Sonic Series Fan Fiction ❯ Chaos Entity: The Opened Heart ❯ Part Two: Whose Bright Idea Was This Anyways? ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer

I'm one of those weird people who doesn't actually like the world of Sonic as set out in the AoSTH and SatAM cartoons (if you don't know what I mean, go away and read Dan Drazen's stories). I guess you could call me a Sega traditionalist.

In this fanfic, you won't therefore be seeing Princess Sally, Bunnie Rabbot, Snively or any of the supporting characters from the show. As far as possible, I stick to the original character of each person and not their Americanized alter egos. That means Sonic's middle name is NOT Maurice. Maurice? UGH! oO;;;

This is the "FanFiction.Net Edit" of Chaos Entity. The original version is in plain .TXT format and is, IMHO, superior. You can find it on Arcana, or you could the last time I checked. It also happens to be posted at TSF, but Sonic HQ never replied to my emails -_-;

A word to the wise: ALWAYS play Sonic Adventure with the Japanese voices.

*

Characters

"Sonic" Takeshi Hedgehog
"Tails" Miles Prower
Amy Rose
Knuckles The Echidna
Big The Cat
E-102, Gamma
Doctor "Eggman" Robotnik
Metal Sonic
"Chao"

Everything in this fanfic, but EVERYTHING, expressly sole property of Sega and used utterly without permission. What? No fan characters to copyright??

*

What The Heck Does That Mean Anyway?

Konichiwa: Hello
Sayonara: Good-bye
Gomen nasai: Excuse me
Domo arigato: Thanks!
Ne?: Don't you agree?
Nani?: What?
Itai: Ouch/It hurts/pain
Sonic wa hitori dake: There can be only one Sonic
Tupekku: Holy crap
Kawaii: Adorable (c'mon, you knew that one!)
Atchi: This way
-san: Honorific "Sir"
-kun, -chan: Friendly form of address

*

Thanks To

Catilina, for allowing me to bug her constantly about this story
NetRaptor, for the supportive MB post
Blitz, for getting me out of several plot holes
Seph, for inspiring the Chao sequences
Eerie the Gengar, for being my fave Pokémon ^_^

*

CHAOS ENTITY:
THE OPENED HEART

PART TWO
Whose Bright Idea Was This Anyways?

"Okay," Sonic said, leaning forward intensely with his paws flat on the workbench. He looked round at the others, meeting each pair of eyes in turn. "Here's the deal. We need transport to Angel Island, and quickly. It could take weeks to book a passenger plane and get Tails an official pilot's license. Therefore, we're gonna steal a plane off Eggman." The hedgehog grinned. "He's got so many, he probably won't notice."

"But what about the security?" Tails asked.

Sonic glared at him. "I was just getting to that. Now, I know some stuff about the layout of Final Egg, but I'm hoping Gamma will help out with navigation." The big mech raised his gun in assent. "Okay, good. Now, we'll probably have to fight before we get the plane. Tails, look out for Amy."

"Who says I need looking out for?" Amy broke in indignantly.

Sonic coughed embarrassedly. "You gotta admit, you have this habit of getting kidnapped. Now look. Tactical stuff isn't my strong point - no comments, Tails - so basically my plan is to run in there, bash a few badniks, grab a plane and get out again."

"Good plan," Tails said seriously. "How are you going to carry the plane?"

Sonic's spines bristled. "Gamma, shoot the fox."

The big mech looked at him. "Cannot comply."

"This is going to be FUN," Amy said enthusiastically, fingering the handle of her mallet. "Can I smash some robots too?"

"Probably," Sonic sighed.

"Well, there's no need to be like that."

"What do we do once we've got to Angel Island?" Tails asked.

"Find Knux, idiot. Hopefully he'll know more about Chaos and what we can do to fight him. And what that jewel is... speaking of which, Amy -"

"It's right here, Sonie." She held up a locket, which was hanging by a fine gold chain around her neck. "Don't worry, I'll look after it!"

"Good," Sonic said. "Don't lose it, whatever you do. Okay, then... if everyone's clear about what we have to do..." He looked around at each of them. "I'm not getting any feedback here. Are you guys - and girl - okay with this?"

"Sure," Tails said.

Amy nodded. "I'm not scared."

"Gamma?" Sonic asked.

"I will follow you."

The blue hedgehog slicked back his spines, smiling confidently. "Well... guess we'd better get going. I've never stolen a plane before. This sure is going to be interesting."

*

The cable car was down. The whole thing dipped drunkenly in the middle, and there were ominous hairline cracks in the glass tube it traveled along. All in all, it looked like something that was going to collapse into the abyss any moment.

"Well, I said I wasn't going on that thing again," Sonic observed. "Guess I was right."

"What do we do now?" Amy asked, staring at the tower so far away.

"Search for another way across," Gamma replied, scanning the sheer drop.

Tails let out a thoughtful h'm. "If I had jet skates I could get over there easily."

Sonic looked at his friend with some bemusement. "You should cut down on those dodgy emulated ROMs."

"I do not emulate!" Tails yelled.

"Boys..." Amy sighed. "Let's climb down and take a look from the ground level."

Sonic tiptoed to the edge of the cliff and looked over, then turned back. "Uh... it'll be hard. And what about Gamma?"

"I was designed to cover many types of terrain," Gamma said. "It is within my capability."

"I think we could run down there, Sonic," Tails said. "You know that trick where you run down the sides of buildings? You go fast enough that the slipstream holds you on? Well, I could do that too. And Amy can ride on Gamma."

"It's not like a brick surface," Sonic pointed out. "It's all irregular."

"Well, we've got to try something. We can't just stand here all day. It's already past ten."

"It will be easier to enter the factory from the top," Gamma informed them. The big mech stood facing the tower, his eyes on the damaged cable car tube. "There is a great deal of security at ground level. Robotnik believed you would attack from there, not from the tower. That is why there is limited security at the top."

Sonic sweatdropped. "That's why he put an extremely obvious bridge across the valley, so we wouldn't use it?"

Gamma shrugged. "I do not claim to understand his mind."

Suddenly, Tails snapped his fingers. "I've got it," he said quietly. "Why don't we go across the top of the cable car? Instead of in it? It's the car's weight that's damaged the tube, not ours."

Sonic glanced uneasily at Gamma.

"Well... he can go last." Tails jumped up onto the top of the car, and looked across to the tower. "It honestly doesn't look that hard." He took a few steps out onto the glass span, then jumped up and down on it, making Sonic wince and throw a paw over his eyes. "See? Firm!"

"If you say so..." The hedgehog took a run-up and athletically somersaulted onto the glass. "C'mon, Amy, now you. Gamma, you mind if you fly over with that cool helicopter thing? Only you're probably too heavy to walk on this." He shifted his feet slightly, realising that a crack ran right between his legs.

"Of course," the big mech rumbled.

Amy jumped and tried to catch onto the top of the car. "Hey! I'm not tall enough! SONIE! I need a leg up!" The blue hedgehog was already walking carefully across the span, arms out horizontally for balance, following Tails who was nearly halfway to the tower.

Gamma picked her up and gently deposited her on the top of the cable car. "Uh... thanks."

Hesitantly, Amy took a step forward. "Oo, I don't like this..."

"I will carry you if you wish."

"Thanks, Gamma." She smiled at him. "You're really sweet." With a little more confidence, Amy walked forward, keeping her eyes firmly on the others ahead.

"Sweet?" repeated Gamma.

Tails had reached the tower. He crouched down, hooking his fingers through the grille of an air vent in the roof of the glass tube, and pulled. Sonic came up beside him and added his strength, understanding the fox's intent. The grille refused to move. "Hey... is it screwed down or something?" the hedgehog asked.

"Nah, just rusted." Tails heaved again. "I felt it budge."

"One more time." Sonic removed his gloves. "Ready? One... two... THREE!" The grille popped free with a wrenching of metal and a shower of tiny rust pieces. Quickly, Sonic slipped through into the tube. The door slid open automatically, picking up his presence with an infra-red beam. Tails jumped down after him, and followed the hedgehog back into the laboratory.

Amy was only half way across the span. She saw her friends disappearing, and let out a yelp of fright. "Wait! Don't leave me here!" The little pink hedgehog started to hurry towards the tower, unmindful of the slipperiness of the glass tube. Gamma, watching her progress, experienced a premonition and converted modes, flying off the edge of the cliff with jet booster on full to catch her up. Predictably, she slipped. Her eyes widened as she found herself suddenly without a standing surface, but she had no time to let out more than the beginning of a scream before she was sprawled on a cool metal surface. Gamma's head. The big mech rose up gracefully, flying towards the tower.

"Oh, my god," Amy said shakily, clutching on via the air vents. "You saved my life."

"Yes," Gamma said, concentrating on other things. The vent was too small for him to get through. He hovered above it and lowered his legs, touching down as gently as possible on the fragile surface.

There was a thunderous crash of breaking glass. Sonic, right beside the cable car, yelled and whirled round just in time to see Gamma crash through the glass roof. Luckily, the floor, a metal ledge that extended for a few feet beyond the tower, was somewhat stronger. Gamma stepped into the lab. Amy, her eyes squeezed shut, clung to him as if he was a life raft.

Sonic blinked. "Uh... hi."

"Sonic," Tails said urgently, drawing his attention away from the other two. "Metal Sonic's gone. Eggman's been here."

"How can you tell it was Eggman?" the blue hedgehog asked. "Maybe Metal woke up. Maybe it's somewhere in this room. Maybe it's going to jump out and-"

"There's an egg sandwich wrapper in the trash." The fox was looking in the steel waste can which stood beside the stairwell. He grinned at Sonic. "Do you know anybody who eats egg sandwiches?"

"So it was Eggman," Sonic said, thinking. "That doesn't mean Metal isn't here."

"No, it just means that it's going to be really really dangerous." Tails seemed peculiarly cheerful. "Oh, and the door locks are on, I think. I turned them on by mistake. Luckily they open for Gamma."

"They do?" Sonic asked. Then he realised that Eggman had never seen Gamma destroy any of his creations. He probably thought that Gamma was still on his side... which meant that Gamma's security ID still worked. They could enter anywhere in the entire factory. The hedgehog punched the air. "Yes! Cool!"

"We can use the lift to reach the hangar," Gamma said. "It is possible to bypass many of the defense systems." He moved smoothly towards the stairs that led down to the ground floor. Amy, who had finally opened her eyes, looked around and then jumped down from the big mech's head.

"Something happen out there?" Sonic asked mildly. She gave him a nasty look.

Tails had stopped rummaging through the rubbish. Instead, the fox was happily poking around in a storage cupboard beneath one of the wall-mounted control units. His tails were twitching with excitement. "Far out!"

"What?" Sonic rolled his eyes when he noticed what his friend was doing.

"This might come in useful," Tails said, withdrawing himself. He held up a slender object about five inches long, with a tubby steel implement sticking out of one end. The fox hit a button on the handle, and the steel rod twirled round busily. "A sonic screwdriver! As seen on TV! Fits all screw types via additional tool heads. R-R-P $99.99, batteries not included. I've always wanted one of those."

"Sonic screwdriver? Cool, it's named after me."

"Yeah, right." Tails made to put the automatic screwdriver into a pocket, then realised he didn't have any pockets. "Ah... I'll carry it for now."

"Please hurry up," Gamma warned, standing by the open lift door.

Nobody had bothered to fix the broken bulb inside. Sonic peeked in and then stepped right inside, somewhat uneasily. "Darn, I wish I'd thought to bring a torch," he said, glancing up at the exposed filament in the ceiling.

"Hopefully it won't be that dark later on," Tails suggested. "I mean, he's gotta have lights throughout most of this place. There were tons in the factory."

They crowded into the lift, which was uncomfortably small to house two hedgehogs, a fox and a large robot. Tails found that if he leaned one way, he was leaning against Gamma, and the other way he ended up getting quills stuck into his head. "Jeez, you guys!" he complained loudly.

Sonic turned his head, which unfortunately made things worse for the poor fox. "What?"

"Argh!" Tails moaned, trying ineffectually to push the blue hedgehog away from him. He only ended up crushing a squealing Amy into the opposite corner. After a moment he gave up and, dropping to the floor, crawled between Gamma's legs as a last resort. "Gamma, whatever you do, DON'T move, okay?"

"May I push the lift button?" Gamma asked obediently, standing like a rock.

Amy slapped her forehead. "Oy!" she exclaimed. "Here, I'll push it! Which floor?"

"The third. That will bring us closest to the hangar."

"Okie-do!" She jumped, and stretching up as far as she could she slapped the button with the palm of her hand. Above them, there was a smooth mechanical buzz as the lift mechanism charged up. The doors slid shut and left the four unlikely companions in the darkness.

"Hey," Sonic said. "What if the lift cable breaks?"

Three voices told him, in no uncertain terms, to shut up.

*

Seph hid behind a newsstand in the foyer of the station, watching the people go in and out and the trains come and go. Early this morning, the Guardian had disappeared again. The little Chao had had a momentary sense of moving east very fast, and now the Guardian was gone for good. There wasn't even the faintest echo of a signal.

That was why he was here. He intended to follow the Guardian east. He'd come so far now he couldn't pass up on a further journey, and though tired and footsore he was still prepared to go on and find new and interesting places. He was looking forward to getting back to the garden when it was all over; he'd have so much to tell the others, they'd never tire of it.

Another train slid into the station, and words spilled out from the loudspeakers in the ceiling. "The train headed for the Mystic Ruins will be departing soon..." Seph's lion ears pricked up. Here was his transport! But how could he get to the train without being seen? There were hundreds of people milling around. He looked about him quickly, and then saw a shopping bag sitting right in front of him, beside the feet of someone who was getting a paper. The Chao swiftly darted forward and climbed into the bag, throwing out a couple of inedible items to make room. A moment later, a rustling parcel of newspaper was stuffed right on top of him, and then the bag was in motion, swinging through the air. Cautiously, Seph lifted a corner of the paper, which smelled powerfully of ink.

