Chapter 58: Arrival

When Silva came to, he found himself lying in a grassy field with ancient ruins nearby.

"Blake?" Silva asked out loud as he looked around. "Blake!"

When he didn't hear anything back, Silva rubbed his head and got up.

"I must've gotten separated from Blake when Mephiles used that weird gem to teleport us to Soleanna," Silva said to himself as he walked along the beach. "If that's the case, then this must be one of Soleanna's valleys."

Seeing some people standing near the ruins, Silva made his way over to them.

"Um, excuse me," Silva said approaching a trio of men wearing matching pith helmets and brown explorer's uniforms. "Am I in Soleanna?"

"Indeed, young man," said one of the men who wore a pair of oval-shaped spectacles. "Did you just arrive here?"

"Well, sort of," Silva answered shyly. "Is there a town nearby?"

"Not anywhere in this valley," replied the spectacled man. "But the capital lies just beyond that jungle over there."

The man with the spectacles pointed to a cluster of trees at the far end of the valley.

"How long will it take me to get there?" Silva asked.

"From here to the jungle, it takes five hours on-foot," the man said adjusting his spectacles. "But to the capital from here, it'll take almost a full day."

"I see." Silva took a step forward and then he looked back at the spectacled man. "Thanks, mister."

"Wait, boy, you're not actually thinking of—

Before the spectacled man could finish his sentence, Silva was levitating into the air with a bright-blue aura surrounding him towards the green jungle that lay ahead.

###

"So this is New City, the capital of Soleanna," Sonny said as he looked at an assortment of gray and tiled buildings that surrounded him on both sides of a narrow street with hardly any cars or people passing by. "It's a lot smaller than I imagined."

"That's because its economy mainly centers on tourism and machinery," Miles answered. "And the country's current ruler is—

"Okay, Miles, that's enough," Amelia interrupted. "I didn't come here for history lessons."

"Yeah, and who assigned me as the luggage-carrier?" Chuck said irritably as he tried to carry an assortment of suitcases and bags on his back. "This wasn't what I had in mind when you invited me to go on a vacation with you guys."

"Well, since you are the strongest member on our team it only seemed natural," Sonny said. "And there's Elise and her friends now."

Sonny pointed to a small circular plaza where Elise and the other three girls that were in the fan club classroom waved to them. He immediately ran over while Miles and Amelia followed close behind. Chuck on the other hand brought up the rear and ended up collapsing as soon as he caught up with the luggage falling on top of him.

"Oh, dear," said the girl with the blonde hair and blue dress. She walked over to Chuck and asked, "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Chuck said confidently as he got up. "It takes more than a few suitcases to put me down."

"So, I guess we might as well introduce ourselves," Elise said. "The blonde girl is Maria Travis, the girl with the pink braid is Merlina Camelot, the girl with the pink ponytail is Shahra Jinnee, and my name is Elise Soleanna."

The two pinked-haired girls nodded in response while the blonde girl smiled awkwardly.

"Nice to meet you all," Sonny said. "In case you didn't know, I'm Sonny Hedge and my friends are Miles Prower, Amelia Rosen, and Chuck Kidman."

After Sonny's friends shook hands with Elise's, the two groups walked together to a nearby building that turned out to be New City's most luxurious hotel. While Sonny and his friends were immediately impressed, Elise and her friends took it in casually. Once they got their rooms figured out and their luggage put away, the two groups settled for lunch in the hotel's main restaurant.

"Did Shawn tell you why he couldn't join us?" Maria asked Sonny who was midway through a chili-dog with every possible topping on it.

"He didn't say much," Sonny answered while eating. "Something about getting a call from work that he couldn't refuse."

"What does he do?"

"Well, he…delivers things for his boss," Miles said sheepishly. "Or retrieves things depending on what his assignment is."

"I see," Maria said as she looked out the window. Across the plaza, Maria thought she saw Shawn's hair from the back as he ran into a nearby alleyway with another girl following behind him.

"What's wrong, Maria?" Shahra asked, noticing Maria's shocked face.

"You look like you've seen a ghost or something," Merlina added, taking a sip from her teacup.

"I thought I saw…" Maria blinked and looked away from the window. "Never mind."

###

"Are you sure the G. U. N. rendezvous point is this way?" Shawn asked as he emerged from an alleyway that connected the plaza to a side-street.

"All the Commander told me was to head for the ancient castle that lay to the northwest of Soleanna's capital town," Rouge Baxter said unbuttoning her purple winter coat. Underneath it, she wore a pink long-sleeved shirt. "It's a good thing that Eggman's base had a teleportation device that took us directly to New City, but now I'm not properly dressed for the situation."

"Ugh, is that really important right now?" Shawn said, trying not to look behind him. "We've got worse problems to deal with, like Mephiles for instance."

"Oh, yeah," Rouge responded as she took off her long-sleeved shirt as well revealing a black camisole under it. "He was released before, right?"

"Yes, according to Shadow," Shawn answered. "He also said that Mephiles nearly destroyed the time-space continuum by merging with a monstrous creature called Iblis but was stopped by Sonic, himself, and another individual known as Silver the Hedgehog."

"Silver, huh? I wonder if his spirit was reincarnated as well."

"Probably, but the sooner we warn the Commander the harder it'll be for Mephiles to enact his plans."

"But do you really think G. U. N. is capable of going against something as powerful as Mephiles? Wouldn't it be easier to call Sonny?"

Shawn hesitated and said, "I don't want to drag him into this."

"Why? Is there something you're not telling me?"

"I'll tell you later, now let's move. We don't have a lot of daylight left."

After crossing the side-street, Rouge Baxter quickly changed into Rouge the Bat and flew Shawn up to a cliff-like ledge that stood above the town and signified the entrance to Soleanna's Tropical Jungle.

To be continued…