Rain lashed the tornado's wings on the ground below. Tails had landed when the storm rolled in and now he, Sonic and Amy sheltered in a nearby cave. The hedgehogs slept soundly, but Tails lay wide awake, a little afraid of the storm. He had watched it progress over the nearby Floating Island, each flash silhouetting the majestic miniature continent in a stunning display of light and shadow.
Now that the rain was falling faster, it seemed that the thunderstorm was over. Tails rolled over to try and sleep, but then a movement in the sky caught his eye. He sat up, staring out at the Floating Island, feeling a cold chill creep over his spine. The island was rocking and shaking as if there was an earthquake. Suddenly, he realised what this really meant.
"Sonic! It's going to fall!" he shrieked in terror, startling his friends awake.
"Hey, whoah! Tails! Chill!" Sonic cried, shaking and rubbing his sleep-dazed head.
"What's happening?" Amy asked, groggily peering around. "Is it morning already?"
"Look!" Tails chocked, pointing a fearful finger.
Outside, the entire island shook one final time then dropped. It fell faster than its own waterfalls which sprayed out sideways for an instant, caught in the velocity of the fall. Finally, the island landed, jarring the hills with a rippling thud which knocked the watchers to their hands and knees in the cave, where the walls shuddered and shards of stones and dust rained down.
"Sheesh!" Sonic lamented, as the vibrations faded away.
"Does this mean Eleanor has the emerald?" Amy asked, staring out at the fallen landmass. The island lay in a heap of crumpled rocks and soil. As the rain poured down regardless, the rivers swollen by storm water cascaded over new terrain, carving fresh courses.
"Where's Knuckles?" Tails wondered.
"Let's find out!" Sonic declared, starting towards the cave entrance. Amy went to join him, brushing the dust from her dress.
"Sonic, we can't fly in this rain!" Tails complained. "We'll have to wait out the storm, then go and see."
Sonic clicked his fingers in annoyance and stamped his foot. Tails expected a harsh reproach, but the hedgehog simply ignored him and sat down at the cave entrance, wearing a soar expression. Amy sat herself down bedside Tails and offered him a hug.
"Don't worry!" she whispered. "It'll be okay, you'll see. Sonic will stop the robot, no matter what!"
Tails shivered. He knew she was only being brave to comfort him. Amy could easily forget her own fear to comfort her friends. He wished he could do the same. He wished he could believe her. How could everything go so wrong when he'd tried so hard? All he wanted was to make things right. He just hoped it wasn't too late.
By early morning, the storm clouds had cleared to leave fresh blue skies. Sunlight glinted off the rain soaked Tornado as it landed beside the emerald altar.
"It's gone!" Amy gasped, staring at the empty space where the emerald normally rested.
"NO!" Tails wailed, racing up the staircase to inspect the scene. "Maybe Knuckles took it somewhere?" he suggested feebly to Amy and Sonic, as they joined him.
"What, and leave his island to just crash down anywhere?" Sonic growled, folding his arms over his chest.
"You were watching the island the whole time, Tails, didn't you see anything strange?" Amy asked. Tails shook his head.
"It was hard to see anything much though all the rain," he explained.
"Maybe he's still around here somewhere!" Amy declared. She skipped down the stairs and then raced towards the caves, calling the guardian's name. The boys followed more slowly, locked in silent conflict. Sonic avoided Tails' troubled eyes by staring blankly ahead, but the kitsune knew he was angry. Of course, he had good reason to be. Tails realised now that he should have told him about Eleanor before, even if Sonic then forced him to stop his experiments. At least they could have avoided this.
Amy's cries jolted them both from their reverie. They exchanged a glance and raced to her aid. Tails feared that she'd been attacked by his robot, but the caves were silent apart from Amy's voice softly whimpering Knuckles' name. Tails met Sonic's gaze again and they entered the cave together.
"He's so…hurt." Amy whimpered to them. She knelt by the fallen echidna, weeping softly, and stroking his quills. Tails staggered, feeling faint. He clawed at the cave wall with one paw, trying to steady himself. In those first frozen, shocked movements, he felt no guilt that his creation may have caused this, nor grief, just cold, paralysing numbness. When Sonic joined Amy to comfort her, the movement woke Tails from his dazed trance. He drifted over beside his hero.
"Amy?" the whisper came dry, horse and groggy. The pink hedgehog gasped. Suddenly, the dry sand underfoot rustled as Knuckles tried to get up.
"Don't…Be careful!" Amy cautioned him. "Sonic!"
