Chapter 2

"So, let me get this straight... you come from some other world and were a full human, but when you came here, you got your genes mixed up with Tikal? And that's why you're half Mobian and why Tikal is... alive?" Sonic asked after I'd explained the half-truth to him.

"Yes, pretty much... as for why I was dead, it involves Chaos. We need to find out where he is before he finds any Chaos Emeralds. The more he gathers, the more powerful he becomes. And may the sun help us if he gets all 7," Tikal said with worry in her eyes. And when she did, I finally felt her left foot give a twitch. "Whew... that's my left foot... now the right..." she sighed as we heard the announcer girl on the PA system.

"We are now arriving in Station Square. Thank you for choosing the Station Square Metro," she said, me knowing it was probably a pre-recorded message.

"Who said that?" Tikal asked in confusion as she looked all around the place.

"Let's just say... technology is probably much more advanced now than when you got stuck in that Master Emerald in the first place," I suggested, her nodding at me, but still being confused. We then left the building... only to see a whole slew of police cars driving down the street towards City Hall, and very crazily, too!

"Aw yeah, this is happenin'!" Sonic smirked as he then chased after the police and I looked at Tikal, who gasped as she seemed to sense something.

"Chaos! He's in this place! And Sonic is going right to him!" Tikal gasped, me then nodding and rushing both of us to the scene, just in time to see the watery monster getting attacked with bullets... only for them to have no effect. They hung in the water before then falling to the ground.

"I-It's no use! Our bullets can't hurt it! We need help!" the one officer said, me then hearing something... a very small, yet fierce voice.

"I will... have revenge..." the voice said, it sounding like a gothic girl with the doom and gloom mindset. I then looked at Chaos and jumped towards it.

"You... just spoke, didn't you?" I asked, still holding Tikal in my grasp, which made Chaos look at her in shock, which was shown via the expression on her new human face.

"T... Tikal..." it said softly, before then shaking its head back and forth and getting angered again. "You imprisoned me... for over a thousand years!... I will have vengeance..." Chaos said angrily as it then tried to use its watery arms to grab me, but I simply jumped high and then slammed my foot on Chaos's head, me smirking at how I didn't feel any pain from doing so and that Chaos groaned in pain before turning into a puddle as Sonic looked on from the rooftop before jumping down to try and chase the water monster.

"Come on, ya big drip! Where are you running off to?!" Sonic asked in annoyance before Chaos then went to the storm drain and escaped the party. I then looked at Tikal and she looked at me in surprise.

"You... could understand him?" she asked, me shaking my head.

"Incorrect. I could understand HER," I smiled, Tikal blushing and then looking at the storm drain as the cops looked at us with smiles.

"Thanks, citizens. We're grateful for your help, but who knows when that creature will come back... we can allow you to get some rest at the local resort for your help, if you don't mind," the one cop said, me smiling at that as I looked at Tikal and smiling at her.

"You don't mind getting a bit of rest, do you, Tikal?" I asked, her smiling.

"I'm going to need it to stop Chaos. The moment we wake up, though, we need to find the Chaos Emeralds before he.. er... she finds them first," Tikal said, me nodding at that. Sonic smirked at that and decided to follow us to the resort and we then had a good rest in a very lavish room, one that had fancy soaps, a big heart bed, lovely curtains, and even a chandelier. And for some bizarre reason, the chandelier was made of gummy bears, just like in iCarly!

"This room looks fancy..." Tikal smirked as she finally was able to move her right foot. I then placed her on the bed and she started to exercise her feet a bit by forcing them to move on the edge of the mattress. And after about five minutes of this, she was finally able to walk again, making me smile.

"Let's get some shut-eye, then..." I smiled before I yawned loudly, Tikal nodding as she then got under the covers on the heart bed and I simply got on the covers right next to her. And before anyone of you asks, no, I wasn't into the whole furry thing. If anything, I'd be mortified. That's why Sonic 06 is my most hated Sonic game, considering Sonic and Elise are a thing.

