"The Power Deep Inside"

A work of Sonic the Hedgehog "Fan-faction" by Glazius Falconar

Behold the wonders of modern legal language!

This story and all new characters, situations, and theories are copyright (©) 1997 by the author, Glazius Falconar (aka Paul Arezina). You are not permitted to change the text in this story or charge others money to read it without my expressed written permission… and I would like at least a note if you plan to post it on your Website. All situations and characters relating to the Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon series, as aired on ABC, are copyright SEGA, Archie Comics, and/or DiC Productions, and are used without permission. The idea of the Chaos Emeralds is probably copyright SEGA and/or Sonic Team, and is used (or at least expounded on) without permission. The concept of the World Wide Web is copyright H. G. Wells, in his "Men Like Gods". Read it sometime. If you think something needs to be changed, would care to post this on your web site, want to exercise your right to flame (though be warned, you will receive 1000 copies of said flame), or have obsessive-compulsive e-mailing disorder, my e-mail is at the end. On with the story…

I was dreaming. I’ve studied dreams enough to be able to recognize the signs; the feeling of detachment, the somewhat fuzzy backdrops… and the gem-studded jar of beak polish that appeared when I thought about having such a thing. Normally, I would just wake myself up, but I remembered something half-consciously. Some of our greatest scientists had gotten their ideas from dreams, and I knew that a few Terran ones had as well. Perhaps this would give me some idea on what to do next… I sat back, as it were, and watched the scene unfold.

Wait a minute… I knew this place… it was… was… that base where the "dragon" had been held initially. The convoy had arrived to find a hedgehog, a squirrel, and a dragon who was suspiciously free of restraints. The hedgehog yelled back…

"Sal, slap me a Power Ring!"

"I can’t, Sonic."

Huh? This wasn’t how it had happened.

"Don’t you remember? He took them away." She turned to look at… me? The hedgehog slowly turned to meet my gaze as well.

"Right. He took them away. Now Mobius is…" and the convoy opened fire. The trio of sapients simply stood there and took energy blast after energy blast, all collapsing in intense pain to the ground. The hedgehog’s dying lips mouthed the word "…doomed."

I awoke with a start. That had been entirely too weird. "He took them away"? What could that possibly mean? A dream this vivid… should mean something. One theory that some Avian psychologists had put forward was that dreams could be used to solve internal conflicts or elaborate on some train of thought, unhindered by the constraints of reality. If that were true, than this could only be a warning of some sort. I hadn’t done anything or touched anything yet that would result in a violation of the Prime Law; Mark would have warned me. It had to be something I was going to do, then, something I’d been consciously planning. But the only definite thing that I had planned on doing was giving my progress report to Professor Rap…

It all fell into place. Even Avian communications technology is not all that secure; for normal communications at least. If someone were to find out about the Power Rings…. Those rings were likely the only things keeping Mobius from being overrun, but they would be invaluable to any number of races because of what they contained. For beneath a ring’s glowing golden surface was pure antigrav energy, energy which could easily be tapped to warp spacetime. If someone else found out about them… oh boy… but I had to report to the Professor. I’d just have to hope the secure channel was secure enough.

"Mark, interface with my vid-link. Connect me to Professor Raptarius, using maximum possible encryption settings."

"Encryption active, Glazius. Establishing link."

Professor Raptarius appeared on the screen, looking a bit flustered. "Glazius? Why are you encrypting this transmission?"

"It’s a long story, Professor. Have you got time?"

"Plenty of it, Glazius, now that you’ve piqued my curiosity."

I told the Professor about what I’d discovered; a machine which could integrate metal and flesh, a planet which had survived a long war only to face an even greater danger… and a supersonic hedgehog with cobalt-enhanced quills who could naturally warp spacetime.

"…and there were these ring-shaped energy containers, with the same energy that flowed through his quills. He called them Power Rings… as though there were more somewhere."

The Professor looked astounded and somewhat confused. "All this… from a planet that wasn’t even putting out radio broadcasts two hundred years ago? Glazius, are you sure…"

"Yes, I’m sure, Professor. Mark’s been scanning constantly for any signs of alien influence, but he can’t find anything. Either there’s a race out there which is so far advanced beyond us that we can’t detect them, or…"

"Or this really is happening under its own power. I know it may seem astonishing to you, Glazius, but you can never expect anything, not even from something that’s supposed to be a routine mission. Just think of what will happen when the Academy sees your final report!"

"I’m more concerned about what would happen if someone else saw it, Professor."

"Oh… I see what you’re getting at. A planet which somehow produces antigrav-capable energy would be a likely target for some of the races out there. Don’t worry, Glazius, nothing you’ve said will leave this room, and certainly not the Academy. I’d better cut this short now… just to be safe. You do know that encryption can be broken, given time?"

"Of course, Professor. Safe journeys."

"Safe journeys, Glazius." The vid-link blinked off.

I belatedly realized that I didn’t really know much about these "Power Rings", or how they were produced. With nothing else to occupy my time, I decided to find out… but where to start? Well… Knothole seemed a likely candidate. I reasoned that the hedgehog wouldn’t have to go very far to get a Power Ring; assuming Robotnik could detect such a strange energy signature, a site elsewhere would leave Sonic open to attack every time he went to collect one. "Mark, activate psychic cloak and teleport me to… two wingspans off the ground beneath the limbs covering Knothole."

