...HEAD-EXPLODING LEVELS OF CORNY-NESS!

It's fun to stay at the- YMCA! It's fun to stay at the- YMCA... ...Well, considering that has nothing to do with the blender, ...I mean story... I should have started this chapter off with a song like purity or something because this chapter has nothing to do with the YMCA or fun or happiness. And purity is about dying! ...In a way. So, ...I worked for a long time on this crap, so you people better enjoy it! And where are you, Ri2? I miss you and your agonizing reviews that point out every single one of the thousands of plot flaws! Uhh, ...I mean... I... Forget I said anything, okay? Deal.

Sonic sat on the couch with Amy, sipping his hot chocolate and every so often taking a bite of his breakfast. In all truth he wasn't very hungry, but Amy insisted that he eat. The small, blue hero talked with Amy and Tails a little, surprised that they hadn't asked about the attack yet. Sonic couldn't complain, though. He shivered and pressed into Amy's arms, trying to drive the bitter memories of yesterday out of his head as he clung to her. He had the weirdest... safe feeling, whenever she held him like this, as if he felt like nothing could hurt him. It just felt so good in comparison to the terror of last night that Sonic found he couldn't let go of her. Sonic knew that once she let go of him, terrible, cold fear would creep back up on him. He wasn't ready for that yet.

A knock was heard on the door, and Sonic turned to see Tails stand up and open it, the rusty hinges creaking in protest at the strain. Fliara and the others were standing outside. Fliara stood in the doorway, somehow brightening up the room with her cheery disposition.

Warning, here comes a long boring character description, and it won't make any sense if you don't read it. Skip it if you must, but I warned you. -

Fliara was a rather positive and optimistic person, but did not believe in carrying that trait to the point of 'overconfident', an insult she bestowed upon Sonic daily. She knew her limits, and pushed them every day, but knew when a task was too big. She was a perfectionist, and tried to give more than 100 24/7. She had been called many things in her life: overachiever, dreamer, naive; sometimes Fliara had to agree with them. Often, she would judge people too fast. Sometimes, she would expect herself to be right. And she would always 'overachieve' so to speak, constantly trying to set goals just beyond the edge of possible, trying again to raise her limits and become stronger.

Why did Fliara do all of this? Like I said before, Fliara had been called many things in her life, but never a hero. And that made Fliara ...sad. (Which was a rarely used word by the dragon) She had trained since she was a hatchling growing up with her 'big brother' on Angel Island to be a hero, and when it came to melee combat, she could beat Sonic any day. She could out-fly him, outwit him and overpower him if she tried hard enough. But what confused Fliara was that even when She finally accomplished her life-long dream of defeating Sonic and becoming the world's strongest hero, she was still not addressed by that title. Fliara had always thought that courage, valor, strength, humility and wisdom made a good hero, but Fliara had all of those things, to some extent more than Sonic, and yet he was a hero and Fliara wasn't. It made the dragon sad and she to this day doesn't understand, and takes it out on Sonic, who is once again, her arch-nemeses. She defeats him in any way she can every time she can, to try and prove to the world that she can be a hero too.

The sleek red dragon walked through the door, long, scaly tail dragging behind her. The knife-sharp tail spade left small marks in the softwood of the floor as it swished back and forth. (This happened often so all friends of Fliara were accustom to having small marks in their wooden flooring) Her bright orange hair swayed lightly in the breeze from outside, her bangs hanging in front of her eyes as they strayed from the ponytail the rest of her hair was tied into. The garnet scales covering her hide shone brilliantly in the summer sun, along with her steak knife claw fingers and long fangs. (Fliara always looked better on sunny days.) Her giganticaly out-of-proportion wings were folded up neatly behind her, twitching at the effort of curling up so tightly. When stretched out to their full potential, her wings probably wouldn't have fit in Amy's house. Her outfit consisted of loose, desert-style pants (see some desert movie and you'll understand. Ever seen Aladdin? The type of clothes they wear in that movie? Bingo!) And a bright yellow shirt with no sleeves and one shoulder, it ended about the same place as her sternum, so it didn't cover her scaly stomach. Other than being snake-like thin, the dragon had almost no figure and didn't seem to be concerned by it. She was, by the way, only twelve, and Fliara just wasn't the type of person concerned with her looks. She wore no shoes, so her red, scaly feet and long, steak knife toes were bare to the wooden floor. Fliara had showed up during the first few events of Legacy of the Eight Dragons, and had grudgingly stuck around since. She had quickly befriended Tails and Big as her closest companions; however, her hate for Sonic had only grown.

Following her were knuckles, Rouge, and Shadow, who you all know. (Hopefully) Behind them stepped Alexi, covered entirely with a black cloak, the hood over her head so she couldn't be seen or exposed to the (in her opinion) 'awful' sun. As soon as she walked through the door, however, she closed it behind her and took off the depressingly dark robe.