His unwary transport carried him all the way across the foyer, and then onto the train. Seph waited only until the bag was put down again before scrambling out and dashing beneath the nearest seat. He didn't want to be around when the bag's owner checked his things. Heart hammering, the Chao crouched in the dusty gloom behind the legs of the travelers. This train was the right one; he knew it. He could feel the Guardian again.

*

Sonic, Tails, Amy and E-102 Gamma walked slowly along a white and featureless corridor. It was very quiet; save for the hum of machinery from somewhere below, there was no sound but that which they made. There was a scent of disinfectant that was somehow reminiscent of hospitals; only even cleaner. Occasionally they passed wall-mounted television cameras with faint red lights glowing by their lenses; Sonic had wanted to break them at first, but Gamma pointed out that if anyone was monitoring the screens, they would be more likely to notice a trail of blackouts along a particular route, than they would four walkers who didn't draw attention to themselves.

The hedgehog, indeed, was jittery. He had been down on the factory floor before and had experienced extreme danger, and he was already geared up for a similar sort of action. Sonic's metabolism didn't easily convert to a steady walking pace, especially when he was nervous, and he continually looked around, searching for a possible enemy. He was making everyone else anxious.

"This is scary," Amy whispered to Tails. "Surely they know we're here by now?" The fox could only shrug.

There was a T-junction ahead. Gamma, who was following their route on an internal map of the factory, paused for a moment. "We must go right here," he said.

"Hope you know what you're doing, pal," Sonic remarked. His voice was slightly higher than usual and full of tension. "This place looks all the same to me."

Gamma raised his hand and indicated another of the numerous security cameras as they drew level with it. "It is not all the same. That is number D7-304A 019. The next will be D7-304A 020."

The hedgehog groaned loudly. "You never cease to amaze me, Gamma, really."

Tails played with his sonic screwdriver for a while. He thought it was totally cool. There were spare heads of different sizes, stored in an unscrewing compartment in the handle. It ran on two batteries, A-A size. It could go in reverse if you wanted to unscrew a screw. The fox made the screwdriver go backwards and forwards until Amy threatened to hit him with her mallet, and then he stopped. He walked straight into the back of Sonic, and got another faceful of quills. "ARGH!"

"Quiet!" Sonic hissed, grabbing the surprised fox and covering his mouth. Tails mumbled something behind his friend's hand, and then his eyes widened as he saw where they had come to. The corridor ended with a pair of glass swinging doors, one of which was propped open by a plastic cleaning pail. There was still a mop sitting in the pail.

Beyond that, there was a large room. Huge. Glittering steel. Full of incredibly complex electrical equipment. On a big round center pedestal and dominating the room, there was an extremely large mechanical device, connected to the accompanying machinery by hundreds of cables of varying size. The robot, if that was what it was, was long and sinuous, like a segmented worm, and numerous weapons jutted from the front end. The high-powered industrial laser on the tip of the blunted nose-cone looked especially vile, but then so did the big metal spikes jutting out of each segment. The tail of the device was equipped with something that looked kinda like an economy-size thermonuclear weapon might look, if there were such things.

"Now THAT'S a mech," Tails breathed, impressed. "Looks like a robot snake!"

"It is," Sonic muttered. "It's the Egg Viper."

"NANI? You SURE?"

"I think I'd recognise it by now!" the hedgehog said hotly. "He's rebuilt the darn thing! It's all there except for the paint job!" Approximately half of the giant, coiled mechanical snake had been sprayed in a deep crimson, but the other half remained a dull, brushed-aluminum gray. It gleamed expensively beneath the fluorescent lights.

"What do you suppose he wants to do with that?" Amy whispered.

Sonic shook his head. "I dunno. But that thing is deadly... and I mean, deadly." He shivered despite himself, thinking about just how close he had come to death the day he fought Robotnik's master weapon. The mad scientist had sent the doomed creation straight at him in a suicide dive, which he had only dodged by a miracle of agility and razor-sharp instinct.

"Hey, Sonie?" The pink hedgehog nudged him. "You okay? You look kinda pale."

"I'm fine. It was just a shock seeing that thing again..."

"I bet." She was starry-eyed as she gazed up at the metal monster. "You really fought it?" Sonic suppressed a groan, realising she was inches away from hero-worship again.

"We must go through this room to reach the hangar," Gamma said, slightly apologetic.

"Okay, pal," Sonic answered. "Which way?" There were three doors at the other end.

"The center one." The big mech clanked forward, unconcerned by the gigantic robot on the dais. It made even he look small.

Tails fiddled with his screwdriver again. "I bet it would be really fun to drive that snake," he said dreamily.

"UNFORTUNATELY, YOU WON'T GET THE CHANCE! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Robotnik's voice blared from hidden speakers, seemingly arranged all around the room. Sonic, who had all along been expecting something similar, was already powering up for a fight, his spines erect as he dropped into a fighting stance. Amy screamed.

"Eggman!" yelled Tails, belatedly.

Maniacal laughter issued from the speakers. "Yes, foolish fur! It is I, the great Robotnik! You walked right into my trap! Now, prepare yourselves for destruction!" The mechanical snake lifted its head, as if it had been feigning sleep.

"Everyone get out of the way!" Sonic ordered. "I can handle this dumb-"

ZAP.

Light and heat washed over them as the Egg Viper, with no warning whatsoever, fired its nose laser. A tremendous explosion rocked the very foundations of the room. Mere moments later, Gamma had taken up an attack position, blasting at the monster snake with his powerfully upgraded laser cannon.

But it was too late.

There was a gaping hole in the floor, the edges of which glowed cherry-red and smoking. Through the gap, there was the darkness of a long drop down onto the factory floor far below.

There was no sign of Sonic.

"Hahahahaha!" Eggman gloated. "Oh, yes! Sonic is no more! Now, my beautiful creation, wipe out the rest of these furry feebleminds! As for you, Gamma - I expected better from you! I'm disappointed!"

"Maybe he's still alive," Amy said numbly.

Tails grabbed her hand. "It hurts me to say it, but we'll have to worry about Sonic later! We have to get out of here! Gamma!!" Without another moment's delay, he leaped down the hole, hanging onto Amy. His trademark twin tails were already spinning round as the fox prepared to use his special ability and save them from the drop.

Gamma turned and ran towards the hole. The Egg Viper tracked his progress, its head moving just slightly slower than the E-100 mech could go. Before it could release another shot, Gamma fired up his jet booster and disappeared down the hole, moving with surprising agility for a mech of his bulk.

Eggman was still laughing over the intercom. The escape of the other three interlopers in no way diminished his joy. Once they were down in the bowels of his factory, they could easily be mopped up by his security robots. The role of Sonic and his annoying friends in stopping the plans of the evil scientist, was over. This was truly an unlooked-for moment.

*

Water dripped steadily from somewhere with a stealthy plink... plink... plink... It was dark, and cold. Noise filtered down from elsewhere, the sound of high-powered industrial machinery.

Tails groaned softly. He was lying on a metallic surface; his cheek was pressed against it. There was something warm and heavy across his legs. He could taste water in his mouth, with a faintly oily, metallic undertone. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes and saw two pale green lights above him in the gloom.

He sat up, wriggling out from underneath Amy Rose. She was either asleep or unconscious; he couldn't tell which in the darkness, and she wasn't moving. He could hear her breathing, though, steady and firm. Tails brushed himself down, hating the slimy wet on his fur. It was probably condensation; they seemed to be a long way down.

"Gamma?" he said. The echoes that came back suggested to him a long, low place.

The green lights dipped slightly. "Yes."

"Jeez, that's you." He was vaguely startled. "Where are we?"

There was a mechanical whir. "We are beneath the factory. You fell."

Tails closed his eyes, remembering an impression of speed and of a weight dragging him down. "Oh yeah... I couldn't fly with her, there was a downdraught. I slowed us down enough, though. Gamma..." It pained him to say it. "Have you any idea where Sonic is?"

"There is no sign of him here. He may be on one of the higher levels. There was some activity above, a few minutes ago."

"Maybe they took him prisoner." Tails felt a rising hope. "We have to get out of here and look for him. I just bet he's alive!"

"That will be difficult," Gamma said. "I have no maps of this area."

"We'll have to do it the old-fashioned way then." He got to his feet, shaking off liquid from his soaked fur. "Hey... it's kinda wet down here. You gonna be okay?"

"My electronics are partially shielded. However, I do not want to stay here too long." There was a slight sploshing. "I appear to be standing in six inches of water."

"Oh." Tails blinked. "Gamma?"

"Yes."

"Have you got a light?"

A powerful white beam stabbed through the gloom. The fox had to cover his eyes for a moment, to allow them to adapt to the sudden change; they stung. He shaded his face with a hand and looked around, scanning his surroundings for danger.

He was standing on a metal grid walkway a foot or so above a waterlogged concrete floor. Rusty pipes were all around, many leaking slightly; it was probably this, then, that had caused the puddles below. A few feet away, there was a ladder attached to the walkway which seemed to climb up to another level. Gamma turned slightly and his headlight illuminated Amy, curled up on her side on the metal floor and sleeping peacefully.

"What time is it?" Tails asked. He lowered his voice in case he accidentally woke and startled her.

"Eleven oh five. Only seven minutes have passed since we became separated."

"I wasn't out for long, then." He sighed. "Do you think you could carry Amy?"

"Of course."

"Good. We should get going." Tails wrung out his tails, grimacing at the water which spattered onto the walkway. He hated getting wet, it waterlogged his thick fur and then he was damp and chilly for hours. "Which way, do you think?"

"I am not sure," Gamma said. "I suggest we ascend the maintenance walkways. Eventually we will come across a door."

"Yeah, good thinking. Come on, then." The beam of light jerked and moved around as Gamma lowered himself to pick up Amy. Tails walked to the ladder and tested it; it seemed firm. "Here," he said, starting to climb. A faint shaking of the ladder told him that the big robot was coming after him. "Say, how much can you see down here?" he asked. "Without that light, I mean."

"I am currently viewing in infra-red," Gamma said. "I see most things."

"Lucky."

"You do not have that capability?"

"Uh, no." Tails reached the top of the first ladder and stood up, dusting off his hands. It was drier up here, but very dirty; weird gunk was clinging to the once-white fabric of his gloves, and in his fur. He dreaded having to eventually look at his sneakers. The wet, muddy feeling was bad enough without visual information as to what he'd got in them. He was still clutching something tightly in his left hand; with a sudden curiosity, Tails held it out into the headlight's beam, and nearly laughed when he saw it was the sonic screwdriver.

Sonic screwdriver... oh, god.

"I hope he's okay. That's not how I thought it would end - it was way too quick."

"Sonic is resourceful," Gamma said. "If he is able to move, he will be looking after himself."

"I guess you're right." He sniffed. "Phoo! What a reek of oil!"

"Yes. We are probably near the refinery. These pipes may be the cooling system for the fractional distillation plant." Gamma's light bobbed up and down over the scenery as the big mech walked.

"Hey, I did fractional distillation in school. Isn't it that thing where you have a thing with ink in it and then you heat it up and the water turns into vapour and leaves you with dry ink?" Gamma didn't answer, but Tails wasn't surprised. He was sure he hadn't explained it quite right. "I hate Chemistry," he remarked. "What the heck does fractional distillation do, anyway?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"No."

He smiled. "Heck, Gamma, that makes you sound a lot more human."

"It does?"

"Yeah. Hey, there's another ladder here." He laid hold of it, looked back to make sure Gamma was following, and then started to climb.

"Tails?" said Gamma.

The fox looked back, surprised. "What's up?"

"There is movement nearby. I believe it may be a security bot."

"We can fight it, right?"

"It may be an E-100."

He bit his lip. "Like you? That's bad, right? Keep going, it might not notice us."

"It will notice us if it is an E-100."

"Well, there's nothing we can do." Tails reached the top of the ladder. "C'mon, quick." He leaned over the top and waved at Gamma to hurry up.

Gamma clambered over the edge of the second platform and straightened up. Amy was still cradled in his gun arm, and so far had said nothing, though her increased rate of breathing suggested she was awake. He wondered if she was hurt, but he knew there was little he could do about it if she was since he didn't know how to repair people. He hoped Sonic hadn't been terminated by that blast; to be honest, he didn't think so. There had been no residual particles after the hedgehog had disappeared; he might have survived the blast and then fallen straight through the hole made by it. Gamma wondered what the likelihood of that might be. He didn't have enough data to make a guess.

And he had other things to worry about right now. Perimeter sensors were picking up an energy reading below. Gamma looked at the fox, who was standing a little way along the walkway looking back at him, and then he turned, directing his beam in a sweeping path along the ground below. He switched to normal vision and the darkness hit him like a blow.

"Gamma, what are you doing?" Tails asked.

"There is the robot," Gamma said. He could faintly make out with his enhanced night vision, a pair of fast-moving green lights on a walkway around twenty feet below and to their right. Shifting his feet, he directed his headlight straight onto the other mech, catching a momentary glimpse of it as it flashed past on some other errand. It didn't react to the light.

"Oh yeah!" Tails breathed. "I saw it! It isn't coming for us - I guess it must be busy."

Gamma stared at the spot where the robot had been, and replayed in his memory the single confused second of sighting. He zoomed in on the image. The robot was black with two heavy-duty arm cannons, the image blurred with speed. No other details could be made out.

"Gamma? You look like you've seen a ghost."

*

Sonic cautiously opened one eye. Nothing untoward happened, so he opened the other one as well.