"Teleporting, Glazius…"

I blinked into existence above a trampled dirt clearing and began micro-fluttering so as not to sink much lower. Knothole was rather quiet; I could hear nothing but a stream somewhere in the distance… and the sounds of tinkering coming from one of the huts. Apparently, they had their own live-in engineer; a big help in fighting a technologically advanced enemy. I decided to pay whoever it was a silent visit… but a sonic boom cut me off. The hedgehog was returning from his morning run or some such. He skidded to a halt in the center of the clearing… and Mark trilled. "Incoming flying sapient."

"Would rising a wingspan take me out of its flight path?"

"Affirmative."

I simply beat my wings a little faster and was micro-fluttering at a higher altitude in a matter of seconds. A flying sapient… an avian of some kind, or else these guerillas had recruited a bat. I knew of no other airborne species… how in Almighty’s name?

Passing underneath me was… a fox? A flying fox? He was spinning his tail like a rotor on a Terran helicopter and making rather good speed. He touched down a wingspan away from Sonic and I saw that he had… two tails? A rare mutant, or perhaps a recessive gene… but how would that confer the ability to fly? Physiology dictates that those tails would entwine around each other rather quickly if he tried spinning them like I’d seen him doing… an enigma for a later date. Right now, I was working on finding out about…

"Sonic, a Power Ring’s comin’ up!"

It appears I’d come just in time…

"Thanks, little bro." With that, the hedgehog formed his trademark warp bubbles and took off, followed closely by an airborne fox, followed clandestinely by me.

"Coming up"… perhaps the rings were a natural phenomenon. An intriguing concept… I noticed that the hedgehog and fox had come to a stop on the banks of a shallow pool; I could easily see the bottom… which had some strange machine on it. An eerily glowing rock was encased in the machine; this was probably the source of the Power Rings, but how did it work?

Suddenly, the surface of the pool began bubbling, and a waterspout shot from the peak of the machine through the surface of the water. It glowed with a familiar light… and I saw its source when the waterspout died down and fell away. Sure enough, the machine had produced a Power Ring, which slowly fell toward the water’s surface.

The hedgehog grabbed the ring and put it in his backpack. "This’ll probably come in handy tonight."

At this, the fox grew excited. "Tonight? There’s a mission? Can I come this time, Sonic?"

"If it was up to me… but Sal probably thinks it’s too dangerous for you."

"Awww… you were fighting Robuttnik back when you were kids. How come I can’t?"

The hedgehog and fox made their way through the underbrush and back to Knothole, discussing… but I wasn’t interested in them. I had to figure out how that machine worked, and what that strange stone was… hmmm… "Mark, I have a few questions."

"Query mode active, Glazius."

"First, can you perform a scan underwater?"

"Affirmative, Glazius. Watertight casing and signal diffusion correctors are an integral part of this unit’s design."

Well, that made sense… there were probably some worlds covered with water out there. "Good, Mark. Second question: would any breach of the Prime Law occur if I was to take a chip from that stone for analysis?"

"Performing preliminary scan… Negative, Glazius. Stone is of regular crystalline structure. It does not appear likely that removing one crystal subunit will result in impaired functioning."

Good. "Mark, prepare to dive. Scan the machine - just scan it, no analysis yet - while I take a chip from that strange stone."

"Affirmative, Glazius. Awaiting submersion."

I said a silent thanks to Ignatius, the osprey who’d taught me how to dive. I shut my third eyelid, so that the water wouldn’t enter my eyes, climbed up to about ten wingspans, and plummeted towards the water’s surface. I penetrated without so much as a splash.

The water was wonderfully clear and clean; I imagine that Robotnik hadn’t yet devised a way to pollute the stream that fed it. As I slowly sank to the bottom, I affixed a cutting tool from my belt to my right wingtip, holding Mark in my left. As it swept a beam slowly over the machine, I excised a small portion of the crystal… and was startled to see the stone regenerate itself after I removed the piece I’d cut away. I’d worry about that later… air was scarce down here, and activating my air generator would create bubbles that couldn’t be explained away if they were seen. As Mark’s beam shut off, I pumped my wings quickly to get my body clear of the water. I broke the surface and took a deep breath once I was in the air, thanking the Almighty that I’d taken the precaution of waterproofing my feathers some time back, though my father had said there was little sense in doing so. I am a desert falcon, after all. The water slowly dripped off my wings into the pool below as I micro-fluttered, thankful no one was near to see this. When my wings were sufficiently dry, I headed back to my base, to analyze the data Mark and I had collected.

After a hasty lunch, I set to work. "Mark, analyze this sample of the stone and display crystal structure holographically."

"Scanning, Glazius… unable to comply with request."

"Reason for error, Mark?"

"Crystalline structure is not sufficiently regular to find representative sample. Chromium, nickel, titanium, zinc, and other heavy metals are integrated into an aluminosilicate base crystal in a rather random fashion."

Hmm… apparently, Robotnik was polluting the stream that fed the pool. Those metals are the earmarks of industrial pollution. The crystal merely integrated them into its own structure, using a natural source of silica, like the sand on the pool bottom, to complete the integration. A natural water purifier… but that still didn’t explain how it was able to produce Power Rings. "Any other metals integrated into the crystal structure, Mark?"

"Scanning… performing internal diagnostic…"

Yet another phenomenon Mark wasn’t designed to account for. Well, it made a sort of sense. Most of the planets in the universe hadn’t even developed civilization yet, certainly not to the extent that Mobius Prime had. And these strange developments that seemed to get ever stranger when analyzed carefully… it had me confused sometimes, so I could see how it would easily befuddle even an advanced AI. I waited patiently for Mark to finish its diagnostic.

"Internal diagnostic complete. No errors detected."

"Stop further diagnostic sequence, Mark. What did you find in that crystal?"

