal Sonic met him as he stepped out at the top. "All Carrier systems are on-line," the robot said, falling into step beside his master. "E-Zero has captured another dozen small birds for use in units. They are in holding bay four. I have begun re-construction of E-101 Beta in construction bay fifteen."

"You have been busy," Robotnik said approvingly. "Good job."

"Thank you, sir," Mecha purred. He rarely received praise for his work and appreciated it. Another item in his memory list came to the top. "Oh, and sir ..."

"Yes?"

"There is ... ah ... a visitor to see you."

Robotnik stopped and looked at the robot from under one raised eyebrow. "A visitor? Not an enemy?"

"No ... she is not an enemy. She came on board shortly before takeoff, claiming she desired your assistance."

"What species?"

Mecha hesitated. "Mobian."

"Yes, but what kind?"

"I'm not sure, sir. My databanks do not contain her ... species." He pronounced the last word as if reluctant to use it. "She is in the main hall."

"Armed?" asked Robotnik, turning aside to take another lift to the main hall in the top floor of the ship. Mecha entered it with him. "I don't believe so, but I shall accompany you just in case."

They stepped out of the elevator. Robotnik glared about the grand room for this 'visitor' and spotted a dark creature seated on a bench in the corner. He strode up to her.

It was what appeared to be a female anteater. Her fur was such a deep brown it was nearly black, but matted with mud and grime. She wore no shoes, and her hands and feet were sharply clawed. A single orange stripe traced down her forehead to the top of her nose. What was left of her clothing hung about her in rags. Her left arm hung at her side, useless, fingers curled into claws. Her left knee had no fur on it at all, and underneath was exposed a robotic knee joint, complete with bolts and wires.

She looked up and asked quietly, "Are you Doctor Robotnik?"

"Yes," he replied. "What do you want?"

"Your help, if you please," she said. "I am an android in desperate need of repair. I have journeyed far to find you."

He gazed at her with new respect. No wonder Mecha had been unable to identify her species. "What makes you think I can help you?"

"You built this ship," she said, gesturing to the room about them with her good hand.

"What is your construction data?"

She proceeded to reel off a list of numbers, abbreviations and decimal points Mecha recognized as a list of her parts. She was far more complex than himself.

Robotnik listened intently, impressed. Whoever had built her was a genus. "All right, I'll repair you," he said, "but you must do something for me."

"Anything."

"Kill Sonic the Hedgehog and bring me proof you have done so."

She looked at him a moment. "My first objective is to kill Knuckles the echidna and his ward Talon," she replied evenly, "but that will be my alternate objective."

"Very well," Robotnik smiled. "Mecha, take her to construction bay ten. I will be along momentarily."

"Well!" he thought as his robot led the strange android from the room. "Whoever she is, she's my kind of girl! Out to get Knuckles, indeed. Well, I'll see to it I embed a tracking device in her so I can find her again."

First Robotnik dropped by holding bay four, where Zero had deposited his prisoners. Zero had been his first try at creating the E-series and was quite primitive as robots went. The thing couldn't even speak. But it was very quick-moving and excelled at catching small animals.

The robot was busy shoving birds into cages as Robotnik entered. "Hello, Zero. Catch me another batch?"

It made a beeping sound--yes, it had.

"I'll be around for them at 1800 hours," Robotnik said, and closed the door as he left.

Zero thrust the last bird into a cage and set it on the shelf. He had one cage left over. Funny, he had been certain he had had twelve birds. Where had it gone? He rolled across the floor to the door and opened it, only to see a small green shape flit down the hallway. How dare it escape! Enraged, Zero gave chase.

---

Chapter 13: Steel clouds floating in the air

---

Meanwhile, back in Station Square, a young hedgehog was strolling along the sidewalk, a grocery bag in her arms.

"Gee, I'm bored," she muttered aloud to no one in particular. "Every day it's the same old thing. Same place, different day." She thought glumly of her home back north. Although much more dangerous, it had never been boring. Of course, she did not remember the constant fear of being captured and robotized, which was why her family had moved to Sapphire City. She had been too young at the time to understand.

Amy Rose ran a hand through her short, soft spines. They hung about her face like human hair. She wore a light cotton dress, bright red. Her shoes were thick-soled and also red. She wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the very personation of cute, if she had known it.

But she didn't know it. All she could think of was how hot the afternoon had grown and how bored she was. She had run out to do a bit of grocery shopping for her mother, and even that was commonplace. Exciting things happened to other people, like that guy in the newspaper who had defeated that monster a few days earlier. Never to Amy.

"Things weren't boring when Sonic was around," she thought. "Ah, Sonic ... my hero." She thought dreamily of the blue hedgehog on whom she had developed a terrific crush. "Chasing down bad guys ... and blowing them away!" She remembered being attacked by a blue robot with red eyes and screaming for help; then from out of nowhere Sonic had appeared. He had freed her from the robot, tucked her under one arm and run like the wind. The robot had pursued them a short way, firing rockets, but at least gave up and fell behind. Another time she had followed Sonic on one of his missions, determined to prove herself of some worth to him. Instead she had blown his cover, and once again he had had to save her from the robots. This had only intensified her feelings for him.

Then her family had moved away, and she hadn't heard of Sonic since. She sighed. "Now he's gone, and there's nothing left to do."

Suddenly the city was plunged into shadow. "What's going on?" she said aloud, looking around. "Nobody forecast a storm or anything--is there an eclipse or--" The pink hedgehog looked up as she spoke, and her words died away in a sharp gasp.

Filling the sky above the buildings was a monstrous airship. It passed slowly overhead, engines rumbling softly. Traffic screeched to a halt, people got out of their cars and stared upward, mouths hanging open in shock. It was too big for Amy to grasp. She saw dark red curves, long yellow strips, grey metal trim, blue and green flashing lights, more brick fuselage, and finally blue flames spurting from the rear jets, leaving a trail of white smoke in their wake.

Amy stared, unaware that the grocery bag had dropped from her lifeless hands. How could something that big fly? From a great distance, she recalled something about a Robotnik, who built robots and huge aircraft. Could this be something of Dr. Robotnik's, this far south?

As the monstrous aircraft slowly faded into the distance, something glinted in the sky above her. Amy glanced up and saw what at first she mistook for a piece of paper fluttering down. Presently she realized it was not a scrap, but a little bird. She watched it a second, then gazed after the Egg Carrier. When she looked for the bird again, it was to see a flash of color as a hard little skull cracked into her forehead.

"Ow!" she cried, stumbling to her knees and holding her head. "Watch where you're going, buddy!" She looked around for the bird and saw it lying on the sidewalk a few feet away, eyes closed and tiny body heaving. It had probably been hurt worse than she had. "Are you okay?" she asked in a softer tone. "You look kinda hurt." She climbed to her feet and picked the bird up. He blinked and looked up at her. He trembled like a leaf in her hands, too frightened yet to make a peep. "It's okay," she assured him, holding him to her chest and stroking his green feathered head.

Suddenly there came a metallic thud from down the street. Amy looked up and gasped. There stood a six foot tall black and green garbage can with arms. The upper half of the can was divided into sections, and a pair of electronic green eyes stared out expressionlessly. It rolled toward her, arms outstretched.

Amy flattened herself to the side of the building as it went past, clutched the bird protectively. The robot whirled and faced her, puzzled. It had not expected her to dodge. "Watch where you're going, creep!" Amy said shrilly. "You almost ran me over!" In reply it again charged. The young hedgehog whirled and ran.

She knew she couldn't outrun it--she was not much of a runner--she had better hide somewhere. On impulse she ducked into a store called Burger Shop, vaulted over the counter and crouched behind it. The clerk looked down at her in surprise. "What's up, Amy?"

"Mark, don't let that robot know I'm here!" she replied in an urgent whisper. He shrugged. "Okay ..."

A mechanical whirr passed by the open door, passed again, then again as Zero searched for her. Finally his sound faded into the distance.

"It's gone," Mark said. "You can come out now."

Amy stood and breathed a sigh of relief. "Whew! Stupid robot." She climbed back over the counter and sat on a barstool. "Thanks Mark. I guess I owe you one."

"No problem," the human said with a smile. "Hey, why was that robot after you?"

"He wants Birdie," Amy said firmly. She looked down at the bird and thought of something. "I'll bet you were on that big ship! They captured you, and somehow you got away, right?"

The bird nodded, liquid eyes fixed on his young guardian's face.

"Don't worry, Birdy," Amy said earnestly. "I'll stand by you all the way!"

Amy didn't know it, but she held in her hands a Class A Flicky. Royal Flickies lived only on Flicky Island, while their larger cousins lived on the mainland. Class A's were not as sophisticated as their relatives, but were usually quite intelligent and most could speak. Robotnik prized them, for their size and IQ made them excellent for badnik pilots.

The pink hedgehog stepped out of the shop and looked sharply about for robots, but Zero had departed. "He's gone," she announced to the flicky. "Oh my gosh, the groceries!" She flew to her dropped bag and picked it up, thankful to see that nothing had been harmed. "I've got to go home," she told the bird. "You'd better go home, too." She held him out. He fluttered his wings and took off, but flew in a circle and returned to perch on her head. "Aw, you're lost," she said compassionately. "Well then, I guess you can come home with me. I'll take you to the beach tonight so you can get your bearings." The pink hedgehog turned and trotted down the street, the green bird flying along just over her right ear.

* * *

A burst of orange spurted from the barrel of the machine gun, tearing the clear air with a ratta ratta ratta. Sonic swung the gun sideways, following the motion of a fighter jet painted like a green and white shark. The fighter jolted and screamed sideways in a spiral, flame and smoke pouring from its side. "Got 'im!" Sonic announced.

The red bi-plane was bearing down on the Egg Carrier like a sparrow pursuing a hawk, Tails holding a steady course. When they had closed the distance to three klicks (kilometers), the shark fighters appeared, screaming out to meet their prey. Sonic was ready for them and tallied seven already.

Now the scattered fighters were flocking back to their mothership to regroup, and Sonic and Tails had a breather. "Hey, you know what the gunner's death rate is?" Tails hollered to his gunner.

"Believe me, I don't want to know!" called Sonic, who had already seen more tracer bullets than he cared to think about. "Are we gonna try to land on the thing?"

"Of course!"