He was lying on his back on a soft surface, looking up at a white ceiling and a fluorescent light of the type found in hospitals. There didn't seem to be a single part of his body which didn't ache, although his chest and left leg were worst. "Did anyone get the number of that truck?" he said sleepily to the air.

He tried to sit up, and then he realised he was strapped down - not painfully, but securely, with strong nylon bands over his chest, wrists and ankles. Sonic snapped all the way awake with a cold shock, struggled for a moment and then turned his head from side to side, trying to figure out exactly where he was.

"He's awake." A robot's voice, grating and electronic, assailed his ears. Sonic turned his head to the left and saw a many-armed service droid bending over him.

"Argh!" he said in alarm.

What he heard next, seriously worried him. "Good, good," Eggman said from somewhere behind, where he couldn't turn his head to look. He needn't have bothered, though, for a moment later the face of the mad scientist appeared in his visual field. "How are you feeling, Sonic?"

"I can see right up your nose," Sonic said rudely. He didn't feel too good as a matter of fact. Caught at last! And by his arch nemesis, too! He was pretty sure he was in serious trouble. "So what are you going to do with me? Stick me in a robot?"

"Oh, you needn't worry just yet," Eggman chuckled insanely, his mustache wiggling repulsively. It looked like he had a ferret up each nostril. "I have need of you! Well... some of you, anyway."

"Nani?" Sonic squeaked. He tried the straps again, but they were pretty darn strong, and besides, he couldn't charge up for a spin while he was flat on his back.

"All right, get him up! Bring him to the Cerebro-Translocational Duplicator room, right away!" Eggman turned away, still laughing like a maniac. That laugh really got on Sonic's nerves.

A couple of the service droids laid tight hold of his arms, then the straps holding him down were released. Sonic surged off the bed, trying to yank his arms free, but he couldn't; the droids were too strong. "Don't bother struggling," Robotnik ordered. "They can rip you limb from limb if I order them to. After all, I only need your brain."

"NANI??" Sonic yelled. "You can't have my brain! I need it!" He was feeling seriously scared now.

"Don't be such a wimp! I'm only going to borrow it for a while!" With that, the fat scientist turned on his heel and strode out of the room, which Sonic could now see was some kind of advanced medical suite. He looked down at himself, noticing that the bandages Tails had put over his chest were gone and that the wounds caused by Metal Sonic had been properly treated. Along with some burns that were new... Sonic remembered his rather short bout with the Egg Viper and then wondered where his friends were. As long as Eggman didn't have them captured, he had a chance of escape...

The droids marched towards the door in unison, dragging Sonic along with them. Reluctantly, he decided to go with the flow for the time being, seeing as he couldn't free himself without help. Maybe an opportunity would present itself later on.

"What did he mean, he wants to borrow my brain?" Sonic wasn't happy with the way things were going. And what the heck was a Cerebro-Translocational Duplicator? It sounded painful.

"Silence, organism," grunted one of the droids. He shrugged, as far as he was able with them holding his arms so tight, and let them carry him out of the medical room and into a plain gray aluminum-colored corridor. The round globe lights in the ceiling were strobing faintly. Sonic pricked up his ears, but he couldn't hear the factory machines any more - just the faint hum of electricity somewhere. This must be a different area of the Mystic Ruins lab; maybe Robotnik had an experimental laboratory going here as well as the heavy metal stuff. He had to be doing testing somewhere, since his mechs tended to work so well. Maybe there was a real secret base they hadn't found yet.

The droids marched to the end of the corridor, where there were a pair of glass doors that looked very familiar. Sonic's ears flattened as the robots carried him through, but then he realised it wasn't the same room after all. Instead of the Egg Viper, this large area housed a big square boxy sort of thing, with two long conductors sticking out of the top and arcing electricity. His teeth ached slightly. There were two metal chairs welded to the floor in the center of the room; wires and weird mechanical devices surrounded these. Sonic got his feet under him and jerked away from the robots, but wasn't quite able to free himself before they tightened their grip further, hurting him. He yelped.

Eggman was standing behind a pedestal, upon which was a complex control panel. "Greetings, hedgehog!" the scientist yelled gleefully. He threw a switch, and the lights in the room dimmed. Three bright spotlights in the ceiling swung their powerful beams towards the machine in a piece of theatrical intimidation. "This is my master work!" Robotnik announced, flinging his arm out towards the monstrosity. "Behold!"

Sonic blinked. "Darling, it's WONDERFUL," he said with heavy sarcasm. "Does it do anything?"

"Bah!" The obese scientist glared at him. "You lack the intelligence to marvel at my creation! But, since you ask, I'll show you what it does!" Without being told, the service droids marched up to the first of the chairs, and dumped Sonic into it. He yelped again as metal bands snapped over his wrists and ankles, effectively locking him into the chair. The machine whirred, and a number of electrodes snaked down from a compartment inside it. Sonic tried to bite one of the droids when it fastened the wires to his head, but only ended up with a sore mouth. Trussed up, he thought up several wild plans for escape, but none of them worked. He had the sense that the little performance he'd just witnessed was something that had been rehearsed more than once. Egg-face had been preparing for this day.

Robotnik waddled down from his pedestal and stood in front of the immobilised Sonic. "Oh, what a beautiful sight!" he chuckled. "Welcome to my brand new Cerebro-Translocational Duplicator, version 2.0!"

"Version two-oh?" Sonic asked. "What happened to version one?"

Surprisingly, the scientist looked somewhat embarrassed. "Ah... there were a few problems with the prototype. We lost a few experimental subjects. But the bugs are mostly ironed out now."

"You're going to do something to my brain with a buggy invention?" Sonic sweatdropped. "Is this safe?" Then he remembered he was talking to his arch-nemesis, and Eggman probably didn't give a monkey's whether it was safe or whether it was going to explode his head when turned on.

"Silence, you annoying anthropomorph!" Robotnik roared. Sonic bristled, wondering why everyone was telling him to shut up today. Also, he objected to being insulted in more than three syllables. He didn't understand what that phrase meant, and he had a feeling it was rude. Eggman, however, had lost interest in gloating. "MS-01!" he shouted.

There was a whirr, and then a horribly familiar face came into view. Metal Sonic stepped through the door Sonic had just entered by, glittering like new underneath the spotlights. The robotic hedgehog walked with surprising smoothness to the second chair, and lowered itself into it. The service droids hastened to attach more electrodes to Metal's dark blue cranium, connecting them both up to the machine. Restraints similar to those on Sonic were snapped over Metal's wrists and ankles.

This was NOT good.

"I know," Robotnik began, starting to pace up and down in front of them, "that my creations are flawed. They are mere machines. They do not have the ability to think and reason illogically, and thus they fall down when confronted with someone like YOU, Sonic, who is incapable of acting logically. Computer models are unable to predict your next move.

"For the past three years I have been working on a way of replicating in a robot the immensely complex mechanisms of the living brain. Unfortunately, all of my early attempts failed. However, in my infinite genius, I eventually found a way! You will be my first true test subject, and the fact that I am also using my most valuable mech should tell you how confident I am of success this time!"

Robotnik turned and waddled back to the pedestal, his belly swinging before him. "MS-01 has been vastly improved. Besides alterations to certain physical features, he has been equipped with a revolutionary new CPU. He has special dedicated memory banks which are able to hold up to three terabytes of data in total. He is running on a super-fast Unix system which has been pared down for ultimate efficiency, and is also equipped with a special chip which allows him to learn from past experience. In fact, he is a completely new robot. But in just a few minutes, he will be more than that!"

Sonic turned his head and looked at his robot duplicate, who stared lifelessly straight ahead. There were changes, such as longer, stronger arms and legs, and a difference in the shape of the head. His eyes lingered on the hands which lay on the arms of the chair; now, Metal had fully articulated hands with proper fingers. They seemed precision instruments, strangely delicate to belong to a killing machine; skeletal, with exposed wires connecting each joint. The tips of the fingers were equipped with rubber pads for grip.

"What I am going to do," Robotnik said loudly, "is copy the contents of your brain into MS-01's new memory chips. His computer will then compile the pure data and run it like an emulator. In your case, I shouldn't need three terabytes-worth of memory space, but it is always wise to err on the side of caution."

"Hey..." Sonic growled, figuring out that that was another insult. Then he understood the rest of the mad scientist's speech. "If you give him a copy of my brain, won't he just be me?"

Robotnik cackled madly. "There lies the true evidence of my genius!" he screamed. "The Cerebro-Translocational Duplicator will make extensive alterations to your personality as it is installed on his operating system! He will be loyal only to me! But enough of this talking!" He flicked another switch on the control panel, and Sonic heard the machine behind him starting to charge up. "It's time to begin the cerebral translocation!"

One of the service droids pointed a small machine at him; it beeped. "Organic subject's life functions steady," the droid bleated. Sonic growled at it.

"Power at thirty per cent!" Robotnik answered, gleefully rubbing his hands together.

"MS-01 is prepared for transfer!" cried the other droid, adjusting one of the wires attached to the robot hedgehog. Metal seemed unaware of his surroundings, sitting calmly looking at nothing. Sonic sideyed him uneasily.

"Power at sixty per cent and climbing! Opening data channel!"

Sonic heard a weird, staticky noise that seemed to be coming from inside his own head. He turned in his seat and looked back at the machine, noticing that the previously quiet electronic hum was rising to a scream.

"Everything's working perfectly!" Robotnik shrieked, jumping up and down. "Their minds are joined! Power at eighty-five per cent! Prepare for transfer!" The droids bustled about urgently, making last-minute adjustments to parts of the machine.

"Power at ninety-two per cent!" The evil scientist cackled again. "You may feel slightly confused after the process, Sonic! Power at ninety-six per cent and climbing!"

"There's no place like home!" Sonic yelled. Nothing happened. "Darn, there goes the last of my escape plans..."

"Cerebro-Translocational Duplicator fully charged!" Robotnik screeched. He was getting too excited for his own good, Sonic thought. The hedgehog watched out of the corner of his eye as Eggman flipped switches and twiddled dials. "Beginning translocation!"

He yanked down a lever, and Sonic felt a monstrous bolt of pain enter his head. He squeezed his eyes shut, holding onto the arms of the chair so hard that his knuckles turned white. Noise blared into his head; the same sound a computer modem made when dialling into a network, only ear-splittingly loud. Beside him, Metal Sonic was spasming, blue sparks darting between the electrodes attached to his head.

Robotnik watched a readout on his computer screen; it showed a gauge climbing steadily. "IT'S WORKING!"

"Sir," droned one of the droids. "Power drain is higher than expected. The procedure may cause a blackout in some sectors."

"It doesn't matter! HAHAHAHAHAHA! The translocator is one hundred per cent functional! How is our resident rodent?"

The droid bent over and studied Sonic, who was in too much extreme discomfort to react. "Heartbeat and respiration are greatly increased, but subject appears stable." Robotnik cranked the transfer up another notch, sending the gauge on his screen spinning.

There was a muffled explosion from inside the machine, and thick blue smoke started to pour out of the big ventilation slots near the base. It had a faintly sweetish smell. Electrical energy from the charged antennae began to arc out and hit nearby machinery, sizzling as it did so. Robotnik frantically pressed buttons. "What? What's happening?" he yelled.

"Overload in Cerebro-Translocational Duplicator main power core," one of the droids informed him dully.

"Shut it down!" The egg-obsessed experimenter threw the lever back and forth, flicking every switch he could find. Slowly, the machine responded; the high screaming of its generator began to quieten down, and the smoke lessened. A dull bang shook the room, and then the electricity on the antennae dissipated. One of the antennae fell off. With a clunk and a whine, the Cerebro-Translocational Duplicator ceased to function. Wisps of smoke still found their way out of the bottom of the machine. The restraints holding Sonic and Metal Sonic failed.

Sonic slowly raised his head. "Mph argg nnn urghl ee?" he asked nobody in particular, and then fell out of the chair.

Eggman looked down at his gauge, which was blinking rapidly on 100%. "It worked! It actually worked!" The fat scientist did a shuffling kind of victory dance which made his rotund belly wobble. He jumped off the pedestal and waddled in front of Metal Sonic, who was slumped in his chair as if dead. "MS-01! Can you hear me?"

Sonic got to his feet, understanding what Eggman had meant about feeling confused. He felt as if his mind had been tipped into a bowl and whisked lightly for several minutes. All his spines were standing on end from the static electricity the machine had generated. He hit his forehead, noticing that his vision was out of focus.

Metal Sonic lifted his head. His eyes were glowing brightly. He lifted his right hand and looked at it, then did the same with his left. "I... live," he said, sounding somewhat puzzled.

"Yes!" Robotnik yelled. "I created you! Do you remember me, MS-01? Your glorious creator!"

The robot hedgehog looked at the fat scientist. "Yes..." he said slowly. "Yes, I remember. How may I serve you, Doctor Robotnik?"

"Excellent!" Eggman yelled. He pointed towards the disoriented Sonic. "Do you see that?"

"Yes." Metal's eyes flashed brightly, locking on.

"Kill him!"

"Focus... focus..." Sonic hit his head again. Something cleared. He looked over towards Metal, and his ears flattened as he met the eyes of the mech. God... there was intelligence there. True intelligence. That crazy machine of Eggman's had actually worked.

*

"All right!" Tails whooped. "Now we're getting somewhere!"

They had ascended the maze of walkways without further incident, and now they stood at the very top, in front of a rusted steel door marked with a complicated serial number. Gamma was somewhat preoccupied, shaken by the sight of the other mech, but he was still alert enough. The fox reached out and jiggled the handle of the door. "Aw, no, it's locked!" he complained.

