Disclaimer: I do not own any of the recognized characters or gameplay patterns within this fanfiction. Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails, Eggman, Blaze, and all related characters of such are owned by SEGA.


The storm came out of nowhere, the wind buffering the Tornado 2. Tails winced as he heard a loud whine come from the engine. At first, when he had started to fly the Tornado, Tails had checked the weather as he always had, even if it was in the back of his mind. Exactly as he always did whenever he needed or wanted to fly somewhere.

It was supposedly clear from his house in Mystic Ruins all the way to Eggman's new base in Adabat. It did go over the area known as the "Blacksand Islands", an area known for ships going missing, but Tails wasn't worried. Those were ships, not planes.

He'd been doing this for years now. Eggman would pop up, he and Sonic would stop him. At this point it was almost a competition between them to see who would be able to stop him first.

Eggman, for his part, had been keeping fairly low. Since his last big attempt at a hostile takeover, he'd mostly been doing 'small', relatively speaking, takeovers of islands and such. Sonic and Tails got to them just as quickly as the big ones. They had taken to watching from other parts of the world, with Sonic always traveling and Tails local to his house in the Mystic Ruins, always ready and waiting for his next attack. They had gotten a call from someone in the Adabat region this time, suggesting they'd found his latest base. Could they do a surprise attack? Tails wanted to, and set out immediately.

But this storm...the wind came first, blowing his fur around and making almost waves of turbulence. Tails was a professional pilot though, and something like a little turbulence wasn't going to get to him or shake him down.

Then came the rain, and then the hail. It was still warm, and if anything that spooked Tails more than anything. He wasn't the little kid that he once was, but a perfectly sunny and warm day suddenly turning to hail, while still being warm? As in, he could still feel the sun on his fur, despite there being complete cloud cover.

No, something weird was going on. He looked down for a moment, seeing the black sand beaches down below. A sudden storm out of nowhere, in an area known for ships disappearing...that would be his luck, after all. Guess the stories affected planes too.

He reached for his radio. "This is Skyfox, calling any and all towers in the area. Reporting strange weather patterns over current coordinates. Repeat, this is Skyfox reporting strange weather patterns over current coordinates," he said. He passed it along with the data packets, knowing that it would be more likely to be heard if he didn't just say them.

"Skyfox, this is Blacksand Island Control, coordinates received. Please repeat strange weather patterns, over." It chirped back less than a minute later.

"Hail in the sun, complete cloud cover but still warm. This isn't normal, I hope?"

"We don't see anything unusual, Skyfox. We do see you on radar. Change course to south by southwest to wait out...whatever it is that's going on."

"Copy. Skyfox out," Tails said. Sonic would definitely get to Eggman first now. Oh well, he had bigger problems to deal with, such as the storm that suddenly appeared overhead. The clouds were an angry gray, fast moving in circles. Was there a tornado chance now too?

He gently turned the plane, matching to the new direction of Blacksand Island Control. He gave another quick look at his instruments, specifically at his power gauge. The Chaos Emerald he'd put in the front was doing its share of the work.

Suddenly his power dropped to zero, and Tails had to quickly turn on the other energy packs he'd had installed. There was a raucous bump, but Tails managed to hold steady. "That's not good..." he muttered. Had the converter gone and blown itself up again? Last time that happened he'd ended up crashing in some and ended up having to join Sonic to defeat Chaos, the chao god of destruction...or whatever it actually was. Knuckles refused to tell him.

Admittedly, a Chaos Emerald that was connected to a malfunctioning converter could do something like create a storm. There wasn't much they couldn't do, if Tails had to be honest.

But what they couldn't do was make a giant metal snake slowly rise out of the ocean, a large pulsating glow appearing at the tip of its head. Tails looked with widened eyes, and he let out a soft sigh as he saw the clear glass that showed Eggman sitting in its cockpit.

"Now that's just my luck," Tails murmured. He tried pulling up, only to find his controls were locked by the switch to manual power. "Oh come on..." He checked his internal ring count, just in case he needed to bail. It wouldn't be the first time he'd had to rebuild the Tornado 2, and he kept the specs up to date at his lab, along with extra materials.