"Good night, Cheryl... I hope we can find answers about where to find the emeralds... and how to get you home after this..." she said, me smiling at her. I doubted that I could go home, considering the way I arrived was hard to replicate. And even if I could, I'd still remain half mouse and half human, so that'd be hard to do.

...

Regardless, I soon found out that, if I folded my big ears inwards, I could actually cut out a lot of noise. It made it almost like I was falling asleep to a metronome, that being just my beating heart. And when I woke up the next morning, it was to Tikal opening my one ear and whistling into it, which shocked me awake and got me to get very annoyed very quickly.

"Thanks for the wake-up call, Tikal..." I groaned, me then rubbing my temples because of another reason. I thought for sure that I'd wake up from this nightmare back home or, at the least, in heaven, since my body would be frozen solid if the heater failed me. But no, I wasn't there. I was still stuck as a mouse-looking human and I was stuck in a room with Tikal, who had somehow been revived as her own self after I somehow appeared right inside the Master Emerald next to both her and Chaos... and that Chaos happened to gain a form that matched mine... and a voice that, oddly enough, sounded like me during my own goth phase I had during high school.

"Sonic already got up, but he's simply loafing about outside on a weird chair. We need to find out where the Chaos Emeralds are, and fast," Tikal said, me nodding as we then left the resort's front doors... just in time for me to feel some kind of sharp feeling in my brain! And it made me gasp at how sudden it was.

"GACK!" I shouted at the shock from the sensation, that making Tikal gasp.

"Cheryl! Are you okay?" she asked as I then simply felt like there was some kind of feeling... it was pointing... up?

"Something's telling me to look up for... something..." I said as I then did so and, shockingly, it was just in time to see Miles Tails Prower flying in on his Tornado. And since it was powered by a Chaos Emerald, I could only think of one reason. "And I think I know what it is. I bet you one ice cream sundae that there's a Chaos Emerald in that plane up there!" I said with seriousness.

"T-Then that means... You have the powers to sense the 7 Chaos! Something that can only happen to one attuned with the 7 Chaos!" Tikal smiled widely... and it was then that Tails's plane started to fly downwards in a spiral and towards the nearby beach.

"Tails! We need to go save him! Let's go!" Sonic said with seriousness as he then leaped from his chair and proceeded to run in that direction, me then looking at Tikal and smiling.

"Winner of the race gets a sundae? Please?" I smirked.

"I don't know what a sundae is, but I'm willing to bet on that," Tikal smiled, me nodding as we then proceeded to rush after Sonic... where I gasped at how I managed to actually run pretty fast in my new Mobian halfbreed form! And Tikal was able to keep up as well with some form of levitation similar to Silver the Hedgehog (as in, the cutscene/Generations version. Screw the 06 gameplay version)! And after this, we rushed after Sonic to Emerald Coast. We proceeded to follow a trail that was filled with broken robots with small critters popping out of each one, that making Tikal confused.

"What's happened to these critters to be trapped in steel?" she asked in confusion.

"No clue, but Sonic might know more, since it seems he freed them," I said, us continuing the trail very quickly until we managed to find Sonic! And when we'd finally caught up, he looked surprised at our speed, but just kept running through the level until we eventually found our target, that being Tails, who was a bit bruised, but otherwise unharmed. And who was the one to get to him first? Yours truly.

"Whew! Who are you, miss? I never thought I'd see someone just as fast as Sonic!" Tails said, me smiling at him as I simply looked behind me to see that Sonic and Tikal were a bit tuckered out, but giving me thumbs-up for winning the race.

"You doing okay after that crash, mister fox boy? Because we kind of need the emerald you have," I said, him then looking at me in confusion and then at Sonic and Tikal.

"Um... you mean the Chaos Emerald I used to power my plane?" he asked, that making Tikal gasp as he produced the emerald (it being red in color). "I found it laying around and thought it'd be a good idea to put it in my plane as a power supply. But I must've did it wrong, because the plane short-circuited mid-flight."

