(I do not own Sonic X, etc.)

S.O.N.I.C GO!

S.O.N.I.C GO!

Episode 20: The Chaos Emerald Factory!

-

With absolutely no worries in the entire world, Big the Cat sat the end of the Typhoon with his fishing rod in one hand and a bucket full of bait in the other. No matter where they wound up on this planet, he somehow managed to find the opportunity to go fishing. And with little else to do until either Doctor Eggman fixed the ship's engines or located that Metal X base they were supposedly so near, Sonic had little to do accept wait as well.

The tropical location they had landed in kept the water around them quite warm, so much so that Rouge and Amy had taken the opportunity to go swimming. Rouge, for Knuckles' benefit Sonic thought to himself, was wearing a revealing blood red bathing suit. Turning, Sonic saw the guardian of the Master Emerald standing beside him with a transfixed look and a powerful blush on his face.

Sonic held his hand up with the echidna's face and then clicked his fingers. Knuckles blinked and started looking around as if he'd just woken up.

"Look Lover boy, just get in there with her before I throw you in." The blue hedgehog told him, putting his hands on his hips. Despite his embarrassment, Knuckles managed a smirk.

"You're a fine one to talk." He replied, gesturing down towards the ocean, where Amy was swimming about with her Hero chaos Turel following her flying above. She was also wearing a swimsuit, which Sonic suspected was showing a bit too much flesh then she'd anticipated. Sonic put a hand on his nose before anyone could notice the blush. "So why don't YOU get in there?" Knuckles asked with a wide grin.

"Water ain't my thing." The blue hedgehog replied flatly, crossing his arms and turning away sulking. Knuckles let his arms drop to his sides with a bored expression on his face, before a very impish idea came to mind and he smiled. Sonic still had his back to him so he didn't see the red Echidna sneak up and with a one shove, push him over the edge. Sonic exclaimed out load before falling into the water.

"How's the water?" Knuckles called down, only to have the drenched Hedgehog yell something at him, some blurred as Sonic was yelling too fast.

Sonic wasn't a good swimmer. He wasn't even a moderate swimmer. He tended to panic at the sight of a kiddie pool, yet somehow he managed to struggle off towards one of the nearby small islands. The nearest one was probably no longer than several feet, with a few palm trees sticking out of the middle, most of the island being covered in golden sand.

"BASTARD!" The drenched hedgehog called over to the Typhoon. The island was within the holo-camouflage radius so he could still see the ship, and the red dot that stood on the deck.

Knuckles, who was not prone to childish pranks, actually found himself laughing. Doing that had been an impulse and strangely it felt rather good.

"Turn about's fair play Knucklehead." Someone told him from behind. Knuckles turned, just in time to see a gloved hand shove forward, sending him over the edge.

Hitting the surface and diving underneath, The Echidna panicked and started flailing about, only to have someone pull him up.

It was Rouge, and right not he had a perfect look directly at her chest.

"That wasn't funny." He told her as they floated there, trying to deflect the attention away from him before she noticed his gaze. Rouge managed a smirk. She had noticed anyway.

"Oh? You seemed to think pushing 'water-intolerant Sonic' into the drink was good for a few laughs."

"Idiots." Eggman muttered to himself, casting a glance out the window towards those outside, who were either taking the relative peace as time for relaxation. Chuck and Sam were outside on the top of the ship with deck chairs, arms behind their heads, sunglasses on and a bottle of suntan lotion at the read as they roasted their skin in the sun. Big, as usual, was fish but that wasn't anything out of the norm. Tails and Cosmo were out there too. The green haired girl had sighted a coral off their port bow and Tails was taking the opportunity to tell her all about it. The two of them where quickly becoming inseparable. Not that Eggman cared about that, what really ticked him off what that he was the only one working while all the others were out there having fun. And with a Machine Federation fleet searching for them, fun was not something they could afford right now. Angrily, He put his tool box down and made for the exit. "Now, if you're all finished playing…" The Doctor began, marching out onto the deck. "Can we please focus on some of the more important things? Like, oh I don't know…escaping a robot fleet intent of blasting us into oblivion?"

