Chapter 15: A Nightmare in the Making

Things had calmed down once again. As far as Amy was aware, everything was back to normal. Knuckles was up at Angel Island, Tails was down in his workshop, and Sonic was running around Mobius. "Ah… Sonic…" she sighed. She was sitting on her bed, gazing out the window. She was rolling the stem of a flower between her fingers absentmindedly. She glanced down at it and grinned. Pulling a petal, she said, "He'll love me soon." Pulling another, "He'll love me later." Petal by petal fell onto her lap as she said, "He'll love me soon… He'll love me later…" over and over and over again, petal by petal, until she got to the last one and frowned. "Aw man! He'll love me later!"

"More like never," Cream giggled at the doorway.

"Hey!" Amy flushed. "How long were you standing there?"

Cream merely smiled.

Amy pouted. "Someday, Cream. Someday I'll prove to him how great I am!"

"In your dreams," Cream laughed again. "Mr. Sonic likes you, sure. Just not… like that."

"Hmph!" She stood up and collected the petals from her mangled flower. "He will, Cream. You mark my words! He will love me soon!"

"You mean later…" the giggling rabbit left.

Amy stared off after her, clutching the petals in her hand. "Sure… sooner or later… someday…"

.

Robotnik had been hard at work for several weeks on this machine. At the top was a large satellite-like dish with a powerful antenna at its center. It was so large and so tall, he kept it in a separate room, with an open roof. After all, it had a signal to send out.

He typed in a few more lines of code to polish it all off. He scanned it several more times before he was ready to activate it. "I've got it," he mused. "And with this radial satellite, it should span far enough." He grinned, his cheeks raising as his full set of teeth was visible. He had never been so excited to test out an invention. He turned back toward the robots he built especially for this. "Ready, boys?" He held up a finger. "Go!" he pressed the button down. With red glows, his robots activated. With a vibrating, warbling sound, his machine powered up. "Time for your nightmares to come true, Sonic and friends…"

.

Tails hadn't actually been working on anything down in his workshop. He couldn't concentrate ever since his big mistake with the Master Emerald. He had not seen Knuckles since the blowout, and no matter how much Sonic said in his little buddy's defense, he knew he didn't deserve it.

Sure, Rouge turned out alright. She must have helped them in the end. The emerald was back safe and sound, after all. No thanks to him.

That's when he felt it. A shudder, a tremble in the air itself as well as the earth. Was it some sort of earthquake?

He quickly climbed the ladder to investigate. Outside, the horizon was red, as if fire trimmed the sky. He saw Sonic running over to him. "Tails, you alright?" he said.

"Yeah… I'm fine… What was that?" Tails asked.

"Some sort of earthquake," Sonic said. "It tore down the house."

"What?!" Tails gasped. "Is everyone alright?"

"I'm not sure. I can't get in there. I thought you could help."

"You can count on me!" He spun his tails eagerly.

Sonic smiled. "I know."

.

Cream hid behind the rubble, trembling. "I-It's so dark…"

"Where did Amy go?" Sonic looked around them. Amy was nowhere to be seen. "And what was that shaking? An earthquake?"

"Mr. Sonic…" Cream clutched onto his fur, which hurt a little.

"Ow, Cream!"

She pointed. "M-Monsters!"

As impossible as it seemed, monsters were creeping toward them. Sonic stared, wide-eyed. "We need to get out of here! Let's get Tails and make tracks."

"Tails!" Cream pointed.

They looked back toward the workshop. Tails was being taken by one of the monsters.

"Buddy!" Sonic jumped up and ran at the beast. "Get your claws off him, creep!"

But it was like moving through molasses. He wasn't gaining speed. He ran like he was running in slow motion, allowing the beast to carry Tails off with ease. He felt heavy and weak. "What… What's going on…?"

Cream easily caught up to him. "Mr. Sonic?"

"I… I don't feel so well…" He stopped, huffing, as the monsters closed in on them.

.

"Get your hands off me, you freak!" Amy wriggled and kicked, but the flying creature—whatever it was—wouldn't let her go.

That was, until it found a ditch in the ground, grey with dust and wet with stagnant water, and threw her in. She landed hard.

