FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

_The ocean roared from all around him, walled off from the inner sanctum that now crumbled within a howling gale that near-deafened him. The jungle remained at his back, dark and mysterious with the most deadly of paths, all of which were now futile for him to take. He held on to the thick wood keeping him afloat, panting as he swam his way back to shore, back to shallow waters as a chance to escape. But he knew the island was sinking. The mountain core at the very inner heart of the island, rising from its own inner lake with a sculpted face like his own, a place he had once revered with such awe and mystery, was now failing. The channelling energy pumping out in blue, white and purple was flickering, failing, beating to its last breath. Even if it had achieved what he now wanted in his mutiny, he mourned for it. Mourned for the ancestral island home. But a greater mourning overtook him as he laid within the shallow reef. He tried to look all over for his friend, the one who disappeared underneath a large boulder. But he was sure that he somehow escaped, somehow he knew, something he saw just before he disappeared. A blue light, harsh and enveloping that remained flickering within the inner lake. He knew that it was not part of the island's death throes, the lights flickering from the energy column up above the mountain was of a far different look than what he saw. He sat upon the reef and wept, torn between dying with the island like many of his kind, or for his friend who could not die with him. It was selfish in the end, but he had no other truths. Everything was lost to him. His heart begged deeper than ever before, pleading for a wish that could reach out to someone, somewhere as his voice whimpered softly. "Please...someone help me...s-someone...help me find mah friend. Lemme die with him. Let me...die with mah heart beside me. I...I can't escape, I know I can't, but I don't wanna die alone...please..." "Be that a promise I hear?" "Wh-who...who's there?!" A voice came from all around him, echoing faintly yet somehow able to be heard above the roaring chaos of the island itself. It was a voice that made his scales shiver, deeper than they ever had been. He knew it had to be a spirit, a darkness flowing from around him as the voice neared him. "I hear there be one of my kind who cannot die without his heart." "Y-yeah...who are you?" "A benefactor, nothing more. The spirit of this place shall never die, not even when all has sunken beneath the seven seas." "R-really? ...oh...n-no, yer...oh Sebek." "HAH, no, not him...but I be the next best thing. Ye plead for parley?" "Why...why you care?" "Ye be of my kindred, we share the same scales as you were born on this island." "I...I wuzn't born on-" "All souls of our kin are born upon this island...you are a son to me as every other shall be. Even the one that abandoned ye for his personal gain." "...is mah captain...dead?" "His corpulent form has not...become corporeal, hmhmhmhm...sadly. But I will not abandon ye. I can help ye. I can help ye find your heart, wherever he may lie." "He...you know where he is?! You know where to find him?!" "He has taken another path, far beyond our reach...but his presence remains, there." His eyes turned towards the strange blue light flickering upon the lake, a strange tear within existence that struggled to close itself. But the island's power was harvesting it, struggling, desperate to absorb all forms of excess energy. "...there?! H-he's in there?!" "Yes. The one whose soul was not from this isle, he has taken leave of ye. But I can help ye find him." "You can?! Oh...oh thank you, thank you spirit, thank you please, anything you want, anything! Just...help me find him please. There's nuthin' left here for me anymore." "As there is nothing for me...we are both agreed. But there is a price to pay should one travel with me." "I don't care. I don't care about anything anymore, just let me find mah friend, so long I see him once before I die, just take me away from this bastard's island!" "Hmhmhmhm...so receptive ye be. Very well...come." A shining grey hook flowed forth from the darkness, followed by a black-cloaked arm. In a show of sympathy, the mortal clasped it with his own hook that replaced his left hand. "Come with me...and I shall find ye your heart." "Yes...I will. I'll find him with you." "Tell me your name...tell me, and I will show ye the way." _

"Kruz..." When James woke up once more, he heard his own lips murmur the name blindly, eyes flickering as darkness greeted him with the sound of ocean waves, lapping at a sandy beach shore. Gulls cried out from above him, as he soon remembered what he was in before feeling around inside the capsule. He felt the lock next to his left hand, twisting it open before kicking the door outwards to be greeted by a pure blue sky. Blinding cyan with patches of fluffy white, squinting upwards as he rolled himself out of the capsule, landing onto soft salty sand. His headache was gone, but his body was rather bruised from the impact. All around him a new smell came to him. Burning metal, charred fuselage, his mind briefly imagining some sort of plane crash occurred here before seeing the wreckage of the space station. Twisted smoking lumps of glass and steel lied all around him, the raptor slowly getting up with