Gamma gently set Amy down. "Please stand back," he informed them both, leveling his gun. Amy ran to stand beside Tails, and they both backed up against the hand rail, their footsteps rattling the walkway. Gamma charged up a shot, noting that his blaster was getting low on power, and then blew the door in. Beyond, there was a concrete corridor, poorly lit but lit nonetheless. Gamma turned off his headlight.

"Now we get to find Sonic," Tails said cheerfully. He had pretty much convinced himself his friend was okay. "What would we have done without you, Gamma?"

"I don't know," the big mech responded innocently.

Amy sighed. "I haven't been much help at all yet."

Tails smiled at her. "It's okay, Amy. How's the ankle? I'm sure he won't mind carrying you a bit further." She had twisted it painfully when she and Tails crash-landed in what the fox had recently dubbed the 'black pits of heck'.

"I'm not a total gimp, thanks, Tails." Amy was in a bad mood.

"Okay, uh, good. Gamma, do you know where we are yet?"

"No." The mech swung his head from side to side, scanning the area. "I am sorry, Tails, there is nothing to identify at the moment."

"No problem." Tails brushed himself off; he had dried somewhat during the climb through the maintenance walkways, but that just made the gunk on him that much harder to bear. If there was anything he hated so much as being wet, it was being mucky. They were all covered in the odd, thick, dark gray mud that had coated the pipes.

He stepped over the smashed door. At the end of the corridor there was another ladder, and Tails cocked his ears to listen. Yes, the factory machinery was definitely louder here. "Hey, guys, I think we're gonna come out in Final Egg!"

"That makes it more difficult to reach the hangar," Gamma remarked. "We will have to go through the factory first."

"Great!" Amy enthused, getting her mallet out. "Now I get to smash some badniks!"

Tails trotted to the ladder and laid hold of it. "Come on, then, guys," he said, realising that now Sonic was gone he had adopted the role of leader by default. "Let's get going." Amy followed him, limping slightly as she began to climb.

Gamma turned in the entrance, switching to infra-red and looking back down onto the alien landscape of pipes and walkways. It was a giant game of snakes and ladders from where he stood; he could see all the way across to the opposite side. He looked as far as he could, but he couldn't see the robot that had gone past them earlier. Reluctantly he turned back and stomped into the corridor, his mind full of unanswered questions.

As Tails had thought, the ladder up gave them a way onto the factory floor. One by one, the three friends emerged from an unobtrusive shaft behind a gigantic set of working pistons, surrounded by the cacophony of the industrial machinery. Nearby was the device the pistons worked; a huge furnace that worked ceaselessly, smelting steel in vast amounts. Everything about the factory was immense, dwarfing them. It was very, very hot.

"What's all this for, anyway?" the fox yelled. He had to shout to be heard over the noise of the machines.

Gamma looked towards him. "The factory produces all the assault mechs Doctor Robotnik desires. They are produced in great numbers since they have only a limited life span. The speed of production means that they are often of very poor construction."

"Were you made here?"

"No." The big mech gazed thoughtfully at the machinery. "I and the others like me were built by hand. I suppose that if I had remained in his service, I would eventually have ended up here." He raised his gun and indicated the roaring furnace.

"You'd get melted down for scrap?" Amy said indignantly. "That's evil!"

"He IS Eggman, Amy," Tails told her.

"Why do you call him Eggman?" Gamma asked.

"'Cause he looks like an egg, silly."

"Eggman," the mech repeated slowly.

Amy frowned. She was pretty sure she was, yet again, being watched. Ignoring Tails' and Gamma's conversation, the pink hedgehog took hold of the handle of her mallet and looked around. If this place was where all the weak mechs were produced, she couldn't see why there weren't hundreds of them here right now.

She wasn't disappointed. Suddenly, a charged laser bolt landed only a few feet away and blew a hole in the metal floor. Amy shrieked and dodged the globs of molten metal that flew up into the air. A vicious humming noise rose above the sound of the machinery, and moments later a whole squadron of giant flying bugs appeared.

"Buzz Bombs!" Tails yelled, spinning his trademark twin tails as he prepared to go into smash mode. Amy spat on her hands and took a firm hold of the handle of her mallet as the killer wasps approached them. This was the sort of thing she could really do.

Gamma checked his blaster again. The charge was down to thirty-five per cent - maybe enough for ten or fifteen minutes of continuous fire. He might be able to take out all the attacking mechs, but he didn't want to use up all the power in case he needed his weapon later. Ideally, they would find a power outlet where he could siphon off enough electricity to recharge the laser's crystal. He targeted the nearest mech and blew it to pieces, then stood back to watch his friends deal with them their own way. If needed, he would rush to their aid and worry about recharging afterwards.

Luckily, they were good. Tails, remembering Sonic's order to 'look out for Amy', kept an eye on her even while he was dodging bullets. She seemed to be doing well enough on the ground, and she could seriously use that mallet - even if it was a totally stupid weapon. The robotic wasps couldn't get near her. Tails yelped as a charge shot past his head, nearly taking off the tip of his nose, and decided he'd have to worry about himself since they were all ganging up on him. He kicked two speedily into oblivion, then grabbed a third which dived at him, yanked it around and sent it flying into the fourth. They exploded on impact.

Amy stopped whapping everything in sight. "Aw... no more bugs," she said. The ground was strewn with bits of metal.

Tails dropped to the ground, fluffing up his twin tails with some pride. "Well, that was easy," he exclaimed cheerfully. His ear twitched. "What's that?"

"More are headed this way," Gamma informed him. "They must have heard the sound of the battle. We should leave before we are outnumbered ten to one."

"Where do we go?" the fox asked, scratching his head.

"My maps are incomplete and do not cover the factory floor. I still cannot locate our whereabouts. Suggest we choose a random direction."

"Fine by me," Tails said, nodding. "Thataway!" He sprang forward, running at his fastest speed with his tails whirling behind for extra boost. Gamma converted to his wheeled mode, the fastest form he had, and Amy just had time to leap onto the big mech's back before they were on the move. The sounds of pursuit still grew louder, though, and before long the first missiles began hitting the ground behind them.

"They're catching up!" Amy yelled, hanging onto Gamma as she looked back to see a veritable army of flying mechs coming after them.

Tails glanced back and saw that the others were trailing behind him. "Gamma!" he yelled. "You have to go faster!" They were blazing down a kind of sloping runway which led into a more heavily industrial area of the factory, but that wasn't what the fox was worried about. Ahead, there was a loop. One of the type he'd done a hundred times with Sonic. If Gamma didn't get up to critical velocity before he hit the loop, he'd careen out of control. Tails had seen Sonic fail a loop once, due to the distraction of being shot at, and it had taken the hedgehog two weeks to recover from the whiplash.

Gamma poured on the power. He couldn't use his jet booster, since Amy was clinging to his back - the heat would kill her. Instead, he diverted more valuable power from his blaster to his main power core, which was soon in danger of overheating. He saw the loop and let out an electronic squeal of alarm. Tails whooshed straight round it and vanished on the other side, trying desperately to decelerate. "Go faster!" he yelled back, hoping desperately that the big mech would somehow manage to hit the impossible speed.

The robots chasing them were still gaining. Gamma swiveled his head right round and saw that their blasts were hitting the ground only a few feet behind him. He threw caution to the winds and switched all main power to the screaming wheels beneath him, ignoring the multiple warnings and error messages that flashed up on his visual field. His surroundings were streaking past like a blur now, and Amy was in danger of losing her grip due to the extreme speed. The loop was very close. Gamma rocketed down the final incline like a bullet, his own weight adding to his speed via gravity. He hit the loop at something approaching two hundred miles per hour... and shot up, over and out the other side. The dim robots didn't stop in time, and most of them smashed themselves to pieces on the loop. Those that were left, with the three intruders out of their particular area, promptly forgot all about the chase.

Gamma bumped and rattled along the rest of the course, slowing down as quickly as was safe to do so. It was several hundred more yards before he was finally able to stop and convert to all-terrain mode. One of his wheels was loose from the race, and it would need attention before he used it again. He stood up and scanned his surroundings, looking for Tails.

Amy slid off his back. Her spines were blown backwards into an interesting new style. She spent a few moments combing herself back into sense, and then looked up at the big mech, breathing heavily. "That was interesting."

"You made it!" The fox was racing back towards them. "I overshot!" he yelled as he drew up in front of Gamma and Amy. "Hey, that was fantastic! You really got round the loop, huh?"

"Yes," Gamma said. He could see that the fox was pleased, and it made him happy, but he wasn't sure why the fox saw it as such an achievement.

Tails slapped him on the thigh, since he couldn't reach his back without jumping. "Nice one! If you keep that up, you'll be as fast as Sonic!"

"I would need extensive modifications to be able to maintain that speed," Gamma said. He rerouted power to his internal fan in order to cool off the power core.

"Maybe we could modify you," Tails said seriously. "If you want."

Gamma looked at him. He had never heard of anyone ASKING a mech whether it wanted to be modified.

Amy started to whine. "Come ON, you GUYS!" There was a lift not too far away; a cargo lift which went up to the second floor of the factory. The pink hedgehog was looking at it wistfully. "Can't we use that?" she asked. "We wanna go up, right? Do we have to be running everywhere?"

"Nah," Tails told her. "Guess we could use the lift; no reason why not. Gamma?"

They were asking his opinion again. As if he were their equal. He decided he would have to look further into this another time. Perhaps they were simply turning to him because their leader was lost.

"Yes," he said.

"Great!" Amy ran to the lift and thumbed the call button.

*

The security camera turned slowly, viewing a long sweep of the corridor. On its way it passed a lift door. The camera had no mind of its own, it was merely obeying orders. A central mainframe received and analysed the camera's input, but this too had no independent thought. The only thing within the entire base that had its own mind was its creator... although that might well be about to change.

The lift doors opened. The camera, sweeping past again, registered that the doors had opened and sent the information to the mainframe. It was vaguely unusual, since this lift was not usually operated at this time of day, but there was nothing to cause the central computer to alert Robotnik.

A charge of laser power blasted out of the lift and hit the camera dead center, knocking it right off the wall. It crashed to the floor with a tinkle of breaking glass, no longer able to communicate with the mainframe or even operate at all. The wall mounting hung off the wall, severed wires sparking.

"You didn't have to do that," a pink hedgehog remonstrated, stepping out of the lift.

"It felt good," commented the large robot which followed her. The gun on his right arm smoked slightly.

"You are definitely making progress."

An orange fox with two tails was the last out. He looked around with interest, ears pricked. "Hey... isn't this the same place we were last time?"

"Negatory," Gamma informed him. "We are in section D12-200A, not section D7-304A; and furthermore-"

"Okay, okay, save it. It looks the same, though. Jeez, this place must be huge."

"What's in this section?" Amy asked, fingering her mallet.

Gamma accessed his hard drive and found the map again. "Experimentational facilities."

Tails sweatdropped. "Labs, Gamma, labs. Never use a big word where a diminutive one will suffice." Amy giggled. "Now where should we go?" the fox wondered out loud, rubbing the side of his nose thoughtfully as he gazed down the corridor.

"There's only two choices," Amy told him. "Why don't you just flip a coin or something?"

Tails hesitated a moment longer, then said, "We'll go this way." He turned smartly to the left and trotted off down the corridor. The others followed without comment.

Suddenly, the lights flickered, sputtering slightly before they regained their previous radiance. Amy halted and looked up at the ceiling, then glanced at her companions. "Did anyone else see that?" she said nervously.

"There appears to be a power drain somewhere," Gamma said. The lights sputtered again and then returned to a steady illumination, somewhat less bright than they had been before.

"As long as they don't go out, it's not our problem," Tails said firmly. "Come on."

They walked in silence for a while, passing locked steel doors with unpronounceable scientific-sounding name placards stuck on them. The corridor seemed to go on for an awfully long distance, and it was awfully straight. The ubiquitous security cameras, spaced along every twenty feet or so, stared blankly down at them; the endless dark lenses reminded Tails uncomfortably of deep sea fish-eyes. It was too quiet.

"I wish there weren't all those cameras," he said after a few minutes of walking. "Eggman's probably watching us right now. You just can't tell."

"We could break them," Amy suggested. "He still found us last time when we didn't break them; what have we got to lose?"

"Another member of the party," Tails answered snidely. He felt like kicking himself when her eyes suddenly filled with unshed tears. That sort of crack was in the worst possible taste when Sonic could be hurt, even... well, he had promised himself he wouldn't go THERE. He had to keep an optimistic outlook for Amy.

Another few minutes passed with only the sound of their own footsteps for company. Finally, Tails sighed and stopped walking. "This isn't gonna work," he said tiredly, turning to face the others. "There's just too much to search. How much have we actually covered, Gamma - do you know?"

"Approximately seven per cent of total floor space."

Amy facefaulted. "Yikes! We've been running around here for hours and that's ALL we've done?"

"Seven per cent is comparatively good going," Gamma informed her.

"You're right, Tails - this isn't gonna work. We can't stay here for the next two years. Got any better ideas?"

He shook his head. "Not really. I was hoping one of you two would have something. Otherwise we might never find Son-" Tails stopped in mid-sentence.

"Ic?" Amy prompted.

The fox wasn't listening. Slowly, he raised his head and stared at the security camera above him. His mouth was slightly open.

"Um... Tails? Tails!"

"We've been total idiots," Tails said softly. "Why the heck are we doing this the hard way? We could just use the closed circuit television cameras to find them. Don't these cover the whole base?"

"Ninety-eight per cent," Gamma corrected him.

"Well, if we can't find him on the network, we can definitely search two per cent! What about it, guys?"

"Definitely," Amy said enthusiastically.

"Then it's decided!" Tails raised his fist and punched the air. "Gamma! Where's the main computer room?"

