This story arc starts with "Chapter 16: Blue Wave Island".

Chapter 18: Escape Plan

Sonic was frustrated. He knew Eggman was behind the kidnapping of his adopted sister. He knew it was a matter of time before Eggman, with his infinite ego, came out and announced his scheme with Sapphire.

But it wasn't happening fast enough.

Eggman was completely off the radar, which made it more difficult to find him than usual. And because of this, Sapphire remained trapped with him.

And the longer she was trapped, the more worried the blue hedgehog got. He had no idea what Eggman was doing to his sister. For all he knew, the next time he would finally be able to see her, she would be different, ...for the worst.

At least he knew that Eggman would not treat her horribly. He was kind to his captors, for the most part. But that was not enough to ease his fears.

Sonic wasn't the only one who was agitated by this. Shadow was beyond pissed. He had conscripted Rouge to do her spy thing, and figure where Eggman was hiding. And while the bat spy was doing her thing, and helping Tails find a place to hack into the Eggnet, and track Eggman's current location, the black hedgehog spent the remainder of his time searching for Eggman himself. He even started searching with Sonic, and ironically enough, their shared goals and fears kept them from fighting during the search.

Everyone had come back home from Blue Wave Island because, one, they could use their resources at home in the search, and two, between finding out about Sapphire's bullying at her old orphanage, and then having that followed by a kidnapping, the fun was more than ruined.

Sonic and Shadow just returned from another search. At this point, they had exhausted any nearby abandoned bases to search.

"Okay, this is getting ridiculous," Shadow said, exasperated. "The doctor is usually not this quiet."

"I just want to get my sister back, and give him his comeuppance already!" Sonic complained. He walked over to his buddy and asked, "any leads?"

"Still nothing," Tails said. "Seems like he must've finally wised up, and is keeping things lowkey. Rouge has begun searching outside the country, but we can't get into the Eggnet. He's completely off the map."

Shadow slammed his fist against the wall, causing a dent in it. "I will DESTROY him!"

"Woah, woah, woah, calm down, Shadow," Tails replied, trying to calm him down. "I get you're mad, we all are, but let's not go THAT far!"

"Look, Tails, at this point, I'm not going to argue with him," Sonic said. "If he wants to fight Eggman, whatever, let him, so I can get Sapphire out of there."

Tails sighed. He realized that there was no calming the two hedgehogs down. Not at this point. Eggman had gone too far, and had managed to get away with it somehow. They just wanted revenge.

Tails had turned back to his computer, just as he got a ring on it, informing him that he got a notification. Checking to see what it was, he noticed that he had an email from...

"Sonic! Shadow! Look at this!"

A short time earlier...

After a week of capture, Sapphire had finished her escape plan. She knew that she couldn't just leave. She was on a flying airship hidden in the clouds above the ocean. She couldn't even survive if she jumped off.

But she had worked out what she would need to do when she broke out. Adding the finishing touches, she examined her work.

It was nothing amazing. It was a couple springed-loaded rotating joints attached to metal rods, bound together by duct tape and roughly set screws, with various pieces of tech wired throughout.

Rudimentary, but functional.

Sapphire closed her eyes, and thought about the week. Eggman had been doing his lessons with Sapphire the whole time, and while she certainly learned some things, she was more focused on her plan.

She tried sending messages to her friends, regardless of her lack of access. Of course, they couldn't get through, and during her lessons, Eggman would comment and laugh about her frivolous attempts to get some outside help. But for Sapphire, it was just to set up a distraction of sorts, so the large man didn't question her tests on her secret program. It was the same with her ample note-taking, just means to make lots of files, so she could bury her program.

And as for her weapon...

She remembered the hardlight jump rope she made before...

And she recalled the shaped hardlight mass that accidentally shot off when the magnetic field was interrupted...

And she stole the chaos drives to power her creation...

She didn't have any computing tech in her weapon, so she had to manually set up the magnetic fields and how they functioned from memory and testing, without any digital variables to help.

