Chapter 5: The Easy Way

Amy paused at the sound of someone knocking on her front door. Usually anyone visiting her would have buzzed up to her from the main entrance to the building, and usually the only time a visitor knocked on her front door directly, was because it was someone from within the building, one of her neighbours. With a slight air of apprehension, Amy made her way to the door, opening it a crack to peer out.

"Hi, Amy!"

Amy sighed in relief and opened the door fully.

"Hi, Roger!" she said cheerfully, as she found herself facing the cheerful young brown bear who lived on the ground floor apartment like her own.

"Sorry to bother you, I just wondered if you were having problems with your plumbing at all?" he asked.

"My plumbing?" Amy asked.

"Yeah, all of us on the ground floor are having major problems, and the middle floor are having some minor issues, we think it's building-wide," Roger replied.

"Oh?"

"On the ground floor, our toilets are backed up, the cisterns are overflowing, and there's dirty water coming up through the drains in our sinks and showers."

Amy swallowed carefully as the image of Metal draining his waste into her toilet played through her mind unbidden.

"It smells like rotten plant matter," Roger continued.

Amy slipped out into the communal hallway, softly closing her front door behind her.

"I'm not having any problems," she lied, pretending that her toilet hadn't almost spilled over when she had tried to flush away Metal's waste.

"That's good, I'm glad," he said with a sigh. "I was worried you would say you were having problems too and then I'd have to check with the other people up on this floor."

Roger cast a telling glance at Missus Lupin's door and Amy smiled.

"We pretty much know it was those two loud guys in the bedsit on the ground floor," he continued, meeting Amy's eyes again.

"Oh those guys are the worst," Amy said, happily passing the blame for her blunder to Rough and Tumble.

"We'll call the landlady and get her to check it out."

Amy nodded her head, but her mind was racing. Would Vector know how to clear a blocked toilet? Big certainly wouldn't, Vanilla didn't seem the type to know and nor did Espio, there was no point asking Charmy or Cream, and that only left Rouge, who seemed like the type who probably would know, but wouldn't want to get her hands dirty. Amy bid goodbye to her neighbour and slunk back into her apartment, tensing when she noticed her bathroom door was closed and she could hear Metal draining himself into her toilet again. She skipped about in the hallway, wanting to tell him to stop, but finding it too awkward to walk in on him – it really did just look like he was urinating out like an ordinary male Mobian hedgehog – and, when she heard him flushing the toilet, she slid back into her living room, trying to think of a better way for Metal to drain his used fluids that wouldn't block her drain (or anyone else's).

Metal wandered back into her living room, moving over to the living room window. Amy turned to tell him that he was going to have to find somewhere else to stay – or else explain to her how he had been draining his used fluids before he moved into her apartment – but when she caught him softly tapping his fingers against the wooden wind-chime Vanilla had given her to hang at her new window, she softened.

"Do you like that?" she asked him.

He ignored her, taking the longest tube in both hands and studying it momentarily, before releasing it against the others, causing the whole wind-chime to sound out its muted tune. Amy realised then that the wind-chime was made of wood, and, traditionally, it was something that would be made of metal. She began making the correlation between the wind-chime in her living room and the more traditional metal one almost seeming like a weird metaphor for Metal and Belle. Thinking then about how badly Belle had missed "Mister Tinker", she wondered if Metal now felt the same way about Eggman. She would never know what he was thinking or what he was feeling, and maybe he was depressed – maybe that was why he had come to her.

Amy sighed, trying to ignore that she was hardly in the best of spirits herself. Everything Espio had told her – from Knuckles keeping contact with him when nobody was keeping contact with her all the way to his speculation that Eggman was chasing something dangerous that could kill him – had left her shaken more than she cared to admit. She sighed again and tensed as she felt tears threaten. She should be there, she thought to herself. She should be there with Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, facing whatever it was head-on. She felt useless staying behind, and even more so when she found herself starting to cry about it. She felt beyond useless, she felt pathetic. Crying about being left behind was pathetic, but she couldn't stop herself once the tears started. She heard Metal make a humming sound and she noticed him turning his head towards her, and, even though she knew he was a robot, and probably didn't really even understand what she was doing, she still felt embarrassed that he was seeing her that way, and so she moved into the kitchen area, keeping her back to him.

Amy stood by the oven and took a few steadying breaths as she tried to regain her composure, tried not to think about being left out, about her friends being in danger and being clueless as to what it was or even where they were, tried to forget that she was the one who had caused a plumbing problem for her entire building. The tears kept flowing, but she had just about managed to calm her sobs: and, it was at that exact moment that Metal acted.

