"Sonic!" The cry rang out causing the hedgehog to jump a bit, as he wasn't expecting to hear another voice. The hedgehog opened his eyes and looked over to see Tails standing there. He sighed in relief. He thought he was a goner.

"Tails?" the hedgehog looked up with a light surprise, he hoped that his bud wouldn't let him down. "Hurry up and get me out of here, bro."

The fox nodded and quickly analyzed the situation. Sonic was very close to being crushed by the garbage compactor so he had to find something he could use to stop the belt, and soon. A large compartment below the moving belt caught the kit's attention he could hear a clanking noise coming from it. Swiftly, he moved up to the hatch and popped it open and knew he hit the bull's-eye. Inside the compartment, gears and parts moved and whirled, these were obviously the pieces moving the belt, sabotaging this would be child's play.

Out of the corner of his eye the fox spotted a lead pipe leaning on the corner wall. That would be perfect. He ran over to it and picked it up, then quickly moved back to the gears.

The hedgehog looked up to see what was taking his friend so long and saw the lead pipe in his hand. "Hold on Tails the –" He was about to say, but was cut off by a sharp grinding noise as the fox shoved the piping in between a few gears causing the belt to come to an abrupt halt. Sonic saw some smoke go up to the ceiling indicating that his friend had succeeded in jamming the contraption. "-switch is over there…" he finished with a sigh shaking his head.

The fox looked over his shoulder and now noted a big red button labeled 'EMERGANCY STOP'. He felt himself blush in embarrassment and chuckled a bit to himself. "Opps… Guess I kinda missed that. That's what I get from learning from ya I guess."

The blue rodent lets out a sarcastic laugh. "Ha, ha… very funny bro, now could you get me outta this gook?" He said letting out a true laugh.

"Oh… Sure thing Sonic." Tails said with a nod and moved onto the belt. He pulled at the hedgehog with all of his might, even using his tails for additional leverage. Though no matter how hard he tried to get him out of the muck, it was no use, his friend was stuck on there tightly. "Man, he must have used the top quality stuff."

Sonic sighed, "Laying here really is boring." He sighed as the fox thought of another was to free his friend. He then remembered something, when Uncle Chuck captured him and Antoine that one time he used Mega Muck to keep them still, and even gave the ingredients as he made them… some petroleum, some quick sand, and some clay mud… if he could find a way to heat the stuff up, it would lose it's stickiness from the clay mud and it would crumble easily. The place ought to have air conditioning and heaters, and with the power back online he'd easily be able to manipulate the conditions.

"Hold on Sonic, I'll be right back." He said as he made his way quickly out of the room, but stopped at the door. "I'm gonna warn ya though it's gonna a little hot in here." He stated as he left the room, leaving the hedgehog alone.

The hedgehog sighs, "All this waiting is giving me a headache." He whined.

The fox made his way into the maintenance room, once again the security was very light… he only had to deactivate two guards which were protecting the compactor room. He could guess that whatever Snively was up to, he probably had the guards with him so the malevolent human could complete his plans. He had to hurry and get Sonic out of that muck, every second wasted was another Snively had to return to the past and make a mess of things.

"There must be something for temperature control here…" Tails stated as he looked about the room. "Bingo." He smiled as he found a terminal labeled 'Environment Control'. He took out the palm computer and placed it near the mainframe.

"All right Nicole, do your thing."

"Affirmative." The computer stated as it made some random noises for a minute. "Access Granted."

"Cool… er, or hot… whichever." The kitsune said with a laugh.

He sifted through the different segments of the Environment Control system trying to find like a 'Garbage Room' or something by that name, it unfortunately wasn't in alphabetical order, and there were fifty segments, talk about a chore. As he combed through, though, he noticed something strange about one of the labels.

"External Holographic Environment?" He asks himself "What the heck…? Does that mean what I think it does?"

He turned off the EHE and looked around to see if there were any windows or any screens with outside camera shots. The fox spotted one on a terminal marked 'Outside: Sector C' and looked to see what he had anticipated. It was all a light grey hue and not deep red as before, all the lava that was there before had dried up and there were no wavy lines of heat. This volcano was still dormant; all the lava was an illusion. It was probably meant to scare away interlopers, too bad it failed. Tails wondered if Snively knew that the volcano was probably going to awaken, it would make sense because of the hot spring he and Sonic were in earlier, it was ironic in a way.

The fox suddenly shook his head remembering that he was here to help Sonic. He looked about for the controls for the compactor room… "Of course… it's the last one on the list." The kit laughs as he changes the settings.

Back in the garbage compactor room the hedgehog started to feel himself sweat. It felt as if he were outside in the volcano's heat again. What was Tails trying to do, he wondered, make him sweat to death? Then he realized the muck start to stiffen up a bit, and it hurt a little as it changed in texture forming almost cast-like around his body. Sonic pushed up at the now not so mucky mixture and it cracked apart, freeing him from its grasp.

