Lightning-Dono: Ack, sorry for not updating in so long! I completely lost interest in this story for a bit since I started playing Tales of Symphonia again. xD I apologize dearly...I also apologize for making this chapter a little too...long, drawn out, but it needs to reflect Eggman's feelings, as well as others.

--

Feel my soul
As the wind takes me away
From you

--

Sonic was recovering. Although he looked as though he had been sunk inside a tank of bleach and laid to dry out, everyone could still tell he was recovering. Despite the fact that his skin was flaking and had obtained the color of snow, he was actually beginning to enjoy life relaxing. But his appearance wasn't all that was on his mind as he stood before his bathroom mirror in pure dismay at his image.

"What in the world happened to Amy?" He spat, yearning for the chance to see someone other than the random appearances Rouge made in his mind. It was as though she were slowly, cautiously haunting his fever-bitten mind. Sonic felt nothing but bitterness towards their last encounter. There was nothing between them, he now knew. Everything he imagined he had gained was slowly slipping from his grasp. Their romance was nothing but a feeble dream created by his desire to escape from a love-hungry Amy. She had no clue how much he wanted her back inside his grasp. "She always visits. Always." Sonic felt desperation control him as he jerked himself up from the bathroom counter he was leaning on as he inspected his pallid features. But Amy...

It was strange. Surely now the fans of her most recent single would have stirred up a decently sized commotion in protest that their most local star had vanished off the face of the earth, but no...there was definitely something wrong with this scenario. Certainly, he had heard a few comments on the news, but nothing spectacular. The only thing the reporters would say was that she must've been taking a rest from the heavy work laid on her as a singer. Sonic knew better than that – Amy would never flee. She would only disappear if there were someone preventing her from making herself known.

"I have to find her."

--

Amy had regained consciousness only a mere few moments ago after being subjected to a physical that, thankfully, had been performed by one of Eggman's robots. Clearly Eggman was up to something. Even in her hazy thoughts as the sedative drug in her system wore out, she had figured out this much. There was no other reason Eggman would hang her upside down, strapped to a metal platform by the ankles with an answer for his actions as, "I'm simply testing your wills."

Now she found herself inside a room on her own, alone in her misery as she tried to find a way out. Her hammer remained no where to be seen, but that was typical Eggman. He enjoyed having the upper hand in tense situations and it was no surprise that he would confiscate anything that would harm his plan in any way.

Then again, Eggman had disarmed them of a handy tool either way. She now lacked the ability to walk properly without being in immense pain. Even now as she shifted her awry position on the steel floor, pain shot up from the base of her feet, shocking her senses. But all through these years of over-protectively looking after Sonic, it had endowed her with a special ability that Amy found to be rather handy. Her persistence and vigilance would be the key to Eggman's destruction, but first she needed to recover her intuition as to where Tails was.

The walls that surrounded her was presumably fabric with a network of wiring beneath. This allowed Eggman's systems to calculate her condition by speculating her body heat when she touched it and it also let the strategic genius know exactly when to make his move. He had expected her, supposedly being the weaker one of the two he had caught, to lean against the wall and give in to the ache provided by her feet and the mind set that she would never get out. However, he was quite wrong. Instead of calmly accepting her fate, Amy was beyond petrified by the current situation.

"Stupid Eggman! Why does he do things like this?" Amy raged as she tore at the nearest wall, fingernails searing through her gloves. Tears engulfed her eyes and spilled down her cheeks uncontrollably. Her gloves had torn and now she clawed madly at the wall, bearing the look of a rabid dog as she cleverly managed to cut through the cheap fabric. Bringing together her hands at the rip, she pulled the covering apart, only to be confused by what she was presented with. This revealed a bedding of stiff wiring that was rapidly sending currents of data to Eggman's main computer. Amy couldn't have cared less what those darn wires did.

Amy sank back to the ground, resting weakly on her legs, her dress tattered and ripped. All anger that had surged through her previously was gone. How would she get out of this? Eggman was just too inventive for her to take. Putting a fragile cover over the wires to make her think she could get out, and when she thought she had finally succeeded, stump her with another problem. This was far from over.

Eggman, I'll get you for this. You and your sick games with everyone...why do you do such cruel things? You know you can't win. Everything you plan is just another trap, but you'll run out of ideas someday and when you do, my friends and I will be there to set you right.

--

There were data readings from Amy's part of the robot flashing back and forth on the screen before Eggman. The genius was sitting there, giddily bouncing up and down, looking as though he might float up and rise through the top of his own gargantuan creation.

"Now that you're awake...let's see what you have in store for me, Amy." His nimble fingers that had grown relatively used to the standard keyboard typed in a few words. Using his index finger, Eggman dramatically pressed the "Enter" key and two windows appeared on the screen, adjacent to each other. One contained a camera shot of Amy sitting there with half the wall she was facing torn apart looking devastated. Eggman took a small amount of joy from this, but somehow the mere picture of suffering no longer pleased him. He wanted much more. He needed to have power over his hostages.

The second window contained controls for a crane that remained hidden above the poor girl. Grinning deviously to no one in particular, he forged an older window from the bottom of the screen that had the reading of her statistics. At current, her body heat was a little over normal, her breathing rate was a slow, drawn out breath every two seconds. That was good enough for him, he would need to be gentle with the crane on her to preserve her physical well being. That single factor would be the difference between failure and regaining his position as number one on the list of most formidable villain. Of course, there was also the pleasing idea that he would terrorize so many innocent people. After he had surrendered to Sonic some time before and went into hiding, people had been slighting his name and making him look like a fool. Although he did admit that it was foolish to give up to someone he had sworn to be his enemy, they had no reason to poke fun. Now he would get revenge against those that had abused his identity and made him out to be someone who would shrink at the very thought of violence. How untrue that was.