The red mech paused, processing. "It is on this floor, corridor section D1-005A. There will probably be some security there."

"That could work to our advantage. If we can get past the robots, we might be able to lock ourselves in." He grinned. "I've always wanted to hack into someone's mainframe."

"We must not get trapped," Gamma told him.

"Yeah, we'll be careful. Which way?"

*

The battle that was taking place was one of the fastest, meanest and most dangerous that Sonic the Hedgehog had ever experienced.

Still trying to shake off the effects of the Cerebro-Translocational Duplicator, he had stumbled out into the corridor with Metal Sonic close behind. Running more by instinct than by anything else, Sonic had gotten up to his usual speed and tried to leave the robot behind while he cleared his head. Metal stuck right behind him all the way. The mech was holding back on the weaponry, content to have his target in sight.

Finally Sonic had turned and faced his opponent, and that was when the fun had started. Metal kicked him through a wall and then tried to electrocute him by holding on to Sonic while passing a powerful charge through his own metal shell. Sonic wasn't sure whether his static-ed spines would ever be the same again. Tearing away from Metal's death grip, the hedgehog blasted off down another corridor, doing his best to avoid the walls that kept forcing him to change direction. Metal Sonic stayed like glue, at his heels, and occasionally fired something at him just to keep him on the edge. Sonic had the feeling the mech wasn't actually trying too hard, whereas he himself was getting pushed to the limit.

"You might as well slow down." Metal Sonic's voice, cold as the steel he was composed of, had a new menace to it. "You will never escape me now."

"Get lost," Sonic growled over his shoulder. It wasn't fair - he had to save his breath, but Metal could boast his head off even while racing at three hundred miles an hour.

"Surrender to me and I will spare your life. Continue to resist and you will be terminated without notice." Sonic dodged another missile that appeared to have been fired just to prove the point.

"Why would I... surrender?" he panted, speeding up a little. "Gotta... be kidding. Way too... much fun."

"I see through your bravado," Metal said flatly. "You will not last much longer."

"What makes you say that?" Sonic called back, trying not to let on that he was struggling for breath. "I'm staying... ahead of you, anyway."

In answer, the mech simply increased the power output from his huge fusion engine. Sonic glanced to his right and his eyes widened as he saw Metal Sonic coming up there, seemingly without any particular effort on his part. The robot stayed level with him, occasionally looking towards him with what appeared to be smugness. Jeez, he was enjoying this immensely. Robotnik's machine had turned Metal into a total psycho.

They were entering a wider area - a junction where several corridors converged. Sonic slowed down and then dug his heels into the floor, screeching to a perfect stop. Metal Sonic did the same, hovering a few feet away with his engine idling. "You've made your point," Sonic said angrily. He hated being beaten at his own game.

"Then you will surrender," Metal ordered.

"No way, pal, I'm gonna break you into little-OOF!" He slammed into the wall as the mech kicked him in the stomach. Jumping to his feet again, Sonic glared at his robotic duplicate. "That was underhanded," he growled.

Metal shrugged slightly.

Sonic leaped and spun at the mech, spines bristling with anger. Metal dodged, firing up his engine again, and attacked with similar swiftness. They chased each other in circles for a few moments, and then Sonic drew back again, wondering how he was supposed to fight the robot at all when they could always dodge each other's attacks.

"You cannot defeat me," Metal Sonic said calmly, facing him across the open space. "You, as an organic life form, are inferior."

Sonic knew he was right. He was strong, but there was a limit to how much he could do. Even if one of his attacks connected with Metal's body, how much damage would it do to tempered steel? Metal wasn't like the rest of Eggman's mechs; he had been built by hand, tested to perfection, and now... The hedgehog glanced quickly from side to side, searching the area for anything he might be able to use to his advantage.

Metal waited for him to complete his inspection. The blue mech's eyes were blazing white, indicating that he had locked on to his target and was now in battle mode. He badly wanted to beat Sonic on even terms - he WANTED it. He was the replica, and he wanted to grind the flawed original into the dust.

*

"Is he just gonna let us walk in or what?" Tails exclaimed in irritation.

They had been traveling for about ten minutes through the maze of endless white corridors, and so far they had not seen a single moving thing save for the cameras. This floor was unpleasant in its very sameness - the white, windowless passages with their plain steel doors were strongly reminiscent of mental institutions, a type of place which none of the three had seen much of. Luckily. If anything was likely to unbalance an unstable personality, it was this constant edginess. By now, all three of them were longing for a good scrap, and thought wistfully of the factory floor where there were at least things to dodge.

Amy sighed heavily. "I'm tired," she said with some petulance. "This is really boring. I thought we'd be out of here faster than this. Can't we speed up or something?"

"You speed up," Tails snapped, feeling pretty bushed himself and in no mood to humour her. His legs ached; his tails ached; his left hand was bleeding where he'd been clipped by shrapnel in the fight with the Buzz Bombs. Gamma was probably the only one who wasn't ready to drop, he thought bad-temperedly, and Gamma simply didn't get tired. Lucky him.

Unknown to the fox, though, the big mech had another problem peculiar to himself. In the lower right-hand corner of his visual field, a readout was blinking on and off very fast, its urgent tone highlighted by the bright red it displayed in.

-WARNING-
-BLASTER POWER VERY LOW (5%)-
-RECHARGE NOW-

It was the extra he had used in getting around the loop that had done it. Gamma estimated he had about ten more shots in the gun before it became useless and he was left without any weapon. And they were walking right into what might well be the most heavily guarded area of D floor. Not for the first time, he wondered whether he should say anything to his companions, but not for the first time he decided against it. It would only distract them, and besides, they appeared to have the situation under control.

They arrived at an intersection where four corridors joined up. On the left, the passage ended with a pair of double doors similar to several other pairs they had passed. Tails peeked through the glass, pressing his muzzle against the panes, and smiled when he saw long benches supporting rows and rows of desktop computer units. A few of the PCs had multi-limbed service droids tapping away, but aside from them the room appeared to be empty.

"This is it, right, Gamma?" the fox asked, looking back at the others. "We can look at the security cameras from here?"

"Yes." Gamma shifted his feet, then walked forward to stand by Tails, looking through the door himself. "We must prevent those robots from raising the alarm," he said, referring to the computer-operating droids who were tapping away oblivious of the doom just outside their doors.

"No problem," the fox grinned sharply. "There're five I can see, and there's three of us. Do the math!"

Gamma stood still for a moment, processing. "We are outnumbered by two," he said in a faintly condescending tone.

Tails sighed. "Yes, I know. The point is, five of them to take on three of us means we'll win."

"Of course. Our capabilities outstrip theirs, since they are not designed for purposes of defense."

"Yes, but I mean - oh, never mind." He made a mental note never to try and out-talk a mech.

Amy had her mallet out again, and she was swinging it idly to and fro, watching them. "Come on," she said simply.

The fox flexed his arms, then laid a paw on the door ready to slam it open. "Okay, guys. On the count of three, we rush them. THREE!"

"BANZAII!" shrieked Amy as she charged through the door. Tails' twin tails were already spinning as he headed for the nearest droid, itching for a fight.

Gamma wasn't quite fast enough and got smacked in the face by the closing door.

Amy got the first droid with her mallet. She jumped high in the air, bringing the mallet down with speed and force. The droid had hardly time for a squeak of alarm before it was scrap metal rolling around on the floor. Tails went for the two furthest ones at the other end of the room, hurtling through the air like a furry orange missile... with two tails. He curled into a ball as he reached them, and bounced off both of their heads in a move Sonic would have been proud of. The twin-tailed fox landed neatly on a deskful of computers and looked round to see where the other droids were. He was just in time to see Amy athletically leapfrog over the first bench to slam her mallet into the fourth droid's face.

That left one... one! Where was it? The fox whirled, searching for a sight of the droid. It was racing across the floor towards a large red button, no way he could reach it first...

"GAMMA!" he yelled. "Stop it, quick!"

Gamma looked at his gun, unable to decide whether to sacrifice another valuable shot. The second of indecision allowed the droid to reach the button. It slammed into it, and a klaxon went off somewhere. Red lights flashed inside the room.

Tails yelped in terror. "Gamma, what are you DOING?!" He had one moment's terrible thought that the red mech was going to betray them to Eggman.

Gamma could have kicked himself. Still... no need to use the gun now. He ran across the floor and grabbed the retreating service droid, lifting it high up into the air. Furiously he slammed it into the wall as it clawed at his body with several of its limbs. Pieces fell off, but the droid remained active. He smashed it into the wall again, hearing a rending of soft metal. The droid let out an electronic wail, crippled. One more time... Using all the force he had, Gamma spun round and THREW the droid onto the ground. It smashed beyond repair, flattening out like a pancake. Its eyes grew dim.

"Tupekku," Tails said in awe. "Remind me never to make him mad."

It was quiet in the computer room, save for the hum of a hundred computer fans and the far-off blaring of the klaxon. The crimson emergency lights flashed on and off, signifying red alert. As yet, though, there was nothing headed their way.

"Come on," Tails ordered, looking at the other two who stood motionless, waiting, like him, for the attack. "We might still have time, if we hurry." He turned and walked slowly towards the nearest computer, pulled a chair out and sat down, dropping the sonic screwdriver which for some reason he still held. Amy came to stand by him as the fox pressed the Enter key and got out of the screensaver.

He was presented with a bare, empty screen with a few mysterious icons atop a picture of Eggman's grinning phizog. At the bottom, an odd beveled stripe, about half an inch wide and stretching across the whole screen, sported a number of smaller icons and a square button that said, simply, "Start".

"Oh, NO!" Tails yelled, slamming a fist onto the desk. "It's Windows 98!"

"That's bad, right?" Amy asked.

The fox held his head in his hands, tempted to bang his head into the keyboard. "Look at it this way. First, my computer is so old it only has Win3.11 and so I don't have a CLUE how to use this. Second, this system is probably inherently unstable and we'll soon be struggling with the Blue Screen of Death."

"The WHAT?" Amy sounded very alarmed.

Tails ignored her. He turned and looked at Gamma. "Uh..?"

"I run on Unix," Gamma said quickly. No way was he letting them hook him up to a Windows network. It might try to install Internet Explorer on his system.

The fox sighed deeply. "Well... I'll have a go." He found the ergonomic mouse and moved it over the Start button. "Here goes nothin'..."

The klaxon blared endlessly in the silence as Tails and his friends began to wrestle with the over-complicated menus of Eggman's own operating system.

*

The mainframe picked up on the alert from the computer room. Automatically, it dispatched an autoresponse to the many élite mechs with whom the responsibility for security lay. Most, however, were either out of service or engaged on some other task; this was natural for Eggman's base. Only one mech was both close enough and without any other errand that it could respond to the call. As it was being worked on at the time, it informed its creator of the alert.

"So... the furballs and my renegade robot are playing with our computers, eh?" Eggman laid down the screwdriver and shut the chest compartment of the black mech. "Very well! Go and get them! I think you're ready!" As the mech rose up slowly, the fat scientist turned away, cackling. "I want you to destroy the E-100 at all costs. Use the weapons I gave you. For you, my creation, it's payback time!"

"I obey, Doctor Robotnik." With those words, the black mech activated powerful antigrav boosters and flew from the lab. Its eyes glowed bright green, energised.

*

"I think I got it," Tails said, staring intently at the screen. There were windows all over the place, cascading on top of each other and mostly full of multi-megabyte files with impenetrable names such as "RunOnceExe_Log.txt". Unlimited characters and Eggman still couldn't come up with sensible filenames. Amazing. The fox moved the mouse over one of the windows, considering whether to try Ptsnoop.exe or Explorer.exe. They both sounded like stuff to be looking around with.

"What is that?" Gamma said, reaching out to touch the screen with his mechanical claw. Tails leaned forward, squinting at the icon indicated.

"Progman.exe? Haven't got a clue."

"Could it refer to the Windows 3.1 Program Manager?" the mech suggested.

"Uh... hey, maybe you're right!" He double-clicked on it and was presented with a new window... an empty one. "Oh great," Tails groaned. "Program Manager's still here, but there aren't any programs in it!"

Amy was bored. She fiddled with her mallet, wondering what it was about boys and computers. Tails and Gamma were practically drooling over the operating system. Their talk of bats, configs and dynamic link libraries was making her head spin. The pink hedgehog wandered over to the door and looked out, down the empty corridor.

"Hey, look," Tails grinned. "This one's called Urgent.cpe and it doesn't have a program associated with it. Should we delete it?"

"Perhaps after we find the video viewer, we could search for and remove the DLLs," Gamma suggested. "That would cripple Windows."

"Would it take the whole network down?"

"Quite possibly."

"Cool. Hey, a document file?" He clicked on another link, and read out disbelievingly, "'Dial-Up Scripting Command Language For Dial-Up Networking Scripting Support'. Okay, I'm sorry I asked."

"There," Gamma said suddenly. "Try Program Files."

Tails opened the window, and found a bundle of subfolders. "This looks more hopeful!" he exclaimed. "Accessories, cdex110, cfgback, Common Files, Doodles - Doodles?" He caught sight of a folder down the bottom that was entitled "VideoView", and clicked on it.

"HUH!?"

There was nothing there but a folder called Program Files. Inside a folder that was inside the folder called Program Files.

"Nested folders," Gamma explained.

Tails shrugged, and opened the second Program Files folder. "Vidrun.sys or vidrun.exe?" he asked, scanning its contents.

"Vidrun.exe."

"Okay, you're the expert here." With a flourish, Tails double-clicked on the icon.

The screen cleared, and became bright blue.

-FATAL ERROR. PRESS [F1] TO CONTINUE.-

"NOOOOO!" This time, Tails DID slam his head into the computer keyboard. Not that it noticed.