"Well I suppose you'd know all about robot fleets wouldn't you?" Sam asked, letting his sun glasses slide down his nose. Eggman sent him a glare that screamed, 'don't push it.' There was a sudden loud whooshing sound and Sonic climbed back over the side of the deck, his blue quills completely water logged.

"Right, where is he?" He demanded angrily, looking around. He's been running a little low on Chaos energy and hadn't had the power to teleport back to the ship, so with Amy's help he had to swim back to the ship. Swimming and Sonic the Hedgehog did not mix.

"Where is who?" Chuck asked. Sonic paused, his ears angling forward, before he turned and looked back to see a water ridden Knuckles climbing back after him.

"Think it's funny do you?" The blue hedgehog asked, before giving the Echidna a shove of his own. Knuckles flapped his arms in mid air trying to get some balance, before tipping over and falling back down towards the sea.

"And here I was thinking I was going on a trip with professionals." Eggman muttered as Chris handed Sonic a towel. "Instead I end up babysitting a bunch of children."

"A bunch of children that whooped your schemes on more than one occasion." Sonic reminded him. The Doctor just grumbled angrily.

"I've had time to survey that island chain up ahead." He began, deciding it best to change the subject. "There are about five islands in all and the base we're looking for placed on the largest one." He gestured over towards the islands in the distance. The largest of the five was more than evident as it was at roughly three times the size of the others.

"We'll have to send a recon party to check the security features." Chuck ventured.

"That's another thing." Eggman added. "If I read the data we downloaded from Leviathan correctly, the experiments going on in that base are of top priority to the Machine Federation." He looked out towards the ocean. "If it were me, all of those islands could be outfitted with every security feature I could muster. Yet the Typhoon's sensors don't read a thing."

"Maybe security around the base is super tight?" Sam replied, leaning back into his deck chair.

"Maybe all the traps and stuff have cloaking features, like our holo-camouflage that keeps them hidden." Chuck began, tapping his chin.

"Or maybe they want us to get in." Sonic added with hard eyes. That gained everyone's attention, even Knuckles who had just pulled himself up over the top of the ship, with his dreadlocks now drenched.

"A trap?" Chris asked.

"Possibility." Eggman began. "Of course it could be neither, or all. We won't be able to tell until we take a look." He turned to face Sonic, who had his mouth open ready to speak. "From a distance." The blue hedgehog's ears flopped to the side of his head and his arms flopped, a disappointed look playing over his face.

In the end, it was Tails who was selected to take Sonic over the island in one of the planes that had left in the hanger.

Cosmo grimaced as a familiar wave of sudden imagery passed through her mind. Staggering back, he stopped at a wall and used it to regain her balance. While the sensation had been familiar, the timing had not. Visions only came while she slept, never before had they slammed into her mind while she remained awake.

In that instant, she knew something was very wrong.

She saw Sonic, pure and golden hearted as he was, overcome by intense darkness and she had watched in horror as he changed from the steadfast hero he had always been to something…else. She knew no word to describe it…other than…evil. The darkness that had overcome him was the same was that which she had previously seen him standing against.

Was it a premonition of the battle to come? Did it mean that Sonic would…loose? Or worse, did it mean Sonic could actually join forces with it, turning his back on everything he had ever been? Something, some strong impulse told her it had something to do with those islands.

She looked over towards the blue hedgehog who standing nearby talking to another of his friends, that same characteristic goofy smile on his face. That certainly didn't look like the case…but what else could the vision mean?

In any rate, she had to let Sonic know of her discovery.

"That's a little vague." The blue hedgehog began when Cosmo related the story to him. "Anything else?" The green haired girl shook her head.

"I don't know what it means, but I just know it takes place if you go to those islands." Everyone around looked a little confused.

Sonic didn't take all this seeing the future stuff through visions seriously, yet he could see the fear in Cosmo's eyes.

"Well I don't want to get swallowed up by darkness." He began with a short grin. "Knuckles, why don't you go?" The Echidna, who was still drying himself off, looked up in surprise.

"What me?" He asked.

"Yeah you. I think strength's going to count more than speed on a job like this anyway." Sonic replied folding his arms.

"But what about the Master Emerald?" The Echidna protested. "I can't leave it alone with him onboard." He added, gesturing towards Eggman who stood out of ear shot.

