* * * * *

Location - Somewhere in the ocean.

A sudden splash of cold water on his face woke Tails up instantly. He spluttered and coughed, flicking away drops of water as he sat up. He was in the Thunderstorm, in the middle of the ocean; the cruiser was nowhere in sight, and Sandi had just chucked a bucket of water over him.

"Sandi! What did you do that for?" Tails asked, annoyed.

"Cos you were unconscious, stupid. The whole roof began to cave in after Eggman blasted it. You got hit by the debris. I got you back onto the Thunderstorm before anyone found us down there."

"Where's the ship?" asked Tails, who was still trying to recall what had happened mere hours ago.

"Oh, honestly, I couldn't keep the Thunderstorm trailing along behind it. Don't you think it'd raise a bit of suspicion? Wake up, Tails!" Sandi chuckled.

"Oh! Uh....yeah....." Tails murmured.

'Shouldn't we go and rescue that Amy girl?" Sandi queried with more than a slight hint in her tone of voice.

"And how are we meant to do that? We're in the middle of nowhere!" Tails complained.

"I'm not the one who knows how to fly this thing," Sandi stated, gesturing at the cockpit of the Thunderstorm. Tails had forgotten that they were in a plane, and that he was a pilot. He still felt weird. Before he scrambled into the cockpit he leaned over the side and splashed some more water on his face.

"Right. All systems - go!" Tails winked at his sister and they began to take off. The Thunderstorm was still in boat mode as Tails was explaining to Sandi the tracking system of the craft. "So the radio waves emitted from Stella's aircraft should be picked up by this aerial, and we can track 'em down - ," then Tails was interrupted by Sandi.

"Rocks up ahead!" Sandi screamed. Tails turned around and saw dozens of menacing, craggy boulders cropping up from the waters. They were heading full speed towards the rocks! Tails held down the lever that switched the Thunderstorm into flying mode. It would not budge. "Come on, Tails..." Sandi yelled louder. The rocks were coming closer at electrifying speed.

"I'm trying. The system's jammed!" Tail shouted back. He frantically flicked switches and fiddled about with buttons and keypads, trying to unlock the flying mechanism. The rocks were only a few metres away now. They would not make it in time....

"Gotcha!" Tails unlocked the system and the engine burst into action as the air sacs deflated and folded away neatly beneath the plane. Tails yanked down on the steering controls.

"Whaaaa!" Sandi and Tails screamed as the plane swerved vertically and missed the rocks, passing within millimetres of certain death. The Thunderstorm was now airborne.

"Whew! Talk about exciting." Sandi breathed.

"And that was only the usual," Tails commented, recalling the wild flight with Sonic at the beginning of the adventure.

"The 'usual'? That was 'usual'?" Sandi was gobsmacked. Tails could tell it would take Sandi a long time to adjust to his lifestyle. He powered up the Rocket Engine, one of the many extra features of the Thunderstorm, and the plane zoomed off into the distance.

* * * * *

Location - Amy's prison cell, Karmen Island.

Amy stared blankly up at her cell roof. Her eyes had now grown accustomed to the continual darkness. As far as she could see, the cell was only about as big as the average garden shed. It was made of impenetrable concrete and thick iron bars crossed the front from ceiling to ground. Escape was practically impossible.

She as extremely annoyed at the fact that Stella had drugged her while she slept - who knows how many dangerous chemicals had infiltrated her body? She could have been asleep for hours, days, without even knowing! How long now until the end of the world? How was she to know how much time Tails and she had left? How was she going to get back to Tails? This was bad. Very bad. For a minute, Amy wished she had never been involved in this adventure. Oh, if only Sonic was here to save her now.

The conversation she had with Stella earlier was constantly bugging her. Amy knew that Stella was trying to trick her, to turn her against Tails. She knew Tails was not a traitor. Even so, one side of her could not help wondering about those blueprints Stella had shown her. Blueprints can't be faked, can they? The other side of her argued ; No, those blueprints MUST be fake! And yet....

Amy shook the unpleasant thoughts out of her head. She was too weak to move, thanks to the tranquillisers she had been given. She would just have to wait for help to come.

A key turned in the lock. Slowly the door creaked open.

* * * * *

Location - Somewhere above the ocean.

Tails was tired and hungry. It was two o'clock now and the tracking system had not made so much as a single bleep. Sandi had managed to steal some prawn sandwiches whilst escaping from the cruiser basement - but those were long gone now. The sandwiches were all he had eaten that day. Tails's stomach grumbled as he thought of food. Sandi was probably thinking the same, he decided, she was oddly quiet, vacantly staring into the distance. Lost in her own thoughts. Tails shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The sun had been beating down on them for the past hour and he felt terribly hot and sticky. If he had been in his normal state of mind, he would have driven the plane down into the crystal waters below to cool himself down. But right now food was uppermost in his mind. Not even the knowledge that the world could end tomorrow would get his mind off food.

