Chapter 2: First Encounter

"OH HELP, HELP!" came the cry, not a hundred feet away from where Sonic was standing along with Tails, Geoffrey St. John, Wombat Stu, Chris, and Justin.  A horrified looking female beaver came running out of the forest.  "OH PLEASE HELP ME!"

"Slow down ma'am, what's the problem?" Geoffrey asked.

"It was horrible, oh no oh no,"

"What are you talking about?"

"This... this thing came out of the brushes and grabbed my friend Dian!  Please help!"

"What thing?" said Chris.

"A... a... robot!  It took her!  Oh please help!"

"Sounds like the work of Robuttnik," claimed Sonic.

"C-come to th-think of it, it l-looked just-t like you, exc-cept it was a r-r-obot," the beaver pointed to Sonic.

"Sounds like another Mecha-Sonic created by Robotnik," Tails corrected.

Geoffrey tried to comfort the terrified beaver.  A few minutes later, the beaver led them to the spot where her friend had been kidnapped.

St. John started, "Ok team lets spit up.  Stu, take our friend here back to the village.  Sonic, you and Tails that way, Chris go right, Justin left, and I'll take this way," he said as he walked off in a particular direction.  Wombat Stu nodded and led the beaver to Knothole while the rest of the group spit off.

"Well, lets see," Sonic said," I don't see any sign of movement, or is there any tracks."

"Over here, Sonic!" Tails yelled.  He pointed to a large path that looked as if brush had been torn away.

"Good work, little guy, lets follow it."

At the same time, Geoffrey was investigating some footprints in the mud.

"Made by machine no doubt," he thought as he loaded his arm-mounted bow, " and they lead through these bushes, right to..." he never finished.  Something had snuck up from behind him and hit the skunk on the head.  St. John fell to the ground unconscious.

Justin gripped his P-10 assault rifle tightly, listening for any movement in the area around him.  There was a rustle from behind.  He turned just in time to see a humanoid figure lunge for him.  Justin dodged and opened fire with about a dozen rounds before it the thing could get up to attack him.  He had aimed for the head, hoping that the programming was housed there, but the robot was incredibly fast, and Justin had only managed to hit its arm.  Firing the rest of the clip at the blur, Justin threw the useless weapon down and reached for his Colt .45 automatic, but the thing was gone.

"Its got to be around here somewhere," Chris said to himself as he floated down a path of cleared away brush.  The path looked reasonably new, like it had been torn only an hour ago.  He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, but stood his ground.  Then, in the period of two seconds, Chris drew the psionic blades, turned, and sliced.  Nothing but air.  'Funny, I coulda sworn it was here.'  Chris sensed something behind him, and fortunately sidestepped a laser blast from an arm-mounted laser on the mech.  He spun and sliced the 'bot's damaged arm off, then did a stab right through the head.  The Mecha-Sonic then crumpled to a heap and its eyes lost their glow.

Sonic and Tails had their own problem.  The tracks they had found led to a cave with some sort of metal bars on the front, and inside there was the beaver's lost friend and several other animals.

"Obviously 'Buttnik intended to roboticize these critters," Sonic said ad he looked for some sort of latch to open it up.  "There's gotta be a way, there's gotta be a way," he thought out loud, "got it!  Stand back!  I'm gonna use my triple-S-spin to open these bars.  Sonic whirred into a blue buzz saw and cut the bars like a hot knife through butter.

"Whew, Thanks!  I thought I'd never get out of their," said one of the creatures.

"Hey!" Tails said to the beaver, "Your friend has been looking for you."

"Oh, you must mean the other beaver I was with when that robot snatched me away,"

"Yeah, that's the one."

"Oh, she must be worried sick!"  Do you know where she is?"

"You don't have to worry, she's safely back in Knothole," Sonic confirmed  as he and Tails led Dian back to Knothole.

A few minutes later, the two beaver friends were chatting again as they both walked from Knothole Village back into the Great Forest.

"Princess!  I've been looking all over for you!" Rotor was saying between breaths as he finished running.

"What is it?  Is something wrong?" Sally replied as Rotor caught his breath.

"Remember when you," he pointed to Sonic, "said that the staff Dimitri was using against Tails the other day looked like the one Mammoth Mogul had?  Well, after that, I was curious and decided to contact Knuckles.  Not only to tell him about Enerjak, but also about the staff."

"So what did he say?"
"He seemed curious, so he said that he would contact us back and tell us.  Knux should be call-," Rotor was interrupted by a loud beeping noise coming from his hut where he worked on various inventions.  He ran into the wood-built house and could be heard approving and asking different things on the subject of the staff.  A few minutes later, Rotor came out of the hut, looking confused.

"What's up, big guy?" Sonic asked.

"I don't understand it all, but I think Knux wants you and Tails to go to the Island to meet him, and that he has something important to inform you about!"

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