Chapter 8: Blank Spot

What's that smell? Sonic was stirred from his sleep as the odor reached his nose. It seemed rather strong and familiar. He groggily kept still at first as he tried to ignore it. Then he finally remembered what it could be.

Immediately forgetting about his sleepiness, he leapt up from bed, having a bad feeling about this. He hastily put on his shoes and almost had to resist not simply crashing through his door instead of opening it properly.

Sonic could see that there was a yellow glow of some sort outside, visible through the window slits. Before he could run up to the front door, however, he heard a distinct rumble that came from below the ground.

Wondering why Tails would need to use the Tornado so late at night, Sonic opened the door to his bedroom, only to find the fox just getting up, having been disturbed by the same sound. He rubbed his eyes. "Sonic?" he asked tiredly. "W-what's going on?"

"Tails, who's using the Tornado downstairs?"

Trying to comprehend what was happening, Tails shook his head roughly to wake himself up, but also to answer Sonic's question. "I don't know," he replied, sounding uneasy as he got up and walked towards the hangar door. When he tried to push it, however, he was surprised to find that it did not budge. "Huh? Sonic, something's blocking it! And what's that smell?"

Sonic was also growing more worried over the combination of events now. "You try opening this door, I'll check out what that is. It's coming from the outside."

"Okay!" Tails answered as he tried to kick the door down while Sonic hurriedly left the room. Meanwhile, the rumbling from below was already growing softer. The door moved inwards slightly, but there was clearly something heavy blocking it.

Sonic opened the front door and felt his jaw drop reflexively when he saw that his worst fears were confirmed. Several meters ahead, a fire was burning up a bunch of trees, and it threatened to spread to the rest of the forest due to the wind.

"What the-" Sonic almost swore at the situation. "Who could have done-"

A very possible answer hit him before he could finish asking. To confirm it, he went over to his right, and sure enough, Alan's room was empty, the door already opened wide.

"Sonic!" Tails came out of his room, looking nervous. "The Tornado's gone, and whoever took it blocked the door with a bunch of my supply crates! Is it-" He stopped dead when he saw the cause of the suffocating smell through the open front door, eyes wide in shock.

"It is, Tails. It's Alan. He did all of this," Sonic replied in a monotone. He had no idea what he himself was feeling right now. A wild combination of shock, confusion, and betrayal, perhaps. "I can't believe that he'd-"

"Sonic, snap out of it!" Tails exclaimed. "We have to put this out first before going after the Tornado. I'll get the extinguishers!"

"Uh, right!" Sonic watched as Tails ran off to the hangar to get the extinguishers, namesakes spinning behind him for extra speed. Although Sonic was faster, he didn't want to waste time looking for them, as he had never paid attention to their exact locations, while Tails did.

Twenty seconds later Tails came back out and tossed one of the fire extinguishers he had to Sonic. "Come on!"

Both rushed to the fire, which seemed to have already doubled in size since Sonic first saw it, and started spraying the foam. Tails took to the air in order to put out the taller flames. "I don't understand," he remarked, "why is Alan doing this?"

Sonic was silent for a moment while he pressed the handle tight and held the muzzle up. "Honestly," he replied silently, "there may be only one reason."

For the first time in years, the Tornado had a pilot who wasn't Sonic or Tails. Even so, Alan decided that wasn't exactly true, since he was letting the autopilot, which worked far better than he expected, do pretty much everything, while he simply sat in, or rather squeezed into, the front seat. His hands weren't touching any controls for fear of screwing something up.

He had had his doubts earlier. The first part was to sneak into the hangar to check out how to use the autopilot system that Tails mentioned, and found that it was just as user-friendly as the GPS in his own car, with a clear computer screen and instructions. By checking the flight record on it, he was able to find where Sonic had flown Robotnik to. Although impressed, Alan had to shake his head at the lax security, since the canopy was left open, and the plane was apparently activated via push-button start. He guessed it was possibly so that it could be used quickly in an emergency.

Next he had to find a suitable distraction for Sonic and Tails as they would inevitably wake up due to how loud the Tornado was. The cooking oil from the kitchen, coupled with his lighter, solved that problem. Then he had to try and sneak past a sleeping Tails again, whom he guessed had a much keener sense of hearing than humans, possibly most mobians too, this time while carrying all his equipment. He made sure to slowly walk through Tails' room barefoot, holding his combat boots and stun grenades in one hand, the latter so that their pins didn't jingle. Once in the hangar, he managed to find several metal crates of sufficient weight to barricade the door.

