FicWad

PROJECT MOBITROPOLIS
S Peter Davis

All characters (C) SEGA, Archie and SP Davis 2004.
Used without permission
To contact the author; trojan_masters@hotmail.com

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AQUATIC RUIN

"My ancestors didn't leave a map to the emeralds, they weren't that naive," Knuckles said, "But they did leave clues, so in the event that they had to be dug up again, they could be dug up by the right person. I've spent my life trying to decode the messages left behind by the ancients, but it isn't until you showed me where you found the first five that I've discovered the key to the puzzle. I knew about the Temple of the Lagoon, that was an easy one. That was the grey emerald, the controller, the most important. It was supposed to be guarded, but I guess my people didn't count on disappearing the way they did. Now you could just waltz right in and take it."
"It wasn't quite that easy, Knux," replied Rhes el Carrion, the vulture blowing smoke rings as he spoke, "I lost three good mobians on that expedition. Your forgotten ancestors left some pretty deadly traps before they took off on their extended holiday."
"Oh, I bet they did," Knuckles commented, "I bet the others were no walk in the park, either."
"Thrills and chills." The vulture dragged on his cigarette one last time, then dropped it onto the bare red dirt. Ahead of him, gigantic machines churned the soil, digging canyons into the landscape. Hoards of robots worked tirelessly and without want of reward to change the face of Mobius. A mine was being chewed into the planet's crust, violently, and Mobius didn't give itself up easily to the hostility. Every so often the ground would give way and swallow up a dozen workers. It mattered little, of course. As far as robots were concerned, even one death was a statistic.
Morning was just breaking. The long shadows began to shrink slowly into themselves beneath the power of the waking sun.
"This is disgusting," Carrion said, "It's about the least delicate archaeological dig I've ever seen. Imagine the history being destroyed here. Thousands of years of relics, smashed under the feet of the almighty Deus Ex Machina."
Knuckles gave him a sideways glance. "What?"
"God," Carrion replied, "God of the Machines."
"Oh," the echidna scoffed, "Amen."
"But you're sure it's here. That's all that matters. All that's left is for Deus Ex to reach in and scoop it out."
"I think it's here," Knuckles clarified, "Rememeber, you guys came to me. In desperation, I might add. I never offered any promises. All I offer is enlightened opinion. If these... things... rip half of Mobius apart and don't find a thing, it only proves that my people were better at what they did than we all thought."
The machines dug onward, as though they sought to tunnel to the centre of the world.

The road ahead seemed so straight and so long that it might as well stretch forward into infinity, and if it ever ended at all, that end might be as distant as the furthest stars (or further, for all it mattered). The effect was further perpetuated by tedium.
Along this road, this narrow freeway, a single utility truck pushed onward. Its cargo consisted of twenty boxes of ripening mangoes, one blue hedgehog and a young two-tailed fox.
Sonic's feet were snug and at home inside two bright red sneakers, each with a single white stripe along their side, and they eased the ache and pain of his overworked feet; feet which hadn't been put to such considerable use in quite a while. Tails, the hedgehog's newest travelling companion, had seen Sonic's raw and bleeding feet as the sun came up, and as a gesture of mutual trust, and knowing no better, he promptly stole the sneakers from a local shoe store, along with a white and gold pair for himself, and some socks for the road. Sonic accepted the gifts but vowed that they would represent the final criminal act that either of them would commit. From now on, he declared, the only things that they would steal would be Chaos Emeralds.
Being, however, that old habits tend to die hard, Tails sat on the back of the ute with his face buried deep inside a large mango, its juices soaking and matting down his bright orange fur. He didn't seem to care.
Sonic was drifting in and out of consciousness as the road's monotone lullaby reminded his body despite his brain that he had slept a total of a few minutes in the past twenty-four hours, and even that was more like a powernap. The road ahead was blocked to his vision, he could only see the road behind them, and as he watched it slide away beneath them with nothing but farms on either side, there was nothing left for him but his own mind, and even his thoughts flirted with irrationality on the edge of dreams as he slipped into one microsleep after another. At one point, he looked at Tails, smiling, and told him that they'd be paying for every mango they devour, so he should take it easy. Tails sulked but agreed. The kid was trying.
Then Sonic slept a while. He dreamed about snakes, about ghosts and running from the darkness. When he awoke, the ute was stopped at a service station, and the scenery had changed. The driver, an old walrus with one tusk, was asking if he wanted anything from inside.
"Uh, actually, a soda would be great," he replied, drowsy. "Hey, where are we?"
"We're in Mystic Ruin," the driver replied, "I'm gonna go straight on to Catilina, but there's about four hours o' straight desert between here an' there, so this is the last stop. Might serve ya' well to use the facilities while we're here."
"No, it's okay," Sonic said, "Mystic Ruin, I think this is where we need to go. There's some ruins nearby, isn't there?"
"Ahyup, that's why they call it Mystic Ruin, oddly enough. Got them old sunken ruins just outta town, big tourist attraction."
"Sweet. What time is it?"
"Quarter past ten." They had been in transit since seven.
"We'll get off here. Thanks a lot for the ride. Oh, uh, my friend ate a mango, or two..."
He looked at Tails. The fox was curled in a ball, fast asleep.
The walrus laughed. "Hey, don't worry. Take a couple fer yourself as well, kid, something to put on your back for the journey."

