Cross Collision

Part 11: Break the Trap

Mad laughter echoed around the vast room, its walls lined with a variety of machines and monitors, each of which served a different function. The centre of the room held a large, round chair, in which sat a large, round man with a moustache. The laughter was coming from him, as he gleefully taunted the figures displayed on the monitor directly in front of him. The robot next to him groaned, far too used to its master's bizarre laugh to care.

"Ohohohoho! So, Sonic, I see you fell right into my trap!"

"What trap? I literally climbed a tree and you made bugs follow me, that's not what I'd call a trap, Egghead."

"Well you're currently trapped, so I call that a trap."

"It won't be a trap when I smash these things."

"True, true, but you should probably consider your little companions there." Eggman chuckled through the speaker on the Buzzer. "I highly doubt they can dodge all the pellets while you're off smashing things."

"Ah... Hmm." Sonic put a gloved hand to his chin, frowning, before he shrugged. "Fine man, but what are you trying to trap me for this time, just so I'm clear on this?"

"Why, a little revenge for you wrecking one of my offices."

"You have like, fifty. I'm sure you'll manage without one." Sonic grinned. "No, what are you really after?"

"Ahh Sonic, can't a fellow have just a little petty revenge for once?"

"Nope, not you. Petty revenge ain't your thing."

"My dear boy, you know me far too well."

"Come on Sonic, stop taunting him and let's get going."

"Ah-ah-ah." Eggman chuckled at the fox that had spoken, turning the Buzzer he was looking through to face him. "But Tails, why the hurry? I've got one of the Chaos Emeralds here, weren't you looking for those?"

"How did..." Tails pressed a hand to his face. "Oh, you've been following us this whole time."

"Of course! And while you've been most entertaining, I need to put you guys away so you can't interfere for my latest plan. No hard feelings, of course?"

"You realise we'll get out and stop you, right?"

"Tails, lemme handle this."

"Huh? Oh, sure Sonic."

Eggman watched as the blue hedgehog walked to the edge of the treetop platform, making his way as close to the robotic insect as he could. He motioned for Eggman to bring the robot closer, and the scientist obliged, but kept a finger hovering over a nearby button to switch to another robot's camera if he needed to. Sonic frowned directly at him over the display, and Eggman frowned back, even though he knew the hedgehog couldn't see his own expressions.

"Look, Eggman, you wanna give us a hand here?"

"Excuse me?"

"You know as well as I do that this crap with the chaotic realms doesn't mean anything good for us, and we can get stuff figured out faster if you help us out."

"Of course I know that. Sonic, I must point out, however, that my help comes at a price."

"Yeah? What about it?"

"Oh it's nothing much, I simply expect you to stop wrecking my machinery for a while. These things are expensive!"

"Is that all? Sure thing..." Sonic said, promptly swinging a fist at the robot and cutting off the display. Eggman sighed, and switched his camera. Sonic was tossing the Buzzer's head up and down in his hand, with a grin on his face. "... but only for a short while. And only after you help us."

"Sonic, what if he has some take over the world plan lined up for when you aren't attacking his robots?"

"Ahh don't worry Tails, I'm sure it'll be fine. Besides, there's other ways to beat him anyway, and he knows it." Sonic turned to face the now controlled Buzzer, tossing the head he held over the edge of the platform and into the canopy below them. "You hear that, Eggy? No trying to take over the world while I'm not smashing things, or the deal's off, got it?"

"You're such a spoil sport, hedgehog. Very well. Now, if you don't mind holding still so the Buzzers can capture you?"

"Ah, no nets, Eggman. You know I might 'accidentally' pull your robots out of the sky if you're using nets." Sonic said, the emphasis on the word 'accidentally' implying that it would be anything but an accident. "Just have them lead the way, we'll follow you."

"You're no fun today, Sonic."

"Well, excuse me if the fate of the world's at stake and we could all die if we don't get things fixed."

"Very well, follow the swarm, if you please."

Eggman pressed a button to command the Buzzers to return to base, and let the one he was observing them through follow behind the group as they made their way back down into the forest below them. He detonated the remaining robots that held onto the large branches of the trees remotely, continuing Sonic's makeshift bridge through the woodlands. The display grew fuzzy as they travelled through, the thick foliage disrupting his signal slightly, but the connection remained intact regardless. He frowned, turning to look at his other monitor, where his friend from the other world had been conspicuously absent for a significant time. Eggman brushed one side of his moustache with a gloved hand, idly pondering the meaning of the man's absence. If he were anyone else, he certainly wouldn't trust himself with an inter-dimensional portal, but clearly Vlad had other things on his mind than potential betrayal from the robotics scientist.