Finding it impossible to fit into the cockpit with all of his equipment, Alan had to take off most of them and put them in the back seat instead, and even that it still wasn't exactly comfortable. He was amazed he could still even put on the seatbelt.

Remembering to open the hangar doors using the switch and close the canopy, he had taken a deep breath before hitting the engine start button and the destination on the screen. He made sure not to select the exact same spot in which Sonic had landed, but rather a quarter of a klick or so away. The 3D map display also helped him to choose a flat spot large enough for the aircraft, which wasn't all that common in the area.

The next thing he knew, the Tornado twisted sharply to face the opening hangar doors before blasting off, both of which startled him greatly and pushed him hard into his seat. As it lifted off the ground, Doherty was only glad the autopilot system also allowed one to input speed and altitude, otherwise he would have either suffocated or turned into human mush. The available oxygen mask only fit, of course, mobian faces with muzzles, and though he had endured plenty of training in his life, none of it involved withstanding G-forces.

Currently the Tornado was flying through the night at only 200 knots and 500 meters, both ridiculously low numbers for such a plane and its owners, but Alan didn't dare set any higher ones than that. He was thankful that he had some familiarity with the metric system that Mobius curiously shared, otherwise he could have done exactly that.

One interesting setting that he noticed near the top of the instrument panel, all of which was subtly illuminated for night flight, was a 'reserve charge' meter that showed, in green font, 99.70%. Perhaps this was the extracted Emerald energy Tails was talking about?

Realizing it was eerily similar to the percentage numbers he saw on Robotnik's computer in his base, Alan reminded himself to focus on what came next – which was bound to be even crazier.

The map showed that the area was somewhat mountainous, almost like where Robotnik's base was located just now. He predicted that there were bound to be patrol bots on the outside as well, likely to be armed with missiles like the ones yesterday morning. He would need to find a way to sneak past them.

The Tornado began to slow down and descend, the vertical thrusters to the sides of the aircraft activating. The autopilot showed that he was nearing his designated landing point. Twenty seconds later, the plane's wheels touched down on one of the few flat areas in these hills. To the plane's immediate surroundings were slopes, the one in front heading down, and the one behind up.

Doherty shut off the loud engines before popping the canopy open to avoid being deafened. He grabbed and threw out his equipment from the back seat before jumping out himself. Hastily he put on his vest and holster while looking around to make sure there wasn't anyone or anything approaching.

Vision was somewhat better now since he was out of the plane and it was aided by the full moon. He wondered how Tails or Sonic flew in the dark. Maybe the Tornado had a HUD or helmet that included night vision somewhere, but it didn't matter for now.

Already dressed up, Doherty began to slide down the grassy slope, which was facing north towards the direction of the base entrance, avoiding the rocks on the way. He wished he had some night vision himself, but then again, he had been trained to not be too reliant on technology.

There were no signs of robots thus far. Alan reached the bottom of the slope and began sprinting. This time though, he made sure to stop behind each tree or rock and look around, just in case. Ahead of him was the looming face of a rocky mountain much like the one with the previous base. By scanning it carefully, he could make out what seemed to be a small cave near the top. Just like before, he'd just need to climb up there carefully. So far so good.

And unfortunately for him, the good chose to run out at exactly that moment. He was able to guess as much due to the ground suddenly trembling, which made him freeze where he was. Several rocks began tumbling down from the mountain. Then there was the loud sound of many more rocks being broken apart, coming from near the top. He realized that something was about to erupt from the mountains, and it wasn't volcanic lava.

It was something far worse.

"This fire's pretty stubborn!" Sonic remarked impatiently. The flames were smaller now, yet they still showed no signs of dying. "If it's not put out soon, Alan's going to get himself killed!"

"We're running low," Tails said, sounding concerned as he continued spraying from up top. He was struggling to come up with any other solution that could work.

Then one finally hit him, and he couldn't believe he didn't think of it earlier. "Sonic, I got it! Try and circle around the fire as fast as possible. I'll hit it from the top. That way we can probably deprive it of oxygen faster."