"My question is more prevalent. How did you know he had a Chaos Emerald when you've never met him before?" Sonic asked, me smiling at that.

"Because of something I discovered when I first saw him flying above us. I felt some kind of sharp feeling, almost like a compass pointing me towards the emerald. Tikal says it means I'm attuned with the 7 Chaos Emeralds, to the point I can actually sense where they're at," I said with a smile.

"Hmm... maybe I should ask you for assistance with making improvements to my plane back at my workshop, then. It's in the Ancient Ruins," he said, me looking at Tikal and her then sighing.

"We do need it, though... there's a great danger that's going to destroy the world if she gets access to all 7 emeralds and we need to gather them before she can get them!" Tikal said.

"Then I'll let you hold onto it until we get to my workshop. I'd at least appreciate it if you could let me try to test it out when we get there," Tails said.

"I'll allow that," I smirked.

"Thanks. I'm Tails. And what's your names?" he asked with a smile as he handed me the emerald to take.

"I'm Cheryl," I smirked as I then politely took the emerald... and when it touched my hands, I gasped as I suddenly felt some sudden surge of strength flow all throughout my body! It made me feel like... like I was imbued with the passion of fire!

"WHOA!" Tails gasped as we noted that my fur actually started to stand up and that I was coated in some sort of fiery aura.

"My hunch was correct. You're so attuned with the Chaos Emeralds, you can control the elements based on the emeralds you are in contact with! And the red emerald has the element of fire," Tikal said, me smirking at that. I was now basically Blaze the Cat, except I was a half-mouse-half-human creature.

"I feel like I should try to use these powers when necessary... so... how do I turn it off?" I asked with an honest smile.

"From my experiences when I was alive, it takes roughly a day to get to the point that you can use the powers of the 7 Chaos with ease. The only way to gain complete control is to be in contact with each emerald at least one time," she said, me smirking at that. That would be EASY! Especially since the Chaos Emeralds were required for nearly every single mainline game aside from Colors and Forces.

"Sounds fun! Now let's get going to the Ancient Ruins... but on the way, could you tell us what the deal was with all those robots that were lining the road, Sonic?" I asked him with a smile as we then proceeded to go back quickly as well. (By the way, I'm mentioning this right out of the gate. I'll barely talk about going through the levels mainly because it's hard to remember them unless you go slow).

"That's the work of Eggman. He's bent on world domination by turning small critters into robots. He's hoping to make an empire called Robotnikland, something that is very dumb," Sonic said, me smirking at that.

"So he can make robots... but they don't work without putting a living creature inside of them... and his ultimate goal is to make an empire that sounds more like an amusement park than a nation?" I said.

"When you put it like that, I'd say it's probably even dumber," Tikal smirked. And after going the whole way back to the resort at Station Square, we then went to the train station and saw that we were just in time for the next train to come around. We went inside (odd that they didn't ask for currency) and rode it to the Ancient Ruins. It took roughly 5 minutes, so it wasn't that bad, and it did allow me to tell Tails the stuff I wanted to, namely about me being sent to this world via a freak accident with my TV. And that my genes mixed with Tikal and the force of destruction that we needed to stop, which made each of us change drastically.

"So... what changed?" Tails asked.

"For me, I gained Mobian body parts and traits as well as gain the power to be attuned with the Chaos Emeralds. Tikal was completely revived, as she was just a spirit when we were trapped in the Master Emerald. And Chaos, the force of destruction, gained a body that looks a whole lot like my human form as well as gaining a voice... that sounds like me during my emo goth phase," I smirked halfheartedly.

"Um... what's an emo goth phase?" Tikal asked.

"It happened during my teenage years, because of bullying. I dressed all in black, had a constantly negative outlook on life, and wished for my bullies to have horrid things happen to them. I had to go through therapy after high school to get out of my funk," I said with a frown.

"That sounds horrible... I'd never ask that to happen to anyone!" Tikal said with a stern frown.

"Your words make me feel happy, thanks," I smirked at her.