Prince Martin Acorn looked out upon Mobitropolis with a kind of contempt. The city spread out below him and went about itself as it always had. It did not tremble before him. It did not bow to his undeniable superiority. Things, he considered, were soon to change in that regard.
In a luxurious study, cooled by the breeze from a window (which, unbeknownst to him, had provided access to a blue hedgehog just a few days earlier) the prince tried to read, to bide his time for the storm that was coming. But time was difficult to bide. His mood was twenty different shades of black.
The door opened without a knock, which almost frustrated him over the edge, but he retained his composure. It was in his interest to remain composed, just for a few more days.
Rhes el Carrion entered, the black vulture smiling just enough to be polite. He immediately began to rudely poke and privy around.
"Close the door," the prince instructed, without looking up from his book.
Carrion nudged the door shut, but it moved too quickly and slammed, making Martin flinch and tighten his fist.
"So what's up, then?" Carrion asked, "You had me flown here from half a continent away, so I hope it's not something you could have told me over the phone."
Prince Martin at last looked up at him. "I lost an emerald."
"Oh yeah? Well, where's the last place you left it?"
"I- I don't..." the prince sighed, "I don't know, I'm not sure, I think it was in my pocket, but... when I-"
"Well damn," the vulture cackled, "So easy for you bigwigs, isn't it? I work for months, tear half the planet apart, just about bleed out of my ears looking for something that you can just lose, like a pair of socks."
"It was taken from me!" the prince shrieked all of a sudden, and leaped to his feet, pointing at the vulture as if it were he who were being accused, "Somebody was there, I could hear him breathing! He stalked me in the dark and he took my emerald!"
"Oh yeah?" Carrion said, "What'd this master thief look like?"
"I have... no idea."
"That helps."
"You will not speak to me like that!" the prince was enraged again, "I demand respect!"
"Hey, you ain't my king." Carrion shrugged. "I'm an expatriot, remember? I live in a democratic banana republic, I'm just slumming it down south for as long as you're paying me."
The prince sat down again, an unblinking glare of death on his reddening face. "Nevertheless," he said, "When an emerald goes missing, it becomes your problem, Mr Carrion. And it is a big problem."
"That's a nice desk," Carrion commented, "Authentic, I believe. Eastern design, not from around here. Fairly recent, though, maybe one-fifty years old, but good condition. That'll get you quite a bit at the auctions, you know."
"Have you been listening to me?"
"Yeah, I've been listening. It's just that I don't care. You lost one of your stones. It's a tragedy, those are some of the most important antiques on the face of the planet, but ultimately I'm not a treasure hunter, I'm a friggin' archaeologist. If it's under the ground, I'll find it, but if it's on someone's mantlepiece, there's nothing much I can do."
"Well, you should think about changing your mind in that regard," the prince said, "Whether or not you consider the emeralds to be your personal responsibility, the fact remains that I am paying you to get me seven stones by the end of the week. That is our contract, Mr Carrion. If I have six, or five, or three, or one, then you do not see a red cent. Now, I don't care what has to be done, or who does it. Station Square is a filthy city filled with all manner of disgusting scum, thieves and vermin, and one of them has my emerald. Somebody has to go there and get it back, and it's very much in your interest to make sure that happens."
Carrion looked at the prince, their eyes locking together for a moment in a battle for dominance. It was a battle that Acorn would assuredly win, for it was he who held all the aces.
"I guess it is then," the vulture said at last, "Well, maybe I'll go see about that, shall I?"
"Please do," Martin replied, "Please close the door gently on the way out."
Carrion didn't oblige that courtesy.

