The (*) symbol used once signals the start of a new scene, the (*) symbol used TWICE signals the END of a scene.

Chapter 11

*Ivo stared in surprise at the intruder standing in the smoking hole in the door. The fox, or Echidna, he couldn't tell which, he looked like a mixture of both, stepped through the smoldering hole in the door, both sides of his electric staff crackling with lethal energy. Without waiting for Ivo to make the call, the G.U.N. soldiers desperately fired at the agent, trying as hard as they could to bring him down. The agent continuously deflected the fire with the staff, allowing the energy bolts to fly back to its sources, downing the soldiers one by one, leaving Ivo, Silver, and Rachael the only ones left. Then, before Ivo could react, the agent threw his staff toward the control panel connected to the roboticizer. To Ivo's dismay, the staff stunk deep into the controls, and the glowing beam warming up above the prisoners faded and died out.

"Now, if I can please have the prisoners," the agent said. His voice sounded rich; amusement, humor, and pleasure strung together. It almost reminded Ivo of his days on Earth, back when he was just an average young man. Ivo laughed.

"I have back-ups, Hero, and I will keep trying until one of you is roboticized," he said. Before he could say anything else, Silver lashed out at the agent, lifting his hand so that the agent was off his feet and hovering in the air. But Ivo saw the agent's boots flare, revealing that they were rocket boots. The agent pushed himself forward against Silver's energy, and succeeded in kicking Silver in the head, sending him backwards, but he was able to land on his feet, one hand laid flat on the ground in front of him.

"This part is not my fight," Silver growled, and he lifted himself off the ground, and somehow, much to Ivo's amazement, went right through the roof without creating even a dent in it. Ivo snarled, his eyes burned in an irresistible rage. He pulled the electric staff, which the agent had thrown, out of the control panel and aimed it at him.

"You will suffer just like I suffered," he muttered, not particularly wanting the agent to hear it. But the agent didn't look interested in getting into another fight. He flipped his way over to Ivo, who was not prepared for that, and watched as the agent grabbed hold of the staff and yanked it out of his hand. Then, he ran for the glass domes that kept Sonic, Amy, and Mario imprisoned. With one swift move on each of them, he struck the staff across each dome, the front of them each shattered, allowing the prisoners to escape. Ivo watched them crawl out and stand up, looking at Ivo. But the man smiled.

"It appears I am outmatched," he suggested, and he ran for the gap in the door. Sure, it appeared to everybody that he was running away like a coward, but he had a plan.**

*"Alright, we can't get separated now. We'll need to leave the building, and prepare yourselves to go out in the heat of battle," Deem warned Sonic, Amy, and Mario.

"Yes, sir," Sonic replied. Deem smiled. Though he hadn't seen him much, he already liked this hedgehog. Amy, the pink one, didn't say anything. She looked so depressed, like she was about to burst into tears without warning. Mario silently nodded, looking at Amy as if he understood why she looked so depressed.

"Just follow me, and I could get you guys out of here," Deem ordered, without being stern. The three of them nodded, and Deem began leading them out of the room. The female technical advisor that he had seen in the room earlier had already fled while they weren't looking. Suddenly, Amy stopped and snatched something from the control panel. Deem noticed it was a snapped necklace with a chipped piece of meteorite on it. He decided to ask about that later. Right now, he and the others had to get out of there. Somehow though, Deem felt like this rescue mission was too easy. Surely Ivo had a backup plan, a plan B, something…**

*Sonic willingly followed Deem. All of them had broken into running, wanting to get out as quickly as possible. The hallways were so twisted. They were constantly changing directions, going left, then right, then another right, then another left…

The building looked abandoned, which Sonic supposed was understandable, because Ivo would need all the men he could use in order to go up against the Heroes. As he ran, he tried keeping an adequate distance from Amy. He was not finished with her. He still had a growing anger and bitterness towards her. Would if she betrayed them again? Would if leaving with them was still part of a setup and that she would attempt to abduct him again? Sonic didn't want to think about that. He continued running behind everybody else, just as intent to get out as they were. But just then, Sonic felt his feet slow, and then finally come to an uncontrollable halt. He couldn't move no matter how hard he tried. He tried to cry out, get Deem's attention somehow, but it was as if someone had clamped its hand over his mouth. He couldn't make a sound. Then he felt himself get dragged backwards by an invisible force, and then finally flung back. He watched as he realized that he had landed in a separate room, and the door automatically slid shut and locked itself in front of him.

"The Iblis trigger." A voice said behind him.**

*Deem led the others to the hole he had created in the roof a while ago, and raised a hand to get the escapees to stop where they were.

