Prisoners

When Sonic woke up, he was still curled into a tight ball. Every muscle in his body felt cramped and tense. For a few moments the hedgehog lay still, listening, then he unfurled himself and ended up flat on his belly, arms and legs spread out and his cheek against the floor.

The ground was cool to the touch and it felt surprisingly good. Sonic stayed where he was for quite some time, consciously forcing especially the muscles on the back of his head and his shoulders to go limp. You could keep your spikes erect only for some time until your entire backside cramped up. Sonic lifted a hand and brushed his quills down several times until he'd persuaded them to fully relax. Then he just lay on the cool floor, trying to rest his body and probably get his mind back working.

He needed considerably long for the latter. He had no idea how long he'd been out and the events of last night, or whatever time it had been before he'd fallen asleep, were but a blur to him. If he wasn't so sore all over and had wakened up in any other place but on plain floor in a dark room, he would have been tempted to put it all off as a nightmare. Right now he wasn't even sure how much of it had been a nightmare, after all.

After a while he opened his eyes, staring at the silhouette of the fingers of his right hand that limply lay on the floor next to his face. He moved his index finger a little, drawing it over the ground. Another few moments passed with Sonic staring at his hand in numb stupor, then his dazed mind caught up.

He could see his hand. Not much more than a shape of it, but he could see something. It felt like forever since there'd been anything but total blackness.

The realization that he could see again was almost electrifying. Sonic sat up quickly, wincing briefly when he pulled things that didn't appreciate being pulled, but then he'd forgotten about it and was holding his hands up in front of his face, turning them around as if he'd never seen them before. It felt a little like that to him, anyway. He clenched and unclenched his hands, wriggled his fingers, then looked at the rest of himself. The white gloves and his socks and shoes were much better to make out in the dark than the tan skin on his arms and belly, and the blue fur that covered most of his body was still invisible. But he could see something again and for a few short moments Sonic felt like a happy child that was having a birthday.

When the magic of the moment slowly wore off, the blue hedgehog realized that the fact he could see a bit again meant there had to be light again and he looked around, straining wide open eyes to search for it. Everything left of him was pitch black, but from the right a dim light was pouring over the floor.

Sonic picked himself up, his spirits reviving a little at the prospect of light. Slowly he began walking towards it. The truth was, he wanted to get there as quickly as possible, but his sore body didn't feel like running right now. It's not that I have a lot of other things to do at the moment, he thought.

About ten minutes later he stood in front of a wall, the same high, spotless kind he'd seen way too much recently. But this one had a slit, a straight gash the bit of light that had guided him here was flowing out of. Sonic knocked his knuckles against the wall next to it. It didn't seem overly sturdy…

He stepped back about a meter, gave the wall a challenging glare, then lowered himself to the ground. He wanted out of this creepy place and this stupid wall wasn't going to stand in his way. Hunkering on the floor, he tucked into a spiky ball, giving his body a spinning momentum by jerking forwards and simultaneously pushing off with his feet. The impulse was enough to let his body do one revolution on the spot and when it was almost finished he pushed again, and again, and again, speeding up the rotation on the spot, then he dashed forwards.

The spin dash let him crash into the wall spines first and with a noise like grass splintering it crumbled and gave way. Sonic was flung with parts of the debris, bounced a few times over some kind of floor that felt incredibly springy before running out of momentum and stopping.

He came out of his ball and remained on all fours, blinking quickly. His eyes stung sharply and he could feel water run down his cheeks, but he couldn't see anything but bright light. At first, it scared him, and he wiped his eyes with one hand to try and find out what was wrong with them, then he realized he was just majorly blinded after all the time he'd spent in utter darkness.

Since they were still as useless as before, Sonic closed his eyes for now and instead tried to rely on his other senses. His pointy ears twitched to some quite, gentle tingling sound that seemed to come from all around. Sonic tilted his head. It was a little like the sound the golden rings made when you collected them and their energy was absorbed into your body, just a lot quieter.

Feeling his hands around him, he found the ground he'd landed on was softer than anything else he knew. It felt like a giant fluffy pillow or something and after the hard floor of the dark corridors it felt wonderful.

