Alex: Here we are with another chapter of A Change of Heart.

Alexia: Sorry this took a while; lost inspiration back then.

Alex: We probably shouldn't ask for this since we did not really update quickly, but please review. It will certainly improve moral and get us more pumped up to write a chapter.

Alexia: Also, if there are any questions about the story, please feel free to ask.

Alex: And finally, thanks to SierLeAn for checking the chapters! And now, the show must go on!

Disclaimer: Still don't own anything except the skeleton plot. I don't own the characters (except an OC; don't worry, she will be just a minor character, and after her part is done, you won't see her again) or some parts of the plot (as in, this chapter will incorporate the plots of SatAM chapters; not plots from other authors).

Chapter 5 - Separated

'Ugh...where...where am I?'

A blurry blue eye slowly blinked open, staring at its surroundings. It wandered across the dimly-lit walls and landed on a familiar figure lying on the ground. "Lupe!"

At the soft gasp, the wolf mobian stirred as well. "Princess?" she muttered, her eyes seeing some colorful dots from the bright light before. When they cleared up, Lupe could see Sally lying on the metallic floor as well.

"Yeah," Sally replied quietly as she got up onto her feet and helped Lupe up. "I wonder what just happened..."

"The last thing was that we were being cornered by the robots...and Sonic did something," Lupe replied. "It must be something concering with that...Chaos Emerald he has."

"Chaos Emerald?" The word somehow felt familiar to Sally. She could have sworn she saw the word before... "Nicole!" she suddenly barked, pulling out the device from her boot. "Bring out the Project Doomsday files."

"Project Doomsday?!" Lupe gasped. All Freedom Fighters knew of the Doomsday, and it was nothing good. However, there was something worse than worrying about the project now, and it came in the form of a squad of SWATbots marching towards them. "Princess!"

Sally looked up and noticed the robots as well. "Quick, we have to get out of here." She packed Nicole away and the two ran towards a tunnel. "Looks like we're in Robotropolis... The place where the machine that handles all of Robotnik's traffic is..." Sally informed Lupe after a glance around. "There are some tunnels here; we can use them to get out."

They entered the tunnel and Sally pushed a large red button, opening an entrance. The two slipped in just as the doors behind them closed and came to a triple fork in the road.

"Where to?" Lupe asked Sally.

"Um...right!"

The two mobians ran down the right tunnel, only to come face to face with SWATbots heading towards them.

"No, I mean, left!"

They ran through the left tunnel this time, but it was a dead end.

"Middle then!'

They tried the middle tunnel, but it yielded the same results as when they went down the right tunnel. This time however, they could not change tunnels anymore, not when more SWATbots flooded in from the other end of the tunnel.

Lupe growled, hackles rising instinctively. Sally was tense as well, eyes darting around; desperately looking for an escape route while her mind raced to make up plans for different scenerios. Things were not going well for them though; both ends were blocked while there were no other routes to go through.

With how tensed they were, it was a surprise that they did not notice a soft rattling sound. Somewhere behind their feet, a panel came off loose and a hand reached out, grabbing Sally's boot. The touch startled her badly and she instinctively kicked.

"Easy there!" a voice, definitely mobian and non-robotic, spoke up. "Come on! Quickly!"

Deciding to take the chance, Lupe and Sally squeezed through the opening one by one and the panel was quickly fitted back. The two mobians, having barged through, were sitting on the floor, sighing in relief as the adrenaline wore off.

"Need a hand?"

A hand covered in orange-tan fur came into Sally's line of vision. Her blue eyes travelled up the offered appendage and towards the face of a goat-like mobian, going by his horns. She looked back at the ungloved hand and nodded with a smile.

"Yes, thanks," she replied, taking the hand.

"I thank you for your aid as well," Lupe added, getting up onto her feet despite the goat mobian offering his hand. "Though...who are you?"

"I'm Griff," the goat mobian replied.

"I'm Sally and this is Lupe," Sally introduced herself and Lupe. However, before they could continue with the pleasantries, a loud banging sound could be heard coming from behind the panel.

