Chapter 2

Somewhere in the Sins of Time

Disclaimer: I didn't own anything in chapter ONE, and I don't own anything NOW. So ha freakin ha. Wait, YOU should be laughing at ME!

Yeah, I'm kind of still in the mood. So, I'd better take advantage of that fact. I got a review and I'm seriously surprised, it's crazyyy. But, I can agree with it, because I 'want' to write this story, but then again I don't...but I am.

"You notice how...half of your house is missing?" Amy kicked up the dirt, making a face at Tails as the look on his face revealed that he was about to either cry, or just kill himself.

"...no...nope, I just completely missed that concept!" Tails stared in Rouge's direction, not needing an explanation, but expecting one in sympathy. "Where are Sonic and Shadow?" Rouge smiled pleasantly at him.

"Sonic went to Central City to try and find Metal Sonic...and...Shadow just went to find Metal Sonic...but, I'm sorry about your house...I wouldn't suppose the chaos emerald would still be in there, right?"

"You know it's not, Rouge...I just don't know what exactly I'm supposed to do now!" His tails twitched furiously, but again, it didn't scare Amy or Rouge.

"You're just going to have to get over it, Tails...you can move in with Sonic or something, but we have bigger problems right now!" Amy put her hands on her hips and scowled at him for being selfish as she would put it.

"Oh, okay, and you wouldn't be upset if your house got blown in half!" Tails sighed, "But, I guess you're right..." He finally looked at the pink haired hedgehog, "Ohh, but when I find that metal scrap heap I'm gonna tear him apart! I'm make him think twice before knocking down Miles Tails Prower's house from now on!" He jumped up and started shadow-boxing.

"Calm down, there, Sparky." Rouge smirked then turned, "Well, I guess a good idea would be to go lend a helping hand to our two favorite hedgehogs." She began to walk away, leaving Amy and Tails to think about what she said and decide whether they agreed.

"Two favorite hedgehogs...yeah right...those two are more annoying than anything I've ever met." As if it was unexpected or something, Knuckles jumped from the ground in front of Rouge. Obviously he intended to go with her, from the position of his stance once he was out of the dirt.

"Heyy, don't say that!" Amy and Tails caught up with them, while Amy proceeded to defend the love of her life and Shadow.

Knuckles just rolled his eyes and ignored her, as was usually the only way to win an argument with the pink-haired nuisance sometimes. Though, now that Rouge had walked around him, he had to catch up with her again. "Yeah, let's walk! How awesome is that? We'll just walk there and by the time we're there, the fighting will be over and we'll miss everything! Just what do you think you're accomplishing by walking?" Rouge gave him that girl look that usually means to back off if you don't want to get slapped immediately afterwards. He took head of the look and did just that.

"You're right, Knuckle-head...and I don't really want to deal with you bad-mouthing me...so I'll see you later." Again, she proceeded to use her wings, which was odd because Knuckles usually never saw her flying anywhere, yet in the last five minutes she had used this skill twice. He guessed he just wasn't around her enough to know this was her basic way of travel.

He muttered annoyingly under his breath when she was out of hearing range though, "...you're still not gonna get there in time to help your little boyfriend." Amy caught up to him and unfortunately heard what he said.

"Little boyfriend?" She smirked, "Do you mean Shadow?" She giggled at the slight redness in his cheeks, barely noticeable with his coloring. "Aw, are you jealous of him? Don't worry, I'm sure Rouge likes you much better!"

"What!" Knuckles was taken aback by the attempt to comfort him for no reason, or so his outer pride was declaring, "I-I don't care if she likes him or not! Amy, don't look at me like that." He snarled at her, as the look in her eyes revealed she was about to mock him.

Tails just sat in the backdrop and stared at them, "Whatever guys...if you wanna go that way you do that...I'm just gonna hop in the Tornado and I'll see you when I see you." He smiled at them as they both turned around, embarrassed at their attempts to just walks away, the both started back in his direction.

---

Mecha stopped immediately, the fire of his boots keeping him in the air. The blue light in front of him surprised even him as he stared for a moment. "Okay, you annoying little trash compactor...give me back those three chaos emeralds...'now'."

Metal Sonic just stared at Shadow, the red light in his eyes lit up. The voice just as deep as the last time they had fought, except Mecha has been much bigger at that time, and Sonic was giving a lame speech on teamwork, and he was 'listening' for some reason. "Shadow...if you do not get out of the way, I will be forced to eliminate you."