The snake, similar in scope to the Egg Viper that Sonic had told him about years ago, opened its vents. With a terrible light, the laser fired, and sheared off the entirety of the left side of the Tornado 2, and a good chunk of the right top half. Down to less than a quarter of the plane, Tails grabbed a small bail-bag and jumped out.

The laser had cost him a good chunk of his rings, and he mentally reached out to grab at least one as he fell. "Ha ha! Take that, foxboy! Try to get in my way again now!" Eggman's voice called out via megaphone.

"Won't need a plane to do it..." Tails murmured. He used his tails to soften his fall, hopeful that the Tornado 2 wasn't too damaged, and he could quickly pick up the Chaos Emerald and get to an easier place to attack. The plane crashed a moment later with a resounding crack, and Tails winced internally. It was going to be busted beyond belief, he knew that.

"Now to try out my new weapon! Let's see how Sonic fares with you against him!" Eggman shouted, a smaller glow appearing around the entirety of the re-made Egg Viper, an ominous purple glow surrounding the vents.

"Haven't you tried that one already!? Come on, mind control doesn't work, remember!?" Tails yelled back. The glow stopped for a moment. He knew Eggman could hear him, but did that actually make him rethink his decision? He did hate to be cliche after all...

Tails landed softly on the ground, despite having fallen nearly a thousand feet. Being able to hover and fly definitely had its advantages, and he'd kept up his back muscles specifically for that advantage over the years.

"I did try that before, didn't I? That was the Hyper-Go-On energy version, wasn't it? The one that created the frenzy wisps."

"And the Void. And the black hole right in the middle of your theme park, yeah. You've also tried capture and torture, that didn't work either. On both of us."

"Yes, I'm not making that mistake again," Eggman said. There was a shudder in his voice. "Hmm..I know. Why don't I just destroy you now!?" he finished, the glow becoming a different color now, from its purple to a whitish blue.

"You can just say kill, doc. Not going to manage it, but you can at least say it," Tails answered. He took off towards the wreckage, his tails spinning furiously behind him. Almost there...his bail-bag whipped around side to side behind him as he ran.

"Ha! Welcome to your end, Miles "Tails" Prower!" Eggman shouted. Tails rolled his eyes as the Viper stood up further, aiming downwards towards him. The glow became a dark blue, before small electric bolts shot out from the sides. "What? No!" Eggman shouted suddenly.

Tails stopped as he reached the Tornado 2, his hands busy with trying to get the Chaos Emerald and his converter off of the plane. He watched with one eye on the Viper as lightning suddenly struck the machine, turning the dark blue glow a brilliant gold.

Then the laser fired, and Tails gripped his one pitiful ring as hard as he could in his mind. The laser blew around him, a small concussive force knocking him onto his tails, but there was no pain, and his ring stayed with him.

He kept falling. Lights went past him at a pace Sonic could only hope to match. The scenes changed from all of everything to some of all. It wasn't just colors, but all places that he'd been, everything he'd ever hoped for, was suddenly turned to reality beyond dreams.

He recognized it after a long moment. "The Special Zone...?" he asked, his voice echoing far. The landmasses shifted underneath him, and he kept falling. There was no rhyme or reason to the Special Zone, the place that the Chaos Emeralds had once called home.

His bail-bag had stayed with him, Tails noticed, but the Tornado 2 and its own Chaos Emerald had stayed behind. Had Eggman created a laser, by accident, that triggered a Special Zone? And by what rules did this one play?

Tails spun his namesakes, hoping to get some idea of where he was in the shifting chaos. There was no air, per se, and nothing could give him lift. It wasn't spinning, or rotating, but simply changing.

Whatever rule it played by, he must have failed, as the scene suddenly turned to a brilliant white. Good, now he could grab the Chaos Emerald from the Tornado 2 and show Eggman why experimenting with technology was a bad idea during a storm.

