Chapter 2
Sonic knocked at his friend's door.
"Tails!" he yelled, "Tails, open up!"
He could hear a faint clanging as of metal on metal coming from inside Tails' workshop and then a crash as something fell to the floor. Tails swore loudly and Sonic could hear his shuffling footsteps approach the door. With a creak, the old wooden door swung open and Tails peered out, soot covering his orange fur, goggles on his forehead and both of his tails swishing about madly.
"Sonic!" he cried as he threw his arms around his friend, "Come in! I have something I want to show you. Well, it's not finished yet, but I can still show you the blueprints and some concept diagrams."
Dragging him by his arm, Tails pulled Sonic inside. The air was stuffy and humid and smelled of smoke. Although Tails' furnace had a chimney, it wasn't nearly big enough and often Sonic would come around to find smoke billowing out of the windows and beneath the door. How Tails managed to breathe he couldn't guess, but he did.
"Cream stopped by the other day," Tails told him, "And she said how much she and Cheese were missing Blaze. You and I both know that the only reason Blaze arrived here was because Eggman Nega stole the Sol Emeralds from her a tore open the separating veil between our worlds. But poor Cream doesn't really understand all that, I guess she's too young to, so she just thinks that Blaze has gone away somewhere. When she said it would be nice to see Blaze again, I had an idea." At this point, he shoved some blueprints and drawings into Sonic's hands. "I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if I could build something that could take us back and forth to Blaze's world so we could visit her whenever we wanted to?' So I spent that entire night coming up with designs and plans for some sort of machine that could do it. That was the easy part. Now I need a way to power it and make it work. I was thinking that perhaps there's a way to harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds or the Master Emerald. It was due to Eggman and Nega bringing the Chaos and Sol Emeralds together that caused the rift in the first place, after all. But after running simulations in my mind and double and triple checking all the algorithms and logarithms and all that mathematical jazz, I found out that we only need one of the Chaos Emeralds to power it."
"That's great!" Sonic exclaimed as he glanced briefly at Tails' drawings, not knowing at all what was being depicted. "That means that I only have to search for one Emerald rather than all seven."
Tails smiled at him.
"We do have one problem though, Sonic."
"Oh? And what would that be?"
"Um…" Tails ground the toes of his right foot into the sawdust on the floor. "It has to be a certain Emerald. I thought we would only need one, and any one at that, at first too. But I thought, just to be safe, that I would cross-reference with Emerald lore. Well, it turns out that each Emerald possesses certain qualities. But none of my texts made any mention of which Emerald does what. So…" Tails paused for a moment. "Sonic, you need to gather all seven Emeralds. I don't know which one is the right one so I need to test with them all."
Sonic threw the plans back onto Tails' table.
"Forget it," he said. "There is no way I'm going searching for all seven Emeralds. You know how I struggle to find them."
"Yes, but look at how many times you've done it before, Sonic? Surely it can't be too hard anymore?"
"Tails, all the previous times I gathered the Emeralds was to stop Eggman from furthering his plans. It was basically a matter of life and death then. As great as it would be to see Blaze again, I'm sure you can find another way to power this contraption of yours. Sorry, but the answer is no. If it was just one Emerald, I would do it gladly, you know I would, but this time, it's not going to happen."
Tails' face fell. Dejected, he shuffled his plans into a neat pile and stacked them on a shelf, out of the way.
"There isn't any other way, Sonic, I checked. What happened to you always being up for a challenge? You live for adventure don't you? Well, this is one! If you find those Emeralds, we can go and visit Blaze, and get to see her world. Think about it? Wouldn't it be cool to see where she lives and what it's like? Come on, Sonic, please?"
Sonic pulled a chair from beneath the table, dusted off the soot and sat down.
He has a point, he thought, life has been rather dull in the last few months since the incident with Blaze and Nega. And it would be nice to see her again, and explore her world. What has gotten into me? A few months ago I would gladly have accepted the challenge of looking for the Emeralds, even just as something to pass the time. And now? Now I can't be bothered? That's not like me at all!
Sonic sighed.
"Okay, Tails, I'll do it."
Tails' tails began to swish rapidly again and his ears perked up.
"That's the Sonic I know and love!" he cried. "I would come with you to find them, but I have work to do to the machine so that we can test the Emeralds as soon as you return with them, okay?"
Sonic nodded.
"Sure thing. I hope it won't take me too long. And hey, I just thought, this is a great excuse!"
Tails looked puzzled.
"Excuse? Excuse for what?"
Outside, a female voice called out.
"Sonic! Oh Sonic! Where are you? I know you're here somewhere, you always are when you aren't at home."
Sonic groaned loudly.
"It's Amy. And it would be a great excuse to get out of the date Amy had planned for us in the next few days. Hasn't she gotten the hint yet? She's a great girl, and not bad looking either, but ever since I saved her from Eggman, she's been hounding me, trying to get me to ask her out! I honestly don't see how she hasn't caught any of the hints I've been dropping her."
Amy knocked loudly at the door.
"Tails! Tails, let me in please? I know Sonic is here, so just let me in and we wont have any trouble, okay?"
Tails looked over at his friend and shrugged apologetically before going to the door to let Amy in. Sonic leapt off of his chair and ran into Tails' bedroom, taking refuge in his wardrobe. Tails had barely touched the door handle when Amy swung it open, knocking him to the floor.
"Oh Sonic!" she called in a lilting voice, "I know you're here! I can hear your heart beat and smell your sweat. See? That's how perfect we are for each other, we are so in tune!"
Sonic closed his eyes and silently hoped that Amy wouldn't find him, but to no avail. As if drawn to him instinctively, she made her way to Tails' wardrobe and opened the door to find Sonic pressed against the wall.
"Uh … Hi Amy." He said nervously.
Amy's face lit up as she grabbed his wrist and pulled him into a tight embrace. She planted a kiss on his cheek before letting him go.
"And how is my handsome hero?" She asked.
"I'm … er … I'm fine, thank you."
She continued to beam at him without a word, making Sonic extremely uncomfortable under that constant gaze.
"So," she said at length, "Are you eager for our date tomorrow evening?"
"Yeah, about that. Erm, I can't make it Amy."
Amy's face switched from pleasant to unpleasant in an instant. She glared at him as she grabbed both of his wrists firmly, preventing him from escaping.
"And why is that?" She asked, venom dripping from every word.
"Er, Tails has this idea, you see … I need to, er, I need to go away for a few days."
Amy rounded on Tails and stared him down with her vicious glare.
"Miles Prower!" she yelled, "What is my boyfriend saying? You are fuelling him with ideas to get away from me, are you?"
She advanced on the little fox menacingly.
"N-n-no! Not at all, Amy! It's just, he needs to collect the Chaos Emeralds, for this machi…"
Amy cut him off.
"I don't care what he needs to collect the Emeralds for, it can wait until after our date, can't it?"
Tails nodded, too afraid to speak or to say no. From behind Amy, Sonic let out a groan and shook his head.
"Right, that settles it then." Amy's face instantly reverted to the beaming smile as she turned back to face Sonic. "So we are all clear, are we Sonic? You will go looking for the Chaos Emeralds after our little date, okay?"
Sonic started to protest but was shot a look from Tails and decided it would be safer not to argue.
"Yeah, okay then."
"Good!" Amy kissed Sonic on the cheek again and turned to leave. "I'll see you at home later then, my handsome hero."
Sonic remained silent as Amy bid Tails farewell and left. When the door had finally closed behind her he breathed out a sigh.