Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Station Square.

You could easily call it "the city of adventure"… but you could just as easily call it "the unluckiest place on the entire planet". They both have merit, really. It's an exciting place to be or even live in, to be sure, but that's because the city seems to be a magnet for big, dangerous events, like the return of a powerful, 4000-year-old water creature.

Maybe's that why Sonic the Hedgehog likes to visit so often.

Yes, even though there are several different cities that he could be visiting, the world-renowned hero seems to have a thing for Station Square. No one could really guess why; there hasn't been any real excitement that could draw him towards the place recently. Sure, the place might be well-known because of the attack of a giant monster, but the reconstruction efforts that followed—and are still ongoing to this day—aren't exactly a draw for a free-spirited adventurer.

And yet, there he was once again, relaxing on the roof of a building.

"Oh, yeah… nothing like a good roof to help you chill out." Sonic said to no one in particular, before he took a bite off a chili dog.

The blue hedgehog had decided to just take things easy for a while. His energetic resolve was something that would never leave, but when your last adventure involves a fire creature from another dimension that can control your mind, he figured anyone would leap at the chance for some rest and relaxation. Besides, with his genius arch-enemy Dr. Eggman still out there somewhere, he just knew there would be plenty of chances for excitement.

He stretched his legs a little before helping himself to more of his tasty snack. "I love my life."

After taking a few moments to finish it off, he quickly got up and took a deep breath. Now that he had taken the time to rest a little and eat something, he had decided it was time to get moving again. You don't get to stay in top shape just by loafing around, after all.

"Okay, here we go!"

Sonic immediately followed up on this statement by jumping off the building, pulling off the same kind of landing he's used to after foiling one of Eggman's evil plots. He examined the immediate area, looking for a good spot that could give him plenty of room to do his thing.

Before he could start running, though, he felt something colliding against his side.

"Whoa, hey!"

He wasn't pushed too hard, so he was perfectly able to stay upright, but whatever happened to run into him made a sound. More specifically, it grunted, followed by a thud. Turning around, Sonic found a bag and a number of items on the floor, and what seemed to be someone right under the bag.

"Hey, you alright?" He asked as he approached this person who just so happened to stumble upon him. "You gotta watch where you're going, especially around here."

The hedgehog immediately set out to help, and once he was able to move the bag away and prepared himself to ask something else, he was met by a surprising sight.

"What the…? Amy?"

Yes, the owner of the bags was none other than Amy Rose, a fellow hedgehog and one of his best friends.

She shook her head, and then she noticed who she had run into.

"Oh… hi, Sonic." She greeted him as well. "Sorry… I guess I really didn't see where I was going."

Normally, this would give Sonic an instant urge to run away. While he finds her to be perfectly likable, her advances are usually quite repellent. Many times over, she has made it no secret that she is in love with him, declaring herself to be his girlfriend and pursuing him very aggressively, as well as going to extreme lengths in order to win his affection. Given her occasionally fiery temper, the results can be pretty scary.

This time, however, he noticed something was… off.

Amy, normally a very energetic and high-spirited person, seemed very even-tempered today; she didn't exactly look as excited to see him as she'd usually be.

"What are you doing over here?" While he can be clueless sometimes, Sonic isn't stupid, so this caught his attention right away. "I never see you around when I'm visiting."

After he helped her up, Amy quickly began to pick up everything that had fallen to the ground.

"Yeah, ever since I moved to Central City, I guess I don't have much of a reason to hang out here." She looked at him. "But since you're asking, remember how I used to live here?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I remember."

"Well, my old house got destroyed when Chaos transformed into that giant lizard monster thing." She put all of her things together on the floor. "I moved into the apartment at Central City so I wouldn't have too much trouble while the reconstruction started. Honestly, I think I would've done so at some point anyway even if they hadn't destroyed it. Either way, I was told that I should expect a call about my old house at some point."

"That's why you're here?" Sonic asked her, surprisingly invested. "What's up with that stuff then?"

As though in answer, she started to put the items back inside the bag.

"They're all the things they found in the wreckage." Amy stopped for a moment to look at him. "Most of my old stuff… didn't survive the flood, but I guess they really wanted me to be able to take anything that wasn't destroyed or lost forever back home with me." Then she went back to her bag. "It may not be much, but… it really means the world to me."

Right at that moment, it hit him. These weren't just things that you bought at the dollar store, or random stuff that was on discount at the mall… these were important to her. Probably about as much as she has claimed to love him on so many occasions, if he were to guess.

They were the very last pieces of what used to be her home.

Sonic had a house of his own, but he didn't usually spend his time there. Since he traveled a lot, he was used to finding himself a place that was comfortable enough to spend the night or, if he happened to be close by, he stayed with Tails at his house, since his best friend always had a couch available and enjoyed his company. However, that didn't mean he didn't care about it. It was a cozy little place, and he did spend time there when he just wanted a break or wasn't feeling completely well. He also cherished all of the things he usually left there, like his sofa, his old telescope or the picture of himself and Tails that they took when they finished their very first adventure together. He even had the memory of meeting another friend right at his living room, which was immediately followed by another adventure that he remembered fondly.

The idea of losing all of that had never occurred to him before, but now that he thought about it…

"…I'm sorry, Amy." He finally spoke again, after much consideration.

In response, the pink hedgehog turned around. "Don't be. It wasn't even your fault anyway." She smiled at him. "Blame Eggman; he's the one who thought using Chaos would work out for him."

"I know, I know. I just felt like I needed to get that out there." He walked over to her as she put the rest of her belongings back into the bag. "So, gonna stick around for a while?"

Amy shook her head. "Not really. I was just going to head back to Central City."

Upon hearing that, he just smirked at her.

"Well, I have a plane, y'know. Want a lift?"

"You'd do that?" Amy asked, surprised by the offer. "I thought you were here because you wanted to stay for a while."

"Hey, I can always fly back here." Sonic just shrugged. "Besides, Tails asked me to test out the Tornado 2 after he did… uhh, something or other to it. I can't remember." He started stretching his arms. "I'm gonna have to go back and tell him how it turned out either way, so hey, why not go two-for-one?"

Before he had a chance to react, Amy surprised him with one of her trademark hugs.

"Oh, thank you, Sonic! Thank you, thank you, thank you! You're the best!"

This would usually be the part where he gets uneasy and creeped out and he tries to run away. Whether it's because she keeps doing that without any kind of prompting or because she'd squeeze him so hard that he'd swear she could crack his ribs by accident, he always tries to avoid this part.

…But not this time. Instead, he merely found himself returning the gesture, very gently embracing his pink friend.

"No prob."

Amy let go of him and walked over to her bag, but before she could pick it up, she noticed that she had been beaten to the task. She was pretty surprised by the sight of Sonic just carrying the bag that was giving her trouble a couple minutes ago.

"It's cool. I got it."

Some time later…

Emerald Town.

At first glance, it's not exactly an unremarkable sight, but not really a household name or a hot tourist destination either. It's a relatively simple town, practically interchangeable when compared to other, more notable towns. However, that's not to say there's an overly high amount of available vacancies or anything; it simply doesn't have the same kind of staying power as Central City, which isn't too far away from it.

Despite this, one particular individual had his home set up near one of Sonic's favorite places: his best friend, Miles Prower, a yellow fox who was more commonly known as Tails, thanks to him somehow being born with two tails instead of one. His house—which, quite amusingly, looked a lot like his own head—was located in Emerald Town, and was only a few minutes away from Emerald Beach.