"Restart in DOS," Gamma suggested.

"How will that help? If it's a Windows program it won't run without the shell."

"Oh, jeez, you GUYS!" Amy yelled, finally tired of the endless geekspeak. She marched over to the computer, shoving Tails out of the way. "What's this? Press F1 to continue?" Her finger hovered over the first of the function keys.

"That never works," Tails told her. "It'll just say it again, and then it freezes - wha?"

Amy pressed F1. The screen cleared, and they were looking at a splash graphic.

-CCTV VIDEO MANAGER-

Behind which was a screen full of tiny squares - video camera views, constantly updated from the network. They could see one from each section of corridor on D floor. Every couple of seconds each view changed. Amy smiled.

Tails fell over. "Windows, OY! It doesn't even CRASH reliably!"

"Search for unusual activity," Gamma said. "There are thousands of video cameras set up. The majority will have nothing of use to us."

"This says find," Amy said, pointing the mouse at a menu on the screen. "Is that right?"

"Yes," the mech informed her. She clicked on it and was presented with a window full of gobbledygook. "Are you familiar with Boolean operators?" Gamma asked.

"Stuff it," Amy muttered, and typed in 'Sonic'. She hit the Enter key. The computer started to whir, hard drive clicking loudly as it searched its own archives and those of the network for the selected keyword. It took nearly a minute before the search was over. There were seven camera windows still onscreen. Six were empty.

"There he is!" Tails yelled, unnecessarily. The image was very small, but there was definitely something blue there, running around. The picture was kind of confused, though - either Sonic was moving really fast and not going anywhere, or there were two of him.

Amy clicked the mouse on the picture, and it became full-screen.

"Is that Metal Sonic?" Tails asked.

Gamma bent close to the screen for a more detailed view. His optics were poor at picking up computer images. "I believe it is MS-01," he agreed after a moment.

"We better go help him," Amy said urgently, closing her fingers around the mallet. "He looks like he's in trouble!"

"Gamma, where is he?" Tails asked.

The big mech processed information for a moment, his own hard drive whirring. "That camera is not far from here," he informed the others after a moment. "We will reach it in time, if we go now. The shortest way is to turn left at the first intersection, and then continue-"

"INTRUDERS! You go NOWHERE!"

There was a mech in the doorway. It was big - bigger than Gamma, and it was painted black and white. Floating in midair, it had a pair of extremely vicious, clawed arm cannons pointed directly at them all as they clustered around the computer, caught red-handed. "You, fox, and you, hedgehog! You will come with me!" the mech ordered. Its voice sounded spookishly similar to Gamma's.

Gamma actually staggered back a step; Tails glanced at him worriedly. "Beta!" the red mech exclaimed in shock, eyes fixed on the dark robot facing them. "You were terminated!"

"E-102 Gamma!" the black robot spat, its voice sharp and military as it advanced into the room. "You are to be destroyed! By order of the great Doctor Robotnik!"

"Gamma..?" Amy hissed. "Who is this guy?"

"E-101 Beta," Gamma said quietly. "My brother..."

"You guys will have to handle him!" Tails yelled. "I'll go help Sonic!" He crouched, spun his twin tails and then flew into the air, rocketing over E-101 Beta's head. Before the black mech could do more than raise one of his cannons, the fox had disappeared through the swinging doors.

"He left us!" Amy screamed.

Gamma kept his eyes on the other E-100 mech, his gun held half-cocked. "Get under the desks," he said to Amy. "I will handle him."

"But-"

"Now." He didn't raise his voice, but it was a tone that would not brook disobedience. Amy shut up and crawled beneath the long computer desk. She crouched, surrounded by dust bunnies, wires and stray screws, and wished she could help.

"Beta," Gamma said, facing the black mech. "I destroyed you on the Egg Carrier. Why are you here?" He didn't really need to ask; there was only one possible explanation. Robotnik had rebuilt him, and possibly others of the E-100 series. Maybe even himself.

E-101 pointed both his cannons at the red mech in front of him. His programming directed him to do only one thing here, now that the two furs had disappeared from view. He charged up a shot. Quick as a flash, Gamma converted to his wheeled mode, disappearing behind the end of the desk. Beta advanced into the room, swinging his head from side to side as he searched for his target. Gamma rolled quickly down the aisle, using the desk to hide from the other mech. With only ten shots, he had to make each one count.

He reached the end of the desk. Cautiously, he peeked out and saw Beta's back. He locked-on and fired, but the shot was weak and did little other than scorch the black paint off the other mech's body. Beta let out a screech and whirled, and Gamma ducked back behind the desk. He could almost see Beta scanning the area, searching for the heat signature - it was just what he would do himself. This time, Gamma thought, I will not walk up to him once he is immobilised. I have learned.

There was silence. Gamma waited for almost a minute, then slowly he looked around the end of the desk again. Beta was nowhere to be seen. He stood up hesitantly, and looked around.

The black mech dropped down right in front of him. Beta, knowing Gamma was unable to look upwards, had flown up to the ceiling and waited for his 'brother' to show himself. Gamma dived out of the way as the black mech fired both barrels. The missiles flew past him and then turned, heading back towards him even as Beta lashed out with his claws. Gamma knew he couldn't afford to waste power by shooting the missiles down, so he turned and ran up the aisle, whirling at the other end as he snatched a computer off the desk. He threw it at the homing projectiles, and they smashed the hardware to pieces as they impacted. Bits of half-melted beige plastic fell to the floor, along with the singed remnants of a motherboard.

Beta flew towards him slowly, charging up again. Gamma grabbed the nearest monitor from the bench, and threw that. It smashed into the black mech's face, and there was a hollow bang as the picture tube imploded. Beta reached up to brush pieces of plastic from his optics and kept coming. Quickly, Gamma started throwing as many of the computers as he could reach, falling back as he did so. Nothing stopped Beta. Finally, he admitted defeat and raised his gun, charging up for a more powerful shot. He fired the weapon right into Beta's optics, dazzling him. Gamma converted to his wheeled mode again and disappeared behind the next aisle as Beta squealed and clawed at his eyes. Six shots left now...

There was a soft pop-pop. Beta had fired more of the homing missiles; he must have locked on again. Gamma grabbed another monitor, turned and threw it. The missiles exploded in midair. At least Beta couldn't use his primary weapon, the combined pulse cannon - he wasn't allowed to damage Robotnik's property more than was absolutely necessary. Gamma had no such scruples. He lifted another computer and threw it, hard. It smashed itself to bits across Beta's chest. Before the black mech could retaliate, Gamma dived down again and rolled right under the desk. He caught sight of Amy for a moment, two aisles down, and then he turned away and rolled beneath the desk to the next aisle. Beta's back was to him again. Stealthily, Gamma charged a shot and snuck up behind him, then let the black mech have it right in the intake. With a digital scream, Beta spasmed for a moment, electricity dancing over his body. That had caused damage - but, Gamma thought, as he suddenly found himself looking down the barrels of the cannons - not quite enough. He leaped out of the way, and Beta's pulse cannon cut air.

Pop-pop-pop.

Gamma ran down the aisle, found a computer, threw it. He relaxed for a moment as the missiles exploded, then there was an impact on his side that threw him to the ground. His vision blurred bright red.

-DAMAGE!-
-DAMAGE!-
-DAMAGE!-

There had been a third missile - it had gone round and got him in the side. He struggled on the floor, finding it hard to get back onto his feet simply because of his own weight. A tempered steel frame was strong but it was also clumsy. Amy screamed.

Beta was hovering over him. Gamma could have smiled, remembering how he had lost the last battle. He raised his gun and fired point-blank into the other mech's body. The shot punched a ragged hole in Beta's natty black bodywork. As the other mech spasmed, antigrav floaters failing momentarily, Gamma raised himself on his claw arm and flipped over onto his wheels. He stood up and backed off. Four shots left...

Beta raised his pulse cannons again. Gamma turned and ran, searching the desks for something that would do more damage than a computer monitor. He ducked as a charged shot flew over his head - it hit the far wall with a heavy roar, blowing a huge hole, and the room shook for a second. Looked like the black mech was finally using the heavy artillery. Gamma grabbed another monitor and threw it, more to distract him than anything else. While Beta removed pieces of glass from his face, Gamma rolled behind him and fired into his intake a second time. Beta crashed to the ground, emitting blue smoke. But a second later, some auxiliary system took over and the black mech rose back into the air, flying somewhat lopsided now. Gamma raised his gun, getting as close as he dared, and fired. His shots punctured the bodywork but seemed to do limited damage. Three shots... two... one...

None.

Beta had been thrown back by the onslaught and had lost vital control to one of his afterburners, but he was still up. He flew shakily round in circles, attempting to compensate for the lack of steering by braking on the opposite side.

Gamma moved back down the aisle, towards the door. He wasn't sure how he could damage the other mech now, but there had to be an answer. For a moment he toyed with the idea of grappling with Beta, hand-to-hand, but Beta was probably more strongly constructed. It would be suicide to let him get that close.

No, there had to be something in the environment that he could use to destroy the other mech. He scanned the area, searching for an answer. Computers, monitors, desks, computers, desks, cables, computers, computers...

The power cables!

He watched Beta slowly regaining his steering. Determinedly, Gamma marched up to the other mech, knowing that he would have to act before Beta was able to evade once more. He bent down and ripped the thick main cable from its moorings on the desk; every single computer screen in the aisle went dark. The ragged end of the cable spat and sparked in Gamma's claw. Tugging it to gain a little more slack, he stepped right up to Beta, who was fighting with his steering to turn round - his cannons were already charged and ready. The black mech's back was exposed.

Gamma shoved the live cable into Beta's intake, as far as it would go. The heavy hum of Beta's engines rose to a scream as the fan blades were jammed by the cable, and then the sharp blades cut through the insulation, into the bundled copper wires.

The fan blades were made of metal.

Beta suddenly started to convulse. Spasming, shrieking, the black mech crashed to the ground. There was a loud bang, and then another louder one. A slender blue tongue of fire licked out of his engine intake, and showers of sparks flew from his body. Gamma let go of the cable and stepped back, shocked by the utter violence of the reaction. Beta burst into flames. He turned his head - his green eyes gleamed, seemingly fixing themselves on the battered red mech that had been his undoing for a second time, and then the eyes went dark and dead. The fire made his paint bubble and peel; he twitched as the electricity stimulated circuits now useless without the controlling computer chips. Then it was over. Save for an occasional spark and jerk, E-101 Beta lay unmoving on the floor. Again.

"Is... he dead?" came a high, frightened voice from beneath the desk.

Gamma looked at Beta for a long time, feeling a mixture of things - most of them painful. "Yes," he said, and heard Amy climbing out from her hiding place. He didn't look away from the remains of the black mech.

"Gamma - are you okay?" Amy asked, coming up to him. "You were hit."

"I will be fine."

She stood with him, watching E-101 Beta burn. "I'm sorry," she ventured eventually.

"There is nothing to be sorry about," Gamma said, and turned away from the corpse. "Now I need your help. My blaster must be recharged from the mains in this room."

*

Tails sped down the corridors away from the battle, trying to figure out which way he was supposed to go. Gamma had said left at the first intersection, but there were no instructions after that. The fox just hoped that, if he kept running in the same direction, he'd eventually hear Sonic.

He wasn't sure what he could do against Metal Sonic. After all, the mech was totally deadly, from what Sonic had said. He could go faster than Sonic, in short bursts, and he was as strong as any of the robots Eggman built. Tails vaguely remembered racing against the mech himself, once - during the Racing Championship on Resort Island. He and Sonic had entered separately, knowing Eggman was planning to use the races as a cover for his Chaos Emerald search. Metal Sonic had been the Resort Island Beach challenger, and only Sonic had beaten him - and then only by a literal head. Thinking about that and about the first race on the Little Planet's Stardust Speedway, Tails rounded a corner, entered a wide open space and came face to face with the two historic combatants.

Metal Sonic had his back to him. The mech's huge engine was idling as he waited for Sonic to approach. The hedgehog was a sight to behold - his spines were sticking up every which way, his left ear was badly torn, and he was covered in other cuts and bruises. Sonic, beaten but not yet bowed, looked up and gasped audibly as he saw Tails come racing round the corner. Metal started to turn round and then Tails, unable to stop in time, slammed right into him. The mech was thrown several feet and Tails collapsed on his back with a moan.

"Tails!" Sonic yelled.

Metal leaped to his feet and whirled, staring at the fox. "So your orange friend is here, Sonic? No matter! I can defeat you both!"

"You leave him alone! He's just a kid!"

Tails sat up, shaking his head dizzily. "Ooh, what hit me? ...uh-oh..." He stared at the angry mech, and attempted an ingratiating smile. "Uh... hi?"

Metal Sonic's eyes flashed bright white.

Sonic charged across the arena, throwing himself into a spin. He smacked into Metal from behind and knocked the mech flying again. Skidding to a halt, the hedgehog held out his hand to help Tails up. "God, that felt good," he panted.

"Heck, Sonic, you okay?" Tails asked, accepting the proffered paw. "You look like someone ran you through a mangle."

"Not quite," Sonic told him, breathing heavily, "but I've been electrocuted, among other things. You couldn't have showed up at a better time, pal. This guy is really starting to annoy me."

Metal Sonic floated a short distance away, eyes still white and showing that he was locked on to his target. He raised one hand and beckoned in a dangerous come-on, daring them to even try to attack him. Tails shook fur out of his eyes. "Double Team increases Evade," he said to Sonic.

"Huh?" The hedgehog shrugged helplessly.

"If we both attack at once, we're less likely to get hit," the fox explained. "Come on!" He spun his twin tails, flying up into the air. Sonic nodded and started charging a spin. Metal watched them both, tense and ready for anything they might throw at him.

