Chapter 1: The Chaos Emeralds

June 11th, 2018
Organization M HQ, Pennsylvania, United States

"Captain, our sources have confirmed; the inventor of those skates is, in fact, connected with the Thorndykes in Station Square."

"Wonderful," replied the captain, "Just as I suspected. Prepare my shuttle for departure, we're traveling to Nevada."

June 12th at the Thorndykes Mansion


Breakfast was being served in the kitchen. Amy, Tails, Xavier and Christopher were at the table eating while Ella, the maid, continued to cook more. "These pancakes are awesome!" exclaimed Xavier as he munched on his breakfast. "Yeah, Ella is a really good cook" replied Tails, "By the way, I saw you working on your skates yesterday. That technology is amazing!" "Thanks," said Xavier, "I call them the Shooting Stars. I'm using a chaos emerald to power them." Everyone in the room gasped. "Wait!?" said Christopher, "You're using an emerald to power your skates, isn't that risky?" "That's not something you just mess around with," added Amy. "Don't worry," replied Xavier casually, "as long as I don't use the boosters I'm fine. The cool thing is, I'm as fast as sonic with these things."

"Oh really?" said Sonic as he entered the room, "How about a race after breakfast to test that? What do you say X?" "You're on big blue!" exclaimed Xavier in excitement, "Let's race yo!"

Then suddenly, the doorbell rings...

"I wonder who that could be?" said Christopher.  Mr. Tanaka, the butler, answered the door.

As the door opened, Mr. Tanaka saw a humanoid figure, a bit taller than himself. The being was mostly artificial, with over %90 of his visual body parts being complex robotics.  He was quite a strange and even somewhat frightening sight, but he didn't appear to be an enemy.

"Greetings," said the visitor, "I am professor Liam Sternik.  I've come to speak with your residents who are...not from around here.  Particularly, an Xavier Hampton.  I mean no harm to any of them, but I have some information that they'll most surely want to know in regards to a possible global threat. May I come in?"



Meanwhile...

Team Chaotix receives an email.

Sender: Charles Hefney
Recipient: Team Chaotix

Greetings,

There's no need for a lengthy intro, I'll just cut to the chase. I have a job, a big job, that I need done. You guys have the skills to do it. I'm willing to pay you 1 million each. If you're interested, meet me at Sam's Wooden Nickel in Las Vegas two days from now at 7pm.

"Yo, whose at the door?" asked Xavier as he and the others came up behind Mr. Tanaka. "This visitor says he has information for you all Mr Xavier," he replied. "Dude I told you, just call me Xavier or X no need for the 'Mr' part man," Xavier said.  Xavier suddenly gasped as he took notice of the strange robotic figure in the doorway. He was at a loss for words. The technology on this guy looked as if it was from another planet.

"Y-you look epic man," he said as he managed to get the words out, "hey what kind of energy do you run off of? Do you have a ray gun in your arm or jet boosters in your back? Could I look at your blue prints?" "Xavier stop interrogating him," said Amy, "Sorry about him, he loves tech stuff."

Professor Sternik laughed a bit before replying, "Yes I'm aware of his fascination with technology. That's actually part of the reason I'm here. Those skates you created, they're extraordinary. I work for an organization called Organization M. We're an international intelligence and peacekeeping force. We deal with domestic and foreign threats, powerful objects and artifacts, and are the HUB of intergalactic relations for Earth. I am Professor Liam Sternik, captain of Organization M's Squad 2, and I'd like to recruit you."

Xavier took a second to ponder the offer, "So why me?" he asked, "You have to have tons of talented inventors in your group already. And if I did work for you could I still hang out with my friends?"

"Our organization is always seeking out worthy talent to expand our roster," answered Sternik, "You can never have too many. And yes, you'd still have a degree of freedom to come visit your friends quite often."

"Not to be rude," said Sonic, "But before he goes anywhere, X owes me a race." "Oh yeah I almost forgot," said Xavier, "Let's make it interesting. We race to the center of Station Square and then back here to the mansion. Last one back to the mansion buys nachos and 2 cream sodas." "Make it 2 chili dogs and 2 root beer cans and we have a deal," Sonic replied enthusiastically.