Normally, Tails would spend most of his days just tinkering at his workshop, which was actually on the way over to Emerald Beach. After all, he had plenty of ideas in his mind almost every day about things he could invent or fix, and one of his favorite things to do was working on his plane, regardless of whether it was a routine checkup, some kind of upgrade, or just building a new model.

In fact, he was already on his way there when he suddenly noticed something over at Emerald Beach.

"Huh? What's that?"

His curiosity taking over, he turned away from his workshop and decided to fly over there first, using his tails as a propeller.

Now, Tails has seen a lot of strange things both before and after meeting Sonic. An armada of birds looking to conquer the world with the power of the Chaos Emeralds, an old witch who travelled around an island in a rail cart, an ancient robot designed to copy any and all fighting moves just by watching them, and aliens who wanted to colonize Earth and use humans as nothing more than food, just to name a few. But nothing could have prepared him for what he saw once he finally got close enough.

"Here we go. Emerald Beach, just as cool as always."

Namely, Sonic jumping out of his plane, with Amy as a passenger, not running away despite that, and actually helping her out, all without a single objection being given.

The hedgehog had himself a laugh, holding her bag in his arms as he did. "Want me to take this to your apartment?"

Amy couldn't stop herself from chuckling at that.

"That's alright, Sonic. I… I think I want to take it there myself." She looked away, stroking one of her arms as she did. "I know it probably sounds silly, but it's… kind of important."

In response, he put the bag down. "Pfft, not at all. Suit yourself."

And with that, she was all set and ready to get out of the passenger seat. However, as she did, she accidentally took a wrong step, and she quickly lost her balance and fell out of the Tornado 2.

Fortunately for her, Sonic has always had the world's fastest reflexes, so he was able to run in and catch her before she hit the ground. She had shut her eyes in preparation for the impact, but when it never came, she opened them up, and she quickly took notice of how close he was to her.

"That was close."

Amy could feel her face heating up almost immediately. Right away, she felt the urge to shower him with her usual brand of affection: lots of hugging, and praising, and maybe a kiss on top of—

No, wait…

Much to her own surprise, she stopped herself as soon as she realized something.

Whenever I do that, he just runs away. But this… this is the first time he hasn't been against spending time with me. He brought me here, and he offered to carry my things. I…

Then she looked at his face.

He was smiling at her, and it wasn't even that old cocky smirk of his that made her heart flutter every time she saw it. It was just… a really genuine kind of smile. It wasn't out of place for him, but she was so used to his usual expression that it actually caught her unawares.

…No, I can't do that to him. Not after he's been so nice for once. Every time he saves me from something, I just do something that makes him run away. Try to be more considerate this time, Amy.

"Yo! Earth to Amy! Still with us?"

She was snapped out of it when she heard Sonic's voice again, and she quickly noticed how confused he seemed to be.

"You sure you don't need help?"

Once she remembered that she was still in his arms, she just tried to get down on her own.

"Yeah… yeah, I'm sure." As soon as she had her feet back on the ground, she felt comfortable enough to speak again. "Don't worry about me, Sonic. I'm just fine."

Sonic was thrown off by this. Surely, this should have been the part where Amy would do something silly or lovey-dovey… but no, she was acting surprisingly mature, and that just confused him.

"Okay, fine." He was determined to not let it show, though, turning his attention over to the nearby streets. "Hey, let's go get you a cab. No idea why you like 'em, but hey, with all that stuff, it's gonna be a long trip to Central City on foot. Even you can't be into something that boring."

Amy could feel a smile growing on her face. The fact that he just kept on acting like he usually does was a good sign, and the offer was amazingly considerate.

"Sure, let's go."

As she picked up her bag, she could hear Sonic zipping away. She made her way over to the sidewalk, walking slowly and staying in a straight line, and she could hear him saying something in the distance. She really only managed to make it out after walking a little more.

"So, d'you lend that trunk to your passengers?" There was a brief pause. "Sweet, 'cause I got someone here with a big bag o' stuff that needs a ride." Another one. "Speaking of, here she comes. Hey, Amy, you can drop that thing now!"

Once she put it down, she was impressed. She thought that maybe Sonic was just teasing her, since she didn't hear anyone else, but the sight of a taxi that had indeed pulled over proved her wrong.

"Wow. That was fast."

He chuckled for a bit. "Faster than the speed of sound. That's how I roll."

The two heard a noise coming from the car, and a quick look from Sonic confirmed that the trunk was now unlocked. After Amy picked up the bag and put it in there, he closed it again.

"Well, there it is." He gave her a thumbs-up. "Looks like you're good to go, Amy."

She couldn't help but smile, still finding his demeanor as charming as she did on the day they first met.

"Yeah, I guess."

Right at that moment, she felt an incredible urge to hug him again, but with her previous thoughts still fresh in her mind, she did her best to hold back.

This didn't stop her from showing her appreciation. Unlike her other displays of affection, however, this was very subdued on her part. No yelling, no chasing, no forceful gestures, no aggressive pursuing… she just walked up to him and planted a kiss on his cheek.

"Thanks for all the help, Sonic."

That was it. That was the point where he could no longer try to shrug it off.

With all that had happened, Sonic expected Amy to just go nuts on him and ask for nine dates or something. This one small, simple gesture, so very unlike her, was enough for his "cool guy" act to crack, his carefree expresion being replaced with complete and utter shock.

Words could not describe how grateful he was when he noticed that she was distracted by something.

"Hi, Tails!"

Turning to the same direction that she was looking at, he was beyond relieved at the sight of his buddy, who was walking towards them.

"Hey, Sonic. Hey, Amy." He waved at the two. "What's going on?"

"Oh, I was just at Station Square picking up a few things. I don't know how, but some of my possessions survived the destruction of the city by Chaos, and I want to take them back to my apartment."

Tails started scratching his head. "And Sonic's… helping you?"

"I know!" Amy replied while nodding enthusiastically. "Isn't he just the sweetest?"

That left the young fox stumped. Before he could ask any more questions, however, Amy quickly boarded the taxi.

"Well, I should get going before it goes dark. Bye, Tails." She turned to the blue hedgehog. "Bye, Sonic. Thanks again." Then she shut the door, and that was the last they heard of her before the car left.

Sonic quickly shook his head and approached his friend.

"Hey, Tails." He chuckled, doing his best to recover from what had just happened. "Couldn't even wait 'til I got to your house before checking on the old plane, huh?"

Tails was baffled at how casual he was being.

"Uhh… yeah." Then he looked over at the Tornado 2. "How did the adjustments turn out? Is she faster? Does she turn okay? Did you test the high-speed mode?"

"You did it again, little bro. She flies like a dream." Sonic surprised him with a headlock and a noogie. "Is there anything you can't get right?"

Tails couldn't hold his laughter in, both because of the noogie and the compliment.

"That's great to know." Looking at his friend for a moment, he decided to ask him right away. "Hey, um… Sonic? Can I ask you something?"

He grinned in response. "Fire away."

"Well…" He got a little shaky, turning his eyes away. "I was on my way to the workshop to do some work and wait for you, but… I, uh… I saw you."

Sonic scoffed in amusement. "I am hard to miss, y'know."

"No, no, I mean…" Tails turned his eyes to look at Sonic again. "…I saw you with Amy. You were helping her out, and… you weren't complaining. You flew her here, you helped her with her belongings, and you even got her a taxi."

The hedgehog merely shrugged at this. "Well, it's not like she was going to carry that big thing all the way to Central City, right?"

"No, no! It's just…" Then he straightened himself up. "You were spending time with her. You never do that! I know we're friends and all, but you always run away from her! Always!"

Sonic just shrugged again. "Yeah, well… I didn't this time."

"That's my point! Why didn't you run?"

