Emerald Search
"Okay Sonic, hand me the small screwdriver again." Up to his waist under the Tornado's pilot seat, Tails held his right hand up, vaguely aiming for where the hedgehog sat on the wing of the biplane.
Sonic grinned and picked up the tool, placing it in Tails' waiting hand. "Anything else you need?"
For a few seconds Tails didn't reply and Sonic wondered if he'd maybe missed on his words, but then the fox heaved out a sigh and pulled himself out of the weird position he'd been in. His face and arms were streaked with black stains of oil, but he was smiling. "Nope," he finally answered the hedgehog's question. "I'm all done. The Tornado is ready to go again."
"We just need to know where to go," Sonic remarked, hopping off the wing and following Tails when the fox strolled over to the computer at the desk in the corner of the hangar again.
"I was about to get to that." Tails pressed a button, awakening the device from stand-by. He looked around the workshop briefly. "Where's Knuckles?"
Sonic shrugged a little. "I think I saw him go upstairs. Guess he'll be back, probably once he realized you're no longer trying to teach him mechanics." He shot his brother a grin.
Tails didn't return it. "I wasn't! At first, I was only trying to cheer him up. He looked... really down, you know."
"Yeah, I know. He felt..." Sonic hesitated over how to even call Knuckles' mood when he'd come up to the kitchen to talk to him. "He felt guilty for thinking I'd stolen his Emerald," he settled after a moment of thought, unsure what else to call it. "And he thought he'd failed his duty as guardian, but somehow I think it was worse this once that he'd wrongly called me a traitor." It felt odd in a way, now that he reflected on it, that the fact the Emerald was gone had not seemed the worst thing weighing on the echidna's conscience this time.
His hand was still placed next to the keyboard, but Tails wasn't paying attention to the computer anymore. Big blue eyes were focussed on Sonic. "I figured that much. I tried talking to him after I patched him up, but you know him, he's not often all that talkative..."
A wry grin passed over Sonic's face. "Glad I'm not the only one stuck doing a monologue here then."
"You did?" Tails' ears twitched; Sonic wasn't sure if in amusement or bewilderment.
"Yeah. I had to do something, and punching sense into him obviously didn't work." Sonic tried a wink.
It did nothing to fool his younger brother. Tails kept looking at him intently, and Sonic knew he could read him like an open book no matter what he said, or didn't say. And Tails was also the last person Sonic would try hiding anything from, but he felt uncomfortably like betraying rarely given confidences if he shared any details on the moment up in the kitchen even with his little bro.
After a moment of silence, Tails nodded. "Seems like you did not so bad a job at holding a monologue then," he said. "Now we'll just have to find him his Emerald back. I don't like him being all tense like this. He still looks at you all odd."
"He does?" Sonic raised an eyebrow. He hadn't noticed that. Knuckles was always tense when his Emerald was gone...
Tails studied him for a moment. "Yeah. Maybe he still feels bad about suspecting you and expects you to... I dunno." He shrugged. "Be mad, or something."
Sonic shook his head. Here's hope being mad is the worst thing he expects me to be... "I'll have to try extra hard helping him get the shiny rock back then, until he understands I'm not going to be mad," he said carefully.
"I suggest we all do." Tails gave him a smile that was more understanding and reassurance than he could have put into another monologue, then he turned back to the screens that now once again showed a map of sorts, getting back to their plans.
For a moment Sonic watched him work, feeling more at ease than he'd had since his disrupted attempt to buy breakfast in the morning. He hoped Tails knew how awesome he was.
The two-tailed fox continued speaking even while he was typing, tearing Sonic away from his thoughts. "I… kinda hacked a few satellites, connected the readings to that chaos detector over there," he pointed at a small device on the desk, "and programmed a search for the Master Emerald's typical energy outlet. The system won't get us anything accurate, but we'll get a search area. Since we have Knuckles with us and he can find the Emerald by instinct if he's close enough, I guess we can just fly a search pattern until he picks up something."
Sonic grinned at the thought. "Like a walking talking Emerald douce."
Tails briefly looked up at him. "Don't let him hear that."
The blue hedgehog chuckled. "I bet I better don't. It's enough he almost broke my neck this morning…"
"Uh-huh." Tails nodded, but obviously bit down on the comment Sonic had seen flicker over his face for a second there.