Sonic and Tails could easily agree that the aquatic ruin within the desert oasis was an absolutely spectacular vision, and one which would probably stay with them forever. In the morning light, a soft orange glow reflected off the tranquil pools and illuminated the grass, which seemed a brighter green than was even possible. It was very still, and very quiet. The area was deemed a site of major historical significance, and it was off limits to the public. The two of them had to sneak in, which was ultimately not all that difficult.
The site in all its natural beauty had been discovered in some ancient time by a race of people who had built great marble constructions around and through it. Many of the buildings had collapsed since that time, but it was still a place of exquisite beauty that probably had yet to be fully explored by any mobian since its rediscovery, whenever that might have been. It was a huge site and much of it had sunk into the large lake in the center. A thick forest almost like a jungle obscured a great deal.
The lake, so clear that it might have been a lake of air, half-swallowed a flat but skewed marble platform, creating a shallow pool. Sonic, seeing this phenomenon, ran ahead and leaped into the water. In doing so, he yelped and thrashed, before bursting out laughing despite a puzzled Tails.
"It's cold!" Sonic spluttered between chuckles. He began to backstroke in the still water.
Tails removed his shoes and socks first, and carefully stepped into the water. It was indeed cold, but his body adjusted to the temperature as he immersed himself. When he was comfortable, he began grooming himself, washing the mango juice and dirt out of his fur.
"Thank heavens," Sonic said, "I've smelled like mega mack ever since my last bath."
"You sure have," the fox replied, "I didn't have the heart to tell you."
As Sonic relaxed in the cool, clear water, he found himself constantly glancing at his pack, lying motionless on the ancient marble, a faint red glow from within visible even here. There was nobody around, but he didn't want to take any chances. It only took a moment last time for the emerald to find a new master, and next time he knew he wouldn't be so lucky as to befriend the thief.
He observed Tails, the child so strange on so many levels. He was young, no more than ten, but well-spoken, witty and intelligent. He was streetwise, as he would surely have to be to have survived, but innocent, more bark than bite. Behind his tough exterior was a child waiting to break free and live. He was small, even for his age. Light, nimble. Two tails, both of them uncharacteristically large and muscular. By all accounts he was more tail than fox.
The child didn't play, however. He didn't splash about, laugh and swim merrily, didn't enjoy his newfound freedom with kid mirth. He just floated on his back, letting the warm sun heat the white fur of his belly, and seemed either very deep in contemplation or completely without thought at all.
He tried to spark up a conversation. "That's a nice set of floor-sweepers you've got there."
"Huh?" Tails opened one eye.
"Tails," Sonic replied, "Nice set of tails, Tails."
"Uh, thanks." The fox sounded insincere.
"I have to say I'm kinda jealous. I only have the one, and it's sort of just a little spike."
"Big whooptie-doo," Tails scoffed, "So you're not a freak. You don't get people staring at you all the time, calling out to their friends so that they can join them in mocking you. Girls wouldn't sooner throw up than talk to you. Real tough break."
"Whoa kid, it ain't all candy and roses being me, either," Sonic said, "This isn't dye, you know. I don't choose to walk around looking like a blueberry."
"Wow, really? That's natural?" Tails asked.
"One hundred and twenty percent."
"Yeah, well, that's not so bad. It even looks... kinda cool. People think I'm retarded, they talk to me slowly like I can't understand them. Some aid worker tried to enrol me in a special school once."
Sonic chuckled. "Yeah, well, people think I'm a punk or something. Old people avoid me on the street. You should see them, I tried to ask this old lady for the time once and she almost beat me to death with her handbag."
Now Tails laughed, just a giggle, but it was the first time Sonic had heard him do it. As the fox grew more comfortable with his presence, he betrayed his inner child's security more and more. It was like unearthing a fossil.
"But you're really quick too, right?" he asked, "I mean, I saw you move back in Station Square. That's why they call you Sonic, isn't it?"
Sonic shrugged. "I guess. It's the only name I've ever known. I couldn't even remember it until recently. I can only remember the last two years or so of my life, everything before that is kind of a blur."
Tails appeared sincerely interested, now. "Whoa, really? What's that, amnesia or something?"
"I dunno. Bosley told me- oh, that's a friend of mine back in Mobitropolis- He told me that sometimes the mind will deliberately block out memories of really traumatic events. Like, a defense mechanism. I have these recurring nightmares every time I sleep, more than ever just recently, and I think they're fragments of my past trying to break through. It's not pretty, whatever it is. To be honest, I'm really not sure I want to remember. It's not that important to me right now where I'm from, I'd rather just focus on where I'm going."
"What do you dream about?" Tails asked.
Sonic shrugged. "Snakes. Running. People yelling at me, like, yelling commands at me. I can't see who they are."
"Your parents?"
He shook his head. "No. Not them. I don't know who my parents are, but it's not them. These guys are monsters. They keep snakes. Red and blue snakes. I keep seeing these snakes wrapped up together like this." He tried to draw a picture of it in the air - two squiggly lines overlapping each other.
"Weird," Tails commented, "Really weird."
"What about you, kid? I'm assuming that Tails isn't your real name."
"Well... no, but my real name sucks. You don't wanna know."
"Try me," Sonic said.
Tails looked the hedgehog over, as if trying to figure out if he was trustworthy. It took courage, this business of sharing secrets. The fox seemed to cross a barrier of openness with his response.
"Don't laugh."
"I won't."
"Miles," he said, and sighed.
"Miles? What's wrong with Miles?"
"What, are you kidding?" Tails replied, "Miles Prower? It sounds like a measurement of velocity. Think about it."
"Oh yeah!" Sonic started laughing, "Hey, that's neat!"
"I said don't laugh, you stupid jerk!" Tails cried, and splashed him. He was laughing as well, now, as they assaulted each other with water.