Amy froze at the first contact, sure she was imagining it. She looked down, blinking through tear-blurred eyes, gasping as she saw Metal's robotic hands interlocking across her torso. Was he hugging her? She started to look back over her shoulder at him to ask him why, but before she could speak, he lifted her off her feet and she let out a shriek of alarm as he forcefully stabbed his hands into her body.

"What are you doing?" she wailed.

She cried out when he repeated his action, before coming to her senses and summoning her hammer, swinging it back over one shoulder to clatter him over the head with it. He released her, and she turned to him, breathing heavily. He looked indifferent, but he pretty much always looked that way.

"Why did you just give me Heimlich manoeuvre?" she growled at him.

He pointed at her and she shook her head.

"I wasn't choking on something, I was crying!" she snapped at him. "Why would you think that was the right thing to do when someone is crying?"

Amy narrowed her eyes.

"I can't imagine Eggman even programming you with the correct way to deal with someone crying," she continued. "Although it would make sense that he'd teach you how to deal with someone choking – I've seen the way he eats his food!"

Metal moved his arms into a pose that looking something like a shrug, and the gesture almost seemed mocking to Amy. She swallowed carefully before responding to him.

"I mean yes, what you did has stopped me crying," she conceded.

Metal made a triumphant whistle and Amy seethed.

"That's still not okay!" she raged.

She wanted to shout at him some more and tell him how terrible he was to make her suffer like that when she was upset, but before she could, she was interrupted by the sound of someone knocking at her door again. She moved to answer it, fully expecting it to be Roger again or perhaps even Missus Lupin, out to find out what was going on: and so when she opened her door and saw someone else entirely, she was at first surprised, but then quickly grew concerned.

"Rouge?" she greeted the bat warily. "What are you doing here? Is everything okay?"

"You tell me," Rouge replied, walking into the apartment uninvited. "I know Sonic went looking for Eggman, but I haven't seen or heard from Shadow for a while now, and I just drove past his apartment: his bike is gone."

Amy followed Rouge into her living room, where the bat had come face-to-face with Metal. The two regarded each other across the room in silence before Rouge finally broke the moment, turning her attention to Amy.

"Amy?" she asked. "Is that Metal Sonic?"

"Uh, yeah, it is," Amy replied.

"The last time I saw him, he was raiding someone's rubbish bin," Rouge said.

Amy had not expected that to be Rouge's next response, and so she hesitated to respond back.

"Probably a wise idea to keep him off the streets and where we can see him," Rouge continued. "In fact, he could probably help us right about now."

Metal moved back over to the wind-chime and began tapping his fingers on it again.

"Doesn't he have a homing beacon fitted?" Rouge asked Amy. "Press that baby, and he should take us right to Eggman."

"I never even thought of that..." Amy muttered.

"Of course it depends what it homes in on," Rouge said, folding her arms and adopting a thoughtful look. "But, knowing how Eggman basically considers that thing to be his son, I'm pretty sure it will home in on something Eggman wears, like a utility belt or wristwatch or something."

"Yeah, that sounds right."

"Right. So now all we need to do is convince Metal Sonic to betray his precious "dad"."

Amy paused, a frown slowly forming on her face.

"You hadn't noticed that Eggman calls that thing his son and refers to himself as its father?" Rouge asked.

Amy slowly shook her head.

"It's messed up, I know," Rouge said, looking over at Metal. "Can you make him stop that?"

"Stop what?" Amy asked, looking back over her shoulder at Metal.

He was still standing by her window, tapping at the wooden wind-chime, hitting the tubes together.

"It's getting very old, very fast," Rouge grumbled, her ears twitching every time the wind-chime sounded.

"Oh, I thought it was quite sweet that he was so interested in it," Amy said, turning back to Rouge with a smile.

Her smile quickly faded however when she saw the dark way Rouge was smiling at her.

"He's been hanging around you since Eggman disappeared, right?" the bat asked.

"Y-yes..." Amy cautiously replied.

"There must be a reason for that," Rouge continued. "It was always my understanding that Eggman created Metal Sonic to be just like our Sonic, only evil, right?"

"Yes, I think that's it," Amy agreed.

"But Metal Sonic isn't exactly like our Sonic, because he's not been created to be exactly like Sonic, he's been created in the image Eggman has of our Sonic."