On the screen, the chart had zoomed in and a red blinking circle showed around a coastline.
"Where's that?", Sonic asked, leaning closer.
Tails too was reading the map. "The area around the city of Soleanna," he observed. "Never heard of it. How do you pronounce that? Sole-anna? So-leanna?"
"Not sure, but I guess I ran through there once or twice. They got some really awesome fireworks festival there." Sonic shrugged lightly. "Looks still like a lot of space to search," he noticed.
Tails nodded. "About 200 square kilometers. That's really the closest result I can get, I'm afraid."
"Nah, it should be fine and –" Sonic interrupted himself when the circle marking their search area suddenly decreased in size, steadily shrinking towards its middle until it was only half a big as before.
Tails stared. "What the… There's gotta be some sort of interference…"
"Hey guys, what's up? Something happened?" Chewing on a piece of apple, Knuckles walked up to the others.
"Stop!" Tails waved at the echidna.
Knuckles froze. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know. Could you go back for me?" Tails still stared intently at the screen.
"What?" Knuckles looked dumbfounded. "Am I disrupting some kind of secret you two have there?"
Sonic shrugged. "Trust me, I got no idea what's up…"
"Just go backwards a bit, okay?", Tails urged.
"Alright, if it makes you happy…" The apple half in one hand, Knuckles walked backwards to the other side of the workshop.
"Okay, stop and come back here, but slowly," Tails commanded.
The guardian frowned, but complied.
Sonic looked between him and Tails. "What's wrong, Tails?"
"I'm not sure. It seems as if Knuckles kind of changes the signal." He pointed at the screen. "Look, the closer he comes to the table, the smaller the indicated search area becomes."
Sonic scratched behind his ear. "But that's good, isn't it? If it's smaller, we can find the Emerald faster."
"Yes, but I don't understand what's happening…"
Still a couple meters behind the others, Knuckles was beginning to look irritated. It was a familiar look on his face and Sonic found it almost comforting to see it. "Hey, anyone bothering to tell me what the heck is going on?"
Sonic grinned. "Your being here boosts Tails' Emerald tracking thingy or something."
"What?" Knuckles came over all the way and leaned over Tails shoulder.
"I don't know, Knuckles," Tails started. "You see, I used this to roughly track down the Master Emerald to help us find out where to start looking for it and –"
"One can track down the Master using a simple computer?" Knuckles looked a little shocked now, Sonic found.
"Uh, it's not a simple computer, Knuckles," Tails clarified. "But yes, if you try hard enough you can, not very accurately though, tell where the Master Emerald is. But don't worry, that's normal. It radiates energy and of course one can pick up that energy…"
The red echidna still looked rather unhappy about that.
"But it's really not very helpful, Knux," Sonic soothed. "Look, Tails' search area is 200 square kilometers wide. That's huuuuuuge! Angel Island is a lot smaller than that. So, it's of no use for any Emerald thieves. That it's usually on the island is a known fact anyway."
Knuckles looked a little relieved at that and Tails shot Sonic a thankful look. "But since you're here," the young fox continued, "the readings have gotten more accurate. When you came back into the room, our search area reduced to a half of its original size."
The echidna blinked. "How?"
Tails shook his head. "I don't know. I could imagine your close energetic link to the Master Emerald could work like an amplifier. Or you're like some sort of antenna to the detection device…"
Sonic and Knuckles exchanged a weird look. "Let's just be happy we don't have to search as much places as before," the hedgehog said.
"What do we do now?", Knuckles asked.
"Now," Tails grinned and turned around to the others, "now we take the Tornado and go find your Emerald of course!"
Knuckles smiled and took a bite of his apple, speaking through a mouthful. "That was the best thing you said all day."
Silently, Sonic disagreed. Tails had said nothing but great things today.
In level flight at just 500 feet altitude, the Tornado was travelling almost parallel to the coastline now. They had flown over the city a few times without much of a result. Since they'd left it behind, instead of houses and streets grassy hills and rocks formed the landscape beneath the biplane's double wings. The coast had a jagged form here, with hundreds of small bays interrupted by the occasional longer stretch of beach. The ocean was an almost unnatural royal blue that turned lighter shades of turquoise just in a very thin line where it met the golden sand of the broad beaches.