"I'll go first to check to see if it's all clear up there," he said, and he jumped, and sure enough, there were a few soldiers waiting for him. They immediately opened fire, but Deem was already in the air, aiming a kick in the head to one of the soldiers, and then pulling out his plasma rifle, firing off a few rounds at the rest of the G.U.N. soldiers. He then bent down and signaled to Mario and Amy to come. Mario and Amy? Where was Sonic?

"Where's Sonic?" Deem asked. Mario and Amy looked at each other confused, looking around, realizing that he was indeed gone.

"I'll go look for him," Mario volunteered, but Deem shook his head.

"You'll need to go find Luigi, I'll go look for him," he said, then, without another word, he jumped back through the hole and back into the building in the cramped hallway.

"Good luck out there," Deem encouraged, then he began his journey through the hall.**

*Sonic felt himself get lifted off his feet and thrown against the wall in the cramped closet. The silver hedgehog approached him and held him up by the neck this time.

"I belong to the distant future, in a war-torn, broken world because of you, the Ilbris Trigger, and now I will destroy you to change the future," the hedgehog said in a quiet, predator tone. Sonic tried hard to get out of the hedgehog's grip, but it was so tight, he could feel his throat screaming for oxygen. Sonic felt like he could've suffocated completely if Silver hadn't cast him aside again. Sonic felt his head crash against the wall again, pain throbbed where his head was hit.

"Ilbris Trigger, huh? Really?" Sonic asked, saying it as if it was a joke. Silver roared in anger, and was about to pounce on him again, but then stopped when he heard the sound of a laser cutter on the sealed door. He had destroyed the controls to get the door open when he had gotten Sonic, but now someone was cutting through.

"Enjoy your tormenting while it lasts, my friends are going to break me out of here," Sonic said wearily, forming a weak, twitching smile on his face. Silver laughed a steady laugh.

"Indeed I should, but I think I'll switch everything around so that I take care of your friends first," he replied, facing the door now.**

*Deem furiously sliced away at the door, knowing for sure that he had heard noises coming from this room. He tried harder to get the laser cutter to go faster, pushing harder and harder. Just then, when he was so close, he felt something jab into his back, and a fresh, violent burst of electric energy exploded through his body, forcing him to drop the cutter and crash onto his knees, and then finally onto his face on the floor.

"All too easy," he heard Ivo say behind him.**

*Sonic was shocked when he saw the cutter stop working, and he thought he could hear cries of pain behind the closed door. He looked at Silver who only shrugged, then turn his attention back to him.

"Uh oh, not good," Sonic muttered. Silver smiled.

"Now, I will finish you," he replied. Fighting against the pain throbbing through his bruised and beaten body, Sonic staggered to his feet and, calling upon all of his speed, he propelled himself against Silver, throwing him backward so hard that when he crashed against the wall, it cracked around him. Snarling fiercely, Silver got off the wall and raised his hand to grab hold of Sonic again, but he jumped and spun, forming himself into a small, blue funnel and spiraled his way toward Silver, lifting him off the ground and sending him crashing against a pile of crates, which fell over and collapsed around him.

"You tell your family back in the future that I will have no part in this," Sonic demanded, without any humor in his voice. He watched Silver stagger up in a rage, and, before he could react, Silver raised his hand so quickly, sending Sonic crashing against the half-cut door, which exploded behind him on impact, and Sonic fell and skidded across the floor outside the storage room. Quickly without delay, Sonic got back up onto his feet and braced himself for Silver to come out across from him. His focus was completely on the storage room now. Finally, Silver propelled himself out of the room and was ready to engage Sonic.

Come on, come on! Sonic thought to himself, tensing for impact. In the few minutes that Sonic had known Silver, Sonic had already realized that this hedgehog was being the aggressive hero. He was doing what he believed was right in order to save his family and the world, even if it meant killing someone who wasn't really the bad guy. And yet, Sonic felt that if this was what the Heroes was aiming for, maybe the G.U.N. forces would be overthrown quicker. Unsure of what to do, Sonic lashed his hand out, and it clamped around Silver's head, allowing him to hurl the hedgehog flat onto the ground.

"You may have skills beyond mine, but I have the speed," Sonic mocked, and he struck Silver across the head so hard he was knocked out cold.**

*"General Miles, we've got a fleeing cruiser, it's Robotnik's sir," a pilot's voice reported through Miles' speaker. The fox narrowed his eyes. He could see the large cruiser fleeing so quickly.

"Permission to pursue it, sir?" The pilot asked. Miles shook his head.

"No, let it go, it's going too fast, and we need to fortify the city," he said. He spun his ship around as he dodged a barrage of enemy fire from G.U.N. ships. Keeping his hand gripped on the joystick, he pressed his finger down on the red button, sending his own barrage of fire at an oncoming enemy ship. The fire crashed against the ship, and the ship exploded, fire and debris scattered in all directions.

