Location: Angel Island.
"Come on, Knuckles. Let's just put the past behind us and start again. You know you want to," Rouge said sweetly, moving forwards seductively and revealing the outline of her curvy body. Knuckles had to gather all his willpower to stop himself from drooling. In his opinion, it would be a lot easier to have this argument if she was not making tantalising poses every time she talked.
"No! It's just gonna be the same as before. All you want is treasure! I'm having nothin' to do with you." He spat on the ground in front of him. Rouge put on a hurt look.
"You're still mad about what I said on the space colony, aren't you? Okay, I made mistakes before, but please give me another chance. Can't you just imagine it? We'd be an excellent team, the two greatest treasure hunters in the world! There'd be nothing we couldn't do." Knuckles tried to keep his eyes on her face, wanting to look dominating, but he found his eyes wandering downwards, towards her cleavage. 'No, I do NOT like her, I do NOT like her!' he thought fervently.
"I know what you're like, bat girl," Knuckles said as hatefully as he could, ignoring the lusting inside him. "And I told ya already, I don't want nothin' to do with you." Actually, he did, but he did not want her to know that.
"Fine. If you're really sure." Rouge shrugged and walked, hips wiggling, to the edge of the island. She spread her violet wings, but before she went, she turned her head. "Do you really want to spend your whole life on this island guarding the Master Emerald like a total loser? You could be doing something worthwhile with your life. It's up to you...." She flew off, leaving Knuckles tangled in a web of confused emotions.
* * * * * Location - Unknown.
Sonic turned around as Tails shouted "Behind you!" To his surprise, he saw Eggman advancing on him, holding a black spherical object. Before he had time to protest, the black rob grew bigger and sucked him in. The touch of the misty substance numbed his senses and he could not move, or cry out. Tails, Eggman, the mysterious woman, the remains of the Tornado and everything else faded away as the cold, black fog enveloped him. It really was deadly cold. He could not even think properly.
As quickly as it had come, the fog subsided. Sonic bumped down on seemingly solid ground. He stood up and rubbed his eyes, expecting to find himself in Station Square. But he was not. Trees surrounded an ornate forest path he was standing on. All around him - trees and bushes.
"Where am I?" he wondered aloud. "What is this place?" He was totally bewildered. "I thought I was in Station Square! Well, at least the amulet's safe," he said, inspecting the delicate amber charm he still held in his hand. Then he realised. Tails! He was left to fight Eggman all by himself! Tails ought to be able to take care of things, Sonic assured himself. All the same, he'd better try and find a way out of this weird place. He set off down the pleasant-looking but strangely formidable forest path.
* * * * *
Location - Tails's apartment.
"That should do it," Tails said after about twenty minutes. Amy had been sitting on a stool in his flat, waiting. She was thoroughly bored.
"Finally," Amy groaned in relief. "Now let's see what this is all about."
"Okay. Here goes." Tails dragged the mouse down to the bottom of the screen and clicked on 'EXECUTE'. 'Oh no," he muttered.
"What now?" Amy exclaimed, rolling her eyes.
"It's the system this computer uses. It's not fully compatible with the Opicular. And the fact that the device is tripartite makes it a lot harder too. Loren could have warned me about this. Now it's gonna take ages to find the right file." He fiddled about a bit more and soon the screen became a multitude of complicated looking figures and network models.
"How do you know which one's the right one?" Amy asked.
"I don't. The system is designed in this way because there's so much information to hold. Believe it or not, this makes it a lot easier to find the file itself, because it divided the info into three main parts." Tails checked out a few files. "This thing contains all of Dr. Eggman's top secret information. Look here, the Eclipse Cannon, Project Shadow, Chaos Emeralds, the Egg Carrier! Amy, we have the key to beating Dr. Eggman here!" Tails beamed at Amy.
"Hey, stop there a second," Amy pointed at the screen. "I saw something." Tails scrolled back to the previous file. "It's you!" Amy squealed.
Sure enough, there was a picture of Tails in that file. The title read: 'Miles 'Tails' Prower, Major Enemy No.2.' Tails skimmed the page.
"Eggman kept a whole file about me? How thoughtful," Tails commented, letting Amy read off the screen.
"Oh, Tails, look!" Amy shook his shoulder. "At the bottom of the page there......Eggman's planning to..."
"Destroy me." He finished her sentence for her. "Again...." Now it was Tails's turn to roll his eyes.
"First Sonic, now he's after you!" Amy cried, burying her head on his shoulder.