He sat on the mysterious comfy floor until his eyes stopped hurting and the bit of light that filtered through his closed eyelids didn't blind him anymore, then he cautiously opened his eyes again, just a fragment at first. For another minute he sat blinking until his vision had cleared and his eyes were able to focus on his hands he held up again.

Seeing himself was great and Sonic thoroughly looked at every part of his body. He'd expected to find himself injured after running himself at full speed into various walls, but he didn't find any blood on himself and no bruises darkened his skin or shone through his fur. All he'd sustained from the dreadful episode of last night was a bunch of aching and sore muscles.

If that alone was surprising, Sonic was left dumbfounded when he finally turned his attention to his surroundings. What he sat on looked like cotton. Or one of the spring clouds in Sky Sanctuary Zone. It shifted gently under him when he moved and softly gave way a bit when he pressed a finger into it.

"Too cool…", he mumbled. It were the first words he'd spoken that day and still they didn't feel weird anymore. Quite the opposite, it felt good saying something and hearing his own voice.

As he listened to his words and focused on his hearing that way, the tingling sounds he'd noticed before became apparent to him again and he looked up in curiosity, eager to find out what caused them.

The cottony floor stretched out almost twenty meters in all directions before ending. After just a short gap, another thing like the one he sat on came, another giant cottony cloud or something that looked like one. As far as Sonic could see, more of the cloud-like things spanned out. Through the gaps between them, almost transparent spheres slowly floated upwards, shining in all colors of the rainbow.

Are that… soap bubbles?

Sonic stared at the shiny balls. They varied in size from a few centimeters to almost the size of his head in diameter. The hedgehog climbed to his feet, staggering a little as the soft soil moved under his feet. He waded through the cotton stuff until he reached the edge of it, then stopped and watched the bubble things float upwards in front of him. He couldn't really see where they came from, they just appeared out of nowhere and ascended towards the… sky?

Sonic frowned when the idea crossed his mind and angled his neck backwards to search for the sky or the ceiling. What he saw wouldn't quite fit as either of them.

The space overhead was green. Not a bright, shiny green, more like a pale mint. About fifteen meters above the cloud layer, or whatever it might be, thousands of tiny golden rings were floating, rotating gently. The soap bubbles rose up until they reached the height of the rings and popped when they collided with the golden spinning rounds, making that tingling sound Sonic had heard.

Curiously the hedgehog stretched out a hand and reached for one of the bigger bubbles that floated past him. Unlike he'd expected, it didn't pop, instead it just bounced away when the tip of his finger touched it. It hit two other bubbles on the course Sonic had knocked it in that also bounded away, but otherwise the bubble thingies seemed unbothered.

Hopping through the curtain of shiny balls, Sonic got to the next cloud thing and for a while he just jumped around on the clouds and chased the bubbles. It felt good to laugh and jump and not be scared. Finally he dropped down on the middle of a cotton cloud, bouncing up and down on it gently before settling into the softness.

He rested his hands behind his neck, gazing up to the golden rings overhead and sighed. This place was clearly one of the weirdest he'd been to in his life, but it was also one of the most beautiful. He sighed and snuggled deeper into the soft ground. Lying on it felt almost like floating and his sore body gladly took the opportunity to relax completely, and Sonic just watched the flying bubbles, feeling weightless and warm and tired.

I'm dead, he thought. I'm dead and have gone to heaven. Maybe heaven really looked like that. But for the moment Sonic didn't really care what it looked like or where he exactly was. It was nice and comfy and right perfect. The quiet tingling seemed like a melody to him now, a peaceful tune that lulled him into a finally restful sleep.


Tails shivered, sitting on cool, hard floor, hugging his knees and his double tails wrapped around him. It didn't really help, he still felt freezing. The pale blue light in the base seemed to lower the temperature of the room another few degrees. Had it been as cold when he'd been here the first time? Had Metal Sonic picked this room especially to freeze him? Tails didn't know and he didn't really want to. Maybe he was so cold because he was so tired. Perhaps he should try to sleep a bit anyway?

Biting his lip, the fox softly shook his head to himself. After Metal Sonic had brought him to the underwater base last night, the robot had dumped him into a cell. Well, Tails supposed it had been designed as living quarters for the people working in the base. It consisted of a four by three room and a tiny bathroom connected to it. Just that the room had either never been finished or whoever had build Aquatic Base and later obviously abandoned it had removed all furniture when they went. So Tails had nothing to sit or lie on but the floor and it was cold and hard and he didn't like it a bit.

