"We own the local mine just outside of the city," Gregory explained, sipping the coffee that Sonic had handed him. "The old owners gave us the mine after we discovered a couple of rich veins. Since then we've been hiring mostly immigrant help since no one else here will."
"I see that the Governor's ideas are actually catching on," Sonic commented as he sat down on the bench in the cell. Fiona had picked the lock with ease and locked the door leading into the station so that they wouldn't be disturbed.
"We got the idea from him," Isabelle said. "We came here during the Mobian Conflict because we saw no justification for the war the politicians waged. And at the time deserting was considered a capital offense. We check in with our families from time-to-time just to make sure they're alright."
"Anyway," Gregory interrupted, "we had just opened a new tunnel that was yielding precious metals and stones like they were candy. One of our workers stumbled into some kind of chamber that had been buried for a couple centuries at least. We got it appraised at around a few million credits and then the offers started coming in."
"You said this was a few months ago?" Fiona asked and Gregory nodded. "What did it look like?"
"Honestly, we have no idea," Sampson answered. "It was in some kind of cocoon or shell-looking thing. And on the outside were all these weird glowing runes except for the one on top. I just can't figure out what it was doing there."
"What was the symbol?" Sonic looked at Fiona curiously, wondering why she was so interested in this.
"It was the symbol for Aquarius." Fiona swore under her breath.
"What does that mean?" Sonic asked.
"Later," she said. "What happened once the bids came in?"
"One of the old owners offered us triple the highest bidder," Isabelle continued. "The highest was twenty so we said twenty-five. He followed through and paid us so we took the guys out to the bar to celebrate. That's when the fight happened and we ended up in here. And we've been in here every day since we sold that damn thing."
"Were you there when the trade-off was made?" Sonic asked.
"I was the only one of us," Sampson said. "Other than that it was just the owner and his kid, nothing weird about it." He hesitated before continuing, "Actually, I take that back. I thought it was kinda weird that the kid was there. I've met Nathan before and he seemed...different."
With their report in hand Sonic and Fiona returned to the shuttle to try and figure out what was going on. It was nightfall by the time they got back and they only spent a few hours compiling the information before crashing. When morning came Sonic donned his uniform again and headed into the city while Fiona slept in. It was almost noon by the time she got up and moving, grabbing a quick breakfast from their supplies. She then had Zeta pull up local weather maps and crime beats, trying to investigate just what was going on.
"Zeta, do you see anything strange about this map?" she asked, turning her head on its side to look at the map.
"Other than it's a perfect circle or that it only shows the area inside the storm?" Zeta replied. "Other than that I see no alarming abnormalities."
"How about laying out our flight path over this," she suggested and Zeta did so. There was no obvious pattern Fiona could see but something was still eating at her. "What about settlements inside the storm?" Several dozen red dots popped up on the map. "Eh, too many. What about major cities with populations over, say, twenty thousand?" A number of the dots vanished and Fiona kept bumping the numbers up until she was satisfied. There were three evenly spaced apart at the bottom of the map and two at the top fairly close together. "Any connections between them?"
"None that I can see," Zeta said. "One of our stops falls directly in-between two of the points but that's the only one on our route. There are hundreds of other possibilities." Fiona grimaced at the news.
"Can you give me the best looking one?" she asked and Zeta complied as several loading bars popped up on the screen. After several minutes an image appeared over the map that stopped Fiona dead in her tracks. "Zeta, what is this?"
"This is the best representation of your request," the computer answered. "Is something wrong, Fiona?"
"It's not possible," she said simply, closing the hologram down and sitting down on the bed as the hatch opened and Sonic walked in. The expression on his face mirrored Fiona's but for different reasons. "What happened?"
"I'm...not entirely sure," he replied, taking his coat off and sitting in the pilot's chair. "I went to see the Governor and thank him for all the help he gave us. They checked my ID at the gate, took me to City Hall and showed me to his office. When I got there he was just getting off of a conference call, like yesterday."
"Nothing strange about that," Fiona interrupted. "He's a busy guy."