The Egg Carrier was slowly growing larger ahead o them, a winged monster of malice. It stood out darkly against the dazzling afternoon air and brilliant white clouds. A series of grey specks appeared near its underbelly. "Hold on to your hat, 'cause here they come!" Tails announced. Sonic adjusted his grip on the firing controls of the gun.

* * *

Except for the bridge, where Metal Sonic was gleefully coordinating attack patterns, the interior of the Egg Carrier was fairly quiet. Its master was not worried about a single-fighter attack. In fact, Robotnik was standing on the raised platform in the amphitheater/main hall, preparing to brief his pet E-series robots.

Gamma, Delta, Epsilon and Zeta stood in a row, gazing at their master respectfully, awaiting his orders. Robotnik flicked on his microphone, cleared his throat and spoke into it. "Ah, testing, one, two, three." His coarse voice filled the room nicely. He spread his arms and began. "You, the elite E-series machines, have been gathered here today for a mission, a mission on which you will prove your worth." He clicked a remote control, and on a screen behind him appeared a rotating 3-D picture of a green frog. "Behold, a tailed frog!" Robotnik said as the robots scanned it. "Very unique. Bring it to me. I don't care what it takes, but I want that frog! The one who brings it to me will be highly favored." He paused and looked at the robots, who faced him dumbly, four pairs of identical green eyes. "What are you waiting for? Get going!"

As one, they turned and clanked away toward the elevators.

Gamma had been hooked up to the Egg Carrier mainframe and had settled easily into his role of mindless servant. His brother-robots were quick to correct him and aid him as he went about his duties, but none more than the blue droid, Delta. Although Zeta was technically the boss of the four (as Beta had been removed), Delta had the stronger personality. It was he who saw to it that Gamma was taken care of.

Now, as they trooped aboard the elevators, Delta instructed Gamma in a soft monotone. "Your sector is Station Square. Do not be afraid of the humans. Act peaceably and they will aid you. But do not fire upon any of them! Dr. Robotnik would dislike it if he had to hunt you down and rebuild your charred hull."

"Affirmative," Gamma replied, taking all this down in his memory like notes. "Humans are not hostile except in defense. What date are we to report in?"

"Tomorrow at 0800 hours. The Egg Carrier will be docked in the Mystic Ruins base."

"Affirmative."

The elevator doors opened, and the four trooped toward the shuttle bay. Their first real mission!

* * *

As the E-series departed from one side of the Egg Carrier, Sonic clung desperately to his machine gun on the other side, unable to shift a finger to the trigger--Tails was weaving sideways in loops, trying to avoid the lethal anti-aircraft missiles that were whistling at them from cannons on the Carrier's wing. Sonic could do nothing but hang on for dear life and watch.

A shark fighter appeared out of nowhere and screeched down upon them on a collision course. "Sonic!" Tails yelled. Sonic, fighting centrifugal force, wrenched the gun about and sent a spray of bullets into the sky. The fighter burst into flames and whistled past, scarcely missing them.

Tails nosed the plane down, and they dove under the Egg Carrier's belly. His idea was to come up in front of the craft, circle back and land on one of the airstrips. If he had known more about Robotnik, that would have been the last thing in the world he would have attempted, especially in that plane.

Sonic stared up at the monster above them, like a vast ceiling. They were perhaps seventy feet from it, and he could see all the paneling and rocket launchers clearly. On impulse he jerked the gun up and fired it at the launchers. They dented and exploded quite nicely.

By the time they emerged from beneath the Egg Carrier, Sonic was almost out of ammo and there were three intact rocket launchers left. "We did it!" Tails yelled into the wind.

"Yeah!" Sonic yelled back, punching a fist into the air.

The plane swept skyward, swung around and back toward the oncoming monster.

Suddenly the long red snout of the Egg Carrier split open and slid apart, revealing an enormous glowing green lens. Loudspeakers crackled from the ship--Robotnik's voice, garbled by wind and distance. But Sonic and Tails heard clearly the words, "Egg Cannon ready--FIRE!" The lens flashed white.

For a second there was a strange electronic hum in the air around them; then a laser beam the size of their biplane flashed by to their right, blinding them and scorching their fur. At the same time the plane shrieked and jolted sideways. "We're hit!" Tails wailed. Sonic's eyes flashed to the right wing--and was baffled to see that it wasn't there. The entire wing pair had been sheared off six inches from the side of the plane.

The plane whirled in a circle and began dropping, spiraling faster and faster toward the ocean far below.

---

Chapter 14: Modern and Ancient Cities

---

Knuckles stood silently on a wide rock shelf that jutted out of the mountainside. Behind him was a little trolley on a pair of tracks that wound into a tunnel in the rock, bearing testament to how he had gotten there. Just ahead of him, at the edge of the cliff, was the top of a ladder.

But the echidna's eyes were not on any of his immediate surroundings. They were focused on the landscape at the foot of the mountain, and partly inward, in his memory. The landscape was blanketed thickly with trees and brush, hiding the ground from view. But further out, perhaps a quarter of a mile from where he stood, the crown of an ancient pyramid poked above the trees. The 'Mystic Ruins'.

As he had dismounted from the trolley, that same little pink light he had seen in the casino had appeared and circled him. A voice had come from it that said, "Use this statue with the pyramid you see there. The other is nearby. Hurry!" It vanished, and Knuckles had found a small statue at his feet. It was about a foot tall. It was a sculpture of an echidna in weathered silver on a square stone base, much like the Wind Stone in the windy cave. Had it been there before that light appeared? He wasn't sure ...

Knuckles was now holding the statue in one hand, staring off over he valley, the wheels in his head turning. The dream of whatever it had been had taken place in the past, he was sure. The echidnas had been very numerous in their long-ago prime. There had been a brief period when their civilization had spread to the mainland, and the groups had been divided between the mainland and the island. That chieftain echidna had said, "It is our born right to access the Palace and all it contains. The guardians have no right to hoard it from us." Could he have witnessed the beginning of the civil war that had led to the hiding of the Palace and all those laws being made, most of which he still observed?

And if so, could that pyramid he was looking at be the same one he had seen in his so-called dream? What did that pink light have to do with it?

Too curious anymore to simply stand there, he slipped the statue into the bag he carried emeralds shards in, leaped off the ledge and glided smoothly out toward the pyramid.

Looking down, he could see the glint of water beneath the tree canopy, and piles of rotting stonemasonry here and there. He passed over the ruins of a wall, then entered a large clearing that circled the foot of the pyramid. He circled once, then dropped to the grassy turf. He was struck instantly by the smell of warm earth and the chirping of crickets. He looked about. The jungle was held at bay by the crumbling wall, but already gaping holes had been torn in it--it was only a matter of time before the forest reclaimed this, as well. He gazed up at the pyramid, shading his eyes from the afternoon sun. It had to be the same one. It had the same sets of stairs running up the sides, the same carvings and statues of echidnas, although now faded and stained with age. He circled it slowly, looking for the entrance, then stopped in dismay. The entryway, a carved snake's jaws, was closed. The entire top section of the pyramid had collapsed in on itself, sealing the entrance forever. The top of the snake's head rested flat on the first tier, instead of looming above it.

So what was the statue for?

The echidna climbed the many stairs to the first level and slowly followed it around the circumference of the structure, gazing at the carvings of his ancestors and trying to decipher their meaning. Why had everyone vanished? He had never read of an actual battle; only impending disaster, then some vague event that was so terrible no one had ever named it. Perhaps now he would find out.

He came to the western side of the pyramid and stopped. Here was something new. On either side of the staircase were two stone pedestals, one with a yellow echidna head etched on it, the other a white. Gold and silver. Before the pedestals were two square indentations, as if something fit in them.

Understanding at once, Knuckles stepped up to the silver one, dug the leaves out of the niche and set the silver statue in place. It fit exactly. "There," he said aloud, placing his hands on his hips. "Now to find the gold statue."

* * *

Sonic was falling--falling through empty space, unable to stop, unable to save himself. Then he was riding a bucking, jerking biplane through a sea of deadly missiles as a giant tornado gobbled up everything behind him. He looked back at it and saw Chaos' green eyes staring at him from the side of the twister. "He'll eat us!" Sonic was screaming. "Tails, fly faster! He'll eat us!"

Sand. He was lying on sand. Someone was shaking him gently. "Are you okay?" He thought it was Tails' voice. Where was he? C'mon brain, wake up. "Tails?" he said groggily, lifting his head. Sand. Soft, powdery, damp sand. The beach. Emerald Coast. His eyes slowly focused. It was late afternoon. He was lying on the shore, just above the waterline. Hadn't he landed in the water? "Tails?" he said again, rolling over and sitting up. It wasn't Tails--it was a young human girl with large eyes staring at him through a pair of glasses. "Are you okay?" she asked again, seriously.

The hedgehog looked around wildly. "You're not who I'm looking for. Have you seen a two-tailed fox around here? Maybe a red bi-plane?"

The girl shook her head. "No ..."

Sonic climbed to his feet, brushing sand from his fur. His shoes were soggy--he HAD been in the water. How had he gotten to shore? Where was Tails? "Tails!" he called frantically, looking around. "Oh, I hope he's all right ..."

"I saw those dolphins push you ashore," the girl said soberly. "I thought you were dead."

"Yeah, cool," Sonic said absently. "Thanks. I gotta go." He ran a few steps and stopped. Station Square was the other way. His head didn't feel right. Had the plane crashed? All he remembered was losing his grip on the plane's tail fin. Maybe he had fainted in mid-air, like they say people do. Where the heck was Tails? He had a sick feeling in his gut as he turned back toward Station Square.

* * *

Amy Rose sat on a bench in the hotel's chao playroom, licking an ice cream cone and giving the chao in her lap bites. Birdie sat on the bench a few feet away, pecking at a bowl of bread crumbs and occasionally chirping his approval.

Amy's chao was a light pink, and from its head protruded soft spine-like things that looked remarkably like her owner's hair. Amy had named her Rachel, after another girl the chao reminded her of. Now she pawed at Amy's dress and trilled for another bite. Amy held out the ice cream cone, and Rachel sliced off a bite with her sharp front teeth. "You're a little pig," Amy told her affectionately.

Rachel had missed her something terrible. Amy had spent the previous day at the mall, and arrived back in Station Square three minutes after the chao playroom had closed for the night. Today, Rachel's feelings had been so hurt she wouldn't even look at Amy for at least ten minutes. She didn't forgive the hedgehog until Amy offered to share her ice cream, thereby winning the chao to her side once more.