His response was direct and nonchalant. "She wasn't chasing me. She just wanted a hand with her stuff. No big deal."

Tails was at a loss for words, confused by Sonic's casual attitude towards the whole situation. Nothing about what he witnessed and heard made any sense at all, no matter how he tried to rationalize it… until one particular thought entered his mind right then and there.

"Sonic, are you… in love with Amy all of a sudden?"

Upon hearing this, his eyes widened.

"You're kidding, right?" He stayed like that for a moment before letting out some laughs. "Because that has gotta be the funniest thing you've ever said, pal! You really had me going for a moment there."

The fox could feel his head tilting to the side. "…So, you're not?"

"Pfft, 'course not!" He stretched his legs. "I just don't do marriage, Tails. I'll take running over being tied down to one place any day!"

This didn't help Tails' confusion at all.

"Alright, just… forget I asked anything." He turned to his plane again. "I'm going to fly the Tornado 2 myself for a while before I take her back to the hangar. I'd still like to run some more tests." He gave Sonic another look. "Do you want to come with?"

Sonic, on the other hand, just decided to lay on the sand, his hands behind his head. "Nah, I think I'm gonna relax for a while. Catch up to you later?"

"Okay, see you later then."

As he closed his eyes, he could hear the plane's engines coming back on, followed by the front propeller's spins. The sounds eventually started to become more and more distant, until he couldn't even hear anything but the crashing waves and the wind blowing around him. Just the way he liked it.

Nothing beats a day on the beach, even if it's a lazy day. He chuckled for a moment. Heh, that Tails… always the jokester. "Are you in love with Amy?" Yeah, right. That'd never happen.

He took a deep breath, got comfortable, and allowed himself to relax and let his mind be filled with nice thoughts.

The next time Eggman unveiled some kind of ridiculous scheme for world domination, he'd laugh at whatever power he thought he could wield turning on him, smash it in seconds, stomp on the doc's head just for fun, and then go for a jog. Then he could follow it with a trip to Tails' house just to let him know about it, drop by the fast food joint for a full plate of chili dogs, and unexpectedly head on over to Amy's place.

…Wait, what?

Sonic's eyes snapped wide open when he realized what had just crossed his mind.

Nah, no way. That last chili dog was probably spoiled or something. I mean, that'd never happen… right?

Chapter Text

The next few days were pretty average.

Sonic had decided to forget about returning to Station Square for the moment, as he enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere that Emerald Beach always provided him. All the while, Tails kept on testing the results of the work he had done on his plane, ironing out any wrinkles he might have come across. The blue hedgehog couldn't help but crack a smile every time he saw his friend flying around with it.

Even before they met, Tails idolized him and wanted nothing more than to be as cool as him, having been impressed by his speed, and was quite taken with Sonic's plane, the original Tornado, the moment he laid his eyes on it. Conversely, Sonic didn't pay too much attention to him at first, even after he found out that Tails had been following him for some time. The young fox was much too shy to introduce himself right away, so he figured he could just ignore him and get along with his life.

It wasn't until after they started working together to foil one of Dr. Eggman's earliest schemes that he started seeing him as more than just a random kid. At first, Tails was just following him out of reflex, but during the course of their adventure, he actively began to assist Sonic, who grew to appreciate the fox's determination, as well as his ability to keep up with him, something that no one else had been able to do before, and the fact that he seemed to understand his plane better than he himself did. By the time they had finished, he had grown so fond of him that he officially appointed him as his sidekick.

Over the course of their many adventures together, though, he began to see Tails less like a sidekick and more like the little brother he never had. While the young inventor always seemed to feel he had to prove himself, Sonic made it no secret that he was already very proud of him, and the two knew they could count on each other for anything, no matter how big.

That's why the speedster was certain that he could trust him with what he needed to say.

It was the middle of the afternoon, four days after Sonic and Amy's flight to Emerald Town, and Tails was in his workshop, writing down the results of his latest test flight.

"Okay… all done." He put his pencil down, and then started comparing them to the rest of the notes he had taken over the course of the last couple of days. "Wow, I can't believe it! That's about three times the speed she had before! This is the best day ever!"

Right at that moment, he was startled when he heard someone laughing behind him.

"Show of hands: who didn't see that coming?"

Upon turning around, he was greeted by the figure of his best friend, who seemed rather amused at his reaction.

"Oh…" Tails scratched the back of his head, chuckling awkwardly. "Hey, Sonic."

Sonic started to approach him, with his hands behind his back. "Hey, bud. You done with that yet?"

"Yeah. I was just about to take a break, actually."

"Cool. It's about time you did." He brought one of his hands up to Tails' face, showing him what he was hiding. "I got you a chili dog."

The moment he laid eyes on it, he eagerly accepted it.

"Thanks. I haven't had one of these in a while." He took a moment to inspect it closely. "Wow, extra cheese! You remembered!"

"Heh, how could I forget? It's your second fave." Sonic brought out his other hand, which was holding another chili dog. "And of course, one for me."

Tails laughed for a moment, having already guessed that he'd do that. "So, what's the plan?"

"How's heading to your place sound?" Sonic started twirling his chili dog on his hand, almost like a basketball. "Maybe we'll get lucky and catch a hockey match."

Tails couldn't help but laugh again. "You know, it's funny. Normally, you're pretty neutral about watching sports, but when it's hockey, you always try to be the first in line!"

"Yeah, well, you already know exactly why that is." This time, Sonic laughed right along with him. "C'mon, let's get moving before these babies get cold!"

Some time later…

The two friends were over at Tails' house, sitting on the couch right in front of the TV. Much to their delight, they were indeed able to watch a hockey match. Sonic was so focused on it, and so determined not to miss a thing, that he waited until the half-time to run outside and then come back, bringing more chili dogs for himself and Tails.

Once the game was over, with a score of 9-6 in favor of their team, the two friends were left to cheer loudly at them.

"Wow! That was so close, but at the end, they just wouldn't give up!"

"I know. Just for a sec, I thought they were going to lose. Never seen that from them." Sonic leaned against the backrest with a chuckle. "Gotta hand it to the ol' slapshot. Never fails."

Tails chuckled for a moment as well. "Yeah… they're just as good as ever."

As he turned off the TV, the blue hedgehog nudged him with his elbow.

"Well, since that's over, how about we top your second fave with the first?" Then he gently tossed something in his direction. "Christmas came early for you this year, little bro."

Once Tails was able to catch it, though not without difficulty, he took a good look at it… and couldn't even try to contain the smile that grew on his face.

"How did you…?"

Sonic cut him off. "Ever been to one of those fancy restaurants? They've got plates full of mint candy." Then he shrugged. "I just had to pay 'em during the half-time. They even threw in the bag for free."

"Wow… thanks."

"No prob. Anytime."

The hedgehog watched his friend open the bag. He knew just how much the young genius loved mint candy. As soon as he took one of the many pieces and put it in his mouth, his expression was as happy as could be. It turned out exactly as he had imagined it would.

Okay, this is my chance. Here goes nothing.

"Hey, Tails." Sonic nudged him. "I've got something… personal… that I need to discuss with you."

Tails turned to look at him, his expression unchanged. "Sure thing, Sonic. What is it?"

Sonic took a deep breath before turning his head away.

"How long has it been since I gave the old bird that test flight?"

Tails was confused by the odd question. "Um… four days?"

Conversely, Sonic chuckled at this.

"Wow… four days." He turned his attention back over to his friend. "Feels like it was only yesterday. My mind's been racing since then."

"Isn't it always like that?"

The two friends laughed at this for a moment.

"Good one."