"That's what I thought too," Sonic agreed, taking a swig from a canteen before continuing. "Then he greeted me just like he did yesterday, telling me about not seeing Rotor since he was a kid, saying that the report was odd because the guys were just arrested the other night and not three months ago."
"Okay, that's a bit weird."
"It gets better. After that I went back to the station where the guys are and they freaked out, realizing that the same thing was happening again. So I checked the calendar and then the paper because there's no way the calendar was right." Sonic took another swig before tossing it to the fox. "The date was from late December."
"But it's March now," Fiona said and Sonic nodded. "Then they really are living the same day over again, just like they said."
"I've never seen anything like this," Sonic said, still visibly shaken. "Can you imagine living the same day for a week, let alone three whole months?"
"I think I have an idea what might be causing it," Fiona answered, pulling the holographic map back up. "You know what this is?" Sonic stared at the image. The five outer cities were connected by a red line following the storm as well as straight lines connecting them. In the middle of the pentagon/circle a pentacle was drawn that also connected all five outer points.
"Not a one," Sonic admitted as he turned his head sideways trying to make heads or tails of it. "An upside-down star inside a pentagon and a circle?"
"It's far, far more than that," Fiona explained. "Sonic, this is a sorceric array, one of the most powerful forms of magic Mobius has ever seen. But it's impossible."
"That's one big array," Sonic commented. "How did you even come up with this? And why is it impossible?"
"It's impossible because this kind of sorcery was ancient when Mogul was a kid," she explained. "We're talking five or six thousand years ago. Even with all the power the Emerald gave him he wouldn't even think of using something like this.
"You see these," she said pointing to the points of the pentagram, "are cities that once held tens of thousands of people. They form the base of the pattern. Mogul also told me that these things are controlled remotely. If we try breaking the spell from within then it triggers an explosion that would level a quarter of the globe." Sonic let out a low whistle. "We need to find what's controlling this thing. Only then can we put an end to this."
"How did you even find this?" Sonic asked and Fiona explained how she and Zeta had put the pieces together. "So is that what's causing this time loop?"
"No," Fiona said, shaking her head. "I've never heard of sorcery being able to do that so it has to be something else. I suppose it could be some kind of mass hypnotism caused by the storm."
"Do you think that this 'Aquarius' thing is at the center of it?" Fiona nodded. "And the reason our people aren't affected by the spell is because they were near Aquarius when the spell was cast." The fox nodded once more. "Then the sooner we finish this job the sooner we can get outta here and things go back to normal," Sonic said, turning the seat around and powering the shuttle up. Fiona strapped in next to him as the shuttle lifted off. She rubbed the bridge of her nose as her head pounded. The burning sensation crawling up her left arm let her know exactly what the cause of this pain was. Sonic looked at her with a concerned expression. "You okay?"
"It's just a headache," she lied, pushing the pain back and focusing on the task at hand. "Let's just get this over with."
It wasn't until a week and two cities later that Sonic knew he was going to have to say something. He'd seen her getting progressively worse but had held back from saying anything until he was sure she'd have no choice but to admit it. She still wasn't to the point where he was worried for her health but it wouldn't be long until then.
"So what on Mobius is going on up here?" he asked as they returned to the shuttle. "Every single city we've been to is stuck in whatever is causing the time loop. That mass hypnotism idea is looking better and better by the second."
"When Mogul told me about array sorcery he never said that it could do something on this scale," she admitted while shaking her head. "Of course the list of what he didn't tell me would go on for miles. I only ever got enough information to do my job, that's it. Any other information he ever shared, like the array magic, was when I caught him in a generous mood and those were few and far between."
"I guess all that's left to do is finish this thing up," Sonic said, checking their flight path. "We're more or less on schedule and the return trip back to Xenodome will be long but uneventful. The last city is just a few hours away."
As they came to the city-state of Victory they received permission to land within the city, next to the Governor's Estate no less. As they stepped out of the shuttle Sonic wrapped himself tighter into his parka. The further north they went the colder the wind got and here it was almost unbearable. The large human that greeted them didn't seem to notice as they hurried inside.
