AN: Sorry for the late update, I lost internet for a couple days XD Back up now so you can see I've been on a writing streak!
The World Gate Amplifier Eggman had created to Nega's specs was in the center of a large, open room. The machine at work had six of the seven Chaos Emeralds in it, arranged around a central pillar, much the way the gems were arranged on the Emerald Shrine of Angel Island. In place of the Master Emerald, however, was a type of chair set into the column. It was hooked up to all sorts of circuitry and contained straps for restraining its...occupant. Since Eggman had decided before he finished the machine that Maria would be its driver, the chair was understandably small. Somewhere in the future, a larger version of it was holding a white hedgehog.
There was some kind of knot in the pit of Eggman's stomach as he approached the central pillar. He'd been forced to wear extra durable gloves to handle the shrimpy hedgehog, who writhed wildly in his arms. That didn't bother him so much as her crying and pleas for her parents, which made him feel a certain sense of guilt.
"It's nothing personal really... You just have no idea of how important this is." One could even say he used a "kind" tone toward the victim.
Though the machine hadn't done anything to harm her, at least not yet...she cried even louder as each restraint was put into place. Eggman winced visibly at the desperate cries. "SHUT UP!" He groaned at the high pitched decibels piercing his ears. The baby's cries had even had an effect on the robots. Decoe and Bocoe were both watching the scene apprehensively perhaps, and Kunoichi had ignored orders to recharge, in favor of monitoring the baby's condition. Eggman sighed. "You're quite a brat, you know that?" he said as he turned on the machine, emerald powers starting to flow through the child.
Maria's ruby red eyes filled with a somehow lifeless spark. "Let us go," she said quite clearly, fixing the eerie gemstone eyes on Eggman.
"W-wha?!" Eggman took a startled step backwards. The eyes staring him down were now filled with tears, the little rugrat having gone back to her wails for help. Eggman was unmoved by the tears now, but the look...
A beeping comm system alerted the mad scientist a moment later. "Incoming...it's from the other side of the echo, Doctor," Decoe informed him.
Eggman was relieved to be away from the child. While his back was turned, Kunoichi and Bocoe went over to the child and made efforts to get her to stop crying. Even Bokkun, who'd been floating nearby, joined in, being the most clownish and effective to her. "What is it now?" Eggman finally responded. Whenever he turned back to the group, they were standing perfectly still and pretending they weren't interested in the babe.
"I see you finally acquired the Element, but what of the last emerald?" Nega inquired, twisting his gray-white mustache in mirror to Eggman.
"I could ask you the same," the bald human replied acidly. "I had to fix your little toy, you know."
"Hnn... Yes yes...that was a bit of surprise," Nega said, unperturbed. "He just returned a little while ago…empty-handed, unfortunately, but that means the target's back in this time." A grin spread across his face.
"Decided to gloat about things? Tell me I got something wrong?" The original Eggman scowled at his counterpart, regretting ever having made him.
"Oh no no...you chose well. The girl, eh? Metal 3 told me." He chuckled. "Don't worry about a thing, Eggman, together we are going to herald in the Eggman Empire which you have always dreamt of! With Earth and Mobius merged as one, and the future its new parallel, there will be nowhere to run or hide for your adversaries... Ah...but you know the parents will be coming to foil your plans? Our plans?"
"Your plans, Nega. Until the merger, I give you all credit," Eggman retorted. "I've fought Sonic on numerous occasions...true they may not have heralded the results I'd hoped for, but I've been expecting resistance the whole time."
"Ahh...yes, Sonic...but what are you going to do about Shadow?" Nega queried. "I do have a few things that might help..."
"Hmph...Shadow? Ahh I think I can handle him... He's still probably sore from that gunshot wound, not to mention the job Kunoichi did on him last night." Eggman shrugged. "He has a history of recklessness coupled with a loner streak in him, which is sure to get him in trouble when he sees the welcome wagon I've prepared."
"Ahh... For all our sakes, I hope you're right." Nega cut off communications, grinning inside at how little Eggman knew at this point about his foe.
"Sonic, can you hear me?" Uncle Chuck's voice rang through a wrist communicator he'd given his nephew before going through the gate generator's portal.
