I do not own any Sonic characters.

Chapter 12

Blaze the cat, Knuckles the echidna, Amy Rose, Cream the rabbit with her friend Cheese, Rouge the bat, and Shadow the hedgehog stood outside the Egg Carrier waiting for the group inside to get over the fact that Tails was evil the entire time.

Blaze only leaned up against the massive ship imagining multiple ways to maim Tails for the destruction of her world. Shadow stood high with his arms crossed as if he were the most powerful being there. Amy, Knuckles, Rouge, Cream, and Cheese were discussing.

Cream was looking down with a perplexed expression "So he was evil the whole time and was only pretending to be nice… again."

Amy scoffed "That should have been obvious from the start. When is any villain good? Eggman may have turned to our side if the universe was in danger, but Tails wants everything destroyed."

Knuckles pounded his fist "When I get my hands on that freak…"

Rouge turned to Shadow "What I can't believe is that you never knew who he was, Shadow."

The dark hedgehog turned to her "I had my suspicions, but nothing as extreme as he being the Mysterious Villain."

Cream held Cheese in her hands and was, if possible, more confused than before "How did you not notice? He even yelled at you about a base he supposable created."

Shadow rolled his eyes "I find that fox pathetic and practically useless. I even wonder why Sonic has him on his side. Every time he talks to me I tend to ignore him. I don't even recall him yelling that at me. Only him yelling that the robot wasn't trying as hard."

Rouge shook her head "The thing he yelled the loudest."

Shadow huffed "The fox seemed more of a wimp to me then."

Blaze looked at them "What's taking those buffoons inside so long?"

Cream looked over at the feline "It will be a while. They will try to find anything that'll prove Tails good."

Blaze stood and stomped her leg "'Good!' When was he ever 'good'? I can't believe I made friends with the most disturbing person I have ever met. Even more than Eggman Nega."

Cream began to rock Cheese back and forth "Tails does have a way of making you feel safe. Cared for. Acts kind. Respectable… Allows you to insult him without a single rude response from him…"

Shadow and Knuckles cocked one brow and turned slowly toward the rabbit. She didn't notice though. Cream was off in her own world, her eyes in a daze, as she absentmindedly swung her arms slightly back and forth soothing the chao in her hands to sleep.

Knuckles scooted away from her "Anyways. How do we know what I said inside was true. What if Tails IS leaving us clues, but only to distract us."

Blaze threw her arms in the air "Well, it's working. We need to go fight him NOW!"

There was a sudden noise. They all turned sharply toward the source, except Cream who was still in her strange fantasy. A man in black armor sat on a log with his legs crossed. He held a knife in his hand and was carving a stick into a point. Every inch of his body was in a black color. The armor was most everywhere, but he also wore a long trench coat with the exact same color. He also wore a hat similar to a cowboy's.

The armored mad looked up at the group after flicking a piece of wood off the tip "Hello… I'm looking for an old friend of mine." No one said anything, but stood in their fighting stance. The man stood up, threw the knife strait into the soil so only the handle stuck out, and walked toward them with the stick still in his possession "I believe you all know who he is. The special agent of the old secret agency which's only purpose was bent on protecting the planet and its inhabitants."

"Who the heck is that?" Shadow spoke.

The man didn't even change his tone "Clearly none of you will know. Only people of high authority knows of the agency… that and the agency was shut down by the king a day before the trial of a lifetime as it was called."

Cream finally snapped out of it "Tails' trial… Who are you?"

"I'm a friend of Ralph. He will know me as… Nothing actually. No one even knows my name."

Rouge eyes opened wider "Wait! A friend of Ralph? How. He's from our dimension. How did you get here?"

The man twiddled with the stick in his hand "You left the portal on for a while too long. Me and my men were able to get in."

"Your men?"

"Actually they're no longer listening to me. They are so bent on revenge they think my command is irrelevant. This 'mission' is bound to fail and make matters worse."

"What mission?" Knuckles growled.

The man sighed "Clearly you all know of Ralph, but yet to tell me where. Don't bother now. I know he's in the ship… I can see him."

Everyone turned to the carrier, but everything was closed off, even the glass didn't see in. Blaze spun around "How can you-?" She stopped.

The strange black armored man had somehow disappeared. The knife in the ground was gone as well left in its place was the stick he carved. Shadow walked up to it and pulled it out. He looked at the markings "What does this mean?"

Blaze took it. On the side was a symbol. It was circular, but inside were lines, curved lines. One started at the circles top and ran down to the bottom of the shape. The last two acted as an 'x' and crossed over both the middle line and the circle continuing on in till in circled around the stick so to appear to be continuous. Rouge shrugged "Almost like the atom symbol."

Cream looked at it with confusion, but Cheese, who woke up, flew over and pointed "Chao, chao."

Where he pointed was a tag "Give this to Ralph… '?'"

Knuckles scratched his head "'Question mark'… Does he mean from 'Unknown'?"

Blaze stood and looked at Rouge "Does Ralph ever talk about a man in dark armor he doesn't know the name of?"

Rouge shook her head "Ralph doesn't talk much about his past. We never really tried to get to know him."