"Amy, that's not important," Tails said firmly. "Eggman's always trying to get rid of us. The thing is, we need to find out how he's harnessing all that energy before it's too late." He exited from the file. Entering the third and final section of the tripartite visual display, his eyes lit up in excitement. "I think this is the one!" Tails whispered, connecting to a small passage near the borders. The file it held was very tiny, but it had the capability to hold 5.04 gigabytes, or so the computer told him. No file that small could have such a big containment capability - unless it contained some sort of visual display. Tails entered the file.
FLASH! CRACKLE! Tails started. Amy jumped. The screen lit up intensely, flashes of light bursting out every split-second, extreme blackness filling the screen between flashes. Objects, people and places flashed by at such a high speed that it was impossible to identify the scenes. It was like watching a movie trailer in double-quick time. The strobe lighting was so intense that an epileptic would have died in an instant on viewing. Background music was loud and foreboding. Tails watched it with amazement. Then he understood. Just like a movie trailer, the images were trying to tell a story in a cryptic way. Think 'Eggman plot' he told himself. The images became clearer. There was that black orb that engulfed Sonic, and there was a big city, suddenly destroyed by a flash of light. People being brainwashed, then a glimpse of Loren and her tribe. A monster, destroying Loren's civilisation....terror, destruction...then the stern face of an elder fairy in what looked like a sort of council, now back to the city. Thunder breaking out, fire and lava, buildings collapsing, then an image of Eggman at the centre of it all, controlling everything with the orb. White block writing appeared on the screen; 'THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO CHANGE'.... (next message) 'AS IT WELCOMES THE DAWNING OF A NEW EMPIRE'... Suddenly the mini-film ended, the screen went black, leaving only two sentences at the top left corner in white. The music stopped abruptly, completely cut off.
Tails, who had been frozen to the edge of his seat for the last minute or so, slowly stood up. He now understood Eggman's plot. Explaining to Amy, he said, "It has a hidden message, basically, use the black orb to take over the world and turn people into mindless zombies. The two sentences at the top of the screen ; 'AMULET RETRIEVAL: IN PROCESS. 3ds CNTDWN - REGENERATION. M.E.1 - ELIMINATION COMPLETE. M.E.2 - ELIMINATION IN PROCESS.' that meant, 'The amulets are being retrieved. Three days countdown until regeneration. Major Enemy One ( that's Sonic ) has been eliminated, or so Eggman believes, and Major Enemy Two ( that's me ) is next on the list."
"I know!" Amy exclaimed. "Eggman must need the amulets to power up whatever he's using to destroy the world with, just like he used the Chaos Emeralds to power up Chaos!"
"Good thinking, Amy. Hey, what's this?" Tails said, for the screen suddenly shifted to a factfile about the orb. Tails read with interest. It was an entire history about the orb, called the Hiatus Orb, and it's properties and uses.
"I saw that black thing on the video," Amy told Tails. "Is that the thing that swallowed Sonic?"
"It didn't swallow him," Tails corrected her. "It just threw him into another dimension. The black thing is called the Hiatus Orb, which literally means 'The orb of the yawning gap, or void.' It's a power source from a parallel world, supposedly Loren's, and it requires the Amulets of Hiatus to be restored to it's extreme power. Allegedly, there has to be a Wielder of the Orb, appointed by order of the Orb itself, for the Orb to reach it's full momentum, and only a Witness to the Truth can stop the Wielder." Tails sounded like a walking dictionary as he spoke. "Even though the Orb may be allowed to reach it's full power at any time, it only has the ability to unleash this 'ultimate power' once in a millennium. And guess what? The next date for unleashing is in three days time!" Amy groaned. "For centuries, the fairy tribes of our parallel universe have tried to keep the amulets apart, and safe from human interference, to stop this from happening. But now it is getting harder for them as human technology advances and more people are finding out about the amulets, trying to steal them and claim the Orb's dark energy as theirs to exploit. This sounds serious." Apart from discovering the danger of the Hiatus Orb, Tails was not in the least surprised. Another typical Eggman plot, just like last time, and the time before. He did not realise how different this adventure was going to be.
"Eggman's sure done his homework," Amy said, gaping at all the info. "Now I know why he was chasing you and Sonic last night. He wanted the amulet."
"Personally I'd like to know how Sonic got that amulet in the first place. If he was it's guardian or something, he could have at least told us about it." Tails began disconnecting all the cables he had used to wire up the tripartite device. "We can't let anyone find this," he said, picking up the little white box.
"Why not?" Amy asked in her usual chirpy voice.