"That could work! On it," Sonic quickly replied as he dropped the empty canister on the ground and started running in a circle, enclosing the burning area. The hedgehog continued to increase his speed until he seemed to be simulating a particle in a particle accelerator, virtually forming a blue, blurry wall. Meanwhile Tails went up to the center of circle and unloaded all that he had left in the extinguisher.

"Alright, it's gone!" Tails called out in relief. Sonic broke out of his circular motion into a straight line before slowing down on the dirt path. He looked back to see the trees had finally stopped burning.

"Whew! 'kay, let's find the Tornado now!"

"Just one more thing," Tails said as he rushed to the front door, still in helicopter mode, and closed it, causing the keypad lock to automatically engage, as neither he nor Sonic were fond of carrying keys around. "Let's move out now, Sonic! I really hope Alan's okay!"

"My God."

Alan Doherty could remember Robotnik bragging about how awesome his airborne fortress was, but he hadn't really been able to visualize or imagine it. Right now though, that blank spot in his mind was most certainly already filled, and he didn't like it one bit.

Hundreds of feet above him, having just risen from behind, or rather underneath, the mountains, was a massive sleak floating ship, with a silver hull tainted by years of being underground, roughly as long and as tall as the aircraft carriers back on Earth, kept in the air by similarly massive thrusters faced downwards. There was no doubt as to what served as their energy source, and even less of it that Robotnik had meant everything he said.

The massive aircraft began moving as the rear thrusters loudly engaged, causing it to cruise forwards, or west. Considering its size, it appeared to be moving at a surprisingly high speed, not enough to chase after Sonic, Tails or the Tornado, but enough that there was no way Alan would be able to keep up on foot, even though he instinctively started running to try and do so anyway.

That wasn't going to work, but it did serve another incredibly important purpose. Just after he started moving, he heard the sound of several projectiles whiz past the air behind him where he stood just a second ago. He quickly glanced to his left and saw various buggy-shaped wheeled robots on the slope, all training their top-mounted machine guns on him.

Less than second later, adrenaline kicked in and he dropped down behind a rock onto his abdomen as more shots flew by. Considering the firing noise and the amount of debris that crumbled off the top of the rock as it was hit, these bullets were likely of rather large caliber. His armor was not going to be good enough against them. One hit and that was it.

But for now, Doherty only chose to curse about the sheer inconvenience of the timing as he racked the charging handle on his weapon. "You can dish it," he muttered angrily, "but let's see you take it!"

"Sonic, look at that!" a flying Tails pointed exclaimed in shock as he saw the silhouette of something huge floating in the air and distance.

"Oh, man. I knew there was a reason Eggy grinned at me like that," Sonic commented as he continued moving across the thick woods, sounding very annoyed. His forest training had served him well as he was able to maneuver between the trees with ease, though it was still Tails who could bypass all of them completely.

"This has to be the real reason why Alan got out," Tails said as he checked his wrist device, which always marked the location of the Tornado.

"Yeah, sure, but he still didn't tell us about it."

"True. We'll need the Tornado anyway to catch with that thing. Alan could be aboard already! We should be getting close to-wait, I hear something!"

They both broke out of the woods and came to a stop at the edge of a cliff that overlooked a grassy hill. Somewhere in front and to the left, resting on a flat surface, was the Tornado, but their attention was currently attracted to what was going on in the area in front of it, down the slope. It became clear what the sounds Tails heard were as they saw flashes of rapid machine gun fire from at least a dozen robots, all pointed in the same direction…and it wasn't towards the Tornado.

Before they could express any confusion, however, they saw multiple incredibly bright flashes go off. If they were any closer, they would have been blinded and left disoriented as their senses got overloaded. That seemed to happen to some of the robots as they stopped firing, at least for one second. Then the duo saw a lone flash firing back at the machines.

"I kinda knew he'd get himself into something like this," Sonic remarked, "ready Tails?"

"When you are!"

"In that case," Sonic said as he ran back into the trees before looping out to gain speed, "zoom and boom, baby!"

A minute and a half had passed since the robots appeared and started firing, but Alan didn't know that. What he did know was that he had successfully hit and disabled at least two robots, with shots straight to their 'faces'. It was a very slow process, however, due to the insane volume of fire concentrated on him, making it difficult for him to pop out of cover and shoot back, and when he did, he could only manage two or three shots before he had to back down again.

