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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HILL TOP

Mecha came online at first light, and the first thing his red eyes ever saw was the sunrise. His revolutionary software recorded this event and logged it. Sun rises over horizon, covers planet in light, allowing light-based sight receptors to operate at optimum levels. It was logic, sterile and basic. Mecha's unique form of learning computer was a long way from recording any expression of beauty or emotional connections to this vision, but it was within its capacity to do so, provided enough time passed and enough information was gathered to develop this kind of extremely complex computation. Mecha's mind was the most sophisticated computer ever conceived.
Mecha needed to be able to think like a being of flesh, because Mecha's job was to kill.
Ivo Robotnik was the first being that Mecha saw. Ivo Robotnik was the Commander. Mecha knew that Ivo Robotnik's word was law. This was part of Mecha's base programming, the foundation and prerequisite for all of his thought processes. Mecha's mind couldn't even boot up unless this statement was recognised as True. Mecha detected this, and logged it. He scanned the area, recording the events of nature around him. Mecha didn't know it, but Ivo Robotnik's decision to boot Mecha's computer in natural surroundings rather than the dark recesses of the Iron Ward was a deliberate one. Ivo Robotnik wanted Mecha to relate to biology, wanted him to learn it, catalogue it, have his fill of it, and eventually to emulate it.
"Mecha," Robotnik said, "This is Life."
Mecha saw Ivo Robotnik, saw the trees and the grass, heard the birds and the animals scurrying about, and he logged it all. He detected the way everything moved about its environment, and began to calculate probability matrices and develop an understanding of its very being.
"Mecha," Robotnik said, "This is Machine."
Then Mecha saw Silver. He saw the differences between Silver and everything else he could detect, and given his Commander's informative input, he was able to calculate the seperating factors and develop a definition of these concepts.
This information led Mecha's mind to formulate a very logical and very imperative query, and one which needed a solution before it could operate properly in this world. He sought this information through speech, manipulating his comprehensive pre-programmed vocabulary to initiate communication with Ivo Robotnik.
He asked, "Am I Life, or Machine?"
Ivo Robotnik replied, "You are Machine," but then to Mecha's puzzlement, "And you are Life."
Mecha considered this response. It would not be easy to process this data, but he would find a way. His computer worked on the problem as he continued to observe, to record and to learn.

Sonic couldn't remember having had less sleep in his life, even taking into account his days living in the garbage. Comfort was not a privelage that he was graced with, here atop the rocky and harsh terrain of the Kirandul Mountains, far to the northeast of Mobitropolis and home. Kirandul was a subcontinent, completely bordered by these mountains, and controlled entirely by a very reclusive empire known as Arack, populated almost homogenously by spiders, and about which very little was known apart from the fact that they were isolationists and very keenly expansionist. Sonic didn't know very much at all about them, his education consisting mainly of word-of-mouth, but from what he did know of the area, he understood that this was as far east as he could safely travel.
But the mountains were not at all conductive for relaxation. Sonic and Tails hadn't even climbed very far before night had fallen, but already Sonic's entire body ached, and Tails had begun to complain profusely about the difficulty of the journey. Now, after resting as well as they could for the ten or so hours of darkness, freezing and without shelter, Sonic's body still ached and Tails' complaints continued unabated.
Sonic's feet were a mess of blisters, after walking as far as he had in wet shoes, so he'd left the shoes and socks hanging overnight to dry them while his feet recovered. Wearing them when they were wet had been a bad idea, but he was grateful to Tails for having taken them in the first place, because he knew his feet would have been shredded by now on the rocky landscape without them.
Now that they had been rested, the hedgehog's muscles felt bruised and ached from their overusage. Sonic's head was heavy and his body resistant to his efforts to move it, as he hadn't had a decent sleep since he left Knothole village. In other words, the very last thing in the world that he wanted to do today was hike up a mountain.
Yet they did, and as luck would have it, they found a fairly easy path. Tails lagged behind, and much of the time he watched the dim glow from within Sonic's pack. Once or twice, Sonic noticed this, but he didn't mention it aloud. There had been a noticable change in the fox's demeanour since Sonic had fallen into the lagoon at the aquatic ruin. For a while, Tails had seemed willing, even anxious to open up and bare his soul, but now he had retreated into his shell, reverted to the internalised and obnoxious brat he had been when Sonic had first met him back in Station Square. It was as if his trust had been betrayed. Sonic could see that the child had invested a lot in him, he was Tails' only opportunity to escape the brutal gangster lifestyle and make something more of himself, but it depended on their ability to get out of this alive. There had been a lot of time to think about things while Sonic lay awake all night, and he questioned whether he might actually be using the boy. Did his offer of salvation arise from a genuine concern, or was it nothing more than the best way he could think of to persuade Tails to help him? No, he'd seen something in Tails' eyes, he remembered. There was somebody locked away inside, somebody warm and even funny, somebody with whom Sonic could even conceive of being friends. Tails' inner child had poked out his head for a day, seen his shadow and scurried back into his hole, and now there was nothing but winter in his heart.
"Why do we have to hike through these stupid mountains?" Tails demanded, "Can't we take a bus or something? Why the heck would we set out on foot? Did you plan this trip while you were asleep?"
"I didn't plan this trip at all," Sonic replied, "It was kind of an impulse decision. And in case you don't recall, we had to leave Mystic Ruin in a bit of a hurry. We're fugitives, remember."
"We wouldn't be fugitives if you were better at stealing emeralds," Tails assured him.
"Hey, let's see you try to do it any better. You'd probably try to bump into a SWAT-bot and grope at his pockets."
"No, that's--"
His words were cut off by a very loud sound overhead. Sonic, fearing a search party for the missing emeralds, cried out in alarm and hid under the cover of a nearby tree. The sound reached a crescendo, and it turned out to be a light plane flying very low to the ground. Its shadow zipped across Sonic's path, and the plane vanished over the rocks.
"What's your problem, you wimp?" Tails asked, but the question sounded more venomous than good humoured.
"Sorry, I've never had an army of robots hunting me before," Sonic replied, "We're safe, I don't think that was a military plane."
"Of course it wasn't," Tails scoffed, "That was a White Storm class private aircraft, I think it was a model 700 Hurricane."
"Say what?" Sonic asked, "Wait a second, what do you know about planes?"
"Sometimes, people know a lot about a particular thing, it's called a hobby."
"No need to be sarcastic, I just didn't figure that you'd have much access to that kind of knowledge, given your background."
"There is an airport in Station Square, you know. I haven't just spent my whole life rummaging through garbage."
Sonic sighed. "Don't be a brat," he said under his breath.
