Verna stood stock still. She waited for the deathblow at any moment. After a minute passed, she realized she was still alive. She opened her eyes, which she had tightly squeezed shut. Looking at Mecha, she realized that it hadn't moved at all, yet it was definitely still online.

Well, she thought, here's my chance! She pulled out her trusty magnet and began slowly and stealthily sneaking up on Mecha.

Mecha was barely able to function, but he could still sense the havoc that the magnet was wreaking. He was about to pounce in the direction of the increasingly strong magnetic pull, but he was too late. Verna shot forward and slammed it right on the CPU.

"Well, that did it, Amy."

Silence.

"Amy?"

Verna looked aroud her. Amy, of course, was nowhere to be seen.

Amy was growing more and more terrified of the nighttime surroundings. She had no idea where she was, and even the humidity of the forest was dying. By the minute, she was growing colder. And even more disoriented. Soon, she had a hard time even standing up. Finally, the fatigue and the rapidly dropping temperature became too much. She dropped right where she was...into an oil puddle.

Amy woke up. But she didn't wake up to the forest surroundings that she was in the previous night. Rather, it was foggy...almost dream-like. She looked up and saw the face of the one person she wanted dearly to see.

"Sonic!"

She leaped up and gave him a tight bear hug. He merely smiled, gave her a quick peck on the lips, then allowed his face to become serious.

"Amy, ya gotta wake up. You know, you're only a few feet from where Verna is." He showed the deepest concern in his body language. It seemed to pull Amy in deeper. "Now I don't wanna wake up and find out that you died trying to save me. Look at you. You even fell in the oil! Follow it back north and you'll be back to Station Square in no time!"

Amy was overcome. Looking into his eyes, she could swear she saw a slight glimmer near the bottom. She brought Sonic into a long yet modest kiss. A single teardrop rolled from her eye as she said, "Ok. I will!"

Sonic's body began to fade away. The fog also started to clear. Amy woke up again, this time in the real world. Strength renewed, she picked herself up. She was about to keep going when she heard footsteps accompanied by Verna's ever-familiar voice.

"Amy!"

Amy spun around and saw her coming. Verna broke into a run as she told Amy what had happened.

"So," said Amy, "all we need is for someone to pick Mecha up. Right?"

"Exactly."

They found their way back into town. As night was not a good time to be lurking in that part of Station Square, Amy and Verna hurried to her recently purchased house.

Upon arrival, Amy said, "Go ahead and wash up. I'll call Tails with an update."

Amy picked up the receiver. She dialed his number. After two rings he picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Tails, this is Amy."

"What happened? You sound a bit tired."

Amy quickly explained what had happened.

"Oh, I see. Anyway, I paid a little visit to the hospital. I found something out about the bullet."

Tails then explained HIS part of the day's story.

"Did you say CHAOS MERCURY?!"

"Yep," responded Tails.

"Oh my gosh...that's pretty nasty stuff. Hey, whatever happened to Knux?"

Just as Tails was about to say something, a door opened, then shut in the background.

"That would be him. Hold on a minute."

She waited a bit. While she did that, she got to thinking about her dream- like state from earlier that day. How did he do that?, she wondered.

Tails came back. "Um...why don't we talk about this in the morning?"

"Ok then, bye!"

After he hung up, Verna came out of the bathroom. Amy went on to show her where she could stay fotonight. "In fact," she added, "stay here as long as you want." Verna thanked her, then shut the door to the guest room.

She decided to take a shower to get all the mud and oil out of her fur. Not forgetting to take something to change into, she closed the bathroom door behind her, undressed, stepped into the shower, and pulled the curtain. Turning the warm water on, she was finally able to truly relax for the first time that day. Gently massaging the soap into her pink fur, she knew that she should try to avoid another day like this at all costs, as it was just too stressful. She proceeded to carefully shampoo her hair. After that, she decided just to stay in a bit and enjoy the blissful feeling of the warm water hitting her fur.