Alexi the snow leopard was not the most modest of people and she didn't really care. Her outfit was made entirely of black, form-fitting leather, and consisted of knee-high boots, gloves that reached her elbow, and what looked like a one-piece swimming suit with an "intense" (in Shadow's opinion- I know I'm copying form my other story, but I'm lazy, so who cares?) V-neck. He light blue fur was splotched with darker blue spots, arranged un-orderly around her furry hide. Her muzzle had light gray fur, with fringe around the cheeks, not unlike Tails, or Big, but her hair was a frighteningly deep shade of black. It fell, unkempt and scraggly, past her waist, a few hairs falling over her viridian eyes, which seemed sharp and oppressive. Unjust and reasonless cruelty could be seen in her heart. Her ears, however, were the only normal things about her, exception being that the right one had a chunk out of it. No one had asked how it happened, but they suspected it to be something quite significant; Alexi could not be cut. She would "teleport" out of the way of any skin-piercing or fatal blow. She couldn't control it. Unlike Fliara, Alexi's figure could be summarized as... Well, to put it bluntly, appealing. Alexi hated herself for that and many reasons. She was 79, but didn't look any older than Shadow (and never would) and was trying to end her life before she reached 80. It wasn't working too well. The whole 'invincible' thing can be a real pain when you're suicidal.

Shadow, for as long as he had known Alexi, (and been able to remember it) felt a sense of duty towards the blue leopard. Her damned existence was partially his fault. Over the recent events, many believed that the sense of duty had evolved into affection, but nobody had proof of such a thing and Shadow was wiser than that. Alexi could never return feelings of love. Reason one: she just didn't give a... erm... mushroom. Perhaps she meant more to the black hedgehog and perhaps not but that isn't important right now.

(Sincere apologies, I know how boring that must have been, but I'm trying to introduce them. And again, sorry for how boring the explanation to how boring it was was. And apologies for this one that explains the boringness of the explanation explaining the boringness of the boringness of the explanation. And so on. I don't know.)

Alexi immediately walked over to a shadowy part of the hall and leaned against the green wallpaper, her eyes turned towards the rest of the visitors. Shadow sat on the chair closest to the hall, so he could talk to Alexi. The two often found they could agree on things, even if Shadow was occasionally a little disturbed by what she said. Fliara sat cross-legged on the floor, taking her backpack from the wall and setting out some items. Rouge and Knuckles pulled chairs from the kitchen and soon the group into a lengthy discussion concerning Sonic and his incredulously OOC-ness. Which, by the way, isn't a word. My spell checker will surely kill me in my sleep with a can of frozen peas and a spoon.

"So, any clue what happened to him?" Asked Fliara, sorting through her tarot-cards. Amy shrugged.

"He hasn't really said yet." Amy said. Sonic didn't like it, the way they talked about him as if he wasn't there.

"Well, I'll need to know that before I do anything else." Fliara said, trying to sustain from glaring at the blue hedgehog. "So, Sonic, you gonna tell us what happened or what?" Fliara asked.

Sonic looked around the room. He sighed heavily, knowing that he would have to tell them sooner or later. He just didn't want to relive what had happened... Sonic sighed, and took another sip of his hot chocolate.

"Well... It all started when I had this nightmare, and... well... things j-just got worse and worse." Sonic said, pressing into Amy. The pink hedgehog gave him a reassuring hug. Sonic sighed, and continued with his story. You already know what happened. And I don't feel like typing up an explaining-part to explain. If it's really that important, read chapter two again. I know that I'm being lazy. Go ahead. Sue me. I'm in grade school, and I don't have any money to give. So you won't get anything. Ha!

By the end of Sonic's tale, the room was deathly silent, until Knuckles gave a whistle.

"That IS creepy! It's no wonder you're clinging to Amy like a leech." The red echidna chuckled. Sonic glared irately but made no move to release his grip on Amy.

"Guys, take it easy on him... " Amy scolded, putting a defensive arm around Sonic. The 'blue blur", or what was left of him, cuddled into Amy, all the while staring angrily at Knuckles.

"What he said happened... Gosh, it must have been even worse in person." Rouge commented, pity in her voice. "If that happened to me, I'd be clinging to something or other like a leech. I'd be downright terrified!"

"If a ghost ever attacks you, you're entirely welcome to cling to me." Joked knuckles. Rouge responded by promptly kicking him in the face. Knuckles, after standing up, a boot-print on his head, commented "I guess I deserved that." Rouge nodded in response but otherwise gave knuckles no more angry looks. He would remember the lesson when people stared at him for having a boot-shaped bruise on his face for the next week. Fliara, who hadn't been paying the least of attention to what her older brother said, began going into one of those long, dramatic speeches that dragons love so much. This one was about fear.