"Loud n' clear, Unc!" he replied, holding the device a few inches from his face. He was standing at the top of a step pyramid, though it was hardly ancient. Glowing cables filled with energy clung to the sides of various structures in the area, sparks emitting from one that was broken a few feet away. Whatever it had been powering, the remaining length of cable was dark. It was a bright, sunny day out with a few clouds etched on the sky, and small floating platforms lazily glided along the landscape. Though the apparent stone structures didn't look that complex, he was sure there was a story behind them that would make his head spin. He whistled. "You should see this, Unc, the future's somethin' else!"
"I am seeing it, actually," Chuck said through the communications device. "Amy's headband has been fitted with a digital camera. How are you doing?"
"A-okay here!" Amy said to the comm bracelet on her wrist.
Blaze's eyes surveyed the White Ruins, which she'd been in not more than two days ago. This was where she'd made the bold decision to steal the red emerald away from Nega before he could use it. This was where she'd made her stand. She looked toward the forest where she'd slipped into the aqueducts and sighed. It was a lovely place to behold...a place she and Silver had frequented. A perfect place for him to practice his psychokinesis…and a perfect place for an ambush.
"So, Extreme Gears aren't just air boards or bikes," Amy said, snapping Blaze out of her trance. "That should help while your ankle's healing, right?" She indicated the pink Ex Gears that Blaze had been given.
She nodded. "Yeah, it's a little hard to stand, but as long as I don't twist it again, I should be fine." Blaze's ankle had been put in a splint, but the modified Ex Gears Chuck Thorndyke had made would allow her to move while still on the mend.
Amy nodded again; she was holding onto the Pink Rose, her personal Ex Gear. Tails had had a hand in tuning it up, so she was quite confident she could keep up to Sonic reasonably well. In line with her active role in following Sonic, she had parted with her usual red dress. She wore pink sweats with a white stripe down the sides and a pink and white top that flared out as a small skirt at the bottom. She was ready to aid her lover in combat, and did a mental check to make sure she could materialize the Piko Hammer if needed be. "It's a little hard getting used to the skates, but they should offer you more flexibility than the board or bike, since you can still walk or run with them if they run out of air."
"Appreciated..." Blaze looked a little doubtful. "But what if I run out of air? We don't have Extreme Gears in my time."
"I keep a couple air cells on me." Amy shrugged. "Besides, just catching a nice breeze when you jump with them should keep them powered, they collect air too."
Blaze frowned a bit. Jumping? Not that it wouldn't strain her legs, though the air power would help cushion any blows…she just...didn't like heights. "...Right."
"So!" Sonic turned to the girls after finishing with Uncle Chuck. "Where's the bad guy?"
Blaze couldn't help smiling at his confidence. "Right...well...I was chased here from his base and I was running all morning so..." She looked off to the distance. "Other side of Misty Mountain." She pointed. "We can make it by nightfall if we hurry."
"Gotcha! Let's roll!" Sonic nodded and started the mad sprint to the goal, though he held back so the girls could keep up.
Mobius wasn't as sunny as the future at the moment. It was dark and rainy, the kind of gloomy scene Shadow coped with, but no longer existed in. His fur was getting soaked as the biplane flew him to Angel Island.
"Sorry about this! If Eggman's bots hadn't raided my hangar a few days ago we could've taken the X-Tornado," the two-tailed fox who piloted the machine called to his passenger.
A gigantic land mass was coming into view through the haze of rain glazing everything. As they got closer, he could make out the island's only unnatural feature: Echidnopolis. Mobius seemed to have a tendency for dimensional instability, and the remnants of Knuckles' people had been locked away in a pocket dimension until about two years ago when the city was returned to Mobius Proper. Shadow had only visited the island when he needed to and was unfamiliar with the city, though the fact it was almost exclusively populated with echidnas showed how isolationistic they tended to be. Indeed, it was rare to find an echidna outside this city, or the small clan of nomads who'd been left behind when Angel Island originally took flight. As they made the final approach, the rain died away, though the overcast stayed.
Knuckles didn't meet them at the Echidnopolis Airport. Instead, he was to be found in his most common haunt, the Emerald Shrine. "What kept you?" the monotreme asked while munching on a string of grapes. He hadn't changed much since the last time they'd seen him, though he was wearing a hat given to him by one of the island's previous guardians. The hat was an outback-style hat, bent up on one side, and sported metal stars stuck in the blue trim on it. It was light tan and matched the color vest he wore, which had frayed edges to it.