"I'll be happy to watch over it for a while Red." Rouge told him. She was still in her revealing swim suit so any attempt he made at a reply game out garbled. "I promise, Eggy over there won't lay a finger on it." The bat added, putting a hand softly on his check. Sonic could swear for a second he looked about as red as it was physically possible to get.

"Are you sure about that?" Tails asked Cosmo as Sonic and Knuckles began negotiating, with fists in the air. "What sort of Darkness was it?"

"The same I saw him stand against the first time." She replied, sitting down. Tails paused, before sitting down beside her. "I just know, for a fact, that something terrible will happen if he goes to that island." He read his look. "I don't know what it is, I just know it'll be terrible." There was a fear in her eyes so to calm her down and without even thinking about it, Tails put his arm around her. It helped and she calmed a down a little.

It wasn't until a moment later when Tails realized what he was doing.

"Oh…er…sorry." He mumbled, retracting his arm. Cosmo just smiled at him.

"Thanks anyway."

After a bit of discussion, Knuckles finally agreed to go, on the condition that Eggman never be left along for so much as one second while he was gone. Since Bean and Bark had taken the X tornado, Tails selected a new plane for the trip. It was one of his old Cyclone types, still in the old blood red colour. Climbing into the ramped seat, the red Echidna looked irritated beyond belief.

"Don't worry red." Rouge told him, leaning on the side of the plane with a seductive look on her face. "They'll be something nice for you to look forward to when you get back." The echidna didn't even have time to reply to that, as Tails pulled his piloting goggles down over his eyes and took control of the plane. The propeller started spinning and with a sudden thrust, the plane soured along the runway at the front of half submerged ship before souring off into the sky.

Cosmo watched them fly away. She was glad Sonic wasn't going, but in truth she would prefer it if none of them ventured to that island, especially Tails. He was the one aboard the ship she felt truly attached to.

"You don't usually let others do the dirty work." Amy told Sonic, who stood there watching the plane disappear off towards land. "You really believe what Cosmo said?" The blue hedgehog shrugged.

"She's been right so far about events, and I don't seen much reason to doubt her visions now." Amy sighed and put his hands behind her head.

"Still seems a bit out of character for you." The blue hedgehog forged a grin.

"Well if it bothers you that much, later I'll do something really heroic, just for you." the pink hedgehog clasped her hands together, her face relapsing into that wide eyed innocent expression she'd been famous for.

"Oh you mean it!"

-

Things had not been going well. It hadn't taken the ship Okida and Topaz stole from the Machine Federation's air force long to be picked up on radar after a shockwave from the jump drive had made them visible to every Metal X ship for miles. Within minutes, they found themselves being chased by several other ships, each one sufficiently larger than their own.

"LEFT!" Topaz screamed as the dark shadow of the Metal X attack vessel came souring over them. As if plunged his whole weight down on it, Okida sent their ship into a dive, pulling up just short of the trees before jamming the thrusters on full and rocketing forward as hard as the engines could manage. The other big ships, while larger, lacked speed. Their smaller drones however did not, and within moments they had a swarm of them following their trail.

"Sonic sure pissed off these guys." The Major remarked, throwing all his piloting skills into evasive manoeuvres and shots began ringing through the air.

"He does that to a lot of people." Topaz conceded, busy on the terminal next to the vampire bat. "I've got the jump's ion trail on the scanners. I think we can follow it!"

"Now there's the first piece of good news I've heard all day." Then, swinging the controls back around, Okida sent the ship flying straight back towards their pursuers.

"Take the controls!" The major announced, passing them over towards Topaz as he rose out of his seat. "And keep her flying straight into them."

"What on Earth are you doing?" The human called after him, but by the time she had, her superior office had gone out the door, shutting it behind him.

Okida wasted no time advancing though the ship towards the cargo bay where they had housed the Mechs. The ship itself did not have the speed to escape the Metal X drone, nor did it have the fire power to fend them off. Their Mech's on the other hand…

Dropping down into the cargo bay, the major made a direct line the Spider Mech they managed to steal from the Machine Federation air force base. He had already seen first hand that this machine had twice the fire power than either the Raptor or the Yahger. However, the complicated equipment in the cockpit showed that it was anything but user friendly.

"Ok, plan in need of re-think." He told himself, climbing into the pilot's seat and strapping himself in.