Sitting on the left upper wing, Sonic's fingers were firmly locked about its trailing edge. Riding backwards on the plane, the strong winds tugged hard at his quills. The hedgehog gazed at the sea below the wing. It was calm and showed just a very few white crests. In contrast to some other oceans he'd seen, like the really beautiful sea of Adabat for example, the dark colour of the water in spite of its great clarity told him the sea shore fell steeply. Sonic didn't like deep water much. No, he didn't like water much at all. The deeper, the worse…
And yet, in spite of its dread, in spite of the danger and the uncomfortable chill the sight of the ocean sent down his spine, it was beautiful. As long as he didn't need to go into it, Sonic kind of enjoyed looking at the sea.
"Go back around, Tails!" Knuckles' sudden words cutting into the silence, disturbed only by the noise of the plane's propeller, brought Sonic fully back to reality.
"Did you pick something up?", Tails asked, banking the plane into a gentle turn.
"Yes, but we passed it already," Knuckles replied.
"I'm going back," Tails affirmed.
Knuckles merely nodded. Sonic watched his friend. The echidna sat stiffly now, upright and straight, but his eyes were firmly closed. Sonic guessed it was easier to concentrate on the Master Emerald's energy that way. It was like that with the Chaos Emeralds, after all. From all Sonic knew, the differences couldn't be so large.
"Stop, it's getting weaker again," the echidna suddenly said.
Tails frowned. "This is a plane, not a helicopter. We can't just stop. We'd stall. Can you stop when gliding?"
"Then go around again," Knuckles urged, irritation obvious in his tone.
Sonic bit back a chuckle and leaned down a little to look at what was below. There was nothing much that met the eye; just a long, flat beach surrounded by hills and rocks. The waves lazily rolled out on the fine sand, too quiet to hear over the propeller noise. For a moment Sonic thought he'd spotted a building, not much larger than a hut at one end of it, but then they passed it and it vanished under the wing.
"We're past it again," Knuckles noticed.
"How close do you think we are?", Sonic asked. "I can't really see anything down there."
"It's still weak," the echidna explained slowly. "I don't think it's right below us yet."
Again Tails brought the plane around. "I'll bring us a little more inland then. It should be getting stronger."
But they flew past the beach just half a kilometer from the sea without Knuckles picking anything up. Curiously Sonic watched him, the strain that was evident in the tight lines at the corners of his closed eyes. "And? Finding anything?"
"No…" The guardian's voice was quiet.
Sonic and Tails exchanged a look. "I'll fly back to the beach again. Just tell me when it's the strongest, okay?"
"Hmm." Knuckles nodded weakly, too concentrated to really speak.
Sonic's look alternated between his friend and the ground they flew past. They went back over the hills to the spot where they dropped towards the beach.
"It's back," Knuckles said. Tails started to bank into a course parallel to the coast again, but the echidna didn't seem to like it. "No, the direction is good!"
Tails put the wings back into level, looking over his shoulder. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." Knuckles' eyes were still tightly shut.
Sonic twitched his ears, shifting his position a little so he could see where they were going. "But there's nothing but water… You don't think whoever stole it dropped it into the sea, do you?"
Knuckles didn't comment and Tails just shrugged. Uneasily Sonic turned back to look at the water. It was still deep blue, but the vague outlines of underwater rocks you could see through it had changed their shape. They didn't seem as rough anymore here. Almost round instead.
"A little more to the left," Knuckles advised and Tails complied silently this time.
They flew for another few minutes, the beach became harder to spot in the distance, then the echidna finally said something again. "I think we passed it."
"Are we close?", Tails asked, twin namesakes wagging behind him in excitement.
"Still several hundred meters minimum," Knuckles answered, tipping his head aside, listening to something only he could hear. "But we weren't closer anytime before."
"That's great, isn't it?" Tails smiled. "I'll orbit a few times. Maybe that'll help you."
Knuckles nodded distractedly. "Okay."