Even if he had a bed, the two tailed fox doubted he would have gotten any shut-eye during the night. While Metal Sonic had not bothered to tell him what he wanted from him, he had taken obvious pleasure in explaining Tails in vivid detail what he was going to do to him if he didn't cooperate or if the results of this cooperation disappointed him. Tails had been very glad when the robot had left, but the mental image of getting toasted by electroshocks or having his limbs removed by Metal's inbuilt laser cannon were sufficient material to haunt him for the rest of the night and probably a few more.

Resting his chin on his knees, Tails sighed aloud, his ears flattened against his head for so long he was beginning to worry they'd get stuck like that. I wish Sonic was here. Or Knuckles. Or anybody. Anybody but Metal Sonic. Not even Dr. Eggman was near as scary. There was always something ridiculous about Eggman, something that wouldn't entirely let you focus on the threat he really was, that he could kill you and that he build horrid machines and traps to do so. There was nothing that distracted from Metal Sonic being one of those horrid creations, no, the most horrid one of all. Tails knew even Sonic had been having nightmares of Metal Sonic at times. And I'm alone with him! And he wants to kill me and –

Tails forced himself to take a deep breath. No. He was scared of Metal Sonic. And Metal Sonic knew that. He'd done his best to make him even more scared. But he hadn't hurt him… yet. Metal had said Tails would help him with something. He needed him.

He needs me. He needs me. He can't kill me.

Tails repeated it in his mind for a few minutes, trying to force himself to believe it. It almost worked, almost toned down his fear, gradually and slowly… until the door at the other side of the room opened and the robot's red, evil eyes stared right at him. The young fox backed deeper into the corner.

"You will come with me now." Metal's voice was a sharp, snarling command. Tails hesitantly crawled to his feet. "Move faster, organic. I don't have all day." The blue robot strode through the room and gripped Tails around the arm, pushing and pulling him out of his room.

Tails blinked rapidly, fighting to hold back the tears. "You're hurting me!"

"I will hurt you a lot more if you don't work well for me." Metal Sonic kept pushing him forwards, but he loosened his grip a little so Tails could feel his fingers again.

"What do you want from me?" Tails had to bring up all his bravery to ask that.

"I require your knowledge to give me access of the seven powers of chaos."

A door opened automatically before them and Tails was pushed into a large, round room. It was as pale blue as most of the base, but it wasn't empty. Various machines were lined up in it and half of the room was crammed full of what looked like tanks, filled with a liquid glowing in changing colors.

Tails stared. "Is that… liquefied energy?"

"Correct. With my superior calculation powers I was able to transfer energy out of millions of rings into liquid form which is easier to store and conserve for my purposes." Metal Sonic had pulled Tails over to a large desk and finally let go of his arm.

The fox rubbed his arm, but his eyes wandered over the table in front of him. It was covered in blue prints, technical data sheets and papers full of equations. Tails frowned. "You want to build a chaos drive? A ring capsule? Or what?"

"Those storages are only suited for tiny amounts of chaos energy. I am going to create the greatest power storage that ever existed." The robot's voice had taken on an almost enthusiastic tone that seriously frightened Tails. "The highest energetic level of chaos can only be stored in its crystalline form."

Tails blinked and did a mental step back. "You… want to build a Chaos Emerald?"

"Negative. This unit has already had possession of all seven Chaos Emeralds, but the energy level was not sufficient enough to get access to the seven elementary powers of the Emeralds."

"The what?"

Metal Sonic reached out with a clawed hand and shoved a collection of paper into Tails' hands. He didn't give him time to read any of it though, instead he summed it up himself. "Data my failure of a creator collected on an ancient civilization's knowledge about the Chaos Emeralds."

"The echidnas?"

"Affirmative. According to this data, certain individuals are capable of using seven special powers one of which is unique to each Chaos Emerald. Some of these powers hold high interest to me. Unfortunately even with the seven Emeralds combined I was not able to access these powers." Metal Sonic sounded angry for a second. "However, my analysis discovered that the same powers the Chaos Emeralds have split out into seven parts are also contained in the highly energetic object referred to as the Master Emerald. You will help me gain the powers I need to rule the universe."

