7. Difficult Discoveries

Buttercup threw another shopping trolley away. "Why do we keep all this crap?" she asked. "I mean, I know we've got to keep mystical items that might endanger the planet safe, but is chucking them in the basement safe? And why are there so many broken refrigerators?"

"They're a cause of Global warming," Bubbles replied, "but they can't be put in landfills."

"It's like a landfill down here!" Buttercup threw some more rubbish and Nazi gold away.

"What are we looking for anyway?" Bubbles moaned, as Buttercup's rubbish landed where she'd been digging."

"Some sort of gem."

"I've found lot's of Gems! They're all in magical pendants and wizards staffs and stuff. How do we tell which ones…" she tailed off.

"This one's loose, apparently," Buttercup said, but her sister didn't respond. She leant down and picked something up silently, her eyes completely transfixed on it. It sent a light blue glow onto her face, but rather than dazzling her, it was soothing. And sort of hypnotic.

Eventually, Buttercup turned round. "Bubbles, what's…" but she stopped when she saw the Chaos Emerald in Bubble's hand. She drifted over and stared at it over her shoulder.

"Wow…" she spoke in hushed tones. Bubbles nodded, but her eyes didn't shift from the gem for a moment. Buttercup tentatively reached out and touched it. Almost immediately, Bubbles elbowed her in the ribs, sending her flying backwards into the wall with a crash.

"Oh my, Buttercup, are you alright?" Bubble's trance was broken. Buttercup scrambled up again.

"What the hell did you do that for!" she screamed. Bubbles blinked, and glanced down at her hand, that was now by her side.

"I don't know…" she said blankly. "Nervous twitch?"

"Oh forget it!" the green Puff snapped. "Is that the Emerald, or not?"

"It is," Bubbles hadn't stopped looking at it again. Buttercup strode over to her.

"Give it."

"NO! WHY SHOULD I ALWAYS GIVE YOU MY STUFF!" Bubbles shouted. Then she blinked. Buttercup actually looked scared. Bubbles glanced around. She'd blown a large proportion of rubbish away with that scream.

"Either give it to me, or put it down," Buttercup persisted.

"Why?"

"Because you're glowing blue!"

Bubbles looked at herself. She was glowing. She sighed and put the emerald down. The glowing ceased. But she didn't feel as good. Buttercup looked at the gem herself. It started glowing green. She forced herself to look away.

"We can't give that to Blossom Bubbles, BUBBLES!" the blue puff looked up again.

"Sorry," she said. "But what can we do about it?" Buttercup thought for a moment.

"Get me a box…"

Butch looked up from his newspaper. Shadow was standing beside him.

"Not here," the black hedgehog said. "We need to move on."

"Hey, my coffee hasn't arrived yet," Butch protested, "why don't you run round the city just once more?" Shadow shook his head.

"Sonic may be a murdering pin cushion, but he's no coward. If he saw I was alone, he'd fight me. And he always keeps a look out. So no show and he's not here."

Butch sighed. "Why do we only check the towns and cities?" he asked. "When… if I were on the run I'd hide in the countryside. Surely he has some experience of it from the war?"

"Not Sonic's style," Shadow said confidently. "He was awful at living off the land. But we never really did. We used to move from friendly house to friendly house, living off the kindness of our supporters. Like missionaries, revolutionaries, freedom fighters…"

"Or terrorists," Butch finished, as he paid for the coffee. Shadow was not pleased with that comparison."

"Come on," he said, "if we're quick, we'll have another twenty cities down before the end of the day." He grabbed Butch, who was downing his coffee. "And I'm very quick!"

The remains of the newspaper hung in the air, drifting in the breeze long after they'd gone.

"Aha," said Knuckles triumphantly, "there is a 1 higher level of Chaos Energy then normal here!" he handed the detector to Boomer, who handed it to Sonna. Knuckles trod the ground gently.

"Looks marshy," Sonna said. She prodded it gently. Knuckles nodded.

"Good. My Emerald could be under here…"

"I hate to burst your bubbles," Boomer interrupted, "but you can't exactly swim around in the marsh until…" Knuckles grabbed an air tank from somewhere and dived in, digging until he reached water, and then swimming away.

