Chapter one

Sonic checked the invitation one last time. "Building S4...Yup, this is the place." he said quietly to himself as he gazed at the large metal door in front of him. As he reached for the door handle, he heard a collection of familiar voices, one he could pinpoint for certain was his intellectual friend Tails. There were several other voices, but they were too unclear to decipher.
He opened the door to find that he wasn't the only one to have received an invitation; in the large, windowless room Sonic found two rows of chairs and desk, one row having six seats, the other five. Nothing special here, but it was who was sitting at these seat that took Sonic by surprise. His suspicions of Tails being in the rooms were correct. He was seated to a good friend of his, Cream, who was sitting on the left hand edge of the first row. The fox and rabbit looked to be conversing, with Cream nodding every so often. Sonic only caught a few words of the conversation, one being "top secret". One seat across from Tails was the one person he knew he'd have to sit next to, his #1 fan Amy Rose. Her body language spoke for her, both arms on the desk in front of her, one raised with her cheek in her hand, her eyes staring towards the empty wall that faced her. She looked clearly bored, but Sonic knew that she'd soon be occupied, unfortunately for him. Sitting on the table right of Amy, with her with her legs crossed, was the one person that Sonic, being a male, could never miss. Rogue then slipped of her long glove, pulled out an emery board from her pocket and started filing at her long, claw-like fingernails. The next row proved to be more interesting. on each side of the row were both of Sonic's fiercest rivals, both didn't seem too pleased to be at this meeting. The nearest to Sonic seemed pissed that he had to leave his post by the Master Emerald, his arms crossed and his foot tapping. The furthest away from Sonic seemed just as annoyed, his arms also crossed, his feet still though. His dark head was tilted down and his eyes closed: he obviously didn't enjoy being here. In between the two was one trio Sonic never expected to see, but their presence may of explained the unrecognised voices earlier. Espio looked to be talking to Charmy, who needed to stand on a desk to reach Espio's eye-level. Vector wasn't joining in with his teammates conversation, instead he had his feet on the desk, his arms behind his head and his headphones over his ears. The only words he did speak were the mumbled lyrics to his favourite band's songs.
As sonic stood in the doorway examining the contents of the room, everyone bar Shadow turn their head toward him. Most continued their activities after a couple of seconds, but one stopped them to greet the hedgehog. "Hey Sonic! You got one of those weird invitations too?" Tails enquired.
"Yeah, I thought it was a party or something, but I suppose thinking about it, not too many parties happen in military buildings miles from the city." Sonic replied with a smile on his face. Cream let out a giggle.
"well whatever we're here for," Tails started, "it's gotta be important if they invited us all here like this." Sonic sat in the seat between Tails and Amy, turning his chair to favour Tails. Amy eyes never left Sonic since he entered, and even though his back was turned to her, she continued to stare into his deep blue fur. She started to stroke one of his quills with her finger. " So Sonic, wotcha doin' after this meeting?" Amy asked the object of her affection. Sonic turned his head to face Amy and replied "I can't go out with you Amy if that's what you're asking, I'm...eerm...helping Tails out with repairs on the Cyclone, isn't that right Tails?" Tails gave Sonic the "don't drag me into this" look, but he knew he had to help his friend out. "Yeah he does, he needs to help me install the new hydraulics system, sorry Amy"
"Oh okay...Another time maybe"
"Maybe." Sonic replied without thinking.
Just as Sonic ended the conversation, the door opened again, but this time it was a human, dressed in army uniform, who entered. He was pushing a T.V stand which housed a T.V and a V.C.R, and on top of the T.V there was a large metal tray. Everyone watched as he pushed the stand into the middle of the room. Rouge quickly pulled her glove on and sat on the desk behind her and vector turn his music of. The human started to speak. "Good morning. I'm General Samuel Orridge and before we begin I need to take a register of everyone who's present, so if you could please answer your name as I read it..." He went on to read out everyone's name, and as he had asked, they answered with a simple "here". But there was one name that failed to receive an answer. "Big?" The room fell silent.