"In addition to known metal cations, crystal also incorporates in its structure atoms whose atomic radius and nuclear structure do not match any observed on Avis Prime. Further, said atoms appear to be transient, shifting from one site in the crystal to another in a fraction of a second."

"A resonance structure on the molecular level?"

"Affirmative, Glazius. A most peculiar artifact."

Now something like that could probably pump out antigrav-capable energy with nary a thought… hmmm… I wonder… "Mark, plot the path of those atoms in the crystal, using nanosecond scans as base points. Attempt to find pattern, possibly correlating with motion in higher dimensions."

"Scanning, Glazius… generating plot… assessing correlation curve… correlation complete. Atoms’ movement is consistent with linear motion through a fifth dimension."

As I’d suspected. Dimensional jumping could rather easily be tapped to provide a source of energy. The problem lies in getting something to move fifth-dimensionally, but the inhabitants of Mobius Prime had had that problem solved for them… wait a minute… perhaps it was just errant theorizing on my part, but…

"Mark, hypothetical scenario. What would be the effect of increased temperature on the frequency of resonance in the observed structure?"

"Processing… frequency would increase."

"Alright. Now, what would be the effect of… increased randomness in the surrounding environment?"

"Processing… due to random collisions with molecules of abnormally high or low energy, frequency would increase."

"Do you realize what this means, Mark?"

"Inaccurate query, Glazius. Insight and deductive inference are beyond the scope of this unit."

I sighed. What good was a scientific breakthrough with no sapient to share it with? Very well then…

"Mark, what is the second law of thermodynamics?"

"Said law states that entropy must increase for any spontaneous process."

"Very well, Mark. Now, we have a device which takes heat or even the randomness inherent in the universe and converts it to a usable form, do we not?"

"Affirmative, Glazius…"

"So that it can actually be said to decrease the entropy of the universe by its operation?"

"Affirmative, Glazius…"

"And this isn’t blowing any circuits, Mark?"

"Negative, Glazius. The laws of thermodynamics only apply to closed, three-dimensional systems. It is entirely probable that the operation of said device is increasing entropy in other dimensions."

So it functioned as sort of a chaos pump, transferring entropy between this dimension and others, generating energy all the while. It was nonetheless a remarkable discovery… but what to call it. Hmm… its crystal structure marked it as a sort of cross between beryl and corundum… and the only gem common to both classes was the Terran emerald. A "Chaos Emerald", then. I began wondering… perhaps this strange crystal structure could integrate with natural corundum and beryl gems. An entire spectrum of colors could easily be produced… but I imagined that such an integration might weaken the energy radiation. I’d worry about that a little later. Right now… "Mark, display the schematics of that strange machine which was surrounding this stone."

"Compiling schematic from scan data… displaying…"

Hmmm… remarkably advanced circuitry… and with the voltage Mark detected… intentional or not, the heat it generated definitely increased the energy output of the rather impure "Chaos Emerald" which nestled inside of it. But what to do with the energy… oh, my… this was incredible! Absolutely incredible! Ingenious, whether its inventor had intended it or not. The fact that the Power Rings were toroidal became incredibly significant… if my theories were true.

The machine slowly drew off the energy that the Chaos Emerald produced and sent it around a loop, using a constant magnetic field to shunt it in a circular direction. Now… an orbiting electric current would produce a magnetic field which would probably counter that of the loop and destabilize it. But an orbiting pulse of antigrav-capable energy, with its capacity to warp spacetime, might just create… magnetic monopoles.

They were only postulated to exist as yet on Avis Prime. Magnets are dipoles by nature, as is any magnetic field that can be generated. A magnetic monopole could exist - for all practical purposes - if a black hole or similar gravitational distortion caught half a magnetic field as it was forming… or if the other half of the magnet was in a completely different dimension. At any rate, that strange energy surrounded itself with magnetic monopoles as it moved, and as more energy was channeled from the stone into the containment loop. As enough magnetic monopoles were formed, the energy would be shielded from the magnetic field and would slowly edge downward, as the magnetic monopoles were drawn upward by the magnetic field running through the loop… which resulted in raw energy hitting unshielded spacetime. The energy would dissipate into the surrounding water relatively harmlessly, and the ring of magnetic monopoles would be propelled skyward by the force of contact, explaining the waterspout. As the monopoles slowly settled into a regular toroidal structure, the energy kept flowing just as rapidly, resulting in an initial glow which would quickly fade as everything settled into place. The Power Ring was then ready for use…

Wait a minute… how did the hedgehog use it? Those monopoles would not separate easily to allow access to the energy inside… unless they were warped apart! The hedgehog would merely expand the spacetime between a set of monopoles, letting the energy flow along his warp bubble and give him the temporary boost he needed. The somewhat abrupt release explained both the glow that appeared in the ring and the glowing outline along the hedgehog’s warp bubble that formed when he used it. But Sonic had somehow managed to channel the energy into his robotic uncle… hmmm… I imagined he could also warp the ring open if it was a wingspan or so away; his field should extend that far. And with an excellent conductor like his uncle’s metallic skin close at hand, the energy would flow through it instead of along his natural warp field.

Now I had my answers… but a question still nagged at my brain. Could the basic Chaos Emerald structure be integrated into beryl and corundum gemstones? The only way to know was to find out… but how to do that? I imagined that the radiation given off would certainly stand out against the planet’s background… it might take some time, but…

"Mark, prepare wide-range scanners. I’m going to scan the planet."

