"Miles, prepare the subatomic nanostimulant fluctuator. There is no room for error, even if you and I are the only ones who know of Project Bloodstream." Stormez said, walking over to an equation on a notepad and beginning to make last minute calculations. He paused for a moment to glance worriedly through the lab window to make sure a certain Echidna wasn't looking in, and then continued to calculate the equations so nothing would go wrong.<br/><br/>The green one-tailed fox simply rolled his eyes and asked "Stormez, you and I both know your IQ, right?"<br/><br/>"What's your point, Miles?" Stormez shot back absentmindedly, a little annoyed at the question.<br/><br/>"Since it is higher than anyone we know, and we both know you've never made a miscalculation in your entire life, I don't see any reason to be so worried about mistakes." Miles said, completely confident in his mentor's abilities. Stormez turned to Miles, scowled, and said flatly, "My IQ is 298, and I'm not worried about mistakes, Miles. I'm afraid of the blue echidna that could kill me for this, who happens to be standing ten feet away from this building."<br/><br/>At this point Miles ran over to the window and exclaimed worriedly, "He's not standing there anymore, he's walking towards the door, and he looks mad."<br/><br/>Stormez panicked, and for the first time in his life he rushed his last calculation and fled into the next room yelling "Stall him Miles!"<br/><br/>~~~~<br/><br/>As Stormez entered the adjacent room he looked over at the transparent blue life form in the specially created handcuffs, who just sat there staring at him in fear.<br/><br/>"It wasn't you, was it?" Stormez asked calmly. The creature said something, but before he could finish his sentence, Stormez held up his hand and sighed. "I can't speak that language, Chaos. A simple head nod will do for now." Suddenly Chaos stood up and walked toward him. About two feet away he dropped to his knees, quivering. Stormez looked him over and took out his notes on Chaos looking them over carefully.<br/><br/>"From what I gather this is how Chaos Beings show sadness." he said more for himself than a need to say anything at all.<br/><br/>What happened next shocked him. Chaos looked at him, still shivering and nodded, then said the only English thing Stormez had ever heard him say. "Wife did it."<br/><br/>After the initial shock was gone he joyfully exclaimed "I knew it. Now the personality differences at the sightings make sense!" Chaos looked at the scientist curiously as Stormez took out a notebook and wrote something down.<br/><br/>"Now then, down to business. Project Bloodstream can't be put off any longer."<br/><br/>He took a syringe from his lab coat and began to approach Chaos, who immediately backed away. Stormez stopped his approach.<br/><br/>"Why are you afraid of a needle when only two things can hurt you?" The response he got didn't surprise him.<br/><br/>"Fire inside." The creature said, still struggling.<br/><br/>"Fine, as long as you cooperate." he stated, putting the syringe away and taking out an empty one. "Get in." he said forcing the empty syringe into Chaos' shoulder.<br/><br/>Chaos simply pointed at his head and said "Won't fit."<br/><br/>"The blue fluid will and you can use mine. Problem solved." Stormez said, smiling. Chaos looked thoughtful and finally said "Host?" at which point Stormez exclaimed "Progress is made!"<br/><br/>Chaos got into the syringe leaving his brain and spine behind.<br/><br/>About a second later the door was punched down, and an all too familiar voice boomed "Where is he? Where is that transparent blue emerald sucking parasite?"<br/><br/>Stormez quickly stuffed the syringe in his pocket, not wanting Knuckles to notice, forgetting about Chaos' "brain."<br/><br/>Knuckles saw the metal organisms and bellowed in anger, "You replicated its insides? Do you have any Idea what would happen if there was more than one of them?"<br/><br/>Stormez just smiled. "Don't you mean more than two?" he asked.<br/><br/>Knuckles looked at him, first angry, then confused. "What do you mean two?" Knuckles asked cautiously.<br/><br/>"Glad you asked Knuckles. You see Chaos' bones and brain on the floor there because his wife is the one who killed those Mosadians. He's innocent and you're tracking the wrong emerald thief. Oh, and before I forget," He said smiling, "If you call us a parasite again, I'll murder you."<br/><br/>"What do you mean us?" Knuckles demanded, knowing that the wolf wasn't even strong enough to defend his own life, let alone murder someone.