"Bad weather," Shadow said humorlessly.
Knuckles gave him an odd look. "Eh? That's all you can say? What about 'OH! How did you know we were coming?' or 'The emerald tell you we were on our way?'" The guardian hadn't been known for keeping in communication with others, and raising him for any event usually proved a challenge, as Sonic had to manually deliver the invitation to Shadow's party not too long ago.
Shadow was about to say something when Tails snapped his fingers together. "OH! That's right! How are you getting used to the new cell phone? I entered everyone's cell phone numbers for you since you're technologically impaired."
Knuckles' face turned as red as the rest of his body. "Oi...you're not supposed to spoil the mystery…." Knuckles frowned. A ringing noise came from his vest pocket. "Hold on..." He picked up the phone and glanced at it a minute.
"It's the green button on the left..." Tails said, tilting his forefinger just so.
"Right! I knew that..." Knuckles replied and hit the Yes button. "Hello? ...Julie? Yeah...I don't know, it's kind of important. Y-yeah…." There was a pause as he listened to Julie-su berating over something. "NO! You're not coming, okay? It's going to be dangerous and...!" He held the phone away from his head, not liking the indiscernible yelling coming out of the earpiece. "...You gotta watch the Master Emerald for me, okay? I won't be gone too long, then we can have that dinner." He didn't wait for a reply and clapped the cell phone shut. "Sorry about that."
"In a hurry?" Shadow asked in his most passive tone. He wanted to hurry too. He sensed the woman on the other end of the line was attached to Knuckles, and he was sure he'd heard the name before. He wondered what kind of woman she was if he was entrusting the Master Emerald to her care, and assumed she had to be "above average" like Amy was to Sonic. He actually felt relieved Sara wouldn't be following him into battle; the partnership might have been nice on the one hand, but any failure would directly affect the other.
"Well...sort of." Knuckles shrugged.
"How is Julie-su?" Tails asked in a more interested tone.
"Good, a bit upset. This is the anniversary of our first dinner date." He grinned a bit at the memory. While it could still be said women were his weakness, he'd become bolder around Julie-su since he'd seen Sonic and Shadow settle down before him; he was a year older than Sonic. "Won't matter if everything comes to an end, though." The smile faded from his face just as quickly. Before Shadow came along, he was the emo of the group, and the black and red hedgehog made him look positively cheerful.
"Then..." Shadow started, though he let Knuckles finish.
"Ahh...yeah, why you've come." He turned to the Master Emerald and held a hand up to it. Green light swirled around his hand and a faint vision twinkled in it briefly, the image of Tikal, followed by the image of her father Pachamac, followed by Chaos 0, Sonic, and Shadow. Another vision of a hedgehog none of them recognized flashed in the sparks of chaos energy, though the infant it showed briefly was Maria.
Shadow's heart raced when he saw that. "Maria!"
"Ahh... The emerald's been talkative lately," Knuckles finished. "It's usually quiet, but it keeps sending me images…."
"What do you mean the emerald's been talking?" Tails inquired curiously.
"I call it 'Inherent Will.'" Knuckles said in his most dramatic voice.
"Cut the crap, what does it mean, and where's Maria?" Shadow stated more than asked. His even and unemotional statements sent chills through the echidna's spine; didn't this guy have feelings?
"Ahh... Well it means that the emeralds pick up on the will of their users..." He glanced to the emerald and then back to them, his deep purple eyes a bit more reflective than usual. "The emeralds are not as neutral as we thought...like Chaos, they kind of feed on emotion...so they prefer a strong will. When a robot uses them, there's no will, good or bad."
"So who's inherent will is that showing?" Shadow pointed to the Master Emerald.
"Ahh...I don't know, even I can't get information that directly. I can see where they are, though. Six of them are in a very open room full of machines... Odd thing is I see two different versions of Eggman, and two different people were at the center of the machine…." Knuckles puzzled at that.
"We know. You're looking at the Chaos Emerald in two different time periods," Shadow informed him. "Now we need to find the ones in this time…."
Knuckles nodded. "Right...well then..."