Silver slowly opened his eyes. He was sitting in one of the numerous plain rooms they'd seen along the corridors. Metal walls and mass ordered furniture. He tried to raise his head, but a splitting pain struck him in the back of the head. He tried to feel it, but then he noticed his hands were cuffed behind his back.

"So, you are awake." Silver looked up, wincing as he remembered the bump. The voice came from a boy, around as tall as Sonic. Come to think of it, his face and hair resembled Sonic's as well, just a darker shade of blue. Who was this guy, Metal Sonic?

"I am Metal Sonic." Silver moaned. The Doctor had finally lost it! "Now," it continued. "What are you doing in the master's supply line?" There was a groan from beside him. Blaze was waking up as well.

"Where am I?" She looked around. "Why am I tied up," her gaze rested on Silver. "And why aren't you wearing anything?!" She'd obviously still not remembered everything.

"Can we not talk about this now?"

"No I'd rather like to know now, because everything's pointing to a rather bad situation." Silver pointed with his head to the Sonic copy in front of them.

"Except for the robots." Blaze looked around as well. Realization dawned on her.

"Sure, we'll talk later." The robot made a sighing noise. He tapped the side of his head and a miniature fat gentleman with a moustache that seemed to have stolen all the hair from his scalp and a red tailcoat. It was the notorious Dr Eggman.

"Sir," Metal Sonic saluted. "We've caught some intruders in drop 15. What do you want us to do with them?"

"Who are they?" the Eggman hologram crackled.

"We don't know yet."

"Describe one of them." Metal Sonic looked over at them.

"White male with aqua tattoos, thin, silver hair, wearing plain boxers…"

"Why are you describing his underwear?" Eggman asked. "I told you only to use the X-ray system in emergencies."

"Because that's all he's wearing, sir. I would not disobey your orders!" Eggman chuckled.

"Is there a young female with purple hair with him, by any chance?" he asked. The robot looked confused.

"Yes sir. How did you know?" The doctor's chuckle became a booming laugh.

"I think we just caught our little friend doing something they shouldn't be!" Metal continued to look confused.

"Why does everyone make that assumption?" Silver said to the hologram.

"Because it's the obvious one," Blaze said. Then she thought a little more. "And they have sick minds," she added. Dr Eggman stopped laughing, taking the comment as an insult.

"Throw Silver and Blaze in the freezer," he told Metal curtly. "They can finish off their 'good night' in there." Metal saluted as the connection was cut. He turned to the back of the room.

"You heard the master," he said to more unseen robots. "Take them to the freezer to finish up," he stopped. "What did the master mean?" He asked Blaze politely.

"Erm…" Blaze said, surprised by the level of A.I the robot possessed.

"That he needs to upgrade his robots sense of humor!" Silver put in. The robot turned to him.

"Thank you," it said. With a motion of his hand, two robots picked up the helpless teens and took them out of the room. Down the hall was a thick, barred metal door. In here the two were unceremoniously thrown.

"Eggman seriously needs a guest's room," Silver muttered sarcastically. Around them were thick metal walls, glistening from a coating of ice. A few barrels were lined along the back wall, the only markings being a big red danger sign. Blaze began working on her cuffs with her pyrokinesis.

"No good," she muttered. "Must be fireproof. What about yours?" Silver attempted to break his cuffs with his mind. No good. Then he thought of something.

"Come here," he told Blaze. A quick bit of manipulation took off her cuffs. "Eggman's getting lazy. Now try me." She did, but Silver's bonds had been fireproofed as well as psychic proof. "That's just my luck." He began looking for something to beat them against. Blaze lay against the wall. "You're awfully calm considering where we are." Silver began to shiver. "What do you know?"

"They're searching the base," she said, pointing to the wall, which resonated with the sound of clanging metal feet. "They haven't found Espio yet."

20 minutes later, and they were still stuck. Silver's shiver had increased, and the meager flames Blaze had managed to conger were going out fast.

"We're going to die in here, aren't we?" Silver was trying to sit comfortably with his hands still behind his back.

"Yes," Blaze told him. It had been too long for Espio to have left them. If he did find them, it would be too late. Their bodies would shut down in less than another twenty minutes if they weren't heated up.

"So, if I say anything, it won't come back on me, will it?" Blaze tried to give him a curious look, but her shivering made it impossible to read.

"What are you getting at, Silver?" Silver sighed. He was still nervous, but now it didn't matter.

"I like you, really like you. I've been trying to tell you all holiday, but…" he looked down. "I didn't think you felt like that, and I didn't want to lose you. You're my best friend, but I want to think of you as more then that. If you hate me, just say so." Silver couldn't meet her gaze, he was too embarrassed. He heard the scrape as she moved along the floor, trying to get away from him. He sighed. Then he felt her hand on his chin. He looked up at her. She was smiling, a gleam in her eyes.

"Silver," her voice wasn't angry, or hurt. Then she leaned close to him, pressing her warm body up against him.

"Wha…?" His surprise was cut off as her lips touched his. They felt like nothing else he'd ever felt before, warm and soft. Realizing enough of what was happening allowed him to kissed her back passionately. The kiss lasted a good 30 seconds, after which Blaze pulled away. She looked at Silver stunned face, his mind still trying to get a hold of what had just happened. She smiled at how innocent he was.

"If you two are quite done," said a voice from the door. "We have to get out of here!" Silver looked up from the beautiful form in front of him.

"You took your time Espio!" he said, a smile still plastered over his face.