"Hah!" Shadow rolled his eyes, and smirked after a moment, "C'mon, you piece of junk, like you wouldn't eliminate me when you got all the chaos emeralds anyway, so if you think you're little death warning is doing anything for me...you're wrong."

"You have made a good point; therefore, I will get you out of the way now." Shadow again scoffed at the threat, the smarter part of his mind knowing he could be in over his head, his pride assuring him he definitely was not.

"Bring it on, you piece of shit!"

"Affirmative." It was almost mockingly, as Shadow knew Mecha was in full capability of speaking in lay man's terms. Though, he figured it was a feeble attempt the trash heap was making to seem superior to everyone else.

Not about to underestimate the ability of Mecha's speed, nor his sense when it came to not staring blankly at your enemy for three to four minutes as the moment got "intense"; he ducked under a kick in his direction. He jerked up and slammed his elbow into the metallic surface of Metal Sonic's head. He had, on the other hand, underestimated the utter pain of slamming your bone into nothing but metal. He did manage to dent Mecha's face slightly, but he was almost positive he had simply shattered his elbow in the process. Metal Sonic, annoyed with the fact that he now had a dent in his forehead, or whatever you would call it on a metal creature of his sort, jumped up and in short moved the fight to the ground, by making Shadow get there first. "This may not end well." Shadow held his head where Metal Sonic had nailed him.

As he stood up, though it was a repetitive move, the fact that he saw six of the metal versions of Sonic helped his enemy land a second kick that sent him flying back through a few trees, though it did result in the first one snapping and falling on top of Mecha. Shadow staggered up after a moment, growling angrily, "This is ridiculous...he's metal...he's a goddamn machine." He gritted his teeth and proceeded to flare his own air skates after a moment, he took off in the direction of Metal Sonic, as he saw his opponent pushing the fallen tree off of itself, he jumped up this time. As he jumped his air skates turned off, obviously this was intentional though, as his facial expression remained unchanged. Mecha looked up in time to see the power of his shoes light back up in time to make a more forceful connection with his head. This time he was the one that went flying backwards, luckily for Shadow, though, no trees were in his immediate range, so unlike Mecha, he didn't get nailed with one.

To that same effect, Mecha didn't take the amount of damage Shadow had. "Prepare to be annihilated, Shadow the Hedgehog!"

---

Sonic stood in the middle of Central City, "Not too bad...I'm willing to make a bet that Mecha's been here, but for himself he didn't do too bad of damage to this city." Sonic sighed and just sat down on the curb, as the damage wasn't all that bad, there was no immediate reason for him to help out. Not to mention, the idiot people of this town probably thought he was the one that did it. Considering they seemed to believe anything slightly shorter than them and not a turtle was automatically him. He honestly believed a midget could run through the town causing chaos and destruction running up in people's faces and saying it was 'not' Sonic, and he, himself could be standing right next to them and they would all run in the midgets direction saying, 'OH MY GOSH IT'S SONIC!'.

He watched a little girl, probably about three or four beg her mother for a sucker she had obviously seen earlier. The mom was firm about saying no, but the girl started crying and the Mom gave in like most mothers had the tendency to do. He shook his head and stared down at the surface of the concrete street, mulling over his recent conversations. "Me and Amy are completely different...she really gets on my nerves a lot of the time! I know she means well, but she's constantly getting into trouble! And even if I did like her, she'd be put in even more danger. Why do these morons insist I have to have a mate of some sort! I've done fine up til now without one!"

"Sonic!" The familiar, high-pitched, almost squeal, of Cream's interrupted his train of thought. He flinched at the sound and looked up after a moment, the small orangish rabbit was running toward him with that blue chao on her shoulder, "Hey, Sonic! What are you doing here?" He was masking the fact that he would have liked to get up and sling the little creature across the town, that's what he was doing there.

"Hey, Cream...uh, I was...nothing really." He felt no need to involve her, as she really was never any help and she'd just get all worked up over nothing. She was only, what, like five, and she already annoyed him more than anyone he knew, except maybe Dr. Eggman and that wasn't saying anything really.

"I think I just saw Metal Sonic! I don't know what he was doing, but he seemed like he was in a hurry...and I saw Shadow too. So, don't think I'm going to buy that nothing stuff, tell me what's going on, Sonic!" Sonic really didn't want to tell her what was going on, but her voice was beginning to give him a severe headache.

