Chapter Four
Sonic
I got a call from the robot to work repair duty with Knuckles. Not daring to disobey, I hopped to my feet and ran inside Slave Quarters. Knux had already started when I got there. Today was a slow day, so we began to chat. "It's been a hard day, huh Knuckster?" I joked. I knew he didn't like it when I called him that. "Yeah…" He replied in a dreamy way. "So what do you want to talk about, Knuckster?" I was waiting for him to notice. "Nothing much…" He replied in the same dreamy way. "Well, Knuckster, I think, Knuckster, that we otta get back to work, Knuckster." I made sure to stress each Knuckster, punctuating them with a sharp elbow. "Hey look!" he replied, not taking any notice of me, "Here come some robots!" As we got to work, I wondered why Knux was so slow this morning. He usually caught on by at most the third time, why nothing now?
Amy
It had been five days since I had last seen the surface. The place was so cold it was unbearable. Before I could completely tire out, though, I saw a red glow. You could imagine my relief! I ran all the way to it. Sure enough, there were some steps going to the hole in the surface, and on a little table was the Chaos Emerald. Scooping up my prize, I scaled the steps and poked my head out. Surprisingly, although the tunnel was long, I saw the dimly familiar shape of the yard in Slave Quarters. And there was Knuckles, standing above me. "Amy!" he exclaimed. "What-" at that moment the ground began to rock again. The steps began to collapse. "Help!" I cried.
Knuckles
Whap! Whap! Whap! One last try. WHAP! Okay, stop. You're going to break the warp portal. Then you'll never get out. With a sigh, I pulled open the curtains of my window. Wha-
Amy was standing in a hole in the ground. And above the hole was-
"Me!"
Charmy
We were in a warm little cave. The walls were made of deep red rock, and there was a pool of lava spouting steam. In the middle of the pool was a small island, on which was a huge machine sputtering and showered sparks, powered by the yellow chaos emerald. I turned to Cream and asked, "What do you make of it?" She just stared at the lava. "It's no wonder the fire's so hot!" She shuddered. The two of us walked around the steaming puddle. The machine had three cords trailing to the ground. Hooked up to the cables was-
"Espio!"