Emeralds Are Forever

By Pip the Bat

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Copyright.

Sonic, Tails and related characters are copyright to Sega. Serena is copyright to NetRaptor. Used with permission. Spark is copyright to Ace Castle. Used with permission. Pip is copyright to me, Pip the Bat.

This fanfic comes two months after Seeing Red.

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&The sun beat down, prophesising yet another luxurious summer's day. In a clearing in the forest way below, lay Sonic and Serena Hedgehog, taking an early nap.

&Serena yawned and stretched, glancing down at her wristwatch. Another hour left until lunch still, and it was a warm day... She made up her mind. She would walk down to the stream and get a drink from there. It was more fun that way, anyway.

&She got to her feet, careful not to wake Sonic, and began the roundabout half-mile walk to the stream. She had the vague feeling that somebody was watching her all the way along, but whenever she glanced cautiously around, there was definitely not a sole in sight. When she reached the stream, she dropped to her knees and cupped her hands into the water.

&As she was bending down, a sudden pressure came down onto her neck, plunging her head under the water. She tried to call out, but her mouth just filled with water, and struggling was useless as another weight was being applied to her back, preventing her from moving at all. Just as she thought she was about to pass out from lack of air, the pressure from her neck was removed, and yanked her head out quickly, taking in a deep gasp of air.

&But as soon as she had done so, the pressure came again, forcing her head back into the water. Like the time before, she was let up just in time to stop her from drowning.

&"Cut it out, you bully," she spluttered, furiously. The pressure on her neck, thankfully, was not reapplied. Instead, a voice answered her.

&"Why, exactly? I'm having fun."

&She recognised the voice almost immediately. It was Pip, Mecha bot VI, who had left Knothole about two months ago after she had attempted to kill Sonic. Sonic and the others, when they had discussed it at the time, had thought that Pip had decided to become their enemy. She hadn't been totally sure at the time. She was now.

&The pressure on her back was removed also, and she rolled over to face Pip, who was grinning broadly.

&"Drowning people is your idea of fun?" she snapped, glaring back at her.

&"Well, I've never drowned anybody, so how should I know? And I don't want to drown you either. I need your help."

&Serena looked confused. "Why did you attack me then?"

&"Just to show you what might happen if you don't come with me. All you need to do is go to jail, don't pass go, don't collect two hundred cash."

&"What?"

&"Basically, I'm going to kidnap you. So then Sonic will come looking for you. And even if he doesn't, it won't matter, because I've still got you as a hostage. You see, I want to do a little trading for that belt of Sonic's, emeralds included."

&Serena opened her mouth to say something all through this, but at the end she just said: "Why? It wouldn't be any use to you as you are. You know what it did to R.K."

&"Hey, give me credit for some brains. I don't want to use the thing. I just know that without it, Knothole will be less able to defend itself. Then I can put my... Master Plan into operation. I would think of a better name for it, but I might give it away and then I'd ruin the surprise, wouldn't I?"

&Serena didn't reply, but she got to her feet and sprinted away from the robot in one swift move. She hadn't got very far however, before something smashed into her back, knocking her to the ground.

&"I hate to tell you this," came Pip's voice. "But you're going the wrong way."

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&Sonic had woken up and discovered the absence of his sister. This normally wouldn't have worried him, but the patch of grass next to him wasn't even slightly flattened any more. Still, she'd probably got bored and wandered off back to Knothole or some way into the forest. He got to his feet and jogged back to Knothole.

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&It was the next morning, and Serena still hadn't made an appearance. Sonic was quite badly worried by then, but he hadn't told Slasher or anybody because she might have just got back late and gone for an early walk, or any number of other things. And there hadn't been any sightings of the robots or enemies of Knothole recently, which leant another point in favour of the harmless explanations.

&He couldn't help worrying though. He kept wandering restlessly over to the outskirts of Knothole, hoping to see Serena returning. As the day wore on however, he began to wonder if he ought to tell Slasher after all. It had reached midday when he glanced into the forest once more. This time he saw someone, though not his sister. Although he had only glimpsed the figure for a moment, he could have sworn it was Pip.

&He quickly ran over to where he thought he'd seen her. Sure enough, some way off was Pip, hurrying deeper into the forest. Not stopping to think, he followed her carefully at a distance, keeping her in sight but not getting close enough for her to spot him.