unsteady legs before seeing the ocean far beyond. The island that he saw behind him looked familiar, wondering if it was the same one he had first landed on. For a moment, he felt confused as to which island he was on, the dream of his friend flickering still in his memory. "That same dream again...dammit...why do I keep dreaming about Kruz...maybe it's just the...island and...how many friends have I left behind now? ...friends...shit, Scratch?! Grounder?! Where are you?!" He looked to see his jeans were somewhat torn, but they would recover somewhat as he peeked at his boxers through the shreds, hearts dotted all over the white fabric as he nodded to himself. "Right...magic. Heh...that's one worry off my mind...where the hell am I?" He could barely recognise the room that had detached from the Death Egg, but he did recognise the smoking carcass of the Egg Mandrill now lying in ruins, scattering its blackened parts all over the beach. He wandered across the sand, crunching sweetly beneath his claws as he called out again. "SCRAAAAAAATCH! GROUUUUNDEEEEEER! YOU THEEEEERE!?! ...oh no." Eventually he found them, or at least what looked like them. Some yards away from where he had landed, the raptor rushed over to see a broken drill arm left buried in the sand, sticking out like a little green beacon. Then he found the torn-up remnants of a wheeltread not too far from that. Then half of a steel wing. The trail of ruin lead him towards the rest of their bodies. Scratch was now only a head, a burnt torso and one broken arm, twisted out of joint with wires deadened from exposure. Grounder's head was almost bent one way, crippled at a 45-degree angle with only one arm left. His back was open with some of the wires now mangled, as James went down on his knees beside the rooster. "No...no no no no NO! SCRATCH! SCRATCH YOU OKAY!? ANSWER ME! GROUNDER! GROUNDER WAKE UP COME ON!" But he did not respond, his eyes closed with his mouth agape. The raptor had no idea what to do, but fell back on old ideas by putting his ear to the robot's chest. He thought he could hear something breathe very weakly inside, which made him have some hope as he rushed over to Grounder. He couldn't hear anything inside his chest, but his body seemed to remain more intact on the inside than Scratch, the fuses more contained inside of his back. But now he was starting to panic at his two friends seemingly in critical condition. "Oh god...oh god! Wh-what do I do?! WAKE UP YOU FUCKERS COME ON! PLEASE, WAKE UP!" He grabbed Scratch's body and shook it vigorously, tears of fretfulness rising to the surface as he screamed louder at both of them. "WAKE UP! WAKE UP GOD DAMMIT! YOU'RE FUCKING ROBOTS, JUST-POWER ON OR SOMETHING! PLEASE!"

But there was no reply. Not even a stirring of movement. Even if they were not living flesh and bone, the sentiment remained the same for him. He looked around desperately for some sign of life, someone to send help or at least a signal. A few minutes later of searching desperately around the wreckage, he heard something from above. A faint whirring sound that was unmistakeably mechanical. A plane. A red plane slowly hovering above the isle, circling softly on its own path. He didn't care who it was as he stood up screaming. "HEEEEEEEEEEY! HEEEEEEEEEEEY! OVER HEEEEEEEEEERE! HELP US! OVER HERE GOD DAMMIT! ...he can't hear me...FUCK! Okay, okay, maybe I can catch his attention, maybe...yeah, that's it, no way he'll miss that." He ran over towards the larger remnants of the Egg Mandrill and looked inside the wiring for something he could use, digging around until a spark shot up his left arm painfully, a lightning shot that brought searing pain in an instant. "AGH MOTHER_FUCKER! FFFFFUCK!_ FUCK I'LL KILL YOU, I'LL-...wait...WAIT THAT'S IT!" He rushed over towards the ocean carrying a hollow piece of metal, scooped on the inside like it were a bowl as he filled it up with water before heading back towards the livewired mech as he braced himself. "Don't wanna waste my own water, so HERE!" Dumping the whole bucket of seawater straight into the sparked fuses, he dodged back fast as he could until he fell over onto his back, watching the sight of the machine suddenly explode from the inside. Bits of metal flew up into the air, flying shrapnel that he almost panicked at before running away. The blast soon grew with an electrical fire, surging hard upwards into a wreath of smoke, coiling up towards the sky as James dodged away from the blast radius. Once he was far enough away, he waved his arms up towards the plane desperately. Eventually it seemed to slow its path, flying down towards him with a smile coming to James' lips. "YES! YES, OVER HERE, OVER HEEERE!" Backing up to allow the plane space to land, it smoothly whirred to a safe and perfect stop upon an open part of the beach further away from the blast debris. It was a sleek gorgeous red biplane, with silver wingtips and propeller as well as a star in a blue circle upon the tail. James' eyes widened with joy at the name engraved on the side. Sonic. But the one who exited the plane was not a blue hedgehog, but instead an even smaller, disturbingly familiar creature to his eyes. He almost panicked at the sight of the two-tailed yellow fox running towards him, until he noticed the eyes were much more innocent, as well as having a child's voice that piped up towards him.