With a loud roar, the large door at the back of the ship opened, a ramp slowly descending into the air. Controlling a machine with eight legs was sufficiently harder than a Mech with two Okida was quick to discover as he unsteadily marched the Mech outside. By now, the air was full of laser fire as a swarm of royal blue robotic drones began to surround them. They were here in their dozens, and no matter now many the a ships own weapons shot down another three seemed to take its place.

The spider mech slammed its front four feet in as an anchor, shaking the entire vessel, as several pieces of armour moved aside to reveal missile launcher pads. The multi-targeting system of the technologically advanced Mech locked on to about twenty targets all at once, Okida pressed the button marked 'fire' and instantly the air seemed to filled with a rain of missiles. A second later, the fire works began. Fire reigned everywhere as dozens of drones began falling towards the ground all at once, some colliding with one enough intensifying the flames.

"Keep it up Koji, we've got incoming off the starboard side." Topaz told him through a com link she had hastily set up. She'd used his first name again, Okida thought to himself. Very few people actually called him that. Turning, the spider's head starred off to the side to see another load of Metal X drones closing in fast, not only that but several of those big ships weren't far behind them.

"Oh hello, what do we have here?" The major began, seeing the controls for something called; plasma cannon. Now, he mused, would be a good a time as any to give the technology of this new toy a little test run.

The spider shuddered as its energy core began to build up power and once the level was sufficient, it arched its back, it's metal pincers snapping as dozen flashes of violet lightning passed between them. Light blared brightly out of the mouth as it threw itself forward as a beam of detractive energy lanced forward, shattered the sound barrier with a horrifically loud sonic boom. Most of the Metal X drones saw it coming and veered out of the way. One of the ships behind them however either wasn't fast enough or didn't have time, because it smashed head first into the beam and the destructive energy cut right through it. Parts of the ship flaked off for a moment, before it exploding in a tremendous cloud of smoke, ashes and fire. Now within range, the remaining large ship opened fire, a deadly dose of lasers nearly striking their own vessel across the bow. "We may need an escape route here." Okida told Topaz through their com link.

"Working on it." She replied, frantically using every evasive manoeuvre she knew to keep them from being blown out of the sky. "I've the Typhoon's trail already set up, keep them busy for a few minutes and I think I can have us on our way."

"Why do I get the feeling that's not going to be as easy as it sounds?" The Major asked out load. The plasma cannon needed time to re-charge, so locking onto as many targets as possible Okida firing another volley of missiles straight into their numbers. As sheets of flaming metal began falling around them, the front of the larger ship bushed through the chaos, charging straight at them, all turrets on its underbelly firing non-stop. A couple of shots hit several of the spider Mech's armoured legs and it collapsed to the floor of the ramp.

Forcing the machine up, but with less sturdy legs than before, Okida fired another burst of missiles but in the process used up all his ammunition. Several explosions ran out on the large ship and half of the Drones disappeared in the fire, but it wasn't enough to slow them down completly. "Come on, re-charge already!" The Major said from between clenched teeth as he stared down at the energy gauge for the Mech's main weapon, still only half-full.

The Metal X was nearly on top of them now. If it fired from that vantage point, it couldn't miss.

"I'm almost there, just a few more seconds." Topaz announced.

"We don't have a few more seconds!" The Major replied. "Whatever you plan on doing, do it NOW!" Topaz looked up through the front screen was the tip of the Machine Federation vessel passed overhead. Okida was right, her time was up…but she wasn't ready. She couldn't guarantee the engines could take the strain…right now however she had no choice, the turrets were already rotating around towards them, preparing to fire.

Topaz was never much of gambler, but now she would have to trust to luck. Okida had just managed to get inside and closer the hanger door when Topaz engaged her make shift jump drive. It was by no means as advanced, or as stable as the one Tails and Eggman whipped up for the Blue Typhoon but she knew enough of the science behind it to make one, and the hardware had been available onboard. Now it was time to see if it worked.

The air rippled as the device took effect and the hole in the sky opened, a torn rip that their ship began to pass through, but as Topaz feared the hole wasn't as stable as she would like. The edges were constantly distorting, being stretched and compressed

It was too late to do anything about it now; they were already half way through and the Metal X ship was following behind. But at its higher altitude, half of it was taken into the porthole and the other half was left outside. The vessel was torn clean in half, what was left outside cascading towards the ground.

