The following is a work of fan fiction by Joshua D. Tarwater and is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Sega Sammy Holdings Inc.

“Thieves, miscreants, pirates.
These are the fools who revel.
The Rings frighten them not.
They are the Dreaded One’s strings”

···

♪ ~ [Holy Land ~ Umagaki Runa ~ MEGAMAN ZERO/ZX SOUNDBOX]

         Autogolems.

         They were a technology not found in the Zones Sonic and Rosy hailed from. Things of clockwork and steam powered either by a fairy, as the machine knights were, or powered by a Ring and distinctly autonomous. It was ancient technology that made them work, that read the Ring Energy and gave it purpose. As they could come in any number of designs to serve any number of functions, they made the perfect crew for a lone sky pirate.

An airship of scarlet hue
A vessel resembling a tadpole wrapped in sails and wings
Massive rotors and propellers cutting through the clouds
Autogolems clamoring around like ants over the vessel
A white mouse woman of a half meter height
Large blue eyes and curly hair
A cat like smile
Blue poncho over white dress
A clockwork left arm mostly hidden
Flat metal fingers drumming the deck railing

         “Hm. Hm. It looks like we’ve arrived,” Blister the Mouse announced to no one as she surveyed the clouds beneath the tail deck of her ship and the propellers that spun under it. Turning her eyes to the sky and rubbing her mechanical shoulder she addressed the planet casting every Zone she flew to in an eclipse. “I don’t see the Red Ring, so this must be where I meant to go.

         “Take us down!”

         Blister spoke in a deliberately sleepy yet energetic voice with a playful tone, so her shouting orders was a curious thing to hear. Her autogolems were less so inclined to care and began preparing the vessel to descend below the clouds.

         As the clouds cut away, and the vessel emerged from their weighted with rain bellies, an island came into view. It was dense in jungle and surrounded by several other smaller islands. Even in the howling wind and heavy rain though. the angry glare of an active volcano could be seen at the heart of the island.

         “Hm. Hm. A dangerous place to hide a treasure. I wonder what it could be. What could be here that keeps Mr. Yoluku at bay? I hope to find out and sell the information to Mr. Sonic and his adorable companion. I hope they remember me. I hope they’re here too. I haven’t seen any potential customers in what seems like ages.”

         In addition to being a sky pirate, though she had no victims to terrorize, Blister was also an adventurer and merchant. As she had no clientele at this time either though, she was left with being but an adventurer.

         How she came to find herself in the Far Lands was lost on her. She knew she had been pursuing Sonic and Rosy, once under Yoluku’s control herself until she was rescued by the hedgehog pair. But the abandoned world that rolled out before her since she last saw them was eerie. She was confident however that if she just kept doing what she did that her fortunes would change. As she set foot on an old pier that wrecked seafaring vessels adorned the water around, the sight of the Jolly Roger blowing in the wind made her smile.

         “Well, it looks like I’m among friends at least.” Blister smiled as she absently rubbed the patch on her sleeve, a skull and crossed wrenches laid upon a cog wheel. “Hm. Hm.:

         The pirates who at some point claimed the island Blister aimed to explore were anything but her allies in present times. They had long since been replaced, but Blister could not help but be curious as to by who.

        “Hm. Hm. Not what I was expecting at all,” Blister remarked as she took cover in the dense jungle foliage to spy on an ancient stone temple ruin garbed in a wooden pirate’s fortress.

         If not for the jungle vegetation, the pack Blister wore which was larger than Sonic would have surely given her away. She was not so unfortunate this day though and could safely observe the current pirates who made the islands their base.

         Bodies of steal, autogolems built like anthropomorphic cookware and utensils. Garbed in pirate’s colors they were an odd lot who patrolled seemingly tireless of the obstacles around them. Even the stone anchor golems that Rosy frequently contested with were unconcerned by the pirate autogolems.

         “I wonder if they belonged to the original pirates here,” Blister asked as she sprinted off to further survey the island.

         Blister’s sprinting was an impressive feat. Not because she accomplished it despite the massive pack she carried, impressive as that was, but for the speed she traveled at.

         Even in a thick jungle a sonic boom was unmistakable and surely garnered the attention of every golem who heard it. But as was the case with those traveling at the speed of sound, they were long away from the point of origin.

          How Blister came to possess speed matching Sonic’s was a mystery to her. She possessed it even before she ever met the hedgehog and had used it as a natural part of her own adventuring. As ancient ruins and tombs were her preferred delves on such ventures, she had become quite adept at evading traps. Not always however as her clockwork arm demonstrated by its sheer existence. On this pirate island however it was plenty as the pirate golems kept her from exploring too deeply into the booby-trapped ruins. She was no fighter and had left her autogolem crew to protect her vessel.

         Arriving back at her vessel, Blister’s pouch had grown quite a bit with local flora and fauna that did not realize it would soon be the mouse’s food stores for the foreseeable future. Her autogolems assured nothing would escape however as she ordered her ship back into the sky and made for her cabin.

         “Hm. Hm. Not easy at all to scout the island with so many golems,” Blister complained as she sat at a desk and tickled her chin with a feather writing quill. Looking down at the scraps of notes she collected during her ventures, she began writing in a larger tome in earnest. “Still, this island is a lot more fun than I was expecting. Who would have thought the pirates would have made the island into a deathtrap of a casino. Quite the fancy. Hm. Hm.”

         Looking out of her cabin window as the ship followed a course around the island chain, Blister chuckled at the neon lights that emerged from the jungle. At least where cloud shadows fell and allowed the garish decorations to shine. The gas-powered lights were anything but as vibrant as those powered by electricity but made quite the spectacle. It was not what held Blister’s interest however as she turned her attention once more to her notes.

         “I should be glad pirates are so arrogant or I would have never discovered the treasure here,” Blister allowed herself an amused thought. “To think they would steal from the machine knights though. They were brave at least if I read the graffiti right. But what a weird treasure.”

         Leaning back into the plush armchair she occupied, Blister kicked her booted feet up onto the desk and looked at the slip of paper she had taken with her into the depths of the scarlet cushions.

         “Hm. Hm. A Ring to make them kings even over Mr. Yoluku. That is some treasure, and one I’m certain Mr. Sonic would be very interested to learn about. Now, if I can just find it so I can sell it to him when next our paths cross.”

         Leaving her cabin sometime later and donning her pack for her next expedition to the Zone below, Blister looked up past the intermittent storm clouds at Yoluku. It was not the planet that caught her eye, or even the sun behind it. Rather, it was the Ring the two formed together. A Ring she saw in the pirate graffiti below.

         “An Eclipse Ring,” she said the name of the artifact aloud. “A Ring to stop the power of the Rings. What a fancy of a treasure. Hm. Hm. I simply must have it. Though for the right price I’ll gladly part with it too.

         “Hm. Hm.”