Disclaimer!

This is an attempt to explain the existence of the Mobian diversity of high intelligence species and the origin of the Chaos Emeralds.

Chapter 1. The Sky Burns.

In Knothole, Rotor pulled himself out from under the bot and tossed his spanner into his workbox. The sun slid gently down into the southern sky and the vast constellations became visible. A chill wind blew up and the last of the clouds scudded away. Rotor hauled himself up into a tree, opened a book and aimed a telescope at the heavens. He checked the constellations in the well-thumbed book and noted their positions on a grubby slip of paper in the back.

Then he spotted something unusual. The entire eastern sky was black and utterly starless. Training the telescope onto this patch he saw many faint red points of light. Then he saw something incredible: the entire black area was suddenly covered with a blaze of light and was revealed to be a starship of gargantuan proportions.

Frozen in place Rotor noticed movement on the underside as two huge doors swung open. The telescope shaking in his grasp Rotor watched as small bright points moved out of it. The few points became many and they increased in size until they entered the upper atmosphere and became bright streaks.

Rotor leapt off the tree, the telescope nearly crushed in his grip as he ran towards Sonic’s hut. Out of breath he pounded on the door, ignoring the splinters that now studded his hand. "Sonic," he yelled! "Get yourself out here!"

"What’s all the racket?" a sleepy tails asked from his door.

"L-l-look up in the sky."

"Rotorr, whaaa iiiis itt?" groaned a near catatonic sonic.

Rotor could only jab his finger at the eastern sky and suddenly sonic didn’t look so tired any more.

"I think we’d better tell the others," whispered tails.

Chapter 2: A Rude Awakening

"Sonic, do you know what time it is?" croaked Sally from behind the door of her hut.

"Yes and there is something you have gotta see!" replied sonic.

"Can’t it wait."

"NO!"

Sally opened the door, her eyes bleary and her hair not its usual self.

"Okay sonic, what do I have to see?" she said with a sarcastic tone in her voice.

"Look up there."

Sally’s jaw dropped and she stood motionless looking at it.

"Wh-where did it come from?" she stuttered.

"Ask rotor," said sonic before he continued in his round of awakenings.

Sally rushed over to rotor and grabbed one of his shoulders.

"Where did it come from?"

"What?"

"That –that thing?"

"It only appeared this night, it cannot be of Robotnik design?"

"Why not?"

"I would have seen something that size before and we would have had a pretty nasty earthquake if it had taken off."

"Who made it then?"

"I think we may find out soon. LOOK"

One of the fiery trails had grown larger and was right on course to impact in the centre of Knothole.

There was a scream of "RUUUUNNNN" as the fireball hurtled towards them. The villagers scattered in panic.

Suddenly, there was a roar of rocket boosters and the fireball’s descent slowed. The fireball was a large metallic sphere about 10 Metres across and five high.

It hit the ground and threw up a shower of dirt and clods of earth.

The villagers stopped and looked at the craft. There was the sound of metal contracting after the great heat of its descent.

Without warning there were 10 small explosions on the side of the craft as explosive bolts flew free. The sphere opened like the petals of a great flower. The villagers stood silent. The petals rested on the ground and abruptly two doors slid open on the side. Out of the doorways poured humanoids that were completely covered in black armour. They stood about eight-foot tall (at least twice the size of the average villager) and were massively shouldered. They carried ugly snub-nosed guns that they themselves seemed massive.

Sally moved her hand to grab Nicole out of her belt when one of the figures aimed his gun at her and snarled: "Freeze!"

Sonic, worried for Sally’s safety, grabbed a power ring out of his backpack and felt the power fill him. He hurtled towards the figure that had threatened sally and spin-attacked him. The figure saw sonic long before he was hit and swung the butt of his gun to connect with Sonic’s head. Sonic hit the ground, one sided of his face agonisingly warm and stars fizzed before his eyes. Sonic was too dazed to avoid the gauntleted fist that smashed into his ribs and the second blow of the gun butt that set his head ringing and his eye bleeding. The armoured figure grabbed him by the neck and squeezed gently. Sonic felt his vision swim as he slipped into comfortable blackness.