<br/><br/>Stormez simply took out the syringe full of Chaos and smiled as he stabbed himself in the eye and said, "You can't stop progress." Knuckles looked horrified as the left pupil, which he hadn't stabbed, turned bright red and the other pupil vanished altogether, leaving a yellow scar down the length of the eye.<br/><br/>As he took out the needle Knuckles remembered the color of the liquid in the syringe and gasped, "You injected yourself with chaos fluid?"<br/><br/>Before Stormez could answer him he suddenly clutched his chest and head screaming in pain. Miles rushed in and saw Stormez lying there looking at no one in particular pleading for them to stop the pain.<br/><br/>Suddenly as if out of Stormez's own mouth they heard the English voice of Chaos say "Progress."<br/><br/>Knuckles was still frozen in shock, but managed to get his thoughts together to turn to Miles. "You knew didn't you?"<br/><br/>Stormez turned and with difficulty said, "O-of c-c-course he knew." His voice seemed to change back to Chaos'. "He's the one who trapped ME!" Then Stormez let out one last painful bloodcurdling scream and fell to the floor unconscious.<br/><br/>~~~~~~TIMESKIP~~~~~~~<br/><br/>When he woke up, he was surrounded by the Mosadia police force with guns pointed at nearly every inch of his body and Knuckles was standing in the corner looking angry. He stood up without a word and reached into his lab coat.<br/><br/>"Don't move Professor, or we shoot you so full of holes that your own mother won't recognize you!" the leader of the squad barked.<br/><br/>"While I'm sure that is your version of a threat." The wolf chuckled,"I am simply handing over my notes on my latest project to the only one in the room who doesn't seem to have a death wish." Then he took out a notebook and walked straight up to Knuckles while the police followed his every move. He held the book up towards Knuckles, who snarled, grabbing him around the neck with one hand and punched him in the stomach so hard that he flew across the room and crashed into the wall.<br/><br/>Knuckles turned toward the police squad and shouted angrily, "Thanks for the backup, but I don't need it!"<br/><br/>They were gone in a matter of seconds, because everyone on Mosadia knew not to mess with Knuckles when he was angry. Miles ran in and saw what Knuckles had done. As he rushed over to pick up his friend, he asked "Stormez! Are you ok? We've got to get you to a hospital!"<br/><br/>"Get back Miles. Knuckles is the one who will need a hospital after we're done here." He turned to Knuckles, wincing in pain as he did so, and said darkly "Apparently you do want to die, so let's take this outside shall we."<br/><br/>"What's the point? I mean look at you, you can barely walk." Knuckles scoffed.<br/><br/>Stormez just smiled and turned to Miles, "Vial A63," he wheezed.<br/><br/>Miles reached up and grabbed a tube full of blue and green liquid. He then took a syringe and injected a small amount of the liquid into Stormez's shoulder. Knuckles gasped as Stormez simply stood up and, after taking the tube of liquid and putting it in his lab coat, walked outside and yelled "Come on Knuckles, are you really afraid of a scientific breakthrough?"<br/><br/>"You are NOT a breakthrough! You're a parasitic emerald devouring heathen in a madman's body!" the echidna bellowed as he ran out and punched Stormez so hard that he was embedded in the brick of the adjacent house.<br/><br/>Knuckles chuckled "Is that all you can do? Get punched and heal yourself? If that's it, then I'll just punch you into a jail cell."<br/><br/>Knuckles ran up to the house Stormez was lying against, but stopped in shock when he saw him laughing. "This guy must have been driven insane by what he did to himself." he muttered<br/><br/>Knuckles was suddenly grabbed by Stormez, who was still laughing. "You really haven't gotten it figured out yet, have you?" He suddenly turned deadly serious and leaned toward the echidna, then whispered in his ear in Chaos' voice "Host only able to kill if host gets hurt. In other words," his voice reverted to Stormez's, "My pain is about to be yours."<br/><br/>Knuckles looked him over, realizing that he was near death after he heard the short forced breaths. "You're bluffing!" He said. He turned to walk away, then turned back around and said sternly "I'll have a police task force come incinerate what's left of you when you're dead."