This is the very first of the three parts of CC#8: Amethyst, and details...well, just read it, okay? I can't tell you everything...actually, that's the point of this...

***

June 17th, 2026.
Alcatraz, California.
Alcatraz is known world-wide as a prison, a terrible prison with horrible living conditions and hundreds of prisoners dieing each day. But that was in the past. Now Alcatraz is abandoned, or a minor tourist attraction, albeit not very popular. The jail was purely of human design, and contrary to popular belief, had nothing to do with a certain company that goes by the name of NSK.
Thus it would seem strange that Nick and Scott, two of the three co-CEOs of NSK, would be in this prison on a day as normal as this one. There were no tourists on the island at the moment, but it didn’t matter to the two elves.
“So,” Scott said, trying to make conversation, “Why are we here? Certainly not a vacation. Although...”
“We’re not on vacation,” Nick said suddenly, “You must be patient. I will tell you more when we arrive at our destination.”
Scott frowned, “However, there really isn’t anywhere else to go. We’re in a prison, on an island, and there’s no one here.”
Nick turned to his companion and grinned, “In due time, Scott. In due time.” He turned and kept walking past the cells.
Scott scowled and followed, “You know, I’d be fine with all these riddles if my partner was, you know, a woman. But did I get that? No...”
Nick stopped and pointed to a cell that looked exactly the same as the thousands of other cells, “Number seven-seven-three-four. Okay, Scott, get in.”
Scott frowned again, “I’m fine with the cell; I can break out if I need to. But what I want to know is why?”
Nick sighed, “Just trust me on this, okay?”
Scott shrugged, “Okay, but I have a bad feeling about it.”
Scott clambered into the cell, quickly followed by Nick, who shut the door, “Relax. You have nothing to fear.” He moved to the back of the cell and pressed a brick into the wall.
Two foreboding steel doors closed in front of the cell door. Scott turned to Nick, “That was planned, right?”
Nick ignored him as the cell began to shake violently, “This chamber is an elevator. It’s been here since Alcatraz was abandoned.”
Scott’s eyes grew wide as the elevator began to move, “I am definitely going to regret this trip.”
Nick grinned, “You have absolutely nothing to worry about, Scott.”
What Nick didn’t tell him was that the cell number, 7734, upside-down spelled ‘hell’.

