Cross Collision

Part 2: Chaos and Star Posts

"Wahoo!"

A whirr of cobalt quills span through the air, bouncing off of the top of a large, hornet shaped robot. The insect exploded in a small puff of smoke and sparks, as the ball of spikes that had hit it uncurled in mid air, laughing cheerfully. Spotting another robot nearby, the hedgehog kicked his feet together, pushing the air with the vibration and sending him forwards into it. He swung a punch, knocking the Buzzer's head off, and dropped to the floor as it exploded above him.

Sonic the Hedgehog chuckled lightly, clapping his gloved hands together as if he was dusting them off, smiling up at the man with the moustache nearby. The human glared down at him from his position in a black and red painted, round hovercraft. His bushy ginger moustache twitched with irritation at the oversized rodent, and he snapped his fingers. Another wave of wasp robots swooped down from the skies, heading directly towards Sonic.

"Aww Eggman, what happened to your sense of humour?"

"It took a walk. Give me the Chaos Emerald!"

"What, this shiny little thing here?"

Sonic pulled the gemstone from between his spikes, tilting it side to side so that it caught the light, seemingly having forgotten about the circling Buzzers overhead. The green of the gem matched his eyes, and his smile didn't falter as his attention shifted between it and Doctor Eggman's face. The Emerald was put back into its hiding spot, much to the rotund scientist's irritation.

"Sonic..." he started, but trailed off.

"Yes~?" the hedgehog chimed in response.

"You've forgotten you're surrounded, haven't you?"

"Nope!"

Sonic vanished from the spot he'd been standing in, and was bouncing around the ring of wasps in a split second, destroying some himself, while mistimed shots from others destroyed the rest. Soon he was standing on the head of the last Buzzer, which was whirring almost angrily at being unable to attack him. Sonic tapped a foot, rattling the robot's head, while pointing at Eggman.

"You were saying?"

"Sonic, I could really use that."

"For what?" Sonic put his hands together and shuffled a foot as if playing an innocent child. "'Helping the world'? 'I want to mend my ways'? Or making a new egg poacher out of your microwave, perhaps?" He laughed, shaking his head. "Skip it dude, I'm not Knuckles, I don't fall for your tricks so easily, and you know it."

"Well it was worth a shot." Eggman pulled a small laser canon from inside his floating pod, firing it at his nemesis without a warning.

"Whoa!" Sonic jumped into the air, and the blast narrowly missed his trailing foot. He dropped to the ground; his platform having been destroyed by its creator; and looked up accusingly at him. "Don't you think you were over-reacting a bit there? You blew up your toy for me!"

"Hold still!"

"Nuh uh, not a chance!"

Sonic bounced backwards from another shot, before shooting forwards the second his feet touched the ground again. He ran faster than Eggman could fire the weapon, moving underneath the hovercraft so he couldn't be hit. Every attempt the scientist made to change his position for a clean shot, Sonic moved back underneath him again with a playful laugh.

To Sonic, this was a game. The same thing happened on a regular basis; Eggman wanted the Emeralds for some 'grand master plan to take over the world', Sonic stopped him, the end. Most people would have grown tired of the routine, he supposed, but it gave him something to do so he had fun with it. He sidestepped another shot, watching it fizzle on the grass by his foot, and looked up at Eggman, grinning again.

"Hey, Eggman?"

"What?"

"You couldn't hit the broad side of a Death Egg!"

"Why you little-!"

Sonic bounced side to side as the scientist started an automatic mode of some sort, avoiding the rapid fire shots with ease. It was as if the man wasn't even trying, though the hedgehog knew it was likely down to him being too fast to hit. He was just playing with time now from boredom, waiting for his friends to turn up.

"C'mon, you can do better than that!"

"Stay put!"

"Naa." and with that, Sonic jumped into the air, to land on the egg-o-matic next to Eggman, who looked positively offended. "Hi!"

Eggman made a grab for him, but Sonic had moved around the other side of the machine. "Oh for the love of- Sonic!"