Each robot had to be hit at least with at least ten rounds in the exact same spot in front before they stopped firing, and it was hard to be that precise in this kind of situation. He noticed some of the robots were getting closer, which was both good and bad. Good, as it meant shooting them in the face more easily. Bad, as it meant they would get around his cover soon. Machine gun fire littered both sides of him, which meant it would not be easy to go over to even the nearby other rocks.

There was only one other solution left as he brushed against the three stun grenades on his waist. Alan was skeptical they could actually be effective against robots, but it didn't hurt to try. He held them in one hand, pulled all their pins and then lobbed them out simultaneously.

He started running the instant he heard them go off, darting towards another rock that was further away from the robots. The machine gun fire resumed just as he slid behind it. He had bought himself time, but how much? He peaked out a bit to fire off a whopping four shots, his best record so far. One more, the one nearest to him, went down. Time to reload.

Alan was so focused on trying to remember the exact positions of each robot that he did not hear the ones furthest away blow up, although the noise of the incessant gunfire didn't help either. It was only after he tried to aim again did he notice at least four bots were already in flames. Two blurs were zipping around to knock out more, one blue, the other orange. They're here!

The other robots were already switching their attention onto Sonic and Tails, and Alan was about to assist when suddenly machine gun fire rained back on him, causing him to hide again. It seemed that not all of them were dumb enough to forget about their first target. The torrents of bullets were hitting both sides of the rock, pinning him behind there like just now, and worse, he could hear the robots firing them get closer and closer, due to their wheels rolling against the ground and their humming engines.

There were more nearby explosions, but both time and cover were running out for Alan. The bullets just did not stop. More of the rock continued to be chipped away. The engines were getting louder and louder. For the first time since he left the Army, Doherty felt genuine fear and helplessness. If they didn't get here right now…!

Just before the two buggy bots came around to slice Alan up, they splintered loudly into pieces as they were violently hit from behind, and two blurs emerged from their fronts, passing by the rock and him at breathtaking velocity. Sonic and Tails slowed down before looping around.

Eventually, they came to a stop in front of Doherty, who stood up. He noticed that neither of them seemed very amused at him. Sonic folded his arms.

"Uh…I can thank you first, right? I know I have to…explain myself."

"You betcha have to!" Sonic spoke up, sounding more impatient and frustrated than angry. "Why…why'd you do all this for?"

"You saw it just now, right? Robotnik has a second goddamn spaceship with power he backed up from the goddamn first one earlier!"

"We saw it, but that's not the point," Tails chimed in, looking upwards at Alan with an expression of disappointment. "You didn't tell us anything and tried to prevent us from coming along!"

Alan nodded weakly and sighed. "Yeah. I did all that." Though of course, considering what just happened, he was actually glad they were here now.

"You said you understood," the fox continued. The hurt in his voice was rather obvious.

"Then why's it like this now?" Sonic asked, accidentally sounding more demanding than he intended.

That was when Alan lost it. "Sure, I thought I did. But goddammit Sonic, think of all those people he imprisoned. He wants to do that to the whole world! What if you can't find anyone anymore to infiltrate his bases like yesterday? And if I hadn't come out here, you wouldn't have seen his second base turning into the goddamn Death Star! He's going to use it to destroy Angel Island, so he'll be trapping me here too! And if those aren't good enough reasons, you think you're the only one motivated to right wrongs because of a dead mother?"

The argument came to a halt on that last sentence. No one said anything as a stunned Sonic contemplated Alan's words. Even without that last part about mothers, he wondered if he should have somehow seen this coming. He recalled their lunch conversation yesterday. Something about saving lives by taking others. Alan had already tried shooting Robotnik once. Was there really anything that suggested he wouldn't try that again?

"Look, we better argue later, guys," Tails suggested as he wound up his namesakes. "We need to get to the Tornado and take that fortress down now. Alan?"

Alan was confused at first, but he saw Tails mimic picking something up, and understood. "Yeah, yeah," he answered as he raised his arms to his side, and the fox slid his own underneath Alan's biceps to pick him up. Climbing up this slope would take too long for Alan, though obviously not for Sonic, who was already halfway to the top.