"Thanks. Anyway, what were you saying?" Tails asked after they were done, genuinely curious.

Sonic stopped to consider his words carefully, something he had never really done before. "Well… you remember what happened, right? Amy needed a ride and brought some stuff with her?"

"Yeah, I remember. You helped her out and got her a taxi." He took out another piece of candy. "And you said it didn't mean anything. You even laughed when I suggested it might."

"Heh, I was pretty confident that it didn't. I mean, it was for a friend, right?"

The speedster chuckled for a couple seconds, but then his expression changed.

"…Sure wish I still was."

The moment those words were spoken, Tails was taken aback. "Sonic… what are you saying? Are you—?"

"No." Sonic replied, interrupting him. "I'm not saying that. At least, I'm pretty sure I'm not."

He made a brief pause, trying to figure out how to express his thoughts, while Tails just looked at him in confusion.

"…I don't know. Is it even possible?" He turned his eyes to the ceiling, apparently in deep thought. "Because I can tell you, I know I've never felt anything like that in my entire life. I mean, Amy's just a friend that I saved from Metal Sonic, right?"

Tails nodded. "I remember that story. It's from before we met. You said there was time travel involved."

"Yeah. Not taking any bets on that happening again." He replied with a brief chuckle. "But ever since then, it's always the same thing with her. I go somewhere, Eggman has some crazy scheme going on, we try to stop him, and she chases me." He followed this comment with a facepalm. "Even when we're being chased by robots, or in the middle of a prison complex, she'll try to squeeze a date or something out of it! It's ridiculous! Half the time, I forget that she has a personality outside of 'Sonic-obsessed'!" He put his hand down and looked at Tails. "You know what I mean?"

The fox just nodded again.

"Well, I thought I had it all figured out… but then that day happened." Sonic sighed.

Tails' curiosity was piqued. "What exactly happened?"

"For once… I actually bumped into Amy by accident." The blue hedgehog leaned against the backrest again. "Y'know, instead of her tackling me, or some other dude who looks nothing like me but people still mistake him for me for some reason?"

As he spoke, the entire day started replaying in his mind. Meanwhile, Tails was listening intently.

"Pretty sure you remember the reason she was there. Chaos wrecked the place, including her house, but some of her stuff still made it, and she wanted it at her apartment." He grabbed a nearby chili dog as he continued. "That's it. That was the only reason she was at Station Square. For once, she wasn't thinking about me. She didn't even expect to see me there." He started twirling it around, much like he had done with the one he had bought on the way to Tails' workshop. "When she noticed me, she was… calm, gentle, and pleasant. She was already on her way back to Central City, and she didn't make a riot when she spotted me. When she fell out of the Tornado 2, I caught her, and she didn't even try to make a move. I got her a cab in a matter of seconds, and instead of fangirling like crazy…" He stopped twirling it and just looked at it. "…she kissed me in the cheek and thanked me. That's all."

Tails, meanwhile, wasn't sure how to take the situation. Not only was his friend being calm and contemplative, something that he never thought Sonic the Hedgehog would slow down to do, but he could understand why he was doing it now.

"Sonic… do you think that maybe, just maybe…" He placed a hand on the hedgehog's shoulder. "…you really are seeing Amy in a different light?"

Sonic took a bite out of his chili dog before speaking again.

"That's just the thing. I'm not entirely sure it's different." Then he put it down. "I know what I just said about her, but that one day… I don't know… it feels more like it jogged my memory." His eyes turned to the ceiling once again as he said that.

Tails took his hand back. "Really? How so?"

"She spends so much time acting crazy that you forget about it, but… Amy's always been a sweet girl." Much to his friend's shock, Sonic started to smile. "I mean it; from the day we met, she's been kind, friendly and caring. She's no pushover, either, and isn't afraid to stand up for her friends no matter what she's facing. Even when one of them was an Eggman robot, she wouldn't back down for anything." He chuckled at that last part. "Seriously, not even for me."

After thinking about it, the young inventor nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I guess you're right. She's a good friend."

There was a brief, awkward silence after this. Neither one of them knew how to pick up from there.

"So, basically, you don't know how to feel." Tails finally decided that backtracking would help instead.

"I guess. I mean, I'm pretty sure I don't love Amy, but on the other hand, I'm also pretty sure I didn't feel like this before." Sonic scoffed at his own comment. "I've known her for about four years, and it only took four days for things to get weird. Go fig."

Tails just looked at him for a moment, surprised at his reaction.

"…Can I ask you something?" He inquired, to which his friend just nodded. "Why are you telling me this? I mean, why me and not someone else?"

Sonic shrugged. "You're my buddy, my pal, my little bro. I couldn't think of anyone better."

"Oh, um…" Tails paused for a moment, elated at that notion. "That's really nice, but I'm really not the best person to talk to about something like that. I'm still just an 8-year-old, remember?"

"Who else is there?"

At that moment, he gave the hedgehog a deadpan look. "Cream's mom, maybe?"

This caught Sonic's attention.

Not too long ago, during one of Dr. Eggman's many plots, he had made the acquaintance of Cream the Rabbit, a young girl whose mother had been kidnapped. After rescuing her and his friends, they all worked together to foil the doctor's latest evil scheme. In the end, Sonic was able to beat him, and he saved Cream's mother, Vanilla, from falling to her doom. The two were well-liked by most people due to their kindness and polite behavior, and Vanilla in particular was very respected by basically everyone in Sonic's circle of friends, including Sonic himself.

He considered that for a moment… and promptly slapped his own forehead.

"Sheesh, why didn't I think of that? She's an adult with a daughter! She's gotta have a better handle on that kinda thing! And I'd get to check on Gemerl, too!" Then he sighed in frustration. "…That should've been obvious."

Tails shook his head in slight amusement at this, before placing a hand on Sonic's shoulder.

"For what it's worth, I'm glad to know I was your first choice, and it's nice that you trusted me enough to tell me all of that. I know you can sort this out." He had a smile on his face, and his words were completely sincere. "That's not really my specialty, but if you have anything that I can handle, you can ask me again anytime."

This got Sonic to smile as well. He offered Tails a fist, which was soon met with a bump from the young fox's own fist.

"Thanks, big guy."

"Don't mention it, Sonic."

The two friends stayed silent for another moment.

"So… are you going to talk to her right now?"

Sonic shook his head. "Nah, I think I'm gonna need a moment to think this whole thing over first." He pointed at the main entrance. "I'm just gonna look for a ceiling to rest on."

"Alright." Tails helped himself to another piece of mint candy. "I know I said it's not my specialty, but let me know how it goes, okay? If it's important to you, then it's important to me too."

Sonic smirked at that.

"You got it, Tails." After quickly finishing what was left of his chili dog, he stood up. "Well, see you around, pal."

As he watched him leave, Tails just smiled without another word.

Central City.

The capital of the United Federation, this is where the White House is located, as well as the main base of the Guardian Units of Nations. Among its main draws are a skyscraper with a library and a very famous database, a casino district called Night Babylon, and a highway with the oddly appropriate name of Battle Highway, given that not only is its architecture ideal for a fight, but many a fierce showdown has taken place there.

And by way of what was either a sense of familiarity or just sheer coincidence, Sonic was close to that highway, relaxing on top of a nearby building and looking up at the sky.

Talking to Vanilla… it's a good plan, but what am I gonna tell her? How do you even talk about stuff like this? How do I get her to understand it without looking like an idiot?

He turned his head to the side, and he spotted Amy's apartment, which just so happened to be fairly close to Battle Highway's location. Frustrated, he sighed and sat up.