But now she had done it...

She made a makeshift hardlight bow. Her means of escape.

She took a deep breath. This wasn't going to be easy. But she couldn't stay here under the tutelage of this madman. So, she had to be brave.

Taking her weapon, she made a call for Orbot and Cubot.

They weren't the quickest, but they were fast enough to attend to her needs, so long as that didn't include her escaping or causing problems.

...As long as they didn't know that was what was happening.

Once they came in, they found a smiling Sapphire with her hands behind her back.

"Well, you sure seem chipper," Orbot commented. "So, what do you need?"

With fake cheerfulness, Sapphire replied with, "oh, I need you to move aside," as she hit a switch and could hear the hum of her weapon power on, with hardlight bowstring forming.

"Oh, sure," Cubot dumbly said.

"You idiot!" Orbot replied, slapping Cubot, "You not supposed to- ...Wait." He began to notice the sound too.

Sapphire then pull out her rough mechanical bow from behind her, held down a button that would form a hardlight arrow, then grabbed it and the string, pulling back, and letting go.

This motion was designed to disrupt the magnetic field long enough for the arrow to be sent flying with the motion of the string. She was worried her calculations may have been off, since she couldn't test it and had to do the math in her head. But thankfully, they were right, and her arrow flew true.

She didn't hit the robots, but she wasn't intending to, either. She just wanted to scare them. And it worked, the pair of shaped bots fled out of the way screaming.

Sapphire then dashed out through the door, and spun around to hit the button controlling the automatic door, shutting the robots inside.

Okay, she trapped Eggman's lackeys, but there was no time to relax. She didn't know for sure, but there had to be something that would cause the alarms to go off if she wasn't careful.

Looking around, there were already a couple of other robots. Perhaps there to back up Orbot and Cubot if their hostage made a break for it. ...Like she just did.

These reddish-orange robots with Eggman's likeness began to move in on her, to attempt to recapture her. But Sapphire was prepared for this...

Well, mentally, she was ready.

Have no prior combat experience, she missed her first couple of shots, but she did manage to take out the robots before they pin her down.

With that done, she took a deep breath, and then running off her memory, she made a mad dash towards her goal.

She had to sneak around robots, or shoot those that saw her, but she was slowly making progress towards her objective.

And finally, she made it to she wanted to be. Before her, stood the mechanical opening, and inside, her chance at freedom.

"Okay, now-" Sapphire barely said, just as alarms started ringing. They found out I escaped! She thought.

And unfortunately, with that, the doors closed, sealing her away from the objective.

"Oh no!" she cried. She needed to get in there. She had to...

Okay, time to put those mechanics skills you've been learning to the test. Maybe if she took apart the controls here.

She took her weapon and aimed carefully, before finding the right angle to fire at, which would hopefully not break anything important. After firing it, the control panel blew off.

Immediately going after the internal mechanisms of the door's controls, she began trying to rewire it, hoping to trick the door into opening back up.

It took about a minute, too long to Sapphire, who needed to be fast, but eventually, she managed it. Then she ran inside.

And before her, the main computer, a link to Eggman's personal network.

The final phase to her escape plan.

First, she needed to hack in.

Any time Eggman logged into something, she had been shoulder-surfing, trying to get an idea on what his username and password would be. She had a couple of ideas.

She put in her first guess. When she hit enter, a message popped up, saying "incorrect login, two more attempts before lockout".

Uh oh, that's bad, Sapphire realized. If she failed at this point, she wasn't escaping. Eggman would increase the security, and she'd never be able to get out again!

"Okay, maybe it was this?"

Another failure.

Come on, come on, I can't screw this up now! She closed, thinking very hard. "Okay, I got it."

She put in the username and password.

"Login accessed, access granted. Welcome back, Dr. Eggman!"

Sapphire breathed in a sigh of relief. And then she pulled out the final piece to her puzzle.

A flash drive. With her program on it.

She plugged it in, and hit run on the screen.