Back at the Tornado, everyone got into their positions, with Tails in the main cockpit, Alan behind him and Sonic outside next to the right vertical stabilizer. This time, however, Sonic was not lying down to relax, but rather holding onto the front of the stabilizer in an upright stance, ready for action. Tails tossed something tiny at Sonic, who grabbed it and put it in his ear. It was the same earpiece that he had given Alan earlier.

Alan was forced to squeeze into the rear seat with all his equipment on him, though there was at least more space than in front. The canopy closed, and Tails started the engines. "You know, Alan," the pilot spoke up, "I'm kinda glad you used my plane. Proves that my autopilot works, maybe too well. And that I've been sloppy with its security."

"Uh, okay." Alan noticed Tails didn't say that in a thankful manner, just a matter-of-fact one.

Tails took out a pair of target display goggles with a mouthpiece from under his seat, which he would need for aerial combat, and put them on. The plane started rising. "One more thing. I'm gonna go at full speed this time, and if you really can't handle it, there're bags under the chair."

Alan gulped as he realized he had not considered that at all. "Right, thanks."

"Besides," the fox added just before he rammed the throttle all the way forwards, "you kinda deserve it."

As the Tornado shot ahead, Doherty could only feel relieved that this was all he was going to get for annoying Mobius' top two heroes.

The only sounds to be heard on Angel Island at this hour were that of fruits dropping from the trees and the light punches that were hurled at them. Knuckles had to be careful not to use his full strength to hit the trees lest he snapped them into two or more pieces.

He had woken up in the middle of the night feeling hungry, and it had annoyed him. This didn't exactly happen often, since eating was pretty much the only other thing he did here other than guarding the Master and Chaos Emeralds. And occasionally receiving a sudden visit from Sonic and Tails.

Speaking of the Chaos Emeralds, Knuckles was glad that all seven were back together again, and so soon too. However, he couldn't help but wonder how long that would last. Perhaps after he helped Alan to return to his world?

He took a glance at the sky to check out the full moon, and that when he unexpectedly got his answer. It did not please him. Oh, come on…

In front of the moon was the silhouette of a rather large craft of some sort, and it was undoubtedly headed towards him, his island, and his Emeralds. For Robotnik, this was certainly a new record when it came to having short breaks. Even at this distance, he could see some sort of glow being produced by a turret underneath the massive vehicle, and it was growing in intensity. The weapon was aimed straight in his direction.

Realizing that there was only one thing he could do short of jumping off the island, an idea he refused to consider, Knuckles the Echidna darted straight towards the Emerald altar, to get to the emergency caller up there, next to the Emeralds. He suddenly found himself desperately hoping for Sonic and Tails to appear.

Alan was handling the G-forces rather well, all things considered. That was not to say it was a comfortable experience as he grimaced all the way and kept the paper bag in his hand just in case.

"I see it!" Tails said as he got a visual of Robotnik's flying fortress via night vision. That was when a loud beeping sound filled up the cockpit. It was coming from Tails' wrist device, which he held up. "Looks like so does Knuckles! Just a bit closer, closer…"

Then he saw what was underneath the fortress. "Uh oh…"

Alan was able to see it too. "Jesus, that's the vaporizer he was talking about!"

Outside, Sonic also exclaimed something, but only Tails could hear him.

"Firing air-to-air now!" Tails pressed a button on his hand controls. Underneath the Tornado, the weapon bays opened for just a fraction of a second to drop two missiles that activated the moment they were outside, heading straight for the vaporizer turret, whose glow was already worryingly bright.

In the fortress' bridge, Robotnik noticed that the infernal duo had arrived on their plane after looking at the radar screen. In any other time, he'd be angered over how they just kept showing up at the worst moments. He was still feeling miffed from this discovery, but here, he wasn't worried.

"Nice try," he remarked confidently as he saw the two missiles approaching his vaporizer. "Too bad it ain't enough!"

Several meters before the missiles hit, they suddenly detonated in midair, too far away from the fortress to cause any damage.

"No way!" Tails exclaimed. "Electronic countermeasures. I guess something as big as that can't just jam radars, it has to force incoming missiles to detonate too."