The other figures kept their guns trained on the villagers who stood petrified before them. Then out of the craft strode another figure, he wore no helmet and sally could see his face behind the respirator. It was clearly human but deeply tanned and four studs were screwed into the left forehead.

"Unless you scum want some of what he got," rumbled the helmetless one who know stood in front of the others. "Group yourselves together in front of the craft. This area is under Bioscan and any of you trying to escape will be shot on site. Do you understand?"

Sally nodded weakly and told the others to do what they had said.

She bent down to get sonic whom was now out cold. She turned him so she could see his face. A livid bruise covered one side of his face and blood trickled out of his nose. Sally felt the cold metal of a gun in her back and stood up.

"You and another can carry him," a voice said behind her.

Sally beckoned to Bunnie.

"One of them told me to carry him." She told Bunnie.

"Where to?"

"I – I don’t know," sobbed sally.

Chapter 3: The flight of a hawk

Rotor sat in the clearing the pod had landed in trying to understand what was going on. The Humans that had come out of the craft were clearly not of the sort that the outlanders were. Rotor heard faint rumblings and looked over towards Robotropolis.

The large orbiting craft was pouring fire into the centre of the city. Huge laser bolts made the sky flare electric-blue, drowning out the slim red lasers of the Robotropolis defences.

Looking into the sky he saw another point of light heading towards them. It was different from the first. A long trail of exhaust steam followed it and the craft had stubby little wings. It flew low overhead and showered out a cloud of blue gas.

As the gas settled on the plants they shrivelled up and collapse into black powder.

Rotor was now looking at a large landing strip. The ship arced about and made a second approach. This time there was some form of landing gear underneath and it made a perfect landing on the newly made strip. The craft appeared to be a large aircraft that had a far larger body than it appeared its wings would support. The front folded open and more of the armoured figures strode out. Out of the craft a large tank rolled. Its back half was clearly a large container of some kind. As soon as it hit the ground another just like it followed suit. The back of the container trucks opened and the men gestured for them to get on board. A figure with a strange clump of tanks with a nozzle attached stood to the side of each truck. As the villagers climbed in, the contraption fired a sticky mass of threads that tightly bound them. They did not have to be warned against struggling as the first villager to get sprayed was very nearly crushed as he struggled against the web of fibres.

Lastly Bunnie hefted sonic onto her shoulder and carried him into the truck before she was sprayed with the chemical. The doors of the trucks swung shut with a resounding clang. The villagers were jostled as the trucks reversed back into the belly of the craft. The children began to whimper and the parents sat glassy eyed, rocking backwards and forwards. Rotor looked at Sally and in an effort to cheer her up said. " At least it’s not Butnik who did this." "We are not going to be roboticized."

"What will happen to us then?" cried Sally.

The roaring of the craft’s engines drowned rotor’s reply out. The Villagers covered their ears and the youngsters began to scream. They were thrown back towards the rear of the truck and a sensation in their stomach told them that they were rising quickly.

The upward journey seemed like an eternity of noise until the engines suddenly cut out and the whole craft was silent. There was only the slightest sensation of movement as the craft swung towards the great doors beneath the Mothership.

There was no longer much gravity and the villagers often floated an inch or two off the floor.

As the craft entered the mighty doors the sensation of gravity returned. It was far higher than Mobian gravity and Sally had to struggle to stand up. The whole craft shook as it landed in the vast ship and immediately the front opened and the trucks rolled out.

The trucks travelled along wide steel-floored corridors amongst the bowls of the ship for what seemed to the villagers like hours. They finally stopped and the back of the truck holding sonic swung open. Outsides were a medical team comprised of four unarmed humans who were a lot shorter than their armoured counterparts. Another armoured figure stood behind them except his armour was white and bore a double helix emblem in red on the left shoulder. Two of the humans climbed into the truck and gingerly lifted sonic onto a stretcher, being careful not to touch his spines.

The white armoured figure signalled the driver of the truck, the back slammed shut and it carried on.