"Yeah, Eggman somehow got Mecha started up again and now I guess he's looking for the chaos emeralds, I'm sure Shadow was just looking for him. It's nothing for you to concern yourself with Cream, you're really too young to get involved in our affairs like you do." He regretted saying this, as he always regretted saying how he really felt because it always wound up with someone crying, screaming or laughing their heads off assuring him that's 'not' how he really felt, since they all knew so much better than him. Cream's eyes welled up with tears, like they usually did when she got told she was "too young".

"I'm not too young! I can understand what you guys do better than most people, so you should try being a little nicer to me!" Her ears flopped down, and Cheese was doing something of trying to comfort her, but from Sonic's point of view it looked like he was trying to eat the side of her head. He didn't like the little chao either.

"Okay, okay...I'm sorry, I'm just in a really bad mood right now, Cream...you're going to just have to ignore me." She smiled at him, glad he apologized now. He wasn't though, because this gave her the right to quiz him. He decided that his excuse gave him the right to refuse to respond though, or just leave.

"It's alright, Sonic! But, why are you in such a bad mood." Sonic wanted to groan, the annoying question. The one he honestly didn't know the answer to, and even if he had known the answer to it, he wouldn't be discussing it with a five-year-old rabbit. He just smiled and shook his head though, he really thought he was too nice sometimes, but he'd kind of earned reputation for remaining cool almost constantly.

"I dunno...I've just got a lot on my mind." She examined him curiously for a moment, but he didn't give her much time to think things over in her naive little mind. "Well, hey...I'll have to catch up with you again later, I'm sure Shadow's in over his head with Mecha, so I really oughta go help him out." It was an excuse, but he hadn't really been thinking about it. He had to be absolutely crazy to leave Metal Sonic and Shadow to duke it out, even if this didn't leave his friend whimpering on the ground, it was going to leave a serious mess of the surrounding area. Actually, it would probably result in both, so he waved to Cream after a moment and took off. She let him go, though, because she really didn't have anything else to say to him at the moment. She decided that since Sonic had no clue what was wrong with Sonic, Amy would have absolutely all the answers.

As if on cue, or as if Sonic had sensed it, the tornado immediately cast a shadow over Cream. She looked up, and waved furiously at the aircraft. Amy looked down out of the airplane, "Tails! Hold on, look, it's Cream and Cheese!" Tails peered downwards and saw the bunny waving haplessly at them.

"Well, looks like she wants to talk to us...or at least to come with us, might as well go say hello!" He began to slowly lower the aircraft towards Cream. Of course, the civilians of this area just walked happily around it, as if there was absolutely nothing weird about the fact that a fox with two tails was landing a relatively small airplane in the middle of their city.

"Hey, Cream!" Amy jumped out of the plane as soon as it was close enough to the ground where she wouldn't break her neck and ran over to the cream colored rabbit.

Knuckles sank into the seat of the aircraft, sharing Sonic's feelings on the standard of the small rabbit creature and in no mood to hear that overly high-pitched voice, actually he winced when he did hear it, as it rang through your ears like a whistle. "Amy, Tails, Knuckles! Hey guys! Are you guys looking for Metal Sonic too?" Knuckles guessed this made her think she was knowledgeable, so he just sank further into the aircraft hoping the rabbit had no reason to come bother him. He didn't want her to come either, though, he mentally prepared his speech on how there wasn't enough room for her to come. Of course, he was sure this would result in him, not Cream, going it on foot.

"Yes, we are. How did you know about that Cream?" Tails just fell right into her trap with this question, it was visible in the smug look on the almost-infant's face.

Amy didn't though, she hardly gave her a chance to answer, "...well, we're really not! We are actually looking to protect the rest of the chaos emeralds! So he doesn't take anymore of them...Sonic and Shadow are the two looking for Mecha." Tails would have argued the point that their intention was to find Metal Sonic, but after thinking it over, he decided that Amy actually had a better idea, so he just nodded in confirmation.

Cream nodded, but still was determine to show off how she knew that Metal Sonic was alive again, "Well, I saw him and Shadow come through here, then Sonic told me that Dr. Eggman had accidentally let him get free again, so now he was looking for the chaos emeralds." Amy frowned at this comment.

"Ohh...so you mean Sonic's already left here too? Why does it seem like he's almost running from me lately?" She stomped on the ground with her foot, "He better not go off and get into some trouble!" Cream just smiled and put her hand on Amy's shoulder.

"Don't worry, he just said he had a lot on his mind." More attempts to be knowledgeable, "And he'll be okay, he said he was going to help Shadow out!" Knuckles did want to speak with her now, this better not be in vain, his poor eats would never forgive him.