"I did it..." she softly. "I did it!"

"Did you now?"

Spinning around, she found Eggman standing behind her, along with the robot the kidnapped her in the first place. Metal Sonic, right? Fitting, given his similarity to her brother.

"So, all this time, you were tricking me," Eggman mused. "Stealing from me, lying about your intentions with that junk I gave you. All for this?" He waved his hands at his main computer. "So you could hack into my systems? Was this an attempt to escape?"

Eggman approached her, a menacing smiled on his face. Sapphire simply looked up at him, sacred, but expectant. She knew this was coming.

"I'll admit, I am impressed you made it this far," Eggman said. "But you should've known that it would end in failure. I didn't think you knew how to program a virus, but it won't work. I have the best anti-malware program ever developed. Made by me, of course. Besides, how would this..." He motioned to the screen.

Sapphire looked back, and could see her program had started, opening, operating, and closing various windows at, well, computing speeds that no human or mobian eye could process.

"...be able to save you," Eggman finished.

Sapphire didn't say anything.

"Metal Sonic!" Eggman called out. "Take her to the deck!"

And with that, the robot grabbed her, and took off through the halls. The yellow hedgehog was barely able to hold onto her weapon.

Eggman looked back at his computer with disgust, before following after his favorite robot and forced-protégé.

Outside on the ship's deck, Eggman had hopped into his flying pod, so her could properly stare her down. Sapphire was forced into a kneeling position by Metal Sonic, forced to look up. The robot had also finally tossed the weapon towards the edge of the ship.

"My, my..." Eggman started. "This is quite disappointing. As impressive as the attempt was, I expected you to obey. I am offering you something invaluable! My knowledge. And this is how you thank me!?"

"Why...? Why would I want that?" Sapphire countered.

"Excuse me? Why would anyone not want to help continue my legacy? The legacy of brilliance!"

"You hurt people! You put animals in robots against their wills! I don't want that! I want to help people! Not control them!"

Eggman's face twisted in anger. "So you dare not appreciate my genius... Well, I don't like to be cruel to my captors. But I can't simply turn you into a robot, or else I'll lose my protégé. So, I guess I have no choice... Metal Sonic! Start with a low voltage, but enough for her to feel it."

Metal Sonic's arms began to hum, as the energy built up, ready to shock the hedgehog girl the robot was holding.

Sapphire closed her eyes, as they got filled with tears.

BANG!

A loud burst of energy sounded off behind Sapphire, but not a discharge of electricity as she expected, and the robot was knocked over, letting go of her.

"WHAT!?" Eggman angrily shouted, as he began to search for what caused this.

That search only took a second, as the perpetrators were standing out in plain sight. Looking back, even Sapphire could see them.

Standing at the end of the deck... was Sonic the Hedgehog, cocky smile on his face, joined by Shadow the Hedgehog, glaring angrily towards Eggman and Metal Sonic, energy sparking of off his hand.

"How... HOW DID YOU GET HERE!?" Eggman shouted at the hedgehog duo. "I tried to keep on this on the down-low. I didn't want anyone interrupting our lessons!"

"What are you talking about?" Sonic replied with a smirk. "You gave us an invite, and Shadow here was kind enough to teleport me up here with him."

Shadow simply scoffed, and approached the doctor. "How dare you take Sapphire. She didn't need to be dragged into these scuffles, and yet... You did so anyways! And now... you're going to regret it!"

"Wh-what? I didn't invite-" Eggman started, but then Shadow made an attempted dash towards him...

...But Metal Sonic, who had since gotten back up, made a counter-attack, and blocked Shadow's movements. After being knocked back, Metal Sonic pulled back to slash his claws at Shadow, but then Sonic jumped towards them, dropped in from above, and dive kicked the robot.

"I got Metal!" Sonic told his partner. "You go after Eggman. Saph, find a place to hide!"

Shadow nodded and turned back to the mustached villain. Sapphire backed away, and slowly made her way towards where her weapon was tossed away, just in case.

