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Chapter 2: Chaos Sight

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Knothole village was awakened at four in the morning by a bang like an exploding bomb. Sleepy heads peered out of windows, doors opened. Tails tumbled out of bed, tugged his shoes on, and staggered outside with the rest, rubbing his eyes. It was deep twilight, as the sun would not rise for another hour. There was no smoke or other indication of what had happened.
Tails yawned and plodded over to Sally, who was wearing a bathrobe and looking rumpled. "Tails? What happened?" she asked.
"I donno," said the fox. "It sounded like one of those explosives me and Sonic made last summer. But we haven't had any gunpowder for ages."
"Maybe you should check your workshop and see if everything's okay," said the squirrel.
Tails walked toward the ramshackle shed that served as his workshop, wishing Sonic was there. He would have made this seem like a grand adventure.
The workshop looked okay ... uh oh. His feet crunched on broken glass. The ground around the shed was littered with it, and all the windows had been broken out.
He unlocked the door, swung it open, and was struck by the odor of hot metal and burning rubber. "Oh great," he muttered, and flipped on the light switch.
The Cyclone, a small machine that could transform into a plane, a walker or a car at the touch of a button, lay on its side in walker-form. The left side was blackened, and two armor panels had been blown off. A good deal of the contents of the shelves were in the floor. The fox gingerly picked his way though the mess to the Cyclone, half wondering if it would blow his head off. But nothing happened, and he peered into the hole in its side.
Then he groaned. There was a pressurized hub in the middle of the Cyclone that worked the hydraulics needed for transformation. This hub had ruptured and damaged all the machinery around it. The fox slumped back on his tails. "Just great," he said. "That thing wasn't cheap."
He grabbed a parts catalog from the floor and went to tell Sally what had happened.

*

Knuckles awoke to the sound of electronic beeping. He lifted his head and squinted. The cabin door stood open, and a bar of sunlight slanted across his sleeping bag. Sonic was sitting in the doorway, bent over Knuckles' palmtop, playing Caterpillar with the utmost concentration.
The echidna sat up and rubbed his eyes. "I told you not to take that."
"I didn't take it, I borrowed it," Sonic replied, without looking up. "I checked your mail. Espio says that he's vanished for good. Vector says that Espio and Charmy had a fight and Charmy stung Espio. I got one from Tails."
"I told those two not to fight," Knuckles growled. "I hope Espio's really sick. Give me my computer."
He grabbed at it, but Sonic held it out of his reach. "Hey, I'm not done."
"Hand it over or you skip breakfast."
"Ooo, I'm scared," Sonic replied, but he gave Knuckles the palmtop. "Tails said the Cyclone blew up," the hedgehog added, as Knuckles read his electronic mail. "The hydraulic pressure hub ruptured. He's got to buy a new one."
"Too bad for Tails," said Knuckles. "Those are expensive."
"He had to special-order the last one," said Sonic, standing up and brushing himself off. He snickered. "I'll bet they thought a bomb had gone off."
Knuckles said nothing. After a moment Sonic picked up the green chaos emerald from its place with the other gems and Chaos Relocated himself all over the campsite. Knuckles pretended to ignore him, but he was glad that the hedgehog was acting normal again. Perhaps he had forgotten the strange note from the Shadow impersonator.
Sonic continued to behave normally as the day wore on, and it seemed that his break the day before had done him good. His Chaos Relocates' accuracy had improved, and Knuckles had him start studying Chaos See, which was the power native to the amber emerald. Once Sonic could use each emerald's ability through the ruling green, they could start work on the more advanced powers, like healing and timeshifting.
That evening, as Knuckles was preparing supper (he wouldn't let Sonic near the fire), Sonic grabbed the palmtop again. There were two letters from Sally. One was a document filled with astronomy information for Knuckles, and the other ...
"Dear Sonic,
"It seems that my fate is bound up with you no matter where I turn. Alas, I cannot harm you--not you, my friend. Although I have plotted vengeance, I find I cannot carry it out. But my plans involve you anyway. I need your knowledge, your strength, your green chaos emerald. It may be some time before I locate you, for this world is strange to me. Do not fear me. Do not seek me. I will come to you."
"Twilight."
Sonic looked up at Knuckles, the color draining from his face. "I got another letter from him," he whispered.
Knuckles snatched the computer and scanned the note. It was even more Shadow-like than the first one. Sonic leaned against the cabin wall for support and stared into the distance. "He needs me," he muttered. He passed a hand over his eyes. "Knuckles, he said he needs me."
"He wants what you have," Knuckles corrected. He studied the screen uneasily. "I don't like this, Sonic. He sounds like a killer."
"That's how he was," Sonic replied, eyes unfocused. "He talked in riddles. He hated everything. But he won't hurt me. He said so."
Knuckles pressed his lips together and did not reply. Neither spoke as they ate dinner and retired to their sleeping bags. But Knuckles sat with the tiny screen in his lap hours after Sonic was asleep, brow furrowed, as he pondered first Sally's astronomy information, then Twilight's letter.