"It's too risky. If anyone knows there'll be one of two disasters, either there's worldwide panic, or the whole of the armed forces gets involved, like last year, remember the GUN operation? They're no match for Eggman. They'd slow things down and get in the way."
"Oh yeah. I remember that alright. Anyway, that means it's all up to US now," Amy said happily. She was thoroughly thrilled at the prospect of leading an adventure with Tails. Poor Amy, she was so often left out of such escapades!
"Yeah, I guess. And wherever Eggman goes is where we're gonna find Sonic. Loren told me there's a way to..." But Tails never finished his sentence, because something big rammed into the door. Tails and Amy were alert at once. To their horror, sticking through the door was a ginormous horn, about a foot long. And another, and another! Their ears were filled with a loud droning that almost perforated their eardrums. The horns kept jabbing into the door. Tails did not like the look of those serrated edges..... " Amy, into the bathroom!" Tails shouted, covering his ears to shut out the droning.
"What? I can't hear you!" Amy shouted back.
"Go into the...oh, just come!" Tails yelled, pulling her by the shoulder into the next room. Behind them, the 'things' outside the dor had managed to break it down and into the bedroom buzzed three humongous metallic-winged beetles. Their horns were like chain saws, demolishing everything in their path. Tails took one horrified look and slammed shut the bathroom dor. Amy opened the door to the corridor.
"Tails, quick. This is no time to take a break." Tails, who had slumped against the shower, got up immediately on seeing the lethal horn of the killer beetle ram through the bathroom dor. They made it out of the apartment building and onto the main street. Amy was almost crying.
"Tails, someone knows that we know...that's why the beetles were sent, wasn't it? Wasn't it?"
"Yeah, someone wants the tripartite device back, I'll bet. The security alert in M.S.C ; someone must have known what we were doing. It's alright, Amy, you can cry if you want to. Those beetle robots scared me to death!" Tails comforted her.
"Those thing were robots?"Amy asked. Then she went on. "It's not that I'm frightened, it's just...an hour ago I was wandering round Station Square, thinking it was the beginning of another boring day, then suddenly I'm caught up in this great big adventure, I find out that Sonic's lost in some parallel universe, and things are just happening so fast I can't catch up with them."
"I know," Tails said. "We'll find a way, I promise."
End of Part One * * * * *
"Come on, Knuckles. Let's just put the past behind us and start again. You know you want to," Rouge said sweetly, moving forwards seductively and revealing the outline of her curvy body. Knuckles had to gather all his willpower to stop himself from drooling. In his opinion, it would be a lot easier to have this argument if she was not making tantalising poses every time she talked.
"No! It's just gonna be the same as before. All you want is treasure! I'm having nothin' to do with you." He spat on the ground in front of him. Rouge put on a hurt look.
"You're still mad about what I said on the space colony, aren't you? Okay, I made mistakes before, but please give me another chance. Can't you just imagine it? We'd be an excellent team, the two greatest treasure hunters in the world! There'd be nothing we couldn't do." Knuckles tried to keep his eyes on her face, wanting to look dominating, but he found his eyes wandering downwards, towards her cleavage. 'No, I do NOT like her, I do NOT like her!' he thought fervently.
"I know what you're like, bat girl," Knuckles said as hatefully as he could, ignoring the lusting inside him. "And I told ya already, I don't want nothin' to do with you." Actually, he did, but he did not want her to know that.
"Fine. If you're really sure." Rouge shrugged and walked, hips wiggling, to the edge of the island. She spread her violet wings, but before she went, she turned her head. "Do you really want to spend your whole life on this island guarding the Master Emerald like a total loser? You could be doing something worthwhile with your life. It's up to you...." She flew off, leaving Knuckles tangled in a web of confused emotions.
* * * * * Location - Unknown.
Sonic turned around as Tails shouted "Behind you!" To his surprise, he saw Eggman advancing on him, holding a black spherical object. Before he had time to protest, the black rob grew bigger and sucked him in. The touch of the misty substance numbed his senses and he could not move, or cry out. Tails, Eggman, the mysterious woman, the remains of the Tornado and everything else faded away as the cold, black fog enveloped him. It really was deadly cold. He could not even think properly.
As quickly as it had come, the fog subsided. Sonic bumped down on seemingly solid ground. He stood up and rubbed his eyes, expecting to find himself in Station Square. But he was not. Trees surrounded an ornate forest path he was standing on. All around him - trees and bushes.