"Are you alright?! What happened here?!" "Oh thank god, I need help!" "Wh-what's wrong?!" "I just landed here, me and my friends, w-we just crashed on this beach and they need help!" "Huh?! Someone's hurt?!" "Yeah over here!" He brought the young fox over towards the remains of his friends, the little pilot looking rather puzzled yet shocked at their broken parts. "Your...friends are robots?!" "I know just-I dunno if they're okay or not, I think one of them's still breathing but please you gotta help me, get some help or something!" "Lemme look at them!" "Huh?" The fox kneeled down in the sand and gently checked over the two robots, focusing on their torsos more than anything as he rushed back to his plane briefly before carrying out a small toolkit. The raptor was surprised, feeling for once that his luck was turning up as the fox examined the robots using a scanner of some sort. "Are you...some kind of mechanic?" "Kinda!" said the fox. "I'm pretty good at fixing machines, and flying!" "Yeah I uh...noticed with the plane, how old are you?" "Eight." "...wait...you're...a kid?" "Uhhh yeah?" "Huh...are you like one of those child prodigies or something, cuz I never known a kid who could fly a plane." "I've just always known how to fix machines, not sure how, I just understand them better. OH, s-sorry I didn't, um...I didn't even tell you my name, I'm Tails." He shot up a small white hand which James shook softly, more thrown off than anything as well as being worried for his friends. "I'm James...uh...are they...gonna be alright?" "Hmmmm...they've taken a lot of damage, I don't think I can fix them here. We'll have to take them back to my place, that way I got all the tools I need to repair them." "You can really fix up two robots?" "Sure, it's what I do! But we'll have to fly them back, my house is really far away. You wanna come with me?" "Course I do, I'm not leaving my friends." "Good! Just...one problem." "What?" "...my plane only has one seat."

40 minutes later, James walked into the house of the little fox known as Tails while carrying Scratch's body as well as a few other parts. His nerves were shaking to the point that he needed to sit down, desperate to feel the ground below him more firmly than needed. Placing the parts onto a table, he sighed heavily, seeing the house owner come through with the rest of his two friends. The house was little more than an extended cabin, sturdily built from wood and metal with three levels of rooms. The middle section he now sat in was half a living room and half a mechanic's room, the walls lined up with various tools and gadgets ranging from wrenches to gears to sprockets to the odd computer. The floor was covered in old oil stains, but kept relatively clean of any shrapnel or small objects that would otherwise damage any unwary feet of visitors such as him. Two stairs lead upwards and downwards, the upwards stairs glinting with a ray of light from the sun above leading towards an enclosed roof area. It almost took FG's mind off of the past hour that happened, as Tails placed the two robots onto a large table before saying: "There...yanno, for a first-time flyer you took it better than I thought!" "Did you REALLY have to tie me down with ropes on the top of the plane? I thought I was gonna fall off twice, I am never getting on a plane again." "Be glad I didn't do any tricks! If I had more time for fun I would, but only if you wanted to." "...trust me," said FG. "I will never want that." "Heehee! Sorry, I would have used another way believe me, but it would take like hours to have you walk all the way through forests and places just to get to my house." "I know I know just...not exactly the most fun solution, was cold as hell up there, and windy...my eyes kinda hurt a bit." "I was more worried about your friends, they could have really weighed the plane down with its undercarriage!" "Heh, yeah uh...maybe they need more salad." "Hehehehee, you're funny." "...hey, is that really your plane out there?" "Ssssorta," said Tails softly. "It belongs to a friend of mine, but I keep it for him because I know how to fix it." "...is your friend by any chance a blue hedgehog dude?" "Yeah! That's Sonic, you know 'im?!" "Iiiii met him somewhere...higher up than you've ever flown probably." "...wait...waaaaaait a second, you're the-...you're the guys I've been looking for!" "Wait what?!" "YEAH! You were with Sonic up at Eggman's base, right?!" "Hah, yeah we were! He told you?" "He said you were following him out when the whole place was blowing up, but he couldn't find you anywhere! So when he got back down after getting all the birds back safe from the Death Egg Zone, he told me to scout the area for you." "...wow...that's good of him, I have to thank him when I see him." "You might see him later on at sunset, he's looking around the island one more time to make sure there's no one else hurt after that big explosion. How did you even survive it?!" "Honestly, just dumb luck. You find a capsule that's perfect for these situations, you use it. But my friends...they weren't as lucky as I was. They...said they'd be okay being robots and all but..." "Well don't you worry, I can fix 'em! Lemme just get set up here, why don't you tell me what happened up there while I work?" "Uhh...okay then."