"What~?"

Pushing his spectacles up his nose in irritation, Eggman turned his head to see his nemesis holding the laser, examining it curiously. "How did you-"

"So what's powering this thing?"

"It's none of your-"

"That's nice, what else can it do?" Sonic continued, obviously not actually paying attention.

"It can-"

"Can I play with it? Yes? Okay cool!"

"What?" Eggman blinked at him, though Sonic wouldn't have seen that through the blue glasses. He spluttered as Sonic jumped off of the egg-o-matic and ran off with the weapon. "Come back here!" he shouted uselessly, as Sonic had already gone.

Eggman frowned thoughtfully, but a beeping on the dashboard of his console distracted him. It was close by, so the noise had probably been sounding for a while; it wasn't an alarm so it was quiet. He hadn't heard it over Sonic's pestering, but the hedgehog was gone; albeit with a weapon Eggman would have to get back at some point, it wasn't finished, could be unstable, and he didn't want the hedgehog defeating himself before he could; so now he could focus his attention on it.

"Another Emerald?" He said, looking at the radar that had led him to Sonic in the first place. That had been unlucky; materials to build robotic minions weren't cheap, after all. But this new blip was much nearer; Sonic had run off, no doubt to find his friends, and this left Eggman to do what he wanted, for the time being. And what he wanted was to find a Chaos Emerald.

Tails watched the approaching dust cloud, fiddling with the controls on the Miles-Electric computer he was holding. Curious as to why Sonic had taken so long to get back, he switched the machine over to a radar mode, where several numbers displayed on one side, with a simple circular graph that showed three points on it, relative to his position in the centre of the chart. One, he knew, was Sonic's biplane; the Tornado; which was parked nearby, and the one moving very very fast across the chart was Sonic, who was holding a Chaos Emerald, which made him easy to track. The third was in the direction Sonic was running from.

Sonic skidded to a stop next to the fox, grinning like an idiot, with the weapon he'd swiped leaning against his shoulder. Tails raised an eyebrow at him, the question in his mind was obviously playing across his face, as his hedgehog brother shuffled awkwardly, looking at the gun-like device. Sonic passed it to him, looking over his shoulder as he did so. Tails spotted the familiar insignia engraved into its stock, and rolled his eyes. Sonic laughed as the fox spoke.

"What did you do this time, Sonic?"

"Nothing, I swear! I was minding my own business, Eggman came along, demanded my Emerald, I smashed his robots, you know how it goes!"

"And what's this?"

"Egg breath pulled that on me after I did all that other stuff," Sonic frowned at it, "I dunno what kind of weapon it is, but it makes my spikes bristle."

"Probably something Chaos based, or maybe electro-magnetic." Tails suggested, looking it over.

"Magnets?"

"Mhmm, they can interfere with Chaos, I explained this after the whole... werehog thing." he responded cautiously. Sonic wasn't particularly keen on being reminded of that, and the split second disappearance of the smile didn't go unnoticed by his friend, though most would have missed it. Tails turned the topic back to the gun. "I'll take this apart and find out what it's made of, you might wanna go find Eggman."

"Again?" Sonic sighed exaggeratedly. "Why?"

"I think there's another Chaos Emerald near to where you were."

"Fine fine, should I take egghead his gun back?"

"Uh, no, I don't think you wanna be full of holes... Or fried... or whatever this thing does."

"Good point. Here, hold onto this would you?" Sonic threw his Emerald at Tails, who tried to catch it, but missed, letting it fall onto his lap instead. "Cool, back in a flash!"

Tails watched Sonic run away again, and smiled; if there was a reliable way to get Sonic to go anywhere, it was telling him that there was an evil plot afoot. This way Sonic would retrieve the Chaos Emerald, and Tails had the opportunity to dismantle the new weapon without any interruptions. The fox slid his computer from his lap, and turned the gun over, examining all sides.