"Initializing scanners, Glazius…"

I belatedly chided myself for not having done this when I first arrived. I guess I didn’t feel like taking the time… but enough introspection. I recharged my air generator’s reserve supply; this might take a while. I activated my air generator and climbed to the ionosphere. Instead of just making a few quick passes across a single continent, I pushed my innate speed to the limit as I circled the globe, not once but… I lost track of the number of times. Counting on my own natural instincts to keep me from leaving the planet’s gravitational field entirely, I spent the time thinking… about what might happen if there were Chaos Emerald energy housed in other gems.

Well… assuming that the gem’s composition was fairly constant… which they usually are… the main effect would be that the basic Emerald energy would be somewhat distorted by the crystalline structure of the gem. A different wavelength or combination thereof would be produced by every gem, and the end effect would be… rather unpredictable, to say the least. I could easily envision a Chaos Emerald-augmented ruby which could project waves of heat or an augmented beryl emerald from which emanated a powerful magnetic field. But when those augmented gems were brought together, the wavelengths might interfere with each other… constructively or destructively. Destructive interference would nullify the power of both gems, but constructive interference…. Yes, a large enough set of the appropriate types of gems might have power at least an order of magnitude greater than the Chaos Emerald core, if not even higher…

My neckband beeped. The compressed air supply which served as the base for my air generator had about 5 minutes left. "Mark, teleport me…"

It hit me like a boulder dropped from the tip of the Spire. I could have just had Mark teleport me to a few appropriate vantage points and scanned the planet in much less time. Having time and space at my disposal was going to take a bit of getting used to… but then, my flight around the planet was keeping my body active but letting my mind wander, theorizing at will… had it helped? Mark spoke. "To where, Glazius?"

"To my base, Mark."

"Teleporting…"

Ah, home! Or at least what passed for it. "Mark, display holographic projection of planet Mobius Prime."

"Displaying, Glazius…"

Hmm… it bore more than a passing resemblance to the Terran homeworld. Strange… but I had very little time to admire the geography. "Mark, can you single out atoms in the scan you just completed?"

"Affirmative… but doing so would be largely useless."

"Not really, Mark. If you could, display all locations of unknown atoms similar to those found in the impure Chaos Emerald. And color-code display, based on the wavelengths you detected emanating from said locations."

"Processing, Glazius… estimated time of completion, one-third of one planetary rotation."

That was a bit long… but I was asking for an atom-by-atom dissection of a planet. I had at least five months left; what was another few hours? "Will you be able to do anything else during that time, Mark?"

"Negative, Glazius. Time estimate is for maximum CPU usage."

I sighed… and yawned. How long had I been up there? "Mark, how much time did I spend scanning the planet?"

"Approximately one and one-half planetary rotations."

Talk about getting caught up in your work… "Mark, I’ll be sleeping. Wake me when the display is finished."

"Affirmative, Glazius…"

I fell asleep almost instantly… and began dreaming again. I had been thinking about nothing but Chaos Emeralds for the past two days, so it wasn’t surprising that they made an appearance in my dreams as well.

There were… seven? Arranged rather like the tiling of a Terran honeycomb. Each was a different color, that much I could see, but the colors all changed rapidly except for the gem I focused on. Every conceivable color of Terran and Avian corundum and beryl integrate… but what good… I remembered Professor Raptarius lecturing on projections of higher dimensions. There was one called… I don’t remember… but it was a sixth-dimensional construct which, when projected into two dimensions, looked like a hexagon. And the gems were at its corners and center… well, why couldn’t those atoms move in more than five dimensions? Linear motion in normal spacetime is linear motion through the first dimension… meaning that those atoms could potentially move seventh-dimensionally?! A grey emerald locked into place at the center of the hexagon… and suddenly it dawned on me. Such a construct would probably cause those atoms to resonate throughout the structure, leading to a massive increase in energy… but would require an almost pure Chaos Emerald to act as a mediator. The grey stone was corundum, with no other metals… or else a Chaos Emerald in a completely pure state.

I saw something else… the hedgehog, taking hold of the seven emeralds. With that much energy at his disposal… he seemed to erupt in flames! The energy was coruscating off his quills, making him seem to be a glowing yellow instead of his normal blue. He shot across my dreamscape, rocketing and stopping… even flying? Well, with that much antigrav at his disposal…

"Scan completed, Glazius."

Huh? Wha… I woke up. That had been a very strange dream… but if it meant what I thought it meant… as my eyes slowly focused, I had a look at Mark’s map of Mobius Prime.

The entire world was awash in rainbows. At least, that’s what it looked like. It appeared that Chaos Emeralds… or at least a few crystal subunits, were scattered over the entire planet. "Mark, alter color intensity to reflect magnitude of deposits."

"Activating chromatic scaling…"

Much of the color faded… except for a few intense spots. There always seemed to be seven Chaos Emerald-augmented gems, all quite close together… as far as an observer a few light-seconds away was concerned. And each set of seven included a grey one. There were also seven intense peaks of Chaos Emerald energy, all distributed more or less uniformly over the planet’s surface. Each was a different color, and again, there was one gray one. Even stranger were two… black spots? "Mark, significance of black spots."

"Said spots are gemstones which appear to consist of Chaos Emerald ore, but which do not radiate any detectable form of energy."

Hmm… strange. "Mark, can you give me a visual display?"

"Affirmative, Glazius…"

That was odd… the gemstones appeared to be… carved? As though they were buried purposefully. Further, they appeared exactly alike, even to my exceptional vision; one jagged edge and one curved edge was on each gemstone… as though they were made to fit together… hmmm… "Mark, hypothetical scenario. Display possible energy signatures generated resulting from joining stones in each orientation."