*

The Cyclone walked with a limp, and every four steps gave a hiccup that Tails did not like. But it still worked, and he had no other way of moving it to Riverbase for repairs.
The fox had packed a dufflebag, said goodbye to the Freedom Fighters, and rode his little blue walker out of Knothole Village, bound for Riverbase, a town fifty miles to the south and west. It was built over the Great River, and had survived Robotnik's reign. Now it was a thriving city, bustling with traffic that traveled up and down the river. They were the closest place Tails could buy the specialized, rare hydraulic parts he used in his mechanical creations. He wondered if the Cyclone could make it so far, but he had packed his jet anklets in case he had to walk. If worst came to worst, he could track down Slasher, who was down at Riverbase for a few weeks as Sally's emissary. Tails had a vague idea that she was signing papers of some kind.
The road cut its way through the woods, its twenty-year-old pavement eroded away to dirt between islands of tarmac. Several miles of it had been oiled, to pack it firmer for the heavy equipment rolling into the reconstruction site in Mobitropolis, but Tails was travelling in the opposite direction. Repaving the roads was only one of the things Knothole had to worry about, hence the reason an overworked Sally had dispatched Slasher to Riverbase. Tails guided the limping Cyclone among the potholes, wondering when the roads would be repaired.
A strange sound touched the fox's ears over the clanking of his machine. He stopped it and stood idling, head turning from side to side. Was it a big truck? He couldn't imagine what a truck might be doing on this road, but perhaps he had better move clear ... or was it a train? It was a rumble like an approaching train.
The trees around him swayed, and the Cyclone rocked. Then the sound died away, and the forest stilled.
Tails had never experienced an earthquake before, and thus it was several minutes before he figured out what had happened. For some reason an illogical panic swept him, and left him with damp palms and bristling fur. Earthquakes were something they had in other places, not in the Great Forest. The only time the Great Forest had earthquakes was in the year 800, when a volcano in the northeast had erupted. Was there another volcano somewhere?
The fox forced himself to calm down and push the Cyclone into Drive once more. Maybe a plate had shifted, and this had been a freak tremor. Yeah, that was all it was.
But he was calling home as soon as he got to Riverbase to ask what had happened.