Another of the chao bounced up, sniffed at Birdy's bread crumbs, snorted and trotted away in disgust. Amy gazed after it oddly. It was a deep blue with long, hedgehog-like spines protruding from the back of its head. It looked like Sonic.

Amy knew a thing or two about chao. If handled enough, they began to look like whomever took care of them. All the chao in the garden looked like someone, and you could tell immediately who each belonged to. But if this one looked like Sonic, that would mean it had been handled by him very recently. No other hedgehog on Mobius looked exactly like Sonic.

The pink hedgehog's heart leaped. Sonic--here? Could it be?

She was so ecstatic she gave the rest of her cone to Rachel and set her on the floor. The chao showed her teeth to two others to warn them away, then settled down to her treat with a happy purr. Amy patted her head, told her goodbye, picked up Birdie and his food, and skipped toward the elevators.

She stepped out of the elevator in the lobby and dashed up to the manager's desk. "Excuse me," she said, standing on tiptoe to see over the edge of the desk, "Have you seen a blue hedgehog around here? A really CUTE hedgehog."

The manager looked down at her and smiled knowingly. "As a matter of fact I have. He came in about ten minutes ago, and went out that door." He pointed to the doors that faced the casino.

"Oh, thank you!" Amy exclaimed, clasping her hands together. "I can't believe I finally get to see him again!"

She dashed for the doors, the green flicky in hot pursuit.

---

Chapter 15: You drive me crazy!

---

No one had seen Tails, no one had seen a red bi-plane. Sonic was half sick with worry. Where would he go if he made it ashore? What if was hurt? What if he hadn't ... hadn't survived the wreck? Sonic gulped down the boulder in his throat. Going to pieces in the middle of the street wouldn't help anybody. He had to keep his head. He wiped his eyes with the back of one hand and headed for the casino. Maybe Tails would go there.

"Hey Sonic!"

He stopped in his tracks. Suddenly all his worry was replaced with dread. He knew that high, insistent voice. "Please, not Amy," he prayed as he turned.

It was Amy.

She skipped up the pavement to him and stopped, puppyish adoration shining in her eyes. "Sonic!" she squealed. "Long time no see!"

Sonic backed away a step. "A-Amy! Uh, hi." She had grown a lot since he had last seen her. She had lost the little kid look and was on her way to becoming a beautiful young hedgehog. She wasn't there yet, though, and her personality had not changed. And, he saw grimly, she still had a crush on him.

"What's the matter with you?" Amy asked. She had expected him to be glad to see her, but he clearly was not. She held up a hand, and Birdie landed on it. "This little bird seems to be in trouble," Amy told her hero matter-of-factly. "So you can be his bodyguard for a while."

"What!?" Sonic almost shouted, his spines stiffening on his back. He had a vision of carrying that bird around with Amy at his elbow. 'Hedgehog jumps off dock to escape girlfriend wannabe.' "No WAY!" he yelled, really yelling it this time. He didn't add that Amy had made his life miserable before and he didn't want it to happen again. He whirled and fled from her with all the speed he could muster.

"Oh, don't run away!" Amy cried. "Ohhh!" She ran a few steps after him, but she was no match for a hedgehog who had spent his life pushing the sound barrier. He ducked into the hotel and vanished. Amy, with all the persistence of a starry-eyed hero worshiper, followed.

* * *

Two hours later a weary, beaten Sonic slumped into a chair in the hotel lobby. Amy sat down beside him and swung her feet happily. Sonic had hidden from her all over the hotel, but was finally drawn out of hiding by aching hunger. He crept to the dining room and slouched in a back booth, which was where she found him.

Too hungry to care, he wolfed his dinner, then grudgingly bought hers and waited for her while she ate. It was a date, to all appearances, if Sonic had not sat and stared at the world with the wild eyes of a caged animal.

He still had this look as he sat in the lobby, but now it was tempered with a full stomach and resignation to his fate. Maybe she would go home if he told her to. He sideyed her and found her eyes fixed radiantly on his face. Maybe not. He really needed to get going and find Tails ... He opened his mouth to say so, when the hotel manager said, "You know, they're having a special for couples at Twinkle Park tonight."

Sonic flashed him a look that could have incinerated him on the spot, and Amy leaped to her feet. "Oh goody! C'mon, Sonic! I've never been to Twinkle Park--it'll be dreamy!"

Sonic climbed slowly to his feet, teeth clenched. He could blow up now and break her heart, or be a gentleman and go to the Park with her. He thought despairingly of Tails. Maybe the fox was looking for him, too, and they kept missing each other. He could leave a message with the manager. After all, he and Tails had planned to go to Twinkle Park, anyway.

It took more maturity than Sonic thought he had to walk out the door and say (cordially!) to Amy, "I think Twinkle Park is open." She squealed and clapped her hands together in delight.

The sky was awash with orange and red, and the streetlights were on as the hedgehogs crossed the Square and walked up to the entrance of Twinkle Park. Sonic looked at the elevator and glass tube that led into the main building, and was about to say something about whether they were going to a park or boarding a plane, when Amy pointed down the street. "Look, that robot is on the loose again!"

Sonic turned and saw the garbage can with arms that had pursued Amy earlier. It was just turning the corner a block away and was proceeding slowly, as if looking for someone. "Zero," Sonic said, seeing the 0 on the thing's chest. "Don't worry about him--he's just a chunk of cheesy hardware."

Amy grabbed the flicky off her shoulder and held him against her chest fearfully. Sonic could protect her from the robot, but he couldn't protect Birdie. She looked about for some place to hide, and noticed a sign next to the elevator doors. "Ooo!" she cried, "Look Sonic! Cute couples get in free!" Zero vanished from her mind at once. "C'mon!"

"Amy!" Sonic called after her, but she was already in the elevator. "Oh, that girl is such a pain." He looked back toward Zero, but the robot had crossed the street and was rolling on toward the beach, not harming anyone. Growling in his throat, Sonic stalked into the lift.

He caught up to Amy at the Park's inside entrance. She was waiting at a guard booth, talking to the guard, who was a teenage human girl. "See, there he is," Amy said as Sonic walked up. "Isn't he adorable?"

"You two DO make a cute couple," the guard tittered. "Better hang on to him!"

Sonic felt the heat creeping into his cheeks. Why did this stuff always happen to him?

Amy took off her glove to have her hand stamped, and Sonic awkwardly did the same. "Have a nice date," the guard called as they walked into the lobby.

"Hey, leave your glove off," Amy said, noticing Sonic starting to pull it back on.

He looked at her sharply. "Why?"

"I've never seen your hands before," Amy said, taking his hand in hers and turning it over. "Wouldn't it look good with a ring on this finger?"

"I wonder what would happen if I slapped her," Sonic thought, knowing he was blushing again. He jerked his hand away and yanked his glove on. "Forget it," he said angrily. "I like my hands just the way they are, thank you very much. Now, where are we gonna go?" This would be a bad night--he just knew it.

Amy, giggling to herself about how cute Sonic was when embarrassed, looked at the two doors, then at the map mounted between them. "Twinkle Circuit!" she announced. "We'll miss it if we go straight to Pleasure Castle."

"Fine, lead the way," Sonic said, folding his arms.

* * *

Twinkle Circuit began in a huge circular room where the multi-colored cars hummed about and bashed into each other. They all hovered about a foot off the ground and were padded on all sides; fancy bumper-cars. Amy took a pink car, and Sonic grabbed a light blue one, as the dark blue was taken. Then off the two roared onto the main floor.

At first Sonic worried about Amy being jostled and hurt by the other drivers, and tried to stay near her. Then he was rammed by several cars at once and was flung spinning into the wall. As he backed out and turned around, yet another car hit him so hard he nearly flew from his seat. He glared about and saw with astonishment that it had been Amy who hit him. She whipped her car about and hummed off, laughing.

Sonic fell into the light-hearted spirit of the thing after a few minutes, smashing himself into all comers and trying to nail Amy as squarely as she had hit him. At this he never quite succeeded.

Unexpectedly a voice boomed over the loudspeakers, "All drivers ready for the Twinkle Circuit?"

"Yes!" everyone yelled.

"I thought this WAS the circuit," Sonic muttered.

"On your marks, get set, GO!"

The wall opposite the entrance grated and lifted into the ceiling, revealing a track beyond that curved into darkness. The gang of bumpercars revved their engines and made for it, jostling each other for position.

Sonic found himself on a track that was lit only with rows of flashing lights in the center and sides, with a huge expanse of stars and galaxies glowing down on him. There was no time to look, however, for he was still fighting the other drivers for the lead. They had ceased to be people to him--they were now only hostile shapes to escape or ram. He floored the gas and hugged the left wall, driving like a maniac. Suddenly his car shot forward--he had passed over some sort of speed booster in the road. The others fell behind him at once. "All RIGHT!" Sonic yelled into space.

Alone now, he had a chance to look about him. A spinning planet in its rings, a vast billboard advertising a videogame system, twinkling stars, spaceships, comets, asteroids--all flew by at dizzying speed, appearing just long enough for him to recognize their shapes. His car hummed smoothly, vibrating around him, gliding around turns like something alive. He began to feel euphoric, as if he were floating through space ...

A very real thud and jolt returned him to his senses.

"Hiya, Sonic!" a familiar female voice called.

"Amy!" Sonic yelled back. "You scared me!"

"Isn't this track great?" she replied, pulling her pink car up beside his. He heard the hyper enthusiasm in her voice. He wasn't the only one having fun. "What happens if you fall off the track?"

"You wind up in the hospital," Sonic told her calmly. "Whoa!"

The track dropped straight down ahead of them. Their cars sailed off, flew, floated through a mass of stars--what if they missed the track completely?--and struck the track with a gruntch of metal on cement. A ramp ahead. Sonic struck it and again left the track, pinned to his seat by the speed, nothing beneath him to land on. Falling, down, down--would he really end up in the hospital, or was he really in space? For one wild instant Sonic had a vision of falling forever and ever through nothing--then his car struck the track. A second later Amy's car came down behind him.

"Was that freaky or what?" she yelled as she pulled up to him again.

"You said it!" he gasped, trying to restart his heart again.

More speed blocks. First Sonic shot ahead, then Amy. "I'll beat you!" he yelled, pulling abreast of her.

"Oh no you won't!" she yelled back, and slammed her car sideways into his.