"What are they going to do to him, what are they going to do." Blubbered Sally.

"Please Sugar, you must hold together for the other villager’s sake. They depend on you to keep your head in a crisis like this." Bunnie said in an attempt to comfort Sally.

"You’re right," Sally sobbed. "But I don’t think I can solve this Problem."

Chapter 4: Imprisoned

The trucks stopped for a second time and the backs swung open. "Out!" ordered another black armoured human. He gestured with his gun and the villagers filed out. "Single File!" barked the Human as they were led towards a large steel door set into the wall of the corridor. The human pushed a crystal he had on a chain around his neck into a slot in the wall. ‘ACCESS GRANTED’ appeared on a LCD above the door. There was a sound of hydraulics as the locking mechanism opened and the door slid silently open.

"In!" the human growled, again gesturing with his gun. The villagers were herded into

a large room beyond. In fact the room wasn’t large it was huge. The walls had many small doors set into them on all three of the other sides. A huge window out of which all they could see was a vast expanse of space dominated the ceiling. The walls were made of what appeared to be highly polished white marble but a closer inspection showed it was a form of super hard ceramic.

The door slid silently shut behind them and the hiss of hydraulics returned. The LCD display now read ‘DOOR LOCKED’. The gravity here was more like normal Mobian levels and the villagers were able to stand comfortably.

"R-Right," croaked Sally. "I think it would be best if we look around and find out what we have here." The other villagers nodded, too stunned by their ordeal to answer. They investigated the doors on the sides of the large central atrium and found that they opened easily when a button to the side of them was pressed. Each room was identical. The rooms were large and well equipped with about four beds, a kitchen and a shower each. There was a strange device on the wall that very closely resembled a microwave but had a large digital clock above it. Rotor was the first have a closer look at it. There was only one large button set centrally below the device. When Rotor pressed it he nearly jumped out of his skin when a computerised voice said. "Good Morning, what would you like for Breakfast?"

"Err Fresh Fish?" rotor replied hesitantly.

"Please wait"

There was a strange slurping sound and bits of blue lightning flickered inside the door. A minute later the door slid open and there was a fresh fish platter in there.

"Enjoy your meal sir, Lunch is served from 1200 hours to 1500 hours. Current time is 8:50."

Rotor stuck his head out of the door and shouted to Sally "Press the button on the funny microwave thing!"

"Why, what does it do?"

"Gives you breakfast."

Chapter 5: Poor Sonic

Sonic began to come round. As he came round and his vision cleared he saw that he was in a hospital room of some sort. The walls were a shiny white plastic and the ceiling had been painted a light blue. Sonic tried to roll over but he was tightly secured with heavy straps and his neck was in a spinal collar. One side of his face was agonisingly warm and his ribs ached. As he moved they made a grating noise and a bolt of pain shot up his side. He stifled a scream and instead let out a low moan. At that a nurse walked in holding a syringe. Sonic had never seen a female human before and was astonished how unlike the males they were. The nurse rolled back the cover and pressed the syringe into his arm.

"This will take away the pain dear, but you may fall asleep again." The nurse whispered gently into his ear as she pressed home the plunger.

Sonic mouthed ‘thankyou’ to her and allowed himself to slip back to sleep.

He awoke later to find an ice pack attached to the side of his face and the pain in his ribs gone. The straps had been removed but the spinal collar was still firmly strapped round his neck. He swung his legs round and tried to get out of bed. Barely able to keep his balance he sat back down on the bed and tried again. He managed to stand up finally and walked over to a small hand basin and looked at himself in the mirror. One side of his face had gone a purple yellow colour and his eye was red. The eye socket was still black and ached. Unable to bend his neck he looked in the mirror to see his chest. His ribs were only a little tender and were losing their angry colour.

As he sat back down on the bed another nurse came in and said to him:

"Well, at least you’re able to get up now. Feeling any better?"

"Yes thanks," Sonic said. "Can I have something to eat I’m starving."

