It was a team effort to get Silver away from that certain spot. At first, when Sonic tried to reason with him, he yelled and screamed. Finally, they all took one part of him and carried him away.
"We have to find light!" said Tails.
"There's only one thing for it: fire," replied Mollie, "Let's hope whoever it is who took Flash hasn't taken away the power of fire."
Tails let go of Silver's arm and hunted along the ground for some wood. Grass… Mud… Sticks! Quickly Tails collected as many as he could.
"I've got wood!" Tails declared triumphantly.
"Well done Tails," said Sonic, restraining Silver's legs alongside Tobias.
"I can't hear!" Silver suddenly said, "Why?"
"Silver, it's us," said Amy, "what can't you hear?"
"FLASH!" Silver cried, "She's gone!"
"Well yes, but-"
"In my mind, you idiot!" snapped Silver.
Amy felt hurt. "What do you mean?"
"We could communicate telepathically. And now she's not responding. Y-You don't think…" Silver trailed off. The silence echoed on.
"Lets' try making fire here," said Craig.
Slowly, all nine of them crouched down. Mollie and Tails sawed at the sticks, rubbing them together. The minutes ticked by as everyone waited with baited breath.
And then there was a spark.
Flash awoke with a start. She thought for a few seconds that she was blind, but then she remembered the darkness.
'Silver?' She tried again.
Nothing.
'Don't cry,' she said to herself, 'whatever happens, don't show weakness.'
What was she lying on? It was hard to tell. It was hard and smooth and cold, but wasn't marble. She felt around her, but empty space yawned in all directions.
Where should she go? She began to crawl in one direction, but then stopped. The exit could be a few feet away in the other direction. Perhaps she ought to stay where she was for now.
'Silver will come,' she thought to herself, 'He will. I know he will.'
The flames were roaring, and finally they could all see each other. The whites of Silver's eyes were bloodshot, and he was staring into space, hunched up in front of the fire. The others stared at him nervously.
"We'll find her," said Sonic. Silver looked up, his eyes blazing.
"And how do you plan to do that?" he snapped.
"By working together," said a voice. The nine of them turned around and saw Shadow and a bat.
"Who're you?" asked Toby nervously, who had never seen Shadow before.
"My name is Shadow the Hedgehog. This is Rouge," said Shadow, pointing to the bat. "The whole world is in darkness. It will only return to light again when Mephiles has all of the chaos emeralds in his hands."
"That means he hasn't got the chaos emerald from Flash yet!" exclaimed Tails.
"Don't get excited," replied Silver, "Certain people would tear others limb from limb to get to the chaos emerald." Silver shot Shadow a piercing look.
"Enough of the past. We need to work together to get to Flash. I'm guessing that Mephiles has taken her to an alternate dimension," Shadow said.
"Poor Flash," whispered Mollie, "She must be so scared."
"We can't think of that now," said Rouge dismissively.
"How will we get there?" asked Sonic, "We need at least one chaos emerald to induce chaos control."
"If we all focus our energy, we might be able to get some kind of vortex going," replied Shadow smoothly.
"It's worth a shot," said Knuckles, "C'mon! Let's go!"
Flash couldn't breathe. The darkness was crushing her. She was so frightened.
"Silver," she whimpered.
And then she saw light.
They all stood in a ring around the fire, holding hands.
"Focus," said Shadow, "Focus on Flash."
Toby thought of the way she had created the magical bubble and thrown it at him. The way he had seen the whole world light up with green energy as her spirit adjusted to the chaos emerald.
And then a flash of purple light blinded them all.
The pinprick of purple light wavered, and then started to get bigger. Pinprick to hole punch size. Hole punch size to ping pong ball size. Ping pong ball to basketball. And then the shape of another chaos emerald became clearly defined. The light gave Flash enough energy to sit up.
"H-hello?" she whispered.
The light shone on the person that was holding it, and Flash nearly screamed.
"Shadow! She cried, "What are you doing?"
"I am not Shadow," said the hedgehog, "My name is Mephiles."