The fortress had other weapons too. Some panels on its port side slid open and fired out missiles of their own, all four of them headed towards the Tornado.

"Woah! Hold on!" Tails jerked the plane upwards as the warning system sounded. He held down another button on his controls while maneuvering, and the missiles all zoomed past harmlessly. "Luckily I've got ECM too!"

Doherty, who was combating even more motion sickness, weakly commented, "Yeah, sure."

"Sorry about that, but it was necessary." Tails brought the Tornado back on its original course. "Switching to chain gun!"

The port on the plane's front right opened up, and the 25mm cannon inside it started firing at 3000 rounds per minute. Even with that impressive rate of fire, however, it seemed that Robotnik, or to be more precise, Extro, had made sure the fortress could withstand such calibers and more. The bullets rapidly bounced off the turret like needles as its charging process inched towards completion.

Tails resisted the urge to swear as he gritted his teeth. The plane was getting pretty close to the fortress now. Then he thought of something. "In that case, there's only one idea left I can think of. Sonic?" he called into his mouthpiece.

"You thinking of what I'm thinking, bud?" the hedgehog outside asked.

"Yep. Don't worry, I will catch you. Wait till we're in position." Tails then changed the Tornado's course, from flying towards the fortress head-on to flying parallel to it. Just before the plane passed by the turret…"Now, Sonic!"

Sonic would have preferred it a lot more if he had some run-up, rather than relying solely on the strength of his legs to jump. Nevertheless that was exactly what he did. The hedgehog leapt off the Tornado as hard as he could and curled himself into a living, spinning buzz saw, straight at the turret…just as it fired.

ATTENTION: IMPACT DETECTED, the words to the left of the large computer screen said. There was no report of the turret dislodging or being destroyed, which would normally make him giggle with glee. But he wasn't.

The screen had a targeting reticule for the vaporizer, and it was zoomed in to show that it was supposed to be aiming somewhere on the grass in front of the Emerald altar, which was the 'true' center of Angel Island. However, Sonic's impact on the turret caused it to shift to the upper right and therefore hit something else instead - the Master Emerald.

And that was most certainly not what he, or anyone else for that matter, intended. "Dammit Sonic!" he yelled. "Now look at what you've done!"

"Sonic!" Tails saw that the hedgehog had been unable to tear through the turret like he was so used to doing, and was now falling towards the sea water hundreds of feet below. Quickly, he swerved the plane hard downwards in a wide spiral to catch him. Behind him, Alan was enduring the ride as much as he could, his hands gripping the sides of his seat and eyes closed, and was almost more concerned for himself than for Sonic. Almost.

There was a loud thud, and Alan looked back to see Sonic holding onto a vertical stabilizer with both hands, pulling desperately to not fall off again. After struggling for a while, he brought himself forwards and planted his feet onto the Tornado's body. He shook his head with a very annoyed expression. "First time he's ever made anything hedgehog-proof, that's for sure!"

Tails wanted to ask if Sonic was okay, but as he turned back towards Angel Island, he saw something that got the attention of all three.

Alan felt a grave discomfort as he recognized the phenomenon, only this was on a much larger scale. "Is what I think is happening, happening?" Alan asked worriedly.

"I don't know. But if it is…I heard Knuckles say the affected radius will be huge!"

Knuckles was panicking. He knew Robotnik had always wanted power, but what he had just done was utter insanity.

The massive energy beam was completely absorbed by the Master Emerald while Knuckles had dived out of the way down the stairs. While this spared Angel Island and his life, it caused the large gemstone to overload, and now it was its turn to glow very brightly. It was making a loud, energetic noise, and the glow was only intensifying.

This was simply not supposed to happen. They had only planned on sending Alan back by applying controlled damage onto it. Perhaps with a missile or something, but most certainly not with this kind of doomsday weapon.

"No!" the echidna shouted. He remembered very well that his kind, and any other on Mobius, for that matter, was forbidden from ever using the Master Emerald for this purpose. It was a law that had been driven into his head before he lost contact with all other echidnas. Given how out of control the whole thing looked now, he was sure that everyone here was going to be affected, no matter how fast they tried to turn their aircrafts away like they were doing now.

Just before the huge flash burst out from the Emerald and engulfed the entire area, Knuckles had only one thought: We've failed.I've failed.