Finally, she felt that it was enough. Turning the water off, she stepped out of the shower and dried herself off. Quickly pulling on her nightgown, she picked up her clothes and left the bathroom. She found Verna's clothes on top of the washing machine. She tossed them all into it and started the cycle.

Yawning, she walked into her room, leaving the door open. The clothes would actually be done washing rather quickly, so she decided to keep herself awake just long enough to toss them into the dryer.

She picked up the remote control to her TV and turned it on, taking care to keep it at a reasonably low volume. Flipping through the channels, she found that watching late-night TV was virtually pointless, as things were blaring on the screen that would never have been acceptable even five years ago. Well, so much for the media.

It seemed like forever before the washer alarm went off. Picking herself up, Amy walked up to it. Opening the lid, she took the no-longer soiled clothes out and tossed them into the dryer. After starting the cycle, she went to her room, closed the door behind her, and fell sound asleep in her large, comfortable ,queen-size bed.

Hades, on the other hand, couldn't sleep. He had found that the results of the disaster had utterly destroyed the island. The only thing he had managed to save before the entire place collapsed was the Emeralds of Reflection and the Truth Emerald, the emerald that governed ofer the Reflective Powers.

Although he was grateful for that, he was very upset about the island. All his life, he had lived there, only to see it crumble right before his eyes. He was very glad that his sister hadn't had to hear about this yet.

His pillow in Tails' guest room was almost soaked through with silent tears. In an attempt to try and not dwell on the Fallen Island, he tried to remember the good times they spent together on the island, with their parents. Their parents...oh, how he missed them so...the destruction of the island made him feel like he was losing them all over again, in addition to making him hate Mecha and Eggamn even more.

Suddenly, he recalled a time where a fox dressed in camo had tried to steal the emeralds. The fox's arm had been robotized. Of course, both he and Verna had sent him packing...Hades managed to utter a soft chuckle. He wondered what had happened to the fox after that. Maybe this chain of events had something to do with him. Who knows? he thought.

Still unable to sleep, he decided to go to the kitchen and get something to eat. He was feeling rather weak, anyway. Upon arrival, he tested his blood glucose. He inserted the test strip, then pulled back the knob on the lancet device until it clicked. He brought it up to his finger, and pressed the butto. The lancet needle pricked his calloused fingers and drew just enough blood to accomplish the purpose. He brought his finger to the end of the strip. It seemingly sucked the blood right off his finger. After five seconds, the result showed up on the screen. It read: "59."

Unsurprisingly, he was low. He ran his finger under cold water, then made himself a peanut butter sandwich with a glass of milk. As he sat down to eat it, Cream walked into the kitchen.

"You're still up, Hades?" inquired Cream.

"Yeah. I have a low blood sugar."

"Oh. I can't sleep. I'm just going to heat a glass of milk up for myself."

"Go ahead. Come sit down, if you want."

After placing the milk in the microwave, she obliged. They sat silently for about thirty seconds. At last, she could not stay silent any more.

"What actually happened to Sonic anyway?"

As she retrieved her warmed milk, Hades explained as she drank.

"Amy must care a lot for him, huh."

As Hades finished up his last bite of sandwich, he said, "You better believe it." He slowly drank the last bit of milk in his glass, then rinsed it in the sink.

"We'd better try to go to sleep. I have a feeling that tomorrow's going to be a long day," said Hades.

"Yeah. Anyway, goodnight!" said Cream as she, too finished her milk.

Hades plodded back to his room, feeling much better. As he climbed under his covers, he prayed. He knew that he would definitely never be able to make it through this all by himself. He thanked Him for allowing him to salvage the most important things from the island. After his final "Amen," he fell straight asleep.

Finally, the lab light shut off. A very tired Tails emerged from the lab and shut the door behind him. He had stayed up all night trying to figure out how to counteract the effects of the chaos mercury. Quite obviously, it needed another pure chemical. The trouble was, which one was it?

