Tails' Point of View

        Bubbles surrounded me on all sides, flowing up to the surface from concealed traps of oxygen that stretched across the rocky ocean floor. Few sea creatures seemed to be about, those present only existing attached to rocks and pebbly mounds—creatures like algae, coral, and anemone. The water, cold and dark, had me thinking that exploring the North Pacific Ocean wasn't the best idea during the winter season. Luckily, I had held onto my scuba gear after the last time me and the gang went deep-sea diving. They provided some warmth and a necessary supply of clean oxygen.

        Switching on my headlamp, I looked around for the dark shapes of my friends. Amy floated not far off. She saw my light and switched hers on, seeking Silver and Blaze while gradually propelling toward me. The time travelers had jumped in after us, and I assumed they might have not yet sunk to the ocean floor. Twisting my body so that I faced upward, I caught sight of the two close together, gazing around at the bubbles in awe. This must be new to them, I thought. I'm almost certain they've never been exploring the ocean.

        Shining my light at them, I watched as they turned on their headlamps and swam my way. When the four of us reunited, I checked the waterproof communicator attached to my wrist. I had synced it with the Tornado III's energy tracker, so the glowing dot that displayed on the screen accurately showed the location of the missing Chaos Emerald. It was near—very near—lying somewhere at the bottom of the ocean. "Follow me, guys," I said into my scuba mask. My friends could hear through the internal radios inside their suits. "The emerald should be right ahead. Keep an eye out for any strange looking rocks."

        "Do you think the emerald could be in there?" asked Silver, pointing at something hidden in the shadowy water.

        I directed my light that way, blue eyes widening at the revelation of an abandoned shipwreck. Checking my communicator again, it indeed showed the emerald to be within the vicinity of the ship. "Y-Yeah, Silver. I think it might be in there." Beating my scuba fins against the water, I surged forward to the ship.

        "The emeralds scatter to the most unusual places," remarked Blaze's voice. I could only imagine how surreal this might feel to her. She and Silver had spent most of their lives in terror and fury, fighting off demonic lava creatures that tore their people and world apart. The ocean was a stark difference from that—calm, cold, and dark.

        "Ew!" cried Amy when we neared the wreck, its dilapidated structure clearly visible. "I mean, shipwrecks are cool and all, but that looks disgusting. What is all that fuzzy stuff?"

        Grinning behind my mask, I swam up to the side of the ship and inspected the growths upon it. "It's not disgusting, Amy, come look. This ship is covered in algae and coral, even barnacles. There seems to be a lot of wildlife surviving here. My guess is that this shipwreck dates back to the early 1800s, when the U.S. first started using the Pacific for trade routes. Isn't that amazing? We might have just discovered one of many ships that are unaccounted for!"

        "It is amazing," said Blaze, interrupting Amy before the pink hedgehog could voice her disagreement. "I think you should mark this location on your map before we leave, so you may find it again. However, though I do enjoy listening in on the history of such strange places, we have an emerald to find."

        My cheeks reddened, and I hoped Blaze couldn't see through the mask. "Right, right," I said, quickly marking our location. "The wreck is small enough that we can split up, but be careful. You never know what creatures might be lurking inside. I'm sure anything we find will be harmless, like an octopus, just prepare to be surprised."

        Everyone nodded, their faces serious, and we swam around the ship in different directions to enter through its numerous holes. As it laid slanted to one side, I gained access into the wreck through the hull. Jagged and sharp protrusions of iron leered at me, which I narrowly avoided. Glad to have my headlamp, as the inner structure of the ship swelled with uneasy darkness, I set to work searching every nook and cranny of the place while trying to avoid gawking too long at all things interesting.

        After half an hour, I didn't see an emerald, or an octopus. Frowning to myself, I questioned over the radio if anyone had found something, gaining negative answers. "Well, there's nothing down in the hull, so that is checked," I said, not wanting to waste time by having someone else search where I had already been. "I'm coming up to the deck. Has anyone looked through the captain's quarters yet?"

        "The three of us are in there now," said Silver. "We're trying to open a door near the back. I think it might be a closet. There's a lot of stuff growing on it, and I think that's causing it to be stuck."