Sonic stared into the sea while the Tornado flew a wide circle, then another one. The hedgehog strained his eyes to see though the water. The Master Emerald was glowing… would you be able to see it? He didn't know how deep the water was here. It sure looked pretty deep… Maybe the glow couldn't reach the surface. "And? What do you think?", he asked after the third full circle.
Knuckles shrugged a little. "It doesn't really get stronger anymore. We're somewhere above it, but we can't seem to get any closer no matter where Tails flies…" Finally he opened his eyes, leaning out of his seat to look down the side of the plane. For a few seconds he said nothing at all, then he slowly looked up at the others. "Do you think it fell into the water?"
"I don't know. Maybe the thief got a submarine or something," Tails threw in.
"Uh-huh…" Sonic numbly gazed into the water. "How deep do you think it is here?"
"I'll do another 360 and run a scan," the fox replied, pressing some of the numerous buttons on the biplane's dashboard.
"It doesn't matter. I have to get it back," Knuckles said, also looking down again.
Sonic warily gazed at him. "What do you plan to do? Jump down and dive?"
"Unlike you, I can dive," the echidna gave back, but it didn't sound much like an insult, more like a simple statement.
Sonic grimaced and let it pass silently. For almost a minute everyone was quiet. "Maybe we can rent a boat and diving gear for you at the city," the hedgehog trailed then.
Knuckles looked up at him in disbelief. "You'd get on a boat to help pick the Master Emerald up?"
Sonic shrugged awkwardly. "Uh, I wouldn't like doing it much, but yeah I would. I promised I'd help you."
Another two, three seconds passed with Knuckles staring at the hedgehog as if he didn't know what to say to that, then Tails broke the silence. "Guys? I don't think we'll need a boat. Or any diving gear, for that matter."
"What?" Sonic blinked. He knew he looked stupid now.
"The sea's roughly 500 meters deep here. It'd be too deep for scuba diving anyway. We'd need a submarine." Tails shook his head. "But that's not all. I think we can get the Emerald back without getting wet at all."
Sonic and Knuckles exchanged a blank look. "What?", the hedgehog repeated himself.
Tails didn't look at him. He still stared at the small screen that announced the results of the scan. "There's a building down there."
Sonic felt his jaw drop and he needed a second of effort to force it close again. "A building? Like in… a house?"
"I don't think 'house' is the right term…" Tails shook his head slowly. "Whatever it is, it's huge. There are cupolas, a hundred meters in diameter, connected though large tubes along the sea bed. It's like an underwater space station or something… It's amazing. Whoever built this thing… they had really advanced technology…"
"Yeah, like Eggman." Knuckles' dry remark seemed to put a small dent on Tails' fascination.
"You think he's behind this?"
The echidna shrugged. "Isn't he always behind something like this?"
"He's got a point," Sonic agreed. "Eggman always builds weird stuff… and I can see him stealing Emeralds. That's not a first either. No idea how he managed to look like me, though…"
"He probably manipulated the cameras or something," Tails suggested. "It's not so hard, really."
Knuckles didn't appear too interesting in Eggman or Sonic's mysterious imposter at the moment. "How do we get inside that underwater base or whatever it really is?"
"I don't know, but there has to be some sort of exit." Tails turned the plane around. "We'll fly back towards the coast and check out how far this building goes. Maybe it hits land somewhere."
Sonic nodded a little. Even if it did… he didn't like the idea of going into something that was underwater. Under a lot of water, even. What if there was a leak somewhere and it got flooded while they were in there searching for the Master Emerald? They'd all be doomed. They'd drown! They –
The hedgehog forced himself to take a slow breath. Calm down, Sonic. Whoever built this base thing certainly made sure it's safe. Anything else would be stupid. If you build a space station you also make sure everything's properly sealed and you don't get sucked into space. If you build an underwater station, you make sure you don't drown in your sleep. Yeah, it's just like a space station. As long as you stay inside, you're fine.
Sonic chewed his lip, trying to force himself to believe it.
"We're lucky!", Tails suddenly exclaimed. "There's a long tunnel leading right up towards the beach. I think there have to be more exits. The constructor had to make sure you can still get in and out in case one tunnel collapses or something and you have to seal it."