Tails finally narrowed it down: only the chaos elements 87-103 could reverse the effect. Of course, he had had to run some tests, and his chemical closet had more holes in it than Swiss cheese. Looking through the collection of solids and liquids, he had noticed a funny thing: all his chaos mercury was gone, as well as the chaos neptunium. Otherwise, the probable problem-solvers were all there. He had a sneaking suspicion. Chaos neptunium was very hard to come by, as it was only found naturally. And he had never used it at all.

Right now he just concentrated on eating. Groggily, he toasted some has browns, downed them, and climbed into bed, despite the fact that it was bright morning.

Cream had woke up and decided to get Tails up. Once she walked into his room, though, she saw his tousled fur and decided to let him sleep. He had done it again. Really, she thought, he needs to stop staying up all night.

Three hours later, Amy woke up to the bright sunlight filtering in from her bedroom window. Stretching, she felt rather well-rested. She got out of bed and immediately made a beeline to the dryer. She pulled out her red dress and went back to her room to change. Then, she headed to the kitchen. Not feeling very hungry at all, Amy pulled down the cereal box and a banana. She poured milk into her bowl, peeled the banana, and sliced it into her cereal. As she began to eat, Verna came walking in. She had apparently figured out where her clothes were.

"Morning, Amy."

Amy responded, then continued to eat. Verna decided to have the same thing. After they both finished, they talked more about what happened yesterday. When the conversation shifted to the phone call, Amy told Verna what Tails had found out about the bullet.

After chatting for about another hour and a half, they decided to mosey over to Tails' place and see what everyone else was up to. When they got there, Cream answered the door. "Shh...," she warned. "Tails is asleep. He was up all night again. Come in!"

Knuckles and Hades were both sitting in the kitchen eating breakfast very quietly. Amy couldn't help but smile at them.

"Eating breakfast a little late, aren't you?"

They all quietly laughed. Then, rather unexpectedly, Tails walked into the kitchen.

Of course, his fur was as tousled as ever, but he sounded like he had gotten genuine rest. "Morning!"

After they finished eating, Tails went to shower. While he was in there, something dawned on him. Quickly finishing up and getting out, he hurried back into the lab, forgetting about everyone else.

He slammed the door open, then raced to the back. Sure enough, there were footprints...but not Rouge's. They looked rather fox-like. And they led to the chemical closet. Tails did not like the way this was beginning to look. He decided that he had better pay a visit to Rouge, no matter how daunting it seemed.

Still forgetting about everyone else, he dashed out in a hurry and took the bus to Night Babylon, where Rouge lived. This was the shadiest city he knew, and it made him nervous, despite his rigorous martial arts training. Breaking out in a cold sweat, he finally made it to Club Rouge. Going inside, he was offered little comfort. Normally, her battle club was open 24/7, but it was strangely empty.

He climbed the stairs that led to Rouge's penthouse. Knocking on the door, he heard a feminine voice say, "Come in..."

Tails did just that, and came in to see Rouge half asleep at the table. No wonder the club was empty...

"Whaddya want?" Rouge moaned groggily.

"Did you let a fox into my lab when you were trying to steal the emerald?"

She immediately snapped to attention. "No, I didn't. Listen, twerp, it might have something to do with Eggman or Mecha. Oh, have you heard the latest? Mecha split with Eggman, and some fox has control of him now, even after your echidna friend screwed it up. Weird, huh."

Tails heard no more after she mentioned the fox. In fact, he had already split. "Well, how rude!" she said rather hypocritically.

Forget running, he thought, flying's gonna be faster! He flew all the way back to his house from Night Babylon, grateful to have left the shady atmosphere of the place.

He burst in to find no one there. Briefly, he wondered where they went. Then he pushed it from his mind and flipped the news channel on. Apparently what Rouge had been saying was true. The fox was only identified as Savage Fox. Hm...where have I heard that name before? he thought. Ah, well. He paid attention and wrote down the description.