"Take it easy, Knux!" he exclaimed.
"Rouge!" the echidna cried, remembering. He hoisted himself up on one elbow, grunting with the effort.
"Sssh!" Amy exclaimed, grabbing his shoulders in an attempt to calm him down.
"She's not here," Sonic added.
"My emerald!" Knuckles yelled, pulling against Amy with surprising strength.
"It's okay!" she cried. "Knuckles, please calm down, you're hurt!" He struggled some more, but his sides stung and ached where the claws had sunk in, so he subsided, and let Amy help him to his feet.
"She was going to steal my emerald!" he wailed to Amy.
"It's okay, we'll help you!" Amy replied, hugging him. She looked to Sonic for support.
"We've gotta get you down to Mobius. Those wounds need treating," he told Knuckles.
"The emerald can heal me," the echidna growled. "I can get that far."
"It's gone," Tails muttered, softly.
"WHAT?" Knuckles roared, tearing free from Amy. He staggered to the cave mouth, staring out in disbelief at the hole where his emerald had been.
"Rouge!" he screamed in frustration.
"Knuckles!" Amy was suddenly by his side, and she grasped his paw. "We'll find it for you, I promise!"
He glared into her wide, tear stained face and saw her distress, hope and conviction. He sighed loudly, subdued.
"My emerald!" he lamented. The others couldn't possibly understand how much it hurt him to be separated from it. As its guardian, he was piously bound to the gem and without it, he felt weak and drained.
"We'll get it back, Knux! You can count on us!" Sonic assured him.
"I can't rest until I know that the emerald is safe," Knuckles sighed.
"We'll find it, don't worry!" Amy pleaded. "Please believe me!"
The guardian took one last pining glance at the hole left by his absent emerald, then nodded to Amy. He let her lead him back to the Tornado.
Tonight, yesterday's storm was forgotten, and the clear night's sky twinkled with stars. Amy, Sonic and Tails set up camp for the night beside a small copse. The evening's search had been fruitless of both robot and emerald and left them confused an exhausted. If Eleanor had the master emerald, surely they should be ware of an attack, but she seemed to have disappeared. Knuckles insisted it was Rouge who'd stolen his emerald, and that didn't make sense either. It had seemed that she'd gained respect for Knuckles on the Ark and accepted that the emerald was rightfully his.
"You don't think the robot will attack in the night, do you?" Amy fearfully asked Sonic, snuggling closer to him by the campfire.
"If it does, there's never been a robot built that could defeat Sonic the Hedgehog!" he exclaimed proudly, grinning at her. She didn't cheer up.
"It was horrible…when I saw Knuckles. I thought he was… I thought he was dead!" she whimpered, dampening Sonic's chest with her tears. He frowned and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Usually, he pushed her away when she tried to cuddle too close, but to do so now would be cruel. She'd had a nasty shock, well they all had. Back in the caves there, he'd thought the same as Amy until Knuckles spoke. He and Knuckles hadn't always got along, but it had scared him to see the powerful and strong echidna injured so badly. Sonic still hadn't actually seen Tails' robot, but it'd made a real mess of his Mystic Ruins base and from his description, it might have been able to defeat Knuckles. But he still insisted it was Rouge who'd stolen his emerald. How hard did the echidna hit his head anyway? Was it possible that he'd become so confused he mistook a robot for Rouge? Sonic's frown deepened. That didn't sound right, there must be more to this that he didn't know about. We'll have to find Rouge, Sonic realised. She'll have to have some answers. Amy had fallen asleep in his arms and he settled down to sleep himself, glad of her extra warmth now the fire was burning out.
On the other side of the fire, Tails tossed and turned uselessly. On one side he was too hot, on the other too cold, and he couldn't sleep anyway. He was still worried that Eleanor might attack in the night and he was chilled by what he'd witnessed in the caves. He'd shared Amy's fears, but once the numbness had worn off, he felt much worse, because he blamed himself. It was his robot, after all, running out of control, brutally attacking his friend, stealing the master emerald, creating havoc in the city. He still didn't know how to stop her and felt very small and afraid.
Tails froze, hearing something move in the darkness. Instantly he thought of Eleanor and moved to wake Sonic. Suddenly, something soft grabbed him from behind, gagging his mouth with a paw. Rouge!
"Stop squirming, fox-boy, I'm not here to hurt you!" she grunted in a hushed whisper. "We've got to talk about Eleanor. Will you scream?"
Tails shook his head, so she removed the paw. "You know about her?" he cried.