*

Sonic sat in the shade of a tree near the campsite, squinting into the green jewel in his hands. He was trying to Chaos See, which, according to Knuckles, was an actual power and not merely crystal gazing. Sonic sensed the various frequencies within the tiny vibration of the emerald, and if he concentrated, he could find Chaos Relocate, and beneath it, Chaos Control, which was a timestop. Chaos See was supposedly below them, but Sonic could not focus deep enough. He was afraid to empty his mind and open himself to the powers of Chaos, no matter what Knuckles said. If Sonic let the emeralds take over his mind, then who was in control? Using the emeralds was one thing. Trusting them was another.
Twilight's letter kept drifting through his mind. If Twilight was Shadow ... but if he wasn't Shadow ... The unasked questions kept him from concentrating. He lifted his blue head and massaged his neck, which was growing stiff. Knuckles had told him to practice, then had wandered off, and the hills were quiet and empty. Their open spaces beckoned to Sonic, and he felt his legs crying out for a run, but he bent over his emerald again. No, he must master this. He'd be one up on Shadow.
Suddenly he stiffened and stared. Something had clicked and he was Seeing. But he had no idea how to control it or make it stop. He sat as still as a statue, a look of blank horror on his face. The minutes ticked by. Sonic remained motionless, held in the grip of the Chaos Emerald, which was flaming with green fire. He could not escape, could not move, could not break its hold. He began to shudder, his breath coming in gasps. Still he stared, was forced to see, and could not tear away.
His lips moved as sweat rolled down his face. He had to free himself of the flood of images--had to master it--"No, no, no NO!" he whispered, his voice rising to a desperate scream.
The emerald dimmed. Sonic fell on his back and lay still, eyes closed, sweat pouring off him.
An hour later Knuckles found him in a sleep of faint, his face still distorted in a look of horror. Rather frightened, Knuckles pulled the emerald from Sonic's hand and shook him. Sonic's head tossed from side to side, and he awoke with a groan. "Kn-Knux. What happened?"
"I was going to ask you that," said the echidna, eyes wide. "Did you pass out?"
Sonic rubbed his head and shot a poisonous glare at the green gem. "I Chaos Saw, all right. You didn't tell me how to make it stop."
Knuckles was nonplussed. "Isn't it like a timestop? You start it, you stop it?"
"No." Sonic glared at him, anger rising as a reaction to his terror. "I'm never doing that again!"
"Oh yes you are," said Knuckles, bristling. "You're going to learn to control it."
"I can't control that!" Sonic retorted. "You know what I saw? I saw tidal waves, and cities levelled by earthquakes, and loads of dead people, and Mobius made into a wasteland! Control that!"
He expected a punch in the nose, but instead Knuckles sank back on his heels, turning pale. "You saw that?"
"And a bunch of other stuff, too," Sonic said, sullenly. "What's with you?"
"Sonic ..." Knuckles swallowed and looked at the grass. "The moons are going to eclipse, and when they do, they'll cause earthquakes and tidal waves."
There was a brief silence. Sonic and Knuckles stared at each other.
"You mean it's real?" Sonic said.
Knuckles nodded. "I asked Sally for the information ... she must have dumped it from Nicole without reading it."
"What'll happen?" Sonic reached for his emerald in the grass, but hesitated and withdrew his hand.
Knuckles watched him. "Well, they'll eclipse, and for a day or two there will be ten to twenty foot land tides, then it'll subside until next month."
Sonic eyed him. "What's a land tide?"
Knuckles moved his hands in wave motions. "When the ground moves and swells like the ocean because the moon's pull is too strong."
The hedgehog looked blank. He couldn't picture a land tide. "The whole world?"
"Just parts of it," Knuckles replied. "But it'll cause massive earthquakes. Eventually all of Mobius's land masses will liquify, and, uh, it'll be uninhabitable."
This was met with an uncomprehending stare. "No way," said Sonic. "No way. You're kidding me."
"I wish," said Knuckles. "Look at the moons tonight."
Sonic gazed at him another moment, then scrambled to his feet. "I gotta get outta here for a while." And he was gone in a rush of wind.
Knuckles watched the hedgehog until he vanished over the horizon, then picked up the green emerald and looked at it. There was a panic building inside him. He could see that Mobius would be destroyed, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
The echidna slung the emerald at the ground, shouted a curse, then ran and glided off the hilltop. How did anyone stop two moons from crossing paths? How did anyone stop a world from ending?