Why did it have to be this way? Any other day, I'd be cool with Amy hanging around me as long as she took it easy, but now, I can't even bring myself to look at her house without thinking about stuff that I wish I could skip because I don't like hearing about it! How did things get so complicated?

He followed this up with a facepalm.

"It's at times like this that I really wish something exciting would happen…"

Putting his hand back down, he suddenly heard something behind him.

"You just might get your wish."

Right away, he turned around, and he was surprised by what he found.

"…Knuckles?"

Yes, it was his friendly rival, Knuckles the Echidna, and while the fact that he was actually right in front of him right now was surprising to him… it wasn't nearly as surprising as the fact that he didn't exactly look like he was in top shape.

"Hey, who roughed you up, buddy? Did a Flicky steal your grapes?" As concerned as he was, Sonic couldn't stop himself from snarking at him.

Knuckles was not amused. "Where's Tails?"

"Over at his place. Why?"

The echidna then grabbed Sonic's arm. "There's someone on Angel Island messing with the Master Emerald, and I need all the help I can get."

"Oh, that? Why didn't you say so?" Sonic scoffed at him. "No prob! We'll be there in a sec!"

Before Knuckles could even think about responding to that, Sonic jumped off the building, dragging him along for the ride.

"Next stop: Emerald Town!" They had barely touched the ground before the hedgehog sped away… completely unaware that he and Knuckles were being watched.

One trip later…

"You're saying he kicked you out of Angel Island?"

Over at Tails' house, the young fox was busy checking if Knuckles had any serious injuries, while Sonic was slouched in a nearby couch, listening to his two friends.

"Yeah… literally." Knuckles was pretty upset. "He just showed up out of nowhere, said he'd be taking the Master Emerald for himself 'just because he felt like it', and then I tried to fight him off."

Sonic scratched his ear. "Don't tell me you seriously let this guy beat the snot outta you, Knux."

"I didn't." Knuckles turned to him. "I don't know how he did it, but he used the Master Emerald's power to give himself a boost. It's like I was fighting you… but worse."

Tails stepped away from him. "At least he didn't do any permanent damage. You're going to be okay, Knuckles."

"Good." The echidna stood up straight. "Because I'm going for Round Two right now!"

Sonic was quick to follow suit. "You mean we're going for Round Two, buddy."

"I'll get the Tornado 2 ready." Tails was equally quick, making his way to the front door. "Now that I know the adjustments worked, it should get us there in a snap."

The moment he opened it, all three of them were caught by surprise.

"Amy?"

Indeed, the pink hedgehog was standing right outside Tails' house, and it looked like she was just about to knock on the door when he happened to open it.

"Oh, uh… hi, guys." She waved at them, clearly embarrassed by the poor timing.

Sonic ran up to Tails' side. "What are you doing here?"

"Actually… I was just taking care of my apartment and my stuff, but then I spotted you and Knuckles talking about something." She started stroking one of her arms. "I didn't know where you went after that, so I was going to ask Tails if he knew."

Knuckles began to make his way out. "Well, you found us, but we need to leave now."

"Yeah… another Master Emerald thing." Sonic rolled his eyes with an amused scoff. "Because we haven't had enough of those, I guess."

As the blue hedgehog ran off to catch up with Knuckles, Tails turned to Amy. "Do you want to come with us? If what Knuckles said is true, we could use all the help we can get."

Right at that moment, Amy's face lit up like a Christmas tree.

"A chance to help my friends and spend time with Sonic?" She took out her trusty Piko Piko Hammer, seemingly out of nowhere. "Lead the way, Tails!"

This got a chuckle out of the boy.

She didn't even think about it…

He immediately began to walk away from his house, with Amy following close behind.

"C'mon, Tails!" The two could hear Sonic's voice from a distance. "Let's do this!"

Angel Island.

A floating patch of land more than four thousand years old, home to both Knuckles and the Master Emerald. Not many people have set foot on it, but it's familiar ground to Sonic and his friends, as Dr. Eggman has made more than one attempt to take the Master Emerald for himself and use it for his evil schemes. As its sworn protector, Knuckles has been the one to most frequently oppose him, both out of a sense of duty, and because he knows the island will fall from the sky if he allows the Master Emerald to be stolen.

While he knew that it could also empower others, he had never seen anything like what he had to witness today.

"There he is!"

After finding a safe place to land the Tornado 2, Sonic, Amy and Tails had followed Knuckles to the Altar of the Emeralds, the place that the Master Emerald is usually at. While the gem itself was still in the exact same spot that it was supposed to be, there was some kind of figure standing right on top of it. From the looks of things, it was as if the energy contained within it was reacting to him somehow.

"Hey there, Chuckles!" His tone of voice was strangely familiar. "Back so soon? I was gonna give you an hour!"

Knuckles immediately pointed at him. "I am the guardian of Angel Island, and I will protect the Master Emerald!"

"Yeah, and he's not alone this time!" Amy suddenly chipped in, firmly grasping her hammer with both hands.

The invader laughed at the two.

"Oh, that's a riot, babe! You seriously think that squeaky toy of yours is going to scare me?" He very abruptly stopped. "That's adorable."

Sonic wasn't intimidated in the slightest. "Hey, haven't you heard? Angel Island's invite-only, and you're not on the guest list, pal."

"Always the smart aleck, huh, Blue?" He scoffed. "Even in this backwards universe, you're still as obnoxious as I remember."

Tails took a step forward. "Who are you? Why are you here?"

"Leave it to the brainiac to ask the important questions!"

Right after saying that, the stranger jumped off of the Master Emerald, gaining quite a bit of altitude before landing in front of the group.

"Whoa…" Sonic's eyes widened.

Amy gasped in shock.

The being standing before them was another hedgehog. He resembled Sonic to a frightening degree, but at the same time, he was noticeably different. He had green fur and blue eyes, the exact opposite of Sonic's blue fur and green eyes, along with a pair of slash marks on his torso, and he was wearing a black leather jacket with flame designs on the arms, red sunglasses and green sneakers.

"I'm Scourge the Hedgehog. King of Moebius, slayer of heroes, wooer of babes." He cracked his neck a couple times. "I'm here to make some noise, kids."

He grinned menacingly at them, which revealed that he also had a mouth full of sharp teeth.

"Hail to the King."

Chapter Text

"So, who wants to go first?"

Sonic, Amy, Tails and Knuckles were still facing the one who had introduced himself as Scourge the Hedgehog. Most of them were still unnerved by his resemblance to Sonic; unlike so many other cases where he was left wondering if everyone in the world needed corrective laser surgery, this hedgehog really was like some sort of dark, twisted reflection of him.

Knuckles, on the other hand, was completely unfazed. "This is my island, and I want you gone right now!"

"Seriously?" Scourge facepalmed at this, clearly fighting back the urge to laugh. "You're that eager to eat even more of my dust, Rad Red?"

Knuckles scowled at him, which only served to get him to stop holding it in.

"Oh, man… how come my Knuckles wasn't this much of an idiot? That would've made things so much more fun!"

The echidna immediately charged at Scourge, clearly enraged, and punched him right in the face, which got him to stop laughing. However, it didn't stop him from grinning.

"Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Bring it."

Knuckles wasted no time in trying to hit him again, but this time, Scourge effortlessly dodged everything that was thrown at him. Sonic, Amy and Tails could only watch the whole scene unfold, still too surprised to make any moves.

"Sonic…" Amy dropped her hammer without even noticing it. "…he moves just like you."

Tails nodded. "He sounds just like you."

"He even talks like me, except he's a complete jerk." Sonic turned to his friends. "Did he say something about 'his Knuckles' just now, or was that just me?"

Amy shook her head. "No, I heard it too."