"What did you just call me?" Tails demanded, "What did you say?"
Sonic didn't reply. He rounded a bend and came, unexpectedly, to the peak of a rocky outcrop before a steep ridge. Below, he could see a deep, grassy and very undisturbed valley, streams and waterfalls decorating its length. The valley was bordered on all sides by mountains, a lost world unaffected by society.
"Wow, would you look at that!" the hedgehog exclaimed, awestruck. "Beautiful."
"Don't ask me, I'm just a brat," Tails said.
Sonic ignored the comment. He could hear the light plane flying above, and looked for it, curious as to who might be so bold as to fly in such perilous territory. As his gaze travelled upward, he noticed something quite bizarre and unexpected. Embedded in the mountains straight ahead of them were a large number of buildings, many of them immediately recognisable as aircraft hangars, and wherever there was room, runways stretched across the landscape. The plane was heading towards the precarious airport, preparing to land.
"Good grief!" Sonic laughed, flabbergasted, "What a stupid place for an airport! That's the most ridiculous thing!"
Tails appeared genuinely very interested. Without a word, he began to climb down towards the valley.
"Where are you going?" The hedgehog asked.
"Where does it look like I'm going?"
"Come on, Tails, we don't know what the deal is with that place, it could be swarming with SWATs!"
The fox didn't look like he was ready to comply. Sonic took another look at the hill top airport before following. SWATs or no, it was the most likely place for the next emerald to be located, and so it was probably the best place to go.

"What do we want?"
The sound was very faint at first. Nothing but an excited flurry of voices carried on the breeze across the busy streets of Mobitropolis, it could have come from anywhere, for any reason. Nobody took much notice, until it persisted, and only grew louder.
"Less robots!"
The King couldn't hear it. He was in his chamber, reading regal documents in silence. Neither could Prince Martin, who was deeply engrossed in a large textbook about world governance throughout history.
"When do we want it?"
Packbell heard it, faintly, a growing commotion that was clearly getting closer. He watched the streets warily from his office window. Nothing but the daily grind, pedestrians wandering with great purpose to and from their places of business, families shopping and enjoying the outdoors. But that sound, over it all.
"Now!"
People began to halt their movements and search for the source of it. Now Sally was watching with great interest, too, from her bedroom window, draped in a regal nightgown. The SWAT-bots guarding the palace, unemotive, stood silently and without any display of bother.
Then they arrived. The first public protest to take to the streets of Mobitropolis in over two decades, longer than many citizens could remember. Dozens of mobians marched down the main street towards the palace, placards and fists in the air. A large sign, held up by two mobians in either side of it, declared in bold red type, 'Mobotropolis Workers Union demands NO MORE ROBOTS!!'.
The protest gathered in the square before the main gates, shouting at the palace, hands waving and fists beating.
"What do we want?"
"Less robots!"
"When do we want it?"
"Now!"
The media scurried to the gathering, reporters rushing to set up their equipment while the story was still fresh. Journalists mingled among the crowd, taking interviews and scribbling notes, while the live media set up camp.
"This is Lexington Grammar for Mobitropolis Radio One, here in Mobitropolis Central Square where, as we speak, a fierce people's demonstration is taking place. Now, this is already shaping up to be the largest protest of its kind for decades, perhaps even since the end of the android wars. The citizens... are describing themselves as a union, a workers union, and they appear determined to be heard by the palace at any cost. I'll try to communicate with one of the dissenters so that we might find out the reason for this uprising.
"Excuse me, sir? Sir? Mobitropolis Radio One, sir, are you in charge of this demonstration?"
"Nobody here's in charge, we've gathered as a collective. We're the workers of Mobitropolis, and we've decided to unite to communicate our disgust and outrage."
"Can you elaborate for our listeners?"
"Gladly. Over the past decade, the oppression of workers in this kingdom has reached fever pitch. Hazardous workplace conditions, low salaries and appalling job security. We can not compete with robots. They bring our salaries down and force us onto the street, make us obsolete. Some of us are starving, our families are starving, because there's nothing for us to do anymore! The decadent fat-cats in the palace are growing richer off the backs of robot workers who can work twenty-four hours and don't need to be paid, and the lower class are missing out on the prosperity. We say, enough is enough! The people cannot be ignored, and will not be ignored. We will not be swept under the carpet. Our demands are simple. A halt on the production and implementation of robots in the workforce, or else considerable compensation for laid-off workers and their families."
"If your demands are not met, can the people expect further demonstrations in the future?"
"Oh, you have no idea how far we will go with this. You have no idea."
"Well, there you have it, chilling words from a disgruntled citizen, one of many workers who have turned out today for what I can only describe as a furious display of discontention, a powerful demonstration of people power, and I can only assume one of many more to come, until some kind of middle ground can be reached to bridge the classes together. For Mobitropolis One, this is Lexington Grammar, Central Square."

Sonic and Tails reached the hill top airport before too long, finding a path cut into the mountainside for access. The place was a contradiction; it looked as though there ought to be mobians scurrying all around the place, for the size and scale of it, but there was nary a person to be seen. There were streets and runways, hangars and warehouses, none of them neglected or abandoned to the elements, but there appeared to be nobody to use or maintain it all.
A brisk wind washed through the airport, whistling and ruffling. Something more, also, the sound of the light plane, coming in to land. Tails searched the skies for it, an omnipresent buzzing whose origin didn't seem to match with the actual location of its maker. At last the plane came into view, a blue biplane with yellow trims, drifting in with the grace of a bird to settle onto a nearby runway. Tails appeared anxious to meet with its pilot. Sonic trailed behind him to make sure he didn't leap into a situation that might get them both into some kind of strife.
The pilot of the plane stepped onto the tarmac and removed a leather flying cap complete with a pair of old fashioned goggles. He was a stork, his neck and legs appearing to compose most of his form, what little torso he had dressed in a small pair of overalls, the legs of which had been altered to accommodate the length of his own. He didn't appear to be surprised at all that a fox and a blue hedgehog were rushing to meet him. In fact, he didn't even pay them much notice.
"Wind picked up out of nowhere, yes it did," he said, and Sonic wasn't sure if he said it to his visitors, or to himself.
"Nice plane!" Tails exclaimed.
"You like her?" the stork asked, still looking to the sky.
"Do I ever! The Hurricane 700 is a great bird, you don't find many in the air since they brought in the Typhoon series."
"Right on. Most people will tell you that the Typhoon is a better craft all-round, but personally I find the rudder a little stubbourn in certain conditions, I do. The Typhoon might excel under the right windspeed, but for good old fashioned reliability you have to go Hurricane all the way."