***

The farther the elevator descended, the wider Scott’s eyes grew. “How far down does this thing go?”
Nick shrugged, “You’re going to find out when we arrive, so the question itself is kind of pointless.”
Scott scowled, slightly enraged. Nick ignored this.
A couple of minutes later, the elevator finally came to a stop and opened its doors.
The first thing they noticed was the heat. There was no moisture in the air, so it was not at all humid, but it still felt like they were in a cooking pot.
They were in a prison much like Alcatraz, but here there were thousands more cells, so many they were stacked on top of each other along the walls. The entire structure was made of metal, everything a depressing gray.
In front of the elevator, two men were playing cards at a table. One of them looked up as the doors closed, quickly ushering to the other as he stood up: “Okay, break’s over! Get back to your post!”
After the second man had left, taking with him the table and chairs, – which turned out to be foldable – the first man smoothed out his NSK uniform, addressing them, “Nick! Scott! This is an odd surprise! I am Tim, Superintendent of Labzarynth, this very building. Would you care for a tour? We don’t get many visitors, you know, so we try to perfect our acts of entertainment.”
Nick nodded his head towards Scott, “Oh, I don’t need one. But I do believe this is Scott’s first time here at Labzarynth, so I must oblige. Lead the way.”
Tim bowed, and as he did so, the faintest of smiles crept upon his lips, “Yes, follow me, if you will.” He turned and strode through the prison, Nick and Scott following behind.
Tim gestured around every time he began a sentence during his speech: “Labzarynth is a huge underground NSK prison. It has been hidden in the Earth’s mantle, where it floats around due to convection currents. Its unique location prevents any kind of penetration; it is physically impossible for a prisoner to escape and live.” He frowned, momentarily forgetting to gesture, “Of course, we have had a few...mishaps. And then a couple hundred years back, an immortality potion was slipped into the prisoners’ food and all of those prisoners are still here today. Save one.
“Anyway, here at Labzarynth, we have over thirty-thousand pre-made cells, a little less than half currently occupied. Most of the prisoners are human, although we did get that weird three-eyed tiger a few years ago. Our scientists are still working on that.
“In the past, the convicts of Labzarynth would take care of the others’ necessities – cooking, laundry, water purification – but that proved to be insufficient. Now NSK guards take care of the prisoners’ needs. We are happy to announce the death rate has decreased by fifteen percent since then.
“Here at Labzarynth, we are proud to admit that no human experimentation takes place, as it has been found to make the employees squeamish.”
Tim sighed and turned again to them, bowing, “That is the end of your tour. I do hope you enjoyed it; I’ve been working on it for the last fifteen years.”
Scott shrugged, “I don’t like that last part. The one about the experiment-”
“I think it was meant to be a joke, Scott,” Nick said, rolling his eyes.
Tim chuckled, “I was worried no one would get that. It’s so hard to find people with a morbid sense of humor.”
Nick shoved his hands into his pockets, “Tell me about it. Something about being mortal, that’s most likely it. Those with a morbid sense of humor can probably overlook the fact that they could die at any second.”
Tim chuckled again, only this time a bit hesitantly, “I forgot to ask: what brings you here? Not an ideal vacation spot, am I right?”
Nick frowned and looked to Scott for a moment. He then turned back to Tim, “We’ve come to...donate a prisoner.”
Tim’s eyes grew momentarily before quickly relaxing, “I don’t see any prisoner.”
Scott scowled, eager to return to the conversation, “Yeah, Nick, where’s the prisoner? All you brought with was me and...” he trailed off, mind racing as he put two and two together.
Nick noticed this in his expression and shook his head, eyes wide, “Oh, no, Scott! You’ve got it all wrong! I was talking about R here.”
Scott frowned, anger replaced with confusion, “R? Who’s R?”
“R,” Nick said, glad that Scott was no longer angry. He explained not only for Scott but also for Tim, “A few months ago, I petrified the old lady in stone. Since then, we’ve been vampire hunting around Eurasia.” He pondered for a moment, “I think she’s in China/Russia now. The reports of vampire attacks have been steadily moving east.” He shook his head, focusing on the subject at hand. He gestured to a statue that had miraculously appeared next to him.
Scott and Tim jumped back in surprise. “Oh, yeah,” Scott said resentfully, “I remember.”
Nick’s face flashed to a smile for a few seconds, but was soon gone. He turned to Tim, “R is one of the Nefarious Twelve, and she controls the element of metal. Do you have a cell you’d be willing to use?”
“Yeah, like I said, over half,” Tim said, shrugging, “I’ll be sure to get her locked away from the other prisoners, just in case anything happens.” He turned away for a brief moment and mumbled something to himself.
Scott shivered, “All right, now that we’re done here, can we leave? This place is really starting to creep me out.”
Tim turned to him eerily, “I’m afraid you can’t do that, Scott.”
Scott grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him violently, shouting: “Why not, Mister Man?”
“Tim. My name is Tim.”
“Why not, Mister Tim?”
Tim pushed him away and straightened his tie, “Because Labzarynth is constantly moving. There are several shafts to the surface dotted around the globe, and when we come close enough to one, we dock for thirty minutes exactly. We’ve already left, and the next docking point is in South Africa in,” he checked his watch, “forty-two days.”
“Forty-two days!” Scott practically screamed, shaking his head, “That’s three fortnights! I can’t wait that long!”
Nick raised an eyebrow, “He’s right; forty-two days is three fortnights exactly.”
Scott turned and grabbed Nick’s shoulders, shaking him drunkenly, “What are we supposed to do for three fortnights in a prison?”
Nick rolled his eyes at the irony of this question and took a step back so that Scott couldn’t touch him. Tim pulled a pack of cards from his pocket, “Do you like poker? Employees here have their very dignity invested in these games.”
Scott perked up and turned once more to Tim, “Wait...are there women employees here, too?”
Tim shrugged, “I just said people have their dignity invested in the game. It would be weird if there weren’t women here.”
Scott grinned as his eyes grew wide, “I’m in.”