"Well now, what have we here..." Vlad asked himself under his breath, as he followed the strange creature through the Ghost Zone's miasma. Bizarre structures littered the realm, giant objects patterned with stars and large checkered surfaces. Some of the objects seemed to be partially fused with the escher-painting staircases and a few of the floating doorways, rendering several of the ghosts' personal realms completely inaccessible. The graveyard he was flying over seemed to have acquired and inordinate amount of large blue and red orbs, and one of the skeletons that resided there was trying to push them away from its grave, only to be returned to the spot it'd been standing a moment before every time it touched the red ones.

As amusing as Vlad found the situation below him, he returned his attention to the black and red creature ahead, which stood out like a sore thumb whenever he passed through an untainted part of the Ghost Zone, but who blended in too easily into the shifting and obnoxiously colourful strange realm that must have come from Eggman's world. Taking the chance to turn himself invisible, he flew as close as he dared to the strange animal that was following Eggman's robots closely. The creature seemed to be using the rockets on its shoes with either a thought or a motion, as there were no controls in its hands, nor was it adjusting its position much, implying that the rockets were altering their thrust without any physical input.

He made a mental note of them, and trailed the animal to a glowing swirl of stars, barely noticeable against the green of the Ghost Zone that they'd been displaced against. The black and red creature followed the robots through the stars without hesitation, so Vlad followed, remaining invisible as a bright light flashed around him and he found himself deposited unceremoniously on a pile of red sand. Looking back at where he'd fallen from, he saw the stars spinning around the top of a large pole adorned with a star patterned sphere. He watched as they vanished from sight, and growled inwardly to himself, realising that he had not though his plan through particularly well; go to Eggman's world, steal some of his technology, destroy his notes on Earth, grab Danny and his friends and get back home. He hadn't counted on the portals being very short lived.

The growl he'd given had alerted the creature, who was currently glaring at the spot where he stood, still invisible. Vlad slowly and quietly floated upwards, and the dark coloured creature tilted its head, ears twitching as it listened again. After a few moments, it seemed to decide there was no threat present, and turned to face a series of large pyramids ahead; evidently the portal had opened in a desert. Vlad looked ahead of them, and could see the swarm of robots they'd been following heading straight for the largest of them.

"Heh, so that's where he is..."

Vlad suddenly found himself surrounded by a large cloud of dust, which had been kicked up by the rockets in the creature's shoes. He flew above it intangibly, and his eyes widened as he saw that the spiny animal had already covered a significant amount of ground; a long trail of dust showed exactly the route he'd taken across the dunes. Vlad followed him, curiosity piqued by this new skill shown. A soft smirk crossed his face as he came to formulate another plan, and he flew through several large swarms of robotic bugs and birds, chuckling quietly at the confused bleeps as he showed on some of their sensors but not others.

He passed directly through the stone of the pyramid, and stood on the shiny floor of the office, watching his new friend observe Danny and his friends.

Tails leaned over to Sonic as they followed the Buzzers across the land, shoes hidden in knee high grass. Sonic had his arms folded behind his head as they walked, and Danny marvelled at how he managed it amongst his spikes. The humans were following slightly behind, but unable to trail much further back because every time they tried the Buzzers at the back started charging their pellet bombs. They instead chose to watch Tails conversing with Sonic in a quiet whisper, while muttering amongst themselves.

"Wonder what they're talking about."

"I don't think Tails thinks we can handle ourselves."

"Aww come on guys, give them the benefit of the doubt." Tucker shrugged at his friends' concerns.

"Well we're being judged by a kid, Tucker." Sam replied, irritated.

"We're kids too y'know, it's kinda not unreasonable."

"Hrm."

"What's up, Danny?"

"This robot is following way too close. Don't talk too loudly."

"Ah, right. So what do you think Sonic and Tails are on about?"

"Hmm. Probably a plan or something?" Danny sighed. "We'll have to catch up to find out but let's wait until they're done talking."

"Of course they're talking about a plan, Sonic won't go along with his side of our deal if he can avoid it, you know!"