It really didn't look like anything special. Tails decided that Eggman had probably simply made it as a last resort. He gave him credit where it was due, though; a laser was far faster than a bullet, and its power could be altered between varying levels of fatal or non-fatal with a bit of tweaking. But Sonic had met lasers before, and if this one put him on edge, Tails wanted to know why. He put a hand to the base of the Miles-Electric, pulling a small screwdriver from the lower edge where he stored it for tune ups. A quick glance at the radar showed the Emerald blip moving around rapidly; Sonic must have gotten hold of it and was apparently winding Eggman up again.

Tails giggled, imagining the squabbling, and put the screwdriver to the side of the weapon, slowly taking it apart. It was more rifle-like in shape, obviously meant more for distance than anything else, though whether it was meant for Sonic precisely or for any poor person in the way Tails couldn't be sure. He opened it up, explicitly looking for the power source. Eggman had a history for using strange and unique power methods, ranging from trapped animals to synthetic Chaos energy. The fox's fur stood on end, suddenly worried that he'd find a mouse inside the weapon. It only took him a moment to realise that if there was one in there, he'd be doing it a favour by letting it out. So he resumed dismantling it, laying the pieces side by side in the order he'd taken them off, to put it back together if need be.

He found himself slightly disappointed at seeing a simple Chaos Drive was powering it. Green; the most common type. Powerful, yes, but nothing to worry about. He frowned, thinking carefully as he turned it over in his hand, examining it for anything odd. Nothing.

"Tails!"

"Yaaahhhh!"

The fox dropped the device as he jumped up into the air, his twin namesakes whirling to keep him airborne. Sonic caught the Drive, chuckling at having startled his friend as he looked at it, expression portraying the same disappointment Tails had felt at seeing it.

"Sonic!" Tails whined. "Don't startle me like that!"

"Is this all?" He pouted, seemingly not realising that it was actually good news that the weapon wouldn't kill him. "Bummer."

"Sonic, this is good news! At least we know you won't be killed by it."

"Yeah yeah, I know." Sonic shook his head, and gave the drive to the fox as he landed. "But it means Eggman wasn't trying to hurt me. And that worries me."

"Oh I dunno Sonic, maybe he just forgot and grabbed the nearest thing to hand."

"... Yeah, I guess..." Sonic put a hand to his chin.

"So what did Eggman find? Was it a Chaos Emerald?"

Sonic blinked, and shook his head, pulling the white gemstone from his quills. "That's the funny thing, it looks like one, and it shows on yours and egghead's radars like one, right?" Tails nodded his head. "But it's not. It feels different."

"Oooo..." Tails reached out his hands, in a very obvious gesture that made Sonic smile again as he handed it over.

"You have fun with that, I'm gonna go bother Eggman some more!" Sonic grinned cheekily. "He's in just the right mood to be annoyed without going all 'end of the world' on me!"

"Be careful Sonic."

"Aren't I always?"

Sonic's smirk told Tails that there was very little point in responding to it, and he gave his buddy a small salute, before charging off again. Tails shook his head, picking up his computer and tucking it and the drive under an arm. He stared at the not-an-emerald as he made his way back towards the Tornado. The Chaos Drive would make a good spare for the bi-plane's power supply, and he had better equipment than just his computer in the aircraft. He wanted a good look at the stone.

Eggman was annoyed. In fact, he was more than annoyed; Sonic had snatched that emerald right out from underneath him, run around in circles, fried his egg-o-matic's engines by tap dancing on it, then run off again. But that wasn't what annoyed him most at that moment.

What was annoying him most was that Sonic had come back and was now sitting on the hovercraft while Eggman was trying to repair it. And he kept trying to kick the hatch shut on the scientist's head.

"Hey Eggman?" Sonic asked, for the fifteenth time in the past five minutes.

"WHAT NOW?"

"Whoa, chill dude. I was just wondering what you were planning to do this time?" Sonic smiled, an oddly sincere one, considering that they'd been mortal enemies for well over a decade.

"None of your business."