Princess Sally Acorn confronted her brother many times over the course of his rebellion, and she prepared to do so again now. It was a difficult matter, talking to the jaded Crown Prince without giving away the fact that she knew full well what he was up to. It was, after all, probably not beneath him to panic in such a situation and decide to have her disposed of. If he planned to usurp his own father, it was surely within his ability to throw his sister down the same chute. Being that she was also the covert leader of the Freedom Fighters, she had more to lose than her life. When siblings both have such considerable secrets to keep from each other, conversation tends to be limited.
Sally rapped daintily on the prince's door (Rhes el Carrion had slammed it so hard that it bounced right open again) and Martin did not look up, instead holding his head as if he had a migraine headache.
"Martin," she ventured.
"Go away," the prince replied, "I'm not in the best of moods."
"Father wanted me to fetch you," Sally continued, "He wishes to address the parliament tomorrow, and he wants us both to be there."
"He wants you to be there," Martin snapped, "He wants his little Queen to be by his side when he announces that he's selling the future of Mobitropolis short."
"I'm not going to argue with you, Martin. I'm still hoping that you can find a way to accept whatever Father decides about the future of the kingdom."
"Democracy?" Martin spat the word from his throat as if it tasted bitter to him. He looked down at the book he had been reading, a textbook of some kind, and calmed himself with some effort.
"If that is the will of the kingdom, then yes."
"How much do you know about history?" he asked.
"I've received all the same tutoring that you have," she replied.
"Yes," Martin said, "But you probably haven't done the extra research, have you? History, it's a passion of mine as you know. I love trailing the evolution of society, especially of this kingdom. There are some very interesting little events throughout history that you wouldn't even know about unless you scrutinised enough textbooks. You probably don't know, for example, that within a period of about fifteen months, around three hundred and twenty years ago, the Acorn monarchy actually collapsed."
Sally looked her brother in his reddened eyes, trying to discern his point. "No, I hadn't known that," she replied.
"Of course not," Martin said, "It's censored in most historical accounts. It reveals weakness in the power of the monarchy's control. Researchers don't like to admit that it even happened. But it did. An insignificant underground faction of so-called freedom fighters grew out of control." Sally involuntarily twitched at the mention of the term 'freedom fighters', and hoped her brother hadn't noticed it. She wondered if he might even know about her, but reckoned that he would be more blunt if he did.
Martin continued, "They somehow managed to bubble up through the cracks of society and, probably due to a random moment of synchronised incompetance on behalf of the palace guards, the rebels managed to storm the palace and take the throne. The monarch - a queen, I might add - was forcibly deposed, and the rebels expelled the entire royal family. Now, they had a clever idea for a new government form, a classless society where everybody had an equal position amongst mobians, regardless of race, creed or ability. Of course, this society needed to be governed, so the idea was that the government was to be elected by the people. The people were going to rule themselves, and everybody was going to have an equal chance to make it in life. And do you know what happened to this utopian paradise?"
"No," Sally replied.
Martin slammed the book closed with a resonating clap, making her flinch. "It fell to pieces!" he shrieked, "It crumbled, it imploded, like a house of cards, Sally. It failed, in every respect. The people immediately elected a panel of idiots, whoever was more popular, whoever could conduct the most whimsical and persuasive campaign was installed to lead this once mighty nation, and the imbeciles came up with some weak plan to give everybody an equal pay and an equal position in society. So guess what? Nobody worked! They didn't have to! They were being paid whether they worked or not, so they chose not to. In fact, not even the politicians could be bothered working, so the chain of fools decided that the politicians should be paid more than everyone else, for the sake of sustaining cohesion within the government. That was the end of the classless society, wasn't it? All of a sudden there was an elite upper class, of which everyone wanted to be a part, and a massive lower class, which went about demolishing the system from the inside. It was like dominos, the industry fell, which brought down the economy, which brought down the standard of living, which brought down morale, which brought down integrity, which almost brought down Mobitropolis. Such was the desire to join the upper class that the greediest and most desperate mobians of society went to ridiculous lengths to be elected to a position of power, which led to a massive influx of corruption so strong that the government couldn't even operate. In a little over a year, the people were so desperate for the solidarity of the former monarchy, that the Acorns practically walked back into power. They just had to blow on the people's government, and it flew into the wind like it was made of dust. That's your democracy, Sally."
The princess was unsure of what to say. Her brother certainly knew history. "That's an extreme case," she said, "It's hardly the fate of every self-governing body."
"You're blind, then," Martin said, "And weak. The people cannot govern themselves, it's a contradiction. They need authority. What they need is to be commanded. If they have orders to follow, then they are content. If not, then they have nothing to live for. It's simple psychology. The problem, sister, lies with the lower class. Since our father has been in power, and since he's introduced this democratic parliament to question and sway his decisions, unemployment has grown, have you noticed? In fact, the only time it's ever been higher was during these fifteen months of rebellion. It's starting again, Sally, and it needs to be stopped. Already we have mobians living on the streets, pickpockets and theives, with no ambition but to drain this kingdom dry. Something has to be done about them. Something has to be done about this worrying trend away from sanity. There lies the problem, Sally. One of us knows this, and one of us doesn't. One of us is going to take this kingdom into the next half century." He smiled, but it was a devilish smile, more of a crooked grin that Sally had never seen him produce before. It frightened her. Martin was growing less like the brother she knew through her entire life as time went by. She wondered who had fed him such intense propaganda, it seemed contrary to everything they had learned growing up, and yet it was so powerful that it was twisting him into something she didn't even recognise. It was at this moment that she realised there were mighty forces outside the prince's own mind working on him, and had been for some time.
"Martin," she said, "I want you to know that, no matter what happens... I love you. You always used to be there for me, do you remember?"
His crooked smile faded. Something familiar returned to his eyes, something that had been clouded and missing for years. "Yes," he replied, "I remember."
"I don't think those days will ever return. We'll only ever be on worse terms with each other."
The cloud returned over the prince, and his eyes narrowed. "Until you cease your childish dreams, I'm afraid so. It saddens me, it really does. But I will persue my beliefs at all costs, you must realise this. I'm right, and you'll come to know it in time."
Sally nodded sadly, and turned to leave. She was half way out the door before he called her name. She turned around again, and her brother was reading again, not looking up at her.
"I love you too," he said. She smiled and left him to his machinations.