Although...had the Viper gotten wet? It had just come from the ocean, so obviously it was, but had it caught any of the rain? The lightning had affected it, but Tails wasn't sure if the rain had. The grass had been dry when he'd landed. The surroundings sped up around him, and he hoped that it was close to the end.

He was suddenly accelerated out of the Special Zone, and he gripped his heart with iron. The Special Zone would always spit him out at the same point that he came in. So when this one ended in a few moments, he'd be face to face with his nemesis. He wouldn't be afraid, not of Eggman, not after all he'd been through.

It spat him out next to a tree, with surprising enough force that he had to use his tails to dodge out of the way. That had never happened before; usually the Special Zone nullified all momentum. And it always spat him out at the same location, so this was new. Maybe it was because of the way he'd gotten there? Sure a lightning-charged laser...although if it was a chaos-created storm, Tails could see that causing some changes.

There was no sound, Tails heard instantly. There were trees all around him, most of them taller than any he'd seen before. There was no sign of the Tornado 2, and there was no sign of Eggman either.

He forced himself up, and looked around a bit better. There was no clearing, and it was complete luck he hadn't been sent straight into a tree. The grass here was wet, but there was no way to see the sky from here. Keeping his bail-bag tied to his waist, he flew up to the tops of the trees.

He remembered the Blacksand Island. It was known for its black sanded beaches, a type of ore that was heavily magnetic when charged with an electrical current. It was also a large island, with only a small forest of tiny trees that were barely larger than Tails was. Had he been shrunk? These trees didn't look like those ones though, in any way. These ones stood tall and thick, a large brown coating of bark.

If anything, these looked closer to the trees on Angel Island. As Tails flew up, a dodged around a few branches, and aligned himself up to the tallest branch he could see.

Trees as far as the eye could see, around mountains and through valleys, a veritable sea of greenery. "Weird..." he murmured. He grabbed into his bail-bag, reaching for the compass. He stood stock still as it took its bearing...and began to spin.

He put the compass back, and sat down for a moment. He looked behind him, expecting to see anything he recognized, only to be greeted by more trees.

"Not the weirdest thing that's happened to me," Tails murmured. He jumped down, slowing his descent with his tails. "Right, new place, never been here. Got here through a Special Zone, which means there's a connection from there and here. If I can find a star post, or a teleportation ring, I can find my way back," Tails said aloud.

"Supplies...just my bag," he finished. It had all the essentials; a guidebook for basic survival, his Miles Electric tablet, water, a compass, a few meals worth of food bars, rope, and a first aid kit. Everything he'd need.

Knuckles' words echoed to him. "If you're ever in an unfamiliar place and don't know anything about it, find running water. Almost all civilizations will pop up next to water."

"Right then...to find running water then," Tails said, a grin as he sped off into the thick forest woods.

-Side B-

There was always something magical about fire, Blaze knew. The way the flames would dance around in the wood or fuel, always flickering and wavering, and yet emitting a constant heat that soothed the soul.

And that was when Blaze wasn't trying to control it.

She watched the flame dance around in her hand, burning nothing but the air, emitting no heat. There were few times when the cat was bored, but this was one of them.

She was on a boat, a wooden boat, sailing halfway across the world because there was yet another crisis on the continent over. And because there was a crisis, everyone expected her to get up and help.

It was never easy, being the Guardian of the Sol Emeralds. Usually it was an extremely lonely position, however through the hard work of others, if not herself, she'd found herself a few friends. Such as the tanuki Marine, an aquakinetic who should have been pushing the boat along, but was instead sleeping off a far too late night down in the hold.

Blaze knew quite a bit about a lot of different things, although sailing was not exactly her forte. She could do it, as in she could set the sails and the direction based on the wind, or set an engine to keep going if the wind was wrong, but she wasn't the best.

Unlike said aquakinetic whose ability it was to literally control the water.

Marine was not her first or closest friend. That had to go to a tiny rabbit and her chao, named Cream and Cheese. Of course, those two were a world away. Silver came up close, although how she knew of the silver hedgehog was...strange. Memories jumbled in her mind, but she pushed them back down with a master's grace.