"Aww come on, you send a bunch of Buzzers on me and you don't even wanna do the 'evil bad guy monologue' bit? I'm hurt." Sonic said, pouting.

"Good." Eggman snapped, and got the hatch kicked down onto the top of his head again. He flailed as he shoved it back up, locking it back into place once more. "Will you stop that?"

"Stop what?" Sonic had reclined, obviously not fearing the scientist in the least.

Eggman didn't respond, knowing full well by now that if he did, Sonic would only kick the hatch again. So he resumed the task of replacing the burnt out parts in the engines with spares he kept with him for just such an occasion. Sonic sighed loudly, trying to annoy him, he could only assume. But once he finished, and slammed the hatch shut, the hedgehog jumped off of the machine, letting him right it and get back in.

"Eggy?"

"... What?"

"What's with that thing you were shooting at me?"

"It's nothing special..." Eggman snarled, still irate that it had been stolen.

"Oh, well we dismantled it just so you know. Tails is keeping it." Sonic turned and started to walk away.

"I would prefer if you'd return it immediately, Sonic."

"Why? It's just a Chaos Drive." Emerald eyes glanced over his shoulder, eyeing the scientist with suspicion. "Isn't it?"

"Well of course it is. I just happened to make it out of some experimental materials." Eggman frowned, brows furrowing over the rims of his spectacles. "And it is rather untested, I would so hate for you to destroy yourselves for me."

"Hmm..." Sonic's tone of voice didn't sound convinced, but he smiled anyway. "Well, I'm keeping the emerald then!"

"Pah! I'll only retrieve it later!"

"You do that."

Sonic chuckled, and took a step backwards, ready to run off. His ears flicked before he could, however, and Eggman watched as he straightened. The human looked in the direction that Sonic was, watching his spikes stand on end from the corner of his eye. The hedgehog's sensitive hearing had caught something, before the flash appeared over a distant hill. Eggman shuddered as a chill passed over them, the grass below rippling with the shock wave.

Sonic's face dropped into a grim expression, and Eggman piloted his hovercraft away. He'd seen that serious stare more times than he liked, and it not being directed at him was worrying. What could be a more powerful threat than him?

"You stay here, Eggman."

Sonic hissed, but he was running off before he'd finished talking. The words lingered in the air, and the scientist shivered. If there was one thing that could get Sonic to go where he wanted, it was putting his best friend, little brother, and ally, into danger. Tails must have been in that direction. Eggman pressed a button on his console, activating a cloaking device that rendered him invisible, before he started to follow.

He wanted to see what would be so stupid as to upset one of the most dangerous creatures on Earth.

Sonic yelled with surprise as he crashed into the side of a dome of white energy, which bounced him off of it and sent him skidding across the grass. He sat up, rubbing his head and brushing static from his fur, glaring at it. Okay, so the head on approach wasn't going to cut it, not if he wanted to avoid a headache anyway.

"Tails? Are you alright?"

"Sonic? Where are you?" came the fox's reply from within the dome. "I can't see a thing!"

"I'm outside!" Sonic shouted, though the light wasn't actually making much of a noise and he knew Tails could probably hear him if he spoke normally. He tried to put a hand against it, but couldn't get it close enough. "I can't get through it buddy. What happened?"

"I don't exactly know, I put the emerald down next to the Drive, I must have knocked them off the wing while I was looking for my tools. They broke, and then this happened, I thought I was in the Special Zone for one moment!"

"How?"

"I figured out what the emerald is, it's a part of one of the Star Posts that used to be in this Zone." Tails rambled on. "The emerald is the device that sits in the post's head, the shape refracts the energy into a portal! So it's not a Chaos Emerald, but it worked like a doorway to them!"

"Tails, I think you should be more worried that you might be in there right now?" Sonic shook his head, leaning against the energy barrier.

"Oh, well of course, but don't you think it's interesting how an emerald led to the Emeralds a long time ago?"

"Tails, can you use that curious mind of yours to figure out how to get out already?"

