Vector shut his eyes tight as he was exposed to the unpleasant taste of gravel in his mouth. Slowly opening his eyes and rising off his stomach to his knees, he surveyed his surroundings. He was in an alleyway, nestled between two dark, straight-edged structures. It was dark out and even as his eyes began to adjust to the night, he still felt slightly disoriented. Forgot how much traveling space and time can take outta ya, he thought. After rising to his feet, he heard a grunting noise behind him. Turning around, he dimly saw a dreadlocked silhouette slowly walking toward him.
"Vector," Knuckles' voice came out of the gloom as he came into view. "Are you all right?" he asked while he moved his neck around, making several cracking sounds.
"Yeah, nothin's too much for this croc," Vector responded. "But…I can't say the same for Charmy and Espio," he realized, looking around. "Where are they?" Vector and Knuckles stared at each other for a minute then began to run down towards one of the ends of the alley.
"They can't be far, right?" Vector questioned. "I mean, we did all arrive here together."
"I'm not so sure," Knuckles said in an indecisive yet insightful tone. "The Elders are able to create pathways between worlds at will but even for them doing so may have unpredictable side effects."
They came to the end of the alleys and into what looked like a deserted urban square. The structures which the alleyway had been in between looked almost exactly like all the buildings surrounding the square: they all had a pristine sharpness to them which made them appear like glass, yet they were opaque like ice. The structures were also illuminating a pale blue light, but only toward the stone streetscape. The square itself had a large pool with a small tower fountain. On top of the fountain was a tall statue of an Echidna dressed in majestic looking robes and a feathered headdress.
"Knuckles, look!" Vector pointed to the statue. "Someone ya recognize?" Knuckles inspected the statue for a few seconds and then shook his head.
"I have no idea who that is," Knuckles answered. "I never thought we would be sent to another dimension with an echidna settlement. I wonder what this place is called?"
"We need to be careful on how we find out," Vector said thoughtfully. "We don't know if the echidnas here are as welcomin' as your kind is. And we need to find Charmy and Espio before we can figure out our next move."Knuckles nodded in agreement.
"Where do we even start? It's not like we can just run around calling out their names. We don't want to attract any unwanted attention," he said.
Vector was about to reply when he heard a footsteps walking towards the square from one of the many streets. The pair looked over to find an echidna holding a torch with a bow strapped to his back. He seemed to be some sort of guardsman and he had spotted Knuckles and Vector as soon as they had spotted him. His eyed widened and he began to run toward them.
"You two! Stay where you are!" the guard commanded.
"I think we already did," Vector said uncomfortably as the guard approached them.
"Raise the alarm! Foreigners in the city!" the guard yelled out.
"I don't like the sound of that," Vector bared his teeth and raised his arms up in a defensive posture. The calm, quiet scene that had been present when they first emerged out of the alley quickly gave way to the appearance of more echidna watch guards and raised voices. Most were armed with various blades or staffs and all of them had different symbols tattooed on their chests. They were soon nearly surrounded, when Knuckles made a suggestion.
"There's too many," he whispered. "We need to try and escape."
"3…2…1…let's go!" Vector shouted the last words as he and Knuckles turned to one of the alleys. The guards were in pursuit of them immediately and grew even louder as they shouted in a frenzy.
"Stop them!"
"Don't let them out of your sight!"
"Keep on them!"
Running down the darkness of the alley, they soon came to the end with the guards close behind. Before Vector could even think of what to do next, Knuckles lifted him up and threw him onto the roof of one of the buildings, and then scaled up the side of it by digging his spiked knuckles into the outer wall.
"Ya could have warned me, ya know," Vector complained bitterly, dusting himself off.
"Shut up, and keep moving!" Knuckles ordered. Although the buildings had the appearance of ice, they were neither cold nor slippery. This allowed Vector to leap, and in Knuckles' case glide, from building to building. Most of the buildings of the city were not very tall, but they seemed to stretch on forever. The majority of them were only two stories high and no larger in area than the detective agency back on Mobius, though there were a number of them that were much larger and dome-like. The only structure that really stood on the cityscape was a massive tower located near the city's core. Although Vector could not see too well from a distance, he noticed that the tower was quite wide at its base and, looking upward, became increasingly narrower at distinct elevations.
"Well, that was a warm welcome," Vector grumbled as he landed on another rooftop.
"Something has happened here," Knuckles said in a low voice. "Call it intuition, but there's definitely a reason why these people really don't take kindly newcomers."
"Maybe something happened when Rouge arrived," Vector pondered. The voices of the guards could still be heard, and torchlight could be seen gathering in different areas of the city. "Or worse, maybe they were already this hostile when she got here." Knuckles stayed silent.
The two continued to travel from building to building, and it looked as if they might actually lose the guards, when something appeared in front of them as they about to jump from the a building edge. A black-hooded figure arrived out of the dark and stared at the pair. Knuckles and Vector stopped dead in their tracks while the unknown being crossed it arms. It was dressed in dark red and black body armor while its hood was attached to a cape that swayed gently in the breeze. Its mouth and nose had a metal covering over it with air holes, and its eyes were surrounded by an intricate tribal design of black and red makeup. Its grey eyes penetrated them as if they were staring right through them. While stunned for a moment, Knuckles remained undeterred.
"Get out of the way or I'll move you myself," he said icily to the stranger. The figure crouched down, looking ready to spring, and Knuckles complied by meeting it in mid air. The two took several shots at each other, with the defender always dodging the other's attack. They landed loudly on the ground, and rolled around, each trying to gain the upper hand. Vector jumped down after them, and landed about ten feet away just as Knuckles kicked the masked individual off of him. It landed on its feet and put a hand to its stomach where it had been kicked. It was between Vector and Knuckles, and was now anxiously looking back and forth between them.
Just as Vector was about to make a move, the figure raised its arms and opened its gloved palms. A sharp beam of light radiated from its hands and blinded them both.
"I can't see a thing!" Vector shouted and he put his hands to eyes. Everything was dark for a few seconds, and then slowly his vision came back blurrily. Before he sight became fully functional again, however, he felt a tight cable being bound around his arms and waist with the voices of the guards.
"Bind them tightly!" one of the guards instructed harshly.
Vector struggled and looked around to Knuckles, who had also been tied up with four guards pinning him down. The dark hooded figure was nowhere to be seen. Vector glared angrily at the guards as one of them came forward.
"In the name of the High Council of Seers, you have been charged with unauthorized access and trespass within the Kingdom of Mearyn," he stated in a loud, robot-like voice. "You will therefore be taken to the holding chambers of Mearyn Tower until further action is to be decided by the members of the Council."
"Hold on a minute! Can't we just explain-" Vector started before a cable was also lassoed around his nose and mouth.
"Take them," the guard finished before the guards tugged on the cable around Vector's mouth. "Hopefully, these troublesome spies will be made a fine example of."