"Displaying, Glazius…"

As I’d suspected. The gemstones had no special power unless joined together. And the direction was somehow significant… joined one way, a feedback loop of sorts would be created, leading to a massive discharge of energy as the crystal gave way from the intense energy flow. The resulting explosion could quite possibly have universal and most definitely planetary implications, simply because of the magnitude and class of energy involved. But joined the other way… what the? "Mark, correlate crystal structure of stones joined in second orientation with neuron structure."

"Correlation coefficient of +0.54 observed, Glazius."

A brain? A silicon brain? Not in the computing sense… an actual silicon-substituted brain, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. Perhaps a projection of some higher-dimensional entity… what was I thinking? Fantasy… or was it? Joined together, those stones could produce an immense amount of antigrav-capable energy, easily four orders of magnitude above what could be contained in a Power Ring. Such a great magnitude… that any sapient would be able to use it. And without an unconscious mechanism like the hedgehog’s in place, to control movements at such a rapid pace… scratch one sapient. The creation of such an unconscious mechanism would have to be… hang on. "Mark, correlate pseudo-neuron structure in the stones with hedgehog’s brain."

"Correlation coefficient of +0.40 observed, Glazius."

Now that was interesting. "Correlate the structure with… another Mobian brain whose structure is stored in memory. Make that another 100, and average the results."

"Correlation coefficient of +0.02 observed, Glazius."

Hmm… so it matched the hedgehog’s brain and his unconscious speed mechanism fairly well. And with that huge amount of energy… it was quite possible that its subject’s neurons could literally be scrambled, to match that internal structure. Which would result in the ability to use the immense amount of energy… and quite possibly… hmmm… no, I rather doubted that moving neurons involved in that speed mechanism could affect much else. Perhaps a few memories here and there… perhaps… but nothing that would be lethal. But what of the fused gemstones? According to Mark’s readout, it would… not just disappear, surely… of course! It would be pulled into whatever higher dimensions those strange atoms moved through. Not only that… it would still behave as though it were contacting the sapient it bestowed that energy upon. The chance to become supersonic…. Super speed was a staple of Terran fantasy… and Avian as well. To actually have super speed… and an almost unlimited amount of antigrav energy…

With that kind of power… anything could be accomplished. Anything. If other races were to find out about this… the war and devastation would be too great to imagine. Another job for the Avis Prime Imperial Space Armada. We’re going to have to guard this planet very carefully… I just hope no one lets a greedy instinct overrule a sense of duty. "Mark, send top priority communiqué to…" but who would believe me if I told them what I’d discovered? Certainly not the Admiral…

"To whom, Glazius?"

"Never mind, Mark. I was just… thinking out loud."

"Ceasing transmission…"

I could only hope that no one but the Academy’s graders got a hold of my final paper… hmmm… if the Academy decided to check my facts, I imagine Avis Prime’s military forces would quickly move to protect this universal resource. I could only hope that they wouldn’t decide to "appropriate" it…

My train of thought was interrupted by a flash of insight. The planet was coated in Emerald dust, therefore… a burrowing animal like the hedgehog (or at least like his ancestors) would probably pick up enough of it to generate a constant output of energy. And it would probably be held in place by those strange quill proteins of his… hmm… "Mark, can you locate Sonic Hedgehog on this world map?"

"Affirmative, Glazius."

"Is sufficient resolution available to display him?"

"Negative, Glazius… however, a circular area three wingspans in diameter which encloses said hedgehog can be displayed."

"Display that, then, Mark, and show overlay of Chaos Emerald energy signatures."

"Complying, Glazius..."

As I’d suspected… no, not as I’d suspected… what should have been randomly colored Emerald dust was seven very distinct points, as though they had been… deliberately placed there? But why would… Of course!

Sonic’s parents… "Mark, access Mobian citizen database. Search for mentions of any relatives of Sonic."

"Searching, Glazius… one entry matches, that of a Sir Charles Hedgehog."

"Search death records, Mark."

"Searching… no entries qualify, Glazius."

This was getting stranger. Or maybe… but I had no way to find out for sure. If there had been a war, spies would have been needed. And spies aren’t supposed to exist… at least not as far as the country sending them is concerned. If Sonic’s parents had served in that capacity, it was entirely probable that their records and all the records of their ancestors had been deleted from the general database. The records have to be stored somewhere… but if Sonic’s parents were caught, there would be no way to trace them back to the country they worked for. It made sense… more sense than anything else I could come up with. But I wouldn’t know if… then again, why pick hedgehogs as spies? Many of the other sapients I’d seen had much better natural stealth and camouflage abilities than did a hedgehog. The only thing that would qualify them for the job would be the blazing speed that one or both possessed. The ability to beat a hasty retreat - and quite possibly walk along walls and ceilings as I’d seen Sonic doing - would be invaluable. Now my ideas about the Emerald dust were making a little more sense.

Somehow, Sonic had been ritually endowed with super speed; the distribution of that Emerald dust was a bit too regular not to have been planned. But how had it happened? Scrolling through the hedgehog’s life would take too much time, even at the highest speed where I could perceive events. Unless… "Mark, are you familiar with the binary search algorithm?"

"Affirmative, Glazius. By cutting sample list in half at each step, search offers a tremendous ability to narrow down a prohibitively large size of possibilities."

"Mark, I’d like to perform a temporal binary search. Is Sonic’s age listed in his criminal dossier?"

"Affirmative, Glazius."