<br/><br/>"NO ONE will dare incinerate me or anyone I find as a friend!"Stormez somehow screamed with both voices at once, one was angry and one was simply stating facts, but it was too hard to tell which one was which.<br/><br/>Knuckles opened his mouth to say something, but before he could get even a word out, Stormez held up his hand yelled in both voices "Feel OUR pain!"<br/><br/>To the on looking crowd's shock and horror a bolt of lightning shot out of Stormez's hand and Knuckles was struck to the ground. Then Stormez injected himself with the special chemicals he carried, immediately healing all of his wounds. Miles, who had been observing from the sidelines, slowly and fearfully walked up to Stormez. Trembling, he glanced down at Knuckles then back at Stormez.<br/><br/>"Is he dead?" he asked.<br/><br/>Stormez seemed to notice the terror in his colleague's voice and said in a forced calm tone, "Call the town hospital within the next three minutes and he'll be alright."<br/><br/>He turned to leave, but Miles stopped him. "Where are you going? You need to help Knuckles recover."<br/><br/>"If I stay here to help I'll get thrown in jail. Do you really think I want to spend my life in a cell? And imagine how many people will either get killed or hurt trying to apprehend me, so don't try and follow me."<br/><br/>Stormez turned to walk away again after this limited explanation, but Miles wasn't having any of that, and said in a no-nonsense voice, "You're hiding something from me. Don't lie, because I'll know if you do."<br/><br/>Stormez seemed to be deep in thought for about a minute. "I'm going to find my wife," he finally said.<br/><br/>"But you're not even married. How can you have a wife?" Miles asked in a demanding tone.<br/><br/>"Read the notes in this," He handed Miles a notebook. "Oh, and If you follow me, you will become a casualty." He was suddenly inches from Miles' face speaking in Chaos voice as the scar on his eye opened up revealing a glowing yellow sphere "Got it?"<br/><br/>The scar closed itself as Miles simply gulped and nodded. The ambulance showed up ten minutes later, and although they found out from the surrounding Mosadians that the wolf was responsible, when they went to his lab to arrest him, the doors and windows had been covered in a metal barrier that, despite everything they did, could only be opened from the inside.<br/><br/>Miles was in the lab reading the notes that Stormez had given him when he came across the one thing that had been intended for him to notice. It was in code so that no one else could understand and when he deciphered it he understood why.<br/><br/>'Chaos has a wife, calculations were rushed, use emergency last resort Alpha 78 and go to location zero sixty one no matter what I have said to you.'<br/><br/>He still remembered what Stormez had said right before he left though. ~<span style="font-style: italic">He'll kill me if I follow him, but it must be serious if he wants me to go to that location~</span>, Miles thought.<br/><br/>As he gathered the things he would need to go to the place that only he and Stormez knew about, he was interrupted by a Mosadian tank putting a huge dent in the door and a voice barking orders.<br/><br/>"They'll never get in here, but how do I get out?" he thought, frantically looking around for an exit, but all of them were covered in metal and if he opened them would mean that the military would throw him in jail as an accomplice to the crime.<br/><br/>He looked around terrified for a minute then noticed the Multi-voice Shifting Modulator and Appearance Transmogrifier lying on the shelf in the corner. He then switched the voice on the device to the All-Confuser, a voice which deceives the people it speaks to into believing the wearer is the person you would most want to hear at the time. This feature had been created by Stormez and needed a special phrase said before it could work.<br/><br/>Miles then turned the Transmogrifier to the "Light-Bender" setting and the fox seemed to vanish as the light around him was refracted around and bounced off of his body. He heard another loud explosion outside, which shook the building, but the metal encasing stood firm.<br/><br/>"Now to play a trick on those police and get rid of our research on Project Bloodstream." He muttered an inaudible passphrase into the Modulator, and the mechanism sprang to life, wrapping itself around his mouth and nose.<br/><br/>"I don't believe it! Who got that grenade in there?" Miles yelled, opening the hatch on the lab's computer and hitting the "fake explosion" switch.