"So why are we here?" Tails asked, "We're not just making a pit-stop, are we?"
"Not exactly," Sonic replied. He was exploring a half-sunken marble palace of some kind, hopping from brick to brick like stepping stones in the lake. A forest of columns jutted out of the water around him, all of them leaning. Whatever they had held up had crumbled over the passage of time, but the columns, unaware of this fact (blind as they were) went about their job unabated. "We're looking for another emerald."
"Another one?" Tails exclaimed, "Like the red one? There are others?"
"Yeah. Look here."
He opened his pack and took out the map that Kethriel had provided him. There were five crosses marked. "See, that's Station Square," Sonic said, pointing, "That's where I found the first. The next closest is here, Mystic Ruin. After that, we'll head off to this one. That should be... over in that direction." He pointed toward the mountains, which were just visible through a break in the trees.
"But why?" Tails asked, "What do you want them for?"
"I don't want them. They can stay buried, for all I care. It's someone else who wants them, I'm trying to stop them from getting them."
"This doesn't make any sense," the fox said, and looked up at the hedgehog with an eyebrow cocked and a distrustful expression, "You're not crazy or something, are you?"
"No," Sonic replied, "I'm kind of on an espionage mission. I was sent out here... I was sent by a kind of resistance movement. The Prince of Mobitropolis is organising a coup on the throne, he's building a satellite that can turn the whole lower class of the city into robots, and he needs the emeralds to power it."
Tails retained his worried expression. Sonic smiled a little. "What?"
"That's the craziest story I've ever heard," the fox said, "I don't think I believe you."
"Believe what you want, but it's all true. The princess told me herself."
"Oh right. You met Princess Sally and she sent you on a mission to save everybody. You, a homeless kid living in a trash disposal."
"Fastest darn homeless kid on Mobius," Sonic corrected him.
They continued their banter for a while, but Sonic hushed his companion when he heard voices. The sound was out of place in the tranquil setting, and any company out here was probably a bad thing, being that they were trespassing.
The voices came from behind a stone wall, and Sonic climbed it to get a better view. As it turned out, the other side of the wall was a lot lower than the side he was on, like a cliff, and he thanked his lucky stars that he hadn't simply leaped over it like a hurdle straight to the grave. The voices carried from half a dozen figures in a grass clearing below. He couldn't make out what they were saying, but he recognised one of the figures almost immediately. Bulbous body, spherical head, fiery handlebar moustache and spectacles in eye-craters, this was Ivo Robotnik, Minister for Science in Mobitropolis.
"What's happening?" Tails asked, poking his head over the wall.
"Shh." Sonic squinted, a hand over his eyes to shield them from the glare.
Robotnik was discussing something with three other mobians, rangers by the look of them, and they were listening intently to him. It was a one-way conversation, as though they were taking orders. Sonic couldn't make out what he was saying, and he closed his eyes to concentrate on the sound of the professor's voice. When he opened them again, Robotnik was looking in his direction.
"Crap!" Sonic exclaimed, and fell backwards off the wall. The hedgehog's fall was ill-directed, and he dropped like a stone into the lake.
"Sonic!" Tails exclaimed. Sonic, spines and limbs tangled in his backpack, flailed for a hold on the marble block that constituted a platform, but his grip slipped easily on the mossy stone, and never having learned how to swim (or even having set foot in deep water before) his attempts at staying afloat were futile. He struggled for a hold on anything after he went under. The water was crystal clear, but all he could see was green, the glistening moss-covered marble all around him. He bobbed, gasped for air, went under again. As he moved his body around under the water, he saw something that caught his attention. Deep under him, deep deep under, was a whole new world. In the dark, he could make out houses, temples and roads. Somebody had walked along those roads long ago, their shoes clicking on the stone pavement. There was a statue in this sunken world, a statue of a mobian, moss-covered and worn, a mobian with long dreadlocks draping from its large almond-shaped head. It was forlorn and anguished, and it stared up at him with a haunting expression of hopelessness. Sonic closed his eyes and let the darkness take him.

"She's the finest machine what ever flew, she is," the stork in the overalls assured him, and Packbell had little doubt that he told the truth. "One of the wonders of the industrial world, she is. The jewel of my collection, she is. I've got flying machines from all corners of the world, but she's the mother of them all."
"Sounds like you'll have trouble letting her go," Packbell commented.
"Well yeah, there's that," the stork replied, "But it makes me kinda happy, too. I think she wants to be up there again, in the wide blue yonder, soaring above it all. I think it's good that she has a chance to be put to good use again. Kinda gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside me, it does."
The hangar doors opened at his command, slowly and labouriously. This was no ordinary hangar, though. Dozens of domed buildings littered this valley, but only this one held worth to Packbell. The suspense ran thick as the light began to fall upon its contents.
"After the ban on technology, of course she was grounded," the stork explained, "They didn't know what to do with her, they was going to dismantle her, they was. Then my Dad bought her, and as long as he didn't try to fly her he was allowed to keep her here. I inherited her as well as the collection, of course."
"Is it in working order?" Packbell asked.
"Should be. I mean, haven't been able to fly her and find out, been sitting here for fifty years, she has, but my Dad and I have kept her in fine condition, kept the rust away and all that. She should be up and away, no problem at all. Man and gosh, would I love to see her fly out of here, fly free as she's supposed to."
The door opened all the way, and the hangar's contents came into view. It was a massive craft, the airborne equivalent of an ocean liner. Monsterous propellers and thrusters lined its broad wings. How such a fortress could take to the skies was a miracle of science, but apparently it did so, and did it well.
"Here she is," the stork announced, "The H.M.S. Flying Battery, pride of the Mobitropolis air force, pre Android Wars."
Packbell studied the winged fortress with a professional's eye. A good amount of the palace rebellion's secret budget had been spent purchasing this mighty piece of machinery for the prince's personal military. The Battery once dominated the skies over Mobitropolis, and nothing had ever been able to touch it. For a behemoth over sixty years old, it appeared to be in decent working condition. A genuine living relic of Mobius' last great technological age.
"I think we can do business," Packbell announced.

Sonic drifted through the water, semiconscious and delirious. He couldn't see ahead in the darkness, but then he couldn't see much of anything anymore. He knew nothing but the sound beating through the recesses of his mind. A countdown.

t minus eight

As it counted down, he pondered. Snakes lay eggs, don't they? Perhaps that's what the mother hen was. Not a hen at all but a snake. A gigantic coiled snake, slithering through the vastness of space, just waiting for its abominable child to incubate. A blue snake, or a red one. Perhaps two snakes, coiled together in that ladder-shape, just waiting to lay one giant egg, big enough to destroy Mobius. An egg represents new life, but this is no ordinary egg. It is a death egg. When the death egg hatches, only chaos spills forth. Chaos spills forth, just

t minus seven

like it did before, all those years ago. The red people, all decorated in gold and silver, running away from (the death egg?) from (snakes?) from some beast that hid out of sight, it changed shape somehow, it... it... wasn't... possible, it defied possibility, it wasn't a snake but something... it makes the mind hurt, it makes it ache

t minus six

It doesn't matter. The beast is gone now. It's in the emeralds. Chaos is in the emeralds now, it has saturated them, twisted them, they seek the evil, they seek it like they desire to be with it forever, because it's a part of them. Why do the red people still run? No, no it isn't them, they're not running,

t minus five

it's Sonic who's running, he's running, he's running and the Master is standing next to him and commanding him to run and he must or he will be punished and it hurts where they poke him and he's running but not moving he isn't going anywhere he's running in one place and it's killing him

t minus four, sonic

and the Master is laughing is laughing at his pain and the Death Egg is launching and his friends are dying they're dying the king is dying and the snakes are laughing the red people are dying the emeralds are laughing and Chaos is roaring and Sonic is running

t minus three, sonic, hurry

and he can't make it in time because the Egg is hatching and he's so fast he's the fastest thing alive but oh God he's not going anywhere he's running on the spot and the red people are crying out to him

t minus two sonic hurry hurry up

and they are all dying every one the egg is hatching death the chaos the fury the death the machine the fate the death he's not moving he's not moving he's not moving he's not moving

t minus one sonic hurry hurry hurry just

/just/

run.