"Hey!" he yelled, striking the wall and losing speed. "I'll get you, girl!"

"Let's see you try!" she yelled from up ahead. He heard her car strike still more speed blocks, and struck them himself a second later.

A sneak jump! He shot into the air, seeing nothing beyond the nose of his car but stars and galaxies. This time he fell but a short way before he was back on track. Lights! Color! People! He hit the brakes too late and slammed into the car stopped ahead of him. Amy's eyes glared back at him. He had finally got her back for that jolt she had given him back in the rink.

He drew a deep breath and let it out. "What do we do now?"

"I think we get out," she said, unbuckling herself.

Sonic unstrapped himself as well and followed her in staggering onto the terminal. His sense of balance had been disrupted by that ride. It felt odd to move at a walking pace instead of dazzling speed.

Before the two had recovered their senses, a string of rollercoaster cars whizzed into the other side of the terminal. "All aboard for Pleasure Castle," a loudspeaker crackled.

"Oh boy!" Amy exclaimed, running to the first car. "C'mon, Sonic, get in here!"

Sonic's respect of her had rises quite a bit, and he hardly had to swallow his pride at all to climb into the seat beside her and gaze out the darkened exit tunnel.

They waited a good ten minutes as the other bumper-car drivers straggled into the terminal and boarded the rollercoaster. Finally, when all of them had been accounted for, an attendant walked by and clapped the safety bar over their laps, warned them to keep their hands and feet inside the car at all times, then retreated to the control booth. The cars jerked and rattled out of the terminal.

Sonic had noticed that there were jet-like things on little wings attached to the sides of the cars, but had thought them for show only; after all, the whole chain was painted to look like a rocket ship. But now, as they exited the dark tunnel and saw the track dropping away before them, the jets ignited with a blue flash. The cars shot earthward at seventy miles an hour. A chorus of thrilled screams rose from the passengers, one of which came from Amy. Sonic clung to the lap bar and whooped at the top of his lungs, spines and ears blown back, body driven against the seat, stomach somewhere back in the station. The cars struck the bottom of the hill, curved up and shot around in a circle, rockets roaring. Sonic glimpsed castle turrets, spiked fences, grass and a pond, then they were hurled skyward again. For an instant Sonic looked at the stars, so close he could almost touch them, and realized he could see brush-strokes and lightbulbs in them. It was the ceiling. "They're faaaaaaake!" Sonic called to Amy, which lengthened into a yell as again they shot earthward.

Suddenly the screech of the jets was gone, the track had leveled out, and they were gliding into the exit station. "Whew!" Amy gasped. "That was fun, Sonic!"

"Yeah!" he agreed as attendants walked by and unlatched the safety bars. Amy's hair was frazzled and seemed blown away from her face permanently. He ran a hand through his own spines as they climbed from the cars--only standing up slightly. The windy cave must have been more violent than the rollercoaster.

Amy's bird had rode the whole way in the pocket of her blouse. Now she took him out and set him on her shoulder. He wobbled back and forth a second and shook his head. Sonic grinned--poor thing wasn't used to amusement park rides. Perhaps it was the glaring lights, but Sonic also noticed something Amy hadn't--the bird was wearing a tiny locket and chain around its neck.

He started to say something to her, but Amy darted off with a squeal. "Sonic, look at the games!" He followed her.

They had entered Pleasure Castle, the carnival-area of Twinkle Park. Here abounded food, drink, people, games, small rides and dozens of other things. It was rather crowded--Sonic noticed most of the people were boy-girl pairs. He was part of a pair himself, he thought wryly.

It appeared that cute couples didn't only get in free, they also had free run of all concessions. Sonic and Amy got free sodas and food this way. Sonic watched Amy wolf a box of cheese fries and wondered how she could eat like that so soon after dinner. Come to think of it, those fries smelled awfully good ... To his amazement, he found himself consuming a large box of fries a moment later. Having fun was hungry business.

Amy wiped her hands and mouth on a napkin, threw her trash in a nearby bin, and looked brightly at Sonic. "What should we do now?"

Sonic tossed a glance about the area. "Oh, I don't know. You pick." She wanted to come, let her navigate.

The pink hedgehog looked around thoughtfully, lips pursed. "Let's see ..." Suddenly she gasped and her eyes widened. "Zero!"

Sonic jumped up and whirled, searching. "Where?" Good grief, the robot was _right there_, perhaps ten feet away and rolling in their direction. "Run Amy!" Sonic commanded, and jumped in the robot's path.

It looked down at this blue hedgehog with robotic disgust. Robotnik had never intended Zero to go up against Sonic, and so had neglected its anti-hedgehog programming. Zero had no idea who Sonic was. Its goal was to get the bird away from the girl. It swung a heavy arm and knocked the hedgehog out of its way, then rolled on, pursuing Amy.

* * *

Tails was lost in the mist of a dream. He was four years old and Sonic was teaching him to run. "C'mon, you can do it!" a much younger Sonic was cheering. "You can do it! Spin your tails and run at the same time!" Tails tried, but the lift from his tails threw him flat on his face. Sonic helped him up. "You almost had it! One more time, then we'll go get lunch."

The dream faded away, and the young fox found himself staring up at a clear, starry sky, surrounded by the friendly chirping of crickets. Still in the mood of his dream, Tails murmured, "I owe so much to Sonic." Where was Sonic, anyway?

He sat up and saw the twisted wreckage of the red bi-plane, and suddenly remembered the crash. Abruptly his stomach twisted. He climbed to his feet and staggered to the plane's side. The wing pair on the right side was completely gone, cleanly as if cut with scissors. The remaining wings had been bent at an angle from the impact. The nose, engine housing and cockpit were twisted and smashed, fuel and oil dripping into the grass like the blood of a wounded animal. This plane would never fly again.

But where was Sonic?

Tails stood with a hand on the maimed machine's side and looked about him. The sun had set about an hour before, leaving only a soft greenish glow in the west. Outlined against the western sky was a building of some kind. What was it? Tails searched his memory. Oh yeah, the train station. He must be in the Mystic Ruins, in about the spot where Sonic and Knuckles had fought. But that didn't explain where Sonic was. If Sonic were here, he would have been nearby, asking it Tails were all right. What if Sonic were hurt, lying in the darkness somewhere?

"Sonic!" Tails called into the peaceful night, a rock settling into his stomach. He dashed here and there over the uneven turf, calling, straining his eyes to see through the darkness. Crash victims could be thrown a long distance, he had heard. A dark shape lying in the grass. Tails touched it in cold terror, then relaxed--a rock. "Sonic!" he called again, a lump of tears forming in his throat. He sat down on the rock and cradled his head in his hands. Think straight, he told himself. You can't find Sonic if you keep running around in the dark like this. He might not be able to hear you. You're shaken up from the crash. Calm down. The fox drew several slow, deep breaths, calming himself. An idea popped into his head. A flashlight!

Tails darted toward the train station, hung a left, climbed the stone stairs and reached the hanger and airstrip. The hanger was empty without the two planes. He hoped Mac wouldn't mind too much. He snatched up the powerful Mag-lite from its holder, clicked it on and pelted back down the stairs toward the bi-plane.

Aided by the mag-lite, Tails searched the area with a fine-toothed comb, but found nothing. Sonic was not there.

Tails walked slowly back to the hanger, head and tails drooping. Sonic must have bailed out before the crash. He could be anywhere, dead or alive. Tails put away the flashlight and stood a long moment in the dark, echoing hanger. What should he do now? The answer came from his growling stomach. Eat something.

The solid reassurance of a bologna and cheese sandwich and carbonated orange juice revived his spirits and washed away the lump in his throat. As he ate he found his head clearing. Robotnik was four emeralds ahead, and there were three left. There was a good chance those emeralds were somewhere in the Mystic Ruins. If Tails found one, he could put it in the Tornado and resume his pursuit of the Egg Carrier. It was what Sonic would do.

Feeling confident again, Tails shouldered the mag-lite and stepped out into the night.

* * *

Sonic shook his head and stood up. "Yes, I'm okay!" he told the worried crowd gathered around him. "Somebody stop that robot! Robotnik sent it!"

At this a stunned hush fell over the people, as everyone stared at the hedgehog. "Is that what that thing was that flew over today?" someone said.

"Yes! The Egg Carrier!" Sonic said. "Get outta my way! I've got to make sure he doesn't hurt my friend!"

Behind him they whispered, "Who's his friend? Tails the fox?" "No, I saw her--a girl hedgehog." "I didn't know he has a girlfriend!"

Sonic bit back the hot words that rose to mind and fled out of earshot.

* * *

Amy ran through Pleasure Castle, Birdie held tightly to her chest, his little heart beating frenziedly against her own. Zero had knocked Sonic said like he was made of straw and came straight for her. She could weave through the crowds and escape for a while, but she was sure the robot wouldn't give up so easily. How had it gotten into Twinkle Park in the first place?

Birdie gave a strangled squeak, and Amy loosened her grip remorsefully. "Sorry, Birdie," she whispered. She slowed to a walk, panting, and gazed about her. She was in a sort of courtyard of grass adjacent to the back of the main castle. Off to her right was a sort of pond stocked with live fish, for those who wanted to try their hand at fishing. She didn't know that the previous day a large cat had fished there, but for a frog, not a fish.

Amy stood where she was, mechanically stroking her flicky's head and breathing, "It's okay, I won't let him get you." The bird slowly calmed, and so did she. "I wonder where Sonic is," she wondered aloud, turning toward the castle. She was just in time to see a cylindrical shape with arms leap over the fence to the left, land with a muffled clang and race toward her, arms outstretched. She let out a shriek and ran blindly, terror overcoming her senses.

The pink hedgehog's flight carried her around the pond in a circle, Zero gaining steadily. As she rounded it and ran back toward the castle, she saw several people walking out the back doors, laughing and chattering. She made for them as fast as her legs would carry her, ducked through the doors and slammed them behind her.

There. Those were exit-only doors, and Zero couldn't follow her once they were shut. "Whew," she breathed, slumping against the wall and patting her hair down. "That was close, Birdy." The flicky turned his large, fearful eyes on her and said his first word. "Yes." She gazed at him in surprise. "You can talk?" "Yes," the bird chirped again.

"What's your name?"

The flicky struggled to put it into speech, but ended with a chirp.

Amy sighed, "It must be tough having to learn a second language. C'mon, let see what's in here."

