The forest on this planet was very similar to the forest in the Hex. They had animals scurrying across the floor, and birds took off in flight when they approached, and the trees followed the winds pattern.
Jade missed the Hex. It made her stomach churn when she thought of it. Where were her brothers and sisters now? Were they here on earth with her?
"What 'cha thinkin' about?" Charmy moved from in front of her to be next to her. She hadn't realized just how far behind Espio and Vector she was.
"Nothing, Charmy." She insisted but it wasn't good enough for the bee boy. "I'm just thinking about home." She added.
"Why are your eyes green now? They were white an hour ago."
"Are they green now?" Jade reached up and touched the corner of her eyes. "They just become like that when I use my power. How's your foot doing?"
"Much better now thanks to you."
"Good."
Suddenly Espio stopped, and he put his arm out for Vector to stop. He was looking in the air.
"What's that sound?" Charmy started to look around.
Vector and Jade were the only ones deaf to the sound for several more moments. Jade heard the buzzing die down suddenly.
"Is it gone?" Charmy asked Espio.
"No, it's just landed." The words forced itself out of Jade's head. As if on cue, they all heard six robotic footsteps approaching them. They soon found out the robot's guns were trained on them.
"Ha-ha, I've finally found you!" Eggman's voice echoed through the forest. He was just above them in a half circle flying machine. "And now thanks to you I have to find all of the Chaos Emeralds again!"
"So why don't you just go find them, Eggman? We obviously don't have them so you're wasting your time here!" Vector yelled. Espio watched the robots with caution.
"Ho, ho, is that what you think? Well you have one right in front of you. A walking, talking, breathing Chaos Emerald."
"What's he talking about?" Espio demanded.
Jade didn't want to explain there and then. "I promise I'll explain everything when we get out of this."
"You assume you're getting away again. We'll just see about that. Grab her!"
One of the robots started toward them but Espio was the one that started the fight.
Zavok was surprised to see how sophisticated this place was compared to the now abandoned military lab that was stationed on the Hex. Tails and Sonic didn't seem at all impressed with this monstrous machine.
He stopped at a window and looked out below. Did Jade see this same view at one point? He had to admit it was quite a view. Jade would describe it as beautiful.
"You okay?" The young fox didn't touch him, in fact he stood a few feet farther than he should have. He must have been wary of the Zeti.
"Yeah. Lets just find Jade so we can go home."
The two led the way again and he followed behind. Soon they came across a room that might as well shouldn't have existed. Half of the roof was blown off and the bulletproof glass was shattered, most of it was gone, in fact. Robots raced to fix the mess. In the middle of the room was a giant X and surrounding it were smaller X's for a total of eight. What did Eggman attempt to do?
A red robot, he knew as Orbot, laid lazily near them. Upon hearing the door open and close he shot up and turned to the group but immediately went back to his comfortable position.
"Oh, it's just you." He yawned.
"What do you mean 'just you'?" It was a pointless question for Sonic to ask.
Tails seemed to have the same thought. "What happened here?" he asked quickly before the robot could answer.
Cubot looked over from sweeping in a corner. "Well we had the Gem girl but then there was this HUGE flash of light and…" The robot was talking nonsense. Zavok couldn't follow his story it skipped around from beginning to ending to the middle.
"Let me tell the story, Cubot, you keep sweeping." Orbot got up, his hands folded in front of him. "Well we did have Jade at one point. Eggman was attempting to extract the Chaos Emerald from her. But something went wrong. My calculations were correct. The extraction would have been 100% successful. However when the Chaos Emerald appeared Jade's body should have been emptied of all life and the opposite happened. Suddenly all of the Chaos Emeralds disappeared and she went berserk. Within 60 seconds not only was this whole place destroyed but I suspect she may have scattered the Emeralds."
"Alright Jade!"
Tails glared at his friend.
Zavok finally spoke up, "Where is she now?" He demanded.