Sitting himself comfortably on an old chair, the raptor explained as best and as PG as he could about his adventures with Scratch and Grounder. He cheered himself up by recounting the strange moments he had with the two, their first awkward encounter, his masquerade as an agent of Robotnik to fool them into escaping the scrapyard, their rigorous yet hilarious training montage and everything else that came after. In that time Tails began working away, examing the carapace itself while also repairing the limbs and resetting them back onto their bodies. With a large variety of equipment, some of which was rather dangerous for a child that he used with surprisingly flawless efficiency, he almost had both bots fixed fully on the outside. Grounder however still had no treadwheels, and Scratch was missing an arm, but Tails put down a note of their models to find a fitting replacement set for each of them. James did however omit any details regarding the mysterious doll, not wanting to upset Tails with such an idea as he recalled Scratch saying something about Robotnik attempting psychological warfare. Regardless, by the time he had finished his story reaching right up to meeting Sonic, the two-tailed fox was now ready to begin with the interior wiring, running them through an X-ray scanner first that was specially designed for robot examinations. "So we fell through this floor," continued FG, "and then that stupid monkey came back to deal with us once and for all!" "No way!" said Tails sitting at his computer. "Seriously?! Wow he really must have hated your friends!" "I know right! How did he even catch up with-anyways, we beat him, took a lot out of us but we beat him, and punted his face right off into the stars. But we were heading straight for the planet. Scratch suggested I get in a space capsule that was nearby thankfully and said not to worry about them. Honestly I've no idea how they managed to survive." "It's a miracle for sure, Doctor Eggman's not exactly the best scientist out there, but he does make some incredibly durable stuff." "Yeah...hey, I was wondering something, how did Sonic survive in space?! Where did you pick him up even?!" "OH, he didn't tell you about the Chaos Emeralds?!" "...wait, emeralds? Scratch mentioned something about those back in the underground ruins but...no he didn't." "Well, maybe he can explain it better, I don't know everything about them yet. ...oh...oh no." "Wh-what, what is it?" "...I...I have some bad news about your friends." James stood up fast and stepped close towards Tails' side, the little fox turning towards him on his soft swivel chair with uncertain eyes. "They...their power source is dying." "...wh-what?" "Their...power source. It's going to die soon." "...heh, w-w-well that's easy, you just plug them into a battery or something to recharge right?" "Uh...n-no it's not like that. See...they're badniks. You don't...know about what's in them?" "Wh-...what do you mean?"