"Where am I?" he wondered aloud. "What is this place?" He was totally bewildered. "I thought I was in Station Square! Well, at least the amulet's safe," he said, inspecting the delicate amber charm he still held in his hand. Then he realised. Tails! He was left to fight Eggman all by himself! Tails ought to be able to take care of things, Sonic assured himself. All the same, he'd better try and find a way out of this weird place. He set off down the pleasant-looking but strangely formidable forest path.
* * * * *
Location - Tails's apartment.
"That should do it," Tails said after about twenty minutes. Amy had been sitting on a stool in his flat, waiting. She was thoroughly bored.
"Finally," Amy groaned in relief. "Now let's see what this is all about."
"Okay. Here goes." Tails dragged the mouse down to the bottom of the screen and clicked on 'EXECUTE'. 'Oh no," he muttered.
"What now?" Amy exclaimed, rolling her eyes.
"It's the system this computer uses. It's not fully compatible with the Opicular. And the fact that the device is tripartite makes it a lot harder too. Loren could have warned me about this. Now it's gonna take ages to find the right file." He fiddled about a bit more and soon the screen became a multitude of complicated looking figures and network models.
"How do you know which one's the right one?" Amy asked.
"I don't. The system is designed in this way because there's so much information to hold. Believe it or not, this makes it a lot easier to find the file itself, because it divided the info into three main parts." Tails checked out a few files. "This thing contains all of Dr. Eggman's top secret information. Look here, the Eclipse Cannon, Project Shadow, Chaos Emeralds, the Egg Carrier! Amy, we have the key to beating Dr. Eggman here!" Tails beamed at Amy.
"Hey, stop there a second," Amy pointed at the screen. "I saw something." Tails scrolled back to the previous file. "It's you!" Amy squealed.
Sure enough, there was a picture of Tails in that file. The title read: 'Miles 'Tails' Prower, Major Enemy No.2.' Tails skimmed the page.
"Eggman kept a whole file about me? How thoughtful," Tails commented, letting Amy read off the screen.
"Oh, Tails, look!" Amy shook his shoulder. "At the bottom of the page there......Eggman's planning to..."
"Destroy me." He finished her sentence for her. "Again...." Now it was Tails's turn to roll his eyes.
"First Sonic, now he's after you!" Amy cried, burying her head on his shoulder.
"Amy, that's not important," Tails said firmly. "Eggman's always trying to get rid of us. The thing is, we need to find out how he's harnessing all that energy before it's too late." He exited from the file. Entering the third and final section of the tripartite visual display, his eyes lit up in excitement. "I think this is the one!" Tails whispered, connecting to a small passage near the borders. The file it held was very tiny, but it had the capability to hold 5.04 gigabytes, or so the computer told him. No file that small could have such a big containment capability - unless it contained some sort of visual display. Tails entered the file.
FLASH! CRACKLE! Tails started. Amy jumped. The screen lit up intensely, flashes of light bursting out every split-second, extreme blackness filling the screen between flashes. Objects, people and places flashed by at such a high speed that it was impossible to identify the scenes. It was like watching a movie trailer in double-quick time. The strobe lighting was so intense that an epileptic would have died in an instant on viewing. Background music was loud and foreboding. Tails watched it with amazement. Then he understood. Just like a movie trailer, the images were trying to tell a story in a cryptic way. Think 'Eggman plot' he told himself. The images became clearer. There was that black orb that engulfed Sonic, and there was a big city, suddenly destroyed by a flash of light. People being brainwashed, then a glimpse of Loren and her tribe. A monster, destroying Loren's civilisation....terror, destruction...then the stern face of an elder fairy in what looked like a sort of council, now back to the city. Thunder breaking out, fire and lava, buildings collapsing, then an image of Eggman at the centre of it all, controlling everything with the orb. White block writing appeared on the screen; 'THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO CHANGE'.... (next message) 'AS IT WELCOMES THE DAWNING OF A NEW EMPIRE'... Suddenly the mini-film ended, the screen went black, leaving only two sentences at the top left corner in white. The music stopped abruptly, completely cut off.
Tails, who had been frozen to the edge of his seat for the last minute or so, slowly stood up. He now understood Eggman's plot. Explaining to Amy, he said, "It has a hidden message, basically, use the black orb to take over the world and turn people into mindless zombies. The two sentences at the top of the screen ; 'AMULET RETRIEVAL: IN PROCESS. 3ds CNTDWN - REGENERATION. M.E.1 - ELIMINATION COMPLETE. M.E.2 - ELIMINATION IN PROCESS.' that meant, 'The amulets are being retrieved. Three days countdown until regeneration. Major Enemy One ( that's Sonic ) has been eliminated, or so Eggman believes, and Major Enemy Two ( that's me ) is next on the list."