"Alright. Get the TST ready for my signal. When I give it, reduce the temporal distance between my timeline and the target date to half its current value. In the point in time, scan for Sonic Hedgehog and determine if he has Chaos Emerald ore embedded in his quills. If so, leave the target date as is. If not, change the target date to the central temporal point between my current position in time and the position in time I came from. When the distance between my current temporal position and the target date is less than… a day, stop the binary search and move me to 0000 hours, as this planet measures time, on whatever day I occupy. Initial target date is Sonic Hedgehog’s birth date."

"Processing requests… checking for potential time loop… no potential detected… ready for signal."

I rose a few dozen wingspans in the air… to provide Mark a better vantage point, and to make sure I was completely out of the way of normal sapient movement in every timeline. "Mark, save current program under alias ‘binary temporal search’" - I had a feeling I might want to do this again - "and begin search."

"Creating alias… translating…"

I began moving through time. In every timestream, Mark would take a few seconds to perform the scan, which gave me a bit of time to look around. I was pleased to notice that, after the second translation, the polluted city no longer existed. The conversion had been fairly recent, then… and it was likely that Sonic had grown up without Robotnik’s pollution suffusing his body.

Eventually, Mark stopped translating… the world was dark, except for the lights of Mobotropolis off in the distance. It seemed the most likely place to begin looking for Sonic; I knew of no other cities… I activated my air generator, which I had fortunately remembered to recharge, and flew toward the center of the city, not knowing quite what to expect…

I arrived at the center of Mobotropolis to find… no one. Well, that was hardly surprising. Midnight doesn’t exactly see a lot of sapients active…. "Mark, translate me ahead in time one hour, scanning for presence of Sonic Hedgehog within Mobotropolis city limits. Stop when you’ve found him or when two days have passed." That should let me know if my hunch was correct…

"Beginning program, Glazius…"

The city flashed by me. It slowly became lighter, but I really couldn’t see any more… Mark stopped translating. "Guide me to Sonic Hedgehog, Mark."

"Affirmative, Glazius…"

Mark’s holographic arrow appeared, pointing me toward the northern end of the city. I flew off in that direction, and within a short time… how in the? Well, it’s not as though it were a complete surprise… I saw a hedgehog with blurred legs racing down the streets of Mobotropolis. Sonic’s father, probably. I was able to confirm it when I got closer; he was carrying another hedgehog in his arms, who was clutching a small bundle… from which protruded cobalt-blue quills. Hmmm… Sonic’s father was more of a steel grey than a blue; apparently, the super speed wasn’t directly related to his quill color… which seemed to be a fusion of his father’s with his mother’s much lighter blue. But why was the family in Mobotropolis? It was extremely fortunate for me that they were… perhaps… "Mark, does Sir Charles Hedgehog reside within city limits?"

"Affirmative, Glazius."

"Guide me to his house, Mark, and begin incremental translation once I’m there." I hoped that the file listing him as Sonic’s uncle wasn’t contrived. Mark’s arrow shifted position to point to an area near the western city limits. I flew toward the location, which seemed to be a rather small house… with a fairly large attached workshop. As I touched down on the roof, time restarted…

And a grey blur skidded to a halt just outside the door to the house. Sonic’s father knocked, and a voice called from the workshop…

"Bernard? Mariel? I’ll be right there…"

So saying, a hedgehog slightly lighter grey than Sonic’s father - Bernard, was it? - emerged from the workshop. "It’s good to see you again."

"Good to see you, Charles," responded Mariel… Sonic’s mother, as near as I could figure.

"That’s Sir Charles… or at least it will be after this week."

"Congratulations! I knew King Acorn would get around to it eventually. With all the things you’ve done for him…"

"Thank you, Bernard, but I’m more concerned with what I haven’t done…"

"Still working on that robot machine?" responded Mariel.

"Yes… the roboticizer… I’d be able to use it in no time, if it weren’t for that one nasty problem…"

So his original design hadn’t included nanites. It made sense… he didn’t seem like the type who was wrapped up in the intricacies of war…

"But enough about that. Why the sudden visit? Your letter didn’t say very much."

Bernard glanced around, a bit furtively, and then whispered to Sir Charles… "We’ll talk at the Cathedral." His brother nodded in agreement, and the four of them were off, Bernard holding back on the speed so his wife and brother could follow him. It also made it a bit easier for me. I followed them as they left Mobotropolis, made their way through a fairly well-beaten path in the Great Forest and… disappeared? Before I could order Mark to perform a scan, I felt a strange tingling…

And a gleaming white building, looking very much like a Terran cathedral, materialized out of nowhere. At least, that’s what it looked like. I must have passed through some sort of cloaking field… but how was it generated? "Mark, analyze the building. How is the field I passed through being generated?"

"Scanning, Glazius… It appears that the basic Chaos Emerald structure is integrated into several of the pieces of glass used to construct the cathedral’s stained-glass windows. Energy radiation is fairly random within sixty wingspans of the cathedral, but seems to focus at that distance, producing a field with properties similar to the Avian psychic cloak."

Incredible. How had they managed to do such a thing? Perhaps if… but that was a mystery for another date. Another enigma to explain… but the one I was currently studying was about to unfold. I followed the quartet of hedgehogs through the massive wooden doors of the cathedral, and was a bit surprised to find it fairly empty. Perhaps religion wasn’t quite as important to the Mobians as it once had been…

"Bernard? Mariel? Charles? And I see you’ve brought Sonic with you! I haven’t seen the little fellow since he was dedicated to the Almighty." The voice came from a robed figure, who had been praying at an ornate stone altar.

"Father Lucifer!" exclaimed Mariel.