"I suppose you are you’ve been out cold for three days but I’ll have to check with the doctor." The nurse left the room and Sonic’s sensitive hearing could just pick up the murmur of voices outside. One was the nurse’s and the other sounded like one of the armoured figures. He could not hear what they were saying as the roar of blood in his ear drowned it out.

The nurse came back in about five minutes later and explained to sonic: "We are only allowed to give you fluids and liquidated meals for a day or two to see how you are recovering and anyway, I don’t think you will be able to chew very well."

She took a small bowl of brown liquid off her trolley and placed on a tray that she swung across his bed. Sonic wrinkled his nose and sniffed the bowl; it smelt quite strongly of chilli.

"We thought we’d better give you something you liked for you first meal."

"How did you know?" enquired sonic.

"You were having a dream about it and were talking in your sleep about chillidogs"

Shocked into silence sonic tasted the brown goo. It tasted okay so he ate it.

"Hey slow down you’ll make yourself sick"

Sonic belched and asked for a drink. The nurse poured him a glass of water and took his bowl away. Sonic made himself comfortable again and managed to doze off again.

Chapter 6: Always testing.

The other villagers were awoken the next morning at the unreasonable hour of 6.30. There was a voice over the intercom which announced that they would undergo a range of tests today and it is important that they co-operate at all times. They were filed out of the doors and into another truck where they were given a number that was made as a bar code on their left wrist. As they approached the first test they were separated into groups to undergo different tests.

Sally’s first test was a machine about the size of a large TV set with a hole in the side. Sally was ordered to place her arm in the side. As she did the device grabbed her arm and held it firmly. Sally screamed as she felt a sharp stab in the side of her arm. The machine released her arm and she found a small hole just above the elbow.

She was given a dressing to cover it. After her wound had been dressed she heard the machine say "Analysis of skin, hair, blood, bone and muscle tissue complete." Sally heard similar shrieks from the other groups as Bunnie steeped up behind her. The villagers next passed through a bank of green energy bars. When they reached the other side they saw a picture of themselves in full 3D scan.

Ahead four human scientists dressed in full-length medical gear were quibbling over some data. All Sally was able to catch was "notify the Emperor" before they dispersed.

Sally felt a tap on her shoulder, she turned round and found Sonic grinning lopsidedly at her.

"Sonic! What happened to your face?"

"I think it was some maniac with the butt of a gun but most of it’s just bruising and I’ve lost a tooth."

"Thank the stars!" cried Sally as she hugged him. "I thought they would have hurt you."

"Well, trying to eat liquidised chillidogs is torture enough." Sally laughed and kissed him on the nose. It was a short moment as the guards soon took them back to the trucks.

"Where are we going now?" Sally managed to ask the guard.

"You have been granted an audience with their high Excellencies the Emperor and Empress of the great galactic empire."

Chapter 7: An audience

The back of the truck opened and released the Mobians into a vast marble plaza that was surmounted by a vast crystal dome that gazed into space. They walked down a long pavement made of black stone. Flanking the pavement were more of the armoured humans who stood rigidly to attention carrying vast halberds with a gun muzzle poking out of the end of it. As they approached the end of the pavement the villagers saw two guards standing either side of an adamantium gateway. The site of these guards shocked the villagers: they were large and heavily built like the others and wore the standard black armour. But they wore no helmets and they were not human but were black furred hedgehogs that bore a striking resemblance to Sonic.

They stood rigidly to attention but Sonic could have sworn they looked puzzled when they saw him.

The Villagers were ushered into a small hall by a short fussy little man with a ginger moustache like ol’ Butnik and yellow teeth. They were told that a select group of four would be able to meet the Royal couple. Sally volunteered herself, Sonic, Tails and Bunnie. The foursome were walked into a vast chamber very similar to the entranceway and sat in four very plush chairs. A door slid open and the great rulers walked in.

Chapter 8: Enough surprises

Sonic was getting quite used to being shocked but nothing had prepared him for this. The Emperor was a huge man wearing highly ornate black armour with a lion rampant on the shoulder. The Empress, however, was the most beautiful female hedgehog Sonic had ever seen. Her skin was a deep pink in colour and she was dressed in layered silks. The strangest thing was that, unlike the emperor who strode strongly across the floor, she floated gently about a foot up in the air. Like the rest of the high ranking persons aboard she was much bigger than Sonic and could be seen to be close to six foot tall, although she was dwarfed by the vast Emperor.