"…you find it," Boomer finished lazily. Sonna laughed.

"Dad's very resourceful," she said. Boomer thought for a moment.

"Knuckles is your dad?"

"Well, yes."

"But you're a hedgehog."

"He's my adopted farther," Sonna explained gently. She could tell that Boomer wasn't the brightest spark.

"So your biological father is Sonic, right?" Of course he wasn't dumb. Sonna clicked for a moment, but didn't answer. Boomer waited.

"Yes," she said eventually.

"What do you remember of him?"

"I remember that we used to have fun with him," Sonna's voice was deadpan, rather like Sonic's when he'd been speaking to Blossom. "He was so enthusiastic about getting us to fight robots. Almost as if that was the only time he was truly happy. We had good times."

Boomer knew the importance of information. When he'd been a criminal, he'd learnt the art of getting people to tell him more them than they wanted to, without heavy prompting. The idea was to find a subject they were dying to talk about, and then prodding them in the right direction with easy questions. He tried it now.

"Is that all you remember?" Sonna shrugged.

"I've suppressed the rest. The quite of the floating island helps that."

"Peaceful is it?"

"Oh yes, nothing ever happens. Can get boring, but it's better than all the dinner parties Mum used to hold."

"Your family had lots of friend then."

"Yes, but Dad… Sonic only ever seemed to talk to Dad or Tails. He trusted very few people. He always went to them when he had a problem too."

"Umhum," Boomer made a mental note, before sticking a hard question in:

"Do you think he murdered your Mum?" Sonna looked away.

"That's what the evidence says…"

"But what do you say?"

Sonna shook her head. "I was young at the time. But I think Dad thinks he's innocent."

"WHAT! Knuckles? He doesn't strike me as the type," Boomer said.

"Well maybe he more hopes. He doesn't trust many people, but he, eventually trusted Sonic. He doesn't what to think that he was wrong."

Before Boomer could ask anything more, Knuckles burst out of the water.

"Nothing here," he said grumpily, flicking mud off. "Just have to continue the slow methodical search. He picked up the detector and paced slowly off. Boomer sighed. They'd been searching all day, and it had been so slow and methodical, he could still see his car.

Blossom glanced at the maps in the situation room. She glanced up at Batman.

"So Slade has got the President in the centre of the building, and all three entrances are guarded by robots."

"Yes."

"And you plan to give him the ransom, and attack him as he escapes with the President?"

Batman nodded. "It's what we normally do. It's more dramatic that way, and our ground team is more experienced at dealing with that sort of rescue."

"If you've got it all planed, why do you need me?" It was only a half question. Blossom was scowling the plans of the base. Some two-bit villain would kidnap the American President on her first full day, she thought.

"We need your permission," said Batman, "we can't just hand over ransom money."

Blossom looked at the plans once more.

"Who's on the scene?"

"The Titans, as he's their villain, so we believe they're best to deal with it."

"And he's best to deal with them," Blossom said. Batman looked up.

"What do you mean?" he asked, but Blossom wasn't listening. She grabbed an internal phone, and started dialling numbers.

"Hello… Great, listen, dispatch Goku to that presidential kidnap thing… Yes, Goku… what for? To negotiate, why do you think!" she put the phone down, and turned to Batman. "Put me in contact with Robin, and get Flash in here now." Batman looked pensive, but he did.

"Hello Blossom?" Robin's voice came across the radio, "have you cleared the ransom."

"Nope," she said calmly, "I want you to do what you'd normally do in these situations. Attack."

"But…" Robin flustered, "Slade could kill the President at any moment, and we can't beat all those robots!"

"I would have though that you'd have welcomed the challenge," Blossom said commandingly, "and Slade won't kill his hostage, according to this file I have," she flicked through it, "he's bankrupt, so he will probably welcome the jail time. He defiantly won't kill him prime bargaining tool. You just attack, all three entrances, and leave the rest to me." She switched off the radio, and turned round, as Flash entered. "Don't get comfortable," she instructed, "we have a crisis, and you are going to sort it."

"How?" asked the stunned former Justice Leaguer.

"Just go to the scene of the Presidential kidnapping at full speed, grab the President and bring him back here. Okay?"

"But all the entrances are guarded!"