***

Nick, Scott, and Tim, along with two female NSK employees, sat at a table playing poker. As Nick lay down a royal flush, one of the women giggled, “I can’t believe we’re actually playing cards with elves.”
Scott winked at her, “Two of your three bosses, no less. Remember this, if you ever want a promotion, come to me.”
The woman giggled once more and Nick rolled his eyes.
Tim eyed his hand, his face indifferent as he kept the conversation going, “So, Nick; is this your first time playing poker? I know you’re not an avid gambler...”
Nick lay down four aces, “Yeah, this is my first time. Why do you ask?”
Scott stared at the cards on the table, and then at Nick, searching his face for any signs of sarcasm. Finding none, he sighed, “I fold. Nick’s just too good, even if he has no idea what he’s doing.”
Nick looked at Scott impassively, “Wait, four aces are good?”
Tim chuckled, “You’re kidding, right?”
Nick shrugged, “I have absolutely no idea what the heck I’m doing.”
Tim frowned, “I fold.” He stood up and left, followed by Scott.
Nick turned to the two women, “I fold too. Whatever that means.” He got up and followed Tim and Scott once more through the prison.
“I don’t think I can do this for another six weeks,” Scott groaned, “Not with Nick playing.”
Tim raised his eyebrows, “You’re telling me. I practically perfected my poker face, and look what happened! I’m out three hundred dollars!”
“I’m...sorry,” Nick interjected, “If you want, I can-”
“Keep your money,” Tim said, waving his offer away, “It doesn’t matter. I can get it all back by the time you leave. No need to give me anything.”
Scott perked up and turned to Nick, “Wait, what if we just used the Chaos Emeralds to warp out of here?”
Nick sighed and pulled a Chaos Emerald from his pocket, “We can’t. The Emeralds are acting screwy.” Even as he spoke, the Emerald in his hand flashed from its ordinary red to an ominous black.
Tim cleared his throat, “I think one of the prisoners might be able to help you out with that.”
Nick and Scott simultaneously turned and gawked at him, saying concurrently: “Who?”

***

A cell door opened and a fair-skinned man about five feet tall hesitantly stepped out into the light. He squinted at the three in front of him and scowled.
Tim turned to his companions, “Nick, Scott, meet Ace Pearson.”
Ace spoke in a hoarse voice, as if testing it for the first time in years, “That’s Ace Omega Pearson to you, Superintendent.” He coughed and cleared his throat, slightly reverting his voice so it was less hoarse.
Tim growled threateningly at him, “Ace was arrested for inventing and using a deadly device to destroy-”
“Half of Europe!” Nick interrupted, his eyes shining, “Yes, I remember that! NSK refers to it as the Amethyst Incident, after the device that Ace used and was never recovered: The Amethyst. It was well known for bringing an end to NSK relations with the governments of Europe eleventy-one years ago, in 1915.”
Scott opened his mouth to point something out, but Nick shoved his hand in front of it, saying, “Eleventy is a number. Read The Lord of the Rings, dumbass.”
Scott shoved Nick hand away, “That’s not what I was going to say. I was going to point out that even if Ace was born in 1915, he would still be well over one hundred years old, yet he looks to be in his mid-twenties! Explain!”
Tim shrugged and gestured to Ace, “We’re not sure, but we think Ace might be a Jegarian. There aren’t very many alternatives, though.”
Scott frowned, “Jegarian?”
“The race of people that directly descended from dragons,” Nick explained, “They don’t have anything too special about them, except they have unusually pale skin, their aging system slows considerably after the age of thirty-one, and they live to be over eight hundred years old, but not many survive after a thousand. Luckily, not very many people are like this. Sometimes NSK will arrest a Jegarian in the streets just because they could claim immortality.”
Scott nodded in understanding, “Okay, but what does he have to do with the Chaos Emeralds?”
Ace grinned as Tim explained, “When he was caught by you, Scott, he supposedly warped the Amethyst away using Chaos Control.”
Scott frowned again, “But the Chaos Emeralds were discovered almost a century after that, in 1991. It doesn’t match up.”
“Unless,” Ace said, tapping his fingers on his leg, “I happen to know more about the Chaos Emeralds than you do.”
Tim turned to Nick and Scott, “So, do you want his help?”
Nick and Scott looked at each other. Scott sighed, “It’s better than nothing. Even if he fails we’d be no poorer. What’s the worst that could happen?”