"I suppose so. That would actually explain a lot. There are some things Metal does that don't make sense, but when you frame it like that, that he's been programmed to act the way Eggman thinks Sonic does – rather than how Sonic actually behaves – that makes so much more sense. He's not a clone of Sonic, he's Eggman's projection of Sonic."

"Yeah, yeah. And what does Eggman think Sonic is interested in?"

"Chilli dogs?"

Rouge's smile widened a little and her eyelids lowered, darkening her features.

"I don't like the way this is going..." Amy said quietly.

"Eggman has seen the way you fawn all over Sonic," Rouge began.

"I don't "fawn all over" Sonic!" Amy cut in defensively.

"Maybe not so much now, but you always did," Rouge continued. "And I think it's fair to say Eggman has deduced that you are Sonic's girlfriend."

"There's no evidence of that!"

"Yes there is."

"No there isn't!"

"There is. It's standing right behind you."

Amy spun around, genuinely expecting to find Sonic standing behind her: but all that was behind her was Metal, still idly playing with the wooden wind-chime at her window.

"I'm proposing that Eggman has programmed that thing to think just the way he thinks Sonic does," Rouge continued, putting her hands on Amy's shoulders from behind and leaning over to whisper into her ear. "I'm proposing Eggman has programmed that thing to consider you as its girlfriend."

"That's ridiculous!" Amy exclaimed.

"Prove me wrong, sweetie," Rouge whispered.

"H-how?"

"Go over there and hug him. I mean really hug him. Hug him that same way you hug Sonic when you haven't seen him for more than a day or two. Or – you know – hug him that way you hug Shadow, or Silver, or Infinite when you mistake them for Sonic."

"I've never mistaken Infinite for Sonic!"

"Sure you haven't."

Amy sighed and pouted.

"Go on," Rouge insisted, pushing her gently forwards. "Prove me wrong."

"Fine then, I will!" Amy indignantly replied. "Hey, Metal?"

Amy was prepared to do exactly as Rouge had challenged her, but, when Metal turned to face her expectantly, she hesitated, suddenly realising how awkward what Rouge had suggested was. She looked back over her shoulder at Rouge, who simply smiled and waved a hand at her to continue.

"I-I don't even know how to..." she began as she turned back to Metal. "Wh-where do I even put my...?"

Amy reached out her arms warily, and, when Metal copied her actions, she tensed, thinking that he might try to put her into the Heimlich manoeuvre again for no good reason. She pushed past her concerns and tried to do as Rouge had suggested, and imagine that he really was Sonic. With that thought in mind, she stepped closer to him and carefully put her around around his shoulders.

"Ow," she muttered when she accidentally stabbed the underside of one arm on the corner of one of his shoulder plates.

She managed to get him into a tense hug, and, to her surprise, he shortly put his arms around her waist.

"Oh..." she muttered.

"See?" Rouge said smugly behind her.

"This doesn't prove anything," Amy said, before stepping back from Metal.

He held onto her and she had put her hands onto his shoulders and push herself back before he lessened his hold enough for her to take a step back.

"He's just confused," she said, looking into his eyes. "Right?"

Metal tapped at the bolt on his cheek again.

"Oh, I get it now!" Amy said. "He just wants some oil!"

"I don't think that's what he wants, sweetie," Rouge answered in a low voice.

Amy looked back over her shoulder at Rouge.

"What are you trying to say?" she asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Rouge asked with a shrug. "He wants you to kiss him."

"What?" Amy echoed.

She turned back to Metal.

"You don't want me to..." she started, her smile fading when Metal stared back at her intensely. "Do-do you?"

"Just do it, Amy," Rouge said with a sigh.

"It feels wrong," Amy said, her eyes still on Metal.

"Suck it up, buttercup," Rouge dismissively replied.

"Well okay, I will do it!" Amy said with determination. "But only to prove you wrong, Rouge!"

She stepped closer to him and pressed her lips to his cheek, next to the bolt he had been tapping. She only intended for the contact to be fleeting, but almost as soon as she made contact, one of Metal's hands pressed into the back of her head, holding her there. She moaned and tapped a hand on his shoulder, and he appeared to understand the gesture, because he did then remove his hand from the back of her head.

"And now that we're all nice and cosy with each other," Rouge said in a soft voice as she crossed the room to join them. "How about you activate that homing beacon and take us to Eggman?"

Rouge put one arm around Amy and the other around Metal, who turned to look at her. For a long moment they remained that way before Metal broke out of the three-way hug and opened Amy's living room window.