Sonic made a dash towards his metal doppelganger, and forced the robot to face him in combat, rather than go after the escaping girl.

Eggman looked, getting angrier and angrier at how the situation was going out of his control. "You weren't supposed to be here..."

"Neither was Sapphire..." Shadow replied with equal anger.

Eggman growled and then hit a button. "Then I'll destroy you!"

Shadow smirked and shot back, "you can try," as he watched a large machine fly up behind Eggman. "Hopefully, you'll give me a challenge this time!"

Eggman's pod flew back, and inserted itself in the machine behind him. Then, the mech activated, and two large arms sprung to life, as a metal shell encapsulated Eggmam's pod, a red top with spikes and a simple windshield, allowing the man inside to see outside his mech.

With a brief breather, Sonic looked over, and when he saw the mech, he just sighed. "Really, that thing again?" Then he leapt backward to avoid an electric discharge from Metal Sonic.

"Yes, indeed! The new... Big Arms," Eggman announced through the machine's speakers. "But it has been upgraded! This new model has increased durability and speed, in order to keep up with your improving capabilities."

"Hm, it's just some pathetic machine to me!" Shadow countered.

He leapt towards the machine, trying to go a swift kick, but Eggman's mech quickly wound back, and smacked Shadow aside.

"Hm, there's more where that came from!" Eggman gloated.

Shadow got back up, and threw a Chaos Spear at the mech. The energy projectile struck the machine, which did pierce the metal, but not enough to cause any real damage.

"Is that all you got!" Eggman continued, as he made a forward palm attack, which released a shockwave that blasted Shadow back.

But Shadow wasn't going so easily. Being forced back into the air, Shadow flipped around, landed on the side of a tower wall, then launched himself at Eggman, rolling into a ball, just like how Sapphire saw Sonic do before.

Eggman made a blocking motion with his mech's arms, and forced Shadow to bounce off. "Enough of this!" Eggman shouted. As Shadow, despite landing on his feet, was recovering from his fast motion attacks and getting knocked around, the mech charged the hedgehog, and then with both hands, grabbed him, and flew up.

"SHADOW!" Sapphire cried.

"Dang it!" Sonic shouted. He tried to make a move to save the black hedgehog, but Metal Sonic stopped him, forcing the blue hedgehog to remain in his original fight.

And at that moment, Eggman shot back down, slamming Shadow into the ground.

Sapphire looked on in horror. Luckily, Shadow was able to move, but he was hurt, and couldn't move much.

"Please... stop..." Sapphire whimpered, but not loud enough for anyone to hear.

Eggman flew up, the mech raising its fist, pulling back for a smashing punch.

Sapphire looked around for an answer to ANYTHING that would help Shadow. Then her eyes rested on her makeshift weapon, which she was backing away to in the first place. Looking back up, the Big Arms's had its back to Sapphire, its thrusters exposed to her.

Without a second thought, she grabbed her weapon, and prepared an arrow, aiming towards the mech, and fired.

It missed, the hardlight arrow struck the edge of the mech's engines, harmlessly sticking out.

"Come on," Sapphire whispered, as she rapidly fired another arrow. Another miss. The mech was taking its sweet time, but was ready to swing down. Sapphire fired one more arrow.

And it struck right into one of the engine thrusters. It jammed into the rotating mechanism, causing the jet to jam, overheat, and explode.

"WHAT!?" Eggman shouted as he suddenly lost control. His mech happened to spin towards Sapphire, and the man inside could see Sapphire, her bow up.

"You little-" Eggman started, before Shadow came up, and finally got a good kick in.

As the Big Arms got launched back, Shadow landed, and began to glow red. "Enough of this..." he mocked. Suddenly, he began to hover in the air, as the glow grew brighter.

"Chaos Blast!" Shadow then shouted, as a large crimson red beam of energy shot out from his body, and collided with the Bigs Arms, where it released a massive explosion of red energy.