The two friends exploded into action. Separately, they were both vicious fighters and could use their very different abilities to great advantage. Tails concentrated on evading attack while waiting patiently to get one of his own in, while Sonic generally preferred to take a hit if it meant landing a stronger one. Together, they worked as a perfect team - Tails could draw enemy fire while Sonic landed the big damage with his more powerful attacks.

Metal met their onslaught with astonishing skill, but even so Sonic managed to hit him a few times, doing minor damage to his hard shell. The success gave new heart to the exhausted hedgehog, and he geared up his attacks to another level. But it couldn't be maintained for long, especially when he was already too tired to think straight, and soon Metal landed a hit of his own. His punch threw Sonic straight into the wall. Forgetting about Tails, the mech advanced on his primary target, intending to crush Sonic's head with his foot. The fox body-slammed him from the side, knocking him away and allowing Sonic time to recover.

"Thanks, pal," the hedgehog groaned, struggling to his feet.

"You really don't look too good," Tails said doubtfully.

"What do you expect? I've been running away from this guy for half an hour. I'm bushed. Where's Amy and E-102?"

"Left 'em back in the computer room," Tails answered, hoping they would be all right against the hostile E-100.

"Look out!" Sonic yelled suddenly, and shoved his friend down. Splattershot peppered the wall where Tails had been standing a moment ago - Metal was back on his feet.

"Time to die, hedgehog!" the mech snarled.

Tails's ears flattened. "Woah, talk about an attitude! What happened to him?"

"I'll explain later," Sonic said hurriedly, taking evasive action as Metal charged at him.

Tails flew up into the air again. He glanced at Sonic, who looked up and gave him a V-for-victory sign. The fox nodded and grinned. He had an idea. As Metal raced to catch up with Sonic, Tails maneuvered in the air until he was just about above him. He dropped, and wrapped his arms around the mech's head, spinning his tails in reverse to create a brake and slow Metal Sonic down. At the same time, his paws blocked Metal's visual sensors, blinding him. Without an adequate sense of touch, the robot was unable to tell what had happened. His engine stalled as he flailed at the air.

Sonic smashed into Metal from behind, with all the strength he had, just as Tails let go. The mech was thrown face-first into the wall, damaging the brickwork. He crumpled at the foot of it with a clang, and stopped moving. His eyes went dark.

"Did we get him?" Tails breathed. He trotted over to Sonic, who was groaning on the floor, and helped his friend up.

Sonic rubbed his head where he had hit Metal, and then glanced at the unmoving mech. "Looks like it..." He smiled slowly at Tails. "Thanks a lot, pal. I was about ready to give up the fight when you came along."

Tails grinned. "So I saved YOUR blue spiky butt for a change!" He slapped the hedgehog on the shoulder. Sonic laughed and aimed a mock-punch at him.

Growing serious for a moment, the fox regarded the dark blue mech. "You never told me he was that dangerous, Sonic," he said solemnly, walking over to where Metal lay. He pushed a toe under the mech, but he couldn't turn him over - Metal was too heavy.

"He didn't used to be," Sonic said with a sigh. "He's been improved. Totally. He can think now."

"Nani? Like Gamma?" Tails bit his lip. "Yikes, that's not good."

"I know."

"You okay? Looks like you got hit by a few there."

Sonic nodded, wincing. "Is it bad?"

"Nah," Tails said, but his gaze lingered on that torn ear.

"Whew," the hedgehog said earnestly. "Well, time to go, I guess. Where's this computer room you left Gamma and Amy in?"

"Just down there," Tails said, smiling as he pointed. "We'd better go see if they're okay, ne?" He looked down at Metal. "Darn, I wish I had that sonic screwdriver. I must've left it in the computer room. I could get his battery out or something, then we'd definitely be safe."

"We'll have to..." Sonic began, then stopped. He stared at the mech. "Tails, get away from there!"

"Huh?"

"His eyes are on! GET AWAY!"

The fox yelped in terror and started spinning his tails, but suddenly a mechanical hand shot out and fastened around his ankle. Tails cried out in pain. Metal threw him to the ground, then stood up and grabbed the dazed fox under the arms, lifting him up.

"No!" Sonic yelled, charging towards the mech.

Metal Sonic threw Tails into the wall with deadly force. There was a dangerous cracking noise, and Tails crumpled in a furry heap at its foot. Metal Sonic turned his head to look at Sonic, and if the mech had had a mouth, he would have been grinning with pure cruelty.

"NO!" Sonic screamed again. Tears of rage stinging his eyes, the hedgehog backed up. The mech began to charge his jet, eyes glowing white as he locked on once more. He would not be stopped from terminating his target.

(the light, the ancient light)

Sonic's spines bristled as he felt the power rise up into him at his call. Metal halted in mid-dash, staring at him. Sonic's own eyes were blazing green as he crouched, teeth bared, the very picture of utter fury. A pale neon blue radiance shimmered about his body as he absorbed power from the air around him, channeling it all into his most powerful attack.

Metal Sonic turned tail and fled.

But he wasn't fast enough. Suddenly a bright flash of blue burnt into his optic sensors. A moment later the mech found himself on the ground with all sorts of error messages belatedly popping up on his visual field. With a shock, he realised he had sustained severe damage. But how? He could see Sonic across the room - the hedgehog hadn't even moved!

But Sonic had. At light speed.

Metal Sonic shut down, knowing somehow that to continue fighting would result in his annihilation. He had made the mistake of injuring one of Sonic's friends - next time he would not attack Tails. Next time... The mech's eyes flickered and went out.

Sonic stumbled over to where Tails lay, and, kneeling, gently touched the fox's unmoving body with a paw. "Tails... say something," he moaned.

"Urgg..."

It wasn't the sort of thing he had hoped to hear, but it was something. Sonic breathed a sigh of abject relief. "You okay? Where are you hurt?"

Slowly, Tails raised himself onto hands and knees. "I... dunno. I think I'm okay, mostly." He looked up quickly, eyes widening in alarm. "Where's Metal?"

Sonic pointed at the decomissioned robot, sprawled on the floor with left arm physically de-attached. Pieces were scattered around him. "I got him, finally. Light Speed Attack." To prove his point, he rose and kicked Metal hard in the side. It hurt his toes - his eyes watered - but it was a balm to his soul. The mech shook with a hollow clang.

Tails got to his feet shakily, testing his limbs. "Okay," he said softly. "We're ahead of Eggman. I vote we get to the hangar right now. Let's go find Amy and Gamma." He offered Sonic his paw, understanding how much the Light Speed Attack could weaken his friend. Sonic shook the fox off with a mumbled "s'okay".

*

The sonic screwdriver whirred busily as Amy levered out the last of the four tiny screws. Carefully, she took the little screw between finger and thumb, and deposited it on the end of the bench with its companions. "I hope you know what I'm doing," she commented as she lifted the connector cover off the top of Gamma's gun.

They had found a normal three-pin power cable - or to be honest, they had cannibalised it off one of the computers Gamma had destroyed. Now Amy was occupied in the fiddly task of actually plugging the cable in and recharging his gun. After what had happened to Beta, she felt more than a little nervous about sticking cables into any hole belonging to a mech, and her hands were shaking slightly as she looked at the small panel with its exposed wires. "What do I do now?"

"There is a socket that will fit that type of cable," Gamma instructed her. Slowly, Amy lifted the cable, careful not to touch the end, and poked around inside the gun.

"Am I gonna get an electric shock off you?" she asked nervously.

"Do not disconnect anything and you will be fine."

"That didn't answer my question..."

"If you are careful, you will not be shocked," Gamma rephrased. "But if you are shocked, the charge will not be enough to kill you."

"Oy!" Amy yelped, snatching her hand back. "Thanks for telling me!" She tilted his gun arm to let the light fall into the panel, then very cautiously she reached in a finger and pushed a couple of wires out of the way. The connector was revealed. "Talk about delicate hardware..." Amy sighed. She took a deep breath and rammed the cable in. Nothing happened.

"Is anything supposed to happen?"

"Turn the power on," Gamma said.

"Doh!" She flicked the switch.

Gamma switched power to recharge mode, and watched the readout climb slowly from 0 to five to ten percent and higher. It would be a few minutes before the blaster was fully powered once again. He turned his head and looked at the small pink hedgehog. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Amy smiled. "Glad I could be of SOME help, anyway..." Suddenly sad, she sighed and looked away. "I dunno, Gamma. I try and I try, but I'm never good enough to make it on my own. I've always gotta rely on other people. I thought when I defeated Zero that I'd be able to do anything. I guess that's not true..."

"You were not designed to fight E-101," Gamma said. "Nobody holds that against you."

She smiled at him.

The door slammed open and a moment later, Tails flew in. "Hey, you okay?" the fox yelled, running over to them. He looked around at the wreckage of the computer room, and then at E-101's still-smoking body. "WOW!"

"Where's Sonic?" Amy asked, standing up.

But the hedgehog himself was already standing in the doorway, grinning. "Hey," he said.

"SONIE! YOU'RE OKAY!" With a cry of delight, she ran to him and fastened herself around his waist, ignoring the hedgehog's yelp of pain. She hugged him joyfully. "Thank heavens!"

"Uh... can you let me go now, Amy?" Sonic asked, embarrassedly.

Tails peered at Gamma, who was still connected to the mains. "What are you doing?"

"He's recharging his gun," Amy said, releasing Sonic. "He ran out of ammo. You should have seen what he did!"

"I can imagine, thanks," Tails exclaimed, indicating the electrical carnage strewn around the floor. "Looks like you two had the computer equivalent of a food fight."

Sonic coughed. "Well, now we're all together..." he began, looking at the others expectantly.

"Yeah, good point," Tails remarked. "We have gotta get out of here before Eggman sends anything nastier!"

"I am ready," Gamma said. He grasped the cable, manipulating his mechanical claw with exaggerated care, and pulled it out.

Amy tossed the sonic screwdriver to Tails, who nodded and grabbed the panel cover and one of the screws from the table. "Hold still," the fox said, fitting the panel back onto the gun. He pressed the button once or twice, making the tool whir like a drill before he fitted it into the screw head and fastened the panel down. "Hey, does this tickle?" he asked, reaching for the next screw.

"No," Gamma said.

"Uh, cool."

Sonic peeked out of the door. The klaxon was still going off, but so far nothing else seemed to be headed their way. The hedgehog looked back at the others. "Coast clear."

*

Seph wandered through the jungle, following the call which he could still faintly sense in the air. The Guardian had drawn him all the way out here for a reason, he was sure. The golden lion Chao could smell the soft green scent of the trees around him, beckoning; could hear the soft rippling of a forest stream. This was different to Station Square - this place somehow... resonated... with him. They were in tune.

He came to the end of the path, presented with yet another of the myriad forest streams. Seph turned his head this way and that, thinking. The call always came most strongly from the water, no matter how far he walked. But he didn't like water much. He wasn't a swimming Chao like Phooey or Anansi.

Oh well...

Reluctantly, Seph stepped into the water. It was clean and smooth against his skin, and the feeling was nice on his feet which were sore from the walking. It was very cold, though - he shivered involuntarily as he immersed himself.

Once in the water, he took a deep breath and kicked off upstream, swimming strongly against the current. One of the visitors had taught him how to swim - the red one. Seph was fond of Knuckles, though he didn't often show it. He thought wistfully of the peace of the garden as he swam, and of the fun he had always had when the friends came to visit. He knew he wasn't very affectionate - but they accepted him for who he was, and he felt comfortable with them.

It was hard going swimming up the river, although Phooey would have made short work of it. Phooey even knew the backstroke. Seph was soon tired, and he clambered out onto a rock in midstream to rest. Shivering with cold and wet, he had to steel himself before slipping back in to resume the journey. The bushes along the banks slid past slowly.

Under the trees, he didn't notice how dark it was becoming, but when suddenly he was swimming out into the daylight, he was surprised to see that it was already dusk. It couldn't be - he certainly hadn't been traveling all day again. He kicked to the bank, grasped hold of a root to prevent himself being pulled back downstream, and looked up at the sky. It was heavily overcast.

"Not good..." he muttered. The clouds were so dark, it looked as if they were in for a violent thunderstorm. It had to be the Guardian's work - Seph was running out of time. The first fat drops of rain spattered down onto the hungry jungle even as the little lion Chao let go of his root and resumed his swim for the second time. His wet fur crest was dripping in his eyes; he wished for a moment that he'd been given penguins instead of lions when he was a baby. Penguins didn't have the wet fur problem... although lions were definitely braver. Seph swallowed water and coughed, struggling for a moment. It couldn't be much further, surely. To wherever it was he was going. He wasn't quite sure where that was.

The rain hissed softly down, shrouding the Mystic Ruins in a haze of gray. Above, in the dark sky, thunder rumbled somewhere far in the distance. Seph remembered how Hotaru hated thunder and he hoped she wasn't having the same storm in Station Square. Anansi would have to comfort her this time.

He rounded the corner and saw a dark opening in the rock, through which the water was flowing. It was here that the Guardian had called him - he wondered why. Kicking hard, Seph struggled up the river to the opening, which he could see went for a long way underground, and he grabbed onto a rocky outcrop nearby. This had to be the place. He felt relieved when he saw there was a tiny ledge running beneath the opening, on which he would be able to walk ankle-deep in the water. Swimming was okay, but he got pretty tired of it after a while. He much preferred walking. Seph dragged himself dripping out of the river, and set foot on the ledge. It was very dark inside, and barely high enough for him to walk upright.

He took one last longing glance at the clouded sky, and stepped into the passage. The light was soon left behind, and Seph had to rely on other senses. His ears and the rippling of water around his legs told him that the river was running faster here; he trailed his paw along the wet stone wall as he walked, feeling his way as best he could with his numbed feet. Maybe that lion fur was good for something...