"One isn't."

"Which one?"

"The one Goku's going to create."

"Oh, that entrance. See you in twenty minutes." Flash shot off, and Blossom walked back to her 'office'. The plan was so perfect she saw no reason to wait for it to succeed.

When she reached it, Bubbles and Buttercup where already waiting for her.

"Blossom!" squeaked Bubbles, slightly panicked, "half the worlds press corps want a statement on the President's kidnapping!"

"Only half," Blossom asked, "what about the others?"

"They all want a statement on Sonic too," Buttercup said.

"Well, let's let them stew for a bit," said Blossom calmly, "what I want to know is did you find that Chaos Emerald?"

Bubbles and Buttercup looked at each other. "Sort of," they said.

"Oh, what do you mean?"

"It had a strange effect on us," Bubbles said, "so we put it in a box and locked it in a safe."

"Humm," Blossom mused, "must have been the Chaos Energy, Sonic said it was crazy."

"Sonic told you?" Buttercup said.

"Before he disappeared of course," said Blossom slightly too quickly, and she explained about the conversation they'd had while MJ had been missing. She still didn't tell them about the previous night though.

"Wow," said Bubbles, "he really told you a lot."

"Not that much," said Blossom, "but you two should work on finding him, and keeping that Emerald safe for our guests. But don't tell them yet."

"What about the President?"

"That's under control, so you two concentrate on getting Sonic. Okay."

They nodded and left. Blossom leaned back in her chair. This job wasn't too hard, she thought. No wonder Sonic had so much time to mock her.

"Oh look, the cute little fox is here!" she heard Bubbles say. She heard Tails say hi, before the fox gently knocked on Blossoms office wall; being a cubical, it didn't have a door.

"Can I come in," he asked. Blossom looked at her watch. She had about five minutes."

"Sure Tails, what can I do?"

"Well, I've been looking into Shadow's idea that Sonic killed Superman."

"Oh yes," Blossom had forgotten about that. "Any luck?"

"If you mean have I found any anomalies, yes." Tails produced a report. "Its only one, but it doesn't fit the official version what ever way you slice it. You see, eyewitness accounts said that you were bleeding on your hands at the end, but there is no trace of you're blood any where on Brick's body. So I don't think you can have killed him." For some one who looked so nervous, he talked with great confidence. And he'd hit the nail on the head. Blossom looked at hers briefly, before grabbing some paper and a pen.

"I'm sorry," she said as she wrote, "but I can't help you with that." She handed him the note. Tails looked at it.

I know who did kill Superman, but it wasn't Sonic and it was a crime of passion. Sonic covered up for them, that's why the story doesn't work. Please don't say anything.

He thought for a moment.

"That makes sense," he said. "I'll try a different line of inquiry."

"And you won't say anything?"

"Of course not. Sonic didn't." He left, happily, presumably because his friend was innocent of fourth murder. Blossom shook her head. They really looked up to Sonic, she thought. Maybe there was something more to him as a person than the hero twisted by jealousy she saw. He'd certainly had an impact on Tails. For a moment, Blossom was aware that she felt sorry for Sonic. But in the back of her mind, was the thought that Sonic was right. They had lived parallel lives, and she was feeling sorry for herself.

These depressing thoughts were eliminated by a huge cheer. Blossom suddenly felt rather smug. Batman leant round the side of her office.

"It's just come through on the television, your plan worked!" he sounded surprised. This meant Blossom feel really smug. "I suppose you'll want to do some interviews now?" Batman continued. Blossom listen to all the cheers around the room, and then shook her head.

"No. Flash, Goku and the Titians should get the credit. But if anyone wants an interview on the Sonic situation, I'll do that. See to it, will you."

Batman looked surprised again. "Yes Blossom," he said and he left without questioning further. Blossom leaned back on her chair, and put her feet on the desk.

"Oh, and Bruce," she said, using his alter ego's name.

"Yes?"

"You did a good job today too, but in future could youknockbefore you enter? Thank you."

Okay, please review. I'm sorry these chapters keep getting longer; the next one will be shorter. Oh yes, some of this chapter was inspired by a suggestion from CamillaMB, so if you have an idea, please tell me and I might use it. Thanks for reading, more coming soon.