Eggman's voice came booming out of the robot's speakers without warning, startling the teens in front of it. The sudden shock caused Danny to trip over as his feet turned intangible, and he crashed face down in the deep grass, with Tucker and Sam following in short order as they fell over him. Delighted cackling sounded out over the speakers as Eggman circled the Buzzer overhead, laughing from the other side of the robot.

The teen glared at the noise, but groaned and hauled himself back to his, once more solid, feet. He held a hand out to each of his friends and helped them up too, and they continued following their animal friends and metallic captors, albeit grudgingly. Sonic and Tails waited for them to catch up, and stood either side of them, ready to catch them again if necessary. Eggman's laughter quickly died off, and the previous order in the Buzzer formation resumed. Sonic glanced up at Danny.

"Dude, what happened?"

"Nothing. Just a little power malfunction, it happens."

"If Eggman catches your little tricks then we'll have no choice but to go along with him, you know."

"Seems to bother you a lot..."

"Well yeah, the dude's tried to kill me enough times, kinda don't trust him to leave my quills alone."

"Ah, alright then."

"Look, me and Tails were talking. Our first priority is to get you home, then look for the Emeralds."

"What? But we can help!" Sam glowered at the hedgehog.

"I'm sure you can!" Sonic held up a hand to silence her. "But you don't belong here, and if our plan to fix the place goes bad you guys'll wanna be home with your families, right?"

"Well..." Sam frowned, trying to think of an appropriate argument.

"Yeah, but I have to help the Ghost Zone too... Kinda obligated."

"You mean you have a hero complex." Tucker input, grinning. "Almost an obsession, am I right?"

"Tuck, that isn't funny."

"Okay okay, but you gotta admit I got a point."

"Tuckerrrr..." Danny repeated his friend's name, irritation palpable in his voice.

"I get it, I get it. Shushing now." To illustrate, he moved his fingers across his mouth as if zipping his lips together, but still smirked at his friend. "No probs."

"I can't just leave the Ghosts on their own. They'll never forgive me."

"They never forgived you anywa-"

"TUCKER!" Danny and Sam yelled in unison, prompting their friend to hold his hands up defensively.

"Sorry, I couldn't help it!"

"Dudes, do you always fight like this?" Sonic chuckled lightly. "It's pretty counter productive."

"Yeah, don't worry though, we're usually cool." Tucker reassured him, and the hedgehog grinned.

"So I see! Well guys, normally I'd have smashed my way through this lot but I can't really do that with you here, so let's just see what old Eggy has planned eh?"

"Sounds... nothing like a plan. But I guess it's all we have?"

"Relax Sam, this is how Sonic works. He thinks better on his feet." Tails smiled. "It's kinda mentally exhausting though."

Together they trudged through the fields, thankfully without further incident, until the Buzzers led them into a large, metal door embedded in the side of a cliff face. Further away they saw a desert, hazy with heat and with the faint shapes of pyramids in the distance. Sam took a moment to briefly ask why the climates were so different so close to one another, but Tails shrugged and simply pointed out that their world was chaotic. He followed up with a joke about the Zones having moved around more once upon a time, but Sonic quickly waved that off, and followed the lead Buzzers in the door calmly. Giving each other quick glances, the rest followed him, to have the door slam shut behind them, leaving them in momentary darkness.

The shadows were soon dismissed by bright lights turning on with a loud hum, illuminating the long, metal and concrete lines passageway that stretched out before them, sloping downwards gently to another door at the bottom. Their footsteps echoed slightly and the corridor contained a faint scent of oil, which only grew as the next door opened and they went through it. As the second door shut behind them and the lights turned on, they could see a pristine, round, platform sitting before them, docked in several clamps. Sonic grinned at the sight, and with little prompting from the Buzzers he jumped onto it, leaning forward over the surrounding frame to look down the dark tunnel that stretched ahead. Tails rolled his eyes and followed him, but the teens hesitated.

"What is it?" Tucker asked.

"Really cool, I may hate the guy but Eggman builds some killer transport, get on!"

"It's a ride? After all that walking count me in!"

"Me too!" Danny grinned and ran onto the platform with his friend. He glanced back at Sam, where she stood looking down the corridor ahead. "Aren't you coming?"

"I guess I better, someone's got to keep you guys out of trouble."

"Yeah, because you've done a great job of that so far."

"Hey!" Sam frowned at Tucker's remark.

"Just saying..."

"Hmph." The goth teen looked over to Tails instead as she climbed aboard. "How does this work?"

