As we flew above Chemical Plant, I kept my gaze downward and searched for any sign of Eggman's base. Unfortunately, most of Chemical Plant was composed of twisting pipes and some blue toxic sludge that had flooded the area for ages at this point. The only thing that seemed different was that there were some strange mechanical creatures rolling around, which I assumed Eggman had built.

"See anything yet?" Tails asked.

"No, not yet." I replied. Then I saw the Eggman symbol and exclaimed, "WAIT!"

Tails hit the brakes on the Tornado and Cream and Cheese both stopped moving forward to look at me.

"Look," I said pointing. Everyone looked down to see the Eggman symbol painted onto a metal dome. Against the pipes and other industrial buildings, it didn't look very out of place. Perhaps that was why he had chosen to build his base in Chemical Plant.

"Good catch." Tails said. He swooped down and stopped just barely above the dome. I hopped out of the Tornado as Cream gently lowered herself down.

As soon I was out of the Tornado, however, Tails began to fly off.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"To land this somewhere more discreet. Landing it here will draw too much attention to ourselves." Tails said. "I'll catch up with you later." And with that, he flew off.

"Be careful," Cream said to the departing aircraft. Then she turned to me. "So how are we going to get in there?"

I summoned my Piko Piko hammer and looked at her. "With this."

"Amy, this is metal we're talking about—"

One hit.

"—it would take ages for your hammer to break through that—"

Two hits.

"—and we don't have that kind of time—"

Three hits.

"—you want to save Sonic, don't you?"

The piece of metal I'd been smashing at clamoured to the ground with a bang. I looked up at Cream and raised an eyebrow. "You were saying?" I asked.

Cream, who was gaping at the whole I just made, regained composure and shook her head. "Never mind." She said.

I smirked at her, and looked down through the hole. The smirk on my face vanished.

There was Eggman, Orbot, and Cubot, all staring up at me. And in between them was Sonic, strapped down to a table and also staring up at me. There were bruises on various parts of his body, some purple and others blue. A cut spread across his lips, and he appeared to have a black eye, judging by its swolleness and purple rim.

"Oh no," I said, putting a hand to my mouth. "Oh no."

Author's Note: Yes, I am aware that this chapter is extremely short, and I'm sorry for that. It's just that it's getting increasingly harder to write chapters for this story, which is why I'm considering putting it on hiatus. Key word: CONSIDERING. I'm really sorry, but I'm starting to lose my inspiration. If I'm unable to write a chapter next week, this is going on hiatus. I'll come back to it in three months and if I still can't write a chapter, I'll either cancel it or put it up for adoption. I would really appreciate if you would understand. Once again, I'm sorry for the really short chapter.