<br/><br/>Many of the troops outside started looking around saying things like "That was you?" and "Wait to go, General!"<br/><br/>Miles smiled as he heard the confusion and hit the button labeled "Alpha 78".<br/><br/>The building responded by burning itself and everything in it and releasing the metal casing surrounding the walls and doors.<br/><br/>Miles decided to play one last prank on the men surrounding the lab. Switching the dial to the one specifically designed for him labeled "Stormez".<br/><br/>He shrieked "My research! No! No, it can't be gone. I'll never be able to get it back. WHY!"<br/><br/>Then for added effect, and a bit of a laugh, he picked up Chaos' left over metal insides, which were now on fire, and shook them around a bit shouting "Holy Crap! My flesh! It's gone! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"<br/><br/>Dropping the metal skeleton, Miles ran towards his destination trying to hold in a laugh. He bumped into someone, who looked around in confusion, but they simply shrugged it off as a large gust of wind and kept walking.<br/><br/>He chuckled as he walked away toward what was only known as "Metal's Decay" to Mosadians, but to Stormez and himself, there was a section no one else could go, simply dubbed zero sixty-one.<br/><br/>~~~~~~TIMESKIP~~~~~~~<br/><br/>Stormez had been walking along, glancing every now and then at the small contraption in his hands that he had dubbed "Chaos Radar" when he suddenly heard Chaos say "I'm hungry" in his head.<br/><br/>"How can you be hungry if I'm the one with a stomach?" he asked, ignoring the people around him, who were all running and screaming in fear.<br/><br/>"Different kind of hungry." Chaos answered, which made Stormez stop walking and look through his personal notes. He couldn't find anything, and realized he had never studied Chaos' eating habits.<br/><br/>"What exactly do you like to eat?" Stormez asked, hoping he could do something about it.<br/><br/>"Emeralds and organisms." Was the shocking reply he got. Stormez stopped everything he had been thinking as all the black fur on his body turned a pale white color.<br/><br/>When he regained his composure and his fur was black again he shakily said "If you make me eat anyone, I will personally remove you from my bloodstream by way of incineration, but getting an emerald shouldn't be hard with Knuckles in the Infirmary. Can you at least wait until after I meet this wife of ours?"<br/><br/>Stormez could feel Chaos moving through his mind, and he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head. Clutching his forehead, he yelled "Why would you torture me for food?"<br/><br/>"Not Torture." Chaos insisted. "Then what did you do to me?" Stormez was annoyed. "Information." was the answer.<br/><br/>"I could have just told you what you needed to know." Stormez said clutching his head trying not to fall over. After about a minute of doing so the pain became too much for him, and he fell to his knees.<br/><br/>"Why me? Why did I think this would work?" the pain was gone, but he was crying nonetheless. Suddenly he heard Chaos say "Injection."<br/><br/>He mentally slapped himself for not thinking of that sooner and shakily reached into his coat pocket. As soon as the needle was thrust into his arm, he felt a wave of calmness, and the aftereffects of the pain were gone. Standing up, he suddenly found himself walking towards an old beaten down shack on the outskirts of the city.<br/><br/>Looking down at his Chaos Radar, he saw that this was where Chaos' wife was located. As he got closer though, he saw none other than a beaten up and badly bruised Knuckles and a battalion of the Mosadian army forces. Stormez' demeanor became frighteningly calm as he walked past Knuckles, who noticed him immediately.<br/><br/>"HEY!" knuckles yelled at the men around him. "What gives? I thought you said that lunatic burned to death." When no one answered him he simply turned to Stormez with a grin on his face. "Heh, it doesn't matter." Then leaning over, he whispered in Stormez' ear, "I should be thanking you, without your help we never would have found the nest."<br/><br/>Stormez stopped in his tracks "what did you just say?" his voice was more than enough to scare Knuckles, but if the Echidna was afraid, he didn't show it.<br/><br/>"You heard me." Knuckles said, then turning his attention to the Mosadian military, he shouted, "Incinerators, get ready to fire."