"It's a monorail, but the rail's like, a solid light laser, this platform shoots along it with basic energy conversion and rockets, using the energy from the rail to power it. So I suggest you hold on tight."

Sam, Tucker and Danny had only just managed to put their hands on the bars surrounding the platform, before a blue beam of light burst into life, stretching down the corridor ahead and illuminating it. The platform whirred for a moment, before rockets blasted blue light behind them and they tore along the corridor on it at a breakneck pace. Sonic cheered loudly, opting to only have one hand on the bar, while the others unanimously decided that keeping both hands on in a white knuckled grip was the best option. The platform itself was fairly stable, but whenever they tried to take a hand from the bar, the wind threatened to whip it behind them. Words were forced back down their throats if they tried to speak, so the few minutes the platform was in motion, they remained relatively silent.

It slowly ground to a halt at the other end, the bare concrete walls replaced by carved sandstone decorated in angular paintings. Sam stared at the hieroglyphs as they disembarked, trying to figure out what the creatures depicted on them were, while Tucker took one look at them and shuddered, opting to ignore them instead. Having left the previous Buzzer escort flying down the tunnel behind them, a small, glowing beetle robot floated in front, and Eggman's voice announced his intent to escort them further. Sonic scoffed.

"A Flasher. Really? That's all you could spare?"

"You'd rather, I don't know, a Caterkiller?"

"Hmm. I'd rather neither, if I'm honest, Egghead."

"Kindly follow the escort, Sonic. I'll meet you in my boardroom."

"What boardroom? This is your dang desert base, you have no boardroom here!" Sonic rolled his eyes, chuckling at Eggman's pretentiousness.

"Shows how much you know." Eggman's voice was coming from speakers and cameras that lined the base's walls instead of the robot this time. "I had one made up especially for you."

"That means it's a trap."

"Oh don't be silly, not everything is a trap, Sonic. You have so little faith in my creativity."

"Show some creativity and maybe I'll have some faith in it."

"Come along now!"

Eggman chose not to pursue Sonic's line of joking further, and he turned the Flasher around, letting it lead them through another large doorway into a significantly narrower corridor than the ones previously. Sonic yawned, bored and irritated. Danny had to agree with the hedgehog's sentiments, as the group were rather closer together than they'd been before and Sonic's quills kept poking his arm. The lightning beetle flickered brightly a few times as they approached a small metal door, which stood out from the surrounding sandstone clearly. The door swung open, and from where they stood, Danny could see the new room was well lit and spacious, if somewhat barren of decoration. Sonic calmly walked inside, knowing full well it was probably a trap, and the others followed him significantly less willingly.

Once inside, the teens looked around. The space was easily the size of the classrooms at Capser High, and each of them tugged their bags self consciously; remembering they hadn't been back in a while and that they still had their homework to get done. There was a single, large table that stretched the length of the room, and several chairs lined each side, while a large dip in the floor sat at the head of the table. Danny looked around the room, wondering why there was no chair there, but his attention switched to Sonic and Tails as they started giggling. As the blue hedgehog realised he was being watched, he grinned and pointed at a large circular plate in the ceiling.

"Aww man, you gotta see this, he's totally gonna do some silly theatrical entrance."

"Oh gosh, I wonder if it'll be the light shows or the smoke bombs this time. Or maybe an explosion!" Tails laughed as he suggested things and Sonic nodded.

"Knowing him, all three, just for our guests!"

"Take your seats if you please, I'll be with you shortly!" Eggman's voice came from an unknown speaker; none were visible and the Flasher hadn't followed them into the now sealed room.

"Sure thing, Egghead."

Sonic plopped down in the chair closest to the door, promptly swinging his feet up onto the table and putting his arms behind his head; the very picture of relaxation. The others followed suit, Tails sitting next to Sonic and Danny, Tucker and Sam sitting opposite them on the other side. They were all positioned on the opposite end of the table to the hatch in the roof, and were leaning on it in boredom to various degrees. They all pointedly ignored the hatch as it started to slide open with a clank and a hiss, steam dropping through it from the room above. Lights shone through the cloud of makeshift fog, and a large, round shape drifted down through the steam, coming to rest on the floor with a heavy sounding thump.