"What do you think he means by that?" Tails brought a hand to his chin in thought.

Before any of the two hedgehogs could offer a response, Knuckles suddenly landed in front of them. He didn't look too bad, but it was enough to get the group's attention.

"I can do this all day, Chuckles." Scourge rubbed some dust off his shoulder. "Honestly, I could just take the big rock with me and let you guys drop to the ground, but I'm looking for a good time."

Amy immediately picked her hammer back up and pointed it at him. "Well, you're going to leave disappointed and empty-handed!"

"Pfft, don't make me laugh."

In response, she rushed in his direction and then jumped into the air, fully prepared to smash the green hedgehog with her Piko Piko Hammer. However, the second she hit the ground again, she was shocked to see him standing right next to her, having moved in what seemed like a fraction of a second.

"I'm gonna break this down for you, alright?" He pointed at her with a cocky grin. "You can't catch Sonic! Heck, you can't even get him to remember you exist as anything other than a pain in the butt!"

She quickly brought her hammer back up and swung it at him, but once again, he quickly dodged the attack like it was nothing.

"What makes you think you're going to do any better against someone who's better than Sonic in every way?" Then he pointed at himself. "Just face it, Amy. You can't touch this."

Upset by his comments, Amy made another attempt to smash him from the air. This time, however, instead of dodging, Scourge decided to try a different maneuver. Just as she stopped going up, he jumped up in her direction, and before she could process what had happened, he used a hand to grab her hammer by the handle and forced it out of her grip, which he quickly followed up with a kick to Amy's head.

The pink hedgehog landed face-first right in front of her shocked friends. Scourge was next, although he landed on his feet, still holding her hammer.

"What did I tell you, huh? What did I say?"

Tails rushed over to help Amy up, while Sonic and Knuckles glared at Scourge, who had already begun to play around with the Piko Piko Hammer.

"Y'know, this thing ain't as heavy as it looks." He took a few weak swings with it. "And here I used to think you were at least strong enough to compensate for that empty head of yours." As soon as Amy got back on her feet, he gave her a cocky smirk. "Guess you were half-right after all, babe. I am disappointed."

Her eyes widened. "My hammer!"

"Give it back!" Tails immediately demanded.

For some reason, this drew uproarious laughter from Scourge.

"You want it, shorty? Well, you got it!" He began to spin rapidly on the spot, and once he built up some serious speed, he threw the hammer right at the group. "Catch!"

Knuckles reacted quickly, running over to Tails and Amy and pushing them down. The hammer flew right by them, just barely missing them thanks to the echidna's maneuver, but it still had enough speed to try and hit Sonic, who didn't even flinch.

"Sonic!" Tails and Amy cried out to him.

They weren't really sure if he even paid attention to them or not, but right on cue, the blue hedgehog bent backwards, and in a similar manner to Scourge, he grabbed Amy's hammer by the handle and began to spin around in place. Once he finally stopped, he quickly followed it up by zooming over to where Scourge was standing and then running around in circles rapidly.

The green hedgehog merely raised an eyebrow at this display.

Conversely, Knuckles' eyes widened at that, and he quickly sank his fists into the dirt. Tails and Amy were a little startled by this, since it almost looked like he was going to punch them for a second there.

"Hold onto me, you guys!"

They immediately complied.

It wasn't long after that Sonic had finally built up enough speed, and that's when they understood exactly why Knuckles was so desperate when he said that.

He was going to use one of his techniques on Scourge.

"Hey, what the—?"

That was all they heard the green hedgehog say before they saw him being pulled into one of Sonic's trademark Blue Tornadoes. Despite being so eerily similar to Sonic, it seemed like he hadn't recognized that maneuver, and before he knew it, he was suddenly spinning and flying around uncontrollably. He didn't even get enough time to process this before Sonic began to attack him, getting in several Spin Attacks from different directions. Every time he tried to counter, he just got hit from a different direction.

Finally, after the tornado propelled him up into the air, Scourge saw the blue hedgehog leaping up even higher, and he was surprised to see that he was still holding Amy's hammer. Before he could do anything about it, however, Sonic immediately hit him with said hammer, sending him back down to the ground.

"Yeah, that's how you do it." Scourge heard him brag right after landing close to him.

Raising his head to look at him, he saw Amy, Tails and Knuckles running up to Sonic, looking quite pleased with what had just happened.

"That was awesome!" Tails was the first one to speak.

Sonic chuckled at his reaction.

"Nothing less from this guy, little buddy." He pointed at himself while saying that, before turning to Knuckles and giving him a thumbs-up. "Nice job with the quick reaction there, Knux."

The echidna nodded at that. "I could say the same about you, Sonic."

Last but not least, Sonic turned his attention to Amy.

"Y'know, I've never been on the right end of this thing before. It's actually pretty cool." He swung the hammer around for a bit. "Packs one heck of a wallop, too. No wonder you like it so much." He offered it back to her. "Pretty sure you need it more than I do, though."

She took it back and smiled at him. "Thanks, Sonic. You're the best."

"You got that right." He chuckled again.

The group then turned their attention back to Scourge, who actually managed to surprise them by getting back up easily, looking none the worse for wear despite the beatdown he took from Sonic. He even began to laugh at them.

"See, that is what I was hoping for. That's one fancy maneuver you pulled off there, Blue." He walked over and grabbed his sunglasses, which had fallen off his head during Sonic's attack. "Could've done without all the sappy stuff, though."

The group got on their guard.

"So, ready for Round Three?" Sonic took the opportunity to taunt him. "We're all tied up and Team Sonic's going for the gold!"

Scourge laughed again. "You still think you're going to win, don't you?"

"Pretty sure, yeah." Sonic shrugged, like he wasn't even taking this seriously.

The invader put his sunglasses on, right in front of his eyes.

"Oh, that's cute." He walked up to the group. "See, I was just doing this for fun. Mr. Big Shot said he wanted the Master Emerald, but he never said anything about how I should get it, so I figured I'd have some fun while I was doing it."

Tails tilted his head to the side, confused. "Mr. Big Shot?"

"I'm talking here, freak." Scourge immediately snapped at him. "Y'know, part of me actually hopes that you idiots are going to survive this, because after that show, I can't think of anyone better to snuff you out than me. But for now…"

Without any sort of warning, Scourge disappeared in the blink of an eye, taking them all by surprise.

"…I'm just going to do what I came to do before he tries to ruin the fun." They heard him again, but the voice came from behind them this time. The group turned right around, only to find he was standing on top of the Master Emerald once more, twirling a ring in his finger. "Smell ya later, suckers!"

With that, he tossed the ring to the ground, which immediately grew big enough to fit both him and the powerful gemstone, and the two disappeared into the portal that it seemed to create before it completely vanished from the group's sight.

"No!" Knuckles instinctively reached out to where the hedgehog used to be. "The Master Emerald!"

Not long after he said that, the ground beneath their feet began to shake.

"Uh-oh…" Tails began to look around, already starting to worry about what would come next.

Seeing his distress, Sonic only had one thing to say. "Aw, jeez…"

Right on cue, the shaking started getting stronger.

"The island's falling!" Much like Tails, Amy couldn't help but panic.

Before any of them could take it any further, Sonic suddenly grabbed their attention with a very loud whistle.

"Hey, guys, we better get moving. Not a lot of time here." He turned to each of his friends as he spoke the following words. "Knuckles, grab onto Amy. Tails, you're with me."

Tails immediately complied, grabbing Sonic's hand, but Knuckles seemed a little skeptical. "You sure this is going to work, Sonic?"