Tails gulped. "If you… if you tell me what you did to Sonic." His voice was weak and small as he said that. He didn't know if he wanted to know the answer. Tails had spent over a day of being scared he'd never see his brother again, and part of the long, cold night had passed imagining Sonic might have been killed by Metal Sonic, that he'd died alone, without someone to comfort him, at this underwater base he'd been so scared of anyways. And once Metal Sonic had come back to the cell he'd left Tails in, the image had been burned into his brain in horridly vivid colours. He'd been unsure if he'd find the courage to ask, but he needed to know, because he didn't know how he'd be able to move on one way or the other with his best friend's fate left in the unknown, exposed for his imagination to fill in the blanks. Certainty, even a crushing one, would be better. Right?

For a moment it looked as if he wouldn't get an answer, and the horror visions of Sonic's fate got company of images of his own premature demise. Had asking this question been worth it?

But then Metal's eyes pulsed up. "I was able to acquire the technology to be able to seal this annoying biological copy of mine in the perfect cage. I have blasted him out of this universe and locked his existence into the largest energy crystal in the world. He shall stay in there for all eternity!" The robot raised a clawed fist up in triumph.

Back-track. Think again. Tails stared. "You sealed Sonic into the Master Emerald and then just gave it away?"

"Correct. But you will never mention his name again from now on. He does not exist anymore. I am the real Sonic!"

Tails inched away from the piercing glow of the furious robot eyes. "Yes, uh, sure…"

"He was weak. He required the assistance of other, equally weak biological creatures to defeat me. Soon I will prove that I surpass him in all fields on my own! And as the beginning of my final triumph, his sidekick will give his knowledge to me and kneel before my superior power!" Metal Sonic still stood in a gesture too closely resembling some of his creator's poses.

Tails still stared at him. He sealed Sonic inside the Master Emerald? Well, Tails knew it was possible. At least he wasn't dead. That alone was enough to let Tails regain some of his lost hopes. Could he, like Chaos and Tikal before, be freed by breaking the gem? Tails didn't know, and Knuckles wouldn't be happy about the suggestion, but he would find a way to save his friend… If he found a way to survive Metal Sonic and whatever crazy plan he was up to. Hopefully, 'he needs me' was really applicable… but as it seemed he didn't only need whatever knowledge Tails possessed that the robot didn't. After his last words, Tails was sure he wanted him for another reason as well. Metal Sonic wanted to be admired. Maybe that would be something Tails could use to his advantage… It was worth a try, anyway.

"You still haven't told me how I can help your… awesome plans," the fox reminded the robot. He tried, but he didn't manage to make that come out quite right.

Metal Sonic finally got his arms back down. "Apparently you have mastered a technology nobody else has yet. You are going to use it for me."

"Well, of course." It almost physically hurt just trying to sound as if he was being nice to Metal. But maybe it'd save him his anger… "If you tell me what you want me to do."

The red optics fixed on him. "It is recorded you have constructed an artificial Chaos Emerald with the same energetic properties as the original ones."

Tails blinked. Slowly he caught up. "I sure have. It isn't quite as powerful as a real Emerald, though…"

"It is sufficient for my purposes," the robot cut in.

"So, uh.." Tails nervously twirled his namesakes when Metal didn't continue. "So you want me to build a Chaos Emerald for you? To use as your energy supply or something?"

"No. My plans go beyond mere energy supply. I will gather up enough energy to finally access the real powers of chaos. The energy will not only be my fuel, but I will be able to use it to become invincible, faster and stronger than anything, invisible as I please. Nothing will be able to stop me!" Tails was sure if Metal Sonic was capable of it, he would have been shaking with insane laughter by now.

"Uh… then what do you want me to build?"

Metal Sonic looked back at him, the red eyes flickering a little. "You will build me copies of the Master Emerald."

"The – Master Emerald?" This is impossible…

"Affirmative. You will build seven Master Emeralds for me. With them, nothing will be able to stop me." He leaned closer to Tails. "Check the equipment of this lab. If you require a device which is not here, I will get it for you. After you explained to me how you are going to work, I will bring you back to your cell and give you food to refuel. Don't work well and you will never need to refuel again."