"I'm surprised the Vanguard would bother sending someone all the way up here for this kind of thing," Governor Allen Restik commented as the three of them headed to his office. "Didn't the report I sent out rule out any kind of foul play?"
"We never received the entire message," Sonic lied. "All we heard is that a former Xenodonian soldier died. Right about then is when we lost contact with everyone up here." The Governor nodded and picked up the phone to let the medical examiner know they would be stopping by. He led the two of them to an elevator where, once inside, he swiped a keycard, taking them into the depths of the mansion.
"Where are we going again exactly?" Fiona asked, glancing around.
"I had the body brought to my personal lab," the Governor explained. "There are several things that none of our technicians have been able to identify and here they can work in solitude without fear of reprimand for any questionable methods they need to use."
"There are questionable things you can do to a corpse?" Sonic asked and then mentally kicked himself. "Sorry, that just kinda slipped out." Surprisingly the Governor laughed.
"Not to worry," Allen said as they stepped off the elevator into a sterile white hallway. "I happen to agree with you. When we need to study the damage a new weapon does we may have to do things that are considered unethical by standard medical practices. But in this particular case we have something that has never been seen as far as I can tell." They entered the morgue where a small man in medical scrubs was pulling a body out of the cooler. He rolled down the cloth covering him to reveal a man in his mid-40s and a large tribal-looking tattoo running up the left side of his body. From his waist up were several large claw marks that went all the way into his body cavity. Instinctively Fiona held her left elbow as the burning returned.
"Any idea what did this to him?" Sonic asked, letting out a low whistle.
"The logical theory is that it someone came at him with one nasty weapon," the doctor said. "There aren't any wild creatures up here that can leave marks like that. What's more interesting is his tattoo." He pulled up the man's police profile which included a full body photo and a list of all his known tattoos. "Nothing in his records show anything like this until now. He was just a regular guy working as a bartender, nothing special about him."
"Have you guys gotten any special visitors lately?" The doctor looked to Allen who rubbed his chin.
"I wouldn't say 'special' so much as 'odd'," he answered, trying to remember the visit itself. "A few days ago some businessmen came in asking about setting up a mining operation outside of town. That's nothing new but his kid creeped out a large majority of my staff. The strange part of it was that his father didn't even seem to notice."
"That sounds familiar," Fiona pointed out and Sonic nodded. "This kid's name happen to be Nathan?" Now the Governor was curious and asked how they knew. "Let's just say it's not the first time we've heard his name on this trip," Fiona said vaguely. "Anyway, did you ever catch who or what did this to him?"
Allen shook his head. "Usually an attack of this ferocity happens out in the wilderness," he explained. "But this happened in the city limits not too far from where he worked."
They thanked the Governor and went back up to the main floor where they could see a blizzard had rolled in. The door leading outside slid open and Sonic shut it immediately as frigid winds and snow poured into the mansion.
"So much for that idea," Sonic muttered. "This is actually the first storm we've seen the entire time we've been here aside from the one surrounding this entire place."
"Since we're stuck there's something I want to check out," Fiona said and Sonic followed her as they worked their way to the Hall of Records. Sonic made a mental note that it seemed odd for the Governor to have all these things in his home but said nothing. Fiona told him what documents she was looking for and Sonic went about pulling them off the shelves. After several minutes he laid several tubes of paper on a nearby table and Fiona began opening them one-by-one. Sonic stared at the documents which were actually blueprints of the entire city.
"What exactly are you looking for?" Sonic asked after about ten minutes.
"I'm looking for recent changes in the city architecture," Fiona told him. "Part of that is figuring out if they use some kind of key to note additions." She pulled up the newest plan. "Like here for example. These marks here tell me that there were five recent additions to the city wall." She stopped as her eyes connected the dots. "Oh no."