As the steam cleared, the rotund scientist stood up in the cockpit of the equally round vehicle, arms outstretched dramatically as he laughed. His laughter was the very example of a cartoon evil villain's, Tucker pointed out to his friends, and they sniggered quietly amongst themselves until he stopped. Upon noticing their lack of concern or fear, he slammed his hands onto the table loudly, sending a loud clang echoing around the room and prompting Sonic to half open one eye. The hedgehog waved slowly at him, while Tails was focused more on getting the ringing from his ears. Tails hated metal rooms.

"Yo Eggman. 'sup?" Sonic lazily waved at his arch nemesis, closing his eye again.

"You dare mock me?"

"Oh drop the dramatics, we know each other by know man, seriously." Sonic yawned, and closed his mouth, giving the impression that he'd fallen asleep.

"Look Sonic, I'm trying to make a good impression here! The least you could do is play along!"

"Are you sure you two are enemies?" Sam interjected, pointing between them both.

"Of course we're enemies, why do you think I just trapped you here?!" Eggman turned his glare on Sam, and Sonic smirked.

"Toldya it was a trap."

"Oh details details. Regardless, you can't get out, this is electromagnetically charged, reinforced steel. I do hope you enjoy it, Sonic. Meanwhile, I'm going to go and fetch your Chaos Emeralds, correct some dimensional instability, and take over both worlds. So ta ta for now, dear boy~"

"Yeah whatever, see you in about five minutes."

"Tch, cocky as ever."

"Could say the same about you, Egghead."

Eggman snarled at the hedgehog's nonchalant response, his moustache twitching with irritation. Grabbing the controls of his hovercraft violently, the machine tipped sideways for a moment before he righted it and flew it back up out the ceiling. Danny jumped out his chair and ran beneath it, looking up through the hatch at the room above, moments before it shut them in once more. Sonic shrugged.

"What are we gonna do?" Tucker yelled, surprised and annoyed at them all having fallen into such an obvious trap.

"I'll get-"

"Nope." Sonic stopped Danny's sentence suddenly, and the human dropped his dramatic stance to stare at him. "Just wait a few minutes first. Gotta give the guy a head start!"

"Why? He's getting away!"

"Well, if he's still here, we don't wanna give anything away do we? Gotta let him have some surprises~"

"Anyway, check this out." Tails pulled the mileselectric up and put it on the table. "Signal's busted in here, because of that EM barrier, but we may not be completely helpless. Look who sent a message before we got in here!"

"Who?"

At that moment, the hatchway above them came crashing down, and Danny found himself immensely grateful for his reflexes as he pulled his leg easily through the foot thick steel. He looked at the metal door that had nearly crushed him, as the others came to gather around him. Tails gawked at him, trying to figure out how he'd avoided being squashed, while Danny was more focused on the enormous dent in the hatch door; it had caved it inwards enough to pull it from its framework. Sonic, however, grinned up through the hatch.

"Need a hand in there?" a deep voice called down, as a black and red hedgehog appeared at the opening.

"Ah Shadow, what timing!"

"Holy heck how did he do that?" Tucker stared up at the newcomer. "He's not any bigger than you, Sonic."

"Yeah but the dude's strong. I've seen him flip a bus one handed before."

"No, you're pulling my leg."

"Honest, I'm not!" Sonic laughed. "Hey, Shadow, is there any rope or anything up there we can use to help the kids up?"

"Sure."

The spiky head disappeared from the hole again, before it was replaced by a long, thick cable snaking down from the room above. Sonic tugged it hard, and, satisfied that it wasn't going to break, handed it to Danny. Tails flew past him out the hole, and Sonic simply jumped out. The humans stared at each other for a moment, before they began to climb out one at a time. Sometimes a secret identity could be a real pain in the butt, otherwise he'd have just flown them all out, Danny thought to himself. He clambered out of the hole and moved away from the edge to give his friends room, while he stared at the newcomer.

The black and red hedgehog stared back, red eyes piercing Danny as if he was a pincushion. The human took a step back, reflexly, and Sonic smirked at what he now recognised as the battle ready tension in the teen's body. He casually stepped between Shadow and Danny, grinning.

"So, what brings you here?"

"The Star Post." Shadow answered, clearly not in the mood for playful banter. He stepped around Sonic and looked upwards at Danny once again, only this time his expression was calmer. "I assume you are Danny Fenton and your friends are Samantha and Tucker, correct?"

"I... wha? How do you know who we are?"

"It's a long story. The short version is, I've been asked to escort you home."

"By who?"