The machine fell on the deck, broken and useless, unable to work again.

Shadow turned to Sapphire and smiled. "Nice shot."

"Th-thank you..." Sapphire replied nervously. "Can we get out of here now?"

Shadow quickly spun towards Sonic and his battle, and shouted. "Get over here! We're ready to go!"

"Got it!" the blue hedgehog called back, and began running over to them.

However, Metal Sonic was not done with his rival, and gave chase.

Not wanting the robot to get her again, or harm her brother, Sapphire began to fire arrows toward him.

Between Sapphire's unpracticed aim, and Metal Sonic's swiftness, the robot was able to dodge them, but they were slowing him down.

And with one last arrow, Sapphire met her mark, and a hardlight arrow struck Metal Sonic's eye.

"Ooh!" Sonic winced, as he reached the other hedgehogs, while watching his rival crash into the ground.

"Time to go," Shadow said, once Sonic was close enough. "Chaos Control!"

And with that, there was a bright flash, and then everyone disappeared, teleporting back to Tails' workshop.

"Sapphire!" Amy and Cream cried as they, Vanilla, and their chao friends.

Sapphire was now sitting on Tails couch, a blanket wrapped around her, and a cup of hot cocoa in her hands.

Shadow was sitting next to her, silently watching, as if still seeking threats. Tails was configuring a defensive array, just in case Eggman made a comeback. And Sonic and Rouge were behind the girls, coming back from a patrol.

The girls ran up to Sapphire. They would've hugged her, but they did want her to spill her cocoa, and accidentally burn herself.

"H-hi, it's good to see you," Sapphire softly said.

"Goodness, dear, are you okay?" Vanilla asked.

"Yeah... just, exhausted."

"Eggman almost had you electrocuted," Sonic noted.

"WHAT!?" Amy shouted.

"B-b-but I knew you'd come and save me," Sapphire replied.

Amy turned to Sapphire. "Really, that's your response to that!? To almost getting shocked!?"

Tails turned around, and grabbed something off his workbench: Sapphire's bow. "So... what's this all about then?"

"Well... I tricked Eggman into giving me what I needed to make that, stole the rest of the parts, and then I used it for my escape plan," Sapphire explained.

"Seems like you didn't get that far," Sonic said.

"But I did!" Sapphire replied. "I knew it wouldn't help me get OFF the ship. We were hundreds of feet in the air, above the ocean. There's no way you could escape that... alive. So, instead I went for the central network hub on the ship, and broke into the main account. I made a program... Eggman thought it was a virus, and was sure his malware defense would stop it."

"I did hear that G.U.N. tried to launch virus attacks on Eggman's network before. Didn't work," Rouge added.

"So... what did it do?" Amy asked.

"It was made to do a set of simple tasks, but very, very fast. Faster than I think I could've done on my own before getting caught," Sapphire continued.

"Hang on," Tails interjected, "are you saying that... the email Eggman sent us, which told us where he was... that wasn't him, was it?"

"No, it was my program."

"And that's why you knew we'd come save you," Sonic said.

Vanilla sat down next to Sapphire. "What you did was very brave. I just wish I could have comforted you about what happened after visiting your... old home."

"Yeah... glad you could still trust us, after what they said..." Amy said.

"I... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have gotten upset. You've been so nice to me, not like that place... I shouldn't have believed them, but I... I... didn't know what to think, and I was... unsure, and..." Sapphire said. "Maybe if I didn't run, then I wouldn't have gotten kidnapped."

"So... what did Eggman want with you, anyways?" Sonic asked.

"He... he wanted me as... his apprentice. He thought he'd be better than Tails, and he wanted to continue his legacy..."

"What!?" Amy shouted. "Who cares about his legacy!?"

"Eggman does," Rouge stated. "He has enough of an ego to care about his own legacy. Though it does explain why he was able to keep his ego in check to keep him from revealing where he was... He was too busy showing off to his 'apprentice'."