"Jerk!" Amy called, shaking her fist. She still didn't get a good look at the creature before it flew off. She stood up, wiping down her dress and kicking wet grime from her shoes. Wrapping her arms around herself she looked up. "Sonic!" she called. "Tails! Cream! Anyone?"

She was alone. She hated being alone. She always had someone nearby. Even as Sonic ran from her, he was never far away. Cream was always with her at her home. Even Tails was within shouting distance if she needed help from him. She always made sure of that.

Now, she was scared. "Guys? Guys!" Surely, they saw her get carried off, right? No… too much had happened all at once. Too much… "What's going on?" She turned around and stared up at the wall of her ditch. She furrowed her brow. "I need to figure out what's going on!"

She set her mind to climbing out. She readied herself to sprint, then took off in her first attempt to run up the side of the hole.

.

Rouge flapped her wings. Something was off.

She flapped them again. She couldn't fly!

Her throat tightened as she began to panic. "What's going on?" she asked, flapping her wings as fast as she could but not lifting off the ground. It was just like that radiation emerald had her again, like Catnap was keeping her from flying, trying to drop her down a chasm.

But no, Catnap was gone. Back to being a petty gem collector—of everything except emeralds, she had sworn. The cat wouldn't be bothering her or her friends again.

So what was happening now?

"Where's the emerald, Rouge?" a familiar voice had entered her cave in silhouette once more.

"Really, have you learned nothing?" Rouge growled, irritated more than usual in her own panic. "I'm not after your precious emerald!"

Knuckles crossed his arms. "And Catnap?"

"True to her word."

"Then where is it?!"

"How would I know? Besides… I have my own problems, if you don't mind—"

Knuckles smirked. "At least you admit it."

"How dare you!"

.

Tails flew Sonic over to the house. Or what was left of it. It was rubble now, and Tails began digging desperately through it. After awhile, they were getting nowhere, and there was no sign of their friends.

"Sonic! I can't find anyone!" he called.

"That's no good," Sonic said. "Keep looking."

"What happened? What was all that shaking? Do you think it was the chaos emeralds?"

"Maybe."

Suddenly, the wind whipped up around them. "Whoa!" Tails held on to a large piece of the hut to keep from lifting up. "What's going on now?!"

A tornado was funneling around the house, tearing it up even more. "Tails," Sonic reached out his hand.

Tails tried to grasp it, but he couldn't reach. He flew forward, but Sonic spun away from him. "Hold on, Sonic! I'll get you!"

"You sure, Tails?"

"Yeah, hold on!" He flew into the funnel, getting swept up in its powerful winds. But he could reach Sonic now. He grabbed his friend by the elbow. "Gotcha!"

"Tails, I think you made it worse. How are we going to get out?"

"I can get out. Don't worry!" Sure enough, Tails began to fly out of the storm, but the minute he reached the edge, Sonic was jerked back, out of his grasp. "Sonic!"

"Tails, what did you do?"

"I—"

"Forget it. I'll run my way out." Sonic kicked his legs, but he wasn't going anywhere. Of course not. His feet weren't finding purchase on anything.

"Hold on, Sonic! Let me try again!"

"No. Don't bother."

Tails stopped, shocked.

"It won't work."

"But I—"

Just then, the storm picked up. Tails held up his arms as pieces of the house were now blown around. He landed on the ground beside the tornado, his tails spent. He looked up and saw that the funnel had moved away. It was whipping around, tearing about the landscape, and Sonic was still inside!

"Sonic!" Tails ran after the storm, spinning his tails for momentum.

But he couldn't catch up to it.

"Sonic!"

He fell to his knees. He had failed. Sonic was being carried off to who knows where?

.

Amy set her jaw. She was covered in sludge and dust, but she had stopped wiping it off long ago. She crouched like a runner in a race, aiming towards the third attempted spot on the walls of the ditch for her twenty-something attempt to get out.

She burst forward, grasping at the edge in the places she knew there would be hand holds from her other few attempts at this edge. She ran as far as she could before she started to slip and let her arms pull her up the rest of the way… But she never quite got the rest of the way.

She slid down again, falling to her knees at the bottom. It was no good. She'd have to try another place. She turned again, then readied herself to run again. She had been at this for what seemed like hours, though it couldn't have been more than one.

She wiped her forehead, painting a smudge of sludge across it. "Alright, come on…" she mumbled to herself before taking off again.