Seph lost count of how long he was walking. He knew that once he stopped to rest, having found a rock that would allow him to sit down. Most of the time, however, he was stumbling along the ledge in the blackness, his only companion the river which was flowing steadily in the opposite direction. Determinedly, he forged up the channel, his face set in a scowl of rocky determination. The water-smell was all around him, and every step he took was bringing the Guardian-feel closer to him.

Finally, a point of light appeared at the other end. Seph narrowed his eyes to stop them stinging, and hurried towards the whiteness, splashing through the dark. He almost slipped, but saved himself in time. At last, he was able to see out, and see that the light was really gray. Rain curtained the opening, and the lion Chao grimaced as he realised there would be no dry place to rest yet. He shook himself and stepped out of the tunnel, leaving the river behind.

He had come to a kind of natural basin in the ground. Water cascaded down from a high fall far above atop the cliff, falling endlessly into the deep bowl with a gentle roaring and a flying cloud of spume. The water was as clear as air and sported tiny silver fish in its deeper areas, glittering like stars in the depths. There was forest on one side of the bowl, rock on another, and the final two seemed to lead out onto an open area - Seph stood on tiptoes and tried to make out the edifice he could see in the distance, blurred to invisibility by the rain. It looked like the station platform! He must have come round in a circle!

Where was the Guardian?

Seph slicked back his crest, flicking water from his ears as he looked around. Nothing particularly untoward caught his eyes, but his other senses were screaming to him that the Guardian was close. He sniffed at the clear water, and then saw the emerald lights shining far below him, looking up. A smile of tired joy spread across his face.

The water rippled. Slowly, it drew up into a hump, and Seph watched in awe as the shape of the Guardian coalesced from the unnatural fluid. It stared at him with its unblinking green eyes, waiting.

Seph swallowed a curious lump in his throat. "Guardian!" he started to say, but his voice turned into a squeak. He coughed and started again. "Guardian! You must stop this!"

Chaos looked down at the small creature before it. It didn't recognise it, though some features seemed... similar... The little animal seemed to be trying to communicate with it; Chaos found its voice irritating.

Seph faltered. The Guardian wasn't listening. In fact, he looked downright hostile. Suddenly, Seph felt scared. He started to back away, then the water rose up and flew towards him.

"Chao!" he screamed in panic, and then it hit him. He didn't see the watery form of Chaos sink back into the lake, but he knew that he had failed.

It was a long time before he woke again. Seph opened one eye, whimpering with cold and pain. He was lying on his side underneath the friendly protection of a bush. He hurt, and he felt feverish, nauseous. He was soaking wet from head to toe now, with the rain and the river and all. The rain... it poured down, heavy drops thudding onto the sopping ground all around him. Seph sighed softly, wondering if he had the strength to stand, let alone the strength to get back to Station Square and tell the others the Guardian had attacked him.

Painfully, he pushed himself to his feet. He thought for a moment that he would faint, but he forced the feeling away from him. Limping he made his way out from the thicket, barely able to see in front of him in the driving rain.

The Guardian had attacked him - why? The Guardian protected Chao. Seph looked back fearfully at the lake; nothing would induce him to go back there for a second try. He staggered off dizzily, wondering why he felt so sick all of a sudden. Maybe he was dying.

He suddenly understood. Lifting an arm Seph looked at his golden skin and lion claws, running his other paw lightly over them. No wonder... Not only was he a golden Chao instead of a regular blue one, he had ears, a tail, feet even, that belonged to another animal. The Guardian simply didn't understand he was a Chao at all.

"Now what?" he whispered to himself, sinking down in the long grass.

*

The door to the hangar was locked. There was a keypad beside it with the numbers 0 to 9, indicating that a special code had to be typed in before the door would open. Gamma examined the lock, then reached out and tapped in his own eight-digit serial number.

A synthesised voice came from the door, making them all start. "This ID has been disabled. Have a nice day."

"Darn!" Sonic yelled, throwing a spin out of temper.

"Bust the door down?" Tails suggested. He tapped lightly on the door, but the heavy bonging told him that it was reinforced metal. It looked it: eight feet tall, rusted, riveted and most uncompromisingly closed. "Hmm, maybe not."

"There's no other way?" Amy asked hopefully. Gamma shook his head.

Tails twirled the sonic screwdriver in his paw. "What we need," he said with a vulpine grin, "is a master mechanic. I'll get it open, no worries." Shoving Sonic aside, the fox set the screwdriver to the first of the screws that held the keypad cover on.

"Yeah, right." Sonic rolled his eyes. "I happen to know that your experience of electronics is confined to whatever you did to Gamma here."

"I did that okay, didn't I?" the fox growled confidently. He set to work with a will, getting the panel off and diving into the complicated snarl of wires underneath. Sonic had to admit that, even if Tails didn't have a clue what he was doing, he sure looked competent enough. The blue hedgehog reached up and touched his injured ear, wincing when he realised just how bad it was. Dried blood was caked in his fur. He had had other cuts, of course, but the ear was the most painful.

"You okay?" Amy asked. "I can take a look at that if you want."

"Uh, no thanks." He felt himself blushing for some reason.

She put her hands on her hips, tapping her foot. "What's wrong with you anyway? You're acting weird."

Sonic attempted to smile. "Uh... just confused from that brain drain machine, I guess. I'm okay really." He'd already told the others, in as few words as possible, what had happened to him while they were separated. He shook himself, trying to coax his spines back into their normal sweeping curves.

"I never realised just how dangerous this stuff was," Amy remarked.

"Yeah... it's tough. Sometimes it's almost too tough. Still, I'm not dead yet."

The pink hedgehog shuddered theatrically. "I hate to think what this world would be like if Eggman really did take over. We'd have to endure this sort of stuff every day."

"Maybe not quite this bad," Sonic said with a grin.

She smiled at him. Her eyes were green like his, he noticed - somehow, he'd never been around her long enough to notice the color of her eyes before. Standing close together, the two hedgehogs looked at each other until they were interrupted by a crack and a yell from Tails.

"OW!"

The fox jumped back, shaking his hand as if he'd been stung. "Darnit!" he yelled. "That thing SHOCKED me!"

Sonic grinned. "There's your 'master mechanic'," he remarked to Amy.

"It's not funny!" Tails growled. "Here, you have a go at this stupid thing if you think you're so smart!"

"I'll pass, thanks. I'd probably break it, and then we'd be stuck."

Not again, thought Gamma, as his perimeter sensors picked up multiple movement in the area. "Something is coming," he said simply.

Amy groaned. "Oh, no! What if it's Metal-"

Sonic grabbed her by the shoulders. "Do NOT go there," he ordered. "It's not him!"

"But we don't know that!" She was about to start spazzing out.

"Someone help me with this darn lock and we won't have to worry about it!" Tails yelled. Gamma looked round behind him, checking that nothing was heading along the corridor towards them, and then the red mech stomped up to take a look at the panel.

Sonic backed up and spin-attacked the door. As he'd expected, he ricocheted off and had to halt his spin before he went flying down the corridor. There was a faint mark on the door where he had knocked off some of the rust, but that was about it. He growled and charged the door again, slamming into it with as much strength as he had. This time, he definitely felt it give. "Hey, guys!" the blue hedgehog exclaimed, dropping to the ground. "Maybe we CAN break it down!"

"It is worth a try," Gamma said, giving up on the door. Without a circuit diagram, he couldn't make head or tail of the tangled wiring. Tails had done well to get as far as he had.

The fox sighed. "I guess," he said reluctantly.

Sonic rubbed the side of his muzzle. "In that case... everybody kill the door!" He charged up another spin and let fly.

The door shook under the concerted attack. In moments it was covered with dents, from mallet blows, laser blasts and the physical attacks of Sonic and Tails, working together as always. But it didn't seem to be giving much. It was really strong.

Sonic cocked his undamaged ear during a lull in their attack. He could definitely hear the sound of mechs heading their way. "They know we're here," he informed the others. "C'mon, we have to get in there, right now!"

Amy brushed herself off, sliding her hands up and down the grip of her mallet. "One more time," she said. "Everyone at once."

"Good idea," Tails nodded, backing up. "Ready, guys?"

Sonic punched him on the arm. "Hey, I'm the boss! Okay, CHARGE!"

WHAM.

The door bent inwards with the force of their combined impact, warping at the bottom to reveal a gap almost an inch wide at the center.

"Wow!" Amy breathed.

"One more time!" Sonic ordered, slicking back his spines. "Three, two, one, CHARGE!"

WHAM.

The door still didn't give, but it was starting to look less like a door and more like a twisted piece of metal stuck in their way. The center had bowed right out. A red LED was flashing urgently on the mangled keypad beside the door.

Sonic glanced behind him and saw the first mechs appear at the other end of the corridor. "Okay, this is it," he said. "Last chance. Ready?"

"Ready," Amy and Gamma said. Tails nodded.

"CHARGE!"

WHAM.

With a rending, tearing screech, the door fell inwards and crashed onto the metal floor of the hangar. All four of them fell on top of it. The echoes of the impact seemed to take a long time to die away. Sonic was the first up, leaping to his feet and dashing over the broken door into the huge open shed. The other end, where there should have been daylight, was masked by an impenetrable curtain of rain.

"Darn!" Tails exclaimed, looking up. "I hate flying in these conditions..."

"But you can, right?" Sonic said anxiously, glancing back at the mechs which were heading towards them very fast. He could see all sorts of nasty badniks, but thankfully Metal didn't seem to be among them. He must have really put the evil robot out of commission this time.

"I can," Tails agreed. "I think. Which plane should we take?"

There were four in the hangar. Two were obviously cargo planes, and somewhat ancient as well. The third was an airbus, highly unsuited to fast flying in treacherous weather. The fourth...

"That one!" the fox yelled, his eyes bright as stars.

The fourth, painted matt black and gleaming, was a fighter plane. Larger than normal warplanes, it was a stubby creation with swept-back wings and a dangerous gun on the nose. Around twenty feet long from head to tailfin, it sat hunched under the roof as if waiting for the chance to escape. The legend, "Egg Wasp", was painted on its side in slanting red letters two feet high. There were no propellers; all the power came from the big jets tucked underneath the wings. Tails ran to it, using his twin tails to fly up and yank the plane's middle door open. He disappeared inside before Sonic or anyone could contest his choice.

The blue hedgehog looked at his companions. "Oh well..." he said mildly. "Guess this one will do." Without another moment's waste, he ran foward and leaped high into the air, just managing to grab onto the opening with his outstretched fingers. He hauled himself up and disappeared inside the plane.

Amy climbed onto Gamma's head as the red mech converted to flying mode. They rose into the air just as the first of the enemy mechs poured into the hangar; projectiles peppered the ground where they had been standing. Gamma flew up to the door and, with some difficulty, squeezed himself inside. Sonic slammed the door shut on Eggman's base and leaned against it, panting. There were no proper seats in the plane, just harnesses hanging from the ceiling, and a few wooden boxes against the walls.

Tails was already in the pilot's seat. The fox leaned back and made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. "Strap yourselves in, guys!" he yelled back. "We might have a bumpy ride!" Without further comment, he turned back to the complicated instrument panel and thumbed the ignition switch. The jets roared to life with an impossibly loud boom. The sheer power of the plane made it vibrate hard, held back as it was by only its own brakes.

"I think we'd better do as he says!" Sonic yelled, trying to be heard over the thunderous engines.

"What?" Amy screamed, cupping her ear exaggeratedly. "I can't hear you!"

The blue hedgehog grimaced and pointed at the harnesses, which were swinging slightly. Amy smiled, enlightened, and grabbed hold of the nearest one. Sonic struggled with the straps for a moment and then clipped the fastenings together around himself. He suddenly noticed an open box of industrial ear protectors within reach, and grabbed a pair, tossing another to Amy. She nodded gratefully and put them on, blocking out the roar of the engines.

Gamma realised that none of the harnesses would fit him. He converted to his wheeled mode and wedged himself in tightly between two steel packing crates; that would have to do.

Tails looked back again and checked that his friends were secure. A few stray laser bolts zipped across the front of the plane, coming close to the windscreen, and the fox yelped and reflexively ducked. It was definitely time to leave. He grabbed the joystick and slowly eased it forward, making the plane's engines scream. His other hand found the brake release, and he tensed, ready to press it as soon as the engine gauge reached the red.

It did. With a boom, the Egg Wasp roared out of the hangar, lifting its nose even before it was clear of the roof. This bird was eager to fly; it was up and away before half the runway was gone! Tails grinned disbelievingly as the warplane climbed steeply at his command. Rain drummed on the windscreen, sliding off its smooth design. The fox shoved the stick forward, bringing the Egg Wasp out of its climb and leveling it on a smooth curving course over the factory. The plane responded with a smooth execution that delighted its pilot. Tails had always dreamed of having a plane like THIS.

The tower loomed up in front of them, fading out of the mist like a sepulchral ghost. Tails laughed and hit the red button on the top of the stick, spraying Eggman's tower with splattershot from the machine gun. Then, before they could impact on the tower, the fox guided his new toy around in a beautiful swinging circle, climbing again to clear the rainswept jungle cliffs.

Back in the hold, Sonic looked at Amy and raised his eyebrows. She smiled laughingly and raised her fist, her thumb vertical. Okay, she meant. Sonic grinned back and, knowing he was pretty much safe in Tails's hands, sat back to enjoy the ride to the workshop. They had to head back there first to pick up a few things.

Sonic and co have their plane, but will it be too little, too late? What's happened to Chaos? Will Seph survive the storm?

Find out in

Part Three: "Perfect Chaos"

--GTK