As they were flying home they were dead quiet, and besides the fact that the engine was going there was hardly a peep between Tails and Sonic. Sonic decided to break the mellowing silence. "You don't remember what Snively was talkin' about?"

The fox kept looking forward, but shook his head. He was still quiet.

"It's ok big guy, it'll probably come back to you eventually." The hero said with a wave of his hand.

Then something did come back to the kit as his eyes moved amongst the gauges. "Crap!"

Sonic jolted at the sudden outburst. "What's wrong big guy? Are you hurt?"

Tails shook his head. "Sonic, we forgot to ask Knuckles if he had any fuel… we're gonna run on empty before we get back!"

"Ah no biggy, as long as we're on dry land when it happens, we can walk the rest of the-" He then cried out in surprise as a laser passed over head… "What the…?" The hedgehog looked over his shoulder and gasped as he saw the huge air battle ship make its way closer to their flank. "Check your six Tails…"

Tails looked in the mirror on the upper part of the 'bug guard' windshield and went wide eyed as he saw the huge ship coming in from behind them. "Isn't that…?"

"The wing fortress? Yeah it looks it." Sonic stated as the big battleship closed on them. "I thought that thing was much slower though…"

The fox nodded looking down at his speedometer, with the propeller they were going as fast as possible, but the Wing Fortress was still gaining. "He must have made sure it could go faster then the Tornado this time! That's a lot of power to be pushing such a huge mass."

Sonic nodded. "We're in trouble if he catches us." The hedgehog said, stating the obvious. "Can't this thing go faster?"

The vulpine gave a nod. "Yeah, but it would eat out fuel a lot faster, we'd be lucky if we made it just with the propeller."

"It doesn't matter, as long as we are on land when we run out. I'd rather be in a crash landing then incinerated in midair." The hedgehog called back.

Tails looked to Nicole in order to find out what the shortest path to the coast was. "We've got about 3 miles. If we use the jet we might just make it… but hold on, let me be sure…" the fox typed some things into Nicole to calculate the distance to fuel ratios.

Another laser suddenly whizzed by the hedgehog's ear causing the rodent to jump. The beam smacked square into one of the buttresses that separated the right wings. "Think a bit faster please T2."

The fox ignored the plea knowing it was essential he get this calculation right. "Got it… we can go about 2 and a half miles before we would have to switch back to propeller. That should give us enough to get ready to land." He thought. "So we can either use the propeller now for a mile, or use the fuel for the two and a half… either way is fine."

Sonic gave a nod. "Whatever you think would be best big guy."

Tails sighed, great, up to him. He though a bit and another laser flew by, they seemed to be coming at them more rapidly as the battleship came closer. "I think we should lose them now with the jet, that way we're not Swiss cheese as we land." He gave a smile, this was defiantly the better decision, this was they could also slow down for the landing instead of coming to an abrupt stop. "Hold on Sonic, we're going to gain some ground."

The hedgehog agreed as the jet engine roared pushing them forward. "Let's just hope she holds together."

"Hrmm…" The wizard thought aloud as he looked at the short human with a grin. "Ok then, here is the deal… I will force you out of the void, and you can get me the ingredients I need to make an antidote for this cursed side-effect of being trapped between time streams so long."

He found himself confused and panicky. He really didn't have a choice in the matter, if he said no then he would have torn him apart. "Just tell me what you need…"

"Bring me the Chaos Emerald, if I can bring them into the void then I'll be able to eventually discover a way to use their warping abilities to gather a way to alter the molecules in my body that have adapted to change in order to survive in the sanctuary. Also create another one of those machines; tears I create from within tend to be difficult to go through without getting blown back in… I don't have enough speed to escape."

"Then how am I going to get out if you cannot?"

With that the wizard cackled. "I'm going to give you a 'push'."

SLAM!

That's the sound Snively's fist made as it hit the arm of the captain's chair, and got his mind off of the events of the void. He had to concentrate on getting those gems, he'd hate to feel the power of the wizard if he did more the 'push' him. He shook his head and laughed, why was he afraid of the old mage? There was no way he could do anything to him here, but still, he did need those Chaos Emeralds. If the wizard wanted them so bad, then they most have great power.