Sapphire simply nodded in response, agreeing, having seen it firsthand.

"Geez, everything Eggman does is so extravagant," Sonic said to himself, but loud enough for everyone to appear. "Hard to miss it. So, what exactly was his plan with Sapphire?"

Everyone was quiet. No one had an answer, And nobody wanted to know. They didn't want to ever see that.

Tails, however, was visibly getting more and more annoyed, for no discernable reason, until he announced it. "Eggman's been spying on us..." he stated. "I didn't want Sapphire to get caught up in our battles with Eggman, especially after Sonic decided to adopt her as his sister. Sonic's brought her into the public eye a couple of times, but I wanted to keep her out of the sight of any malicious people. But no, Eggman must've been watching us, and decided to take my well-meaning wish to teach a new generation of mechanical builders, into his living nightmare!"

Shadow started glaring at no one in particular, replying with, "well, doctor, if you are watching, just know this. If you ever lay a finger on Sapphire again... I'll hunt you down to the ends of the earth, and I'll destroy you!"

Sonic nervously looked over to the wall, unsure if Eggman was in fact listening.

And then suddenly, Sapphire started crying.

Vanilla immediately leaned over to hug the crying girl. "It's okay. Just let it out."

"H-h-he wanted me t-to do these... he e-expected me to... these awful things. He was t-trying to teach me to put a-animals in r-robots. T-to hurt people! Control them!" Sapphire got out.

Sonic sighed. "...Unfortunately, not new information there..."

"B-but he expected ME to do it, too!" Sapphire shouted. "I just... I just want to help people... with my technology. I want to make people happy..."

Shadow became still with that last line.

"...B-but that man. He doesn't want that... He wants everyone to suffer!"

"Sapphire..." Vanilla softly.

"Are you okay miss Sapphire?" Cream asked.

"I... I... I can't let this happen!" Sapphire shouted. She got up, put her cocoa down, and grabbed her bow from Tails. "I'm going to perfect this..." she said softly, before turning to her brother, "and then, Sonic, can you teach me to fight?"

"Um, sis, are you sure that is-" Sonic started, but he was cut off as Shadow got up himself.

"Why shouldn't she learn to fight?" Shadow asked. "If Eggman thinks he can just own her, then she should fight back!"

Sonic looked at her bow, and then at her. "Well, I'm not familiar with the bow and arrow... but I do have experience with old-fashioned weapons."

"For something made from scraps and stolen batteries..." Tails added in. "It's very well made, and takes advantage of everything Sapphire has practiced and worked on. It's not a bad idea."

"Then... well, get to work when you're ready, and we'll keep an eye out for the egg-head," Sonic said. "Give you time to arm yourself. And I guess... it's time to step up our adventures together!"

Everyone agreed with the blue hedgehog (even Shadow), and Sapphire smiled, happy to be around people who cared about her, and were willing to help her become stronger.

Author's Note: And now we have finished this arc. ...Almost. I actually wrote more to this chapter, but it felt too long, so I cut off the last bit to be its own chapter. It'll be up shortly after this one. I'll talk more about it in said chapter.

So, I don't have much to say here. Now, Sapphire will be working on the weapon that she has in her profile on DeviantArt (about time). She'll have it in the chapter after the next, so you'll finally be able to see it in full.

Man, being an IT student really helped here. Shoulder-surfing and the brute force methods were used here in Sapphire's attempt to get into Eggman's computer.

Also, the Chaos Blast Shadow used was based on its version in Sonic Chronicles, where it's a focused beam, instead of a straight energy blast from Shadow. And Big Arms! Yeah... I really didn't have a good idea of what Eggman was going to pilot, so I just decided to make a new Big Arms. Its moves are based on the Sonic Generations 3DS fight, and I just had to get the infamous slam in there!

Beyond all that, I'm to have finished this part of the story done! I'm planning on taking a break with this story sometime soon, but not right away. I am excited to start a new chapter of Sapphire's life, so let's look forward to that!