ADAPTION chapter two

In the second the door opened, Amy knew what she would do.

Her abilities didn't go so far as to give her any chance of fighting her way out, but they were enough to give Tails and herself the opportunity of keeping their minds when the process was started.

She knew instinctively that there was no point in looking at the past and wishing things had been different, because they hadn't been, she was here, now, and she had to deal with the present. Part of that thinking led her to realise the advantage they'd have over Robotnik's successor if this process worked. Part of that thinking helped her realise there was absolutely no chance of rescue, even with his new speeds Sonic would never find them in time, he had no idea where they were, so she dismissed any such thoughts and stuck with her plan.

Robotnik's successor was the first through the door.

She glowered at the tall, mousy, arrogant man as he walked over to the tubes and stopped in front of her. He was followed in by at least ten others, every one of them wearing the uniform white lab coat, identical to his own.

Dr Bowen, Amy hated him, nearly all Mobians hated this man. When Robotnik had been defeated once and for all, Dr Bowen had stepped into his place.

At first no one had paid him any attention, but it soon transpired that this man was far worse than Robotnik had ever been. Dr Bowen didn't use force to get his plans to work, no, he used something far simpler.

He made people like him, made them trust him, almost implicitly, this is what Sonic and the team had missed, they overlooked him, thought him unimportant.

Next he asked people to work for him. He asked them.

It was so simple it worked, and they had missed it.

Within a few months of Robotnik's defeat, they had a new enemy.

Dr Bowen lost all pretence of friendliness almost a year later, and then they had all seen who and what he was. Though, even now, there are those who agree with him, work with him, and Amy was staring furiously at ten of them.

Dr Bowen grinned up at her as she watched his every move.

"We all know who this young lady and her companion are"

He turned and addressed the white coats; a smirk etched its way across his face.

"Amy Rose Hedgehog and Miles 'Tails' Prowers. They believe themselves to be Mobius'. protectors."

The coats laughed as one, all grinning and looking the tubes occupants in such a way that Amy was horrified.

"Of course, we must thank them for ridding us of that meddlesome Robotnik, a most valiant effort on their part! They paved the way for our accent to leadership!"

He grinned at Amy as the coats once again laughed and mockingly thanked her, a horrible gleam in their eyes.

She kept her own eyes on Bowen as he looked at her. He turned away and moved toward the back of the room where a monitor screen and complicated looking keyboard took up most of the wall.

"People, I bring you here today not just to witness two of our most favoured antagonists get turned, oh no! Something even more interesting is taking place today, a 'double whammy' as some may say!"

He turned back and grinned at the coats triumphantly.

"If you would all be so kind as to step this way and keep an eye or two on the screen, you will understand all"

Amy craned to see what they were all looking at, but the excited crowd was milling around too much and there were too many of them, they blocked her view entirely. "This is wonderful Dr Bowen, are you sure it will work?"

A female voice, Amy spotted her quite close to Dr Bowen himself; she was a young looking squirrel, pretty.

"That, Dr Sampson, is what we are here to discover!" again Dr Bowen grinned, he appeared to be enjoying himself immensely.

"Now, people, people!" he waved his arms slightly to regain their attention, "If you would just seat yourselves, I will start the procedure." Another grin as the coats took their seats, all neatly arranged in front of the tubes.

He moved once more to the monitor and complicated keyboard and typed in a series of instructions, when he was done he stood next to Dr Sampson who was seated at the rear of the group. He placed a hand on her shoulder.

"And now people, if you would please watch carefully."

Amy jerked her head upward as she heard a small electrical noise above her. A tiny opening had appeared in the caps of the tubes.

She stared at it for a moment and watched as something was dropped through. The tiny openings closed almost instantly, but she wasn't paying attention, she was staring at the object that had been dropped into her, it glinted green as it slowly sank toward her.

It was an immaculately cut shard of the shattered master chaos emerald.

Sonic was carefully walking around the ward, testing his broken leg.

"Wow Tek', what'd you do to it?"

Of course, walking to Sonic was a lot faster than a walk to Tekno, she stood in the centre of the ward watching him rush around the room, nothing more than a blue and black blur.

"Just a new healing device I came up with, with you in mind."

She smiled as he slowed down a little, actually paying attention to her.

"It seems I was right about your rapid healing abilities. Because of your speed, your body was sure to have one for the amount of stress you put on it, plus all the lumps and bumps you receive."

He slowed further.

"You heal remarkably well on a normal basis, it was inevitable that I'd come up with this really."

Sonic stopped walking entirely and looked at her.

"You know, I actually understood that, its amasing." He grinned, hugged her thanks and ran down to Kintobors consultation room.

It took him a few seconds as he was being careful with his still healing leg, but when he reached the room, he knew his leg was fine.

As he stepped into the room he saw Kintobors expression, he was unpleasantly worried, Porker was typing frantically into the strange device they used for hacking into various computers around the world.

"What's up guys? Know where they are yet?"

Porker looked up, Kintobors worried expression reflected in his own.

"Sonic! Uh."

Porker tried his best, but Sonic saw the monitor screen and was gone in less than a second.

"Damn!"

The screen was tapped into the security cameras in the lab Amy and Tails were currently being held in. The words 'Milestone City Laboratory : room 303' were written on the screen in a bright flashing green font.