&They had gone on like this for a while and had reached a little glade when Pip turned round and looked him straight in the eye. "You're not too bad at follow the leader, are you Sonic?" she said, tilting her head to one side.&Sonic realised with a jolt of surprise that she must have known that he was following her the whole time, probably even planned it that way. "You were taking too long to come after your sister, so I thought I'd better encourage you a little," she added.

&"What have you done to Serena?" Sonic snapped, eyes blazing, taking a stance that would mean he could break into a run at any second. He'd been in a fight with the robot before, and although it had lasted a mere few seconds, he had sustained several painful injuries in the process, a very slight limp in one leg still gave credit to that.

&"Nothing whatsoever. Much," she added, grinning wickedly. "And if you want it to stay that way, I'd suggest coming with me."

&"It won't do her any good if I come or just run off and try to find her."

&"Well, one way she'll die and the other she'll live. But of course, it's your choice. I'll just mention to her that her dear brother just couldn't be bothered to give up his freedom in exchange for her life..."

&"All right, all right," said Sonic testily, still poised to run. "What do you want?"

&"Have you got your emerald belt with you? And if you have and are thinking of using it, I wouldn't advise it. You won't find your sister at all if you do, and as we all know, that'd be a great pity, wouldn't it?" She smirked at him.

&"No, I haven't got it," said Sonic, wishing he'd been wearing it when he'd had the impulse to chase after her. "I could go back to Knothole and get it if you like."

&"I'm not stupid Sonic. If you go back to Knothole you'll return with Slasher and half the village. I've got a strange aversion to great big dinosaurs who don't share my views charging at me at several hundred miles per hour. Which as we all know, means..."

&"I know, I know, Serena gets it. Well what do you want me to do then? Make it suddenly appear in my hand or merely give it a whistle to bring it to heel?"

&"Neither, which reminds me. The whistle, if you please."

&With great reluctance, Sonic handed over the whistle which he usually wore about his neck, which would emit a high pitch sound when blown, alerting Slasher, wherever she was, to the fact that he needed her assistance.

&"Now, since you don't have the belt, I suppose I'll just have to keep you along with Serena and offer you both in exchange for the belt."

&"What good is the belt to you, anyway?" asked Sonic, grudgingly allowing Pip to firmly grip his arm and lead him into another part of the forest.

&"Not a lot. The things is that its good to you, and I don't want a lot of useful things on your side while I'm putting my major Master Plan into action."

&"Which is...?" prompted Sonic, hoping that if she told him and he and Serena managed to escape, they would at least be forewarned against whatever it was.

&"I won't tell you the whole plan," said Pip, giving him the creepy feeling that she'd just read his mind. "But let's just say that it involves the emeralds."

&"The emeralds? But they're in Sapphire City."

&"Were. I've got them now."

&"Did you--" began Sonic, but Pip interrupted him.

&"Did I hurt anyone? No. Oh, wait, I think I broke someone's arm. Oh, and someone else sprained their ankle, but that was indirect as they were running away."

&"And what are you going to do with the emeralds? They badly affect all machinery, so they'd be no good to you either."

&"The idea is, that I get myself used to the emeralds' affects, starting small and ending with the whole bunch."

&"But that isn't how it works..." Sonic said, hopefully.

&"I hate to correct you, but I've been trying it, and it is successful. Little pieces of emerald at a time and then progressing, you see."

&"Little pieces? What did you do to them?"

&"Honey, I Broke the Emeralds," drawled Pip. "But I heard somewhere that they'll merge back together again when joined."

&"And if they don't?"

&"There's always superglue," said Pip, her grin increasing.

&Sonic couldn't think of anything else to say, so they walked on in silence, Sonic in some discomfort; Pip's grip on his arm was very firm indeed. Still, he couldn't help thinking that whatever the Master Plan was, he didn't really want to know it.

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&They reached another clearing after only a few minutes and Sonic saw Serena, tied up and dozing by a tree. The temptation to break free and try and run off with Serena was very strong, but then again, so was Pip's hold on his arm, and he couldn't move.

&The robot whipped out a length of rope and quickly bound him up like Serena, shoving him roughly over towards her. Since his legs were tied up, he fell and landed hard on his face next to her.

&"Wupsie, better be more careful next time," Pip told him. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do." She strode off at a brisk pace into the forest.

&Almost immediately, Serena came to life, managing to give Sonic a quick half smile. "Are you okay?" Sonic asked, manoeuvring himself into a slightly more comfortable position next to his sister. "Did she hurt you?"

&"No, apart from the fact she's forgotten that normal creatures need food to survive, I'm fine. How about you?"