"Your mother, I believe her name is Madeline?" Shadow shrugged. "They're rather concerned for you and-"

"-waiiiiit Shads, you were in their world? Is that why it took so long for Rouge to get back to us?" Sonic blinked at him in surprise. "Aww man, what's it like over there?"

"Bland. Typical human city, typical humans, bizarre weaponry and your sister is very... persuasive."

"Oh no, Jazz was there?"

"Indeed."

"Welp, that's me grounded for a month I guess." Danny sighed. "Still, I want to help look for the Chaos Emeralds..."

"Hey, don't we get a say in the matter too?" Tucker frowned. "For one thing, I wanna get these stupid bags home!"

"I am not carrying your bags. Either the three of you follow me back, or you can continue with Sonic on this odd quest of his. There is no in-between, children."

Shadow glared sternly at the group, waiting for their answer. The teens frowned and turned to one another to discuss it, with the occasional look over to Sonic and Tails for any input. The blue hedgehog simply shrugged and smiled at them, taking no side in the matter. What they did was their choice, and he wasn't going to encourage them either way; he wanted them to stay with him, they were fun, if somewhat disconnected from what was going on around them. Tails, on the other hand, would have preferred them to go home, where they were likely safer; he wasn't happy about being stuck in one of Eggman's bases while everyone talked, the humans were a risk to Sonic and himself. Humans were notoriously easy to capture, even if they were as resourceful as this group, and the last thing they needed when trying to save the world was to be trapped or blackmailed by Eggman. Again. The fox glanced up at Sonic, who was watching the trio with his arms folded, a thoughtful expression on his face.

Danny groaned at his friends, who had of course begun to argue. When faced with a choice they nearly always argued, but in a crisis they usually worked together well. Being trapped in another world with the door home rapidly closing was a rather different situation to normal, though. Sam wanted to stay and help, because 'Danny wants to and it's the right thing to do', while Tucker wanted them all to go home because 'our families are worried we gotta get back'. And also 'I could go for a Nasty burger'. The half-ghost did want to stay and help, but if his friends couldn't decide what they wanted to do he'd have to decide for them, and they hated that. With a reluctant sigh, he spoke up.

"Look, guys, I don't want to rush you but we gotta decide now. If you want to go home, then go home, if you want to stay then stay. You don't have to argue about it, you know?"

"Yeah but we stick together, Danny." Sam pointed out.

"Yeah, and I say they'll need you at home..." Tucker said, letting his sentence trail off to get the hint across, but Sam wasn't having any of it.

"Well they need him here!"

"Home!"

"Here!"

"You damn humans had better stop arguing or I'll gag the lot of you." Shadow snarled, having had enough of the noise. Sonic chuckled at the variety of faces on their guests.

"I'd like to see you try it, buster!"

"Sam, don't annoy the hedgehog that just punched through steel, please."

"Why not? He started it!"

"No he didn't!" Danny pinched the bridge of his nose, groaning. "Are you two going to stay, or not?"

"I am, dunno about burger breath there."

"Hey! Who're you calling burger breath? I haven't had a burger since we got here!"

"Guys!"

Danny's shout echoed unnaturally loud in the room, and the others all stopped to stare at him. Even Shadow's stern expression had changed to one of surprise. Danny suddenly felt very self conscious, folding his arms and slouching to try stop the staring. He sighed, before he resumed speaking at his normal volume.

"I don't need you guys to decide for me, I'm staying here to help. I need you two to decide what you're doing, not what anyone else is doing, just yourselves."

"Cool to have you stick around Danny." Sonic grinned, reaching up to slap him between the shoulders. He smiled at Sam and Tucker. "No one's gonna hold it against you either way."

"... I'm gonna stay." Tucker was the first to respond, smiling back. "Can't have Danny stick around on his own right?"

"You were just arguing that you wanted to go home!"

"Yeah but only if Danny came along too!"

"Tch." Sam tutted, rolling her eyes, but she smiled anyway. "Alright, we're all staying. Thanks for the offer Shadow, but we're going to help."

"Humans? Help?" Shadow stared at Sonic like he'd grown a second head. "You are kidding."

"Aww come on Shads-"

"Don't call me that."

"Shadssssss~" Sonic extended the abbreviated name to tease him. "They'll be fine, and they're good with ghosts so if any cause trouble they'll know how to handle it!"

"Very well. In that case, I shall be off."

"Shadow wait a second." Tails called him, and the black hedgehog blinked at the fox.

"Yes?"

"By any chance do you have a Chaos Emerald on you? We just need to borrow it."