Inside the Carrier

Sonic ran into the room with the memory card in his hand "I found something. I found something."

Silver looked at it "Hey look it's a… it's a… I have no idea what that is."

Sonic lowered his brow "A memory card."

"Huh?"

"For computers, cameras, etcetera."

"No wonder I didn't know what it was."

Eggman took it with much interest "Hmm… Very extraordinary. From right here I can tell this holds more data than the average flash drive." The doctor inserted it into the unknown slit. It fitted perfectly, but nothing happened.

Silver scratched his head "Um… I'm no computer expert, but isn't something suppose to happen?"

Eggman rolled his eyes underneath his glasses "Yes, you idiot. Some computers may be slow, but I designed this one to be fast. It's not even reading it!"

Sally walked over to the desk and looked around "Is it even on?"

Eggman looked down at her "Pardon me?"

"Is the slit you found even on?"

Eggman knelt down causing Sally to back up. The doctor looked at it and then stood "Actually it is not. There is no power to it." Eggman took the card out "With no power we can't reed it."

Sonic grabbed it "Maybe we can attach a generator to it."

"Without knowing the proper amount of electricity needed to store it we run the chance of destroying everything on that card."

Metal took it himself and pushed it into one of his own slots. He processed it but then had to take it out "I am unable to read it. The data inside is unresponsive to my firewall. It will only accept a certain kind."

Eggman pointed at the screen "That explains this."

"Cool." Everyone looked over at Silver.

The grey hedgehog held his own chaos emerald and each time he brought it closer to the card it grew brighter, and every time he pulled it farther it became duller. Ralph took the card "I guess that means its powered by a chaos emerald."

Eggman snatched it "How?! It would be active."

Sally took the card from Eggman "Calm down. First of all, this is a clue. To convince those outside it's no trap… Ralph. You're the weapon expert here."

Ralph took the card and examined it "…No explosive I know could fit in this. If there is the blast would be too small to even kill someone. The worst this thing could do is give someone a week, yet painful, burn."

Silver nodded "But, it was made by Tails."

"Well, in that case I don't know what's in this thing."

"Silver!" Sonic, Sally, and Eggman growled.

Silver blushed and smiled guiltily "Opps… heh… Sorry."

Eggman massaged his forehead "Luckily no one outside heard that."

Ralph handed it to the grey, and right now, slightly red hedgehog "You have telekinesis right?"

"No, I'm the guy who controls lightning and a small chance of possessing the power to embarrass himself."

Eggman mumbled "'Small chance'?"

"Well, are you able to use your power to feel inside this to see if there is an explosive?"

Silver took it "Never tried, but no harm in it." Silver held the small card in his hands and closed his eyes.

Everyone looked at him for a few seconds. The hedgehog began to flinch a little. He then spoke lightly "I think… I think I found a button…"

Eggman stepped up to Silver "Where does it go?"

"It goes-…"

Silver's eyes popped open and ran to the computer. He shoved it in the slot and then suddenly the screen changed. The wall of fire disappeared and three separate bars appeared. Each one said at the top "PASSWORD".

Eggman's jaw fell, Sonic jumped up for joy, Ralph pumped his fist in success, Sally clapped her hands together, Silver looked confused at the screen, and the two robots in the back looked blank.

Sonic walked up to the screen "Now… What are the passwords?"

Ralph walked up to the screen as well, but tapped it. The top bare came sliding in and paused in front blocking the back. Words above the password input came on as well as a touch screen keypad below. Ralph soon back up with his hands up. Sonic soon followed.

Eggman looked worried "We need to be more careful next time. It could be that we're only allowed to type in the password once, and if we get it wrong it could permanently lock that card forever."

Sally read the top aloud "'The day it started was the day we flew. On that day the candies' name was its intellect and a joke that was over one's head, but before all this a riddle was spoken. This one riddle was a trick question. What was the answer to that riddle?'"

Silver hunched over "Wow… Couldn't make it sound simple, huh?"

Sally shook her head "He couldn't risk the robots hacking into this."

Sonic walked up to the screen and pressed on the button that said "Next". That password bare flew back and the next flew forward. This one had the same as the first, but the riddle at the top read "Samuel F. B. Morse could dot and dash the word before the boom."

Silver threw his hands into the air "That makes even less sense than the first riddle, and THAT riddle had another riddle in it."

Sonic pressed "Next" again. This time, as the next screen popped up, the keyboard disappeared. The riddle at the top soon began to have strange symbols at the top that changed every thirty seconds. The keyboard came back but each key was in a straight line and it's "letters" were the same symbols as the riddle's.

Sonic jumped back with his arms up in surrender "Whoa!"

Silver grabbed his head "Each riddle is making less and less sense as we go on!"

Eggman rubbed his forehead "What is this?"

Ralph rubbed his chin "Coding… but special coding Tails made himself. No one try to guess this one. We don't know what to top says and we don't know if Tails has switched the lettering sequence on the new keyboard." Ralph pressed the "Next". The screen changed back to the first password screen with its original keyboard.

Sally scratched her head "Wait. When did Tails invent a code?"

