3. Clockwork Chaos

Sonic made excellent time back to Emerald Town. Instead of the country back roads he'd taken out of town, he'd returned on the Interstate, racing along the emergency lanes too fast for most drivers to see more than a blue streak. He looped through the suburban streets, wondering if he should head for Amy's apartment or Cream's house, then spotted a slide in the side yard of a church. "That's right," he muttered to himself, "we were all on a playground." Still telling himself it was a fool's errand, he headed for Emerald Park.

Sure enough, Amy and Cream were there in the park's play area, but rather than Amy swinging her hammer, they were both wielding shovels. Several other youngsters, both human and dokan, were scattered about the area as well, helping to spread new mulch. Sonic stopped to watch for a few moments, grinning as Amy ordered the children around. With her back to Sonic, the pink hedgehog scrambled up a heap of the shredded bark and began tossing shovelsful down for the rest to spread. A sudden chirrup startled Sonic and he jumped as a small weight hit his back and a pair of tiny arms latched around his neck. Recognizing the voice, he reached back to detach his assailant. "Hello, Cheese. Shouldn't you be helping Cream?"

The small blue creature burbled something unintelligible, and shifted so that it was standing comfortably in the hedgehog's hand. Its usual red bow tie had been replaced by a green one today, that matched Cream's green shorts. The rabbit's white T-shirt had a pair of green chao on it, and her ears had green bows tied around them. Amy's outfit was equally practical for work; although still in her trademark red, she had on a split skirt and T-shirt instead of a dress. Pausing to wipe her forehead, she looked around and spotted Sonic. Instinctively he flinched.

"Hey, Sonic!" she waved, but to his surprise didn't instantly jump down and run at him. "How does it look?"

He blinked at the girl a bit dubiously, then walked across onto the freshly-spread mulch. Cheese fluttered over to join Cream. "Looks pretty even. Why are you . . . ?"

"It's a Girl Scout project for Cream's Brownie troop, and somehow I ended up in charge." She slid down the heap of mulch, and leaned her shovel against it. "Um," she glanced around at the younger children, then raised her voice. "It's looking good, girls! Just keep spreading the bark so it's even!" Stepping closer to Sonic she asked, "Can we step over there a bit?" Her rather grimy glove indicated the slide - which was definitely the one he'd seen in his dream.

"Uh, okay." Sonic said warily. But she wasn't grabbing him, or demanding that he marry her, so he did as she asked and moved toward the slide. "What do you want, Amy?"

The pink hedgehog looked down at her boots a minute, digging one toe into the dirt. Finally she drew in a deep breath. "Sonic, I-I'm sorry about how I was acting when Emerl was here. I was being really silly, pretending he was our child and all. I do like you lots, but I, um, don't really expect you to marry me . . . yet."

Sonic smirked in spite of himself. 'Yet.' Good old Amy. "Thank you," he said gravely. He tried to think of something else to say that wouldn't get him into to much trouble. "And thanks for helping me with him," seemed safe enough. "Ah, you haven't seen any - unusual - robots around recently, have you?"

Amy tilted her head. "Unusual how? I haven't seen anything but Guard Robos since Emerl, um, left. Is Eggman up to something already?"

"I don't think it's Eggman this time. But I had this dream and you were being–"

"You dreamed about me!?" Amy grimaced as she caught herself mid-squeal, then said much more calmly. "You dreamed that I was being - what, chased by unusual robots?"

"Not chased, exactly," Sonic explained, wishing that he hadn't started. He could have just peeked, seen she was all right, and been on his way. "You and Cream were up on a slide - this one, in fact," he patted one of the stair rungs, "and you were whaling away at a swarm of . . . well, I remember they weren't actually robots, but I don't remember what they were."

