Hey guys, sorry about the long disappearance, Some messed up things happened in my personal life and I couldn't upload anything for a while and I had to get a new laptop as well, anyway on with the story! :)


Ch 14

=With Rouge Co.=

Everyone was gathered in Rouge's home currently going through what had been happening to Astrid with Amy. Amy was listening intently, making sure she heard every detail. If she was going to help save the Blue blur, then she had to listen to all the fine details and every instruction, she thought to herself. As Rouge explained Sonic's demands, Amy thought hard about why he could want those emeralds out of nowhere.

"..I heard you say he wants the emeralds." Amy started. "But what doesn't make sense is Why does he want them? He has Astrid already." She stated.

This made everyone fall silent. She's right. He has Astrid already, why fight for the emeralds? Unless...

"There's someone else," Scourge spoke up, making everyone look at him. "Someone else is pulling the strings.. perhaps they used Sonic's weird act to their advantage and told him something like.. 'I can get you Astrid but you have to get me the emeralds' or some shit like that." He explained. Everyone stood silent for a few moments. Amy looked at Scourge.

"Who would want to do that?" She asked warily. They thought to themselves for a moment before Shadow's blood-red eyes shrank in shock. "You don't think Eggman would be behind this..right?" He asked in a slightly nervous tone.

Rouge looked down at her feet. "I want to say no.. but who else would want the emeralds more than him?" She stated. Silver ran a hand through his quills. "How would we be able to even find out if it was him or not?" he asked.

Everyone stood thinking for a few minutes. "Wait a moment!" Amy exclaimed, making everyone look at her. "What about Tikal!? Isn't she with Sonic?" She pointed out.

Everyone froze in the realization of the situation. Was Tikal safe? Or worse..? "Where did you see her last before you came with us?" Rouge asked.

Amy could only shrug. "I hardly see her ever since she went to Sonic. I could only assume she stays home most of the time.." She said honestly.

"Do you have her number?" Scourge asked.

Amy looked through her cell. "uhhh... Yeah! I got it here!" She dialed her number and waited a few seconds...

"Hello?"

"Tikal? It's Amy!"

"Hello, Amy. Is everything alright? You don't sound like yourself."

Amy swallowed audibly. "I-Is Sonic with you right now?"

"No, he went out, why?"

"Can...You come to meet me somewhere?"

"Sure! Where do you wanna meet?"

"Can you meet me at Rouge's house?"

There was a few seconds of silence before Tikal spoke. "Fine."

"Thank you! I'll see you soon."

The two hung up and Amy sighed heavily. "Now what do we say to her?" She asked the gang.

"We tell her the truth of Sonic's twisted ways, and if she doesn't believe us, we'll have to convince her." Scourge said.

Everyone nodded and waited for her to come.

XXXXXXXX

An hour had passed by and Tikal was finally here. She knocked on the door and waited, she was greeted by Amy and was led into the house. Tikal looked around Rouge's house and was surprised at how neat and clean it was.

As she sat down on the couch she looked around again. "Are you here alone?" She asked.

Amy ran a hand through her quills. "Tikal, I need to ask you something." She said, avoiding the question.

Tikal nodded. "Sure, what is it?"

"Well this might be personal but... how does Sonic treat you?"

Tikal didn't meet Amy's eyes. "He treats me fine, why the sudden question?"

Amy chewed her lip. "Tikal, I need the truth, if you can tell me what Sonic does to you, I can help." She said honestly.

Tikal clenched her hands into fists as she still averted Amy's eyes. Amy could tell she was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

"It's okay Tikal. I'm your friend here, you don't need to be afraid, talk to me." Amy pressed.

It took Tikal three or so minutes to begin talking. "He...He hits me... and compares me to Astrid a lot." She said in a small voice.

Amy nodded and put a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, I'm here for you." She said, and she meant it.

Tikal had small tears in her brilliant blue eyes. "He even says her name when we make love... She's all he thinks about. I don't even know him anymore."

Amy nodded as she listened to her friend.

"Sometimes.. he leaves me alone for days, he never tells me where he's going and leaves me worried sick about him."