"Yes!" Miles shouted out loud. Then, he felt his ship violently jolt from the impact of enemy fire that had clipped the left wing.

"Uh oh, not good," he complained looking back. He tried to keep control of the ship, but it continued to plummet toward the ground. Debris from the back of his ship burned off and flew backward. Just then, a blue hedgehog landed on the window, signaling to him to lift the roof of the cockpit.

"You're no help!" Miles shouted at him.

"Come on, open the cockpit!" Sonic shouted at him.

"Watch me!" Then, Miles opened the cockpit, jumped out, and allowed his double tails to fly him towards the ground. He could hear the wind flying by and the ship fire clearly now. Miles took one last look at the ground, which was coming, closer and closer to meet him now. Now, he had admitted to himself that he was not exactly a very brave guy. Even though he knew it was all probably going to be okay, Miles tightly shut his eyes for impact.**

*W.L bashed his helmeted head against the head of another G.U.N. soldier. He let go of the man who crumpled to the ground. Looking up, he saw a burning ship under the intense glare of the moon, coming straight towards him. Shocked, he jumped aside, just in time when the ship exploded into the ground, skidding across the city. Unfinished buildings collapsed and crashed upon the ground. W.L rolled out of the way of an incoming roof falling toward the street right beside him. Soldiers from both sides scattered and ran. Most of the G.U.N. soldiers were retreating now, getting into ships to flee, but some of them were ambushed by Hero soldiers and destroyed. Feelings of victory swelled up within W.L. He was still nervous about his sick brother back on the Trident, something he was going to get back to as soon as the fight ended, but he was happy that they were finally gaining a successful victory.

Around him, W.L saw the Heroes solders beginning to cheer as they watched the G.U.N. soldiers clear out of the city, desperately fleeing from the Heroes of Today. Smiling to himself, W.L walked back to find Miles, Mario, and the others, ready to show off. Walking in between two buildings to take a shortcut, he was attacked by an unseen foe. He felt his head slam against the wall of one of the buildings so hard that the back of his helmet made a sickening cracking sound. He looked straight at his attacker. It was Koopa. He felt a fist crash into his gut two times, knocking the breath right out of him.

"Tell me everything," Koopa snarled. W.L looked up at him, confused and weak.

"Everything you know about Project 60, tell me everything!" Koopa demanded, a plasma pistol shoved in W.L's forehead.**

*The Heroes of Today had succeeded in taking Ivo-Land, Robotnik's empire, but Sonic the hedgehog was still not satisfied. He sat on the edge of a ship back in the hangar of the Trident, watching the Chairman receive reports from several soldiers about the battle there. Mario and Luigi were back together and happy. But Sonic was growing more and more nervous. He had heard that Deem was assumed to have been taken prisoner by Ivo himself, which he supposed explained why Deem had stopped trying to cut through the door that had separated Sonic with Silver. One prisoner was rescued, but Ivo was able to quickly take another. Sonic was beginning to really hate that man.

Across from Sonic, sitting on the edge of another ship, was Amy, who was trying to keep her gaze focused on everyone else but him. She wore the necklace with the piece of rock around her neck again, which had somehow come together again. Sonic would think that Amy owed him a very sincere apology. Finally, he saw the Chairman motion to him and Amy to come to him. Sighing, Sonic got up and walked over to him. Amy followed suit. The Chairman smoothed his hair back, sighing.

"Looks like you two have been on quite an adventure," he said. Sonic nodded.

"It's a long story," he replied. The Chairman nodded.

"Perhaps in a brief way, you could tell me what happened," he said. There was no light in his eyes. He wanted to know exactly what happened. Sonic wanted to tell him everything, but something kept bothering him that made him not want to tell him about the prophecy business. He just didn't feel ready to share that. It was possible that all the Chairman would do is laugh it off as a mere myth or fairy tale. Nevertheless, he decided to keep that part to himself for now.

"Back when me and Amy were on that mission try to rescue Mario from Ivo's cruiser, I found a note left by him when he was taken away. It said that there was a traitor in our midst. I wanted to keep that a secret, maybe tell you while no one was around, but I didn't want to tell just anybody, because I didn't want everybody to quarrel with each other about it, or even take drastic measures. When we went to Chun-Nan, Knuckles attacked us to get to the sword Caliburn that they had there, but I chased him away and when we couldn't find Mario, we left, and Amy revealed herself to be the spy…" Sonic stopped and looked at Amy, who shrunk back, wrapping her dark robe close to herself in shame. The Chairman only nodded.

"Go on," he encouraged. Sonic took a deep breath.

"Then Amy knocked me out cold and took me to Ivo, but attacked him. Ivo overcame her and took both her and me aboard his cruiser and then to Ivo-Land, where he was going to roboticize us," Sonic finished.