Sally, trying her best not to gawk, curtsied in the way she had been taught when she was a young girl. Bunnie followed suit although it was difficult with steel legs. Sonic and Tails tried their best to bow formally but it was not quite right.

"Please be seated," the pink hedgehog whispered her voice sounding like a choir of a hundred angels. "I am Empress Tatayana of the Great Galactic Empire and this is my husband Sanguintus."

"Thankyou Empress," Sally said while trying to glare at Sonic out of the corner of her eye as he crossed and recrossed his legs with a pained expression on his face. "May I be so bold to ask why our Village was captured and why you are firing on our cities?"

"We are attempting to capture a member of a large rebel band who disappeared in this sector about fifty years ago along with the rest of his group. They are wanted for great crimes against the empire and for damage to the space time continuum. We have discovered through our research that the leader of the group is long dead in a war against his own splinter group aided by the Mobian peoples."

Sonic could hold it no longer, he barged in with a question: "How comes the Emperor is a human and you are a hedgehog," he asked.

The Emperor sank into a chair and said, "It’s a long story…."

Chapter 9: Project Genesis

"Long ago," the Emperor began. "When faster than light travel was still in its infancy, Human scientists devised a project to house people who were being driven off ancient Terra by the heavy pollution. They could find no suitable planets nearby so they embarked on a project now known as genesis 2. There was a large moon orbiting a gas giant known as Saturn in the Sol system. The moon had the perfect ingredients for life but was too cold. Its name was titan. Using their knowledge of the galaxy gathered by the vast telescopes on the dark side of earth’s moon we found a solar system on the far edge of the galaxy, deep in the eastern spiral arm. All that was missing was a planet in the primary biosphere. The scientists buried four huge chunks of rare material known to you as chaos emeralds under the surface. They then used the power contained within to warp space-time and move titan to the desired location. The planet was then seeded with algae to terraform the atmosphere. Once the biosphere had stabilised we fired capsules containing highly modified human DNA into the primordial swamps. The project appeared to be successful until we found we had underestimated the warping power the Emeralds would have."

The Emperor made a strange gesture with his hands and a hologram of a gene strand appeared in front of him.

"The modified DNA was human with an extra sequence lying alongside as a natural data bank of DNA. The DNA was that of many earth animals so that the species could be recreated at a later date. However, the warping power of the emeralds caused the two gene strands to fuse forming a hybrid of human and the animal DNA carried on the strand."

"What, you mean we’re mutant humans?" Sonic asked.

"To put it bluntly, yes."

"But why take a hedgehog as a wife?"

The Emperor gestured and the gene strand changed again. "The pure breed human is still genetically compatible with the animal hybrid due to the form the mutation had, generally the dominant part being the human strand, especially amongst mammals. The scientists interbred with the first creatures to emerge and founded a race of hybrid human and marsupial spiny anteaters that are also known as Echidnas. They dug the emeralds out of the surface and used them to build the floating island. Then a great warp storm closed the space-time tunnel between Mobius and earth. The echidnas panicked and prepared a fleet of ships to leave the planet. Knowing the power of the emeralds they left a guardian dynasty of red skinned Echidnas to protect the emeralds."

Sonic sat wide-eyed listening to the Emperors tale. He found it hard to shake off the feeling that because of this he was not natural, he felt like a thing.

"The tunnel between the worlds had closed but from time to time it would open and pluck a female hedgehog from the surface and transport her to earth. The tunnels opening always coincides with the death of the previous Emperor and therefore the hedgehogs chosen husband becomes the next Emperor."

Sally looked at Empress Tatayana and asked her "So you are a Mobian like me and Sonic?"