"Any alterations? How is she under the hood?"
"See, now, mostly she's just the same as the day she came out of the factory, but I did have do do a routine engine upgrade a while back, on account'a the usual wear and tear you get with this series..."
Sonic patiently witnessed the two of them converse like old friends, but their conversation was so drawn-out and so irrelevant that eventually he had to butt in.
"Hey um... wait, so the two of you know each other?" he asked.
"Huh?" the stork responded, looking at the hedgehog for the first time, "No, never seen the kid before in my life, nope, never. Knows a heck of a lot about planes, though, and that's refreshing. Say, what brings the two of you up here anyhow?"
"It's kind of a long story."
"Long stories are the best stories, my small friend, how about we get some shelter and put a few meals into us and we can hear all about it, hmm?"
Sonic's stomach, as if it had ears of its own, grumbled a very affirmative reply before he could even get a word out. Circumstances being what they were, refusing a free and hearty meal would have been downright idiotic, despite acquaintences having not even been formalised. So this is how Sonic and Tails came to follow a complete stranger into the relative comfort of his airport home, high in the Kirandul Mountains where the air was thin.

Roast meat. Vegetables. Fruit. Three kinds of gravy. Garlic bread. Soda pop. Sonic was in some kind of heaven for the next few hours, but heaven's landscape was a dining room high in the mountains, and its bounty a feast fit for the gods. Or so it seemed, given the situation. In actual fact, the meat was stringy and overcooked, the vegetables al dente, the gravy grainy and the garlic bread cold. Any city-born critic would have panned the meal and snubbed his nose. Sonic went through three servings in a fifteen-minute period, gorging himself well after his stomach began telling him enough was enough. Even Tails did not eat quite so frantically, although he had been hungry and his table manners betrayed him.
"The name's Joe," their host had said, "Flightless Joe. Aviation enthusiast, restorer and pilot." It wasn't a commercial airport that he ran, but a storage place for his own personal collection of planes, which numbered in the hundreds. When Sonic asked "Isn't a mountain range a silly place for an airport?" Joe replied, "Isn't your head a silly place for your eyes?" Sonic didn't have an answer.
"You'll have to forgive me for the fuss," said Flightless Joe, "But this is a time for a celebration, it is, and until now I haven't had anyone to celebrate with."
"I think I can forgive you," Sonic replied, slipping the words out between two mouthfuls of bread.
"What are you celebrating?" Tails asked.
"Ah. Well, it's sad, but it's also exciting. Just sold the pride of my collection, I did, the greatest bird that ever flew. I'm just happy to see it back in its rightful place at the head of the Mobitropolis air force. And I now officially have more money than I know what to do with."
"Must be nice," Sonic commented, recalling life on the streets.
"Enough about me," Joe said suddenly, wrapping a spinach leaf around a sausage with his fork, "You promised me a story, and a story you must deliver. What is it that brings the two of you so far out of your way in these mountains, hmm?"
"Well, I can't really tell you," Sonic replied, "Suffice to say that we're looking for something, an object, it's very important. It's out here somewhere."
"What kind of object?" Joe asked, "If you're looking for something around here, I know these mountains like the back of my hand. Been flying all over, I know every tree, I do. Just as long as it's not in Arack territory, they guard their airspace and I don't like to test their patience."
"Well, there should be some kind of facility around here," Sonic said, "A government thing, an outpost or something."
A glimmer of recognition crossed Joe's features. "Aah, you'd be talking about Area Ten. It's camoflaged, but I see it well enough. Surveillance facility, kept in place to keep an eye on the spiders."
"I'm not sure," Sonic replied.
"Well, it's the only outpost around here. The only building of any kind, outside of my airport. Been quite a bit of commotion around there of late. Beefed up security or something, for some reason."
"That'll be the place we're after, then," Sonic said. His stomach cramped from overconsumption, and he finally slowed his pace, trying nevertheless to fit in one last baked potato. "How do we get there?"
"I can fly you over, if you like. It's difficult territory, we'd have to take the Tornado."
Tails broke his silence and began spluttering, almost choking on a mouthful of soda. Now he stared at Joe, disbelief written over his face. His eyes about bulged out of their sockets. "You have a Tornado?" he shrieked, "No way! A Tornado? Get out!"
"Ah, the kid knows his stuff," Joe commented, "As a matter of fact, I own two, I do. The finest light aircraft ever constructed, only a dozen ever flew, and I have two. One's in perfect condition, but the other is completely wrecked, I only keep it for aesthetic value."
"Can't you fix her up?" Tails asked.
"Believe me, I've tried. Don't get me wrong, I can fix the unfixable, I've taken planes that people have thought would never see the blue sky again, and I've made them like new. The Tornado, though, she really is unfixable, she is. The only bird I've ever been powerless to repair. Can't seem to figure out what's wrong with her."
"She's a complicated machine," the fox said. Both of them spoke, to Sonic's ears, as though they were talking about a person of whom they shared a great admiration. It was difficult to get his head around the fact that they were discussing an aeroplane.
"Hey, why are machines always 'she'?" he asked.
The others looked at him with the exact same expression on both of their faces, eyebrows cocked and eyes squinted.
"Planes are always female," Tails said, "That's a basic fact."
"It's because they're so graceful," Joe added, matter-of-factly.
"Sure," Sonic replied, "Have you got a bathroom?"
Before he got a reply, a sudden chaos overwhelmed the room. The table shook beneath him, cutlery clanging and clashing together, soup spilling out of the bowl. Ornaments fell off the walls, and a low rumbling sound, like the growl of some massive animal, came from all around. Tails shouted out in alarm, and Sonic leaped into a defensive stance (unsure, however, of the direction of the threat). Flightless Joe seemed completely unperturbed, if not a little amused.
"What the heck is that?" Sonic demanded.
"Earthquake," Joe replied, matter-of-factly, as he tried to drink from a shaking glass, "We get one a day at the very least, up here. We're sitting on a serious set of unstable fault lines, you know. That's what created this whole mountain range. Don't worry, this place is built to withstand a lot worse."
The shaking stopped all at once. Sonic, heart palpitating, sat back down. "Fun place to hang out," he commented.

It was around two in the afternoon when Sonic and Tails entered the hangar under Joe's direction, and Tails just about popped like an over-ripe fruit when he saw the Tornado.
It was a small red biplane, kept in such pristine condition in comparison to the other birds on either side of it that one could easily be led to believe that it was dustproof. A sleek, powerful looking machine despite its antiquated design, the Tornado was certainly an impressive work of craftsmanship, even to the uneducated eye. To Tails, though, it was so much more. He couldn't contain his excitement. Once again, Sonic could see the child in him rise, bubbling, to the surface. This was the child who wakes up on the morning of his birthday to find a new bicycle beside his bed. He looked as though it was a struggle for him to keep from giggling and clapping his hands, instead he ran his fingers along the side of the craft, admiring its every feature like a boy in love. And that may not have been an abstract analogy, for weren't planes always female?