"Lucifer"… wasn’t that the Terran name for evil incarnate? But it also meant "bringer of light"… I imagined that Mark was translating to the latter.

"Please, just Matthias will be fine. We’re friends, aren’t we?" So saying, the figure pulled back his cloak’s hood to reveal a fairly young face. A mouse… it somehow seemed appropriate. "But why did you come? Services aren’t for another two days."

Mariel replied, "It’s about Sonic… Matthias."

"You can’t be thinking of performing the ritual already?"

Bernard nodded. "I’m afraid so, Father. Something has come up that makes it essential that we give Sonic his speed now."

So it was ritually bestowed, as I’d suspected.

Father Lucifer looked taken aback. "What could be so important?"

Sir Charles… wait, he wasn’t yet… spoke up. "I asked them the same question, and they told me it could wait until we reached the Cathedral. Here we are; what’s going on?"

Bernard glanced around again. "Is there somewhere where just the five of us could talk?"

Father Lucifer nodded. He then led the hedgehogs to a back room, closed off by a heavy wood door, with a few padded seats. I followed them in and began micro-fluttering near the ceiling.

Bernard began to explain… "You see… we’ll be heading out to the Confederation’s capital tomorrow. You’re aware of the war, Father?"

"Of course I’m aware of it. My covenant with the Almighty prevents me from taking sides, not from keeping up with current events."

"My covenant"? Something else to be explained at a later date.

"King Acorn has chosen us as envoys to the Confederation. Apparently, their government hates the war as much as ours does, but there are certain factions..."

Mariel interrupted him. "Their War Minister is a maniac, and he's attracted a loyal following who believe that King Acorn is evil incaranate."

Bernard nodded. "It's not quite that serious, but..."

"Not serious, he says. I suppose that knife-wielding idiot who tried to send King Acorn 'back to your fellow demons' was just playing around!"

The couple glared at each other… then realized where they were. "At any rate", continued Sonic’s father, "we don’t want to take Sonic with us and…" he seemed to hesitate.

Mariel put her arm around her husband’s shoulder. "What he’s trying to say is… well, there will probably be some maniac who thinks we're imps or something. And Sonic’s our only child. If he doesn’t receive the speed now, it will be lost… maybe forever."

They were diplomats? Talk about unexpected... but it made a sort of sense. They could probably pose as neutral arbiters... especially if no records of them existed in the Mobotropolis database. And as for taking Sonic... if there were a faction as militant as they made it out to be, a child would be too easy of a target for kidnapping and the like. I could understand that they wouldn't want to put their only legacy in such a situation... but why would the speed be lost? If it worked like I thought it worked...

Bernard nodded silently. "That’s why we need you here as well, brother. You’ll have to take care of Sonic while we’re gone… and there’s no telling how long that could be."

Charles nodded. "I’d be more than happy to… but won’t he miss his parents?"

Apparently, no one had anticipated that… from what I knew of family structures, losing parental support at an early age spelled disaster for a child’s psyche… unless someone else could fill the role. I rather doubted that one hedgehog could be father, mother, and uncle to a child…

Father Lucifer lifted his head from where it had hung deep in thought. "Perhaps he won’t have to… what if I were to remove his memories of you? He might know something was missing, but he wouldn’t be able to figure out what… at least not until he was old enough to understand."

Remove his memories? How could that be done… without either brain surgery or extensive hypnosis? I had a hunch that a church would have instruments for neither.

Mariel looked questioningly at her husband, who slowly nodded his head. "He’s right. We can’t leave Sonic behind to suffer, and we certainly can’t take him with us. After the ritual, then…"

Father Lucifer shook his head. "There’s no need." He stretched out his arms. "May I?" Mariel handed her son to the mouse, who gently stroked Sonic’s blue-quilled head. "Sleep, little one. Sleep and forget…"

Sonic stirred, briefly, from his slumber, but he quickly fell asleep again. How had he done that? No hypnosis, no suggestions, no pressure points… that I knew of. I was getting a lot more questions than I was answers.

"There… he should sleep soundly for at least a day. More than enough time to complete the ritual. You know the task set before you, Bernard?"

He nodded. "I must gather the seven earths within one day’s time. My father explained that much to me… when I came of age…" his voice faltered.

Mariel tried to reassure her husband. "And I’m sure Father Lucifer would be glad to explain it to Sonic, if… what am I saying? We’re not going to be walking into certain death, we’ll be doing something we’ve trained for most of our lives! Bernard, if you keep thinking we won’t return…"

But they hadn’t returned… at least, none of Robotnik’s forces knew they had.

"I know, Mariel, I know. I really should be getting on my way, then." He walked out the door, began forming two warp bubbles, much like his son eventually would, and sped away.

Father Lucifer turned to Mariel and Charles. "We’d better prepare for his return." He carried a still-sleeping Sonic out of the room. The two hedgehogs followed close behind him, as did I. I wanted to see what this ritual involved.

Father Lucifer carried Sonic to the altar I’d seen him praying at earlier. He laid Sonic gently on it and lifted his head and arms skyward. Mariel and Charles bowed theirs and stood there silently.

"Almighty, since you saw fit to grant this child’s ancestors the gift of incredible speed, I beseech you to find him worthy of the gift as well. Let him grow and learn not only how to use the talents You have bestowed on him, but when and why to use them as well. Let him use them always to glorify Your name, and to defend Mobius against the evil that seeks to overcome it." With that, he bowed his head and extended his arms over the young hedgehog.

That was impossible… I could swear that some sort of energy field was coming from his hands. "Mark, what is that field, and what effect is it having on Sonic?"