***

Nick, Scott, and Ace gathered around a gray table in the center of a gray room. Two armored guards blocked the only exit, just in case Ace might try something.
Ace rubbed his sore wrists, “So, what’s the problem with the Emeralds?”
Nick retrieved the red Chaos Emerald from his pocket and showed it to Ace, “They keep pulsating black. We’re sure what it mea-”
“It means the Emeralds are losing power,” Ace said, cutting him off, “It might not seem possible, but it is.”
“Can you fix it?” Scott said with a frown.
Ace nodded, “Yes, but to do so I require all of the Chaos Emeralds. Lay them out on the table, here, if you would.”
As Nick set his Emerald down, Scott retrieved his, laying seven Chaos Emeralds onto the table. Ace frowned.
Nick raised his eyebrows, “Something’s wrong; there are eight Emeralds here. Scott, you always let me use this Emerald...”
“...and yet I already have all seven on hand,” Scott said, scratching his chin, “What’s going on?”
Ace picked up Nick’s Emerald hesitantly, “Yes, this one is not one of the seven. However, it possesses as much power as the seven put together.” He tightened his hold and the Emerald shone with all the colors of the rainbow, but primarily red.
Scott scrunched up his eyebrows, “Is that it, then?”
Ace nodded, “Yes, there are...eight Emeralds.” He sighed and closed his eyes. There was a slight pause before he opened his eyes, a mischievous grin spreading across his face. His grip on the Emerald tightened further and his eyes flared as he spoke in a menacing, yet confident tone: “Chaos Control!”
Nick, Scott, Ace, and the table, along with the seven Chaos Emeralds on top of it, were teleported, landing in the square of an old-fashioned town.
Scott shouted to Nick, “Quick! Where are we?”
Nick checked his watch, “Prague, June of 1915. About 1:30ish.”
Scott opened his mouth and turned to Ace. He suddenly realized something and turned back to Nick, “What kind of watch is that?”
“It’s a Vacheron Constantin Tour de l’Ile. Why do you ask?”
Scott scrunched up his eyebrows, cocked his head, and frowned in one fluid, questioning motion. Seeing this, Nick explained further, “My watch was made in the fourth dimension, so it is infused with magic. It automatically detects the universal time wherever – and whenever – it is.”
Scott nodded thoughtfully, “Okay, so it’s useful. Anyway...” They turned back to Ace, who was twirling the Chaos Emerald like a basketball.
Ace laughed and threw the Emerald into the air, “How are you enjoying my home? After all, it was you two that robbed me of my life, so I see it fitting to bring you back here with me.”
“Why are we here, Ace?” Scott demanded.
Ace deftly caught the Emerald he had tossed into the air. He glanced at them momentarily, gesturing with the Emerald and shouting two words: “Chaos Control!”
The seven Emeralds on the table, along with the one in Ace’s hand vanished, teleporting through time and space. Ace laughed, “They are gone; scattered around the globe! Good luck trying to find them! I will have them all back by sundown!”
“Why are you doing this, Ace?” Nick shouted.
“You still don’t get it?” Ace questioned, a sly grin twitching across his face, “I never wanted to help you. It was just a matter of time until the limitless power of the Emeralds would diminish and then you would come to me, seeking my help. Fools! In doing so, you have released me, and brought the power I had absorbed from the Emeralds back once more! Your naïveté has cost you dearly, as it will when I will soon rule!”
Fury spread across Nick’s face. He blindly reached for the hilt of his sword, only to find it not there. He scowled and remembered he had left the Fli Sword at home.
Ace released a bark of laughter and raised his arms, causing energy to surge into his body, “How does it feel to be so powerless? How does it feel to face certain doom and not be able to do a thing about it? How does it feel to be as I was, eleventy-one years ago? Chaos-”
Nick struck swiftly, his hand latching around Ace’s throat, prohibiting him from speaking. “I know something I can do,” Nick said cynically, “I can always kill you. After all, no one...betrays...Nicholas Sven!”
Tiny Life Orbs seeped from in between his fingers, ravenously tearing into Ace’s flesh before returning to Nick with the absorbed energy. Nick dropped Ace, and he screamed, his life coming to an end before their eyes. Eventually, he was gone; all of the molecules in his body now powering Nick.