"Ain't she beautiful?" asked Flightless Joe, the same admiration gleaming in his own eyes.
"Incredible," Tails replied, "Great condition. Perfect."
"Better condition than her sister, that's for sure."
Joe directed Tails' gaze to another plane nearby, the other Tornado. Its paintwork was exactly the same, but it was clearly missing a considerable amount of its bulk and grace. It had no wheels, and its hull was caked with dust and grime. Its bonnet was open, and most of its interior was empty. It was as though a cuccoon had broken open and all that was left was the shell.
Tails inspected the lesser craft and slipped his head under the bonnet to check the engine.
"The most professional thing a person can do is admit when something is beyond his ability," Joe explained, "With all the original designers long gone, I'm probably the closest thing to an expert on this model left on Mobius. Even so, it's got me baffled, even with the other machine working fine as it is. I've always maintained that, if somebody was able to help me get this bird back into the air, I'd gladly give it to them as reward."
Tails sighed, and backed away to view the Tornado in its entirity. He seemed saddened by the idea that it was grounded forever.
"We ought to get going soon, before it gets too late," warned Flightless Joe, checking his watch. "I wouldn't want you trapped in the wilderness come nightfall.
Sonic was about to say that it was entirely likely they would be, but stopped himself. He hadn't mentioned anything about their mission, and Joe evidently assumed they had some kind of officially sanctioned business at Area Ten. They might just lose the benefit of his hospitality if he realised he was assisting a teenager and a small child to commit what could easily appear to be high treason. It was better just to leave him to his assumptions and reap the fruits of his generosity.
"That's a good idea," he said instead.
"Now, all I can do is get you close to Area Ten," Joe said, "I don't wanna be hanging around Mobitropolis restricted airspace suspiciously, no I do not. But if you kids know what you're doing, I can drop you off close enough that it won't be too much of a walk for you."
"I can't believe I'm gonna ride in an honest-to-God Tornado," Tails marvelled, "This is like a dream come true!"
"Well, I'm happy to do my part, I am. All aboard!"

Tails had to sit on Sonic's lap, as the Tornado was only built with two seats, but he was small enough that it didn't matter so much, as long as the fox stayed still. This turned out to be too much to ask, for Tails was too excited about the plane ride to be still for any more than a moment at a time. He kept whooping and squirming, commenting loudly about all the reasons the Tornado was the greatest thing ever invented. His inner child was completely visible, now, making no attempt to hide himself behind the fox's facade of prematurity. He was the small boy who chattered incessantly about videogames and trading cards, things that adults had no interest in, but he was too excited to care. It was strange for this excitement to be translated to the subject of planes, but there were many things strange about this child. Sonic considered the fox's twin tails, his personal helicopter, and all at once he realised that Tails Prower really was born to be in the sky. A bird in a past life, perhaps even meant to be a bird in this life. The blue yonder called to him, and one way or another, it would have him.
The Kirandul Mountains stretched out below them so that Sonic could see their complexity for what it was. Whatever the forces of nature that had created this expanse of terrain, they must have been catastrophic. Sonic and Tails had not even breached the outer layer of the range, a torrid sea of mountains and canyons stretched away to the northeast horizon, and Sonic considered it a good thing that they didn't have to travel all the way to the Kirandul subcontinent; the two of them would certainly die trying to get to the other side.
The hedgehog's gaze shifted to the pack, wedged between himself and the inside wall of the plane. It was slightly open, and the glow of the emeralds was clearly visible from the opening. Joe had given them enough food to last the rest of the week, so the bag was full again. Sonic turned to Tails long enough to notice that the fox, no longer so enthusiastic, was staring at the bag also. The hedgehog zipped it back up again, and Tails pretended he hadn't been leering. Sonic wondered about the degree of his companion's interest in the emeralds. A small part of him, the habitual criminal part, probably still desired those gems, desired to snatch them up to prove his worth to Nails the Bat, or whichever crime boss he sought to be on good terms with. Sonic was confident that this desire was being buried, now, by Tails' emerging inner child. Soon it would be nothing but a memory in the boy's past. He had no need for such desires, now that he was free.
"There's Area Ten, straight ahead," Joe shouted from the cockpit. He had to strain his voice to be heard over the rushing wind. Sonic tried to see, but the wing was obscuring his view.
"I see it!" Tails exclaimed from his higher vantage point, and lo and behold, it soon came into view for Sonic as well. A building, cropping out from the side of a cliff, fenced off with barbed (and probably electric) wire. The construction looked solid and sturdy, even armoured, probably built to withstand the force of a bombing, in the event that the Arack Empire ever came marching over these mountains towards Mobitropolis. It was an artless and trivial looking outpost, but nevertheless one of great strategic and defensive value. Sonic found himself glad that it existed, contradictory to his plans to siege it. Very close to it was a network of steep cliffs. Sonic could see a railway track emerging from the dark abyss of the canyons, running parallel to the mountain range. It ran further than he could see in both directions, connecting horizon to horizon.
They turned away from the building, now, and began to fly west. Sonic could see patchwork plains blanketed by farmland stretching right to the horizon. He could see small towns, and the watery abyss of the Mystic Ruins at the base of the mighty mountain range below. From here, he could see the course of his travels over the last few days, but even at this height he couldn't be granted a map of his adventure. The road the two of them had hitchhiked along was a dark line through the arid plains, and it stretched as far as could be seen. The smoke from Station Square's factory district was just visible over the horizon, but the booming metropolis was almost hidden now over the curve of the world. Sonic realised now just how far he had really come, and how good it felt. His first vacation, ever. And he challenged any travel agency to run an adventure tour as good as this one. He also realised as they soured into the cerulean skies of Mobius that it was his first time flying, and he liked it. He wasn't afraid of heights, not even a little. It was clear to him now why Tails had developed such an affection for flight. Seeing the world spread out below was an infectious joy that overpowered his mind and flooded him with endorphins. What a rush.
They turned again and began to descend, to reacquaint themselves with the ground. Joe wasn't willing to fly too close to the outpost, but they were set to touch down within a mile or two. As he was judging this, Sonic realised a fairly commonsense logical flaw that, for some reason, had hitherto evaded him. There was no runway.
"Hey Joe," he shouted to the pilot, "How are we gonna land?"
"Land?" Joe shouted back, "Can't land, there's no runway!"