He had successfully transferred a struggling Tails into his proper position inside the robot – the very hood. That was where he would perform the most dangerous experiment yet, and if it failed, there was no hope left for neither Eggman nor the vulnerable fox. Eggman only had one Chaos Emerald left in his possession, and whatever he did with it had to be would have to follow through with no flaws. Besides, with the deceptive tricks he had planned, how could fail?

With the flair of a ballet dancer, Eggman twirled around in his chair and allowed the crane to descend upon Amy.

--

Her ankles were sore and on her face she wore a distraught look. Amy had managed to calm down considerably, but it wasn't because she was having fun marveling at the complicated network of cords. She was completely and utterly consumed with worry for Tails.

"Why the long face, Amy?" Came a cocky voice from somewhere above her head. It sounded so sickeningly familiar, but she didn't want to believe it. She threw her head back to see Sonic hanging from an inactive apparatus on the ceiling, grinning at her.

"Sonic?" Amy whispered softly, her voice cracking. "Why? How?"

Sonic didn't bother providing an explanation, but his blase attitude kicked in. "Heh, it's all the same from Eggman." He shook his head in exasperation. "But enough of that. We should get out of here, Amy." The alluring blue hedgehog extended a hand towards Amy, who was watching it lower warily.

"Why did you come?"

"You think I wouldn't come to save you?" A slight, offended look appeared on his face.

Amy beamed at him and reached up with a shaking hand to take his.

His grip was like steel. In that very instant, Sonic's image fizzled out of sight and was replaced by the iron hand clamped around her wrist. Eggman's taunting voice, seemingly amplified a hundred times, rang through the room, stating, "You didn't really think Sonic could get in, did you?" It reverberated throughout the entire room, wrangling Amy's conscience. I was tricked. How could I even believe Sonic would come to save me? Through an unbearable amount of anger, tears returned to her bright emerald orbs.

"And now, you will be lifted to your destruction!" The voice continued, followed up by a mechanical whirring emitting from the crane as it pulled Amy from her stationary position in midair to the very top level of the robot. It was domed, giving a very pleasant view of the woods that encircled it. Such an ethereal setting for a place that only brought agony to innocent beings. One look around her confirmed her worries – Tails was already up here, kicking and apparently screaming, but not a sound could be heard. He was bound inside a capsule that was glowing exotically. The rounded structure he was contained in was connected to a heavily protected platform in the middle of the room, which contained the single, diamond-like Chaos Emerald.

"TAILS!" Amy shrieked. "Can you get out of there?"

Instead of Tails' childish voice replying, Eggman's raspy vocals filled the room, "No, he can't. And neither will you once I get you inside one."

The crane lowered Amy into another capsule, which sealed itself shut almost as she made contact with it. Cables, three exactly, snaked around her body as she tried to kick open the opening. "Let me out of here!" She screamed fiercely.

Eggman emerged through a door that was concealed neatly off to the side of her capsule, wearing a smirk on his face that could predict nothing but horrors for the two of them.

"Are you screaming for help? Because I can't hear you," Eggman said to an aghast Tails and an Amy who looked like if she had been able to get out, she would have lifted up the entire capsule and hurled it at his head. "It's soundproof, as long with this entire dome. Those on the outside of this robot won't hear a thing, and soon...they won't see anything, either." With the flick of a switch, the view of the outer world vanished beneath a cover of metal. "Let me explain myself while you two are still conscious. And this time...No one can interrupt me." He paused here to theatrically cackle, much like a witch before stewing a helpless toad. "As you can see, I've gathered you both here for a reason that's beyond what you will ever be able to come up with. I've managed to find something while I was in hiding that will change what remains of your lives and the lives of others forever.

What did I find you might ask? I had discovered a species of animal that, until now, has been unknown to those with the average eye. Anyone wish to venture a guess as to what I found?"

Tails' spoke, but his reply was mute to the world.

"This is what I found, and with this, I can take over the world!" He held up a transparent jar that, from what Amy and Tails could see, was filled with nothing. "Within this jar is a parasitic bacterium that raided this land over a hundred years ago. This creature, in particular, carried the ability to take over the mind and body when under the right influence. This influence is by taking in the DNA of a certain person and living of a certain person and living off of it for a correct amount of time, which happens to be two years."

Two years, Tails realized, his mind racing fervently. Exactly the amount of time since he went into hiding.

"For the past two years when I came across these creatures in an ancient relic, I have been feeding them off of my mustache hairs." Despite her current predicament, Amy's lips twitched into a smile. Eggman didn't notice. "They don't need much - they can live off of one strand for months and months. And when they have done this, they are able to understand the thoughts of the person just from reading their DNA pattern. The influence, once created, can last for over a decade. During that time, they will take over a living form and force them under control. What happens when the parasite has gotten them under control? They will begin to make the person act under my command, so long as the parasite isn't somehow flushed out of the system. From where I stand, it's a little hard to flush something out of your skull."

Eggman, you sadistic bastard.

"I have only managed to gather about twenty-five of this specimen. That's why you are here today – to power the Chaos Emerald to help me multiply them!" He placed the jar inside the machine on the far end of the room that branched off of the Chaos Emerald's holder.

"Then I can take over the world."