"Fear is one of the greater forces in the world. It is the weapon of the malevolent and the weakness of the righteous. It can turn heroes into sheep and steel into cotton." Fliara said. She then turned to Sonic, and questioned:

"So, just one thing I need to know, do you think that this thing that attacked you... was a ghost?" Fliara asked, raising a scaly eyebrow. Sonic didn't want to call it that, but...

"Yes, I think that... maybe it was." He said. "I'm not sure." Sonic admitted. Fliara sighed.

"Well, if it was, we could learn a few things about it." Fliara said. "Come here, Sonic. I'm going to try a tarot reading." The dragon said. Sonic starred at her quizzically.

"What good will that do?" He asked, refusing to give the stubborn dragon any more credit than he had to.

"Tarot cards do more than predict the future. They can be used to find information about lots of things." Fliara stated matter-of-factly, ruffling her wings like and upset bird ruffling its chest feathers. "Now sit!" She said, pointing to a spot on the ground in front of her, then turning to take her tarot cards from Tails, who was playing with them again.

"Still sounds like bogus to me." Muttered Sonic under his breath, finding he didn't feel well enough to start one of his fights with Fliara yet. He and Amy sat down in front of the young dragon, perplexed at how she could sit with her legs crossed like that. As a matter of fact, no one in the room except Fliara understood how people could meditate with their feet on their knees, it looked terribly uncomfortable and Sonic was sure it must give her leg cramps. ...Dear frogs, I've done it again. Someone yell at me for being off-topic. (Back to the story.)

The dragon shuffled the tarot-cards and then held them out to the confused Sonic. The blue hedgehog took them, but didn't understand why.

"Hold these for a few seconds, and try to think about what happened back at your apartment." Fliara said while she turned to get her notepad. Sonic did as he was told but he found it... uncomfortable to think of the attack any more than he had to. That awful feeling of having your soul ripped out... it was the worst thing Sonic had ever felt. Even the time when... no! Must- ...sustain... self... from... going... into... pointless... anecdote! Ack!

A few seconds later, Fliara took the cards and placed them down in a pyramid shape. She flipped over each card and interpreted the meaning, starting with the bottom-left card, which just so happened to be 'death'. Sonic swallowed nervously.

"The attack was based on either the intent to kill or revenge of death. Now Sonic hasn't killed anyone so we can safely assume this attacker wasn't planning on letting him live." Fliara explained. She flipped over the next four cards of the bottom row. They went in order from right to left; Fear, dark, love and sanctuary. Fliara ignored them for now. She then flipped over the top three cards. They read; dream, the rose, and light. The top card was 'labyrinth' Fliara looked at the cards uncertainly for a moment, then snapped her fingers and laughed at herself, realizing what they meant and feeling very foolish for not spotting it sooner. Fliara looked up to her friends with a grin.

"I know that look." Said knuckles. "What'd you find out?"

"Well, it's just this simple." Fliara said, pointing to the pyramid of cards, which looked like this.

(Labyrinth)

(Light) (Rose) (Dream)

(Sanctuary) (Love) (Dark) (Fear) (Death)

"You see here," Fliara pointed to dream and fear. "This signifies a nightmare. Your nightmare was no coincidence, Sonic. You could tell something was after you, and... well, you're sensitive to dark energies and malicious intentions. You know, like in the beginning of Ocarina of Time, when link had the nightmare because of the dark forces in Hyrule? And then he talked to the Great Deku Tree?" Fliara said. Nobody answered. None of them had played Ocarina of Time. Shame on them. "The presence of such a violent spirit was obvious to you, and that's how you responded." Fliara explained. "You're lucky that you had that nightmare before the ghost showed up; otherwise it would have gotten you in your sleep." Fliara moved the cards dream, dark, fear and death to one side. "That spirit wanted to kill you. It wasn't there for amusement or to play a trick on a mortal, as ghosts and spirits usually do, no, it was there to kill you." Fliara said. "I can tell this because of the dark and death cards. Dark always refers to someone's intentions."

"But what about the cards to the left?" Sonic asked.

"I find that a little funny myself. The meanings of these cards are the exact opposite. They still talk about the spirit attacking you, though." Fliara said.

"What do they say?" Asked Sonic.

"Well... hmm..." Fliara thought for a moment, scratching at the wooden floor with her claw. She only did that when she was stumped. "This is tough. The rose card can have a lot of meanings. First of all, It's Amy's card. You know, like Knuckles' card is mountain and my card is sand and your card is thunder." She explained, picking it up. "So it could be talking about her, or it could be talking about the season of spring or something else entirely. And a pair of the cards is opposite, light and dark, which is pretty unusual..." Fliara thought about it for a moment. "The cards rose and sanctuary could mean that Amy can protect you from this spirit, but that's a little obvious for tarot cards. There's gotta be a catch." Fliara sifted through the four cards over and over again. Sonic nodded.