"Right." Sonic was almost content with this response for a moment, before he realised that it didn't actually answer his query at all.
The world rushed up to meet them. "How are you going to drop us off, then?" Sonic asked, the subject of their next course of action becoming more urgent by the second.
"Going to have to bail out, I'm afraid!" Joe shouted, "I'll find a soft place, of course, and slow down as much as I can, but you'll need to make a hasty departure!"
"I'm not liking this idea," Sonic said, but Tails was already preparing to jettison himself from the moving plane. Sonic looked at his pack, the straps flapping about in the wind.
"I just wanted to say," Joe shouted, "That it was an extreme pleasure meeting the both of you, yes it was. I don't get a lot of visitors up here. Just remember that if you ever want to see old Flightless Joe again, you know where I'll be."
Tails shouted a reply, but Sonic couldn't hear what he said. The grass was so close that it almost seemed to brush the bottom of the Tornado, a very risky altitude. The hedgehog heard Joe yelling that he should roll when he hits the ground, just roll and try to go limp. He wasn't entirely sure he still wanted to do this.
Tails was gone, though. There one moment, but not the next. Sonic was alone with the pilot and his bag of supplies.
Joe turned to see the hedgehog still sitting there. "Get going!" the stork shouted, "Go! I gotta pull up soon!"
Sonic swallowed the lump in his throat, and tossed the bag over the side. It made no sound over the whirr of the engine and the rush of the wind, and he figured he might have just thrown it into outer space. Before he could chicken out, Sonic screamed and leaped out of the moving biplane. He tried to curl up almost as soon as he jumped, and closed his eyes as he brought his knees up around his face and hugged them. The world spun wildly in the darkness, all sense of up and down became meaningless, he waited to hit the ground as his body did somersaults at some phenomenal speed. Time stopped for him, a Freeze Time in the dark, his senses vanquished by centrefugal force. He only had his thoughts, and sometime as he waited for the collision he realised that it had been far too long, the impact hadn't happened as it should, which meant that he must still be hurtling through space. His heart seemed to stop, just then. Had he waited too long to jump? Had Joe pulled back up, soaring into the heavens again, before Sonic realised it? Was he plummeting to his death?
Sonic didn't want to open his eyes. He didn't want to see the world rushing up to him, didn't want to see the hard surface of Mobius coming to smash his bones into powder and squash his body like a beetle on a windshield. The thrill of flying, it seemed, had come with barbs, and the activity had ended him for good. He found himself wondering if Tails would be quite so excited about flying again after seeing his companion fall out of the sky.
Then the impact came. It didn't end him, though, nor did it break his bones or crush his body. Sonic's spinning ball broke apart, arms and legs flopping about and landing flat on the ground. He was staring into the sky when his vision returned. The sky was spinning in a circle. His muscles ached for some reason. He lay for an undiscernable amount of time before something crossed his vision. The underside of the Tornado. It flew over him, just a spot in the heavens now, and he watched it, not sure whether to believe he really was still alive. Soon, he thought, soon the pain would come, and he would discover that all of his bones were shattered. But the pain never came, and after he willed his heart to return to an almost normal pattern of beats per minute, he began to wiggle his fingers and toes to make sure he wasn't a quadriplegic. His limbs seemed fine.
Tails' head appeared in the sky. No, he wasn't in the sky, he was standing over Sonic looking down. "That was so cool!" he announced. The hedgehog pulled himself to a sitting position to try and find some normal perspective.
"I'm never doing that again," he said.
"How did you do that?" Tails demanded, and it did seem more like a demand. There was some kind of anger at the back of his voice, trying to bubble out.
"Do what?" Sonic asked.
"How did you roll like that?"
The hedgehog looked around. Had he been rolling? Yes, he had, hadn't he. It made a strange kind of sense. He hadn't been falling, but rolling. The collision at the end hadn't been the ground. He'd rolled straight into a rock. He could see the rock a few feet away.
"You must have rolled three hundred metres just then," Tails added, "I had to run to catch you."
"Weird," Sonic replied. His body had slipped into such a sphere that his momentum had kept him rolling like a bowling ball down an aisle. He stood up to inspect his surroundings. He could see the outpost, Area Ten, just over the next rise, and he could also see his pack lying in the grass some distance away.
The sun had once again completed its climb in the blue sky, and started to fall back towards Mobius. Sonic guessed it was about three in the afternoon. It was time to do what they were here to do.

There were a surprising lack of defenses around the perimeter of the outpost, which served to concern Sonic even more. It only stood to reason that the defenses he couldn't see were just the well-hidden ones. Still, he breached the fence without any difficulty, as it wasn't electrified at all, and the path to the building seemed (mines? dogs?) disturbingly clear.
Tails was hesitant to proceed. Sonic looked back, and the fox was standing outside the fence with an unsure look about him.
"If you get caught," Tails said, "I'll have nowhere to go. You can't get caught, okay? You promised me I wouldn't have to go back to the street."
"You won't," Sonic replied, "You can stay where you are, if you like. I'll be out soon, I won't get caught."
"So you say! But you've been doing stupid things, lately, like falling into that lake. How do I know you're not gonna do something dumb and get caught?"
"Here we go again. Look, I'll be careful, okay? Everything's going to be fine. I think I'm good at this."
"Yeah, you think you're good. I think I thought you were a whole lot better than you were when I let you talk me into coming with you to these stupid mountains."
"Well I had to get you to give me that emerald somehow, didn't I? Maybe I would have just left you behind if I knew what a pest you were!"
That one struck home, and Sonic instantly regretted saying it. Tails flinched back a little as though he had been struck, and then the look of death froze on the child's face.
"Tails," Sonic said in a much softer tone, "Tails, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
The fox said nothing.
"Look, I'll be out in a few minutes, okay? Just wait for me, we'll talk about this later."
He turned and, fearing anything might jump from the bushes to stop him, sprinted to the building. Nothing came after him. He looked back after he reached the entrance, but couldn't see Tails anymore.
"Stupid," he said to himself, "Way to make the kid twice as difficult to live with." But he couldn't worry about Tails' hurt feelings at the moment. He had to focus on getting in and out of Area Ten without being gunned down, not to mention finding the emerald and prying it out somehow. He was running out of flukes and due for some bad luck. It was basic logic that each emerald was going to be more difficult to take, being that the prince must surely be very aware of his thievery by now.
Stepping inside the outpost, he expected everything from an ambush of SWATs to laser-triggered machineguns and deadly gas. In fact, the very last thing he expected to find was what was really waiting for him inside this compound - absolutely nothing.