She strolled down the dimly-lit hallway. The carpeting was a rich red, and swallowed the sound of her footsteps. The only light came from lit candelabra that jutted from the walls in places, and it was perfectly silent. "This is creepy," Amy whispered, half-expecting Zero to appear around the corner at any second.

She stepped out of the hallway into a maze of mirrors. A thousand Amys stared back at her, all with mussed hair and pale, frightened faces. "Oh, these things are hard," the hedgehog said, placing the bird on her shoulder again. "You have to feel your way through. Maybe you can help me." She walked up to the mirrors, touching each. Sure enough, there was a passageway. She walked down it, found a glass wall instead of a mirror one, walked around it, turned several times, came to a dead end, doubled back, took another passage.

Suddenly Birdy's claws dg into her shoulder, little body drawing up as skinny as a stick. "What?" Amy exclaimed, looking around. She gasped. Mirrored around her was the green-eyed reflection of Zero. Where was he?

He moved, obviously seeing her as well. Amy whirled and ran, hands outstretched. Mirror wall, open to her left. She ran again, seeing the robot's reflection, but this time bigger. Wall left, all ahead, nothing right. It was like a nightmare. Amy could hear nothing above her own troubled breath and pounding feet, yet the image of Zero was everywhere. Was he behind her? Ahead of her? Confusion, fear, hateful solid mirrors, her own wide-eyed reflection staring back at her. Where, oh where did it end? Was she going in circles?

A colossal smash somewhere behind her announced that Zero had pounced on a reflection. "Seven years bad luck," Amy panted with what humor she could muster. "Birdie, we're lost!" Her breath was beginning to catch in her throat. Humor aside, she would lose it completely if she didn't escape soon.

A mirror gave under her touch. Thank heaven, an emergency exit. She burst through into the darkness of Twinkle Park, gasping, almost sobbing with relief. Forget about Sonic, she was getting out of there and going home. She plodded toward the park exit, too spent to run another step.

---

Chapter 16: Unexpected Aid

---

Tails crunched down a jungle trail, flashlight sweeping from side to side. "Yeah right, like I'd just find an emerald laying in the middle of the road," he muttered to himself. The night was full of the chirping of crickets and other insects, and his feet trampled the underbrush with a loud, healthy crunching.

Like Knuckles, Tails, had taken the trolley to the stone shelf in the jungle, but in the darkness could not see the pyramid. He did, however, see the ladder, which was how he reached the valley floor. Getting lost was the furthest thing from his mind, because all he must do was locate the high cliff and walk toward it.

The young fox's thoughts roamed far and wide, from Sonic to Knothole to the Tornado to Chaos. He was not thinking about the jungle about him. So it was that when the beam of his mag-lite caught something moving, his heart leaped into his mouth and he stopped dead. Were there wild animals out here? Would it attack him? He stood for a long time, light pointed at the thing. A pair of red eyes glinted back at him, blinking in the beam.

At last a familiar voice snapped, "Can you please point that somewhere else?"

"Kn-Knuckles?" Tails stuttered, lowering the flashlight.

"Aw, man," the echidna fussed off the in the darkness, "I can't see a thing now! Get over here and let me use your light. I can't do this in the dark."

Tails advanced timidly. Knuckles was standing over a vegetation-covered hill with a hole dug in the top of it, earth dimming his silver shovel claws. "Point it where I'm digging," the echidna commanded. Tails did so. "Thanks, Tails." Knux plunged into the hole like a dog digging for a bone, claws flinging dirt between his legs, eyes determined. "What're you doing here, anyway? I thought you and Sonic were off irritating Eggman."

Briefly the fox explained about being shot down, Sonic's disappearance, Tails' hunt for a chaos emerald. Knuckles listened, digging industriously, the hole rapidly deepening. "Sounds like you've had quite a day," he remarked as Tails finished, voice softening. "Tell you what. In exchange for the use of your light, I'll help you find a chaos emerald."

"Cool," Tails said, perking up. "What're you doing out here anyway, digging?"

"Looking for something," the echidna grunted. "In fact, I think I've got it." He clambered down into the hole and Tails held the light higher for him. Knux clawed, dug, yanked, dug some more, and finally lifted aloft a small statue of an echidna. He scraped the mud off it, and Tails saw the yellow gold glinting in the flashlight beam. "Treasure!" the fox gaped. "How'd you know it was there?"

Knuckles gave him an odd look. "Um, somebody told me to look here."

"Who?"

"Oh, just somebody."

Knuckles lifted his bag from where it lay in the grass and shoved the statue inside. "There," he said, dusting his hands off. "Now for your emerald. I saw one earlier, but I didn't touch it. C'mon."

Tails trotted along at the echidna's side, glad for his solid companionship, holding the beam at the ground ahead of their feet. "What color was it?"

"Purple, I think. It's not far."

They walked in silence for a few minutes, Knuckles watched the forest about them for landmarks and nodding to himself. Finally the trail swerved off to the left. The echidna halted and pointed. Tails aimed his light in that direction and saw a glint of magenta. The emerald was lodged solidly in the fork of a tree--if not for its soft glow it would have been invisible.

"There you go, kiddo," Knuckles said amiably. "Can you find your way back to the coast?"

"I think so," Tails said. He pointed westward. "That way?"

"Yep, you've got it. Well, I've got some stuff to do. I'll be seeing you."

"Thanks, Knux," Tails called as the echidna walked away into the night.

Now to get the emerald out of the tree. The fox spun his tails and jumped lightly up into the branches, set his light to point toward the emerald, and tried to lift the stone out. It wouldn't budge. On closer examination, Tails saw that the tree had actually grown over the edges of the emerald with time, sealing it tightly into the bark. He kicked his heels against the bark, chipping loose flakes, and tugged again. It still wouldn't budge. Tails looked around for Knuckles, thinking to call him back and ask him to use his claws, but the echidna was long gone. Tails would have to do it himself. He stamped on the emerald, jerked it back and forth, feeling the wood beginning to crack and give way. Certain he almost had it, he grasped it, set he feet against the branches, and pulled.

With a snap the emerald broke free. Tails fell backward out of the tree, hit the ground with a thump, then was struck on the forehead by the falling stone. "Ow!" he yelped, holding his head. Presently the pain faded to a dull ache, and the fox shook his head and looked around for the emerald. It was lying on the path a few feet away. Tails pulled his mag-lite out of the tree and stooped to pick up his prize.

To his surprise, something flashed under his hand and seized the purple gem--a large, golden-eyed frog. It looked at Tails for a second, then hopped away down the trail, gem in its mouth. "Hey, give that back!" Tails yelled, giving chase.

* * *

Sonic stood on the pavement outside Twinkle Park, looking around at the streetlights and people milling about. Amy was nowhere to be seen. "Great, I've lost her, too," Sonic muttered. "I'll bet that robot hauled butt after her. What a night this has turned into." He was at once glad Amy was gone and unhappy, too. He was sick and tired of being razzed for a 'cute couple', but at the same time worried about her. He had had to save her from robots for years before she moved away. He would probably have to do it again.

The blue hedgehog wandered down the sidewalk, his color blending with the darkness, wondering what he should do. He moved up to the tall building next door to Twinkle Park and gazed at the garage-type door. What was behind it? He looked at the access screen mounted on the wall beside it. Employees only. Access card required. "Probably some boring warehouse or something," Sonic thought to quell his curiosity. "I wonder if I could spot Zero from up above the street. He's about as big as a car."

Bored, worried and tired, the hedgehog crossed the street and moped toward the hotel. Nothing had gone right today. The train went on strike, Knuckles made them lose their emeralds to Chaos, they lost the biplane to the Egg Carrier ... now he had lost Tails and Amy. Sure would be nice if he FOUND something for a change.

Something chinked under his shoe. He looked down. A credit card? "Who would be stupid enough to lose a credit card?" Sonic thought as he picked it up. No, not a credit card--Employee card, Speed Highway, Mario Andretti. Well well, an access card to that weird building!

The hedgehog raced back across the street and slid the card into the slot. The screen blinked, "ID recognized. Welcome." The large door slowly lifted into the ceiling, revealing a large, darkened room beyond. Sonic entered cautiously; what was here and what was it for? His shoes clanked on the metal floor. In the light from outside he saw a small control panel on the wall. Squinting, he approached it. It appeared to be elevator controls. Experimentally he pressed floor 9.

He jumped as the door rolled shut again, shutting out the light. "Uh oh," Sonic said. "I've done it now." A whirring hiss of machinery starting up, and the floor jolted under him. He sensed he was moving upward. The entire thing was made for lifting vehicles far, far above the city's streets.

A bewildered hedgehog arrived at the ninth floor and found himself stepping onto a paved highway suspended between the skyscrapers. The roar of traffic met his ears. He had entered Sapphire City's Speed Highway.

Sonic broke into a glorious run. Oh, the joy of having an entire highway to himself! This was much better than building-hopping. Maybe he could spot Zero from way up here.

Two onramps, four offramps and a cloverleaf later, the screech of sirens tore the air. Sonic looked back and saw his old friends the Speed Police were once again on his tail. What were they doing up here, where it was OKAY to speed? Well, he would lose them.

He leaped from the road to a rooftop, scurried across it and leaped to the road on the other side, not daring to look at the ten or so stories that separated him from the ground. Several Speed Police motorcycles roared after him, jumping the gaps as easily as he had. Sonic ran for it, streaking along the highway, red sneakers a blur, eyes roaming the highway for somewhere to jump to. Ah ha, a high building rearing up on the right. Sonic leaped, whipped himself sideways in midair and shot along the front of the building horizontally, leaped from the edge, landed on an onramp and headed up it, putting a large chunk of space between himself and the police.

For a while Sonic jogged along, the wind blowing his spines about. It smelled of exhaust and the ocean. Every so often he stopped, looked over the railing and scanned the traffic below for a robot, but without success. Even if he could spot Zero in all that, what could he do? Jump on him? He could try it once, and his remains would be strewn across the headlines the next morning. "Fantastic suicide attempt by unknown hedgehog!" Yeah, right.

Suddenly he was almost run over by a Speed Police car. It had appeared out of nowhere, and was followed by a squadron of cars and motorcycles, a mass of red and blue flashing lights, megaphones commanding him to halt. "I'll never surrender, Overlanders!" Sonic shouted in rage, and fled away, once again the quarry. He would have to try something unthinkable to shake them this time.