Tails sighed heavily as he walked over towards both patients, carefully opening up the chest unit of each to reveal something James had never seen before. Pulsating within a small cluster of wires and flashing lights, was a small bundle of feathers inside a small glass capsule within Scratch's chest. A little blue bird, breathing weakly. Grounder likewise had a tiny grey mole, its claws struggling to scrape against the glass with frail small eyes. James at first did not understand what they were, as Tails slowly opened the glass capsule and brought the creatures out, softly putting them aside on a clean bundle of cloth within a small incubator to give them warmth and protection. "Wha...wh-what the hell is this?" "Batteries," said Tails. "That's how Eggman keeps his robots alive. That's why he's been kidnapping animals all over the place. So he can use them like...like they were just power sources for them. And when one battery's all...dried up he...he can just take another one and put it into one of his badniks." "...no. ...n-n-no." "You really didn't know?" "I-i-i just...they never told me, I...they never said anything, neither of them said anything! I-...wait...wait are they in every badnik?" "Mmhmm." "...that's it. That's what Sonic meant back on the station." "Huh?" "All those birds suddenly appearing out of nowhere...when he broke all those wasp things. God dammit. But...but what if-" "I'm sorry James. The only way these two can come back is if they had another power source and...I can't do that. I'm not gonna help you put an animal inside of them." "Wha-n-no, I'd never-I...I'd never ask you to do that!" "Wha?!" "This is sick! What kind of doctor is this guy who thinks he can just take a living thing and put it inside a body like that?! Just...trapped inside of something just for...just for his own purposes." "I don't know," said Tails sadly. "He's a twisted selfish evil person, all he cares about is being the most powerful ruler in the entire world, maybe the whole galaxy! And Sonic...he's the only one that can stop him. The only one that ever stopped him before, and managed to stop him again here!" "...I see. But...if you knew they were badniks and all...then why did you offer to help me fix them if you...weren't gonna give them a new power source?" "I was...kinda hoping they WEREN'T badniks, but the more you told me and the more I analysed them I...I knew that they were." "So...if those animals were still healthy and my...friends were able to wake up...would you have freed them? Turn off my friends forever just so those little animals could live?" "I...I-i-i..." The little fox looked towards the floor, his shyness overpowering him as he murmured to himself. Struggling not to answer, yet knowing what he would say would exactly be what James did not want to hear, he said nothing for a short time until the raptor sighed behind him. "Hhhhhh...I'm sorry. That's not fair for me to ask you. Is that why you're with Sonic? Because you want to save these animals from...from them?" "M-maybe...I just...I've never known anyone like him before. I feel...I feel we could be the best of friends you know? Like, he doesn't know anyone, he's always been on his own until I met him, until I helped him fix his plane and now he's off fighting Eggman! He...I can't be a hero like he is. But..."

He hopped off his chair with a resolved stance, proudly looking up towards James saying: "I can help him. And I can help those animals too. Until he came along I, I never felt confident enough to go talk to people, o-or fix things for other people and show how useful I really am! And I want to help your friends too." "Can you? Please, Tails, they haven't done anything, they never caught a single animal they told me themselves they were too stupid to do it! All they did was clean stuff, do odd chores for Robotnik, that's all! They don't deserve this. After all those months rotting away in a scrapyard, I don't want them to be left cold and rusted on an operating table. Please...there has to be some way to make them wake up again." "...there might be..." "Huh?" Tails walked over towards his computer once again and typed in various ideas into his database, a plethora of charts and factuals about the inner workings of machinery all across the island. A minute or two later, he turned towards FG with a proposition and a long strange-looking yellow rod, with a large steam pressure gauge at the base of its hilt. "Take this. It's a Power Barometer, I use it to try and find energy outputs in certain areas for my research. It's pretty slim that you might even find one item out there with enough power to charge a robot, let alone two. That might be a way to help them come back again with a new power source." "What does this thing do?" asked FG. "The Power Barometer measures energy wavelengths that are emitted by certain things, calculating the potential voltage and amperage that each wavelength resonates, both in strength and frequency, before calculating both up together into a well-rounded kilowatt to the nearest tenth number! Generators, natural resonance stones, anything that has a wavelength of energy'll get it going. Chaos Emeralds shoot that thing all the way up to maximum especially." James blinked his eyes slowly at the small lecture he had just been given, holding the barometer as if was an unlit stick of dynamite. Tails blushed slightly while rubbing his neck at having lost the adult on his speech, adding: "Just go out there and find something that hits between one-hundred and one-hundred-twenty kilowatts. Anything more than that'll just be too much to contain for one of Eggman's creations." "Uh...alright...think I could find two of those emerald things for my friends maybe?" "I doubt it," replied Tails. "Those things are way too powerful to contain inside one badnik, they'd just explode from the sheer pressure of it! I've been trying to think of ways to control their energy myself, and I'm pretty sure Eggman was too." "Hmmm...alright, it's not much but I appreciate it. Thanks Tails. ...I'm sorry about...are those animals going to be okay?" "They will be. I got some medicine here to help them, and food too. Oh, before you go, remember to turn on the barometer by pressing the button at the centre of the steam gauge." "You mean this?"