Sonic realised that he was screaming and that screaming meant that he wasn't under the water anymore. He drew a long, painful breath and promised to never take the air for granted again. When he opened his eyes, though, the sunshine was gone. Not night, but shelter. He was in some kind of cave. The air was stale and old, like the smell of parchment. It wasn't completely dark, however, as there was a soft glow emitted from an unknown place.
His legs hurt. He'd been kicking them while he dreamed, his body trying to run, trying to answer the command of the cruel force in his nightmare. Hands down, he'd just experienced the worst nightmare he could ever remember having. It felt as though there was somebody chipping away at a wall in his brain. His memories were spilling out like a tidal wave of pain, and all he could do was brace himself for the onslaught. He liked that wall, he wanted to keep it there. He didn't want to remember.
Part of his nightmare wasn't memory, however. He knew his memories because they gave him a feeling of de'ja'vu, things he had felt and seen before. The snakes were in his past, the running, the cruel master, all of it repressed. Then there were the red people, who were new. It was the first time he'd seen them in his head or elsewhere. Them, and the mysterious monster who changed shape and couldn't be seen. Some foreign imagination, infiltrating his memories and reducing them to absurdity.
The cavern was quiet but for the lapping of the water at its marble coastline. Sonic was wet and cold, it occured to him that his backpack had been submerged again and whatever wasn't damaged by the mega mack in Station Square was probably lost to him now.
"Great," he croaked, and he broke into a coughing fit. He had taken some water into his lungs, he supposed that another minute in the water and it would have been a corpse that washed up in this tunnel. Composing himself, he looked around, his eyes having adjusted to the dim light. The glow that enabled his sight seemed to eminate from hundreds of tiny points dotted randomly in the marble walls. Squinting, he tried to figure out what strange ancient technology might cause such an effect. What he found were tiny stones embedded in the walls, little jewel shards like glitter. Sonic became mildly concerned that they were radioactive, but each seemed to glow a different colour, and the glow was exactly the same, he realised, as that of the Chaos Emeralds.
There were engravings on these walls. He couldn't quite make them out in the dimness, but they were numerous and seemed to tell a grand story of some kind.
(the red people... this was their legacy...)
Delirious from his brush with death, Sonic could have sworn that the crystals in the walls were whispering to him, but whispering directly into his mind. It was a creepy supposition, and he decided that he didn't want to spend any more time than he had to inside this aquatic ruin.
He began to walk down the tunnel with haste. His interest wandered, though. The markings on the walls fascinated him more than they rightly should.
(they left this place, left it to rot, let it sink into the lagoon)
More than once he caught himself standing at one of the carvings, his hand tracing its outline, fingers trembling as they ran across the stone.
(no!)
Sonic fell to his knees. His head swimming, his heart beating strong. He moaned and tried to come to his senses. How much air was in this temple? More to the point, what was the composition of what he was breathing now? Had a single mobian even set foot inside this temple for a thousand years? (since the red people?) He pulled himself up and began walking even faster, almost jogging, his eyes firmly closed to as to resist the temptation of the carvings. He sensed light and in reflex his eyes blinked open. He was at the end of the tunnel and he had reached some kind of slanted chamber, illuminated by millions of the little glowing shards. It was an eerie mouve light, and strange mists filled the room, parting as he neared. It smelled musty and rotten, with a certain perfumed undertone, barely noticable under the decay. He could barely see cracks in the ceiling, which slowly dripped water. Such dripping would crumble this entire construction before too long. The damage might have been caused by recent reckless excavation, or simply by natural erosion, but relatively soon these preserved tunnels would be lost to the ages, swept away by the slow choke of the lagoon.
There was a huge mural on the far wall, the marble floor too steeply slanted to reach it. The glowing illuminated the image just enough to be visible with some effort. Sonic couldn't tell exactly what it was, but it had nasty implications for him. His mind, plagued with strange images, seemed to fear it. All he could make out was the image of a beast of some kind, a dragon or something of the like. He stared at it until his head hurt, and he had to snap out of it and decide where to go next. The only way, he supposed, was up.
It took some effort to make his way to the steep tunnels of the far side of the chamber. His rogue mind frightened him by imagining that the entire temple might be dislodged by his movements and fall to the bottom of the lagoon, burying him. And why was he calling it a lagoon, now? Where had he seen that term used? Wasn't it self-evident, though? This was the Temple of the Lagoon after all. Where was this knowledge coming from? Had he heard any of this, or was the temple warping his mind somehow?
He was frightened, now. This place was too eerie. Although he detected no malevolence from the crystals in the wall, they whispered to him like ghosts, making him very aware of how alone he was. He wished, at least, that Tails was with him.
The darkness was all-encompassing, now. The crystals weren't so numerous in number, and the mist seemed to close in around him. He knew not where he was going, the crystals seemed to be guiding him. Did he even have any control at all over his movements through the tunnels, or was the temple both navigator and pilot?
(watch out for the snakes, sonic, you will know them before long)
The walls whispered to him, intimately, like lovers' secrets.
(watch out for the snakes, watch out for ol' mecha red-eyes, he wants your head)
He didn't know what any of the whispers meant, but at the same time it seemed to be simple common sense disguised as something cryptic.
(the seven chaos are called to evil like moths to a flame)
"Shut up!" Sonic shouted into the darkness. His voice echoed off the walls, and although it didn't stop the whispers, it did bring the lost element of reality back into the situation. He realised that he was shouting at rocks, and that their whispers were in his mind. They must have been. The knowledge gave him strength, and he regained control over his movements. He was in another chamber, he noticed. The ground had reverted to something close to level, and he stood in the small, round room, trying to think.
There was a pedestal before him. An elaborately decorated stone lay on top of it, a statuette of some kind. A slim, dreadlocked mobian of indeterminate race.
(for the palace)
It was a thing of beauty, so delicately carved. No doubt a priceless relic, soon to be destroyed with the rest of this deteriorating ruin. Perfectly preserved, for now.
(you will face peril in the heavens)
So taken with the object's beauty was he that he barely even noticed having picked it up. This action stopped the temple's whispers instantly, like switching off a radio. The sudden silence was almost as frightening as the whispers themselves had been, and he froze as stiff as the stone around him. He found, though, that the whispers had not stopped at all, they had merely decided all to agree on one faint word that fell upon his mind like raindrops, ever so softly, again and again.
(run)
He thought he felt a mild vibration in the stone of the temple, but he'd shrugged it off as another illusion. But now the mists parted and dissolved, a very faint breeze sucking them away. Something cold brushed Sonic's feet and he saw that it was water. A tiny flood like the rising of the tide was trickling down the slanted tunnel.
(run)
Nothing outwardly threatening, but Sonic knew its horrible implications. The removal of the statuette had apparently been a bad idea. The inner workings of the temple had shifted somehow, probably to activate some kind of ancient trap. The trap had failed, but the movement had been enough to widen the cracks in the temple's walls, and the lagoon was finally having its way with the antiquated construction. The movement of the air was significant, now, as the air was being sucked out to make way for the incoming water. He could hear it rushing, now, the chamber with the dragon mural was crumbling under the fury of it.
(RUN)
He did run, now. The water was rising around his ankles. He ran away from the torrent, downward, into the darkness. The crystals in the walls throbbed, and Sonic wondered if they were as frightened as he was. A bizarre thought.
The water swept him up, now. He lost his footing and banged his coccyx on the tunnel floor as he fell backward, crying out in pain. The stream rushed around him, and before he could pick himself up, it attained enough strength to take him with it. He slid down the increasingly slanted tunnel like a macabre waterslide, hitting the curves hard. One collision took some skin off his elbow, another grazed his forehead, dazing him momentarily. The ride became more violent, and he knew that, if it lasted much longer, the collisions would begin to break his bones. Relief, however, came as he was dragged into a body of water. It was rising from beneath as the stream from above filled it. Orienting himself quickly, Sonic knew that he would have to swim for it. Remembering that his last attempt at swimming had been a catastrophic failure, he made certain not to let panic cloud his senses. The hedgehog aimed downward, into the darkness, cupped his hands, and started kicking. As luck would have it, the sneakers that Tails had given him seemed to help propel him. His swimming style was his own invention, but it seemed to work. Before too long he reached an opening into the lagoon. Water was rusing through it, barricading his exit, but he found something to grip onto, and with some effort, pulled his body against the torrent.
The fight wasn't over yet, but it got easier as he went on. He tried to make his way towards the surface, but first he turned back to see the building from the outside.
It was a huge step-pyramid, nestled among smaller submerged temples and large statues of seated mobians, all dreadlocked and grim. As he watched, he saw the temple move, shifting and cracking under the sudden pressure. A huge mass of bubbles suddenly burst forth, and the entire massive building crumbled in upon itself with a booming noise that pounded at Sonic's eardrums. He realised to his horror that the crumbling pyramid was sucking him back towards it. Soon he could feel the smaller stones as they shot through the water. He would be crushed if he was pulled back into it. He tried to swim away, but the tide was too strong and he tumbled, helpless, towards the chaos. All he could do was grab onto whatever he passed. He grasped something and it broke away in his hands. Grasped something else and it held. Holding on for dear life, he tried to pull himself into whatever cavernous object he had a hold of. It was a metal pipe. Not ancient at all, but a recent construction. He swam into it as far as he could. His lungs were painfully begging for oxygen, now, but he could not appease them. If there was a dead end, he was done for, but he couldn't think of that just now. All he knew was to move onward.
Fate was not that cruel to him, however. The pipe turned straight upward, and there was a surface to the water partway along. He breathed deeply, panting in his exhaustion and depravity, and decided to float motionless for just a little while. He figured that he deserved the rest.