"What about Rouge, have you seen her?" Cream looked over at him, then shook her head. Darn, it had been in vain, though his ears did not hold him in their debt, because he sank back down in the aircraft before she could speak directly to him.

"Well, can I come with you guys to help you guard the chaos emeralds? It's so boring in this town!" Knuckles closed his eyes, not wanting to hear the dreaded answer.

"Absolutely!" Tails smiled at her and patted her on the back, "The more the merrier."

"Hey! We don't have enough room, me and Amy are really more than is supposed to be in this little thing anyway!" Tails looked over at Knuckles and thought about this for a moment.

"Okay, Knuckles, you're the strong guy though...you really ought to let me and Cream ride and you can manage your way by yourself!" She just had to compliment him when she said it, didn't she? He didn't care how innocent she seemed, Knuckles was convinced Amy was a manipulative woman.

"Alright, alright...well, guess I should probably be protecting the Master Emerald anyway...I really forgot about it, and who knows...Mecha might just need it too...so I'll see you guys around." He burrowed into the ground, it scared Tails that dirt came up even though they were in the middle of a city. It was odd that he could even dig through the concrete, but like always, Tails just ignored it.

---

Shadow groaned a few times, holding his head, he wasn't really all that sore. He was actually wondering why Mecha wasn't beating the crap out of him at the moment. He sat up after just a moment, he guessed Metal Sonic had hit him a little too hard in the head, considering he had been knocked out and his head was pounding like a bass drum. "Where did-..?" He didn't have to ask to get the answer, of course, Sonic couldn't have left the battle to him. Though, he had to admit at the moment he owed Sonic because he'd be really hurting right now, had he not come along. Then, he thought, no he didn't, he didn't have to admit that, so he didn't. He could have handled himself just fine had Sonic not been there.

However, he did have to admit that if he didn't step into the fight right now, Sonic was going to be seriously hurting later, if he could even feel later. Mecha obviously wanted to save the more painful stuff for him, as now he was using those fun little claws to rip Sonic to pieces. "I don't get it though...we've never had this many problems with Mecha...and wait, where 'are' the chaos emeralds he had anyway?" He looked on the ground for the chaos emeralds, then he remembered the weird skill himself and everyone here had to make the things they were holding just disappear, but for arguments sake he tried to think this may actually mean something. Shadow had the red chaos emerald around his neck, it was attached to a string there, like a necklace, that had been Amy's idea. He really didn't see the chaos emeralds Metal Sonic had though, he chalked it up to that cool power though and concentrated more on what was going on.

"You're really making me mad, Mecha..." Sonic staggered back to his feet, as did Mecha after they had both introduced their fists to each other's faces. Of course, the difference in this was, Metal Sonic's fist was metal, Sonic hit one knee after a second, panting a little heavily.

"Okay...you oversized CD player..." Shadow did a roundhouse kick on Mecha's head, sending his head in a 360 degree spin, about six of them.

"Oversized CD player? Shadow, you're hilarious." Shadow turned and smirked and Sonic.

"Well, at least it was original!" He gestured to Sonic's current condition, "And look at you! At least I got him off your back for a few seconds."

"Maybe, but I saved your butt too, you know!" Shadow made a face, he still didn't have to admit that, but just to be nice he decided to do so.

"Fine, consider it even...are you okay?" Sonic nodded his head, Shadow didn't really believe him, but he wasn't about to cling to him and disagree. That would be scary and weird. "I don't think we're up to par right now though, either of us...so maybe we need to make him go away?" Sonic nodded his head, still breathing hard.

"I think...that might be the most intelligent thing...you've ever said." Shadow just mocked Sonic's words by mouthing them in a humorous way.

Shadow smirked as Sonic rolled his eyes at him mocking him in that manner, then he turned to see Mecha coming in their direction again, "Y'know...he's kind of predictable..." He jerked forward, outstretching his hand for a second, "Chaos Control!" Though, he didn't warp, Metal Sonic did.

Sonic blinked after a second, "Where exactly did you send him?" Shadow clapped his hands together, pleased with his own intelligence.

"...in the middle of a volcano." Sonic shook his head and laughed slightly.

"That's not going to stop him."

"Yeah, but it was the best I could come up with."

Sonic made a face, "You could have warped him to the moon or...Jupiter..." He then smirked and looked pointedly in Shadow's direction.

"Shut up, Faker..." Sonic rolled his eyes, then sat down on the ground. He grunted slightly as he hit the ground, Shadow looked over to him. "Are you 'sure' you're okay?" He kind of raised an eyebrow at him, or something of the sort, he made the facial expression a human would if they raised an eyebrow at someone.