Area Ten was empty, completely abandoned, not a soul or a robot in sight. It wasn't discernable whether the compound was even in operation anymore. The floors were dusty, the furniture unmaintained and in disarray. The crest of the royal Acorn family adorned the wall, inspiring only ghosts and dust bunnies. After the initial confusion, certain facts became clear to him. If the guards were gone, the emerald surely went with them. Clearly, they anticipated his arrival, and took the emerald to a new location, possibly miles away. It was probably in transit at that very moment, while he sifted through the remains of its prior home, it was moving to the other side of the continent.
He turned back towards the entrance, and was shocked to see that there was somebody silhouetted in the doorway, the afternoon light contrasting the darkness to obscure the stranger's features.
"Tails?" he asked, but he knew it was too tall to be his companion. The newcomer blocked his escape, and he could see now that he was being threatened with a gun.

"There's one thing you need to know about people," Nails had said, once upon a time, "You can't trust people. Trust is a game that people play to get ahead in life. It's a mind-game, kid. You think you can trust the cops? The government? The little old lady who buys her groceries at the corner store? You think you can trust me? Forget it. Friendship is a sham, kid. You know what people really want? Power. Wealth. Pleasure. Sometimes you need other people to help you get it. So you use them. You have to be a user, kid. Because if you're not a user, then you're being used. That's the way the world works. Three words - Never. Trust. Anybody."
Tails cried. He wept under a tree on the hill top, and tried to weep some cohesion back into his mind. He had learned all of life's lessons on the street, and many of those lessons had been hard ones. None so hard, though, as the lesson on trust. Independence had been thrust upon him so early. His father, who he trusted, and who betrayed that trust by dying. Nails, who had been a father figure even though he outright rejected the position on principle, frequently reprimanded the youngster on the subject of trust.
"Never. Trust. Anybody. Don't you dare trust me, either. You think I'm not using you? I'll promote you when I think you're ready, kid, but it's not because I like you. I'm just lining my own pockets, just like everybody else. And I won't even think about it as long as you're still trusting people and going soft on me. God almighty, you're just like your father. Both of you, you're just like an egg. Hard on the outside, soft and yellow on the inside. Grow up and see the world for what it is. It's dead, Tails, the world is dead and rotten. See it and move on."
Just like his father. They were never meant to be gangsters, that was one thing he remembered his father telling him from a young age. They weren't gangsters, they were honest people, and as soon as they were able to fend for themselves in this world, they would live an honest life. But the world had killed him. Tails knew it now - his father had died because his father had been wrong. Nails had been right all along. Honesty was an illusion. Friendship was a sham. The world was dead and rotten.
Sonic came bearing promises, but the promises had been as substantial as the breeze. He was being used again, being too soft and vulnerable. Allowing some stranger to use him. Sonic wanted the emeralds. The reason was unclear, but it almost certainly had something to do with power, or wealth, or pleasure. Those were the only things that meant anything in this dead, rotten world. Sonic was using him as a tool, he was nothing more than a hammer or a drill. The hedgehog came bearing trust as a weapon, playing the mind-game of friendship, and Tails had been soft enough to eat up every lie. Sonic didn't care about him. It was the emeralds, all the way. That was all that mattered. He spoke of philosophy and meaning, but his fancy words weighed nothing at all.
Three words. Never. Trust. Anybody. Now that was a philosophy. That was the deadworld philosophy, the only one that truly stood up to scrutiny. Tails stopped crying and opened his eyes. He couldn't be soft anymore, not if he hoped to survive. He couldn't be an egg - he had to be hard all the way through.

"Looking for this?" the stranger asked, and as Sonic's eyes adjusted to the light he finally saw who it was. A vulture, dressed in a dirty brown suit, a gun in one hand and a glowing mouve gem in the other. There was no mistaking it as a Chaos Emerald. Sonic breathed a sigh of relief that the stone was still here. So close, and yet so far, being that he wasn't ready to misjudge this character's aim enough to take the object from him.
"Looking for what?" Sonic asked, playing dumb.
The vulture shook his head. "I know you know what this is," he replied, "You have two of them already, I'm sure they're in that backpack of yours. I have to say, though, I'm kind of disappointed in you. They call you the blue blur, did you know that? Nobody ever sees you, that's the only way they know to describe you. A blue blur. I thought you were some kind of master thief, I didn't really expect you to just walk into a trap like a kid walking into a candy store. Worth a try, though."
"And just who are you? One of Prince Martin's cronies? Has he got you believing his garbage too?"
The vulture sighed. "Look. I don't like listening to that overstuffed turkey any more than the next guy. But I've got a situation, here. Those emeralds are my business. I have a job to do and a reputation to uphold. You, my blue friend, are currently damaging that reputation with your activities. All I want to do is finish my work and collect my pay. It's been jolly good fun, but I'm not in the mood for games anymore. If you would kindly drop the bag, I'll let you scamper away and I'll even forget I ever saw you. There are a lot of people who want you caught and strung up by your toes, you know. You could do worse than to come up against me. I don't give a sneeze in a monsoon about you, personally. But I will shoot you if I have to."
"Fine, you win," Sonic said, "I was getting tired of this, anyway. It's too easy."
"You've made the right decision."
Sonic took off the backpack, and without warning he threw it at the vulture. His adversary instinctively made a grab for it, and in doing so, momentarily faltered with his firearm. A moment was all Sonic needed. The hedgehog took off sprinting directly at his opponent, making the vulture cry out and fumble his gun. "Blast!" he shrieked, and squeezed off a bullet randomly into the air. Sonic kicked him to the ground, the mouve emerald rolling outside and away. He grabbed the backpack and ran after it.
"Blast!" the stranger shouted again. Sonic snatched up the emerald without stopping, and he heard two gunshots from behind him. He didn't look back again. The thrill of another victory pumped through his veins.

Tails was still under the tree when Sonic found him, and the hedgehog was laughing like a crazed lunatic. Tails blinked the tears out of his eyes and scrubbed them out of his fur. If it looked like he'd been crying, Sonic didn't show any sign of noticing.
"I got it!" he exclaimed, "I got another one, take a look!"
He dropped the bag on the ground, and leaned against the tree to catch his breath. He continually glanced back in the direction of Area Ten, as though concerned he was followed.
Tails took the bag and looked inside. Atop their supplies were three glowing stones, the red, the gray and the newest, a pretty mouve gem, the colour of lavender. It appealed to his senses, helped him clarify his thoughts.
"Come on, we've gotta move quick," Sonic said, "There's a dude with a gun who's pretty ticked off right now. Hurry, hand me the bag."