"I think the Drive reacted with the emerald and it made this strange effect. Without the rest of the Star Post to focus the energy, it's a bubble!"

"TAILS!" Sonic yelled.

"Oh! Um, well I don't think we're actually inside the Special Zone, I can see the grass and the Tornado..." Tails trailed off, then gave a nervous chuckle. "We might need to fix that!" When Sonic didn't answer, the fox realised he had gone off at a tangent again. "Oh, well, it might fade on its own. I was only in the Special Zone for a second, then there was a green flash, then I was back here, so it stands to reason that without its focus it can't maintain the link. Give it a minute."

A minute? Sonic snorted. A minute was far too long. He was glad Tails was alright, but he wanted him out of there. The hedgehog took a moment to take a relaxing breath, before backing up a short distance. He stepped back with one foot, pushed on it, and propelled himself forwards, towards the shield. At the last moment he curled up into a ball, and span into the side of the energy, hiss momentum pressing him against it instead of bouncing him off. It resisted the attack, but the light was growing less blinding.

Before it built up again, and exploded outwards with a sudden scream, propelling him in a blur of blue through the air and into the top of a palm tree. He drooped over the leaves, groaning and rubbing his ears from the unusual noise the barrier had made when it broke. Why hadn't it gone boom? Boom he could handle, screaming he could not. Shaking his head, he looked towards where the light had been, and breathed a sigh of relief. Tails was fine, the Tornado had only received minor damage. Well, kind of, as half of the wings on one side had been severed when they'd been caught outside the barrier. The children were fine...

Sonic had to double take. Children? Human children? Where there hadn't been any with Tails, as far as he knew, before he'd gone running off to play? The hedgehog frowned, suspicious. He saw Tails approach the figures, and pull a tool of some sort on them. Were they robots? It was hard to tell from several hills away in the top of a tree, so he started to slide carefully down the trunk; curiosity winning over concern as the boy with the white t-shirt and the spiky haircut sat up, but didn't harm Tails. The girl was soon sitting up too, while the dark skinned child still lay there. Sonic dropped the last foot to the ground, watching how Tails seemed quite relaxed; he hadn't taken to the air.

Sonic thought back over the light, and how the fox had mentioned being in the Special Zone for a moment. Humans couldn't use the Star Posts, as they couldn't use Chaos. Eggman had machines to help but the children didn't look like they had anything like that. Except for the thing Tails was holding, anyway. Sonic nodded; if he wanted answers he'd have to come and look, himself.

He wasn't expecting the dark haired boy to jump to his feet and glare defensively at him as he stopped in a cloud of dust next to Tails, however.

Eggman watched from his hidden position above the group, just as confused the the hedgehog. He couldn't get much closer as there was a chance movement from his egg-o-matic would have drawn their attention. This also meant he could not hear what they were saying, but from the body language he could tell neither group trusted each other. That was interesting to him. Most of the planet knew of Sonic; especially the children. To see three that didn't was curious indeed.

It seemed like some time before they decided to trust each other, evidenced by Sonic's loud, cheerful laughter ringing out. They left the area together, Sonic and Tails explaining something while the children were looking around as if they'd never seen Rings before. Eggman brushed a hand along his moustache as he pondered their curiosity. A small, familiar glint in the grass of sunlight reflecting from metal caught his eye, so he piloted the egg-o-matic down to it and picked the palm sized device up.

"Well well, this is a surprise."

He grinned toothily at it, and started looking around for the emerald and Drive in the grass near the crippled Tornado.

TBC

Author's note: Hi there, long time no A/N! I figured I'd get the introductions out of the way before I added any notes. This is my first fic involving Danny Phantom characters, which is a bit of a new thing for me. I'll try my best to keep everyone in character though! As you may have noticed, part 1 and part 2 are written as if they're taking place simultaneously. There will be several shifts in whom the narrative is focusing on throughout the story, especially in instances where the characters are split up. It's a new way of writing, for me, so please bear with me as I hope it works out. Feel free to leave reviews and such! Hope you enjoy :)