Chapter 3

Dr. Eggman and his followers stood in front of a tall metallic structure, looking in awe at its size and brilliance. Some old crumbly debris surrounded it. The black metallic material used to make the building glistened in the moonlight. Bokkun held a GPS-like device in his hand and looked at it puzzled.

"Hmm… Dr. Wily's directions point to this building. But it's so secluded and out of the way…"

Sporeon mockingly replied.

"Hmph, it's the base of an evil mechanical genius. Do you expect it to be in between the movies and the supermarket?"

Before Bokkun could even think of a retort, Eggman silenced the two.

"Quiet you two! We need to find a way inside. Now, if he wanted to-"

Eggman was cut off as the door slowly creaked open, and the voice of Dr. Wily could be heard from a speaker in an unknown location.

"Welcome Dr. Eggman and those of you with him. If you would please come inside, I can introduce myself and my team."

Everyone exchanged nervous glances and proceeded into the dark building. The only source of light was coming from along the walkway. They couldn't tell if there was solid metal under them. After a couple minutes of following the lights, they found themselves in a large room. There was an upper balcony, from which stood the figure of an old man with a cane. A menacing cackle was heard, and then the lights in the room switched on, revealing the old, sinister face of Dr. Wily.

"Its great to finally meet you in person, Eggman. I remember reading a very old archived military report about you. Your robotic knowledge is phenomenal. I thought you would eventually find a means to return to Earth, though I wasn't sure if it would be in my lifetime. Apparently so though. For the rest of you, I am Dr. Wily. I know a fair deal about robotics like your leader here. But, how about you meet my team?"

A door under the balcony opened and several people walked out. They lined up and wily proceeded to give a quick description of each.

"First, we have Mr. Match. His navi is Heatman, whom you fought earlier I believe."

Match spoke with his quite prominent Scottish accent.

"Aye, I believe so. Of course, we woulda deleted ya if it wasn't for Wily be'in interested in ya".

Wily chuckled and moved down the line.

"This here is Maddy. Her navi is Colorman. She is usually whom I leave in charge when I am not around. Mainly cause she keeps all the rowdy men in line".

Maddy remained silent, but had an agreeing smile on her face. Wily continued.

"This is Count Zap. His navi is Elecman. You need to watch out for him, he is a little crazy sometimes."

Count Zap burst out.

"HEY! WHO SAID I WAS CRAZY! I AM NOT CRAZY!"

Wily smiled and continued.

"Yeah, see what I mean? Anyway, the final person we have for now is Yahoot. His navi is Wizardman. He is the calm one of the group. Apparently he knows a bunch of mind tricks, but I have yet to see that…"

Yahoot remained silent, in a sort of trance. Wily scanned the row again and then smiled down to Eggman.

"Well, that is everyone for the moment. There are a few other members, but you will meet them later. Among them are my daughter and son…"

Suddenly, a raspy voice spoke from an unknown spot in the room. Everyone jumped at the uncalled for speaking.

"Wily… why have you called me here?"

Wily regained his stance and cackled again.

"Oh, apparently we do have 1 more for you guys to meet tonight. Bass, would you please show yourself on the monitor above me?"

The monitor above Wily switched on and faded into the picture of a figure rapped in a tattered old cloak. He had a rather distinct headpiece on his head, and about half of his face was hidden under the collar of the cloak.

"Everyone, this is Bass, our secret weapon. He is the ultimate net navi, and he shares a common goal with us all, which is the obliteration of net society! Bass, why don't you say hello to our fellow team members."

Bass stood silently and then turned the other way.

"This is what you called me for? Don't waste my time with this again. They are all just humans, robots, and mutant animals. I despise all of them. Now, if you'll excuse me."

Bass disappeared from the monitor. Wily sighed and looked back down at Eggman and his crew.

"I apologize about Bass. You'll come to learn he has a rather hostile attitude toward most things."

Sporeon muttered to himself.

"Heh... that sounds familiar. He and that unworthy Ultimate Life Form should meet. They would get along rather well."

Mystery sassily replied.

"You aren't much better, Sporeon."

Sporeon shot a look at Mystery that wiped the playful grin off her face immediately. Dante remained silent. She didn't know what to say. Her mind was trying to come up with so many ways to think of him.

"He's so distant… it's interesting. I want to learn more about Bass. He's such a mystery…"

Her eyes caught Bokkun looking at her. Bokkun inquired.

"Why would you want to know about him?"

Dante smiled at Bokkun, and she replied.

"I wonder if he was also rejected by the humans…. like me."

Wily gathered everyone's attention again.

"Everyone, I encourage you to get to know your teammates and then rest up. Eggman, I would like to see you up in my private quarters so I can discuss the first stage of our plan."

Eggman nodded and proceeded towards the doorway. Everyone else began to socialize except for Dante. She still pondered Bass. Sporeon stayed silent with his arms crossed, he was mumbling something very quietly. What would he be thinking? What are Dr.Eggman and Dr.Wily planning? Only time would tell…

The blue hedgehog Sonic and his group walked along the cemented path with Lan Hikari and then Sonic whistled.

"So this is what the future of Japan looks like after 200X years! Pretty sweet!"

"Sonic what the past like?"

Sonic placed his right pinky finger inside his ear and moved it back and fourth and grinned.

"The cities weren't all metallic like your future. We never heard of these PETS and Net navis before."

Knuckles paused and quickly turned around; he muttered something that made the others confused. Joyce stepped forward to him.