He put out his hand, and Tails just looked at it, the blankest of blank expressions painted across his face. It was how a person might look if they were given a sign to read in a foreign language.
"Come on, Tails," Sonic prompted, and took a few steps towards the fox. Tails, in turn, took a few steps backward, clutching the bag to his chest. Sonic suddenly realised what was so odd about that expression, he knew what it was. It was the facade. The gangster-Tails, the boy who had stolen the red emerald in the seedy back-alleys of Station Square. His inner child had never been so deeply buried as it was now. All the fox knew was his own survival.
"Tails," Sonic muttered, "Oh Tails, hey, no..."
"I'm sorry, Sonic," Tails said, without a trace of emotion to denote any truth in that statement, "Things are clear to me, now. I have to make my own way in the world."
"What are you talking about, Tails?"
"I'm talking about trust," the fox replied, "I know you can't protect me. I know you don't even want to. You'll get caught, sooner or later, or else you'll get tired of me and just leave me somewhere. I can't trust you. I won't."
"Tails, that's not true!" Sonic exclaimed, "I didn't mean what I said before, I was frustrated. I made a promise, and I intend to keep it. I like you, Tails, I'm hoping we can be friends."
"Frendship is a sham," Tails muttered, "I need to make my own way. I need to help myself from now on."
"And what, you need to steal the emeralds off me? Is that how you're going to make your way? Go back to stealing what isn't yours?"
"Isn't that what you've been doing all along?" Tails asked. Sonic didn't have an answer. Tails murmered that he was sorry again, and Sonic believed him. The boy was conflicted, something had pushed him over the edge. The argument - damn, why did he have to lash out like that?
Before he could say anything more, Sonic heard a sound overhead. His first thought was that it was Flightless Joe in one of his planes, but when the sound's origin appeared over the trees, he saw that it was nothing so benevolent. Robot flying machines, shaped like giant wasps, hovered above him, their dead eyes staring straight ahead although he was sure that they were really looking directly at him. Five of them appeared, buzzing and whirring. Sonic turned and saw the vulture running towards him from the clearing, gun cocked and expression hard. He turned again to find Tails, but the fox was gone, emeralds and all. He'd vanished into the foliage.
Compartments opened on the undersides of each of the wasp-machines, and SWAT-bots slid down to the ground on cables. Sonic had nowhere to run. He tried to fight them off, but the robots overpowered him, wrenching his arms painfully behind his back and restricting his movement completely.
He was facing the vulture now, but there was somebody else standing with him. Somebody of flesh and blood, and unlike the vulture, this mobian was very familiar to him. The vulture cocked a kind of satisfied grin, but the other was utterly without humour, his eyes dark with anger, his mouth turned up into a scowl.
"Good work, Carrion," said the Prince of Mobitropolis. "Good work."
Sonic stared back into Prince Martin's eyes without anywhere near the same contempt as was radiating back at him. In actual fact, Sonic didn't know what to feel. He did what he did because of his trust in Kethriel and the Freedom Fighters, not because of any direct malevolence towards the prince himself. He had never felt so much hatred directed towards him in all his life. It frightened him badly.
"Yes... you were there, weren't you..." the prince hissed. It wasn't a question.
"Where?" Sonic managed to stammer.
"The chemical plant," Martin replied, "Station Square. It was you in that room with me. You who stole from me, reached into my trousers while I was still wearing them, you little mutant worm. I remember the way you breathed. I thought you might be a monster, but you're just a rodent."
"Sticks and stones," Sonic muttered.
"Did you think it would just be that easy? You'd just take one emerald a day until you collected the whole set? How could you not see how obvious your pattern was? Do you think I'm stupid, that I couldn't figure out where you would strike next?"
"Where are they?" added the vulture who had been called Carrion.
"Where are what?" Sonic asked.
Now, the prince screamed in his face. "Do not mess with me! I will take you apart, do you understand? I will rend you limb from limb!"
"He doesn't have them with him," Carrion said, calmly, "He had them in a backpack. He's hidden it somewhere."
"Who the hell are you?" the prince demanded, "Who sent you? Who are you working for? Why do you want my emeralds?"
"I like shiny things," Sonic said.
The prince seemed to calm himself. He took a deep breath, and let it out. Then, composed, he withdrew his cigarette case, put one of the long white tubes to his puckered lips, and lit it up. The smell of fresh tobacco filled the air, as the monarch breathed the smoke into his lungs and let it out through his nose.
"Here is what I'm going to do," he said. He turned to Sonic, and looked at him with eyes full of daggers. "I'll break one of your fingers. Then another. Then another. If I get through ten and you're still wising off, I suppose I shall have to put your eyes out as well. Sooner or later, you are going to tell me where my emeralds are."
"Hey," Carrion said, "Hey, that's kinda sick, Princey, I don't want any part of-"
The prince put his hand up to silence the vulture, but didn't remove his glare from Sonic's face. He didn't even blink.
Sonic began to panic, but he didn't want the prince to know. Somehow, he understood that showing fear couldn't possibly do anything but worsen his situation. Still, he had no idea what he was going to do. The emeralds weren't safe with Tails if there were SWAT-bots prowling the mountains. Sonic wasn't even sure that Tails wouldn't simply hand over the emeralds the first chance he had, an attempt to make a surrogate out of Martin the same way he had sucked up to Nails. Sonic was thinking so hard and stressing so badly that he didn't even notice when the ground began to shake.
The prince noticed, though, as did Carrion, and the two of them looked momentarily confused as the tremor steadily worsened. The confusion turned to fear. Although there was probably no place safer in an earthquake than the open wilderness, the very nature of a quake had a powerful psychological effect. Even Sonic feared it, for it was even stronger than the one that had wracked Joe's airport earlier in the afternoon. It frightened him to such an extent that he didn't even pick up on the fact that the SWAT-bots had relinquished their hold on him. His thoughts soon straightened themselves out, and in the pandemonium (thank you, nature!) he fled the scene, despite shouts from his captors. It was difficult to run with the ground moving beneath him, but he made it into the safety of the foliage by the time it ended, and headed towards the maze of cliffs and canyons to avoid the danger of being seen from above. Another lucky escape for the blue blur. At this point, it wouldn't have taken much for him to believe that Mobius itself was on his side.

It didn't require a terribly intensive search to find Tails among these cliffs and ledges. First, however, Sonic found the pile.
He almost tripped upon it. A pile of objects, scattered on the ground and abandoned. A map, a torch, a cooking pot, some matches, some rags, among other paraphernalia, including a silk bag tied up with string. Tails had emptied his backpack of anything deemed useless to him, which was apparently everything except the food and the Chaos Emeralds. And there, up ahead, was the fox himself, sitting on a rock and rooting through the bag like an animal who stumbled upon an encampment. He was dirty and undisciplined, he looked like a savage, and when he looked up and saw Sonic, the hedgehog couldn't see a lot of civilisation remaining in those eyes.