        "Okay," I said, heading out the perforation in the hull and swimming to the top deck. The portal to the captain's quarters was covered in spiky coral, luckily gaping wide so I didn't have to touch it. Seeing that coral, I assumed other doors would be similar. "Be extra careful when handling the door, you don't want to get cut—"

        A pained yelp over the radio caused me to flinch. I pushed myself into the captain's quarters and spotted Silver and Blaze huddled in a corner. Amy hovered close by with a worried expression. "What happened?" I said, propelling myself toward the hedgehog and cat.

        "I'm fine," said Blaze, turning to glance at me. She clutched at her forearm. "It's just a scratch from the door. Silver and I managed to get it open, then my suit caught on something sharp and tore. I apologize for ruining your suit." I shook my head dismissively, shining my lamp down on her arm. Wisps of red drifted in the water.

        "Is it bad?" Amy peeked over my shoulder.

        Furrowing my eyebrows at the seriousness of this predicament, to which Blaze put off as a minor nuisance, I reminded myself of the duty I had to protect my friends. "Even if it's a small wound, she should still leave and get it dealt with. The bacteria on the ship could cause an infection, especially through direct contact from a cut or scratch. Silver, do you mind accompanying Blaze to the surface? There's a first aid kit inside the Tornado III beside the doorway."

        The hedgehog nodded, accepting the suggestion without complaint. Determined as he was to attain the last missing Chaos Emerald, his concern for Blaze overcame that desire. "Keep pressure on your arm," he said to the violet feline. "I'll pull you to the surface." Blaze sighed in disappointment but allowed herself to be led out of the captain's quarters.

        Watching until they left the room safely, I then turned to Amy with a look of encouragement. "She'll be fine. After all Blaze had been through, I'm sure she won't be taken down by a single cut from a shipwreck. I had them leave just for extra precaution. Only if left unattended will injuries as trivial as hers get infected."

        Amy nodded, relieved. She swam next to me, peering through the opened doorway with her headlamp. Like the rest of the ship, it was dark, and the ray of light barely penetrated through that darkness. Adding my own light, which didn't brighten the room much more, the girl and I entered together. As we didn't have a Chaos Emerald on hand, all those we had gathered being left on the plane, the missing jewel couldn't glow as intensely to aid our search. Still, after shuffling around the enclosed area of what seemed to be a storage unit, I whooped out of joy at perceiving the faint outline of our beloved treasure. Shining my lamp down on it, the object most certainly was the purple Chaos Emerald.

        "I got it, Amy," I said, descending to the floor to snatch the colorful rock. Inspecting it closely, the emerald appeared to have no visible flaws whatsoever, despite having been within the confines of a rusty old ship for who-knew-how-long. Smiling beneath my mask, I waved it around in front of the pink hedgehog who had a hard time focusing on it with her dimming headlamp. "Let's go up. Silver and Blaze probably took their suits off, so they don't know we found the emerald yet."

        Taking the lead, and feeling as Amy latched onto one of my flippers as her light completely died, we carefully swam past the coral-coated door and out of the captain's quarters, leaving the wreck behind for the pleasant, orange rays of dusk spreading above the surface. The moment my head broke through the threshold of ocean water, I tore off my scuba mask and took a gulp of fresh, cold air. The oxygen in my tank had been getting stale, I noticed. Because of that, and the fact that Amy's headlamp had died prematurely, I supposed my scuba suits needed a tune-up. They had gone unused for so long, after all, squashed at the bottom of a crate in my workshop.

        From a distance of maybe fifty meters, I saw Silver waving at us through the portal opening of the Tornado III, his shouts quite faint. He didn't seem panicked, only attracting our attention, so I wasn't worried about Blaze being in danger. The large aircraft he was in drifted peacefully over the ocean waves, staying afloat with buoyant water skis. Making sure Amy had arrived at the surface with me and had taken off her mask, I then paddled toward the plane.