"I know!" Amy exclaimed. "Eggman must need the amulets to power up whatever he's using to destroy the world with, just like he used the Chaos Emeralds to power up Chaos!"
"Good thinking, Amy. Hey, what's this?" Tails said, for the screen suddenly shifted to a factfile about the orb. Tails read with interest. It was an entire history about the orb, called the Hiatus Orb, and it's properties and uses.
"I saw that black thing on the video," Amy told Tails. "Is that the thing that swallowed Sonic?"
"It didn't swallow him," Tails corrected her. "It just threw him into another dimension. The black thing is called the Hiatus Orb, which literally means 'The orb of the yawning gap, or void.' It's a power source from a parallel world, supposedly Loren's, and it requires the Amulets of Hiatus to be restored to it's extreme power. Allegedly, there has to be a Wielder of the Orb, appointed by order of the Orb itself, for the Orb to reach it's full momentum, and only a Witness to the Truth can stop the Wielder." Tails sounded like a walking dictionary as he spoke. "Even though the Orb may be allowed to reach it's full power at any time, it only has the ability to unleash this 'ultimate power' once in a millennium. And guess what? The next date for unleashing is in three days time!" Amy groaned. "For centuries, the fairy tribes of our parallel universe have tried to keep the amulets apart, and safe from human interference, to stop this from happening. But now it is getting harder for them as human technology advances and more people are finding out about the amulets, trying to steal them and claim the Orb's dark energy as theirs to exploit. This sounds serious." Apart from discovering the danger of the Hiatus Orb, Tails was not in the least surprised. Another typical Eggman plot, just like last time, and the time before. He did not realise how different this adventure was going to be.
"Eggman's sure done his homework," Amy said, gaping at all the info. "Now I know why he was chasing you and Sonic last night. He wanted the amulet."
"Personally I'd like to know how Sonic got that amulet in the first place. If he was it's guardian or something, he could have at least told us about it." Tails began disconnecting all the cables he had used to wire up the tripartite device. "We can't let anyone find this," he said, picking up the little white box.
"Why not?" Amy asked in her usual chirpy voice.
"It's too risky. If anyone knows there'll be one of two disasters, either there's worldwide panic, or the whole of the armed forces gets involved, like last year, remember the GUN operation? They're no match for Eggman. They'd slow things down and get in the way."
"Oh yeah. I remember that alright. Anyway, that means it's all up to US now," Amy said happily. She was thoroughly thrilled at the prospect of leading an adventure with Tails. Poor Amy, she was so often left out of such escapades!
"Yeah, I guess. And wherever Eggman goes is where we're gonna find Sonic. Loren told me there's a way to..." But Tails never finished his sentence, because something big rammed into the door. Tails and Amy were alert at once. To their horror, sticking through the door was a ginormous horn, about a foot long. And another, and another! Their ears were filled with a loud droning that almost perforated their eardrums. The horns kept jabbing into the door. Tails did not like the look of those serrated edges..... " Amy, into the bathroom!" Tails shouted, covering his ears to shut out the droning.
"What? I can't hear you!" Amy shouted back.
"Go into the...oh, just come!" Tails yelled, pulling her by the shoulder into the next room. Behind them, the 'things' outside the dor had managed to break it down and into the bedroom buzzed three humongous metallic-winged beetles. Their horns were like chain saws, demolishing everything in their path. Tails took one horrified look and slammed shut the bathroom dor. Amy opened the door to the corridor.
"Tails, quick. This is no time to take a break." Tails, who had slumped against the shower, got up immediately on seeing the lethal horn of the killer beetle ram through the bathroom dor. They made it out of the apartment building and onto the main street. Amy was almost crying.
"Tails, someone knows that we know...that's why the beetles were sent, wasn't it? Wasn't it?"
"Yeah, someone wants the tripartite device back, I'll bet. The security alert in M.S.C ; someone must have known what we were doing. It's alright, Amy, you can cry if you want to. Those beetle robots scared me to death!" Tails comforted her.
"Those thing were robots?"Amy asked. Then she went on. "It's not that I'm frightened, it's just...an hour ago I was wandering round Station Square, thinking it was the beginning of another boring day, then suddenly I'm caught up in this great big adventure, I find out that Sonic's lost in some parallel universe, and things are just happening so fast I can't catch up with them."
"I know," Tails said. "We'll find a way, I promise."
End of Part One * * * * *