<br/><br/>"NO! They'll die! Wait, please!" Stormez' pleas fell on deaf ears as the house was burned to the ground. As the roof collapsed, he was greeted with a horrifying sight. Two small blue Chaos creatures had caught fire and were being burned alive. Chaos let out a scream, and Stormez simply shouted "How could you!"<br/><br/>Falling to his knees he looked at Knuckles with hate filled eyes. Knuckles had that serious look on his face again. "Take him in for questioning, and don't let him out of your sight." Knuckles commanded the nearest soldiers.<br/><br/>Stormez suddenly stood up, a dark look in his eyes. "You still hungry, Chaos?" he said in a vengeful tone, "Because if you are, I happen to know the perfect victim."<br/><br/>Knuckles didn't have time to react as Stormez launched himself at the Echidna and began ripping into his flesh. By the time he was done, only the Echidna's head, shoes and gloves were left.<br/><br/>The soldiers were too afraid to move. Even their commanding officer was quaking in his boots. Stormez, however simply got up and looked at his radar. Seeing that a small blip on the screen was rushing towards the area, he yelled, "If you know what's good for you, you will leave. NOW!" he didn't need to tell them twice.<br/><br/>After they left, Stormez walked over to the pile of burning ruble and sat down, crying for the children he never knew. He was so distracted that he didn't notice a transparent blue-green figure walk up to him from behind.<br/><br/>The creature looked at the wreckage and let out a bloodcurdling shriek in agony. So much so that Stormez quickly jumped to his feet and yelped in surprise.<br/><br/>The figure behind him jumped to conclusions and immediately struck him to the ground. Stomez tried to get up, but was forced to get a face full of dirt. When he finally had the chance to stand, his eye with the scar on it opened up and Chaos said, "Please, stop. It's me!" At which point the green creature let out what would be a gasp if it had a mouth.<br/><br/>Then, in Stormez' voice he gave the creature the information about Project Bloodstream, with chaos interjecting here and there. When he was done, he looked at the road ahead. "The military will be here soon, we should head for Metal's Decay. I know a place that no one but my colleague and I can get to, but you'll need this to get there." He handed her, for it was indeed a female, a portable version of the Appearance Transmogrifier in the shape of a ring "Play around with the settings until you find something you like. And before I forget, what is your name, In English if possible."<br/><br/>She looked at him for a moment, then took the ring and weakly asked "Why? Why would you help me?"<br/><br/>Stormez pondered this for a moment and finally came up with what he considered to be the best possible answer. "That's what family is for, right?"<br/><br/>She didn't seem to take it that well, because next thing he knew, his mouth was full of dirt again. Spitting it out, he decided to try a different approach. "We have to get out of here; there are G.U.N. agents who would love to kill you when only I and my colleague know the truth, so I will ask you again, what is your name?" After about 2 minutes he had his answer.<br/><br/>"You will refer to me as Rachel, And If I find out that you did this to the children, you are dead!" Stormez somehow felt a tremor go down his spine, and he immediately knew she was serious about killing him.<br/><br/>"I assure you I had nothing to do with it. I don't even know how they found the nest. Besides," he pointed at Knuckles remains, "The perpetrator is dead."<br/><br/>That convinced Rachel to follow him. As they reached a massive area of metal parts and rusting contraptions, Stormez reached into his lab coat for a small mechanical claw-like steel key. As he put the key in the lock, he heard an armored car drive up behind them.<br/><br/>"Put your hands in the air, you are to be executed today. No trial is needed. We have proof you killed the Echidna." The army had him at gunpoint. "Rachel, find Miles and tell him to get the Transport ready. He'll know what it means, and before I forget, If you eat him, I will kill you!"<br/><br/>Rachel turned and ran into the tunnel that had opened up, but not before she glanced back worriedly. Stormez just smiled and turned toward the nearest G.U.N. unit. "Let's see what you've got!" he yelled.<br/><br/>A grenade was thrown at him, and he took the full force of the blast. When the smoke cleared, his fur was charred, and was singed off in several places, but what was most noticeable was that his right arm was missing. All that was heard before he limped into the reserves of zero sixty-one was, "You don't understand anything!"