"Well I don't mean to interrupt your fun," said Sternik, "But my offer to you is partially motivated by some terrible news. He briefly looked over all those who were present. "This won't be easy for you all to hear," he said as he pulled out a hologram device.  The hologram turned on and showed the Master Emerald.  "You all are familiar with this object, correct?" he asked.

"Mother of Fox's," exclaimed Xavier in disbelief, "that p-p-p power source is huge! I could use that to power a whole city maybe even more then that." "Xavier calm down," said Amy, "that's the masters emerald." "Let me guess," Sonic added, "you have it or it's missing?" "Who cares," Xavier interjected, "I just want to study that thing!"

"Well it's not missing," replied Sternik, "We know who has it. The Master Emerald is in the possession of Dr. Eggman. He took it from Angel Island with the help of Metal Sonic and a new ally who has yet to be identified. The reason we know this is because...we found an arrow." Sternik paused for a moment. "Your friend, the red echidna who was protecting the Master Emerald, he's been slain."

'Wait What?” exlaimed Amy, “Knuckles is Dead!? How?!” "No way Knuckles is dead,” added Sonic, “He's came back from worse." "Hang on guys,” said Xavier, “he said "slain" that has multiple meanings being slain sometimes means he's damage super bad is all. Let me see him maybe I can patch him up."

“I hate crush your hopes” Sternik replied, “but your friend is in fact dead. We recovered his body at the scene. In addition to being beaten pretty badly, the fatal blow was most definitely an arrow that had pierced his forehead. So someone other than Eggman was involved. This, in fact, is the bigger reason why I’m here. We believe Eggman is working with someone else to gather all the Chaos Emeralds. And since your friend has been a casualty, I assume you all would want to avenge him. The offer to join Organization M is only open to Xavier, but you’re all free to join us on this mission to gather the Emeralds and defeat Eggman.”

"Hey Guys!! Look at this!!" Charmy waved Vector and Espio over to the main computer.
"Looks like we got a job," Espio replied.
"And a big one too!" Vector exclaimed, "Look at the amount of dough they're willing to fork out!" Espio read the letter carefully, wondering what this mystery person could possibly need them for?
"Did it say what the job is?"
"Not really, " Charmy replied, "just a time and location."
"Well, what are we waiting for?? Let's get a head start and get going!!"

"Mr Sternik count us in on this mission,” said Xavier as he took out his gun, “Nobody kills our friend gets away with it and I have a plasma gun with their name on it." "Easy killer, we can't just run in guns blazing,” said Tails, “we need a plan." “Tails is right,” Sonic added, “a smash and crash would be a bad idea." "your right your right,” Xavier agreed, “so anyone got any ideas?"

“Excellent,” said Sternik, “I’d like to suggest our first plan of action being the collection of the other Chaos Emeralds. Other than the Master Emerald, our sources say that Eggman is in possession of at least one. Then of course you have one here. So that means five remain unaccounted for. Any suggestions for how to locate them?”

"Chaos emeralds are like magnets," said Xavier, "one attracts another. But I do have an emerald detector in my backpack."

"Wait" said Sonic "when did you get your hands on that?"

"I made it myself," Xavier replied, "The power source is dead but I do have an idea. Pass me that Emerald you have sonic."

"Sure thing X," said Sonic.

"Now that we're on board," said Tails, "how about a tour of HQ?"

"Excellent," said Sternik in reply to Xavier, "We'll bring the Emerald and the detector back to HQ and then prepare for the mission." Sternik handed Xavier the address of HQ. "You all get yourselves prepared to be away from home for a week or so," he said, "If you don't mind, I'll take the detector with me and organize the mission so once you arrive we know exactly where we'll be going." Sternik looked over at Christopher. "I suggest the boy stay here," he said, "Without any special abilities it would be unwise to bring him along." Sternik took the detector and headed towards his shuttle. "I will see you all in New York in two days," he said as he walked off.

June 14th, 2018
New York City

A shuttle arrived at Organization M HQ with Xavier and his friends on board. The headquarters wasn’t just a building, it was a whole town; with housing, a bank, a post office, and several stores. Each squad also had their own building. The shuttle landed in front of the Technode building where Liam Sternik was waiting to greet them.