"You got any other bright ideas, Knux?" The blue hedgehog immediately replied, and he noticed that Knuckles seemed to be stumped. "How about trying out the plan while you think of an answer?"

As the echidna grabbed her hand, Amy gave Sonic a confused look.

"Sonic? What are we doing?"

He gave her a smirk. "If you've got time to worry, then run, and no one runs like a hedgehog does!" Then he offered his free hand to her. "Edge of the island, ten seconds flat! Whaddya say, Amy?"

If there was a part of her brain that felt like screaming with joy at the fact that Sonic actually wanted to hold her hand for once—which, yes, of course there was—it would have to share focus with the one that decided she needed to live long enough to enjoy the satisfaction.

As she completed the gesture, she nodded at him.

"Sweet!" Sonic got into position, and Amy quickly followed suit. "Alright, guys, let's do this! Ready, set…"

Much to the collective group's shock, it was her who finished that phrase. "Go!"

Despite the surprise, Sonic still managed to react quickly enough that Amy's sudden decision to rush forward wouldn't trip him up, and in one swift blur, the group managed to make their way over to the nearest edge; just as he had playfully boasted, it took them exactly ten seconds to arrive, and they got a clear view of the quickly-approaching ground.

"Great. What now?" Needless to say, Knuckles was not impressed.

Sonic smirked at him before quickly running to his side. "Now, old buddy, you glide."

Before he could even say anything to that, he felt himself being pushed over the edge by the hedgehog. Trying his best not to panic or anything similar during the fall, he eventually got into position, stretching out his arms and legs, and right on cue, he managed to catch an air current and slow down his fall.

As he tried to find a safe spot to land on, his mind went over a simple thought.

Sonic, if we make it through this, I'm going to smack you upside the head.

Meanwhile, back in Angel Island, Tails and Amy were still pretty tense as the rumbling kept on intensifying.

"What about us?" The boy wasted no time as he watched Knuckles getting away.

Sonic chuckled at that. "Glad you asked, pal." He looked at each of them for a moment before focusing on his front again. "It's Fly formation time."

Right away, the two understood what he meant. His words brought back memories of the time Metal Sonic had rebelled against Eggman and tried to take over the world.

"Right." Amy nodded at him. "Let's go."

Tails did the same. "Leave it to me!"

Taking that as his cue, Sonic got into position once more, and after giving the others a moment to do the same, all three of them leapt forward as far as they could. The second they started to lose altitude, they did as Sonic had said and entered what they all knew as "Fly formation", with Sonic holding onto Tails' legs just as Amy did the same with him. The group kept dropping down, and Tails began to spin his two tails rapidly in an attempt to slow down their descent just as Knuckles had done earlier.

"Keep it together, Tails!" Sonic immediately began to encourage him. "You can do this!"

Amy just kept on looking around, trying to find a spot that they could land on.

Although his efforts did a good job of keeping them safe for most of the descent, eventually, Tails began to tire out.

"Guys… I don't know how much longer I can keep this up…"

Sonic immediately looked at him. "Come on, buddy. Just a little more! You've got this!"

"I…" Despite his exhaustion, he kept on pushing ahead. "I don't know…"

Much to their surprise, Amy suddenly spoke up.

"Guys! Flagpole!"

The two boys looked right in front of them, and sure enough, there was an empty flagpole closing in.

"Cool!" Sonic definitely seemed enthusiastic. "We can do a Tornado Jump on it!"

Amy wasn't as confident. "But you can't build up speed like this, and I can't use my hammer in this position!"

Before Sonic could argue with her, he noticed something strange, and upon looking up, he figured out what it was. Using whatever energy he had left, Tails had begun to swing the two hedgehogs back and forth, like he was trying to build up momentum.

He was confused for a moment, but after thinking about what Amy had said to him, he quickly understood what his friend meant to do.

"Amy…" He looked down for a moment, and he saw her turning her attention to him at the sound of her name. "…think fast!"

Her eyes widened, and before she could say anything, he felt Sonic pushing his legs forward as hard as he could, the inertia propelling her just high enough that Tails could grab onto her legs.

The young fox managed to spit out a single word. "Now!"

Realizing that her arms were no longer occupied thanks to her friends' risky maneuver, Amy brought out her hammer and took a swing at the flagpole with all of her strength. Sure enough, this was just enough to send a gust of wind right at it, and right as she put her weapon away again, she stretched her arms out and reached out in its direction. Much like she often did when she was leading Team Rose in their search for their missing friends, she managed to grab onto it, and the strength of the wind made her and the others spin in circles as they began to slide down it.

Once they reached the bottom, they were catapulted away from the pole and in a different direction, but their speed had already decreased enough that they were able to land atop a building.

"Whoa… that was tight!" Sonic immediately stood up tall, fully basking in the exhilaration of the desperate maneuver he and his friends had only barely managed to pull off, before turning to look at said friends. "You okay, guys?"

Amy groaned as she tried to stand up.

"I… I think so." She then looked at Tails, who was just lying on the ground. "He looks like he could use some rest, though."

"Yeah, well, he's more than earned it." He did the same. "You really saved our bacon there, little bro. Take it easy now."

No sooner did he finish uttering those words that he was surprised again.

"Guys!"

The two hedgehogs turned around, only to find that Knuckles was approaching them, having apparently had a much easier time controlling his descent.

"Are you alright?" He landed right in front of the two. "What happened?"

Amy looked at Tails once more. "We made it. Tails really pushed himself hard for us, but we all made it here safely."

"Good." Knuckles sighed in relief, although this quickly gave way to frustration and disappointment. "If only we had stopped that guy…"

Sonic immediately patted him in the shoulder a couple times.

"Hey, don't sweat it, Knuckles." He then reassured his friend. "We'll get it back. We always do. As soon as Tails can get back up, I can bet you that he's gonna work on tracking it down." He took his hand back. "And hey, Angel Island's gonna be just fine too. It always lands safely in… the…"

Knuckles was taken aback by how Sonic had suddenly stopped, not to mention how his expression had suddenly switched from the usual confident smirk to what looked like… shock. The fact that Amy's expression was an exact match did not help, and when he turned around to see what they were staring at, he quickly found himself doing a similar thing.

"What…?" That was all he could get out.

Unlike what Sonic was trying to get across, Angel Island wasn't falling back into its usual place in the ocean… it was heading straight for them.

"Oh, no…"

Amy gulped loudly. "What's happening?"

"It's not supposed to do that, right?" Sonic asked.

Knuckles could only shake his head in answer to that.

Before anything else could be said, the three were surprised by…

"…ry up!"

…something.

Sonic, Amy and Knuckles turned around, and they noticed something odd near the still-exhausted Tails.

"…on, hurry!"

They thought it was just their imagination, but they heard an echoing voice once again as some kind of spatial rift suddenly began to open right next to their young friend.

"Please, there isn't a lot of time!" Said voice seemed to be coming from inside of it. "Jump in!"

Amy stared at it in amazement. "Wh-What is that? Who is it?"

"More importantly, can we trust it?" Knuckles immediately followed it up.

Sonic quickly rushed over to where Tails was standing, the suddenness of it all startling the two of them. "No idea, but it can't be any worse than those guys!" He pointed behind them as he said that.

Confused by his comment, they turned around again, only to find that there were some monsters climbing up from the edge of the building. They looked like some kind of deformed, mismatched golems, and they were covered in what seemed like rock, grass and dirt; it was almost as if they had been created from the ground itself. They didn't look friendly, either.

"Hurry!" The mysterious voice called out to them once more.

Sonic picked Tails up. "No need to tell me twice!"

This got Amy and Knuckles to look at him again, just in time to see him jump into the rift and disappear along with Tails.