The Tornado, which was almost in his grasp, was now moving away from him at a great rate. "That twerp just won't give up… but I'm just as stubborn… More power to the engines!"

"Sir. further strain on engines will cause system failure." One of the workerbots stated.

The human thought for awhile. "Do we have any secondary ships that could catch them?"

"Affirmative." The machine responded. "One such ship does exist." The computer screen clicked on showing a Robotnik clone ship that Snively had almost forgot had. It was an earlier prototype, the doctor's mustache was probably a bit too bushy, which was why he never used it, because it was obviously fake. The human nodded, he could use it now though since he was no longer hiding behind his uncle, and they knew he was running the show.

"Launch it!" He instructed the worker bots. "But it's to do damage to the plane or the hedgehog only! I want the fox alive!"

"Yes sir!"

Tails let out a sigh of relief as the gap between them and the huge ship opened up, taking them out of attack range. He kept on his toes though, if he kept the engine going for even a few seconds too long it could spell disaster for him and Sonic. Looking forward he saw that there was a bit of land on the far horizon.

"We're almost to the point that we'll have to slow down!" The fox called back to his friend. Sonic let out a simple nod in response, he could hear the hull of the plane start to creak under the strain of traveling so fast. She better hold together, the blue hero thought, crashing into the ocean was not an appealing way to go.

Suddenly there was a sound of tearing metal as a laser clipped the right wing causing the two to jump in surprise.

"What the heck… aren't we out of their range?" Tails asked very confused as he felt some control leave him as the right side started to act funny as some of the aerodynamics was lost. Sonic looked over the back of the plane as he saw a very shaggy looking Robotnik clone following them. "Buttnik clone ship closin' in."

Tails sighed as he looked in the mirror. "They say that a copy of a beautiful thing is an ugly thing… so what do you get when copy an ugly thing?"

"You couldn't get any uglier then the original, don't think they have a word that describes that kind of ugly, big guy." Sonic said with a smile. "Think we can shake him?"

"Going this fast, it might cause strain to the hull to make sudden movements. But I'll do my best!" Tails responded.

"Halt rodents or I'll blast you to kingdom come!" came the cloned fat man's voice.

"Scary… sounds just like him." Sonic says with a laugh. "Then again all those fakes did."

"Well, I'm not stopping!" Tails said as he kept his eyes on the gauges and horizon. "Hold on Sonic, we're going to have to shut down the engine now." He cried back to the hedgehog, flipping the jet engine switch and the roaring abruptly stopped. The momentum from the boost still lingered, it however was slowly dissipating. Sonic looked behind them, the battleship started to close in on them once again.

Another shot came from the fake Robotnik, but Tails quickly tilted the plane in order to dodge the shot. "Nice try 'Buttnik', but Sniffs programmed your aim." Sonic taunted the floating robot pod.

In response the robot let another shot fly, this one however hit dead on. The beam went straight into one side of the hull, and out the other causing both the passenger and pilot to jump. Black smoke started to poor out of the holes on both sides making Tails look at the gauges to see if there were any massive problems. "Not good…" he said, implying the worst. The fox looked up to see that they were almost over land. "I'm going to bring it down so if we have to crash we won't have to fall so far."

"Makes sense…" Sonic said with a nod as the plane began to descend. He could see the sun rising as the plane began to make its way to the shore.

The Robotnik clone was close behind, taking aim again, this time taking aim on the blue passenger. The target set, he charged up the beam. He was seconds from firing when a command suddenly came in to back off the target.

"How does it look back there?" Tails asked as he made sure to line the plane up with the ground as best as he could, it was quite a challenge because of all the hits they had taken. Sonic looked over his shoulder to see the clone pulling up away from them.