"What are you doing?" Amy asked him.

He bent one arm up in front of his face, using his other hand to flip open an access panel in his forearm. He pressed the button within and then, before Amy could protest, he scooped her up into his arms and shot out her window.

"I didn't agree to this!" Amy wailed.

"Hey, not so fast!" Rouge called after them as she fought to catch up.

Metal slowed to a hover, over the middle of the car park outside Amy's apartment building, and she looked down, finding several of her neighbours arguing with Rough and Tumble, presumably about the plumbing issue.

"Actually, this is fine," she concluded.

Rouge caught up to them and grabbed her arms around Metal's legs. He then shot off, racing them both through the air far faster than Rouge could have flown herself or Amy could have run. Amy hoped that, wherever they were going, and whatever it was that awaited them there, it wouldn't be anything too disastrous.


Sonic moved into the centre of a hexagonal tiled floor, looking down at the multi-coloured tiles before looking around all the multi-coloured glass panels on the two side walls of the room.

"What do you reckon this is supposed to be, Knux?" he asked, turning expectantly to his friend.

Knuckles had stopped at the bottom step of the staircase that had led them down to the room they were now in. He looked wary, and lingered back there. Sonic shrugged, before looking up at the large, round, darkened lamp hanging down directly above his head. There were another six, identical lamps circled around it, all of them fitting into the same space the hexagonal tiled area of the floor did. The wall they had entered from was the same plain concrete as everywhere else in the bunker was, but the side walls had been brightened by the colourful glass panels. The far wall, opposite where they had entered from, was plain again, though it did have a closed door set in it.

"Whoa, there's some sort of computer here," Knuckles said.

Sonic turned around, watching as Knuckles approached a sort of podium at his side of the room, rubbing one hand at his chin as he inspected something there that was tilted out of Sonic's line of sight.

"Well if this is the big secret this place is hiding, where's Eggy?" Sonic asked, putting his hands behind his head and stepping back into the very centre of the tiled floor.

"Whoa, check this out."

Sonic turned around to see that Knuckles was holding a piece of paper.

"What is it?" Sonic called over to him.

"It's a photo from the newspaper," Knuckles replied, turning around the page to show Sonic a newspaper clipping glued on the top half of the page, and some erratic red writing underneath it.

"What does all that stuff under it say?" Sonic asked.

"I dunno," Knuckles replied, turning it around and frowning down at the page. "It's not written in a language I understand."

"What's the article about?"

"Oh, it's about some guy called Professor Pickles."

"Professor Pickles? Isn't that the guy who used to host that science show for kids that Tails was so crazy about?"

"Um... Yeah, it is! It says here Professor Pickles worked at the Mobian Genome Project, but after he had kids, he gave that job up and started doing the science show for kids instead."

"What the heck is the "Mobian Genome Project"?"

"Something to do with the government and diseases, it says."

"Okay, so why is that down here?"

"Oh, it says Professor Pickles and his family have gone missing. And the police think Pickles has been abducted to be exploited for all the government secrets he knows. The police are asking for some guy who was Pickles's partner at the Mobian Genome Project to come forward, or if anyone knows this guy, they should call the police."

"His partner wasn't Eggman, was it?"

"Nah, it was some wiry little poodle called Doctor Crick."

"Never heard of him."

"Looks like a loser."

Knuckles sighed and slapped the piece of paper back down onto the podium: and at the exact moment that he did, all seven of the lamps above Sonic's head snapped on, shining unbearably brightly down onto him. At first he screwed his eyes shut tight, growling out a complaint as the brightness stung his eyes. He made to reach his hands up to rub his eyes, but suddenly found himself unable to.

"Whoa, those lights are bright!" he heard Knuckles complain.

"Uh, Knux?" Sonic said, opening his eyes as far as he could bear and peering out of the corner of his eye at Knuckles, who was just barely visible on the very edge of his peripheral vision. "What did you just do?"

"I dunno, I think I hit a switch," Knuckles casually replied. "I guess it was the light-switch, huh?"

"Knuckles, I can't move!" Sonic snapped.

"Huh?"

"I can't move!"

"Pfft, stop kidding around, Sonic!"

"Knuckles, I'm serious, I can't move! What did you do?"

Knuckles swept aside the piece of paper, looking down at the podium again.

"I dunno, I must have hit one of these buttons," he concluded.

"Well can you un-hit it?" Sonic asked.