Tails snatched up the bag again and leaped off the rock. Now it was obvious that the fox had been crying, and he trembled softly in either fear, rage, woe, or all at once.
"Go away!" he cried.
"Tails, let me help you!" Sonic pleaded.
"No! You can't help me! Nobody can help me! I'm an orphan freak! I don't have anything anymore, thanks to you! You took me away from my home, and you turned my family against me, and dragged me out here in the middle of nowhere! And I hate you!"
"You think those gangsters were your family?" Sonic asked, "They tortured and terrorised you! Tails, I want to help you! Don't do this, there are people who will try to kill you for those emeralds. You can't make it on your own. Give me the bag, let me take you to-"
"Leave me alone!" Tails shrieked, "Empty promises! Empty deadworld promises!"
With that, the fox ran. Sonic persued, and knowing that the hedgehog was the faster runner, Tails tried to use his namesakes to fly out of reach. The terrain was too rugged, though, and the trees obscured his view. The fox finally reached a clearing, but before he could take any evasive action, he realised that that was as far as the ground went. The clearing was space, thin air, and below him was a five hundred metre drop into a rocky canyon. His inertia thrust him over the edge into oblivion.
A hand on his wrist. Sonic above him, lying on his belly atop the cliff, his arm dangling. Tails forgot his hostility towards Sonic, as all that mattered at this crucial moment was his own survival. The proximity of death chased away any philosophies that might have been taught to him throughout his life, by father, gangster, or hedgehog.
Sonic had his own difficulties, though. With one dangling hand, he held onto Tails. With the other, he held onto the backpack, which had left the fox's grip at the time of his falling, and which Sonic had managed to grab simultaniously with the rescue of his companion. He stared through the space between bag and fox, down a half-kilometre of sheer drop. At the base of it, he saw the railroad that he had spotted from the Tornado. It looked just as distant from this altitude.
"Help me, Sonic!" Tails pleaded.
Sonic tried to hoist them up, but their combined weight was too heavy to manage. His own centre of gravity shifted precariously and threatened to hurl both of them (and baggie makes three) into the rocky abyss.
"Can't you fly?" Sonic demanded.
"I can't!" Tails replied urgently, "I have to get a boost! It doesn't work unless I jump!"
There was a mechanical noise far below them. A black train was running along the track, now, its carriages distantly thudding and screeching as its smoke filled the canyon. Sonic looked from bag to fox, sweat pouring down his forehead, along his snout, and dripping like rain into infinity.
Three times he almost dropped the bag, but hesitated each time. Losing the emeralds meant losing his quest. The prince and his robots would surely locate the bag before Sonic had a hope of finding his way to the bottom of this canyon. Again, he tried to hoist up the bag, but the effort only shifted his body, creating a rain of little stones that fell from the cliff beneath him and into space. The knowledge of what was happening instilled terror in the young fox, who began to wail helplessly, and he began grappling and clawing at Sonic's arm.
Sonic was wailing too, now, the sheer helplessness of the situation hitting home. Death to Tails or death to Mobitropolis, and if he waited too long to decide, death to all of them at once. The train blew its whistle. Sonic's sweat and blood dripping into the depths of forever. With a cry that was almost a scream, the hedgehog threw the bag into the canyon. It struck the rocky cliff several times on its way down. Sonic grabbed the crying fox with both hands and wrenched him to safety. He stared into the canyon just long enough to watch the bag hit the bottom and, hitting a one in a million target, it actually fell into one of the open carriages of the train as it chuffed away down the line. Where was that train headed? He didn't know, and he didn't even care anymore. He listened to the future of his home city vanish with the blow of a whistle and a tower of smoke, as hedgehog and fox lay together at the top of this cliff, catching their breath.
They must have lay there for several minutes before Tails started sobbing again. His fury had melted away, and now he was simply a sad, distressed little boy. Sonic didn't feel too far off crying either.
Soon, Tails spoke, and he said simply, "You picked me." Sonic didn't know how to feel about that statement. In leiu of this, he felt absolutely nothing. He closed his eyes and thought about his friends back home, about Rat, Bosley and Powder, about Kethriel, Slick and Amy.
"You were right," he said at last.
There was a long silence before Tails, between tears, responded. "About what?"
"I can't help you," Sonic said, "I can't help you, Tails."
"Oh.."
"Can you find your way? On your own, I mean. Back to somewhere safe."
"I think so.."
"Good. It's not safe for you to follow me anymore."
Tails nodded, and began to make his way back through the foliage.
"Tails?"
The fox turned his head. Sonic had his head down, defeated. "I'm sorry," he said.
Tails nodded again, and continued on his way.

It was nightfall before Sonic found the base of the canyon and set his foot on the train tracks. Strange animals came out at night in these mountains, though as this was his second night listening to them, he wasn't so concerned as he had been upon first hearing their cries. An owl hooted a faint beacon somewhere to the east. A lonely wolf howled for companionship. Sonic, forlorn and weak with fatigue, dragged his feet along the tracks, directionless. The robots had almost found him as he climbed down the mountainside, but they had given up their search when the sun disappeared. It seemed lonelier without them, and it took effort for Sonic to convince himself that their abandoning him was a good thing.
The only thing he took with him was Kethriel's silk bag. He tied the string around his neck and wore it as a necklace. No more pack and no more emeralds. From now on, he travelled light.
A faint sound behind him grew steadily louder as he shuffled. It took a while for him to realise it wasn't just another mountain animal, but a train whistle. He stepped off the tracks and watched the train approach. It was black, like the other, so it was difficult to see as it whizzed past him. Sonic was taken with the brief hope that it might actually be the same train, but he quickly realised that this was impossible.
Weak and defeated, Sonic started what he decided would be his last run for quite a while. He sprinted alongside the train until the machine almost seemed stationary, and then he leaped to the side, grabbing onto a handle attached to one of the carriages. The wind bristled his spines as he climbed into the metal carriage, and found to his surprise that the carriages were completely empty, all of them massive hollow tubs. This train was travelling somewhere to be loaded, as was the other, assumedly. He slid down into the bottom of the carriage and fell asleep to the metallic thudding of the wheels against the sleepers below. The moon shone upon him with its delicate silver light. His quest had been derailed, now, and he embraced the only avenue left to him - he put himself in the hands of fate. Whatever became of him now, was up to the forces of the universe.
Sonic travelled into the storm cold and alone.