&"Fine too, save the fact I think I've lost the circulation in one arm. Do you know anything about what she's up to? All she told me was that it involved the Chaos Emeralds."

&"I worked that one out a long time ago. When I was first left here, she kept shooting past, smoke pouring out and everything, towards the stream. Then sometime in the middle of the night, she came up to me and proudly showed me that she could hold a whole emerald quarter." She rolled her eyes.

&They were both startled when a voice from behind them said: "Well, if she was proud then, imagine how she is now." They turned round as much as they could, the ropes painfully cutting into their flesh. Pip was standing there, the blue emerald in her hand, evidently having just teleported there. "Isn't this so fun? I think I like this one best." She threw the emerald into the air, catching it perfectly. "Definitely."

&"You didn't take long, did you?" said Sonic, glaring at her, angry that she'd been listening to their conversation.

&"Nope. I can use just about all the emeralds at once now. I suppose I should send your pals at Knothole a note asking for the Emerald Belt in exchange for your safe return. And since I might not be very popular there, I think I'll just have it dropped in on them." She held out one arm. "Sharpeye!" she yelled loudly.

&There was a flap of feathers and a small shape dropped from one of the trees and landed on her outstretched arm. Sonic saw that it was a hawk, one of the few non-talking dumb creatures that still existed on Mobius.

&"Now take this to the village I showed you earlier. Don't actually land, just circle over one of the people there and drop it on them. Preferably the squirrel or the velociraptor. Then, don't fly straight back here. Just meander off somewhere. Now, did you get all of that?" The bird gave a slight nod and took off, the piece of paper Pip had handed it clamped in its beak.

&"There we go," said Pip, cheerfully. "Sharpeye just lives in the area and is nice enough to do me one or two favours every so often. In return for wiping out his enemies. Anyway, I asked them in the letter to leave the belt at a certain place with no tricks otherwise they'd never see you alive again. I think that just about covers it, don't you?"

&"So what have you been doing since you left Knothole?" asked Serena, hoping that Pip would let something of her plan slip. "Tails said you'd mentioned finding the other Mecha bots."

&"I haven't quite got around to it yet. Once I've got this out of the way, I will do though. You know what?" she added, her voice filling with unconcealed contempt. "I heard that at least one of them works for Robotnik. I mean, how sad and desperate is that?"

&"You don't like Robotnik then?"

&"Like him?" Pip sounded horrified. "Don't you know what he did?"

&"And which particular thing out of millions would we be talking about here?" asked Sonic, in a sarcastic tone of voice.

&"About what he did to the bats, of course." Both Sonic and Serena shook their heads. "Well, someone betrayed a group of bats to him, and he captured them. Being totally brainless, he didn't actually know how bats find their way in the dark and everything, so just to see if it was true, he blindfolded the lot of them and sent then to walk through a big complex place, from start to finish. They all did it in record time of course, and he was impressed.

&"But he still didn't know why it was. He thought they might just have pretty amazing eyesight or something so he..." She paused for a second before continuing, disgust emanating from every syllable. "He took out their eyes." Serena felt her stomach lurch and a wave of nausea swept over her. "He sent them through another complex and they still got to the end, just as quick as before, so he decided to find out if it was something else. What he did was cut them open to see if he could find out." Serena had closed her eyes at this point, and Sonic looked as if he was about to throw up.

&"Terrible, isn't it? Of course, if I ever find out who betrayed them, they are going to find themselves hung, drawn and quartered plus just about everything else I can think of on the spur of the moment or with pre-planned malicious thinking."

&"What about Robotnik?" Sonic asked, recovering slightly.

&"Well, I thought you guys were dealing with him," said Pip, matter-of-factly. "Not to say he wouldn't be in big trouble if I ever did meet up with him, of course."

&"Oh." When Sonic looked up again, Pip had gone again. He put an arm round Serena who was looking very ill. Later, at nightfall, he finally dozed off to sleep, only to dream of hollow eyed bats flying in great never ending circles above his head, being commanded by another, robot bat; Pip. When he woke up, sweating with fright, it was to see a green and black furry face close to his own. He almost yelled out, before he realised it was his brother, Spark.

&A crop of the black hair covered part of his face as well as a red band around his head, containing part of the eighth chaos emerald. Straightening up, he saw the rest of his reassuring familiarity; the belt strap holding Spark's knife, the metal arm, the yellow and purple trainers.

&"Spark?" he whispered, still a little drowsy. "What are you doing here?"