"Probably before he came to our side. You know. When he was trying to kill us."

Sally glared at Ralph. Ralph raised his hands "You asked."

Eggman sat at his desk "Obviously we cannot hack it because of two reasons. One, the computer doesn't really work, and two, it could be hack proof."

Ralph sat down on one of the couches "Knowing Tails, its hack proof."

Sonic began to pace "Silver… how did you get that thing to work?"

The grey hedgehog smiled "I'm holding the button in right now. If I let go it will probably lose power."

Eggman tapped the hedgehog "Turn it off. We're wasting the only power source it has, and if we lose it we will never get it back on again."

The screen soon shut off and the fire wall began to form again. Sonic huffed like a small chuckle "You know. You should add one of these to your labs Egghead. It really brings out the charming evil in you."

Eggman stomped his foot and stormed off murmuring under his breath. Sally shook her head trying to suppress a smile "Is this what you guys were like when I was dead?"

Sonic shrugged "You could say that, but then we were less cheery."

Metal Sonic and Omega were walking around the carrier cleaning up the mess all around. It was clear they were not needed. Sally turned to the robots "Don't throw anything away. Tails might have left clues for us in here."

Metal nodded and continued his work with Omega.

Light suddenly illuminated the whole room and everyone turned to see that Eggman had let the rest of the group come in. Blaze, Amy, Cream, Cheese, Rouge, Shadow, and Knuckles came in. Blaze walked up to Ralph "Ralph listen-."

"We found a clue from Tails." He interrupted.

Blaze was taken aback "What? That's not what I-."

Sonic pulled out the card and lifted it up "This was stored in my camera, which I never brought with me and had no idea it was here."

"Wait-."

Eggman crossed his arms "Inside is three password riddles that need to be solved. Once we have all three we're able to see all the data on the unit."

Knuckles rubbed his forehead "Will you just LISTEN TO HER!"

The room suddenly got deadly quite.

Blaze threw her arms out "I wasn't going to talk about Tails!"

Ralph sighed "Really?" He said very sarcastically "Ever since you found out about Tails that's all you have been talking about. Mainly how to get him back and stuff."

"Not now, and anyways how do we know that he just made this to just waste our time?"

Sonic rolled his eyes and Sally replied "Why would he waste that much time just to distract us?"

Shadow walked up to her "Why would he waste so much time to 'kill' Sonic?"

The whole group paused. Rouge raised her hand "I filled them in while you guys were finding worthless clues."

Silver growled "It's not worthless; he could be on our side."

Amy huffed "And if he's not, you have wasted all this time for nothing."

Eggman slapped his forehead "Fine! We split up. Half goes out to stop the robots and the other stay here where its safe to see if there're more clues from Tails."

Blaze shook her head "We're not as strong separate."

Eggman stormed up to her "Fine, we'll all just stay here looking for clues."

Blaze took a step back in shock "What!? I'm not!"

Eggman continued his arrogant speech "Well, I am. I will stay here to look for clues."

Sally stepped forward "So will I."

Blaze sighed "Fine! Some can stay, but it has to be those who are not strong enough to handle an onslaught of robots."

Ralph pointed at Amy and Cream "Then those two must stay here."

Cream looked down "Okay." Cheese flew up "Chao."

Amy on the other hand stomped her foot "What!? Leave Sonic?! NEVER!"

Eggman sighed "You don't even have to do anything. You can just sit around and injoy Cream's company if she doesn't want to help."

Amy gritted her teeth with her arms crossed to show her disapproval. Silver smiled "Okay. You can tag along, but if you get attacked by a 4.0 don't expect sympathy."

Amy suddenly ran up to Eggman with an innocent smile "I think I'll stay here, heh."

Ralph chuckled "Of course. Whatever you want."

The onward group out to fight the robots began to leave, but Cream ran up and poked Blaze. The feline looked down at the rabbit who handed her a stick. Blaze nodded and walked up to Ralph "Ralph." The dog stopped and turned to her "The reason I wanted to talk to you was because a man said you were old friends of his. He asked me to give this to you."

Ralph seemed skeptical, but didn't hesitate to take the stick. He looked at it almost clumsily, but suddenly he grabbed it with both arms and brought it closer to his helmet. "No!"

Everyone began to back off as he read the tag. The air seemed to have gone cold. He began to bend the thin piece of wood intill it snapped. The dog growled and whispered harshly "As if matters weren't bad ENOUGH!" He slowly turned to Blaze and Cream who backed up in fear.

Ralph charged at them. Blaze fell back onto a wall I shock and fear as Ralph slammed a fist pierceing the wall next to her "What… did… that… terrorist… tell… you?"

Blaze was trying not to quiver at Ralph's sudden change in his demeanor of a happy and care free to a sudden heartless interrogator "Wh-what?"

"THAT MAN IS A TERRORIST! You know that story of the missing nuclear reactors I was sent to get, but it turned out they were to be used for a bomb to go off in the core to destroy the planet." Blaze nodded "HE'S… THE… LEADER!"

End of chapter. Please reveiw. Tell me what you think the answers to the riddles are.