"He's pulling back?" The hedgehog told the fox, and at the same time wondering what was going on. Tails didn't think he heard his friend right; he looked over his shoulder in disbelief. His eyes then caught sight of the Wing Fortress as it closed in again. He could see a sparkle eminating from it, he peered closer taking out his binoculars and giving it a quick look over. He gasped as he saw that the energy was coming from what appeared to be a giant barrel. It was an energy cannon! A big one! That's why the machine moved away.

"Sonic hang on!" The kit cried as he pulled the yolk hard to the left, landing now off his mind. The sound of the cannon firing made the blue hero realize what was going on. A bright light enveloped everything around it blinding the two creatures in its wake as it tore across the sky at incredible speed. Tails closed his eyes hoping that they had veered far enough from the blast so that it missed.

As the fox opened his eyes the world was spinning as the plane was in a corkscrew spin, moving forward and down as smoke poured from the shattered right wing. The kit pulled on the controls, but the plane yielded no response. Everything was going so fast. The plane couldn't be controlled. There was too much gravitational force, and before the kit could cry out, or check and see if his hedgehog friend was alright everything started to black out.

Snively looked at the screen as the Tornado crashed into the beach front, kicking up sand as it smashed. The degree of the hit was pretty shallow, causing the plane to skid across the ground before stopping. They were probably still alive since it landed on its right side.

He had to be certain though, "Have the clone bot do a comb of the area and see if we can't find the kit, or his friend."

"Yes sir…"

Everything started to come back in a blur. The first thing he could sense was a great deal of smoke in the air that was chocking him. He coughed hoarsely as he picked his head up. Sonic looked around, he was lying next to the Tornado, smoke pouring out of the hull, the dark clouds hovering over his head. As he gathered his surroundings he suddenly remembered something. "Tails…" he said to himself as he ran up to the wreckage that he was tossed from. He looked through the debris in a panic, and as he moved he could feel a pain shoot up though his right leg. He looked down to see that it looked fine; however he probably had sprained it from the impact.

"Tails!" he called out again, coughing from the smoke.

The fox looked around as he stood up. His tail bases felt as if they were burning. He looked down and tried to twirl them, but it hurt when he did.

"Sonic!" he cried looking to his burning Tornado a few yards away. He started to move toward it when a shadow enveloped him. The vulpine turned around slowly to see the Robotnik clone pod hovering over him. The emulated doctor's voice cackled. "You're mine now Tails!"

"Sonic!" the cry of the hedgehog's friend was heard by the hero who was still sifting through the debris. Sonic quickly ran around the plane, as the call for help seemed to come from the other side. He saw the clone hovering over his friend, a claw reaching for him.

"Tails!" he cried out as he started to give chase, but was soon reminded of his injury as the pain forced him to slow down. As he saw Tails run away from the claw, he noticed that his friend also had a limp in his step, he was probably hurting too.

The pod caught up to its target and the claw clamped down around the fox's two tails causing their owner to yelp out as he soon found himself lifted off the ground. "Sonic, help!" the kit kicked and yelled but couldn't get away.

Sonic pushed himself harder, despite his injury as the clone was getting away. He growled to himself he tried to ignore the pain. "No! Let him go! I'm over here! I'm your priority!" the hedgehog cried. However, the robot ignored him, the fox was his priority, and now that the vulpine was secure he flew off with his prize.

As the capturer picked up speed Sonic felt himself forced to stop as the pain was becoming too much to ignore. He fell on his knees, his hands keeping him from falling on his face. As he heard Tails's last cries for help, faded by the distance it hit him that his friend was taken away. He sobbed, for that's all he could do.

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My computer is in Safe Mode as I upload this, something attacked my system so I'm protecting my written works by my email account, so don't worry. Something called 'MyWay' got onto the system... spyware of some kind, I deleted it but it didn't help to speed it back up in normal mode. Luckily this stuff still works in safe mode. Thank you for all who still care to read these updates, and my next one will be, as you expected, on the 18th... a few chapters left before winter break.

Thank you all for the feedback on the plothole, it was a big one so I had to mend it up as best as I could. Hopefully it won't come back to haunt me too much, tell me if you see anymore. Again thanks, till next upload.