"What is it Knuckles?"

"Grr…Where the hell is Rouge? She was with a us 2 minutes ago!"

Blade tapped Knuckles' shoulder and pointed to the right side of the street to where the jewelry store was.

"Isn't it obvious?"

The red echidna stomped across the street intensely to find the white bat staring at the gleaming gems through the glass window.

"Ah this place is amazing! They have the finest jewels that I could ever dream of! Maybe I could-"

Then she noticed that the people from inside and outside the jewelry store stared at her. Rouge was starting to get irritated by the way they started at her and so she decided to speak up.

"What's with you people! Never seen a bat before!"

Just then she felt something that grabbed her arm, she turned her head to see that it was Knuckles who grabbed her arm.

"Let's go! We're wasting too much time!"

Rouge sighed as Knuckles pulled her arm.

"You're so hostile."

Everyone sat in their seats inside the moving metro line. Joyce had her eyes closed with her hands clasped together, Blade stared through the window, Amy and Cream were chatting, Rouge was flirting with Knuckles because they sat next to each other, Vector was listening to his music from his headphones, Espio was meditating, Charmy was drooling in his sleep, and Shadow had his arms crossed, showing no emotion. Megaman glimpsed at Shadow.

"Tails what's wrong with him? He never said anything."

"Well Shadow doesn't really like being around us. He's a lone wolf and he usually doesn't talk to us that much."

"Oh I see. Hey wait! What happened to Sonic?"

Tails calmly replied.

"Don't worry he'll catch up."

Lan widened his eyes and he rose from his seat with a shocking look on his face.

"You mean he's not inside the metro line!"

After hearing his outburst the people gawked at him with confusion.

"Yo!"

Lan thought that he heard a familiar sound, he turned around and looked out the window to see Sonic running beside the metro line.

"I can run faster than that thing!"

Lan's jaw dropped and pointed his finger at the smirking blue hedgehog.

"Lan was that Sonic's voice?"

Megaman asked. His operator was too surprised by this, so he didn't know what else to say.

"How did he…?"

Tails scratched the back of his head and chuckled.

"Didn't Sonic tell you that he's the fastest thing alive?"

" Not really."

After Sonics display of his unique ability, the train had arrived in ACDC town. Compared to the suburbs that sonic and the others vaguely remember from their first experience on earth, they weren't too much different. They defiantly had changed though. Everything was shiner and more durable it seemed. Lan lead the group of newcomers along the streets to his house.

"So, how far in the past were you originally planning to go?", he asked.

"I don't know", Sonic replied, "I never really knew the date of the time we were in last. I still don't really understand how we ended up here. Its so strange…"

Lan looked over at the hedgehog. He was marveled by the appearance of Sonic. With his society, technology was the main focus. Biological wonders were a huge fascination of the world now, though people never really researched them. Lan tried to spark up a conversation.

"So, what do you think of this time? Is it interesting at all?"

Knuckles provided an answer.

"I dunno, everything is so metallic. Its like… there's no nature left in this world."

Lan shrugged.

"That's how its always been. I don't know when, but they pretty much converted the world into city. There are still spots with nature in them. But they are usually rural areas that are far north or south."

Lan stopped and looked behind him. Everyone had stopped and was looking at a yard in front of a house. Vector was over by a strange looking doghouse, poking and inspecting it. Suddenly, a strange metallic dog jumped from the house and began chasing the crocodile around. Charmy was pointing and laughing, while espio simply stood, his face in his hand. He sometimes wished he never knew the clutsy croc. Lan ran over screaming at vector at what to do, but he wouldn't listen. In a matter of minutes, everyone was chasing or screaming at either lan, vector, or the robotic dog, aside from Shadow, exerting his usual "loner" attitude. Eventually, lan was able to catch up with the dog and stop it. Vector lay on the sidewalk, panting like he had just run a marathon, which he probably had done in trying to escape from the dog.

"Ha…ha…. Why the heck do you people build those things!", the tired croc asked.

"Well… for people like you", Lan sarcastically replied.

The group was able to reform and continue on its way, vector bringing up the rear. Everyone refused to carry him, so he panted along behind everyone. Eventually, they came to a quaint looking blue house. Lan stopped in front of it and turned to the group.

"Well guys, here we are. Try to play it cool. My parents aren't exactly used to giant talking animals."

Megaman's voice came from the PET.

"Well Lan, the fact that you were supposed to be home 2 hours ago will really help the matter…"

Lan's face grew an annoyed look on it, then he beckoned for everyone to follow him up the walkway. Sonic walked up smirking to the front door. Lan began to open the door, but it was swung open by the hand of his angry parents.

"LAN HIKARI! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE HOME 2 HOU- AUGH!"

Sonic's smile flattened out a bit and he started sweating.

"Ehehe, good evening mister and missus Hikari. I'm Sonic the Hedg-OW!"

Missus Hikari had found the broom and was using it to ward off the strange blue creature. Sonic ran out onto the lawn, the broom closely following. The pain and flinching was making it impossible for sonic to jolt off without crashing into something.

"Hey! OW! Lady, what the OW heck are you OW doing! OW! This isn't OW how you tre-OW-at your guests!"

Lan began screaming at his mom, who was joined by amy and knuckles. They began chasing after the mad woman, but as soon as they were seen, they joined sonic in escaping the evil broom. Tails stared at them, then turned to Dr. Hikari.

"Hi, I'm Tails. Wouldn't happen to have a few spare beds, would ya?"