The Age of Emeralds

Chapter 3

Close Encounters of the Blurred Kind

"Well, at least I can test my new Elemental circuits!" Tails applauded himself on his brilliance. The orange fox hit a series of keystrokes again on his control panel. Again, the mechanized armor responded with a few whirrs and creaks as a new mechanism fell into place. This one was not quite so obvious however.

With a satisfied smile, he gripped the controls to the Vulcan cannon and fired off a series of shots. Each one had the familiar resounding boom, but a slightly altered effect - The fire on the intended target solidified into an icy branch. "All right!" The smile was well earned. It would only take him a matter of minutes to beat down the forest fire at this rate.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy, and tails found himself quickly surrounded by a group of eggbots. "Hey no fair!" Tails shook his head, sighing. Confidence was one of his strong points nowadays, so a smile drew to his face. "Sonic only told me to take out the fire, but you guys don't know what you're up against!"

"Surrender in the name of Dr. Eggman. Prepare to be roboticized" All the drones rang through the same monotonous speech the young one had heard enough times in his life.

"Give it your best! You eggheads don't scare me!" Maybe this was pushing confidence too far. the boy gripped the controls to the Vulcan again, the targeting laser easily acquiring half the sphere before firing in sequence.

"Prepare to-" ZAP... With an electric shudder, the machine turned an icy blue tint and collapsed in on itself. "Be-" ZRRRT Another one ended up on the ground. "-Robo--"! KRACKKK Static sparked the air. An apparently intelligent E-200 series robot started to flee only to befall the fate of his friends- tzzzt "Error! Error! Temperatures acceding safe lev...elzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..."

The rest of the now half-circle all fired their energy weapons at the machine ridding fox. "Error! Error!" Their sensors all recalculated what was happening maybe a hundred times in their mechanic minds... The shots had either blasted back in their faces, or made no impact. The fox was fine... the hint at what happen lay as the laser shot suddenly fanned out into a spherical shape. Tails had a shielding device! It flashed, hot-white with energy, though it was not complete.

Through their travels, Sonic and Tails had both found talisman stones that gave them, until physically hit at least, shielding they called 'biospheres' This one's property was water, even better for the boy. Yet, the protection was not complete, the heels of his Turbo Tails out of the sphere's range.

"Aww! you guys are really something, can't even catch one little fox?" he squinted an eye, gazing through the targeting device, shooting another series of bots. "Well, better catch me if you can!" He smirked and took off running. The jets on the machine flared, and he was off. It wasn't quite like the rush of running to keep pace with Sonic, but it was all his design, a job well done, and it gave him great satisfaction none the less.

Meanwhile, we find our Heroic hedgehog, standing firmly on a Branch, giving his own coy grin to the foes. He waited there, almost boredly, as a group of four surrounded him. "Maaan, I thought this would be more of a challenge, when will you guys learn?"

All four fired at once, a puff of smoke clouding the area as the branch clearly snapped and fell to the ground. A fire started where the hedgehog... HAD been, but was not to be seen. E-206 looked around confused, trying to re-aquire his target, until his associate bots all turned, aiming their guns his way.

"HEllooooooooo!" Sonic stood on the bot's head and leaned over, razzing the bot. The bot's reaction was some surprise, and its arms flailed to rid itself of the hedgehog before it was too late. Too late... (insert anime sweat drop here. )

From the air, Sonic then curled into a familiar ball and launched a homing attack at the one. On his way down he caught a branch and flipped himself back up, spinning around to see what was up.

"Intruder Identified. Sonic the Hedgehog you will -" THWACK. A stone beaned it in the head causing it to spark.

"Huh? Who did that? Who's here!" Sonic blinked and took a quick look around - it wasn't him.

"You will be terminated." Hesitation was never a good thing, and the last E-200 fired at the unwary hedgehog. Though it didn't hit its target, it did off-balance him a moment.

"Buddy... you made a BIG mistake!" he launched another homing attack, and that neatly finished off the bots in the area. Hanging onto one of the tree branches, Sonic darted his vision about to see who threw that stone... The only sight before him was the placid floating island, and behind him, the dying fire. Well, there was a bird flying overhead, but how seriously can you take one flickie bird? "Well, guess I'd better go find Tails then, this area's all clear"...

If Sonic had been a little bit more alert, maybe he would have seen the bushes rustle behind him. Maybe he would have noticed how that bird was seemingly the only animal in the area. Maybe he would have been pierced by those mysterious eyes. But for now.. he just went to find his friend. Oh how "The Big Picture" escaped his mile-a-second mind.