"Sadly I do not know. She disappeared from our radars soon after the Emeralds scattered. Eggman went to go look for her. Lets see if he's found her!" The robot showed them up to a balcony, a safe viewing room for Eggman to hide in. This room remained untouched minus the glass that shattered but somehow stayed in tact.
Orbot pulled up a video feed from Eggman's flying machine he often stayed in when he went out on the Hex. Zavok knew it all too well and seeing it again made him angry.
It was on the ground for some reason and Jade approached it. She was unharmed! Zavok could feel a weight on his chest lift up.
"Jade! Don't get too close!" The voice was of a child's and unfamiliar to him.
"I'll be fine." She assured the voice. She rummaged around in the pod, when she came back into view she held a device like what Tails used to communicate. "It looks like it has the Chaos Emeralds locations…"
The video feed cut out, the last thing he heard was her screaming as she tripped over the camera.
"Who was she with?" He asked the two.
"I didn't recognize the voice." Tails admitted.
The weight on Zavok's chest returned.
"Lets head home and regroup. She must be with a group she trusts." Sonic was right. There was no use in staying on this ship any longer.
"Oh take me with you!" Orbot begged. "I hate being up here."
"No." Sonic and Tails said in unison as they walked out. Zavok followed the two.
When they returned Zik expected for Zavok to have Jade. He was greatly disappointed when he didn't see the young girl, smiling brightly, and insisting she was fine. Zavok's look was dark. Had something happened to her?
Everyone gathered around the group.
"Good news," Tails spoke directly at Zik, "Jade's fine."
"So then where is she?" Zor asked.
"That's the bad news. We have no idea. What we do know is she escaped Eggman using all of the Chaos Emeralds and it's possible they scattered themselves. Unfortunately we don't know what Eggman is planning so I will have to look as we're searching for the Chaos Emeralds."
Zomom tilted his head. "I don't understand."
Zeena rolled her eyes.
"So it means you aren't looking for her after all." Zor sighed, depressed. "I knew it. Don't trust anything you two say. I knew it and I told you all."
"That isn't what I was saying." Tails was desperately trying to get ahold of the situation before it got out of hand.
"What do you mean you won't look for her?" Zeena yelled.
"If they won't look for her then I will and I'll destroy anything that gets in my way!" Zazz announced.
Tails looked directly into Ziks eyes. "I just have to multitask is all I'm saying. But the Chaos Emeralds are a priority to me and Sonic. She is one so we'll have to focus all of our attention on her at some point."
Zik turned to his students. "Enough!" He shouted. "It seems that they believe she is in no danger. They are postponing the search until they know their world is safe. While they do that, however, we have to go back to the Hex to make sure our world is safe. Zavok," he turned to his oldest pupil, "you will go with them. If you suspect Jade is in any danger your priority will be to search for her with or without their help." Even if that means destroying anything, is something he wanted to add but he didn't want to alarm their helpers. Zavok seemed to understand anyway.
"I will, Master." He bowed his head.
"Good. Let us go, then."
As the other five Zeti left Sonic finally felt like he could relax. He half wished Zavok went with his master. But maybe having some extra muscle wouldn't be too bad. He couldn't imagine what Zavok was going through. What would Sonic do in his situation?
He turned over in his bed so he stared at the wall. If Tails suddenly disappeared he'd never stop looking for him. He would probably not even bother to search for the Chaos Emeralds.
Sonic shook his head, ridding the thought from his brain and allowing him to close his eyes and relax more. But sleep wouldn't overtake him. After staring at the inside of his eyelids for hours he finally went outside where the Zeti slept. Zavok stared at the sky and his eyes were tracing the stars.
"What are you looking at?" Sonic asked him.
"Nothing." He lied. His eyes were cold toward him.
Sonic shrugged and looked up at the stars. The moon was full and it lit up everything around them. "Tails is looking up the first of the Chaos Emeralds. As soon as we can we'll head there. If we're lucky we'll come across Jade on our way. Then you two can go home."
This fact didn't seem to assure Zavok.
"Hey, at least she's okay." He added.
But Zavok never relaxed. His eyes were trained on him. He couldn't relax.