"What for?"

Tails explained their plan to him, which, at that moment, consisted mostly of collecting the Emeralds and figuring it out after that. Shadow admitted to owning one, pulling it out from behind his quills, but shook his head when they asked if they could hold onto it. The humans stared at the ethereal gemstone in awe, the picture Tails had shown them before hadn't portrayed the sheer mysterious beauty of the Emerald. The glassy green surface was cut in such a way that it refracted all the light that passed through it, some of which appeared to be coming from within it. Danny shuddered, a frown ghosting across his face for a moment.

"Why won't you lend it to us?" Sonic sighed at Shadow. "We're on the same side!"

"One, I need it. I'll lend it to you when you have the rest. Two, you're going to need artefacts from the Ghost Zone too."

"Why? The Emeralds have always worked well enough on their own before."

"The Ghost Zone is extremely chaotic in its own way, I don't think the Emeralds will work without something equivalent from there too." Shadow shook his head.

"Oh, we can probably find something."

"Tucker!"

"What? Sonic already pointed out that we know the most about that place and the ghosts and stuff."

"Guys, don't start arguing again, please?" Danny groaned at his friends, still eyeing the Emerald warily. "What did you say that thing is made of?"

"Concentrated Chaos energy. The life force of our world!" Tails proclaimed proudly.

"Well it's making me really uncomfortable."

"Really? Odd. Shouldn't affect humans at all." Tails tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Guess it reacts with all that 'ghost' stuff you travelled through to get here."

"Hm..."

"He's got a good point..." Sam nodded, glancing at her friend. "If this chaos stuff is comparable to ectoplasm, it'd explain why the Ghost Zone's merging with their one instead of repelling it."

"It is comparable. Not a perfect match, but very close." Shadow glanced at Danny. "You'd have trouble sensing one you're not used to, but once you notice it it becomes very hard to tell the difference... Doesn't it?"

"What are you on about? I can't..." A look of realisation spread over Danny's face. "Oh... I get it."

"Am I the only one not being told anything here?!" Tails cried out, irritated by the silent exchange of knowing smirks amongst the others of the group.

"Ahahah use that brainy noggin of yours and figure it out!" Sonic chuckled at the fox, ruffling the fur atop his head. "Just think about it. It's kinda obvious."

"Just tell me, you're being mean!"

"Tails come on, you aren't stupid."

"He's a ghost, Tails." Shadow input, and Sonic pouted at him.

"No fair telling him!"

"That's great, let's just tell everyone." Danny sighed. "Let's not talk about it here, aren't you the one who said there are cameras and stuff?"

"Oh yeah, ah well, I'm sure we'll think of something."

"I disabled them all when I arrived." Shadow stated, bluntly.

"See? Problem solved! Let's get going, we have an egghead to stop and a whole bunch of Emeralds to find!"

With a cheerful whoop, Sonic ran out of the office, with the others chasing him as fast as they could manage, each not wishing to stand in there for longer than necessary. As they emerged from the pyramid, Sonic turned his ears to the wind and listened out for any sign of robots, before announcing it was all clear. As Shadow opened his mouth to say something, he paused, frowning. Sam and Tucker watched the hedgehogs, then glanced at Danny, who, while not as tense as the hedgehogs, was fidgeting uncomfortably. A moment later, the tension surrounding the group passed, and with a quick glance to Tails, who shrugged in response, Sam and Tucker relaxed. Sonic turned to Shadow.

"If you can get the kids to the chaotic realm, you guys search for the Ghost Zone artefacts you think we need."

"Very well. You and Tails shall rendezvous with Rouge north of here." He chuckled darkly. "I'm afraid she's the one with your Emeralds."

"Augh typical. Right guys, you take care and we'll see you in a flash, cool?"

"We'll be fine sonic, good luck!" Danny assured him, and his friends nodded.

"See ya! Come on little bro, let's go!"

As Sonic and Tails sped off into the distance at a breakneck pace, Shadow turned to the humans and held a gloved hand out towards them, while the other firmly held the Chaos Emerald from earlier. He smirked as Danny hesitantly grabbed his hand, while his friends grabbed him in turn. Shadow held the Emerald aloft, and it shone even brighter. A visible shiver passed through Danny as it triggered his ghost sense, but Shadow paid it no mind.

"If I were you, I would hold on tight. Chaos Control!"

The world around them vanished in a flash.

TBC