Rouge scoffed. "Half of Mobius knows about her by now. The incident at the chao gardens was all over the news yesterday." Tails hung his head.
"But I know more about her than most. Are you aware you've been the subject of a secret government investigation for some time?" Rouge smiled at his bewilderment. "We saw you rummaging though Eggman's old bases for parts and we wondered what you were up to. Those places are out of bounds to civilians," Rouge told him, watching his expression. "They might be dangerous, understand?"
"You spied on me!" Tails cried angrily. Rouge tried to hush him. "Why didn't you stop me?" he added in a smaller voice.
"We have access to your computer files on the robot. We knew your intentions for building her. And, after meeting you on the Ark, I thought you could do it. Build a robot strong enough to combat Eggman, I mean. So I was assigned to watch you, and I was equally to blame if it went wrong. So it's not just your friends' lives you've screwed up with this robot!" She spat the last words out, glaring at the dying embers of the fire.
"Rouge, I'm sorry!" Tails began.
"Save it! We're both answerable to the police or higher authority if we don't stop this robot," she growled.
"Rouge?" Tails asked timidly, after a pause. "Does everyone know it's my robot?"
Rouge shook her head. "That information is still top secret. Naturally, the public think Eggman's behind the attack and they trust that Sonic will save them as usual. If it gets out that you built the robot, it would cause more panic and other problems."
Tails hung his head. He'd never imagined that his experiment could have such repercussions. But something still confused him.
"So what happened on the Floating Island?"
"Your robot went after the master emerald, of course and I followed her. She attacked Knuckles and they fought into the caves, where I shot at her from outside and she fled. I was ordered to cease the emerald, which is now in a secure location she cannot penetrate," Rouge told him.
"But you knew what would happen if the emerald was taken from the island!" Tails shouted.
"Quiet! Of course I knew, fox-boy, I had no choice. They wouldn't listen. Would you rather Eleanor had it instead!" Rouge screamed at him in hushed tones, her voice barely above a whisper. She glanced back and forth between Tails and Sonic, convinced that the hedgehog could wake at any moment if Tails didn't stop shouting.
"Why didn't you help Knuckles?" he growled softly.
He can take care of himself, can't he? I had to help secure the emerald, and then I was up all night trying to track down that robot!"
"He was really hurt…she…she could have killed him!" Tails told her, angry and hurt. He was also suspicious of her story, some of it didn't quite check out.
"Knuckles says he saw you stealing the emerald on your own, and he thought it was you who attacked him."
"He might have seen me by the emerald after the robot fled," Rouge shrugged. Tails frowned at her, but she offered no further explanations. She watched the fire embers while she slowly warmed her hands over them and seemed to contemplate something.
"Is Knuckles okay?" she asked Tails eventually.
"He'll be alright. No thanks to you!" Tails grumbled.
"I did stop Eleanor as soon as I had a clear shot, you know. I didn't know that she hurt him that badly."
"Where is his emerald?" Tails demanded. Rouge's outstretched fists clenched above the fire.
"I can't tell you that until the robot is under control," she said flatly.
"Then I think you'd better leave," Tails grumbled. He was angry that Rouge had spied on him and that she wouldn't help when she could.
"Can't do that," Rouge replied coldly. "Got to make sure you deactivate this robot, you see."
"LEAVE!" Tails screamed. Rouge winced as Sonic turned over and awoke. He usually woke up grumpy. Now, in the middle of the night, with the first thing he saw upon waking being Rouge, he woke up furious.
"You!" he cried, launching himself over the fire to grab her.
"Get off!" she screamed back, struggling to pull her wrists free from his grasp.
"Not until you tell me what happened on the Floating Island!" Sonic growled.
"I just told fox-boy, ask him!" Rouge cried indignantly.
"Eleanor did it!" Tails told Sonic.
"What about the emerald then, who took that!" Sonic demanded.
"Rouge did! And she ain't telling where she hid it!" Tails told him.
Rouge wrenched one paw free from Sonic, growled savagely at Tails then swiftly drew her steel digging claws under his hero's throat, drawing him close by the paw he still held her by. The action was almost pure reflex and almost startled even her.
"Listen to me," she growled, clasping her fingers tight around his wrist. "The emerald is perfectly safe, until this robot is under control. Then I shall return it to its rightful owner and not before, got it!"
"You're lying!" Tails cried, terrified by the look in Rouge's eyes. She turned to face him, snarling. Her pointed teeth glinted in the dim firelight, her grip tightening around her hostage's wrist, with the claws on her free hand poised ready to cut. Tails didn't dare risk an attack like that. On the other side of the fire, Amy awoke and screamed.