"Yeah! I-I do get a feeling like, when she's near, that I'm safe... " Sonic said, suddenly realizing the odd looks from Knuckles and Shadow. He glared at them, but otherwise made no attempt at a comeback. Fliara sighed.

"All I can get out of it is that Amy's love is a sanctuary from these evil spirits. I know that it's corny, but... " The dragon shook her head and continued. "The cards are trying to tell me something else, but I can't figure it out. Light is always talking about a hero, or a battle, or a war or something, but it doesn't fit. And sanctuary means more than just your sanctuary from the spirits, it's also talking about something else... it's on the end of the pyramid, so it must have great significance." Fliara said. To explain it there is... nothing. Let's face it people, who here honestly wants to read through boring paragraphs explaining Fliara's method of tarot-card reading? I don't see any hands!

"But that's all I can get out of it. Sorry." Said Fliara. Sonic sighed.

"It's okay, Fliara. I learned something, anyway." Sonic said. There was a pause throughout the room as all contemplated the results of the tarot-card readings. Finally, Knuckles spoke up.

"...What do you think we should do?" Asked the red echidna. "I mean, if there's some ghost attacking Sonic, who knows who it could go after next, and besides, I'm sure that officer over-confident there doesn't exactly want a poltergeist breathing down his neck." Knuckles said, leaning against the wall.

"I know I sure wouldn't." Tails shuddered. "Creepy." Rouge nodded, but otherwise remained silent.

"Well, I wish I could help, but right now I still don't know enough about the 'spirit' that's attacking Sonic." Said Fliara, gathering up the tarot-cards. "What might help is that we go over to his apartment and see what we can find there." Fliara said. At hearing this Sonic stood up and backed away, shaking his head.

"No way. I'm not going back there!" Sonic protested. Fliara shrugged and shook her head.

"I'm sorry, 'your majesty', but it has to be done." Fliara scoffed sarcastically "You don't want this ghost following you forever, do you?" Fliara asked, slinging the pack over her shoulder. Sonic swallowed nervously. If the spirit did indeed follow him, he would have to stay with Amy for the rest of his life. And not just live in the same house or anything; never be more than two meters from her side. Sonic couldn't do that. Sure, Sonic didn't hate the girl, he loved her now, but he knew that it couldn't be done. It meant that he would never be able to run freely again. It meant he would never be able to fight Eggman; if Amy came along every time, Eggman would suspect something, kidnap him or Amy, which would separate them, and then the ghost would...

Sonic didn't want to think about it.

He didn't want to die, and he never wanted to feel his soul get -nearly- ripped out again, like he had during the attack. And he knew that...

Amy couldn't protect him forever.

Sonic shook his head, and looked back towards Fliara. Sonic tried to give a smile, but he felt no more like his normal self than yesterday...

"O-okay. I'll come." He agreed, secretly nervous about the whole thing, but knowing that he had to find a way to stop this monster. Fliara stood up and started to pack up the cards and other equipment into her backpack when Shadow stood up.

"Wait a minute, we're not leaving yet, I was promised a breakfast!" The black hedgehog demanded. Knuckles nodded.

"Yeah! That's right! Can't believe I almost forgot!" Knuckles said.

"You already ate breakfast! Don't tell me you're hungry again!" Rouge protested. Knuckles shrugged.

"Lighten up. Just because you fly like a bird doesn't mean I have to eat like one." Answered the echidna. Rouge rolled her eyes but otherwise seemed to drop the subject. The group settled down and enjoyed their meal; even Alexi ate, after Shadow encouraged her to. Alexi didn't need to eat. Another genetic experiment thing.

"HOLD IT! CONFUSING!" Protested a member of the audience, standing up so quickly that he knocked the popcorn out of the hands of the person sitting next to him.

"Oops. Sorry. Alexi was the fourth prototype in the 'project shadow' thing, made by omega laboratories, who made prototypes 1-5, Alexi being the only survivor. 1-3 died due to experimentation failure and 5 exploded with the rest of the lab when Alexi... err... "left" to put it in the simplest terms. More on Alexi is not included in the non-existent appendix. Meaning it's not there, meaning that there is no more text explaining Alexi.

Finally, Fliara stood up and announced that it was indeed time to visit the scene of the attack. Sonic seemed terribly uneasy about the entire method of Fliara's resolving, which didn't seem to include the fact he had nearly died in that very place only hours ago. Amy noticed his disdain towards the conclusion but try as she might; she could only calm him to some extent.

...I could put a chapter break here, but I promised I'd have the attack scene in chapter four... oh well. Tough shi- ...tough ships. Wait a minute, this is rated T! Tough shit it is then. And I guess that I will put a chapter break here.