A small island caught the corner of her eye. "Land ho, I suppose," she murmured, slowly turning the sails to move there. While she was used to water and could balance easily, there was always a sense of rejoice when she took her first steps upon land.

Marine would probably sleep through the entire day, if Blaze knew her any at all. Usually the excitable tanuki wouldn't know when to quit, and considering she'd been up until late this morning...Blaze didn't blame her, but sometimes it'd be nice if she went to sleep at a normal time and thus woke up at one!

The island mass slowly grew larger and larger over the course of the several hours it took to finally get there. Blaze entertained herself with small bursts of fire in seemingly random areas, such as in the water or behind the sail. She knew how to use her fire to make wind behind the sails, if they needed to go fast, but she was usually quite fast on her own, and it's not as if Eggman Nega was anywhere nearby. Or anywhere on her world.

She didn't know exactly how it happened, but somewhere within the last few years Eggman Nega had simply...disappeared. There was no warning, no sense of relief, just an odd foreboding feeling that made Blaze wonder what exactly had happened. Was there an accident during an experiment? Had he found something knew to focus on, or had he finally picked a fight with someone who wasn't afraid to kill? Or in her case, obliged not to. The Sol Emeralds didn't take kindly to killers.

They had looked everywhere for any sign of the old man, but it seemed that everything pointed to him simply...up and disappearing one day. Bases were in ruins, machines and robots were in disrepair and discarded, and any and all active guards had long since disappeared or had been destroyed.

Blaze grabbed a small string next to the sail, giving it a few quick tugs. It led to a bell underneath, into the hold, where either Marine or Blaze could wake up the other. The cat was fairly certain that it wouldn't wake up the raccoon, but at least this way she could say she tried.

She stretched a bit as the island got closer, almost to landing distance now. Her lavender face mirrored back to her, and with a quick pull of her hair to its usual style she nodded. The boat would land in the sand, a pale golden light sand. It looked like the soft kind of sand, the kind that many people would play barefoot in. Blaze wasn't the kind for that silliness, but she was aware of it.

She gave one final stretch before she jumped off the boat onto the top of the water, and then she pulled at her fire. Fire came into being in front of her, burning the air and oxygen, creating a vacuum in front of her just long enough for her to set her foot on top of the water.

And then she ran. The fire was only used to help, but the speed was all her. The water and waves attempted to crash at her, but with deft dodging and a quick pace, Blaze found herself at the soft sand no wetter than she had been to start with. And she'd been right; this was the kind of sand others would love to play around in.

The grass started right after the dunes, and Blaze slowed herself just long enough to now shower the boat with sand, and to see where exactly the boat would land. It crashed shakily onto the sand, but wouldn't go anywhere she thought.

The hills of grass and greenery went on, slowly flowing from one hill to a valley, and back to a hill. Small yellowing grasses and flowers dotted it every once in a while, and while there was no sound of anything sentient there was plenty of birdsong and insect sounds. The grass ruffled around her shoes as she sped onwards.

Off in the distance, she could see a small forest, with trees that didn't go much taller than the height of the boat. Probably new growth, she thought. Was this an abandoned island, or was she just on the opposite side of a town? She hadn't seen any roads yet, and a beach like the one they landed on would probably be used frequently.

As she sped around the island, taking care to not ignite the place on fire, she realized it was much smaller than it had seemed originally, and in barely ten or twenty minutes she'd gone around the entire thing.

There was no town, city, or even dock. There was no lighthouse, there were no shops or roads, or old vehicles. It was as if the island was a complete unknown.

Blaze could easily believe it. There were more than enough islands here to make it difficult to map out all of them. And this one only had one thing to make it stand out; a trio of tall rocks in the center, carved with small faces facing inwards, towards each other. In the middle of them was a small spiral design on blank sand, as if not even grass would grow there.

She tried to wake Marine up again, knowing that at least the girl should know they're on land, and know how to get to actual civilization, but the raccoon hadn't even muttered anything.