Tails gulped dryly.


Rings.

Rings everywhere.

Rings, rings, rings, rings, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnngs.

Sonic slowly tumbled forwards a few steps, then stopped again, gazing around in dazed fascination. He had never seen so many rings in one place. He had walked into a room what seemed but a few minutes ago and it was full of the golden, spinning shiny rounds. It was impossible not to collect them, and Sonic wasn't sure how many he had simply run into by now. It had to be thousands of them, maybe millions even.

The hedgehog slowly turned his head, following the spinning motion the rings did. They were moving around, or the floor was moving, and even if he didn't move himself at all every few seconds another ring plinged audibly as its energy absorbed into his body. His ears were already ringing from the sounds, although they seemed to originate rather from inside his head than outside.

And all this energy… His head was spinning, his whole body was tingling with it and his fur and spines stood on end.

Sonic numbly stared at the sparkles that fluxed around him with every ring he collected. So pretty… The blue hedgehog grinned, playfully jumping forwards, into the sea of rings. Some were flung to the side, but most of them instantaneously absorbed into him. More energy… more buzzing energy…

Yes, he needed more. It felt just too awesome. Sonic laughed as he ran in circles through the rings, faster and faster and faster. He couldn't get tired. He was brimming with ring energy and there was so much of it around it got more and more even if he wasted it!

The second the sonic boom ripped on his quills, Sonic tapped into the light dash. There was no line of rings to follow, just a random bunch chaotically spread out around him. He was pulled through the air, from ring to ring, changing directions so fast he was now entirely dizzy. He just flew around, laughing and weightless and ecstatic.

The buzz of ever new rings plinging into him stopped after a while as the light dash flung him forwards as no ring was momentarily near enough to become a target. The momentum carried on and Sonic shot through the air, arms spread out at his sides and still not touching the floor. I can fly…!

He landed on the floor a few seconds later, tumbling along it head over heels. But it didn't hurt. It was dizzying and fast and incredibly funny. The hedgehog ended up on his back when his momentum finally wore off, then he just lay and laughed for no reason in particular. It was just all too funny. Everything was funny…

Sonic gazed upwards. The sky, or ceiling, or whatever it was, was green. Green… Sonic chuckled, sitting up unsteadily and looking at himself. I'm blue… Wow… For the moment it seemed like the most awesome realization ever.

The hedgehog picked himself up, coming to his feet swaying a little, and decided it was the time for a run. He just took off in a random direction, just dashing into the wind, head on and with a bright grin. Suddenly he totally loved this place. It was so much fun being here…

It wasn't before hours that he got tired of running and just flopped down on a random patch of ground. Numbly he looked himself down. He was exhausted…
And… What the heck happened?

"Whoa. That was like… overload on rings," he said to the emptiness around. "You can overload on rings. Maybe we should do that to Eggman's robots once." He grinned at the thought of exploding a robot by throwing rings at it repeatedly.

And Tails would love it. Kill it with science. Well, chaos science. Still sciencey enough as far as Sonic was concerned.

Sonic sighed at the thought of his little brother. He missed him. He missed company, and he wanted out of this weird place. Now that the buzz of energy had passed, it didn't seem as bright and funny anymore…


Speedy's note: Thank you all who submitted their guesses and bets. Some of you were right, too! :)

Sonic and the rings that actually appear twice in this chapter is admittedly more playing around with background concepts than straightforward bringing a plot along. The idea behind it was mentioned in obscure comics most of you probably won't have ever heard of. But by taking this, and adding some headcanon spices, the Master Emerald, as a large chaos object, can act as a gate to the pocket dimensions that are commonly called Special Stages, which are also candidates for being one place of origin of the golden rings. Like anything chaos, they can show different faces, even very different from what we usually know about them. They can be enchantingly beautiful, but also an addicting rush of power, an edge of insanity, a draining pull, and overall a force to be wary of. And Sonic, in his attempts to escape from his predicament, is losing all sense of wariness. Not that he ever had that many self-preservation skills to begin with. ;)

Anyway. I wanted to wish all of you a Merry Christmas if you celebrate it at your place. Hope you'll get to enjoy some nice days with your family and friends, and have yourselves a wonderful New Year, too. I hope to see you around in 2016. :)