"The SWATbots...follow me!" Griff told the two ladies as he ran down the tunnel. Sally and Lupe were quick to follow and they disappeared into the darkness just as the panel gave way and a SWATbot looked in.

As the two Freedom Fighters folloewd Griff, Sally's mind wandered back to the rest of her friends. 'Sonic, Rotor, Bunnie, Tails, Antoine, I hope you guys are alright...'

Somewhere else in Robotropolis

Amidst the pile of scrap and metal, everything seemed still. Then, an area of the metal started shaking and moving. The source of the movement soon made itself known as a blue head full of quills poked out, emerald eyes dizzy yet alert.

"Man...that took a lot out of me..." Sonic muttered to himself, rubbing his head. "Where...?" Looking around, the dizziness disappeared in an instant once he recognized his surroundings. "Robotropolis..."

The scrap next to him rattled and a purple head wearing a hat popped out. "Sonic? What happened?" Rotor asked, shaking his head to get rid of the colored spots in his vision. When they cleared up, Rotor saw their location and gasped. "Robotropolis? But...how did we get here?"

"I did it," Sonic replied, pulling out a hand and revealing the green-colored gem in his grasp. "I used this stone to teleport us away from the robots...though looks like it did more bad than good..."

He looked around the scrap heap, expecting more heads to look out, but there were none. "Where are the others?" Sonic asked with a low growl, eyes scanning the area.

"Looks like we all got separated..." Rotor replied, wincing at the thought. "Tails and Antoine are back at the Wolf Pack headquarters, but the others..."

Sonic let out a soft half-suppressed snarl, but before he could react more, a familiar green transport flashed at the corner of his eye. It reminded him of their current situation and that he needed to curb his anger for the moment.

"Get down," he hissed to Rotor, ducking back into the trash pile. Rotor did not hesitate to follow, and the two waited with baited breath as the transport passed by.

When Sonic no longer felt the hair-raising feeling of having an enemy robot at close quarters, he slowly looked up. After a cautious scan around, he turned to Rotor. "We're going back to Knothole," was what he said before grabbing the walrus' hand.

"Wait, Sonic!" Rotor barked, eyes staring at somewhere behind the hedgehog.

"What?" Sonic nearly snarled, quills starting to bristle and tense.

"Look." Sonic obliged to the command with some reluctance and spotted a rather large carrier of sorts with robians (roboticized mobians) marching into it. "What do you think that is?"

"No time to find out," Sonic replied firmly. "Let's get-"

The rest of the sentence died in his throat when he spotted a very familiar hedgehog among the Robians. There was no mistaking those quills, styled similarly to his own, and the bushy mustache and eyebrows.

"Sonic?" Rotor asked, noticing the blue hedgehog's reaction. He looked at the direction Sonic was staring at as well and managed to get a glimpse of the hedgehog robian before the transport got in the way. It took about a few seconds before realization struck like a lightning bolt and the walrus' eyes widened. "U-Uncle Chuck?"

The name snapped Sonic out of his trance and replaced the shock with a mix of burning anger, hope and desperation. "We're following them," the blue hedgehog told Rotor before speeding off for the transport.

"Wait, Sonic!" Rotor gasped, trying to pull the hedgehog back. "You can't charge in recklessly! What about Sally and the others? What about Tails?"

Sonic faltered at the mention of the other Freedom Fighters, still lost and scattered because of him. The sting of guilt and disappointment flashed through his heart, growing even more when he remembered that Tails was left behind as well.

Tails. The little fox kit had grown so close to his heart that Sonic did not see him as Tail the fox, but Tails, his little brother. And he had already lost his siblings; he would not lose another one. He would be damned to the deepest layers of hell before that happened.

However, this was Uncle Chuck, the only member of his family left. He was not going to let go of his uncle like that either. And...as hesitant as he was to admit it, he could trust his...friends...to keep Tails safe, especially since out of all the Freedom Fighters, he and Antoine were the safest, hidden in the Wolf Pack's headquarters. In addition...Tails was growing up.