"Analyzing, Glazius… Field is of unknown origin, and appears to be disassociating various elements of the tertiary structure in the hedgehog’s quill proteins."

Perhaps preparing them to receive the Emerald dust I’d detected earlier. Hmm… receptors for that sort of strange crystalline structure… a genetic chance event… which bestowed a huge speed advantage on a hedgehog who had burrowed through a plain containing enough Emerald dust.

And as Sonic grew and his quills lengthened… perhaps the new proteins were affected by existing Emerald dust, and became receptor sites. The hedgehog would then just need to pass close enough… a very clever mechanism, I must say… no matter what the mouse thought he was doing.

The cathedral doors opened, to admit a grey blur… who quickly slowed to a halt. Bernard unclipped a small belt from around his waist, and I could see that it had seven pouches… the seven earths he’d spoken about.

"Here we are, Father… er, Matthias… ash from the northern volcano, soil from the floor of the central jungle, sand from the eastern beach, rubble from the tip of the Spire Mountain, debris from a tornado, quickmud from the swamp bordering the Great Unknown, and… a handful of shards from the center of the Great Unknown itself. The seven earths."

"Mark, scan those soil samples."

"Scanning, Glazius… each sample contains a different variety of Chaos Emerald-augmented corundum or beryl."

Intriguing… somehow, the location of specific Emerald dusts had been more or less pinpointed… most likely by trial and error.

The mouse nodded, and arranged the seven earths in a rough circle around the hedgehog. "Almighty, we have gathered earth from the planet, much as did the first King Acorn. We seek not a king, though, but a protector. Let this young one be infused with the power of Mobius, to serve its needs and to serve You." He bowed his head again, and… the hedgehog was surrounded by a rainbow of colors.

I didn’t even want to have Mark try to explain this one. He’d probably blow a few circuits… which I felt myself doing as I tried to understand what was going on. The Emerald dust was being extracted… somehow… from those samples and being channeled into the hedgehog. I could see rays from every color in the spectrum shooting into the hedgehog’s quills… and sure enough, one was gray. Now Sonic had a fairly constant source of that bizarre energy that enabled him to warp spacetime.

The rays gradually subsided. Father Lucifer raised his head. "Amen." And an "Amen" echoed from the three hedgehogs, witnessing what must have seemed to them a miracle.

"That’s everything, then," said Bernard. "We can leave now… and, to be honest, we should have left yesterday."

"Forgetting about your speed, dear?" responded Mariel. "We can be in the Confederation’s capital in an hour."

Bernard nodded. "Right… but I’ll have to stop a bit short. A sonic boom isn’t exactly an everyday occurrence… even if it comes from the Great Unknown. And a creature who can move that fast is 'obviously not of this world'... at least, that's what a certain War Minister would think. Charles… take good care of Sonic while we’re gone…"

Mariel burst in. "Which, with any luck, won’t be more than a year or two. Sooner if we can do our jobs right and stop worrying…"

Bernard sighed. "There’s a difference between worrying and being concerned… but we can talk about that on the way." He turned to Charles and Father Lucifer. "Thank you… thank you both…"

"That goes for me, too." With that, Mariel leaped into her husband’s arms and waved. "I’m not one for long good-byes. Let’s get a move on, Bernard!"

Bernard sighed. He let go of his wife, who dropped rather clumsily to the ground. He then bent to kiss Sonic…

And Mariel suddenly grabbed him from the altar and hugged him tightly. I could make out tears, even from my vantage point. A few minutes later, she handed her son to his Uncle Chuck and wiped her eyes. "What are you staring at?"

The two brothers both tried to look innocent. Mariel shook her head. "Let’s go, before I…" Her husband cut her off by lifting her into his arms and speeding out the cathedral doors.

Charles turned to Father Lucifer. "It’s done, then… Sonic and I won’t have an easy time adjusting to each other…"

The mouse smiled. "You know I’m always here for you, Charles. And I’ll be here for Sonic, too… should he ever need me."

Charles smiled back, then walked slowly toward the cathedral doors with Sonic in his arms.

There wasn’t much point in sticking around any longer. I answered the question I came to answer… but it seemed like every answer just raised more questions. I sighed. "Mark, shift me back to my native timestream and teleport me to my base."

"Affirmative, Glazius…"

Back at my base, I unclipped the electronic journal from my belt and started dictating the day’s events into it. As I did so, I pondered what I’d seen… the church, and the mouse with supernatural powers, and something about a "covenant." How had religion developed on this planet, anyway? And what sort of architectural magic was worked to make the cathedral as apt a psychic cloak generator as Mark? As for magic… was that what Father Lucifer was using? How had he acquired those powers? I felt a bit overwhelmed by all the new questions that a few minutes’ worth of observation had raised.

There were many other things about this planet that still remained a mystery to me… those "dragons", for example. They seemed to come direct from Terran fairy tales, powers and all… but could they really breathe fire? All I’d seen one do was fly… but even that would be a tremendous feat for such a large creature. And speaking of flight… how could that two-tailed fox manage to spin his tails like a set of Terran fan blades without having them intertwine? To say nothing of all the impossibilities involved in his actually getting airborne.

And one question dominated all the others. How had Mobotropolis become "Robotropolis"? How had such a pastoral city turned into such a vile parody of its former glory? Julian Robotnik certainly had the mind to do such a thing, but how was it carried out? I may have made some progress, but it was only a dent as far as my assignment was concerned. I sighed, and began retelling my discovery of the "Chaos Emeralds".

If you think this is the end, then you are mistaken.

Questions? Contact me at [email protected].