See, Tails also thinks it's safe. Sonic fought a grimace. Sure, it's perfectly safe. Just don't get sealed somewhere…
"Sonic? You okay?" Tails' blue eyes met the hedgehog's greens.
Sonic shrugged, forcing on a smile. "Yeah, great."
"It's okay if you don't like underwater tunnels and bases," Tails said and Sonic uncomfortably shifted his weight when he found himself so easily sussed out. "We'll look out for you down there. Right Knuckles?"
Even the echidna nodded a little. "Yeah, sure."
"See? It's alright." Tails smiled up at him.
Hesitantly Sonic smiled back, but for real this time. At least he wasn't alone… although he was a little surprised when the mocking comments about his fear of water from Knuckles' direction didn't come. Maybe the echidna was too busy thinking Master Emerald to bother teasing him…
"The tunnel seems to end right at the beach," Tails informed the others. "Check out this small building over there. I guess it could be the way in."
Knuckles leaned out of the plane to see it himself. "Looks more like some hut."
"Maybe that's just a disguise. We'll land and check it out, okay?" Receiving a nod, Tails reduced the Tornado' speed and lined up for a landing on the sand. It was flat and firm enough under the tires. The wheels touched down softly and the biplane rolled out across the beach until stopping at the end of it. Tails turned it around so it could easily start again later and shut down the engine.
Knuckles was the first to hop down. He shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun with one hand as he gazed towards the other side of the beach where the small hut or whatever it really was sat between rocks. "Are we ready to check it out?", he asked somewhat urgently.
Tails jumped off the plane as well. "Sure!"
Reluctantly Sonic followed his friends and they strolled over the beach. The small hut, though it looked wooden, revealed itself to be made of metal with a thick layer of paint from a close look. Its door opened easily, but behind it they encountered a second door, one that looked at lot more like high-tech base than the cover outside.
For a few seconds Tails fiddled with a control panel that sat on the wall next to it, then the door slid open with the soft buzz most automatic, sealing door gave out. Behind it, bathed in a green-tinted light, lay a long corridor with walls, floor and ceiling all metallic.
"Voilá!" Tails gestured inside. "Here we go."
Knuckles smirked. "Good job, Tails."
The young fox beamed at the rare praise. "Do we go in?"
Following the others, Sonic listened to the quiet clanks his footsteps caused on the floor. Knowing he'd just get himself into a silly panic, he did his best to distract himself from the knowledge the father they went the more water was all around this small tunnel. Dark, cold, wet water… Water you could drown in…
He forcefully shook his head, spines rattling against one another with the movement. This was leading him nowhere.
The hedgehog twitched his ears. Aside of their audible footsteps, this place was strangely quiet. It wasn't all uncomfortable. Something about the green and bluish lighting was peaceful. The tunnel was leading downwards at a gentle slope and in soft turns. Every few hundred meters an automated thick door like the first one separated one part of the tunnel to the next. Probably the safety seals Tails had mentioned.
Sonic looked around. So far they had met no resistance, no robots, no automatic guns, no spike traps. The walls showed installations he recognized as outlets for laser fences, but none of them were active. Right now, this place seemed pretty much dead and deserted.
"Do you really think Eggman built this?", Tails asked after long minutes of quiet walking.
Sonic shook his head. "I dunno." His voice echoed a little from the blank walls around. "It's not really his colour scheme. And there are no robots, and no Eggman logos everywhere."
"Maybe that comes later," Knuckles remarked. "But no matter who built all of this, we're on the right way."
"Well, that's good I guess," Sonic allowed. He had to admit as the minutes ticked by eventlessly, he was starting to feel almost safe around here. He almost forgot they even were underwater.
After ten minutes, they reached the first dome. A huge, spherical room dressed in pale bluish metal. Three other corridors continued from here. The three friends stood in the middle of it for a while, taking everything in.
"Where do we go now?", Tails asked. "This place is so big…"
Knuckles pointed. "This way."
Sonic smirked. "You sure?"
The echidna shrugged. "Yeah?"
"Well, let's go. We better find your Emerald and get out of here again before someone comes home," the blue hedgehog pointed out. No matter how deserted the place looked to him, he couldn't fight the feeling that something was wrong. No traps, no laser fences, no robots.
This was way too easy. And with places like this, easy was never any good.