"Uh, lemme see, I think I pressed the red one," Knuckles said.

"You think?" Sonic echoed.

From the corner of his eye, Sonic saw Knuckles press something on the podium, but the lights did not dim, nor did he regain control of his body. He could blink, he could breathe, he could speak, but his arms, legs and head had been rendered entirely immobile.

"The yellow one maybe?" Knuckles muttered.

"You're gambling on a maybe?" Sonic snapped. "Knuckles, get Tails! He'll know what to do!"

"Wait, I think I got it."

Knuckles pressed another button and Sonic felt a jolt of panic stab through him when a monotonous female voice began talking, seemingly from nowhere and everywhere at once.

"Source trace completed: species Mobian, hedgehog."

"Knuckles?" Sonic said through tightly clenched teeth.

"I can fix this, I just need to find the off switch, right?" Knuckles said.

"Knuckles, don't press anything else! Don't do anything else!" Sonic shouted. "Just get Tails!"

"What do you need that whiny fox for?" a familiar voice asked.

Sonic slowly moved his eyes to the source of the voice at the other side of the room, squinting against the glare of the overhead lights, he could just make out that the door over there was open. Eggman, along with Orbot and Cubot, stepped up to a podium that looked identical to the one Knuckles was standing at.

"What is this thing, Eggman?" Sonic asked him.

"I could tell you, but I'd prefer to show you," Eggman replied with a grin. "You know, it's funny, when I imagined trapping you here and using this machine on you, I thought the hard part was going to be getting you down here and pinning you down. Knuckles, I'd forgotten what a useful ally you can actually be!"

"Damn you, Eggman!" Knuckles roared.

"Knuckles, don't listen to him!" Sonic warned. "Just go get Tails!"

"Anyway, as I was saying – before I was so rudely interrupted, Knuckles," Eggman continued. "I thought the hard part was going to be catching you, but now it seems the hard part is deciding exactly what to do with you."

Eggman hovered a finger over the podium before shrugging theatrically.

"I feel like a kid in a candy shop!" he said gleefully. "I'm thinking something on this spectrum though... I know."

The flat female voice spoke again and again Sonic felt a jolt of panic – heightened by his inability to do what came naturally and run to deal with the problem – at what he heard.

"Target locked, please confirm new genetic structure."

Sonic looked over at Knuckles, who suddenly looked as though he was the one pinned in place.

"Knuckles, get Tails!" he tried one last time.

"Too late, Sonic," Eggman said as he typed something into a keypad.

"New genetic structure confirmed and accepted," the voice announced. "Transmogrification sequence initiated."

"Transmogo-what?" Sonic echoed.

"Source code loaded and stored to memory. Metamorphosis in ten seconds and counting."

As the voice began to count down from ten, Sonic threw one last, desperate look at Knuckles.


"Damn it, what are these?" Shadow said gruffly, picking up pages and casting them aside one after the other.

He and Tails had moved far enough away from the worst smells in the bunker, and finally been able to remove their face-masks. They had even stored their torches, as everywhere they had gone to since had been fully lit. Their last stop on their way to the point on Tails's electronic map where Sonic and Knuckles appeared to have stopped was a small bedroom, with plain bunkbeds and a small desk. There was little of significance there in terms of personal effects – a lab coat, a worn old pair of safety boots, a comb and a wallet with a single credit card bearing Doctor Crick's name on it – but the walls of the room were entirely covered with sheets of paper, all showing exactly the same thing: the top half was a newspaper clipping glued onto the page, and the bottom half was erratic red writing.

"I don't recognise this language!" Tails said.

Together with Shadow, he continued tearing down the pages, hopeful that he would find one in a language he would understand. When it started to seem hopeless, he stopped, holding one of the pages in front of himself and reading the newspaper article.

"Police appeal for information in the case of missing local celebrity," he read aloud. "Oh hey, I didn't even notice, it's Professor Pickles!"

"So?" Shadow grunted.

"I love that guy!" Tails said. "Local TV personality and star of the hit TV show Science is Fun, Professor Pickles, along with his wife Diane and their two children, have gone missing. They were last seen on Friday last week – wait, what is the date on this – oh wow, they've been missing for over three months!"

"Three months?" Shadow asked.

Tails slowly lifted his eyes from the page, the look on Shadow's face jump-starting his mind and bringing him to the same conclusion.

"That's the same time Eggman left his lair," he concluded aloud.

"That can't be a mere coincidence," Shadow said.