Scott drew out a long breath of air that had been held in, “Wow. That was...intense.”
Nick sighed and sat down on the table, “Yeah, don’t mention it. Do you have a plan to get the Chaos Emeralds back?”
Scott scratched the side of his face, “Are you okay?”
Nick closed his eyes, waving him off, “Have I ever told you of the sensation I get when absorb something’s energy with the Life Orbs?”
Scott raised an eyebrow, “No, I am not enlightened to any such sensation.”
“Whenever I use the Life Orbs, I get a sensation of taste. Plants and flowers are typically sweet or sour, the tastes I enjoy most. However, when I use it on a human,” he shook his head, “the taste is the most unsavory.”
“And what’s that?” Scott inquired.
“Bitter.”
“Oh, is that why you don’t drink tea?”
Nick opened his eyes and nodded, “Yes. You would think that one such as I would drink tea, but I don’t. Instead...” he pulled a smoothie from his pocket and took a sip from the straw.
Scott smacked the cup from his hands, “Don’t drink that! It doesn’t make sense in this scenario and barely makes sense from the context!”
Scott cleared his throat and detached an electronic box from his back. He pressed a button on the center and five metallic limbs popped out; two legs, two arms, and a fierce armored head. That which had been the box rounded into a torso, and a row of spikes formed along the back of the head and down the spinal area. The machine was a dark gray-blue, with a single orange-yellow glass window for an eye. A silver V splashed across the chest, razor-sharp but apparently useless. Two yellow S’s hummed on the back of the machine’s fists, and a similar mark played across the upper-chest area, directly below the neck.
It was a robotic, anthropoid hedgehog.
Scott cleared his throat once more, “Quite impressive, if I do say so myself. In order to avoid lawsuits, I’ve cleverly named my machine: MechaSonic.”
Nick frowned, “Wait a second...I get where you got the idea, but I’m confused...”
Scott clapped his hands together eagerly, “The first thing you might be wondering is why I based it off a villain. The answer is simple; Metal Sonic, upon which without doubt MechaSonic is based, was made to do two things, one of which being to collect the Emeralds. This was the only one of its two jobs it did right, so I immediately thought of it when creating MechaSonic. And the machine works for us, so there won’t be any problems, despite its namesake.”
“Hopefully,” Nick pointed out.
“Other than some minor glitches, this machine is one hundred percent under my control,” Scott said, slightly annoyed, “So, yes, hopefully. The second thing I wish to make known is my ingenious design.”
Nick scoffed.
Scott gestured to the robot’s various parts, elucidating, “A Chaos Emerald radar could be disastrous in the wrong hands, so I suited it up with a robotic exoskeleton and an artificial intelligence system.”
“Naturally,” Nick commented.
“As you can see, other than the spikes on its back, it looks nothing like Sega’s model. It stands at five foot nine and three-sixteenth inches, its color scheme is drastically different, and...well, let’s just say it has a few surprises spring-loaded into it.”
Nick sighed, “Are you finished? Can you just start it up?”
Scott rubbed his hands together enthusiastically and lifted open the chest plate by the razor-sharp V. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said as he pressed an internal button and the machine began to hum as it started up. Scott fixed the chest plate back into place and ran a hand over the seam, “I just have to make sure this thing can’t be opened, now, and then it begins.” Small tongues of fire licked from the tips of Scott’s fingers and melted the metal, fusing it shut.
Nick hopped off the table and stood behind the machine, examining it, “I can’t help but wonder...is all of this really necessary?”
Scott shrugged, “I already told you; it could be terrible in the wrong hands, so I took precautions.”
Nick shook his head and sighed, “But at what point does this become a little less necessary and a little more...overkill?”
Scott straightened the robot’s head absentmindedly, “Trust me, everything on this thing has its use.”
Nick frowned and crouched down, “What about this white box? What purpose does it serve?”
Scott momentarily froze. He blinked and snapped out of his temporary trance, “I don’t remember installing any white box.”
Nick inspected it, “It’s marked with a three-leaved clover and a P.”