        Soon, Amy and I were pulled aboard. I handed the Chaos Emerald to Silver for safekeeping, knowing he would never take his eyes off it. After struggling to peel off the scuba gear that stuck to my flattened and wet fur, I walked the plane aisle to where Blaze sat comfortably, her arm wrapped with bandages. "How is your arm?" I asked, seeing how the dark shade of blood was just barely visible beneath the clean, white fabric.

        The cat lowered her head, ears pinned back in embarrassment. "It was actually worse than I thought. But, Silver knew what to do, and so it is taken care of. I'm mostly upset about tearing your scuba suit—I heard they are expensive in this time, even more so if you had taken the effort to modify them. I am truly sorry, Tails." Though her head was lowered, her golden eyes stayed on mine the whole time she spoke.

        "It's fine, really, Blaze. I found out there are some faults with the suits, so I need to fix them up anyway," I said, making my way toward the cockpit when the Tornado III's door was sealed. The remaining passengers hurried to their seats at the front. I took my place in the pilot seat, lifting my communicator to contact Shadow and Rouge and tell them we had found the purple Chaos Emerald. Rouge responded, saying they had been waiting for some time with their own emerald.

        "That's good you found it so easily," I said, a little jealous that they had no troublesome incidents—from what I knew, at least. "I'm afraid you guys will have a wait even longer for us to get back. From what I remember, it took about three hours to travel from the workshop to the Pacific. You and Shadow can hang out inside if you haven't been doing that already. There's a homier area in the back of the workshop with a couch, fridge, and microwave. I think a TV too, but I'm still tinkering with it, so it might not be in working order."

        "Thanks, hon," replied Rouge. "Take your time getting here. We wouldn't want any accidents, hmm?"

        "No, I guess we wouldn't," I laughed, putting down my wrist and buckling myself in. Making sure everyone else was secured in their seats, I started the plane's engine and skimmed over calm ocean waves before flying off with the sunset at our backs.

        As the evening wore on, changing to night, the stars made their appearance. I stared entranced at the round, full moon rising straight ahead. It looked bigger than it usually did. Wondering at this, I then noticed how quiet the plane had become. Quickly glancing over my shoulder, I saw my friends were half asleep, either lying on each other or against the windows. A small smile reached my lips, and I turned around to resume my responsibility of steering us home.

        In the span of a moment, my sky blue eyes widened and my heart pounded violently.

        The light of the moon had gone, blocked by a dark shadow. I froze, mouth agape, as a serpentine gaze stared back at me, a black and grey-striped creature leaned forward from his crouched position on the nose of the plane. He moved closer, and I was too frightened to speak aloud and alert the others. Shaking in my seat, fingers white-knuckled as I grasped the steering wheel, I sucked in a sharp breath when a deep voice entered my mind.

        "It's too late to save your friends," it said. "Why don't you give up your futile efforts and comfort your people in their last hours? After tonight, when the full moon wanes, the world will no longer be what you now see it as. There is no stopping this change, you can only wait for the inevitable."

        I wanted to say something, to retort back to the demon that we'd overcome and defeat him—but I was utterly petrified. Every inch of my body was frozen beneath his piercing glare.

        "Tails, the plane is tilting!" I heard Silver suddenly call out. Fluttering my eyelids, I looked down at the steering wheel and indeed saw I held it at an angle. Instantly correcting this error, I raised my head to the window to find Mephiles gone. A shuddering breath escaped my chest. Nobody in the plane had witnessed the evil entity's presence except myself. Seeing as he had disappeared without a trace, I didn't want to scare the others after such a stressful day.

        The Tornado III continued to soar, without disturbance, until we reached the workshop at around 9 o'clock in the night. After parking on the runway, I unbuckled myself and raced for the door. "We're only stopping for a few minutes for restroom breaks and to get snacks and water," I said in a hurried voice to those I bypassed. "Afterwards, we need to get to Angel Island as soon as possible."

        "What's wrong? Why do you look so scared?" asked Amy, her voice raising in pitch along with the fear I emanated. I paused with one hand on the door handle, turning to look at her. The hair on the back of my friends' necks bristled uncomfortably when they saw my wide-eyed gaze of terror.

        "We are running out of time."

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