The moment he pressed the button, the barometer shrieked with a blast of power when FG tried to put it in his satchel, nearly dropping the thing with a fumbling of hands at its psychotic squeal. "JESUS!" "WOAH! Wh-what was that?!" "I-I DUNNO, I just turned it on and it just went crazy on me!" "Wait...what's it reading on the energy gauge?" "Uh...two-hundred-fifty." "WHAT!? But that...that...what could be in this place to even make that much power?!" "I dunno, you made this thing!" "Check it again, wave it around the place!" James did so as he moved the barometer around like a geiger counter, scanning the area as it constantly hummed at a whirring pitch to indicate something was nearby. After a while of searching the air, nothing came until it shrieked out once more when he put it to his side. "D-DAMMIT it keeps doing that!" "STOP!" said Tails. "Hold it at your side, slowly!" "Huh? ...okay." Doing as Tails asked, he gently moved the device towards his side as it slowly picked up the signal, rising in pitch towards a squeaking cry of excitement. Right next to his satchel. James realised this as did Tails who walked over to him. "Is there something in your bag?" "I...I dunno what could be causing it, there's nothing in it that'd make it react like that!" "Well something is, so, could you take out everything in it first? I'm really curious now as to what's causing it." "Wellll alright then." Finding an open tablespot, he put down all of his items and lined them up neatly before Tails. Scanning over each and every one of his strange items, the barometer only reacted once more the closer it moved towards one special object in particular. Or two, rather. Hovering over the two strange darkened sigil stones, the sound of static joy came to their ears once again, the raptor looking rather amazed by the response. "The...wait...waaaaaaaaaait a minute. Oh my god those could work." "Huh?" asked Tails. "What are they?" "These are sigil stones! They...they're like these mystical orbs that...I guess they can like enchant stuff or something? But I know they have a lot of power, powerful enough to be like their own generator!" "Really?! That sounds perfect!" "God I totally forgot about these things, I even have two this is perfect! We can bring my friends back!" "We won't need to hurt anymore animals!" "I KNOW THIS IS AWESOME!" "How do you activate them?!" "THAT...I don't know!" "Well let me have them and I'll fix them up for ya in a jiffy!"

With renewed spirit they went to work, the raptor giving over his unusual stones while Tails began studying them fervently, analysing every single scratch and nick upon its odd smooth surface. The spheres were definitely resonating with power, power that most mortals would not even feel by holding it alone. He ran them through every examination he could, placing it on a pod-shaped scanner right next to his computer as he worked away. Geologically they were a fascinating find, as he begged to ask: "Where did you even FIND these?!" "Somewhere far away," said FG vaguely, "can't quite remember the name of the area." "Was it like an island?" "Uhhhh more like a tower of some sort. I know for a fact they didn't come from that tower though, they come from another place definitely." "Hmmmm...extra-terrestrial origin, maybe it's part of a meteor!" "Hah, yeah uh might be!" "But I've never seen anything like this! This rock is geographically unlike anything from this island, maybe even from this world!" "...yeah, it has to be a meteor then. You think it'll work even?" "It's got to," said Tails, "I mean it has a great energy output, you could put this into anything and it would work long as you know how to draw out its power!" "Really?" "Yeah, I bet it might even work in my plane! It seems to just be dormant, but I'm sure I can make it light up. Lemme just put it in the test dummy." "Alrighty...wait, test dummy?" "Yeah, I use it to test new power sources so that they have the capabilities to power up a machine." Tails walked over towards a very simple-looking metal dummy off in the corner, a trash-built creation without a face even on its blank head, more like a mannequin than anything else. "Don't worry, he doesn't do anything. No actual abilities or even a CPU, just really there as a containment unit to test out any new power sources I have." "And how does it work exactly?" asked FG. "Simple! If it doesn't blow up, it's good to go!" "...why would it blow up if it-" "Readyyyyy!" He popped the sigil stone into the pale robot and began to turn it on. With a few wires connected here and there, the new power source in the form of a sigil stone was placed squarely into the dummy's chest, fixing it up with a few activating wires and somehow managing to turn on the sigil stone itself. The raptor was amazed at seeing it come to life, a dark glowing ball of energy shining with an infernal light. Faint memories of oblivion came to him, ones that made him shudder as the light began growing, as well as the noise of resonating power. "It's working!" said Tails. "I think it's working!" "How did you even activate it?!" "Simple! I just tweaked the resonance field with a few things, make it feed into the wires like a pseudo-geothermal effect, yanno, exothermic!" "...right, sure!"