Tikal took a deep breath. "He's doing something behind my back I just know it. But I never know where he goes so I don't even know if my gut feeling is right or not!" Tikal cried.

Amy rubbed Tikal's back. "Tikal.. this isn't going to be easy to say, but he is in fact doing something. Something terrible, and I'm helping on trying to save him."

She looked towards the stairs. "You guys can come out now."

Soon the rest of the gang came downstairs and showed themselves. Tikal's eyes scanned the large group, her eyes fell on Scourge and she immediately began to shake in fear.

Rouge noticed and put a hand on hers. "You don't have to fear him, he's here to help. He isn't our enemy anymore." She said with a smile.

Tikal's shaking lessened but didn't stop. "W-What is he doing here?" She asked nervously.

"He's here to help us with Sonic. You don't have to worry about him." Rouge explained.

"What happened to Sonic? What is going on?" Tikal asked.

Shadow put a hand on the back of his head as he tried to think of what to say. "Sonic isn't exactly sane." He began. "There's something wrong with him, He kidnapped Astrid and is holding her hostage. He wants the chaos emeralds, and we're trying to figure out why he wants them." He explained.

Tikal shook her head slowly. "No... Why would he do this?!" She sobbed into her hands.

"We don't know what caused this sudden change in his behavior, Amy clued us in and told us something changed him on his last mission with Eggman. We're trying to figure out what exactly happened that made him this way." Shadow said.

"We have three out of the seven emeralds right now, we're trying to find out what to do once we got all seven. Sonic gave us specific instructions sure, but we don't know if we're being lured into a trap or not." Silver said as he looked deep in thought.

Tikal was having a hard time keeping up with what everyone was saying, she was still trying to wrap her head around the revelation that Sonic was doing these things. Silver noticed that Tikal looked to be on the brink of a meltdown and put a hand on her shoulder.

"I know this is very hard for you to sink in but believe me, we're doing everything we can to help him. You have to trust us." Silver said truthfully.

Tikal blinked away the remaining tears in her eyes as she looked at Silver. She could see the deep swirling emotions in those golden eyes.

"I.." Her voice went mute, Tikal just didn't know what to say or do now that she knew Sonic isn't the hero that she knew and loved.

"Trust us, Tikal, we're only doing what's best for our friend." Amy said as she looked on with begging eyes.

Tikal looked around at everyone, they all looked at her with earnest hope in their eyes, even Shadow's hard features had softened slightly at her. Almost as if he felt bad that she was going through this inner turmoil.

Tikal swallowed hard as she nodded at them. "I'll..trust you guys." She said after a few seconds of silence.

Amy smiled and gave her a hug. "Everything will be okay Tikal, I just know it."

Tikal hugged Amy back tightly with a heavy sigh.

"As touching as this is we need to get back to the task at hand." Scourge said as he cleared his throat.

Am let go and nodded at the Verde male. "You're right. What do we have so far?"

Scourge adjusted his shades. "Well, right now we're on a deadline now that Silver found that note. We have two weeks to get the emeralds to him, so that means we have two weeks to come up with a plan to subdue him. Because I'm sure as hell not giving him the emeralds so willy nilly."

"We also need to figure out what happened to Sonic on his last mission. That's our priority. Sonic's mental state is on the line with this mission." Silver said.

Everyone nodded. Tikal was having a hard time keeping up on the expedition as everyone around her was speaking so casually about Sonic and his fucked up behavior.

"So what exactly is your plan?" Tikal asked.

"Our plan is to find a way to knock Sonic on his ass and interrogate him to find out what happened on that last mission he was on because apparently there was a gap between his leave and his return. Something happened and we need to know what it was." Rouge explained.

Tikal nodded. It seemed like a probable plan. Just how were they planning on pulling it off though?

"Ti, have any idea where a chaos emerald might be?" Scourge asked.

"U-Uh I know Knuckles has two of them, but I don't know where the rest are.."

"Alright, so our first step is to get to Knuckles and talk to him about what's happening." Amy said as she punched in his number.

Rouge nodded as Amy left the room. "After Knuckles, we'll have to do manual searching for the other two, then the real hard part comes." Rouge said.

Everyone nodded. Soon, Sonic will get what's coming to him..