<br/><br/>Down in the tunnels, Rachel was running without knowing where to go. She came to a fork in her path and noticed a green fox was looking down the left one, his back turned to her. She cautiously approached him and asked, "Are you Miles?" Miles jumped at the sound of her voice, as he had been expecting Stormez to be the speaker. He felt his knees give out as he landed and was trembling, for he had seen the destruction that she could cause.<br/><br/>She let out a sigh. "If it makes you feel any better, I can do this." And she switched a dial on the ring she had been given, altering her appearance to that of a purple skinned hedgehog with silver rings halfway down her quills. The clothing option she had chosen was a blue knee-length dress with a black ring around the waist, along with orange and blue shoes.<br/><br/>Miles relaxed and, after taking a deep breath, finally found the words to say "Y-yes I'm Miles. W-what do you want with me, and for that matter, how did you find this place?"<br/><br/>"There isn't time to explain. Stormez said to get the transport ready." She had a tone of sadness… or was it regret in her voice. Miles nodded and rushed down the left pathway. Rachel, who had not eaten in days, was having a hard time not attacking him, but she remembered what Stormez had said and quickly dismissed the Idea.<br/><br/>Miles walked over to a small safe and punched in the code to unlock it. As he was doing so, he muttered, "I never thought it would come to this." Rachel, having heard him, asked "What do you mean by that?" as he opened the safe and reached inside.<br/><br/>Stormez, who had limped in just before she asked, gave her an answer that she didn't fully agree with. "We're leaving this time period. Maybe by the time we get back, they'll forgive us." he stumbled, as his right arm, or what remained of it, was causing him a lot of pain. Miles noticed and looked horrified. He was almost afraid to ask. Almost.<br/><br/>"W-what happened to y-your arm?" he stammered, dreading the answer. "Nothing I can't handle. Do you have the Transport, or are you just going to stand there gaping at me?" Stormez replied. Miles handed him the object he was asking for, which looked exactly like a power ring, but if you were to get close enough, you would see a small button on the side of it.<br/><br/>"Stand back, this is going to take up a lot of room." He said as he pressed the small button and threw the ring-like object out in front of him. It began to expand and grow to twice the size of Stormez, who looked at Miles. "You go first. We'll be right behind you."<br/><br/>Miles obliged, and was soon walking through the portal that opened up. Stormez turned to Rachel and said, "By the way, I want to apologize."<br/><br/>Rachel was taken by surprise, "For what? You didn't do anything." She said, wondering what he could possibly want to say sorry for.<br/><br/>"Exactly," He said "I did nothing to stop them, I was too late." And he walked through the portal, not waiting for her to respond. For a moment she contemplated not following them, but that idea didn't seem feasible, as it meant the soldiers would kill her when they found her. When she finally made a decision, she took one last look behind her and stepped through into the unknown.<br/><br/>For a moment, everything went black. then the three Mosadians found themselves hit a soft patch of grass. Miles had landed on his head, and was unconscious, while Stormez was sitting up looking at their surroundings.<br/><br/>"This doesn't look like Mosadia..." he remarked, taking in a bit of Flora that he had never seen in his life. He heard a robotic motor approaching the three and stood up. "Short circuiting it should help figure this out." he mumbled, using a bit of his pain from the loss of his arm to hit the approaching SWATBOT. As it fell over, he removed it's right arm and attached it to his own shoulder joint. "Chaos, reconfigure the metal to respond to my nerves."<br/><br/>"It will hurt. A lot." was Chaos' internal reply.<br/><br/>"Just do it!" Stormez said in an irritated manner. Clenching his teeth, the metal started to shift and form to fit his size and proportion. when it was done, it appeared as though the arm was an extension of his shoulderblade.<br/><br/>"We sould keep moving. No doubt there's more of them." Rachel said as she picked up Miles. They began trekking through the woods, looking for signs of intelligent life.