Sonic inched his way up the pipe slowly, hoping naturally that there was a safe opening at the other end of it. More than anything he wanted to be out of the water for good, a draught blew through the pipe from above and gave him a serious case of the chills. At least that meant that there was air somewhere above.
At last he saw light. A dozen lines of light shone through a grating ahead, and when he reached them he peered through to see where in the world he was. There was a dimly lit room outside the pipe, some kind of basement or storage area. Definitely not an ancient construct. He was back in modern society. Sonic put his foot against the grating and pushed out as hard as he could, and without too much effort the panel popped open and clanged on the concrete floor below. He climbed out and sat at the base of the pipe, happy to be back on dry land. It was a short while later that he discovered what it was he had climbed through. It was a sewage pipe. Somebody was thoughtless enough to drain their waste matter directly into the lagoon.
"Man, am I ever glad nobody decided to use that while I was in there," he said to himself.
There were a lot of pipes and boxes and assorted garbage in this room. Sonic looked around for some way out. There, at the far end, was some kind of service elevator and a set of stairs. He used the stairs, not wishing to alert the attention of anybody who might be working in the building.
Luck was not something that Sonic ever considered to be high on his list of attributes. After all, he'd never had occasion to climb the social ladder. However, having almost forgotten the primary objective of his mission by now, Sonic was almost thrown backwards down the stairs when he reached a door labelled 'Emerald Facility'. Somehow he'd stumbled into the very place he wanted to infiltrate. The problem, and the price of his good fortune he figured, was that he had no idea what the security was like in the building, and how he was supposed to get out with the emerald undetected.
With due caution, he opened the door a crack and peered in. A Chaos Emerald, bigger than the red one from Station Square, throbbed and glowed from its pedestal in a glass case. It was a silvery-grey colour, like a very cloudy diamond, and a tremendous stroke of luck saw that it was completely unprotected. Between this room and the outside world, without any doubt, there would be a veritable army of SWAT-bots, but nobody had counted on the sewage pipes as a means of access, so nobody had bothered placing guards at the rear.
Dripping, Sonic tiptoed up to the emerald case and observed the prize within. This was a much more impressive jewel than the one he already had in his pack. It was larger than his fist, and seemed to radiate with a powerful inner light that probably almost matched a fluorescent bulb in luminescence. He couldn't help but wonder where that light came from, and if it would ever run out of fuel and die.
He opened the case and took the emerald in his hand. It was warm and smooth, just as the other had been. Unfortunately, his luck had reached its extent and depleted. An alarm went off as soon as he moved the stone. It was shrill and frantic, a sound terrifying in itself. In an instant, Sonic knew that the main doors ahead of him were about to open and a flood of guards was going to pour through. He knew that there was only one way out of this building, and he hoped that his soaked shoes wouldn't be too uncomfortable for running.

