Welcome to Gaia! ::

"You think I had something to do with the emeralds shattering? HAHAHAHAHA!" Lazarus couldn't help but laugh and drop his hands to his sides as Knuckles voiced his worry. "I've been in hibernation until recently Echidna. The last time I was awake was before when your people made the mistake of angering Chaos. He was sealed, and I got tired of everything, so I went into hibernation. I have been asleep since, and something woke me up. Apparently the emeralds shattering. So, what else happened while I was asleep?

Lazarus looked at Knuckles strangly, and shook his head. "I see your kind hasn't changed Echidna, still arrogant and convinced you know best. Things haven't changed much, people are still making stupid decisions, and still trying to destroy everything. If I could, I'd go back to sleep!" he hissed. He had enough of dealing with the self important during the war, and it looked like he was going to be putting up with them once again.

"Besides, I don't have the slightest clue what the hell a "laser" is. I went to sleep when people were banging pieces of rock together and I woke up to this! What do you expect me to do? Attack people until they give me a nice history lesson!? I'm a dragon, most people think I'm going to light them on fire!" he said, the frustrations of the trying to adapt finally catching up, and spilling over.

"Oh you expect me to now do you? Well I'm glad your species hasn't changed in nearly two thousand years! They "expected" me to fight for them too, and I did the same thing to them as I'm going to do to you." he spat back. The gauntlets slid loose and hooked to his belt again, and he turned around and and with a few beats of his wings, was flying toward the city again.

He had heard more than enough of the echidna making demands, and now he was done listening. If he really wanted Lazarus' help, then he would earn it the hard way.

Lazarus heard a strange and almost horrible sound approaching behind him, and when he looked back, he spotted the strangest thing. It looked kind of like a metal bird, but it made too much noise, and didn't flap it's wings.

With a quick blink of his eyes, he immediately noticed that the thing wasn't alive, and that someone was inside it. He looked forward again, and spotted just what he needed. A nice, thick, fluffy cloud hung low above the city.

He carefully lead the strange noisy thing into the cloud with him, and once he was sure he couldn't be seen, flared his wings. The sudden stop made his muscles work a little harder than they were currently used to and within a couple seconds, he felt the metal of the wing of the Tornado slide under his feet, and he closed his wings completely, landing on top of the plane.

When they passed out of the cloud, Lazarus was standing on the wing, staring at Tails with a bemused expression on his face. "Now that you have my attention, who are you, and what do you want?" he asked, his tone neutral.

Lazarus looked at Tails closely when he mentioned dark copies, and a girl connected to Chaos. He knew who it was, and it brought back some pleasant memories of afternoons sunning on the Master Emerald's enclosure and listening to the Chao's sing.

"You mean Tikal? She was one of the few echidnas that actually had any sense, and she was the caretaker for the Chao. She disappeared along with Chaos. Her not being there made it mighty lonely, so I slept. What does she have to do with this mess?

"You're telling me that some monster Chao claims to have killed the God of Destruction!? No way that's possible. he said. He looked thoughtful for a few minutes, and looked at Tails again. "You said you were looking for the fragments of the Chaos Emeralds correct? Well then we have work to do. We need to get at least three of them. Then I think I may know of something we can do to get the rest of what we need. You need help, well, you have more, lets go. Just don't expect me to be all that nice to the echidna. He's been alone too long."

"Well, now that we have a semblance of a plan, what the heck you call this strange and noisy thing? Lazarus asked, grabbing a flap on the wing and jerking it up and down, causing the plane to tip up and down on one side.

Sonic yelled in pain as the sword cut into his legs. "Damn you." was all he could breath out. With a little pain, he limped back a little ways, and saw Tails and what looked like a flying lizard going on a crash course for Casinopolis. "What the hell is going on up there?"