They ran quickly through the corridors, following Espio's lead. "So why did you take so long?" Silver asked.

"Well, firstly when I saw Metal sneak up behind you two there wasn't time to warn you. So I went invisible to not be captured. After he finished his little talk, I followed you to the freezer, but he'd left a rear guard in case you tried anything."

"I really hate it how Eggman's making these things smarter!" Blaze said bitterly.

"Yes, anyway," Espio continued. "I had to cause a distraction to get it to move. And…" They rounded another corner, into what looked like Ground Zero. The walls were scorched and had buckled under the force of the expanding energy. The entire end of the corridor was completely vaporized, leaving a sphere of space a good fifteen metes in diameter. The earth below was a spider web of fissures that seemed to go deep into the mountain's core. Haphazard remains of many robots littered the floor, melded together into unusual shapes from extreme heat. Silver stared with a mixture of horror, surprise and longing.

"You set off the MOAB?!" Espio smiled. Blaze got angry about being left out of the loop again.

"What's the MOAB?" she asked.

"The Mother of All Bombs," Silver said. "Tails' best invention ever. An explosive as big as my fist capable of blowing through twenty meters of solid concrete. I've been dying to see one set off, but GUN said they're too valuable and dangerous to be given to minors," he snorted.

"Then how did you…?" Espio kept smiling.

"You don't want to know." Suddenly something dawned on Blaze.

"Hold on, you set off a massive bomb here?"

"Yes."

"Inside a possibly active volcano?" Espio looked at her, calmness still evident on his face, but not in his voice.

"Kuso!" he muttered in japanese, and started running for the exit, followed closely by Blaze and Silver. "I am so screwed."

As they reached the exit, the tremors started. The ground began to shake like a mad bull. A deafening boom followed. Silver felt like the Earth was going to crack open. They sprinted up the mountain, racing for their camp.

When they got there they found everyone already awake, hurrying to pack the tents away. Without their telltale gelled hair, Shadow and Sonic were nearly inseparable in appearance. No one was properly dressed, Knuckles wasn't wearing a shirt and Sonic had grabbed one of Tails' by mistake.

"What the hell's going on?!" Shadow called to the newcomers. He glanced at Silver and Blaze. "And…?"
"Don't ask!" Blaze told him. "It's been done already." Shadow nodded and continued working. A glow appeared at the top of the volcano.

"Lava!" Sonic stated the obvious. Leaving the rest of the stuff, the group sprinted down the mountain towards the safety of the sea. Other campers were following their example. Luckily, the lava was slow flowing so no one was injured. As they reached their block, Shadow rounded on Silver.

"What, by all that is holy, did you do this time?!"

"It's hopeless!" Sonic moaned. It was a day after the eruption and he was still trying to figure out who Shadow had been calling, and what the ARK was. He'd managed to rope Tails out of his self moping over his lost tools to get him to help. They weren't having any luck though. The password had been changed and all the information on the ARK was confidential, beyond even Tails' clearance would allow. They'd hit a brick wall.

"So what are you going to do Sonic?" Tails asked. Sonic's shoulders slumped.

"I give up! There's no possible way to find out who that was!" Tails stared at him.

"I just lost all respect for you Sonic," he said flatly. "Of course there's a way!"

"How?" Tails walked into the lounge room where Shadow was making a call to General Rose, his commanding officer.

"Hey Shadow," he said, eyes wide and innocent.

"What is it?" Shadow grunted.

"Who were you talking to a few days ago over the computer?" Sonic jumped so high his head nearly smashed on the low ceiling. Was Tails mad?! Shadow could kill him if he thought he'd been spying. Then he'd kill Sonic because he knew about it.

"My friend Maria. She lives on the space colony Ark." Sonic's jaw dropped.

"Thanks."

"No problem kiddo." Tails walked over to Sonic, still staring with his mouth wide.

"How did you…?" he managed to splutter. Tails gave him an evil grin.

"If people don't think you're doing something wrong, then they don't hide what isn't dangerous." Tails nearly skipped off, leaving the dumbstruck Sonic where he stood.

Blaze was on the roof again, thinking about what had happened over the last few days. She'd nearly died twice, been teased, beaten, frozen, and knocked out. But none of that seemed to worry her anymore. All that she could think about was Silver saying those words. "I love you." Now that they both knew how the other felt, what would happen. Would they just drift, pretending it hasn't happened. Or maybe, maybe…

"Hey!" Silver floated up onto the roof next to her. He'd gotten dressed since their adventure, wearing his black jeans and aqua shirt. "General Rose let us off the hook," Silver told her. "Disabling one of Eggman's supply routes made up for using the MAOB. He even forgot about that incident in town."

"Did they manage to get anything on the Doctor?"

"They got most of his supplies, but the robots and Metal Sonic managed to escape." Blaze nodded. GUN hadn't managed to get in for a good three hours, so they had no chance of catching something as advanced as the Sonic copy. It was probably smarter than the original anyway.

"Anything else?" She waited to see whether he'd bring up what had happened the night before. She prayed he would.

"Well…um…ahehe." Silver looked at his feet, scratched the back of his head and chuckled. Now that his adrenaline rush was over, his nerves struck him again. Blaze gave him a gentle smile.

"Still nervous, are we?" Silver just nodded, still examining his boots. She lifted his chin, looking deep into his eyes. All she saw there was an honest, pure happiness and feeling. Then she gave him another exhilarating kiss. "How about now?" He smiled.

"I love you," he said, exactly like she'd wanted him to. They kissed again on the roof of what was now their paradise.