Sonic ain't mine, Teepo and Wildkid ain't mine; everything else is, so paws off. Sorry if Sapphire's name was already used by someone. Oh, Evil Knievel or whatever isn't mine either.

While Teepo was trying to get information out of a few scientists, Wildkid took a sip from his flask. Now, Wildkid had been getting in brawls long before he met Sabre during a hockey riot, and both of them knew; Wildkid never won a fight while sober. And Wildkid won a lot of fights. His drinking cycle began whenever he sensed danger on the horizon, such that his allies could get a reliable advance warning of a fight when Wildkid started drinking the high-strength liquor in his flask (which varied from tequila to vodka to rum; the important thing was that it got him drunk fast). Unfortunately, Teepo wasn't paying attention, but talking to some scientists while soldiers all over the base received new orders.

Sabre had the blonde whose name he hadn't caught yet right in the palm of his hand when he noticed some of the armoured guards by the door pointing towards him and Shadow. "'Scuse me a moment." he said to the girl as he zipped over to the other side of the bar, rapidly muttering every swear word he knew. "Shadow! We gotta get outta here!" he said to the black hedgehog.

"Do you mind?" said Sapphire indignantly.

"Easy, he's a friend." Shadow said calmly. "What did you do?"

"Nothing, dammit," said Sabre, "But those guards are coming after us, I think Bingo Rouge screwed something up…"

Meanwhile, guards were getting closer. Then Shadow got up, and summoned something out of nowhere using Chaos Control. Sapphire recognised what Shadow was now holding. "Is that… a Chaos Emerald? From Earth?" she asked.

"Yes, I always keep one with me." said Shadow, raising the grey emerald. Sabre's hands inched nearer to his holster. "It seems like a good idea to leave, sorry Sapphire but-"

The fox stood up. "I'm coming with you." she said, in a tone immediately showing she would not be swayed.

"Alright then," said Sabre, increasingly panicky, "But hurry…"

The guards had reached their table by now. "Hey, you two, the boss wants to see-"

"Tell him we're sorry but we couldn't quite make it, got a couple of hot dates." said Sabre- then he delivered a kick to the head that knocked the left guard over, and an instant later a similar kick from Shadow took down the other. The three bolted out the door and into a hallway- where they faced a wall of guards. Sabre grabbed his pistol-

"No need." said Shadow, grabbing both of them. "Chaos Control!"

Dragging his surprised new allies with him, Shadow Chaos Dashed through the guards, sending them flying like bowling pins. They went into the entrance hatch, where Sapphire shut the door and Sabre struggled to put on his Mars suit, then realising "We don't have the time-"

"Chaos Control!"

In another display of considerable ingenuity, Shadow teleported his, Sabre's and Sapphire's Mars suits onto their bodies. Without missing a beat, Sabre busted the door to the wild red open. They ran out into the garage, and saw several guards heading for hover-cycles. "Oh sh-" started Sabre.

"Take my bike!" said Sapphire, pointing to a red, souped-up looking two-wheeled cycle resting by a pillar. "Shadow, how far can you dash like that?" she asked.

"As far as I need to." said Shadow, grabbing Sapphire in one hand and the Emerald in the other.

"You guys bolt! I'll lead 'em off!" said Sabre, who had hotwired, started and revved off in the bike, two hover-cycles on his heels.

Shadow shouted "CHAOS CONTROL!" and he and Sapphire simply disappeared.

Sabre grinned as he rocketed across the Martian hills at breakneck speeds, enemies chasing him. "This is what it's all about…" he said to himself.

"Catch me if you can!" he yelled to his pursuers as he hit top gear and swerved into a rocky canyon. Barely dodging boulders and laser shots, Sabre shot up the other end of the canyon and flew into the air, Mars's low gravity allowing him to perform otherwise suicidal motocross stunts in mid-air, with the function of dodging several more shots. The bike's very heavy suspension barely prevented serious injury as it slammed into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dirt and rocks, which the hover-cycles zoomed through a moment later- one rider ran out of luck as a rock hit the underside of his bike, causing him to crash spectacularly as his bike rolled completely out of control until it slammed into a pillar and exploded (fortunately for him it threw him off, and he survived with no permanent damage). The remaining hover-cyclist continued hounding Sabre as his borrowed (with permission, oddly enough) bike roared up a mountain.

"Evil Knievel's got nothin' on this!" said Sabre as he neared the summit. A split-second later the bike roared off the top of the crater of the extinct volcano, flying hundreds of metres into the air. While he landed safely right on the other side of the crater, the hover-cycle was not so lucky- out of it's hover-lift range, it flipped out of control, flung off its rider and smashed into the ground.

"WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO! Yelled Sabre as he roared down the mountain unchallenged. He then adjusted his comm. frequency and called his friends. "Those goons on bikes are history, Shadow! Thanks for the wheels Sapphire, this thing is king of the dirt!"

"Thanks Sabre!" said Sapphire. "I modified it myself!"

"Cool! Hey, how do you know my name?"

"I told her." said Shadow, cutting in. "Once you get well away from there, stop, leave the bike and I'll pick you up. They can probably track us through satellites, but they can't track my teleportation… at least, as far as I know."

"Got it!" said Sabre, and roared off into the desert.

Shadow looked at Sapphire. "So…" he said. "Any idea where we should go?"

But Sapphire was looking distant, as if in deep thought. "Sapphire?" asked Shadow.

"That Sabre…" said the blue fox. "He's a natural master of all weapons that come into his hands, isn't he?"

"Yes…" replied Shadow. Sapphire looked different now, more solemn and mysterious. Shadow had no idea why…

"I finally may have found him…" said the mysterious fox. She met Shadow's eyes, and the hedgehog suddenly saw what had been hidden- years of experience and an understanding deeper than he knew. "Shadow, after we pick up Sabre, head five and a half miles to the north. I know exactly where we need to go, and I'll tell you once we get close."

"…All right." Shadow took her hand once more. "CHAOS CONTROL!"

Hmm, this one went longer than expected… and took a hell of a lot longer to finish… I've been a bit busy, alright? But now I'm back in business!

It's been a while since I started this fic, and since then the characters have changed in my mind. Note that Sabre and the other OCs might be a bit unstable for a while, and I'm now also focusing on getting the personalities of the canon characters right. A bit hard, given that Sega never does…

Don't forget to review!