Blaze sighed, before she went to check out the rocks again. It was really the only thing of interesting note on this island, and it made her wonder who carved these rocks. Why would they? What was with the spiral design?

She touched the face of one of the rocks, letting her hands feel it through her gloves. They were of human faces, but rather the sapient animals of her own kind. Not of cats though...but of other creatures. There was a bird one, standing tall and proud even without wings. There was a hedgehog one, because of course there was. Blaze liked hedgehogs, but not to the point that it seemed everyone else did. She blamed that almost solely on Sonic.

And the last one was that of a fox. It reminded her of Tails, ages ago. It had been years since she thought of him, or Sonic for that matter. Their worlds hadn't crossed over in some time, and Blaze still had full control over the Sol Emeralds, and wasn't likely to just let them out of her care anytime soon. They were still on the boat, in a small brown locked sack.

A small droplet landed on her nose. She looked up, only to have to blink as another droplet landed on her eye. "Rain. Of course," she muttered, getting ready to speed back to the boat. She never did particularly like rain, both because of her pyrokinesis, and the genetics of being a cat. Although some cats liked water, she supposed, but she was not one of them.

She tried to speed off, only to have to force herself to regain her balance. It was as if she was back at sea, despite the fact she was on an island. She felt as if the world was moving up and down, rolling and roiling around her. Up was down, down was left, and left was wherever left shouldn't be.

Light came from underneath her, and she widened her eyes as a soft blue glow emanated from the spiral. She turned to the center as the spiral started moving underneath her. Her own ability to speed away was sapped, and although she wasn't moving closer, she realized now why this island would probably have been abandoned.

In front of her, above her, far above her, a full moon glowed a dark indigo despite the daylight. The sand underneath her started sinking, towards the center of the spiral, and Blaze with it.

She tried to use her fire to create a vacuum, getting her out of the sticking sand, but as she tried to call upon the flames she found that she simply...couldn't. It was if she'd never been a pyrokinetic. "Marine! Help me!" she yelled in a panic. The sand drew her closer and closer towards the center. "Marine!" she tried once more as she reached the center, sinking quickly. Was she going to die this way, on some unknown island in the middle of nowhere?

No. She refused to die this way. She dug into herself deeper, finding the store of fire that she derived her powers from, and she pulled. She coated her mouth and body with fire, as hot as she could go, glassing the sand even as it didn't stop dragging her down. It was difficult to breathe, nigh impossible, but she forced herself to take a deep breath as her chest and head started to go under. She felt a connection to something else, and she fell.

Her body twisted and turned, lost in space and time as she curled up. There was no air, but she didn't need to breathe. There was no single point of reference in the background, instead everything around her kept twisting and changing, chaotic and impossible to understand.

Within moments she found herself upright, with actual gravity now, lying on a sand dune in what appeared to be a large forest. She took a deep breath, and relaxed as it felt normal. She hadn't inhaled too much sand or glass, then. She forced herself up, shaking off the loose sand from her shoes and tunic, taking a moment to look at her surroundings.

It wasn't where she'd been, that was for sure. She found herself in a large forested area, with trees nearly twenty or thirty times her height. She shuddered a bit as she stared up at one, vertigo kicking in quickly. The temperature was stable, but cool, unlike the temperate tropical climate she'd just come from.

"Marine?" she tried out. Her voice was a bit hoarse, although that would make sense. She circled herself with her fire, glad that her powers had come back to their usual ease of use.

Hearing no answer, Blaze sighed and set about walking around. The ground was soft, but sturdy, with dozens of dried twigs and leaves scattered around. Ferns lay everywhere, and with a quick glance she could see thorny plants hiding about, ready to snap and grab at her.

She stared ahead, seeing the sun above her and low on the horizon. She would need to find a way back soon. The Sol Emeralds weren't going to guard themselves.

Next time, she'd take the bag with her. Then maybe she could enjoy this 'vacation'.


Yep. A new story. I couldn't focus on my original works, so in an attempt to get back into the flow of writing, a fanfiction. I hope you all enjoy it. Until next time.