* * *

Knuckles climbed the steps to the pyramid, hands sweating through his gloves. This was it. Now he would see whatever it was that that light wanted him to see. Carefully he lifted the gold statue and set in in the slot.

Something clicked in the stone beneath him--he felt it through his shoes. The statues were keys that activated ... something.

The square space between the two statues lit with a crack, yellow lightning playing through the chinks between the bricks. The bricks and mortar crumbled before Knuckles's eyes, leaving a gaping hole in the tier before him. He walked to the edge and looked in. It looked like a mine shaft, dropping away into nothing. It could be a trap; he knew how crafty his ancestors had been. Then again, would that pink light have showed him this if it WERE a trap? After all, it WAS an entrance into the pyramid.

The echidna drew a deep breath, swung in backwards, and began climbing down, metal claws grating on the stone bricks.

A few yards down all light vanished, and he descended in pitch darkness, cautiously securing each fisthold before moving down to the next. The bricks were dry and cold to the touch, laid in even, geometric rows to form a nearly smooth wall. There was no sound other than what he made himself, from both above and below. "I'd be worried if there WAS a sound," Knuckles thought. What would he do when he reached the bottom? He wouldn't be able to see anything. He supposed he could feel if there WAS a bottom, then borrow Tails's flashlight or something.

The air slowly became musty and damp, and wall slippery and beaded with moisture. The echidna began to slip, claws shrieking on the stone. He guessed he had descended several hundred feet--the top of the shaft was a dim grey dot high above him. How deep WAS this darn shaft?

Abruptly the sounds he was making echoed, as if he had descended into a large room. Knuckles paused and listened. There was a hint of sound on the edge of his hearing ... like water running a great distance away. "Hello?" he said, and it reverberated back at him from the four walls. It was pitch black. Where was he? Should he go back? Maybe he should climb a little lower and feel for the floor. After all, he would feel pretty silly if he found he had chickened out two feet above the ground.

He climbed a few fistholds lower, listening to the sound it made, feeling his way down. Suddenly there was no more wall below his feet. What? Empty space? He inched a bit lower, feeling the wall with his toes. The bricks ceased. He pawed at the smooth wall for a hold, but there was none. He was dangling by one fist. He tried to pull himself back up, to reach above the smooth area (probably ornamental tiling) to secure a better hold, but his claws couldn't support his weight long enough. They pulled loose, scraped across the wall, then nothing. He was falling.

Splash. Knuckles hit the water and gasped in terror. Would he drown? He pulled himself upright in the water and felt his feet touch the bottom. It was only three feet deep.

The echidna remembered reading a story once about some guy who fell down an eight-story well and was stuck there for a week, and ended up frost-bitten and hurt and other things. Maybe he would be stuck inside this pyramid for the rest of his life. Maybe he would die down here in the pitch dark.

For a moment Knuckles stood in the water up to his chin, fighting paralyzing fear of the dark unknown. Slowly he calmed. This place had been built by echidnas. He would be able to find an exit. There was always an exit. He drew a deep breath and let it out. First things first. Get out of the water.

He waded forward, hands extended. His ripples were obviously lapping some shore or bank nearby--he could hear it. The water's depth decreased. There-- a square edge, as if he were in a swimming pool. He climbed out. Cold stone floor. What in the world was this place? WAS it a swimming pool?

Suddenly, all about him, torches blazed into life on the walls, filling the vast room with clear light. Blinking with surprise, Knuckles looked about. It was a huge square room, bordered on two sides with water. Everywhere he looked were doorways; in the wall, near the ceiling, scattered across the walls at varying heights. In the ceiling was a single dark ventilation shaft, probably the one he had fallen out of. Under his feet was an impressed turquoise panel that had activated the lights. It was the same technology used in the Sandopolis pyramid, and the secret of its operation was long lost.

But which doorway led to the outside was a mystery.

* * *

"Give that back, you stupid frog!" Tails yelled. He made a grab for its hind legs, but it jumped out of the way just in time. "Ribit," it commented, hopping toward a nearby stream. "Oh no you don't!" Tails snarled, thoroughly angry by this time. He spun his tails and activated his anklets. He shot over the frog's head, landed and pounced.

The frog kicked and struggled, then did what all frogs do when picked up, but Tails knew all about catching frogs and how to hold them. "Give it back!" the fox growled, holding the amphibian under one arm and pulling at the stone in its mouth with the other. After a fierce tugging match, Tails won. He stood, panting, frog under one arm and chaos emerald in his hand. "Ribit," the frog said again. "Ribit yourself!" Tails snapped, still irked about the chase. "What would a frog want with a chaos emerald, anyway?"

The fox walked back along the trail, retrieved his flashlight, and trained it on the frog. It was a bright green with a white belly, and had brown dots and stripes on its back. It also had a long tail with a knob on the end--rather un-froglike. "Weird!" Tails exclaimed, examining it. "You must not have lost your tail when you were a tadpole! Good thing I caught you before you got in the water. You're probably a great swimmer." The frog blinked its golden eyes. "Tell you what," Tails said, tossing the chaos emerald up and down idly, "I'll take you back to the hanger with me, put you in that old wire crate, then put it in the runoff from the hydroelectric generator. I'd like to show you to Sonic."

Suddenly a small pink ball of light appeared out of nowhere, swooped around Tails' head, then buzzed right into his eyes. "Whoa! What's this?" the fox exclaimed.

He blinked and looked around, startled. He was no longer in the Mystic Ruins. He was--he didn't know where he was. He was standing on a paved path leading toward a towering pyramid a short distance away. To the right and left were other stone structures screened discreetly by trees, and smoke rose from fires of some sort here and there. The sun was clear and bright. It was about 8:00 in the morning.

Bewildered, Tails walked forward. The frog, the emerald and his light were all gone. How would he find them again? Had he been teleported?

A voice murmuring caught his attention. Tails saw a young echidna girl standing under a tree nearby, a faraway look in her eyes. He moved closer. She was saying softly, "The servers are the seven chaos. The unifier is the one who controls the chaos. Chaos is power enriched by the heart."

"Excuse me," Tails interrupted her, "but that's not what chaos is. Chaos is complete disorder."

She turned and looked at him. "I know it is. That's why I'm trying to figure out this saying. My grandmother taught it to me, and I'm never to forget it." She paused and tilted her head to one side. "All I know is, the number seven is the same as the number of chaos emeralds there are." For an instant her face clouded, as if some dark thought crossed her mind. It vanished as quickly as it came, and she extended a hand to Tails. "Are you for the Guardians or the Mainlanders?"

Tails stared at her. "Huh?"

The echidna looked at him, then said understandingly, "You must be new here. I'm sorry. Do you have any special abilities?"

Tails frowned. "What do you mean? I can fly." He demonstrated.

She nodded, then said, "I was thinking more of fight moves. You see, our nation is about to ... to go into battle," she stumbled over the words, "and all males must have some method of attack."

"Well," the fox said thoughtfully, "I can do this." He stepped back, then whirled about on his toes, tails cutting the air in a circle.

"That's good!" the girl approved. "Can you do it longer? Spin, I mean?"

"Nope," Tails said. "I get dizzy and fall down."

"You would be more dangerous if you could spin longer," the echidna said thoughtfully. "You need to develop a rhythm to spin to, like how ceremonial dancers move to music. Let's see if you can beat one as you spin."

Tails practiced for what seemed like hours, the echidna girl cheering him on. He had never thought much of his spin attack and had not developed it. But now, somehow, it seemed urgently important.

Then he had it. A certain angle to lean into, a certain one-two tap of his toes, a certain tilt of his arms, and he found himself spinning for two, three minutes at a time without tiring.

"You've got it!" his instructor cheered, clapping her hands.

"I've got it!" Tails grinned. He spun in several circles, saying, "If I --knew a song--that fit this--beat I--could sing it!"

"You sure could!" the echidna said. "Wait a minute." She dug into the pockets of her dress for a moment, and pulled out something and held it out to Tails. He took it. It was a small purple diamond shape with a blue rim, and attached to the bottom half were three short, curly feathers. It had a clip on the back, which the girl helped fasten to the fur on his chest. "This is a rhythm badge," she told him. "It's to remind you of your new move." Abruptly she gave him an odd look, then laughed. "I'm sorry! We've done all this, and I don't know your name. I'm Tikal."

Suddenly she was gone, and the sunny morning with her, as if it had been a projected image someone had switched off. Tails was standing in the Mystic Ruins, a purple chaos emerald in one hand, a flashlight under one arm and a frog under the other. But it had not been a dream, for he was standing near the wrecked bi-plane within view of the ocean, while before he had been on the other side of the mountain. And clipped to his chest was the little purple badge.

The fox blinked and looked around, confused. "Tikal?" he said into the night. "Where did you go?"

"Ribit," said the frog under his arm.

"Shut up," Tails replied. He turned in a circle, his light sweeping the area, but the girl was not there.

Someone else was.

"Hey! You've got my little buddy!" a low, slow voice called from down the hill. Tails turned and saw an enormous cat thundering toward him with a fishing pole in one hand. He looked as big as a charging elephant to Tails, who backed up and fell over a rock. The cat kept coming, getting larger by the second. Then he tripped and fell almost on top of Tails, who was too frightened to make a sound. Tails loosened his arm, freeing the frog, who, taking immediate advantage of this, gave a mighty leap, landed on the cat's head, leaped off and bounded away down the hill.

The cat slowly sat up. He looked as if he were about to cry. "Aww, now what am I gonna do?"

Tails sat up, fear ebbing. "You wanted the frog?"

The cat nodded.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Didn't mean to scare you," the cat said, standing up. He was taller than all the humans in Sapphire City. "I'm Big. See you later."

It took Tails a moment to realize that that was the cat's name, and not merely a statement of fact. By the time he made the connection, Big was already walking away down the hill.

"I'm Tails! Bye!" Tails called. "Weird," he added under his breath. "What was I doing?" He looked down at the gem in his hand and remembered. "Oh yeah! I was gonna put this in the Tornado! Time for liftoff, yah-hoo!" He bolted for the hanger, waving his flashlight and emerald above his head crazily.

One of the explorer humans looked out of his shack and saw the young fox tear by. He checked his watch. 2:00 AM. "Another of those loony Mobians," he muttered.

* * *

The night grew old. Knuckles explored, Tails worked, and the stars began to dim above Speed Highway, where Sonic was tiring rapidly of the Speed Police's eternal pursuit.