"Porker, we should continue trying to hack in, we need to give Sonic time."

Porker nodded, glancing at the screen were Amy was convulsing in pain, screaming for it to stop in complete silence on the ancient black and white camera.

"He'll need it.Milestone's nearly eight hundred miles away."

Amy's screaming could be heard five or six rooms away in the immaculate laboratory. The watching coats were fidgeting, uncomfortable, this certainly wasn't what they had been expecting. None of them looked at any of the others, instead their eyes roamed the room, stared at the notepads they had brought with them, or in the case of a few, watched Amy in horrified fascination.

In her new world of pain, Amy was thankful to the world in general that twelve year old Tails was still unconscious and didn't have to go through this.

After the emerald shards had been dropped into the tubes, Amy had started to feel a tingling sensation.

Looking down she had seen a misty liquid pumping into the tube from a pipe near the base, it had quickly mixed with the liquid oxygen so she was breathing it in before she had any time to react.

From that the tingling sensation had originated, as it worked its way round her system her limbs became almost numbed with the tingling, and it worked its way to her head. When it did, Amy truly believe it would explode and she found herself clutching at it tightly, trying to stop it.

Then something had exploded, deep inside her, thrusting her chest forward, throwing her arms legs and head backward as if she had been shot from behind.

That's when she had started screaming, as the pain started, as the emerald shard had been pulled toward her chest. It penetrated her body, forcing its way through skin, muscle and finally bone, until it was lodged in her breast bone, and from there, the pain radiated.

Now, only minutes later, she could feel something under the pain.

She was changing, from the inside and she knew that it was now that she had to shield their minds.

She curled up in pain and reached for Tails mind. She painted a mental picture of a world where they were safe, where nothing could get through and pulled him into it with her.

As she did so she could feel the nagging sensation of another, artificial mind trying to take over. But she knew she was safe, nothing could get through to them here, not even the programming.

Sonic ran faster than ever before.

He knew the way to Milestone City, he'd been there a hundred times before now, always to the labs, trying to destroy them and stop the sick experiments that went on there.

It was usually a six hour non stop drive, or an hours run for him these days, but right now he knew he needed to break all the boundaries.

He had a feeling he'd just broken the sound barrier, he was painfully aware of his damaged leg, and he'd only been running for a couple of minutes.

He looked briefly at his wrist watch, a Tekno speciality, he'd only been running a minute!

At eight hundred miles an hour?

At this speed it would still take him an hour to get there, and he needed to be there within the next couple of minutes.

He pushed himself harder, he needed to treble that speed at the very least.

He pushed so hard that the bindings on his leg were left far behind him a moment later. He looked up to check where he was, and caught his breath. The world around him was different.

He expected the world to be a blur, as it so often was when he was running, but it wasn't. The world around him was perfectly still, birds were hanging in mid air, as if hanging from wires, a pooka was hanging in mid air between two trees.

He was moving so fast, time had slowed down around him.

He took a mental note to tell Tekno about it, she'd probably have a fit of happiness at something like this to research.

A moment later and he knew he was close, he was running faster than anything ever when he reached the laboratories and started searching for room 303.

He could still hear screaming when he finally found the right room.

The extra time he wasted trying to find the them killed him inside, it made him too late.

Amy's and Tails' unconscious bodies hung limply in the exact centre of the tubes.

If you looked closely, you could see differences. They had both changed slightly. The most obvious change was the emerald embedded in their chests, only half of it was showing.

He couldn't stand it, he'd been too slow, he kept thinking of everything he should have done differently, from not wasting time talking to Techno, to simply running faster. He was looking at Amy with pain in his eyes when he noticed something else. The two young Mobians were wrong. They had stripes, you could only see them if you looked closely, Amy's where a darker pink, Tails a darker brown. Her tail was longer, as was his hair and they both had claws.

Sonic glanced around and realised time was still standing still.

The people in lab coats were in mid applause, some just starting to stand, all grinning. The only ones not moving where the two at the back, Dr Bowen himself and a young female squirrel. He had a look of rapture on his face, she of intense contemplation.

Sonic moved up behind them and hid himself, then concentrated on letting time return.

"It worked Dr Sampson" Bowen squeezed her shoulder slightly too hard, making her look up at him.

"Y.yes Dr Bowen" she tried to move out of his grasp, but he held on tighter.

"D.Dr Bowen, your, your hurting me."

He looked down at her as if he hadn't noticed he was gripping her shoulder, smiled then let go.

"Now people!" he shouted above the applause then waited for them to calm down.

"I have one final thing to do, if you would be so kind" He grinned again and pressed a non-descript button on the panel next to him.

The tubes drained leaving Amy and Tails standing half awake on the dais. The glass shook slightly then the front half of each lifted and flipped out and up.

"Now" Bowen moved to the front of dais's and addressed his new creations.

"Agents, awaken!"

Their eyes opened and everyone saw what else had changed. Their eyes were blank and as green as the emerald embedded in their chests.

Sonic had to get out of there, it was too much, they were lost to him right now, but Porker and Tekno.surely they could come up with something?

He took one last look at them, his gaze lingering on Amy, then ran as fast as possible back to the team safe house.

"Just had to check" Dr Bowen said with a smile.