"Is there a Big here?" The silence continued.
"Okay, does anyone know of a reason why Big isn't here"
"Eerm, mister general sir," Cream began cautiously."Big can be very forgetful, so maybe he forgot to come"
"I see..." The General walked out of the room, pulling out a mobile phone as he did and being careful to close the door behind him. Everyone fell silent again, trying to pick up on what he was saying. The only person to hear the General clearly though was Rouge, she could hear every word that left his mouth clearer than everyone else put together, and she heard some rather interesting things:
"Sir, there's one missing, should we continue as planned...Yes sir, what about the truant...Ok, I'll send a team to scout for him." This unnerved Rouge and she started to become quite pessimistic. What was going to happen to the small group in this room? Well she couldn't escape now. The only exit was the door, although there were some air vents, but they were much too small for anyone to fit through. The General re-entered the room and picked up the metal tray from on top of the T.V. "Now, if anyone has any items on their person, could you place them in this tray." he walked around the room and collected Amy's Piko Piko Mallet, Rouge's emery board, Espio's shuriken and Vector's personal stereo. The General placed the full tray on Cream's desk and proceeded to insert a video into the V.C.R.. He switched the T.V on, walked to they door, pulling out a remote from his pocket, and told the group "Pay close attention to the video which you're about to see, follow its instructions and take it seriously, this isn't a joke." He pressed play on the remote and left the room, being careful again again to close the door.
The T.V went black for a moment before a picture faded in, showing a woman dressed in formal Military uniform. She went on to tell the group of the "game" they're about to contend in:
"Hello, and congratulations on being selected for this game of Battle Royale! If this is your first time playing this game, listen closely to the rules and guide lines." A game? They gathered everyone here, in an old military building nearly 40 miles from the nearest town just to play a silly game? Tails knew there had to be a twist in the game, and he knew that it wasn't going to be anything they expected.
"When you enter the game, you will be given only a satchel filled with three things," she held up a mustard coloured satchel and pulled out the objects she said, "you will find a map of the game area, a pencil and a weapon, different for every person." at this moment she pulled out a 9mm calibre pistol. "That weapon has gotta be fake." Vector said to the rest of the Chaotix. "I mean what do they expect us to do, kill each other?" They chuckled at this remark, only to be hushed by Knuckles, who was starting to get impatient. "Each contestant will also be fitted with a collar around their necks that will explode if they stay in designated danger zones. The main aim of the game is to kill your opponents, if you are the only contestant alive, you win! But if there isn't a winner in 3 days of combat, all of the contestants will be killed. Good luck!" The Video finished. Everyone was clearly stunned by this idea of a game. "What the hell is this, some kind of sick joke!" Amy exclaimed, who was now on her feet "The General said to take this seriously..." Tails scared himself by saying this. Sonic got up of his chair. "I think I'll decline their offer, I'm not in a playful mood." He walked to the door. Rouge's ears then picked up a strange hissing sound coming from the air vents she noticed earlier.
"GAS!" Rouge shouted, "This place is filling up with gas!" Everyone started to feel more and more drowsy as more gas filled the room.
"I feel sleepy..." Charmy said dozing off.
"Me too..." Cream replied falling back into her seat. "Sonic we gotta get..." The gas took hold before Tails could even finish his sentence.
"Enough of this!" Knuckles got up from his seat and raised his fist to punched the door, but he fell asleep before he could connect with the door.
"Sonic..." Amy was the next to fall under the gasses spell, flopping onto the desk behind her.
Amy!" Sonic ran to where she fell but didn't even make it half way before collapsing. At the time Shadow was the only one awake; he stared at everyone who had succumbed to the gas.
"Pitiful life forms." he said spitefully while walking towards when, he too, gave in to the gas. The flow of gas stopped and the door opened to let five men in gas masks enter the room, one being the general.
"Let's get these...things on the transport, I want them on the island by midday."