* * * * *

"Tails! Tails...." Someone was whispering. Someone was near him, but he could not quite see....reach....

Tails opened an eye. Pink, swirling vapours surrounded him. The haze, the mistiness, it was something he had felt somewhere before. He tried to trace back his thoughts but his mind fell thick and heavy, almost clogged up as the vapour penetrated his soul.

For no reason at all, he felt fear. A cold wave of dread suddenly swept through him. He could sense something odd that had not been in this place before. A tint of darkness, slowly infiltrating the cotton-candy pink clouds. This numb darkness he was aware of completely, and it chilled him to the bone.

"Tails..." That voice again. It was fading.

Tails stumbled forward, searching, reaching forth.

He withdrew. The darkness was spreading.

"Tails...understand... The darkness...is..." Tails was losing connection with the voice. He felt out of control. The darkness stretched out, towards him....one, cold, icy touch upon his arm. He felt the weirdest sensation of falling. The cold, oh so cold....

* * * * *

Location - Karmen Island Stronghold.

"Amy, tell me," said Stella. "This new technology of Tails's. Where can I find it?" Amy's head spun. She couldn't think properly.

"I don't.....know what you're talking about," she answered, casting her eyes downwards as she felt her veins pulsing still from the electricity that had been fed into her.

"Oh, isn't that a pity. I would have thought you'd had enough of the shock treatment by now." Stella laid a hand gently over a bright red button on the panel beside her. With that light touch, a small shockwave of electricity passed through to the chair at which Amy sat. Amy shuddered as it buzzed through her.

"I don't know what you're on about!" Amy half-shouted, bitter tears of resentment spilling from her cheeks. The metal wrist-pads that held her to the seat were biting into her wrists. She slowly lifted her head and through the glass barrier in front of her she saw Stella, lounging upon a comfortable chair with perfect ease, taking no note of Amy's pain. Amy hated her. She hated the way she did everything so coolly and unemotionally, she hated the way she could inflict pain without remorse. Amy had not lost her obstinacy yet. Indignantly, she glared at Stella. It seemed to be the best thing she could do. And those icy, obsidian eyes glared levelly back. There was murder in those eyes.

"You do know." Stella turned on the wide screen behind her and an image of Eggman appeared on it. He was talking live from his base.

"Amy, my little friend. I hope you are feeling well." Amy grunted. "I'd just like to tell you how pleased I am to be doing business with you. Now, I've heard that Tails has developed a new technology. A coding program for a virus that can tap into any high-security computer system. A program that can break down passwords and Internet barriers. It gives total access to everything. I need that program. No doubt Tails has told you about it, has he not? One of his closest friends...hmm, you must have some idea where he keeps it. You have to tell me." As he spoke, Amy looked at his surroundings. She saw the lava bubbling in the pit behind him, she saw the red rock of the walls behind him. And more importantly was the camera info in the corner of the screen :

'04:31:58 pm AUGUST, SHINOLOU VOLCANO BASE'

"Now are you gonna co-operate, or do ya need a little more... persuasion?" Stella drawled unpassionately. She raised her hand high above the red button in warning. Amy trembled.

"No....I-I-don't know...anything. Tails never told me," Amy said. Stella's face was getting redder as her patience slowed down. Amy thought of something then. A little room at the back of Tails's workshop...a computer programming unit...a red file that lay in the cabinet beside it... Amy knew what was in that file. Tails had shown her, before they took off from the Mystic Ruins. She could still remember his words; "This thing can help the government track down any illegal operations, it can open any system. It could help stop crime, just think how amazing that would be..."

Tails never let anyone inside that room except for people he knew he could trust. No, she could not say anything. For Tails's sake.

"I can't tell you," she blurted out. She had meant to say nothing, but as she pictured that little back room in Tails's workshop, the words just slipped out.

That one slip was all Stella required to lose her patience completely. Her face twisted with fury and she slammed the palm of her hand down on the red button as hard as she could. A gigantic surge of electricity crackled through the metal wrist-pads and into Amy. Amy screamed loudly as the electricity contorted her muscles and nerves. A few seconds later she fainted. For a moment, Stella thought she had killed her, but the misty condensation appearing on the glass in front of Amy's mouth told Stella otherwise. Stella stood up and looked at Eggman on the screen.

"Too bad," she commented.

"Better luck next time." The evil doctor chuckled at Amy's limp, pathetic figure before cutting contact from Stella.

* * * * *