&"There was this bird who flew over and dropped a scrap of paper with a ransom note on it right on my head. I figured it might go back to wherever it came from, so I set off after it. It flew around for a bit then settled down on a tree. I thought it must have been told just to deliver the message and go and was about to leave when it flew off again. I followed once more and here I am. Now, I suppose I'd better get you out of those ropes." He brandished his knife and cut through the ropes securing Sonic before moving over and cutting Serena's, who had just started to wake up.

&"Who tied you up, anyway?" asked Spark, as he cut the last of Serena's binding cords. "It didn't say on the paper."

&"It was Pip. She's here and she says she's got a plan of some kind. Let's just hope that by rescuing us you might have ruined the whole thing."

&"I think she said that it didn't really matter whether or not it worked," said Serena, looking a little worried. "Pip has definitely thought the whole thing out."

&"Pip a des sentiments violente. Not to mention extremely annoyed. That's my plan you're spoiling, you know." Pip was standing a few feet away, her icy blue eyes glittering. All three hedgehogs took fighting poses, hoping that they might win through strength in numbers. "Still," Pip continued. "You haven't ruined my Master Plan which I am now going to put into action. Good day." She pivoted round on one foot and walked in the opposite direction from them.

Sonic, who had been expecting a fight, stared in confusement. "Should we follow her?" he asked.

&"Of course. The plan is probably gonna effect us all anyway, so its best to face it rather than go back to Knothole," replied Spark, while Serena, impatient to go, had already started off.

&They ran through the woodland in the direction that Pip had taken. After a few moments, they came out into another clearing that they had never seen before, and in the centre was a huge pedestal, which reminded Sonic strongly of the one in the Master Emerald Chamber on the Floating Island. Except the one there hadn't got creepers and ivy growing over it.

&On the pedestal there were seven grooves, six of which were filled with six of the emeralds. Pip was there, about to drop the last emerald, the blue one, into the final hole. Sonic and Spark started towards her, closely followed by Serena.

&Pip turned round, casually holding the blue emerald still. "You don't give up, do you?" she said, and dropped the blue emerald into the hole. There was a pause then a great flash of blinding white light came from the emeralds, the hedgehogs only just managing to shield their eyes in time. Flames had burst out from the pedestal and now surrounded them, cutting them off from both Pip and escaping.

&Sonic glanced over to where Pip was, tearing his gaze from the inferno around him. She was standing in a ring of flame, something shimmery and see through clasped in her hand. "I have it!" she called triumphantly, holding the object aloft. Seeing Sonic looking at her, she grinned.

&"Ever heard of the Gemstones, Sonic? The three orbs which together hold more power than the chaos emeralds? This," she said, holding out her hand so that Sonic could see what saw in it; a miniature translucent light blue orb. "Is the Gemstone of Hope. It has one or two powers of it's own which should be fun kicking around with. Of course, I don't hope to get all the Gemstones, that would be truly impossible, but to have one should be a great lucky charm."

&So saying, she held it up in the air. "Tell me what it's like to be deep fried hedgehog. Adios, amigos." She glowed white for a moment, then vanished.

&Sonic put all thoughts of the Gemstone and Pip out of his mind, as dangerous combination as the two might be, and tried to concentrate on how they were going to get out of their current situation. He couldn't really see how. Fire on every side, coming closer to them...

&He, Spark and Serena backed towards the middle of unburned ground. Sonic felt a hand slip into his own and he glanced round to see Serena, looking worried but not quite panicking yet.

&Spark, who had been looking at the flames closely for some time, suddenly let out an exclamation and moved towards the flames. Sonic was about to ask what he was doing, when Spark put his hands right through the flames. Sonic stared in horrified surprise. What was his brother doing? But then he noticed what Spark had; the flames didn't burn. Looking down at the ground, he saw that that wasn't burning either. The flames were just... there.

&Serena next to him gave a sigh of relief. They were safe.

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&Tails looked at Sonic. "So... Pip's our enemy now?"

&"Sure looks like it, little buddy. It's just lucky that those flames weren't real, otherwise we'd have been toast. I suppose Pip didn't realise they weren't either. If she had done we really would have been in trouble."

&"But she might have done and just not wanted to hurt you."

&"I doubt it."

&Sighing slightly, Tails leapt off the log. "Guess you're right. I've gotta go and fix some 'plane parts now. See ya later."

&Sonic watched him out of sight before getting up and going to find Serena. "Life goes on," he murmured.

The End