"Get away! You stole the master emerald, you nearly killed Knuckles! Haven't you done enough?" she screamed at Rouge. WHAM! Amy had thrown something at her from the opposite side of the fire. A stone, still warm from its close proximity to the embers. "No. you won't hurt my Sonic!" she wailed, hurling another missile. Rouge pressed her claws closer.
"Amy, don't!" Sonic grunted though his clenched teeth. The fear in his eyes showed what he expected of Rouge if Amy angered her anymore. It was worse than a verbal accusation. Rouge let out a wail of frustration. It'd all gone too far. Here she was, protesting her innocence by holding another victim at claw point. Now nobody would believe her story, even though it was the truth. She should have left Tails alone when he told her to leave, but the remaining fire had felt so warm and comforting, and she was bitterly tired and cold. She hadn't slept since she'd lost the robot on the Floating Island, and had been searching for it ever since. If only Tails hadn't woken Sonic. She'd trusted his engineering skills and let him build the robot; surely he owed her a little tolerance, and should have listened to her side of the story. Well, she had everyone's attention now, but that wasn't going to help when the situation was out of control and no one would believe her.
"I know what you're thinking," she said softly, so only Sonic could hear. "A thief I may be. But I only took the emerald to ensure its and our safety. I barely even saw Knuckles last night; it was the robot that attacked him. And even if you'll never believe me, I'm telling you…I'm sorry he was hurt."
Rouge held his stare. Her eyes showed anger, frustration, but no sign of dishonesty. Even sadness and a little hurt showed though the wrestling emotions on her face. Sonic's grip loosened and she was gone, black wings carrying her away into the darkness.
"Soniiic!" Amy wailed, rushing to his side.
"Are you alright?" Tails gasped, staring after Rouge.
"Yeah," Sonic replied, rubbing his chin. "Amy!" he grumbled irritably. "Knock it off, can't you, you're soaking me!"
Amy chocked back the tears and hiccupped. She grasped his paws so that they faced each other. "I thought she was gonnah… hic! Gonnah…hic!" she mumbled. She stared back at Sonic with tear filled eyes, hiccupping. Sonic sighed and gently squeezed her paw. He tuned to Tails.
"Still think it was Rouge who attacked Knuckles?"
"Don't you?"
"Nah."
"It was Eleanor then," Tails lamented, avoiding Sonic's stare. "Rouge was spying on me, y'know. Trying to decide if Eleanor was dangerous."
Sonic frowned. "Why didn't you tell me about the robot before?"
"I thought I could do it. I thought I'd be able to control her," Tails muttered. "Rouge did too, that's why she didn't stop me!" he added quickly, as though it would aid his defence. "Sonic?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you still angry at me?" Tails asked, timidly. "You know I never wanted any of this to happen, right? I only created her to help us. I'm sorry for everything she's done."
"I ain't mad at yah. It's just too bad the way things turned out. It woulda been cool having Eleanor on our side."
"Yeah," Tails sighed, crawling back into his sleeping bag. "Eggman's robots wouldn't stand a chance against her!"
Sonic grinned. "You're some kind of genius, kid, that's for sure!"
Later, while Amy and the troubled young kitsune slept, Sonic got up, carefully draped a blanket over Amy and threw another log on the fire. Someone ought to be on guard in case of any more trouble and as the oldest and most experienced hero, he seemed qualified. Besides, he couldn't sleep now without being sure his friends were safe. As he watched and waited, a slight movement caught his eye in the shadows. It might have been a trick of the firelight, but still…He got to his feet, squinting into the woods.
Thud! Some object hit him on the back of the head. He spun around, glaring at the darkness. He heard the flutter of leathery wings and saw that the object had landed by the fire. It was a large screwed up ball of paper. Curious, he rescued it from the flames and unravelled it. It was a map of a military base, leading to the master emeralds secret location. On the back was a hastily scrawled message:
Attack the vault at noon tomorrow. I'll disable the security for ten minutes only - Rouge XXX.
Sonic frowned at the message, absent-mindedly rubbing his throat. First she threatened him, now she was offering favours? Obviously the message was meant for him alone, from the look of the map, no-one else could manage that in ten minutes. Naturally, he thought he could do it faster than that, but the thought of a trap crossed his mind. But what could she gain? He had nothing she wanted and neither did his friends, so far as he knew. He thought again about the look in her eyes when she had pleaded her innocence that last time. Maybe she deserved a chance.