Tails dangled his feet in the water, his head down and tears trailing their way down his face. There was nothing left for him now, he knew. Stranded in a strange place, with no supplies and no home to go back to.
Of course, the fox had searched in vain for an hour after Sonic had fallen into the lagoon, but he found no trace of the hedgehog or his belongings. It was painfully obvious that he'd made the stupidest decision of his life, biting off the hand that fed him, betraying Nails in favour of the empty promises of a stranger who immediately proceeded to drown himself along with the opportunities he claimed to provide. He could never return to Station Square, never even go near the place, lest he be killed by those who protected him once. He wondered how far word of his betrayal might have spread. Would it be safe for him to settle in Mobitropolis? In Catilina? Would he have to travel even further? There were trains passing through the small town outside the Mystic Ruin, he could hear them on the breeze. Perhaps he could make do as a transiant, travelling the railway until he found a place to settle. Either way, he decided, it was time to start making his own decisions for his own welfare. No more would he allow himself to be cheated by hedgehogs, or anybody else, who claimed to know what was right for him.
It was just as this thought passed through his head that the bushes rustled loudly beside him, and he just about leaped out of his skin when a muddied, knocked-about blue hedgehog came stumbling out, his eyes wide with some kind of adrenaline-powered passion.
"What in the name of-" the fox stammered, "You stupid jerk! I thought you were dead! I thought you drowned in the lake!"
"I almost did," Sonic replied, "Twice. But I got this." He held out his hand, and showed Tails the glowing silver emerald.
Tails, however, was unimpressed with the find, and looked past it as if it wasn't there. "I looked for you!" he exclaimed, "I searched all over the place for you! What was I supposed to do here all by myself? I was sure you were dead, I thought I'd have to hitchhike back to the city!"
Sonic saw the fear and anger in the small fox's eyes, and felt an immediate pang of guilt. He could see that Tails had been crying. "I'm sorry," he said, "It wasn't my fault, I couldn't get back. I wanted to, but-" He unzipped his soaked backpack in order to place the new emerald inside, and immediately saw something strange inside. It was the idol that he'd found in the temple beneath the lagoon. He'd picked it up and triggered some kind of trap, but when had he packed it? He could have sworn that he'd left it behind... just a statue, it was of no worth or significance to him on this journey. It seemed he'd put it away without thinking enough about it to even remember it, which was more than a little creepy. Shrugging it off, he forced himself to focus on more important matters.
"You have to be more careful or something," Tails pleaded, "You promised me, Sonic. You promised me."
"I know, Tails. I still do. I'm not gonna leave you again if I can help it. But we've gotta get out of here right now. This whole place is gonna be swarming with armed SWAT-bots any minute now, I just had to get past about twenty of 'em, and they're not pulling any punches. These things are shooting to kill."
"But where are we gonna go?" Tails asked.
Sonic pointed towards the mountains. Just visible over the trees, beyond the border of the oasis and over fields of brown grass and farmland, was a misty mountain range dividing the countryside in two. At most it would be a day's journey by foot to reach it. "That's where we've gotta go now. We should get going right away, before they start sending out search parties for us. The mountains will give us shelter from the air and give us somewhere to hide until the heat dies down."
Tails nodded and trailed behind as Sonic led them out of the Mystic Ruins. He watched the hedgehog's backpack as they went, just barely able to see two points of light shining within. Sonic had seen him cry, he had bared his wounded soul to this stranger, and he felt a certain degree of embarrassment because of it. As they walked, he rebuilt the walls around his heart and thought about many things. Trust was the key issue on his mind. Trust, Nails had once told him, meant nine times out of ten that somebody was being played like a piano. Tails decided, as he watched those emerald lights, that it was time for him to begin playing the game also.