"Way to go Tails…" He said to himself as he started to brush off some of the dry substance that stuck to him.

"Thanks Sonic." Came the fox's voice from the doorway causing the blue one to jump a bit.

"Jeez big guy don't sneak up on me like that!" The blue one said with a laugh.

"Sorry Sonic."

The hedgehog shook his head. "Don't be, I owe you big time."

Tails laughed. "Don't worry about is Sonic, you saved me a bunch of times."

Sonic nodded in response. "Guess we're even then."

"Nah, I still owe you about a dozen." The kit responded, shaking his head.

"…You actually kept count?" Sonic laughed.

There was a small silence before Sonic spoke up again. "Snively is behind this whole operation…"

"I know Sonic, I spotted that in the data files, apparently he got careless. He didn't encode his information this time."

Sonic scratched the back of his head. "You actually read through those things?"

Tails nodded, "I figured I should while I was in there."

Sonic laughed. "I better be sure I stick 'round ya more or you'll become too much like a Sal."

The fox shrugged and was about to ask what was wrong with that when the lights suddenly dimmed heavily, probably from an energy surge. They then flickered back to full brightness.

They both looked out the door and recalled something; Snively was still out there and was still in the midst of completing his project. They looked to each other and nodded.

"Come on Tails, let's get this show on the road." The hedgehog stated to which his bud nodded.

The fox flipped open Nichole and it displayed the layout of the base they had taken earlier.

"So which way is it to Snootley, Nichole?" The hedgehog asks. A light blinked onto the schematic making Sonic tap his foot. "Meaning…"

"Go left, then right, then down the stairs, then to the left…" Tails said before the machine could let out anything.

"Correct." Nicole replied.

The hedgehog blinked and the then scratched the back of his head. "You really are starting to scare me big guy…" Sonic said with a smile.

"Sorry." He said with a laugh.

"Would you stop apologizing? I didn't really mean it," Sonic said shaking his head. "Now lets go Tails, we're gonna warp seven." He said, moving out of the room and ready to shoot off, the fox ready to follow when there was a pause. "Uh, which way are we going again?" The hedgehog asked, causing his friend to sigh.

Snively stood in awe as the portal continued to gather power. The machine let of a loud roar as it was finally was fully charged. This was almost too easy, the pointy nosed human thought to himself, he couldn't believe the difficulty that his uncle had in conquering his adversaries, it was almost pathetic.

"Now open the portal!" He cried out into the room. The computer bleeped and the birds in the containers shrilled as a charge shot through them, causing their powers to shoot through the center of the machine and a strange colorful hue materialized. The short man's eyes lit up in the color of the hole in space. "This is it, everything in this universe, even time, belongs to me."

"Not so fast, sniffsley!" Came the voice the human had come to loathe.

Snively frowned as he turned around. "I thought I killed you, you miserable hedgehog, how did you get out?"

The two tailed kitsune stepped out from behind Sonic and into the light causing the little man to glare. "So it was the little twerp, huh? Well you're both too late, in a matter of seconds none of you will have ever existed."

"What are you talking about Snively?" The hedgehog leered at the human.

The man smiled wickedly, "I'm going to do what your friend 'Selim' did, and travel back to the past." He said with a shrill laugh, he looked at the kitsune as he said the name of the older Miles.

"Sonic, what is he talking about?" The fox asked

The hedgehog sighed, why did Snootley have to open his big mouth? He knew he had to tell Tails everything now; he'd rather he told them then the midget human. "Bro… Selim was from the future, he got lost in time…"

The fox was shocked, why did Sonic hold that from him? "Why didn't you tell me this before?" he asked, a little bit of hurt could be heard in his voice. Sonic never held such things back from him before, that he was aware of.

"The thing is…" Sonic began; he paused a bit trying to think of an excuse, he couldn't tell him who Selim was, because if he did, it could change a lot of things.

"Oh would you two shut up, it won't matter in a moment anyway!" The short human interrupted as he backed toward the gate, "Farewell, my adversaries." He laughed.

Tails then noted something strange, as Snively was just inches away from the gate the hue changed, from a light blue to a deeper purple, just as he was about to enter. The human then stepped in with a final laugh. The fox pondered over what just happened to cause such a change, and what it could possibly mean when suddenly a blur shot into his vision.

"No you don't!" Sonic cried as he shot toward the portal, which was closing.

"Sonic, wait!" The fox cried, but he was not heard as his friend entered the portal just as it disappeared. There was a silence as Tails suddenly found himself standing alone in the room. The lights were dim, and his cry of 'wait' echoed in the emptiness. It was so sudden that the realization came after his reverberating voice faded. He was gone… Sonic was gone…

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And thus ends another chapter, and now it is time that the updates become more frequent again, good new for you. Also another cool thing is that I don't have to come up with any more alliterations for the chapters, yay! Anyways the next update will be here September 23rd. When you'll find out if Sonic truely is gone for good.