He had lost them for a while when the news came around to check him out, although he didn't know it at the time. All he knew was that the helicopter ahead of him was about to take off, and he could hitch a ride on one of the skids.

Sonic had leaped and grabbed ahold of the retreating skid, then jeered triumphantly at the police cars as they screeched to a halt below him. He was lifted up, up into the night sky, the rotors a blurred, noisy circle above him. He had held on, looking down at the streets a mile below and knowing if he let go, that would be it.

He became aware of voices in the chopper above him. He looked up and saw the side door was open and several humans and a camera were leaning out, looking down at him. He grinned at them and hollered, "Thanks for the lift!" Their faces registered shock an amazement. He returned his gaze to the cityscape below him. Ah ha, a rooftop coming at them, presumably to drop him off. In another second the cement expanse stretched below him. The hedgehog dropped, landed on his feet, ran and leaped off the edge, caught the edge of the nearby highway with his fingertips, scrambled up and was away.

That had thrown the Speed Police for a couple hours. Sonic nearly forgot about them in that time as he amused himself with running through the vast city. But now, as the east began to brighten and the city's roar dropped to a sleepy murmur, Sonic turned back toward Station Square. He needed to rest for a while.

The hedgehog had discovered a mounted rocket of some kind with a handle on it, and was looking it over when sirens split the air and four police cars bore down on him "The pest brigade is back," Sonic muttered. He was sick of them. He grabbed the rocket's handle and pulled it down.

He was yanked off the highway and shot almost straight up, the rocket roaring above him. A tall building was fast approaching. Was it set for the roof of that sucker? Sonic didn't think he could hold on for that long--his fingers were being slowly dragged from the steel handle by the intense force. He couldn't breathe. Closer, closer--

Sonic lost his grip and curled into a ball almost at the same time. At his speed he wouldn't stop anytime soon. He shot toward the building--smashed through a window, rolled to a stop and lay stunned for a moment.

After a moment he regathered his wits and sat up. He wasn't dead. He couldn't believe it.

He seemed to be on some sort of an observation deck--there were huge glass windows on all four walls, and lots of telescopes and maps mounted here and there.

Sonic stood and brushed bits of glass from his fur. Aside from a few small cuts on his right arm, he was unhurt. The window he had come through was in sorry shape, thought. Thoughtfully he laid a ten-dollar bill on a table--it wouldn't do much toward paying for it, but he only had twenty left--and walked toward the all-glass observation room.

He pushed his way through the metal posts and cordons, thinking they simply blocked the room off during the night, and stepped into the glass room that overlooked the city. It was like a glass box stuck to the side of the building. The lights of the city below were like a multi-colored Christmas tree, blinking or flashing. Sonic looked down through the glass floor to the street below ... and saw the large cracks snaking away from his sneakers.

He burst through the floor with a terrific crash and free-fell toward the street thirty stories below.

Sonic's mind was blank the first few seconds--he was dropping like a ton of bricks, feet first. He tilted forward. His feet struck the building front, moved automatically--and just like that he was running straight down the skyscraper. His mind cleared. He was back in control. This might even be fun.

Avoid the windowsills, dodge the powerlines, duck the helicopter hovering beside the building--what in the world is it doing, anyway?--everything a blur but the street below, growing bigger and more definite every second, cars moving, headlights--don't watch the street, stupid--the lobby coming up, weave through the decorative pillars, watch out, that one almost got you, glass skylight, feet first feet first!

The speeding hedgehog smashed through three skylights in a row and hit the lobby floor in a roll, arms over his head. Glass fragments rained down, most from the skylights, others from the broken observation deck high above. For a moment it sounded like a heavy rain as they plinked and shattered on the hard tile floor. They slowed and ceased after a few moments. Sonic uncurled and opened his eyes. He had challenged a sky scraper and lived to tell about it. Jubilant, he sat up--and found himself facing three shocked humans behind the reception counter, all staring at him openmouthed.

Sonic stood up, coolly dusted himself off, nodded to them and said, "The name's Bond. James Bond." Then he turned and strutted out the door.

The sky brightened as he hiked back to Station Square, turning the scattered clouds orange and gold. He couldn't see the sun when it rose at his back, but he saw it touch the highest buildings with warm color.

It was six o' clock by the time he reached Station Square. He had just enough energy left to check into the hotel, eat a weary breakfast and fall into bed.

He missed the news broadcast of a blue hedgehog who had been seen travelling the Speed Highway without a vehicle (which was illegal), and who had actually hitched a ride on the Channel 6 helicopter. There was also a report of that same hedgehog wantonly destroying the lobby skylights of the Twin Seeds observation tower.

"Oh, isn't he a dream!" Amy exclaimed, watching the television in her living room with eyes alight. "I have to find him today!"

Someone else was also watching the newscast--a tall, red and white robot with an energy cannon for a right hand.

E-102 Gamma had travelled and searched the coastline, but without success. No one had seen or heard of a tailed frog. If ever a robot could be discouraged, Gamma was. Rendezvous time was only a few hours off and he had turned up nothing. Master Robotnik would not be pleased.

Gamma stopped and watched the morning news in a shop window, along with a few early-rising humans. He recognized the blue creature. It was in his databanks to hate and kill him on sight. But this conflicted ever so slightly with the mind of his pilot, who was curious about why it should want to kill this creature.

"Them Mobians," a nearby human snorted at the newscast. "They're crazy."

* * *

Knuckles sat despairingly in one of the doorways twenty feet above the floor. He had explored, walked and crawled all over this place, and every single passage circled back to the main room. The only way out he could see was the shaft in the ceiling--the only opening he couldn't reach. He was discouraged, tired and hungry.

"Whatever that darn light wanted me to see," the echidna said aloud to the four walls, "I guess this room is it. Now I've seen it and I want out."

As if in response, that same pink ball of light appeared out of nowhere, circled his head, then shot down to floor level and into one of the doorways. Startled and relieved at the same time, Knuckles slid to the floor and followed it. It was waiting for him just inside the doorway, and again streaked away as he approached.

It led him a merry chase along the same passages he had seen before, then showed him a trick wall, a flight of stairs leading down, a maze of passages, and finally into a long, high room. It flew to the end of the room and waited for him, but Knuckles took his time. The path lay between two pools of water, flanked with carved pillars. Each pillar was set with gold, silver and jewels, and all were different. Some were engraved with snakes, lizards and evil demonic faces--others were life-like figures of echidnas that stared at him from the past with eyes of obsidian. Still others were non-echidna people, some of extinct species, that Knuckles knew must have befriended or helped the echidna clan in some way.

Slowly he approached the waiting light, gazing at the pillars in wonder. Was this what it had wanted him to see, this shrine or temple or whatever it was? He looked at the light, then up at the wall. A mural.

The lone echidna suddenly found himself face to face with the reason his ancestors vanished.

A second later the light flew into his face and blinded him. He stood quietly, knowing what was happening. He was going to see something weird.

Sure enough, suddenly he was standing on a rocky hill under open sky. "Man, wish I could take notes on this," he muttered as he looked about. With a start he realized where he was. He was standing in the Marble Gardens, and only a few hundred feet away was the shrine where the remains of the Master emerald was located. But this was obviously not his time--the shrine was intact, seven obelisks surrounding it at a distance, the fountain full and flowing. He moved closer.

Poised on top of each obelisk were the chaos emeralds, shining in the sun. On top of the pyramid/shrine, under the intact canopy, was the Master emerald. He squinted. Standing near it was the same girl--Tikal--that he had seen before. He crept up on tiptoe to see what she was doing.

Knuckles had not been inside the Sunset Resort's chao garden, but he had seen pictures of chao and knew what they were. About forty of them were clustered about Tikal's feet, all gazing up at her. She was saying to them, "I've tried everything, but my father won't listen. His heart is hard--he thinks of nothing but power. Oh, you have to do something!" Here she seemed to be addressing the Master emeralds itself, as if it could hear her. Knuckles watched her closely. She seemed to be waiting for an answer. Finally she sighed and said, "You can't leave here. If only--if only I could take the emeralds myself--"

At that there came a strange sound, as if the water in the fountain had growled in disapproval. Tikal shrank together and appeared frightened. "I'm sorry!" she said to the water. "I meant to hide them where my father could not find them, but I can't even do that." She looked down at the anxious chao and said, "Don't worry my little friends--I'll find some way to fix this." She walked down the pyramid steps, murmuring, "I must do something ..."

Knuckles blinked and looked about. That morning had been replaced with the one of his time. It was quite early--the sun had barely peered above the eastern mountains. He was standing at the foot of the shrine, the broken Master emerald at the top. He was out of the pyramid. "I'm back," he said, not quite believing it. Under his arm was his bag of emerald shards--he distinctly remembered leaving them outside the pyramid. This was getting quite freaky.

He climbed the pyramid steps thoughtfully. That mural had been a real eye-opener, and so had that vision or timewarp or whatever it had been. So Tikal had tried to keep the disaster from happening. Why had she spoken to the Master emerald? It was a non-sentient power gem, manufactured in the distant past. It responded to basic commands, like a computer, and acted as a power hub to the Floating Island's teleporters. If the thing could think and communicate he would have discovered it ages ago. Maybe Tikal had not been familiar with it. After all, she wasn't the guardian.

The echidna stepped onto the platform on top of the pyramid and saw someone in a sleeping bag curled against the base of the fractured emerald. He grinned and knelt beside the figure. "Talon, what are you doing out here?"

The anteater rolled over and looked up sleepily. His fur was a mouse brown, but his eyes were encircled with white, and a black stripe ran down between them to the tip of his nose. "Hi, Knux," the youngster said. "I wanted to be sure I caught you before you left again." He sat up and yawned.

"You little creep," Knuckles said affectionately. He liked this kid a lot. He stood, opened his bag and turned it upside down over the Master emerald. The four fragments clinked out and fused into the stone. To Knuckles' surprise, there was a lot more of it there than he had thought. Only perhaps two large pieces were missing.

Talon stood up and smiled shyly. "The Chaotix and me found a couple pieces laying around here and put them back. Hope you don't mind."

"Mind?" Knuckles said roughly, grabbing the anteater in a headlock and giving him an indian burn, "of course I don't mind!" Talon struggled, laughing breathlessly, and Knuckles let him go.