"Oh I hate this part!" Okida exclaimed as the entire ship entered the rift and with a sudden flash of light that sealed it behind them, they were gone.

-

The largest chain in the chain was about the size of Angel Island, covered completely in jungle with a small mountain directly in the centre, peeking out towards the sky. Tails was amazed Metal Sonic had been able to create all this so fast. A entire world filled with abundant life, even more so than Earth.

Perhaps on this base, they would finally find out how he did it, and how he planned to use the synthetic chaos emeralds he was creating.

That is if they could find the base. From the air, all either Tails or Knuckles could see was tree cover. If the data from Leviathan's memory banks was correct, the base was large enough to cover half the island. There simply wasn't enough room for trees to hide a structure that expansive.

Knuckles blinked, spotting something out of the corner of his eye. Turning, he stared down towards the island as Tails brought his plane around the circle it again. He was certain he saw…something. As the plane passed overhead and the light from the sun glared down, the echidna spotted a thin line running diagonally across the tree tops and when they passed over it, the entire island seemed to flip around to face another way.

"Did you see that?" Knuckles asked, but Tails was already staring in that direction. Apparently he had.

"It's a holographic display." He replied, his eyes hidden beneath the glare on his goggles. "No wonder we can't see it." Now with a target, Tails brought the plane down towards the island and landed it on a long rocky ledge jutting high above the beach on it's eastern shore. "Going through it, we might set off an alarm." he explained as Knuckles climbed out of the uncomfortable seat. Tails was still rummaging around through the cockpit, looking for something he'd left inside. After a moment, he pulled out a large cylinder device with a light at the top. It was about the size of his forearm and had a control dial on the side.

"What's that?" Knuckles asked.

"I haven't thought of a name for it yet." Tails replied, tucking it under one arm and using his free hand to put his goggles off his seats. "But, it's just what we need to get through that hologram without telling every Metal X robot in the process."

Instead of heading directly towards the centre of the island where Knuckles had first seen any indication of a protective illusion, they skirted around the outside of it for a while so Tails could get some idea as to how big this hologram actually was. Finally, they stopped in a small clearing. All Knuckles could see where tees, bushes and other flora, but Tails assured him everything about five meters to his right wasn't really there.

Setting the cylinder down in the earth, Tails began pressing buttons on the side and the light on the top blinked on, flashing bright yellow. "Ok, now my invention will cause a disruption in the illusion, probably no bigger than a few feet wide, but enough for the two of use to get through." The fox began, looking back towards the Echidna for a moment. "When you see the door, go for it 'cause I got no idea how long it's going to remain open." Knuckles nodded and Tails got back to work.

After a moment of silence, a short buzzing caught their attention and in the middle of the air, everything just seemed to bend to one side before an opening of some kind revealed itself, the edge of it rippling like the surface of water.

Knuckles didn't hesitate. He simply ran through the opening as quickly as he could, but had to stop dead in astonishment once he was inside. The hologram was hiding a citadel, a colossal sprawling base that curved down in a crater of some kind to a hole directly in the middle. Around the outside edge of this small mechanical city was giant towers with curved dishes on the top. Thick metal cables, each the size of a car lead down from each and every one to the centre itself. At least half the island was covered in this thing, and it all kept from sight and detection by the holo-camouflage.

"Woah…" Tails began, stepping through to see it all himself.

"Took the words right out of my mouth." Knuckles replied, his eyes wide in awe.

"This, er, may…take a while longer then I anticipated." The fox admitted, stretching the spot behind his left ear. He looked up towards the tower lining the outer edge. "Those must be collecting all the life-form energy from around the planet, sucking it down into some kind of batteries for use in their experiments."

"So let's trash them!" Knuckles suggested, flexing both arms.

"Not a good idea." Tails told him. "We still have to find out if they managed to successfully clone a Chaos Emerald. You go into demolition mode too early and the security will lock the base down so tight not even air could through." Knuckles actually looked disappointed for a minute.

-

Flip card 1:

Name: Metal X

Description: The army belonging to Metal Sonic, the drones of the Machine Federation.