Amy grinned. "One of those sorts of dreams, hm? Where you forget what happened when you wake up?" She looked up at the slide over their heads. "So I was up here?" She climbed up the steps and stood on the top one, looking around. "Hey, that's enough mulching for today!" she called to the girls. "Here come your moms. We'll finish it tomorrow!" She waved as various mothers showed up and left with their daughters, while other girls put their rakes and shovels neatly in the wheelbarrow and left by themselves. Cream was the only one who stayed, coming to join Amy and Sonic at the slide. She climbed up the sloping surface instead of the ladder, joining Amy at the top. Clinging to the top rail to avoid slipping back down, she looked around. And suddenly frowned.

"What's wrong, Cream?" asked Sonic. He couldn't recall ever seeing her frown before.

The spotted rabbit's long lop-ears twitched at their bases, then raised about halfway, although the tips still drooped. "I'm not sure. Do you hear something?"

Sonic felt a sudden chill. Amy cupped a hand to her ear, then her other one, and shook her head. "I don't hear anything. Do you, Sonic?" He started to shake his head, but suddenly she looked away from him. "No, wait. Something's clicking. Is that what you heard, Cream?"

"I thought it sounded more like a clock," started the bunny, but now Sonic could hear it too. Tick-tick-tick-tick. Just like his dream, he thought. Deja vu all over again.

Amy gasped. "Look!" The other two followed her point and saw a three-foot tall mechanical dog marching towards them, emitting a regular tick-tick-tick as it approached. "Um, Sonic? I think I see an unusual robot."

Sonic shot her a glance, and saw she was grinning at him. He grinned back. "Yeah, I think you're right. There are probably others," he warned. She flicked her wrist and produced her trusty mallet.

"Bring 'em on." She glanced at the rabbit. "Sonic and I can take care of ourselves, Cream, but maybe you'd better fly on home."

"But what about them?" The rabbit pointed skywards, and the two hedgehogs saw that there were clockwork birds and bats aloft, swooping in above the treetops, as well as the approaching land animals. The mechanicals varied widely in size; some were even taller than the dog, while the wind-up car that suddenly rolled across Sonic's foot was a mere 3 inches high.

"On second thought, maybe you'd better stay here," he said. He picked up the little car and inspected it. It was shaped like an antique Model-T, spoked wheels and all, with a wind-up key sticking out of the front where the engine crank should have gone. He could feel the tin body vibrate slightly with each click of the internal clockwork. Sonic put it down again, and watched it roll away.

"Sonic! Look out!" Amy's shout made him look up just in time to dodge a metal cougar. About half as tall as the hedgehog was, it landed badly and slid under the slide on its chest. Picking itself up, it whirled and jumped at him again. Sonic caught the edge of the slide and met it with both feet in a high-speed kick that dented the metal body severely. Then he had to turn to meet another attacker, even has he heard Amy's hammer ring against a third. The world narrowed to a stream of brightly-painted metal creatures, and a few vehicles, as Sonic wove a hedgehog shield around the bottom of the slide. Amy's hammer created a second shield overhead, while Cream huddled low at the top of the slide to stay under its path. And then, to top it all off, it started to rain.

And one by one, all the attacking clockwork monsters slowed to a halt, the their ticking sounds slowing with them. Sonic stared at the tin dragon in front of him, frozen motionless with jaws agape, and the flying creations fell from the sky, with loud clangs when they landed on their ground-based brethren. He whipped around at a noise behind him and saw Amy had jumped off the ladder, although she still had her hammer at the ready. Cream was now sitting at the top of the slide with her feet on the top step. Sonic held up his arms, and she jumped down into them, clinging to Cheese. He set her on her feet as Amy automatically fell in on the rabbit's other side. The three dokan stood in the rain, staring around at the motionless metal forms.

"What happened to them?" Cream's voice was barely a whisper.

A giggle rang out. Something they didn't quite see, although Sonic thought it was human-sized, darted away into the trees, calling back, "They ran down, silly!"