"That's never good," Sonic said. Fiona took out a marker and connected the dots so Sonic could see it too. "Oh no is right." Across the city was the same array that was over the entire region. "Just what the hell is going on? You said before that Aquarius was at the center of this. Just what is it?"
"Aquarius caused some exceptions but it didn't cause any of this," Fiona replied as she started pulling other blueprints out. It took a moment for Sonic to recognize them as all the other cities they'd visited. "But with what's happening here I wonder..." On each of them Fiona found the same markings and drew the pentacle over them. "This must be what's causing the mass hypnosis. But to place arrays within arrays? Who could have done this?" she asked as her arm started to burn again.
Before Sonic could reply one of the windows near the top of the room shattered, raining glass and snow down around the two of them. Something else landed too, a creature shrouded in blue smoke with tribal markings on the left side of its body. Its claws dug into the carpet as it let out a low growl followed by a vicious roar. It leapt at Fiona only to have Sonic intercept with a hard uppercut to its chin. The creature barely moved from the blow and lashed out at him. Sonic jumped back but the claws cut right through his shirt and skimmed his chest, drawing small lines of blood. Sonic lashed out with one hand and blades of wind erupted from his fingertips. That managed to throw the creature back but it flipped back onto its feet almost immediately.
"Sonic, aim for the markings!" Fiona yelled. The beast turned its attention to her again and charged, red smoke forming around its claws and teeth. It was only a foot away from her when an aqua wave slammed into its left side. Its form faltered just as it released the red smoke at Fiona, covering her left arm and half of her torso. A second wave hit the creature, revealing the form underneath the smoke. Sonic's eyes widened as he recognized the corpse from the morgue crouched down in front of them before he leapt back up through the window he'd broken in from and vanished into the storm.
"Are you okay?" Sonic asked Fiona as he sheathed Kaiyō Mujō.
"I'll live," she said, brushing the last of the smoke off her. "That attack is meant to paralyze, not kill."
"How do you know so much about these things?" He looked down at her exposed side and found his answer. "How long have you been hiding these?"
"Since we left Independence," Fiona explained, wincing as the tribal markings running up her arm pulsed with energy. "I honestly didn't think it'd advance this much while we were here. But I guess after seeing that first array I should have known."
A pounding on the door prompted Sonic to give Fiona his jacket. No sooner had she put it on was the door kicked in by none other than Allen Restik himself wearing combat gear. "What happened here?" he asked as he glanced around the room, his personal guard pouring in with weapons drawn. "We heard the window break and sounds of a battle."
"Something attacked us," Sonic explained, trying to decide just how much to say. "I have no idea what but it had some kind of shroud protecting it."
"And her?"
"Fiona and I are fine," Sonic assured him, "but this thing came after us and if I were a betting 'hog I'd say it'll come after us again. We should beat feet before it comes back for round two." The Governor's eyes narrowed briefly but he nodded. He helped them to the shuttle pad where the storm had finally started letting up.
"If you could do me one last favor," he yelled over the roar of the wind. "We could use some help in finding this creature. See if you can get Albion to send us any help." He handed Sonic a slip of paper with coordinates written on it. "You won't find them on any map but this will take you right to them." Sonic thanked him before stepping into the shuttle and setting Fiona down on the cot. The markings were up to her neck and the pulsing was getting faster. Sonic fired up the engines and the shuttle took off into night.
"Zeta, how much further until we get out of the storm?" he asked as he set the auto pilot.
"We have yet to hit the worst of it," she replied, materializing next to Fiona. "Based on recent weather maps we should pass through in the better part of an hour."
"That might not be soon enough," Sonic said, kneeling next to Fiona. "That other guy's tattoo stopped when it reached his ear. Just a moment ago this was at her neck and now it's moved up to her cheek." He pulled off his gloves and placed his hands on her arm. "Zeta, whatever you do don't crash us, okay?"
"Of course," the computer replied. She was worried that Sonic was going to do something reckless but she also had faith that he'd come out of it just fine. Without another word Sonic's hands began to glow and he was consumed in a cloud of smoke.