"Roboticize?" The Chairman gasped aloud, but he stopped himself and pulled a look as if he hated himself for saying that, as if Sonic wasn't supposed to hear him say that.

"What are you going to do with Amy?" Sonic asked. The Chairman looked at Amy with such overwhelming pity it made her blush.

"Welcome to the team, Amy," he said, patting her on the shoulder. Sonic gasped, shooting another look at Amy, who was choked up in tears. Tears streamed down her pale cheeks and stained her robe. Sonic wasn't sure if he was really controlling himself when one of his hands clenched into a fist.

"Sir, what…" But the Chairman kept a gentle grip on her shoulder.

"Amy, I said, welcome to the team," he insisted. Sonic finally found his voice.

"She was artificially created by Ivo, like Shadow!" He pointed out.

"Exactly, she was programmed for it, but I could see a change of heart in her, you wish to start over don't you?" The Chairman asked. Amy looked up at him, her body shook from head to toe.

"Yes, yes, I do, sir," Amy admitted. The Chairman put a hand through Amy's hair.

"Then welcome to the team, Amy," he said more gently than Sonic had ever heard from him. He took the necklace off of Amy.

"This will no longer be your burden Amy, it will be mine," he said, moving to put the necklace in his pocket, but he strangely stopped himself, and slowly put it in his right pocket instead. Without waiting to see what would happen next, Sonic stormed off, both his hands clenching into fists. He couldn't understand it. Amy had betrayed them all, had caused so much damage within. In fact, wasn't it because of her that W was lying in bed now fighting a virus? And yet, the Chairman had chosen to do nothing with her except invite her to stay as if she had done nothing wrong. As Sonic walked away, he strode past W.L, who had his arms folded, and was looking at Amy and the Chairman. There was something about him that scared Sonic. He was always so quiet, and his personality was rough and edgy.**

*W.L was probably just as surprised as Sonic was when the Chairman welcomed Amy back without lashing out at her or punishing her in any way, or even sending her away because of her dealings with Ivo. This had to possibly be the last straw for him. Amy was undoubtedly the reason why W had gotten infected in the first place, and yet, Amy was freed from that punishment. If he had been allowed to, W.L would've gladly given out Amy's punishment without a second's hesitation. He had to tell W about this right away. Perhaps now, was the time to show the Heroes of Today how exactly they felt about this.**

*"Sonic, hey, Sonic!" Amy yelled behind Sonic, the girl tried to catch up with him, but Sonic was trying to walk as fast as he could away from her. He whirled around, his fists clenching even tighter, and he glared at her.

"You betrayed me! And yet, the Chairman is letting you go free?" Sonic yelled. Amy stopped in her tracks, surprised and taken aback.

"I…Sonic, I'm…" But Sonic cut her off.

"You've been lying to me all this time! I was your friend, your ally, and you still struck out at me!" Sonic shouted, his voice was raised so high now, the others around the two of them were beginning to notice.

"You kept secrets from me Sonic," Amy pouted, her voice sounding trapped and defensive. Sonic shook his head. The way he saw it, this was about Amy, not him.

"I had good reasons for keeping secrets from you Amy, especially the fact that you were the answer to that secret," Sonic pointed out, and he stormed off, not wanting to say another word to her. For now, he was done with her.

Inside Sonic's private quarters, a red light blinked on his computer, indicating an incoming transmission. Curious and confused, Sonic walked over and pressed the button that put the call through, and the screen lit up with the taunting face of Ivo Robotnik. Immediately, Sonic glared at the image.

"What do you want, eggman," Sonic demanded. Ivo grimaced from Sonic calling him by that nickname.

"You better tell the Chairman that he might as well flee. We will attack your new base at my empire and take it back, count on it!" Ivo sneered. Sonic could only stare at Ivo's mocking image in angry silence.

"Tell the Chairman to surrender now, or, like your abducted friend, you will all be roboticized!" Ivo continued. Sonic gasped. Deem, roboticized? Hot with rage, Sonic slammed the button on the computer, which cut the transmission off. Now, this was war.**

*Ivo stared at the blank image that, just a few seconds before, had an angry Sonic on it. It was working. Anything that he could do to provoke the hedgehog to anger would bring him closer to victory, and maybe perhaps, Sonic would end up battling himself and eventually destroy himself. He looked at Koopa, who stood by him. He truthfully gave Ivo the creeps. The horns on Koopa's head and his reptilian-like eyes revealed what appeared to have been an accident that Ivo had never asked about. But now, Koopa was ready to help him accomplish a large part of his plan.

"Did our friend W.L give you enough information about Project 60?" Ivo asked. Koopa nodded.

"As much as he knows, but it's enough that I need in order to accomplish our goal," he explained.

"Excellent, then your part will come very soon," Ivo said.**

NOTES: Uh oh, things have finally gotten to a boiling point now!