She replied "Not quite, before I was taken through the great divide I was a warrior princess of a tribe in the area now covered by that city. When the tunnel seized me I found myself on a strange metal planet that I was to later find out was Earth. I did not understand why I was receiving so much attention. I tried to hide but fell from a starscraper balcony. Sanguintus caught me and he explained to me the Terran custom

of the Mobian Empress. I agreed to marry him and we became the Ruling couple. We had to undergo intense surgery and gene manipulation to become what we are today. All the armoured humans aboard this craft are the Emperor’s guard and are heavily modified to make them perfect soldiers. The effect of the surgery on humans is a massive increase in bulk, strength, speed, resilience and the speed of their reflexes. The effect on the female Hedgehog is to unlock the incredible psionic powers contained within the hedgehog gene strand."

"So that’s how you were able to levitate over here."

"One of my lesser talents," she shrugged. "I was also the one who told the medical department that you like chilli."

"But they said I spoke about it in my sleep." Spluttered sonic.

"No I read your mind and soothed your troubled spirit, I also lent a hand in healing that broken rib of yours."

"I wondered how that happened so quickly."

"But you still haven’t answered why you attacked the planet."

The Emperor altered the hologram once again. It showed a strange device made of Gold rings inside which six of the chaos emeralds orbited.

"This is the R.O.C.C., the Retro Orbital Chaos Compressor. It was designed and built by an eminent young scientist called Dr Julian Ovi Kintobor. It was built to protect Mobius from warp storms that had recently been gathering. It used chaos emeralds as devices in which to store the evil energy in a warp storm. The device was efficient but unstable. In an unknown accident while the Dr was holding a rotten egg the power of the Emeralds were able to damage the normally immune human gene strand and entirely reversed his physical and mental characteristics, whilst combining them with an egg. He became known as Dr Julian Ivo Robotnik and joined a band of rebels who had been pillaging areas in the Eastern spiral. Robotnik developed the main designs for the Roboticizer whilst the rebels were fleeing from the navy. They then used a new design of Sub-Light drives to outpace us and hide in the Mobian nebula cluster. The intense warp storms prevented us from using our warp drives to follow them and we could not find where they had hidden. The band, later to become known as the ‘Outlanders’ used the Mobian cluster to raid nearby systems. Our fleets slowly whittled them down until they no longer emerged from the cluster."

The Emperor paused and rolled his broad shoulders.

"We then found that Robotnik used contacts to cause the assassination of my father by warping time so he was far back in the past when he organised his assassination. My father was found with a poison blade in the back of his head and, as I am now Emperor, it is my unfortunate task to bring the punishment onto him."

Tatayana suddenly clutched her head and screamed before she collapsed on the floor.

The Emperor caught her as she fell. "What’s wrong my dear?!?"

The door at the end of the room burst open and two of the black Hedgehogs raced in at a speed sonic would be impressed with.

"What is wrong father?" asked one.

"What is wrong with mother?" asked the other. "Is she not well?"

"Call a medical team and prepare the resus room."

The two hedgehogs raced to the door where they bolted out past the guards.

Suddenly Tatayana’s eyes flickered open and she started breathing again.

"Robotnik’s gone," she said breathlessly. "I can’t find him, he just, just, vanished."

"How could he escape again after I had found him!" Howled the Emperor.

"No, he has not escaped nor met his fate," she whispered. "He is no longer part of the Universe but he did not leave it. The quest for our vengeance will be eternal."

With that she fainted again although she carried on breathing.

"What happened?" asked sonic.

"Psychic feedback from an impossibility will do that to you."

"Were those two hedgehogs really your sons?" asked Bunnie wide eyed now.

"Yes, that is why they are marked with black fur and spines."

Sonic slumped into his chair, Robotnik had gone but who would replace him.

" You will have to find your leader from amongst you." Professed the Emperor. "Tell the guards that you have direct permission to be taken to the planetary surface and released. You have a whole world to rebuild.

Epilogue

The villagers returned to find Robotropolis a smouldering ruin of twisted metal and molten concrete. The forests nearby had incinerated in the vast fires. Most of Knothole was still standing and plants had covered the landing strip already. The Mobians finally realised that they had a Universal Purpose and it was their duty simply to survive…

To be continued?