"Probably not," Tails agreed, before turning his attention back to the article in his hands. "Police have spoken to several sources close to the Pickles family and witnesses who saw them in the lead up to their disappearance, but police are now appealing for one more person of interest they wish to talk to. Police are seeking Doctor Frank Crick – oh..."

"Hmm."

"Uh... Doctor Frank Crick. Crick and Pickles were partners when they worked together at the Mobian Genome Project. Crick notoriously left the MGP in bad favour, and has been living a hermit lifestyle ever since, but police believe he may have some clues about the whereabouts of the Pickles family, or at least he may know someone connected to their disappearance. If you know the whereabouts of Frank Crick, or have any further information on the movements of the Pickles family, please call this number or contact your local police branch."

"When did Crick die?"

"Three weeks ago."

"Interesting."

"How so?"

"You didn't think how Crick died was odd?"

Tails nodded.

"Well, yeah, I did," he admitted. "You think someone is going around assassinating all the former MGP scientists? A-and Crick was just last because it took them so long to find him?"

"Maybe. But this has to have something to do with Eggman."

Tails's eyes drifted from Shadow's face to something over the top of his head. Shadow grunted out a curse of complaint when Tails effortlessly reached his arm straight out, easily clearing the top of Shadow's head, to retrieve one of the pages from the wall.

"What is it?" Shadow asked him.

"This one is in our language," Tails solemnly replied. "It says "Diane, my beloved, I put work before all others, and only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. They are not you, and I am not them, the changes are more than skin deep. It doesn't matter how far I went, perfection was an illusion. I can never recreate what we had with what I've got, transmogrification is the only true path"."

Tails slowly lifted his eyes from the page, meeting Shadow's glare.

"Crick killed Pickles and took Diane and her children here," Shadow said solemnly.

"D-Diane was a ch-chipmunk," Tails said, turning the page around to show Shadow the photo of Professor Pickles and his family.

"And Crick showed his love for her by growing her a second head," Shadow replied. "Maybe he thought the second one would like him better than the first one did."

"That's not funny," Tails said darkly.

"No, it's not," Shadow agreed. "But it's safe to assume that dead woman we found was Diane Pickles."

"What about Sarah and Benji Pickles?"

"They could still be here."

"S-so what do we do first? Find Sonic and Knuckles, or find those kids?"

Shadow didn't answer Tails, but after just two seconds, that didn't matter, as the lights around them flickered, and they heard the faint sound of some sort of broadcasting system sounding somewhere below them.

"Next level down, move," Shadow said.

Tails nodded, stuffing the page into his backpack and hurrying after Shadow. They ran along a corridor until they reached a set of steps, which they raced down, finding themselves in a square stone room, with colourful glass panels on two of the walls. Knuckles was standing to one side of them, at a podium, and Eggman was standing at the opposite end of the room, at an identical podium. In the centre of the room, in the centre of a colourful tiled hexagon of floor and beneath seven glaring bright lights, Sonic was standing looking fearful.

"Tails!" he yelled.

"Ten," a voice announced. "Nine."

"What's happening here, Knuckles?" Tails asked, hurrying over to Knuckles's side.

"Eight."

"Eggman turned this machine on Sonic!" Knuckles replied.

"Seven."

"Correction: you turned this machine on Sonic," Eggman said.

"Six."

"Tails, do something!" Sonic cried.

"Five."

Tails looked down at the control panel on the podium in front of Knuckles.

"Uhh..." he began, grabbing his hands at the sides of his head.

"Four."

"Isn't this the machine we saw the drawings of in that locked room?" Shadow prompted him.

"Three."

"Yes, but that room described a machine that operated on strange currencies, this thing looks like..."

"Two."

"Tails, buddy, do something!" Sonic pleaded. "Anything!"

"One."

"There's a shutdown code," Tails began. "But I don't know what it is!"

Before Tails could attempt to guess the code, he was thrown to the floor, as the entire room shook, the lights flickering violently, at times plunging them into complete darkness: but, through it all, Tails could clearly hear Sonic screaming.


Next Chapter: Team Amy arrive at the secret laboratory, and Metal takes them to Eggman via the most direct route, affording them a slightly different view of the facility from the others who preceded them. They find the others at the exact moment Crick's machine does it's worst to Sonic, and Amy is distraught at the results. Eggman refuses to help, leaving Tails to attempt to decode the keypad and try to save Sonic: however in doing so, he accidentally traps another victim. Chapter 6: The Hard Way