"Simpleton," the echidna acidly declared Geoff. "There is—" It hesitated. "—All the time in the world to learn our history, power, our exploration—all of the rest of your life. No, you have to see, now, right now is the time to decide: How long is your life going to be? Stop... stop murmuring about me and decide. I can hear you talking. I hear you breathing. I can hear everything in this machine."

Honeycomb-like patterns in the ceiling hundreds of feet above began to glow, rise, and turn away, creating an intense, glowing opening.

"Two of you. Answer. I need two. One, take my place, and one, one whose... whose place will be taken. One will become me, and I will become the other. Is it clear?"

"... No. Not you."

The response from above came just in time to derail the well-intending protestors.

"You are... broken," it explained in tone that was darker, slower, less harried—almost suspicious and calculating, as if wary of the offer. "Physically,... mentally. Not right. I cannot trust you. Anyone else."

OOC: Quickie!

Both brows flattened horizontal as the reddish girl's chin lifted to the voice once more. One could see her lips silently repeating the words "mentally not right," with an expression of annoyed indignation.

Pointlessly again, she leaned in toward Rock, and muttered, "I'll be damned if that ain't the pot callin' the kettle black."

A scowl had appeared on Geoff's lips upon the title given to him by the voice, already feeling a growing dislike for this living-machine. Such thoughts of anger were quickly doused as Rock offered himself, though, and all he could muster was a stare of utter disbelief towards the primate. Although he didn't have as much of a caring attitude for the roughened up monkey, unlike the other two already at his side, similar thoughts of "Are you mad?" shifted through his mind as well. It was fortunate enough that the Gizoid-maker denied the offer.

Yet that didn't deter from the fact he was still questioning who was willing.

As Geoff tried to consider some option of approach to the situation, Omnis was busily tapping away at the panel on the pedestal.

The Gizoid seemed familiar enough with the strange symbols that were on the pad, his red eyes staring intently. His fingers moved with quick strokes as he worked, and if in response, a low hum started to resound in the room. The noise felt like it was vibrating from beneath their feet, buried in the floor.

"Prepare to ascend," stated Omnis, his hands now dropping from the pedestal.

"What are you-"

The hedgehog was cut off abruptly as the hexagonal panel beneath him suddenly rose by a couple of inches, taking Geoff with it. His stance instinctively widened as he maintained balance, watching carefully as the floor shifted.

All around the room now, multiple panels started to rise as well, hovering above the floor for a few seconds. Moments later, the group would soon find the newly created platforms leaving them behind on ground level, floating up and away. Their destination was set for the ceiling and the newly created entrance up there, hundreds of feet above them.

...

"What?" blurted the disembodied voice loudly as soon as the floating elevators began to rise. "What do you— what is it you think you're trying to do?"

The hole above the group's head seemed to grow quickly as they raced toward it on their individual hovering platforms.

"Traitor! Gizoid traitor! How d- dare you try to—" His sentence went unfinished, and fuzzed with a static crackle. When it came back, the hole above seemed to be getting even wider... but not because they were getting closer. Instead, some of the platforms around the edges were moving oddly—groaning, making wrenching sounds, and followed by great, weighty whooshes. They were coming loose. Their enemy was releasing giant, carousel-sized, twenty-ton, hexagonal pieces of the ancient ceiling at them.

The tumbling wheels of stone and steel were poorly aimed but coming en masse. Many missed entirely, but, given just a few seconds, the first platform to bite it, predictable by the ominous, growing shadow above, was going to be the one that Geoff just happened to be sharing with Juke. The others were going to meet the same fate very shortly after.

There were options for escape. Some of the rising platforms around them were empty entirely and within jumping distance. All in all, there were about ten honeycomb-shaped pieces of floor streaking up toward the next level of the tower, but, one by one, they were going to get obliterated by falling debris until only a couple remained.

"If you think you can just— come after me, you have no idea what—"

It cut off again.

"You don't understand." It was a matter-of-fact bellow. "You compassionless, cruel children," he hissed. "This is my world, my world, my... prison, and why? Why would you come here, why are you here if you don't even care?!" He was beginning to sound genuinely angry and distraught, very suddenly bordering on hysterical. "If you want this place, you can have it! You can have every brick!"

The onslaught was only going to intensify, but if they could avoid getting smashed for just a few seconds, they'd find themselves in the blinding blue-white light of the next chamber—presumably, the echidna's chamber.

After all of the surviving elevator panels stopped their vertical ascent at the new level, they drifted horizontally to assemble together and "dock" with the remaining floor. With solid ground to stand on once more, the group would be free to walk onward—to finally approach the source of all their trouble.

The room was of shining material, gleaming with blue light from a central source so bright that it was hard to look at directly. The tower seemed to dome toward the top, revealing that it was all entirely hollow, all the way to the roof, where there were many small openings allowing sunlight and the bright blue sky to glare in, as well. The walls were ornate, smattered with uninterpretable, foreign technological elements, rib-like arching columns, and innumerable statues, again like the ones outside. And, at the very center of the chamber was a bizarre mechanical construct. To call it a "machine" would be understating it. It was a writhing mass of pulsing, blue-glowing tubes, entangled around mirror-polished steel and marble. Thick glass canopies strobed with electricity from some unknown source, invisible from the great distance at which the group stood.

"No! Of course none of you would care about this world," replied the echidna in a shuddering, cold voice. "You arrived here by mishap. By accident. This place is like a sinkhole—a great crevasse in the fabric of the universe, a far-removed star... We Nocturnus were the only ones. The only ones with the intelligence, the technology. And do I still hold it... just missing one thing..."

A silhouette began to rise in front of the glowing machine ahead—a huge one, shaped like a person, perhaps even a Gizoid, but far oversized.

"Ha. Yes, you know, now that I think of it, I have gone about this the entirely wrong way! I am ashamed." Just as quickly as he had been filled with rage, then affronted, and disgusted, he was back to being bizarrely, artificially calm. "None of you should have to do this work. But I have to be free. I have to get out, I really do. I can't be here anymore. Just like you have to get home, I have to get home. I want to go where you want to go. For my people and for me, I have to get out. So, perhaps instead I can help you. You want to return home, don't you?"

Something floated up out of the great hole in the floor behind the party, and hovered there. It was a strange-looking transport ship, just like the ones they had seen outside. However, it seemed to be empty.

"I can give you this. Freedom. You just have to give me the girl's emerald, and with it, I will open a path for you. Everyone, all of them—you may take everyone and leave." /m

Omnis' pattern of survival was near identical to that of Rock's. For every step and leap, he was the monkey's shadow, mimicking his maneuvers as they eventually reached safety. It seemed his intended functions were working quite well.

Now, with the group on the upper, and final, floor, he stepped forward in an act of what could have been defiance.

"Do not trust his words," he advised, a tone of great bitterness laced in his voice. "He only wishes to dispose of you. You must realize he is vulnerable here. This has been his prison for generations, and you are the first who have managed to intrude. Deal with him this instant, or come to regret it later."

"Wasn't given the offer too much thought anyway..." muttered Geoff behind him, already having thrown multiple glances over his shoulder to peer at the ship presented to them.

Already he could see the shadow of the rising figure falling upon him, his body tensing in preparation. The thing was... huge, for the lack of a better term. Whatever it was, even with its details lost in the outline of the blinding glow of the machine behind it, it gave a threatening presence. The hedgehog could only guess that Omnis' old master wasn't as vulnerable as the Gizoid was claiming...