"Fine...don't think he's ever thought to put his claws to use before." Shadow walked over to him and sat down. "You know, it feels really dumb just sitting here, when we know for a fact that he's probably still looking for the chaos emeralds."

"Yep." Shadow nodded in agreement, but made absolutely no suggestion that he might be planning on moving in the next five minutes. "But, my head hurts."

Sonic's eye kind of twitched as he looked over at Shadow, "You know what? So does mine..." He obviously had not been perfectly fine since he was now unconscious with his head on Shadow's shoulder, this, after a few minutes, brought a severe redness to Shadow's cheeks. He stared in the other direction, knowing very well no one was around, but this was embarrassing the living hell out of him and he didn't know why, but he didn't move or push Sonic off either. He stared at the ground, his cheeks still flushed.

'Why is this embarrassing me? And why...gah...Sonic! You pain in the ass!"

---

"So, Amy, do you know what's wrong with Sonic? He really went off on me while I was talking to him! And for no good reason..." Tails looked back at Cream, but tried not to do anything to noticeable, he did want to know Amy's opinion on the whole thing though.

Amy smiled, "Nope! Guess I don't know everything though..." Tails breathed a sigh of relief, luckily, it was drowned out by the noises the Tornado was making.

"Guess not." Cream mumbled, "But, aren't you and Sonic dating?" Amy blinked and looked at her for a long time.

"No, we aren't. Sonic's too immature for a girlfriend! I don't even think he knows what one is." Tails laughed at Amy's defensiveness about this. "I don't even know if he likes me or not, he sure hasn't been acting like it lately, actually...lately he's kind of been a jerk!"

Tails smiled, "All guys have their spells, you know? Besides, you know Sonic, he has his little mood swings every now and again, just don't worry about it, Amy, you either, Cream...you know he'll come around."

Amy nodded at Tails, she liked the comforting advice he tended to supply her with, "Thanks, Tails, I'm surprised you don't have a girlfriend! You've got the perfect attitude."

"I-uh...me! Noo..." Cream giggled behind Amy at his reaction, Amy smiled when she saw him turn red.

"You mean you don't have any little crushes we should know about, Taaails?" She smirked at him, as he got redder and redder. She wondered if he did, or if the subject of girls in general still embarrassed him.

"Oh, look! We're here!" Amy made a weird face as they began to land, they weren't anywhere. Absolutely no where.

"We're...uh...where, Tails?" Amy made a funny face as they were about to land in this cherry tree orchard, they actually landed in a cherry tree.

"The cherry tree...orchard! You know! The one...that has the chaos emerald in it?" He smiled and stood reassuringly as he hopped out.

"Um...no." She just shot down that idea in a heartbeat, "Where is Sonic? I want to find Sonic!" She put her hands on her hips as she got rather impatient with him in a very short time span, but that was to be expected since Amy was a girl.

"I thought we were supposed to be protecting the chaos emeralds? Why are we looking for Sonic!" Cream sounded confused now, Cheese nodded his head in agreement. Amy glared back at her, she then motioned for her to be quiet.

Cream made a face, "Well, we were!"

Tails smiled at them both, he quickly ran over to one of the trees, one near to the one the landed in. He looked inside the tree and quickly pulled out the grayish white emerald. "Oh, wow, there really is an emerald here? I just thought..."

"Nope! It's my special hiding place, there isn't an emerald in my house."

"So...you lied to everyone Tails? Not to mention, you made Metal Sonic tear up your house for nothing?" Amy eyed him suspiciously, "And why did he even go to your house if there wasn't a chaos emerald in there?"

"Well, you see...there was, there was a fake one in there!"

"Wow, Tails...that's kind of a good idea, I thought you were just landing here for the sake of avoiding Amy's questions about girls!" Tails looked over at Cream who was having Cheese pick her some cherries from the trees.

"Well...heh, nope! Just the chaos emerald!"

"Whatever, Tails..." Amy just shrugged him off and tapped the Tornado, "You still crashed the Tornado and we need to go." She seemed more impatient than usual, something must have been bugging her, Tails nodded sure this theory was correct, Amy thought he was nodding to her though.

Hm, I brought Cream in Wow, that was a lot of yaoi! That was so hard, I commend people who do that naturally. It's weird. But, it oddly almost makes me horny, and to think, they're freaking hedgehogs. I want to write it, but I 'don't'. It's a horrendous feelings, you know? I guess I'm not going to delete it! We'll just see how long I can keep this up!