"Seriously though," Talon said, "I wanted to give you these before you left." He turned away, dug around in his sleeping bag, and produced a pair of yellow gloves. Knuckles looked at them closely as Talon explained, "They're fighting gloves, real leather. We put our money together to get them for you. Nice metal knuckles, by the way."

Knuckles slid off his shovel claws and gloves and pulled on the new pair. They were much thicker than his old ones, but soft and flexible. He strapped his shovel claws on over them and took a few practice air swings. "Hey Tal, stand still for a minute."

"Drop dead, sir," Talon grinned, backing away.

Knuckles advanced in mock ferocity. "If you don't want your face pounded in, I suggest you get me something to eat. I haven't had anything since breakfast yesterday."

Talon's eyes widened in instant seriousness. "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't know that. I'll be right back." He dashed away down the stairs.

Knuckles gazed after him, grinning. Talon idolized him, perhaps even looking to him as a father, as his own had died tragically several years earlier. He was a good kid.

Knuckles sat down and gazed glumly at the Master emerald. Now that he was alone his previous, melancholy thoughts returned. With his luck, those missing pieces were somewhere in the bottom of the ocean.

---

Chapter 17: A kidnapping

---

Amy strolled along the street into Station Square, eyes roaming the area for a blue hedgehog. Her flicky sat on her head, feathers fluffed against the cool morning air. She reached up and patted him. "We'll find Sonic and hang out with him today. How's that sound?" Birdy said nothing, and Amy smiled to herself at the thought. Sonic on Speed Highway! How brave of him! She would have been frightened to death.

The pink hedgehog stood near the pier for a moment, gazing out at the tranquil blue ocean. Far, far out, along the horizon, was a dim blue line she knew was the breakwater that helped form the bay. "Hey Birdy, why are seagulls called seagulls?" Amy asked. Birdy shrugged his wings and chirped he didn't know. "Because if they flew over a bay, they'd be called bagels." Amy laughed at her own joke, then turned toward the Sunset hotel.

A shadow fell over them. Amy glanced about, then looked up--and scrambled backward with a shriek as Zero hit the pavement where she had been standing. Before she could so much as take a step, one of the robot's huge hands closed around her and lifted her off her feet. The other hand grasped the flicky. Amy screamed in terror, but it was one of those intervals when the street was completely empty. Not even Metal Sonic could have planned a better time for a kidnapping.

The big robot rolled up the train station's steps, burst through the doors, jumped up the stairway to the train platform, and rolled down the tracks into the glass tunnel that led toward the Mystic Ruins. Amy struggled helplessly--her arms were pinned--and happened to glance down at the street. "Sonic!" she screamed.

The blue hedgehog jumped and looked around wildly. "Sonic, help me!" Amy shrieked again. There, he had seen her at last. She caught a glimpse of him running toward the station, then the buildings blocked her view.

Sonic tore into the station, heart thundering in his chest. He raced up to the ticket booth and asked the guard, "Are any trains running today?"

"Yes, the strike ended this morning," the guard replied. "A train is due in five minutes."

"I can't wait that long!" Sonic exclaimed. "See ya!" He dashed for the tracks. If Zero could get through, then so could he.

* * *

Five minutes later, the train pulled in and the doors opened. A large green frog hopped out with a plop, gave a croak and hopped down the stairs, out the station doors and out toward the beach.

A moment later a large purple cat disembarked, looked about despairingly, shouldered his fishing pole and walked out into the Square.

* * *

Sonic pelted along the train tracks. They were remarkably hard to run on, but in many places it was either them or lose ground finding a way around impassable terrain. Zero had set his wheels to the tracks somehow and had zipped ahead at eighty miles an hour, while Sonic was limited to a measly sixty-five to avoid wrecking his ankles. Why oh why was this the first thing that had to happen this morning? He had awakened feeling hung-over from eating too heavily right before bed, and so had eaten nothing when he got up. Now here he was, an hour later, wide awake and with nothing inside him. Curse that Amy, she was always getting into trouble. Let Robotnik robotize her for all he cared. No, no, he took that back. He DID care about what happened to that silly girl and her silly bird. He wouldn't be here, risking his neck to run along the treacherous railroad ties, if he didn't.

Panting and limping on a twisted ankle, Sonic arrived in the Mystic Ruins. He sensed something above him and looked up to see the Egg Carrier's monstrous underbelly hanging quietly in the air. Oh great. Oh great. Sonic dashed for the station platform and looked toward the ground below. Zero was rolling slowly up the hill, still carrying Amy and her bird. "Hold it right there, bolt bucket!" Sonic yelled.

The black and green garbage can turned and looked up at Sonic scornfully. "Sonic!" Amy cried. She was sobbing with fear and stress, tears streaking her face.

"Let her go!" Sonic commanded, vaulting from the platform and stalking toward the robot.

A turquoise beam appeared around Zero and lifted him in the air toward the distant Egg Carrier. Sonic jumped for his feet and missed, landing on his hands and knees inside the beam.

"Sonic, help me!" came Amy's tearful voice once more--then she and the robot were gone and the beam switched off.

"No! Stop!" Sonic hollered futilely. "Oh man, oh man ..."

The Egg Carrier turned and began to drift off in a southerly direction. Sonic watched it a moment, paralyzed with indecision. He could looked around for Tails--but if he did, he'd lose sight of the Carrier.

With a gulp Sonic headed after the steel cloud. He hoped it was the right choice, and forced himself not to dwell on the image in his mind of an orange-furred body lying motionless in the grass.

* * *

E-102 Gamma strode into the Station Square hotel and walked up to the manager. "Good day," he said in his electronic monotone. "Have you seen a large, tailed frog recently?"

After looking the robot up and down, the manager decided not to ask questions. "I think so, sir. A large frog went toward the beach about twenty minutes ago."

"Affirmative," Gamma replied. "Thank you." He turned and clanked toward the doors that opened on the beach.

The big robot stepped onto the deck that surrounded the swimming pool and was instantly the center of attention as all the early swimmers stared at him. "Greetings," he said to them. Have any of you seen a large frog recently?"

After a short silence, a human girl floating on a raft in the pool said, "You're the second person today to ask about that frog. It went hopping by here a little bit ago--it went thataway." She pointed toward the beach.

"Affirmative, thank you," Gamma said, and strode toward the beach.

Behind him, the girl tittered to her sister, "He walks like a chicken! What a funny looking machine!"

Gamma's visual sensors swept the beach. A few humans here and there, but no frog. He walked toward the water to gain the support of the hard sand, then walked along, scans sweeping from side to side. There were lots of waterlogged boards on the sand, and further out, the boardwalk over the water stood here and there in fragments, wood floating beneath the existing sections, as if a tidal wave had hit. Sitting alone at the end of the broken pier was a cat with a fishing pole. Gamma stepped onto the pier and watched the cat cautiously for a moment. He had never seen a creature sit so still for so long.

Suddenly the cat jerked his rod, lowered it and began reeling something in. Gamma stood silently and watched as the cat let out line, reeled it in, let it out, reeled in more. Presently he reached down into the water and lifted--a tailed frog! Gamma's video sensors zoomed in on it, at the same time comparing it to the picture Master Robotnik had displayed. A perfect match! This must be the frog he was searching for!

Big removed the hook from the exhausted frog's mouth and hugged him. "Oh Froggy, I found you!" he crowed, then laughed out loud. He had finally caught his straying friend. "Now I'll take you home where you can get all better again."

Gamma's approach to the situation was simple. He walked up to the cat, took the frog out of his hands, and walked back up the beach toward the hotel.

"Hey!" Big cried. "Give my froggy friend back!" When the robot did not listen, Big gave chase. "Please, give him back, I'm beggin' ya!"

The two vanished in the direction of the train station.

* * *

Tails was slumped against the nose of the Tornado, a wrench held limply in one hand, sound asleep. He didn't hear the hanger door slam, or the tramp of heavy boots. A rough hand shook his shoulder. "Hey kid ..."

"Okay Sonic, I'm coming," the fox mumbled.

"Hey kid, wake up," the voice said again.

Tails' half-focused eyes opened. He blinked and sat up. It wasn't Sonic, it was Mac, owner of the airstrip.

The fox straightened with a jerk. "Oh man, I didn't mean to fall asleep! Look, I'm sorry about the other two planes, but one got shot down by the Egg Carrier and the other one's engine blew up--"

"It's okay, calm down," the human said amiably. "Those planes were hunks of junk anyway. That you flew them at all is a surprise."

Tails stood up and stretched. "So you're not mad?"

"Naw." Mac strode across the empty hanger and slung his duffelbag in the corner. "Sure is good to be back. My sister's kids all need a good hiding. I was about to go crazy." He paused and looked at Tails. "Is the Egg Carrier that thing that flew over the city yesterday?"

"Yeah," Tails replied, tightening the bolts that held in the chaos emerald and converter. "I was going after it again as soon as I finished."

Mac watched Tails out of the corner of his eye as he filled the coffeepot in the corner. The fox was working busily, now tightening bolts with a power drill, now welding something into place, watching from behind the protective dark mask. The kid had been going at it hard all night; Mac could tell by the rings around his eyes. Tails was in no condition to be flying. "Could I talk you into knocking off work and getting some rest?" Mac asked.

"Nope," Tails replied without turning. "I just had some sleep, and I need to catch that ship before it's too late."

A few minutes later Mac brought Tails a chipped mug of steaming black coffee. "Drink this, then," he said, sipping one himself. "You'll need to be awake."

Tails took a drink and gasped. "Gosh, that'll put hair on your chest!"

"Strong enough to lift a safe," Mac grinned. "Drink up. I have to tell you something after you finish."

Tails gulped the coffee, feeling its searing heat warm him to the core. Mac opened a paper sack he had brought in, and handed out donuts. Between the coffee and the donuts, Tails felt wider awake than ever, and ready for action. "What'd you want to tell me?" he asked, setting down his still-warm cup and licking his fingers.

"The Egg Carrier flew over about twenty minutes ago," Mac said.

Tails shot to his feet. "Ohmigosh, why didn't you say so? I gotta get moving!"

"That's why I didn't," Mac said calmly, sipping his coffee. "It went southeast."

Tails flung the tarp off the Tornado, kicked the blocks from under its wheels and jumped into the cockpit. "Good luck, kid," Mac called as Tails taxied for the automatic hanger doors. "Kick Robotnik's tail for me!"

Tails gave him a thumbs up and headed for the wild blue yonder.