The sphere was somehow feeding its energy into the wires all around it, channelling power throughout every single vein and nerve of the machine as it sparked itself to life. But it wasn't truly alive, merely reacting to the twitching of electricity that shocked its joints into action, contracting and expanding rhythmically. So far it seemed to work perfectly fine. But then the light grew bigger, as it started to blind both Tails and FG followed by a high-pitched whirring emanating from the robot. Tails started to panic, shouting: "UH OH, THIS ISN'T GOOD!" "WHAT?!" said FG. "THE STONE'S NOT STOPPING, IT'S CREATING A MASS EFFECT!" "WHAT THE HELL'S THAT MEAN?!" "YOU KNOW, LIKE A GROWING MASS THAT CAUSES SECONDARY EFFECTS IN THE VICINITY OF ITS-...LOOK OUT!" Tails ducked under a table while FG hid behind it following, as the robot dummy began shrieking through its wiring within an all-encompassing light of the nether realm. What followed after was a mighty explosion, big enough to send pieces of the test subject all over the laboratory, smashing against walls and tool racks causing a cluttering avalanche of various pieces. Despite the clear destruction of his dummy, Tails simply rubbed his neck sheepishly, nervous about how his guest would react as FG said: "Wh-what the hell happened?!" "Um...so, good news and bad news. Your sigil stone? Works great for a robot generator! Bad news? It...kinda can't be controlled on its own." "Wait, what?" "Sometimes, energy sources can expand a lot naturally, like say you have a generator. You have countermeasures on it to stop it from overloading or overheating right?" "Right, yeah, that makes sense." "Well these things don't, not natural sources even though some of them can be naturally restrained by their own limitations. But the two stones here, they don't know how to contain themselves properly, all they do is just expand expand expand, until it takes over something completely! And if that something is a containment unit like what robots might have...that's just gonna blow up eventually." "So...you're telling me that these sigil stones just can't work. Like, at all?" "I...well..." "DAMMIT!" James slammed his fist on the table. "I thought for ONCE things would be going my way, just ONCE I could have something work out perfectly ffffrickin' fine, and I don't have to worry about leaving friends behind again! But no, it just HAD to blow up, it just couldn't play nice and contain itself or something instead of creating a mass effect or-....NNNGH!" "Woah, you alright?!" "Y-yeah...I just...hnnngh...great. Just great." "What's wrong?" "I just...never mind." Just another fucking keyword making my head hurt, thought James, not like I even have a reason to stay here anymore, now my brain is practically begging me to leave.

"If only there was a way to contain it," replied Tails, "then we'd be in business...we just need some form of technology that could-wait." "Huh?" "Waaaait a second...I think...I think maybe Eggman was onto something." "What are you on about now?" "I-i-i remember something! Back when me and Sonic were starting out, on our journey to fight Eggman, I remember him mentioning he was trying to control the Chaos Emeralds, but they were too powerful!" "Right, you said they were like immensely powerful or some shhhh-thing." "Uh...yeah, so, he must have made something that ATTEMPTED to control their power, like restrain it even! If we just knew what kinda stuff he made, we MIGHT have an idea!" "Why something he made? Can't you make something?" "I dunno how long it would take, plus I haven't studied the Chaos Emeralds anywhere near as long as he has. I may be pretty good at fixing things, but Eggman DID build an entire space station up above and everything. He planned all this stuff way in advance!" "That is true," murmured FG, "but still...maybe in one of the places where his machines are there might be something." "Possibly, but searching through them would take too long, and I gotta do other things like looking after these animals, or helping Sonic." "Hmmm...so...you need to find a way to know where parts of a machine or something, are sent to exactly?" "Mmhmm! If we had something to narrow down the search, like maybe some sort of list, o-o-or a scrapyard inventory, or-" "A shipping manifest..." "Yeah!" "...I got it." "Huh?" James smiled wide with a sudden realisation, as he turned towards Tails with excitement. "I've got it!" "Wh-what is it?!" "...I can't believe I'm saying this but, let's get back on that plane!" "Wh-where we going?!" "I know where we can find something that might tell us where those parts are! But I need your help since I'm sure it's far away." "S-sure! Um, lemme just leave a message for Sonic here and I'll get the Tornado ready." "Awesome!" The two high-fived each other with excitement as Tails rushed off to make a note to leave for Sonic, making sure that the weakened animals were recuperating in their recovery unit until then. James looked out the door at the red biplane, biting his lip nervously. "...why can't there be two seats on that damn plane?"