Sonic squinted after it. He'd had the impression that it was flying, but he didn't know of any human-sized dokan that could fly. There'd been that tall kangaroo he'd met down south, though; it could hop pretty impressively. Something glittered golden beyond the trees and vanished. He took a step in that direction, then hesitated, looking back at the girls.

Amy caught his glance and held it. "I'll take Cream home," she said, putting a hand on the younger girl's shoulder. "Be careful, Sonic. Um, meet you at Tails'?"

It was a good idea. Sonic nodded. He picked up a cat-sized mechanical dinosaur and weighed it in his hands. "This isn't too heavy. Can you take it with you?"

Amy nodded and took it. "Sure. Come on, Cream." The two started picking their way out of the park. Sonic tucked another windup mech, that looked like a biplane, under his arm and did a quick run through the surrounding suburb.

Incredibly, there was no sign of any mechs, windup or robotic, anywhere outside of the park. Even there he only spotted two or three outside of the general area of the playground. Nor could the hedgehog locate any indication of how the things had gotten to the park - no one seemed to have seen any traveling on the roads or across yards. Decidedly puzzled, he adjusted his grip on the mech he was carrying and sprinted to Tails' workshop.

Amy was already there, and Tails was looking over the inactive dinosaur. They both looked up as Sonic entered. He was in and out of Tails' house and lab so often that he never bothered to knock, anymore than Tails knocked when he came to visit Sonic. The cub grinned at his friend. "Hi, Sonic! Amy told me what happened at the park. Is that from there too?"

"Sure is, Tails. Found anything so far?"

Not yet. Except we don't think it's one of Eggman's. He's usually pretty reliable about stamping his mark on everything he makes. Do you still have the scanner box I gave you? Mine's sort of in pieces right now."

"What? You broke your equipment, Tails?" Sonic set the plane on the table and pulled out the scanner.

"I didn't break it," snapped the fox defensively, as he took Sonic's unit, "I'm upgrading it and I hadn't finished reassembling it yet." Sonic grinned behind the cub's back as Tails stalked back to the strange dinosaur. The fur on the fox's nape was ruffled. Amy caught Sonic's grin and actually scowled at him. Startled, Sonic lost the grin and moved closer to the table.

Tails fiddled with the buttons on the box, tapped it, then pressed a few more buttons. After a moment, he turned towards a desk full of odds and ends and tapped another sequence of buttons. With a faint 'hmph' sound he turned back to the tin dinosaur and tried again, then frowned over the unit at the unmoving mech. Then his ears perked, and he walked over to the spaniel-sized biplane that Sonic had brought and attempted to scan it.

"What's wrong, Tails?" asked Amy finally, as the fox stared thoughtfully at the green-painted plane, his namesake tails wagging slowly behind him.

Tails shrugged. "It's not there."

"What?" Amy walked over and tapped a finger on the closest wing. It made a sharp pinging noise. "Of course it's there."

"No, it's not. The scanner is working properly, and I can get readings on the table its sitting on, but the plane isn't there, and neither is the dinosaur."

"That's what it told me about the robots that were attacking . . . Jason. It said they weren't there, but they disappeared after I defeated them," said Sonic. "And later another set attacked him, and, well, another me defended him, but none of them - us? - were there and that group all disappeared too." Sonic felt his face grow a bit warm as Amy stared at him. It really did sound rather daft, he supposed, if you hadn't been there. "Well, they did," he insisted.

"Who's Jason?" asked Tails, before Amy could speak. "Maybe you better tell us the whole story."

So Sonic did, everything from right before he'd heard the boy being attacked up until Sonic had arrived at Tails' house. ". . . And there was no sign of these things anywhere else, so I came on here."

"Hmm." Tails had sat down on a stool, with his heels on the front edge and his chin resting on his knees. His tails twitched idly as he stared into the distance. "'The Dream Caster.' 'A dream caster?' Someone who . . . what? 'Casts' dreams, like a magic spell? Sends dreams? Controls dreams? Did any of these things talk to you, Amy? Say they were looking for anyone?" The pink hedgehog shook her head. "But what's the sense in sending someone a dream about an attack before it happens? Is he trying to warn you?"