“Greetings everyone,” he said as they exited the shuttle, “And welcome to the Headquarters of Organization M.”

"Mother of foxes this place is awesome!" exclaimed Xavier as he looked around, "everything looks so high tech and there are so many stores! What type of power supply does this place use?"
"X, chill man," said Sonic, "you're right, this place is amazing. We'll do some sight seeing later. Right now, let's focus on our mission."
"As you can see X is on over charge," said Tails, "So let's get to the briefing room so you can give us a run down on the mission."

"Of course," replied Sternik, "This way please."

*moments later in the briefing room*

As they entered the room, they saw a robot working on a large computer. Sternik walked up to the robot, "Allow me to introduce you all to Novacom." As he said this, the robot turned around, showing itself to have a screen for a face. On the other side of the screen was a human girl, appearing to be in her early 20s, chugging a root beer. As she slurps out the last bit of her drink and pulls the can from her mouth, she lets out a loud belch. "Hi there," she says with a smile as she waves at the screen.

"Novacom prefers to operate from her home," says Sternik, "so she uses this robot to give her a physical presence here at HQ.  Novacom, this is the new recruit I told you about, Xavier. Him and his friends will be aiding us in the collection of the chaos emeralds." The girl looks closely at Xavier as the robot screen begins to lean up against his face. The look on her face was very serious.  "Captain tells me you're a technical genius," she said. The robot then begins to circle around him, so she can get a good look. "You don't look like a tech genius to me" she added, "but the captain doesn't just throw that word around. We've got a lot of tech experts around here, but I haven't heard the captain call anyone else a tech genius except me." The robot stops circling Xavier suddenly and backs off. Novacom then shows a large grin. "I guess that makes you my rival kid."

"Nice to meet you," said Xavier, "and trust me, I'm more of a friend then I am a rival. By the way, please tell me what power source this robot of yours runs on. Looks like something out of a a video game. Got any blueprints I can look at?" "Take it easy X," said Sonic, "Don't interrogate the girl. Speaking of questions though, here's mine: Did you find anything from the detector we gave you?"

"We'll talk about rivalries and power sources later kid," said Novacom, "Now to answer your question hedgehog, yes, I did find something." The robot turned around and pressed a few buttons on the large computer behind it. The large screen displayed a map with several markers on it.



"Connecting the Emerald Detector to our satellite," said Novacom, "we were able to pinpoint the location of 6 of the 7 Emeralds. The 7th is likely the one in Dr. Eggman's possession along with the Master Emerald. He's probably using some sort of tech to hide from our scanners. But he's likely here in the United States."

"Organization M's Squad 5 is out collecting intel and trying to track down Eggman," said Sternik, "So hopefully we'll know where he's hiding soon."

"You'll see on the screen that most of the Emeralds are here in the states," said Novacom, "There's one in Hawaii, Utah, Texas, and then we have one right here with us at HQ. The other two are on different continents. One is in the country of Teiga, which is in Europe. And the second is right in the center of Australia."

"Assuming Eggman is operating in the United States," added Sternik, "Perhaps we should start off by gathering up the ones here.  There's a likelihood that we'll run into Eggman and be able to stop him."

“Well I guess we better start with Texas since it’s the closest,” said Xavier, “But that Emerald could be anywhere like a Jewelry store or maybe the casino.” “Maybe we should split up into teams to cover more ground,” said Amy. “Good idea,” said Sonic, “X and I will search together since we can both move quickly. Amy, you and Tails search all the jewelry stores you can find.”

"I think splitting up is a good idea," said Sternik, "However there's no need to waste our time searching a number of places." "Our scanners give the exact location of the emeralds," added Novacom, "Even if the chaos emerald starts moving, we'll be able to track it." "With that said," Sternik interjected, "Sonic and Xavier, you two travel to Utah. Amy and Tails, I'll accompany you to Texas."

Novacom's robot turned around and handed Tails and Xavier small devices with screens. "These will serve as both your long distance communicators and scanners," she said, "They're connected to our scanners here so they'll give you the location of the chaos emeralds in real time. I'll be assisting you as best as I can through the coms."

"So is everyone ready to go?" asked Sternik.