'He'll be fine... He's a big guy now.'

With that, his decision was made.

"We're going," he told Rotor with extra-firmness, a stubborn and determined gleam in his eyes. "This is Uncle Chuck, and I'm not going to lose him again!" With that, Rotor's protests fell upon deaf ears as Sonic ran like the Blue Blur he was nicknamed, chasing after his beloved uncle.

'No way am I going to lose you again, Unc'. It will be a cold day in hell before that.'

As for Rotor, he could only hope that things would go swimmingly for them, even just a tad.

But then again, the universe was not always so kind...

Far, far away in the Great Jungle

"Ugh...what hit my head?"

Jungle green eyes blinked open, meeting the same object their color was named after. The dazed look in them sharpened into alert as the owner of those eyes pushed herself up.

"Where in the world am I?" the rabbit cyborg mobian asked herself, looking at the greenery around that was different from the Great Forest. A snap from above caught her attention and she looked up with such force that she nearly got whiplash.

"Ah, you're awake finally!" a voice called out from above, and among the green background, Bunnie spotted a bundle of rich golden fur. "I've been waiting for you to do that!"

Bunnie squinted her eyes a bit, and finally identified the bundle of fur to be a wolf mobian, one of the wolves from the Wolf Pack. Jungle green met electric blue and the wolf smiled sheepishly.

"I can't get down. Help me?"

A few minutes later

"Phew, thanks! If it weren't for you, I would be stuck there for who knows how long!" the wolf sighed, obviously very relieved. "The name's Maia. You?"

"I'm Bunnie. Anyway, do you know where we are?" Bunnie asked.

Maia looked around and tilted her head, an intense look of concentration on her face. Then, as if she had found the answer, she perked up and shook her head. "Not a clue," she replied, her long bangs flying about.

Bunnie sweatdropped at the carefree and rather clueless attitude. 'That...is not a very good thing at times like this...'

"Anyway, what about the others? Where are they?" Maia asked, tilting her head again.

"I don't know sugar," Bunnie replied with a sigh. "They could be anywhere... And we don't have any means to call them, so we won't know for sure..."

"You need to call them?" Maia asked, her ears perking up. "We wolves have a way for that! Wait a minute." With that, she jumped up onto a branch and started climbing up a tree.

Bunnie did not realize it for a few moments, but by the time she did, it was too late. Maia was already high up among the canopy.

"Maia, wait! You can't-"

"AAAWWWWWRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The long and surprisingly loud howl startled everything within the hearing range, causing several non-mobian birds to screech and take flight while alerting the jungle's inhabitants. Bunnie winced as she was in very close range, and the fact that she had sensitive ears did not help.

There was a long moment of silence for a while before another loud howl came from Maia.

"AAAAAARRRWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!"

Another period of silence followed the howl. Maia growled in slight annoyance and prepared for another howl, only for her ears to catch a slight sound in the wind.

It was a replying howl. Her calls were heard.

Maia grinned widely and let out some loud barking calls, followed by short howls trailing into a long one.

'Where are you?' her calls asked.

The interval was shorter this time. It was not long before another reply came over the wind.

'At a bay! South of you!'

'We're coming then! Regroup!' Maia last called out before ending the connection. As she was a wolf, howling loudly the way she did had not much effect on her throat, so she was not out of breath.

However, when she looked down at the ground...

"EEEEKKKK! HOW DID I GET UP THIS HIGH?! BUNNIE, CAN YOU PLEASE GET ME DOWN AGAIN?! PLEASE?!"

Bunnie sighed. 'Here we go again.'

Unknown to the two, their activities had not gone unnoticed. A large group of animals watched as Bunnie climbed up the tree to get Maia down, hidden among the greenery. And floating among the large trunks, a certain surveillance robot adjusted its lens, focusing on the mobians.

"Hmm...interesting..." a slightly British-accented voice hissed, watching the screen displaying the scene in the Great Jungle. "This might prove useful to me..."