As the humming portentously grew louder, Scott shook his head and frowned worriedly, “I seriously don’t remember putting in a white box, markings or otherwise.”
Nick’s eyes grew wide, “Wait a second...it’s not a clover, it’s a clubs! It’s an ace!”
Scott’s face darkened and his eyes grew as well. He managed to yell: “Ace Pear-”
MechaSonic’s glass eye flashed on with an orange light, and a tremendous explosion knocked them both into nearby buildings.
The android, now fully conscious, surveyed the two elves with disdain. It then spoke with an artificial voice; however, emotion and conviction backed it, numbingly unusual for artificial life: “Where is Ace?” it demanded.
Scott got to his feet slowly, “He’s not here at the moment, since he is dead. You can, however, answer to me!”
The android lunged forward and grasped Scott’s neck with cold, merciless fingers, “You are merely my creator. My virtues lie with Ace, not you. If Ace is not here, then I will go along with his last orders: to obtain the Chaos Emeralds and kill anyone that gets in my way!”
MechaSonic turned and threw Scott into Nick before hovering slightly above the ground and zooming off down a side road.
Scott leaped to his feet, despite being violently tossed like a rag doll for the second time in the last five minutes. “Unbelievable!” Scott shouted angrily, “After all I’ve done for that ungrateful...wait, how the hell did Ace even get access to MechaSonic?”
Nick groaned and rolled to one knee, “Despite this being a very obvious ‘I told you so’ moment, I’m going to bypass it. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this was all Ace’s ploy; he never actually lost the power of Chaos Control, he managed to create that white box and actually left his markings on it...whatever his plan was, it’s bizarre.”
Scott grunted, “We have to go after MechaSonic. We can’t let that machine get the Emeralds.”
“There is a problem with just rushing headlong after MechaSonic; the android is our only lead. Without following it, we have no way of getting to the Emeralds. When MechaSonic realizes this, all it has to do is get us lost and then we’re done for.”
Scott frowned sullenly, “Damn you, Ace. The worst thing you could possibly do was to turn the machine against the mechanic, and you did it.” He thought for a moment, and then his voice turned sincere, “Being a mechanic, I cherish all of my creations. Having to fight MechaSonic would be like trying to kill my own son.”
Nick sighed and brushed a strand of hair from his face, “All is not lost. I copied your designs.”
Suddenly outraged, Scott turned and grabbed Nick’s shoulders, shouting: “You did what?”
Nick swiped his hands away and explained calmly, “While you were building MechaSonic, I happened to glance upon the blueprints and was struck with sudden inspiration: ‘What Scott does with machines, I do with life!’ So I used my power over Life and created an improved version of MechaSonic, only it’s a living creature and not an android! And then I transferred my powers of Chaos Control and Chaos Blast into it, like icing on cake. I can’t use Chaos Control or Blast anymore, but it’s not like I used them much anyway, so it was a small loss.”
Scott sighed, “Okay. I’m still pretty ticked off, but I’m okay as long as he doesn’t try to kill us. So when do I get to meet this guy?”
Nick snapped his fingers, “Sooner than you think.”
An anthropoid hedgehog formed at Nick’s side. He was only about half his height, unlike MechaSonic. His fur was a deep black, stained with bloody red marks along his head and back. His face was contorted into a fierce scowl, angrily staring at Scott. The hedgehog wore only a pair of shoes, but thankfully, and yet a bit disturbingly, was devoid of genitals. The hedgehog’s hands were clenched in fists, and as Scott stared at Nick’s creation, he crossed his arms, curling his lip up to reveal bared teeth.
Nick cleared his throat and Scott turned his astonished gaze upon him. Nick smiled, the same grin he used when talking to confidently talking to humans outside of NSK.
“Scott,” he said, staring at him from the corners of his eyes, “I introduce to you: Shadow, the Hedgehog.”

***
End of Part One.
***

Please leave all comments for Part Three. I know, that might be in a week, but if you're not going to remember, by all means, write it down. Believe me, it helps.

Continued in Part Two: https://blogs.neoseeker.com/ShadowNc/5615-cracker-chronicle-8-amethyst-part-two-search/

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