That was one that hadn't occurred to Sonic. "Dunno. But Jason said he dreamed about the robots twice, and the second time also dreamed that I turned up and fought them off. And it happened. Except, in my dream the clockwork things all vanished," he remembered suddenly, "and they didn't here."

"Only they aren't real. But they aren't holograms or illusions, either," mused the cub. Amy tapped the tin plane again.

"I've heard that if you dream you die, you really do," she said, a bit nervously. "Could this dream caster be doing something sort of similar, like hypnosis of some kind, so your mind makes the dream real the next day? And you believe it, so it has real effects?"

"Have you seen anyone strange?" asked Tails. "You said that Jason said he saw someone that looked like a wizard, have you seen anyone like that?" Sonic shook his head.

"Did he give you anything?" asked Amy abruptly. "Not the dream caster, whoever he is, but this Jason kid. If the dream caster was using some sort of gadget to, to affect him, maybe you've got it now, and that's why it's affecting you."

"No, he didn't give me anything," said Sonic. "Well, just a stone. But why–"

"What stone?" interrupted Tails, jumping to his feet. "Do you still have it?"

"Yes," Sonic pulled the agate out. "But it's just a rock. And it doesn't explain why Jason's robots disappeared and these clockwork things haven't."

Amy looked askance at the clockworks in question, and Tails frowned. "What exactly did you dream about them?" he asked finally.

"Um. It's sort of hard to remember - it was a dream! But I guess . . . well they were attacking Amy and Cream, and then they stopped, and. . ." Sonic searched his brain for the end of the dream. "We had tea!" he finished triumphantly. And felt like an idiot.

"Tea?" Amy hopped up and went to Tails' little kitchen nook. Rinsing out three mugs, she filled them with water and added a tea bag to each, then stuck them in the microwave. When the timer dinged, she handed one to Sonic, and set a second in front of the fox cub.

"Well, I don't think that was quite how–" Although honestly, Sonic couldn't remember the circumstances of the tea anymore. His gaze wandered across the tables. "Hey! Where'd they go?"

The two hedgehogs exchanged bewildered glances and looked at the fox as if the younger boy would have an answer. But Tails was now studying the agate, turning it over in his fingers, and didn't seem to have heard. He looked away from the stone long enough to step over to a desk and fish a magnifying glass out of a drawer, then returned to scrutinizing the odd-shaped pebble. He put the magnifying glass down on the edge of the table and fumbled for Sonic's scanner box, not noticing when he knocked the magnifying glass off the table or Sonic's high speed dash to keep it from hitting the floor. The two hedgehogs shared a rueful glance, and made themselves comfortable. After a while, Sonic zipped out and returned with a pizza that he and Amy shared. Two slices set on a plate by Tails gradually got cold.

At last fox cub shook himself and recalled his guests. "As far as I can tell, it's just a rock," he said. "It's real, but all the tests just show it to be an agate - the colors are a little unusual, but not unheard of. It doesn't seem to be giving off any sort of energy that I can tell. Although," he added as his ears and tails drooped a bit, "I'm probably missing something. Maybe you should ask Rouge or Shadow to see if GUN will check it out."

"Nah, don't be silly, Tails," said Sonic cheerfully. "If you say it's just a rock, then I'll believe you. I trust you more than any GUN super-scientist, even it you are wrong."

"Sssonic!" hissed Amy. The blue hedgehog didn't seem to hear her, and he was already on his feet and heading for the door, so he also missed Tails' flinch at his little 'joke'.

"I'll check back tomorrow, just in case you think of something overnight," he said over his shoulder, and zipped towards his own home. He hadn't been gone long enough for it to smell stale, so he just dropped the thermostat a bit to cool the place off and went to bed.