"Sonic!" Amy quickly chased after him.

While Knuckles was reluctant, one last look at his island closing in on him and the monsters who had turned up out of nowhere got him to follow along, although his face made it clear that he wasn't the least bit happy about it.

Despite all of them entering the mysterious rift at different points, the group was very surprised to find that they had all arrived at their destination at the same time… and ended up falling on top of one another.

"Guys?" Stuck at the bottom, Knuckles did his best to speak up under the weight of his friends. "Are you alright?"

Amy was right in the middle. "I… I think so." Then she looked up. "Sonic?"

"I'm cool." Sonic shook his shoulders a couple times, since he had fallen face-first and his best friend was still on his back. "Tails? You okay?"

Tails groaned. "Wha… what happened? Where… are we?"

"Oh, good, you're awake." Amy quickly retorted. "I'm not really sure where we are, but we made it. We're safe."

Sonic chuckled briefly. "Nice going, big guy."

"Oh… great." Despite his exhaustion, Tails managed to smile.

The others laughed at this, before their attention was diverted by something nearby.

Another rift opened up, looking just like the one that they had jumped into mere moments ago. Before any of them could say anything, a figure walked out of it. It looked humanoid, but was covered in what could only be described as some sort of… organic armor.

"What?" It spoke in a male voice. "Where am I? What's going on?"

Suddenly, another one opened up close to where the first one had turned up. This time, the figure was clearly some kind of robot, except it had a very human-looking face, and unlike the first one, it fell through the rift and landed on its back, with nothing to say for itself that might explain the abrupt entrance.

The next rift delivered a much stranger surprise for Sonic and the others. This time, it was two figures who came from it instead of just one, and as opposed to the other two that had suddenly appeared, these ones seemed more like themselves: small talking animals. In this case, they looked like a pair of rabbits, one blue and one pink, and they were clad in matching training shirts. The pink one also had a violet bow on its head, and much to everyone's confusion, their ears seemed to be floating above their heads, as opposed to being attached to them.

"Ow!" While the pink one was floating slightly above the ground, the blue one fell right on its head.

Finally, one last rift suddenly opened up, and that one gave them the biggest surprise of all. Once again, only one figure came through it, pulling off a perfect three-point landing. When it raised its head, its eyes widened at the sight of Sonic, Amy, Tails and Knuckles all piled on top of each other, and it quickly noticed that their faces looked exactly the same.

It was a hedgehog. Almost exactly identical to Sonic, but its quills were thinner and messier, and its body was almost entirely black, save for its green sclerae.

Everyone was clearly very confused, or too hurt to think about being confused, but in the end, Sonic and his friends were the only ones to say anything in response to all the things that they had seen just now.

"Whoa…"

Chapter Text

"Ooooookay…"

Sonic, Amy, Tails and Knuckles didn't know what to make of the scene currently before them.

Having followed some strange voice into a portal, the four had found themselves in what seemed like some kind of big, old storage room, except there were some crudely put-together installations there, including a number of chairs and tables, as well as what looked like some bits of surveillance equipment, which looked a little worse for wear but appeared to be relatively functional regardless. This had been swiftly followed by the arrival of five people who they didn't recognize at all, not to mention that they all seemed just as lost as they themselves were.

"Where are we?" The black hedgehog immediately asked, looking around in confusion after apparently getting over his previous shock.

The pink rabbit quickly followed suit, looking at the strange characters all around her. "Who are you guys?"

"What are you?" The armored figure seemed just as confused.

The second the robot managed to stand back up after his rough landing, he immediately drew a weapon on everyone else to defend himself: some kind of saber with a green laser blade.

"And most importantly…" The blue rabbit's face was beaming, much to the shock and confusion of most everyone else. "…where can I get an awesome sword like that?!"

The only one who wasn't taken aback was the pink rabbit, who found herself facepalming at this. "Not the time, Yang…"

"Seriously? Are you even looking at it, Yin?" He started drooling, his eyes never straying from the weapon. "It's a laser sword! A laser sword!"

She brought her hand down and shot him a deadpan look. "Really? We're going to do the Chung Pow Kitties thing again?"

"No, that was totally different—"

Their argument was cut off by a loud whistle, which brought their attention over to the black hedgehog. "Hey, Buster and Babs! Time out!"

"Whatever you're talking about…" As the robot spoke, he put his arm down. "…there are more important things to focus on."

"You're right."

This response from an unfamiliar voice immediately got everyone's attention, and they turned to the apparent source, the robot raising his arm again to point his sword at whoever its owner was. As Sonic and his friends stood up tall to get a good look, they were just as surprised as the others when they saw not one, but two figures standing on the other end of the weapon.

"Wait, please!"

"We're the good guys!"

One of them looked fairly normal; she was a pink hedgehog, only slightly taller than Amy. She had three front quills in the style of hair bangs, as well as six quills on the back of her head, four of which curved downwards while the remaining two curved upwards. She was wearing what looked like a deep pink sleeveless shirt and a long-sleeved light yellow bolero with green accents, along with a pair of light green shorts, a light coral belt and stockings, and a pair of pink-and-white sneakers with green cuffs, which also matched the ones on her gloves.

The other, however, was much more striking by comparison; he looked like a robotic echidna head inside of a clear glass orb, and what looked like his quills also appeared to double as tentacles, each of which ended in a small clamp.

"No way…" The latter was a shocker for Knuckles in particular.

The former, meanwhile, immediately grabbed Sonic and Amy's attention. Once they had a good look at her, they both ended up asking the exact same question.

"…Who are you?"

The robot put his arm down again, his sword powering off as he did. "Talk. Now."

"Of course." The cyborg echidna head replied quickly. "My name is Dimitri, and this is Aurora. From what we can gather, you probably don't know us, but we definitely know you." He diverted his attention away from Sonic's group of friends, and when he noticed the rest of the people who had been gathered in the room, he suddenly seemed a little more hesitant to continue. "Well… some of you. I know this is probably very confusing, but I swear to you, we're telling the truth. We brought you here because…"

Everyone looked at him, waiting to hear the rest of what he wanted to say, but it never came.

Seeing his difficulty in getting the next bit out, his companion picked up from there. "We need your help."

"With what?" The armored figure's question came right away.

Aurora turned to look at Dimitri, who nodded as best as a head supported by tentacles possibly could, and she took a deep breath before answering.

"…We have to save our reality."

Much like Sonic and Amy had done, the twin rabbits replied in unison. "Say what?"

"I know it's going to sound unbelievable. Trust me, when they explained it to me, I didn't know what to think." Aurora tried her best not to come off as crazy. "But like Dimitri said, it's all true. They showed me everything."

The black hedgehog raised a hand. "Aurora, right? Who is this 'they' you're talking about?"

"There's no one else here but the two of you." The armored figure agreed with him.

Suddenly, they all heard another unfamiliar voice. "Actually, I've been here all along. You just couldn't see me." This time, however, it seemed to come from all around them.

Naturally, this caught them by surprise.

"What the heck was that?" Sonic immediately asked.

Dimitri, however, was completely unfazed. "Omni-Viewer! They're already on edge after being taken out of nowhere! This isn't going to help things!"

"Sorry, sorry." The voice spoke again, sporting a noticeable British accent. "I didn't want to overwhelm or terrify them after everything that's happened."

As these words were being said, one of the many monitors in the room began to light up, right around the spot where Aurora and Dimitri were standing. The image being projected was that of a face, seemingly formed out of deviations on the surface of the screen, and its lip movements matched up exactly with what was being said.

"Uhh… Omni?" He turned to Aurora, who was pointing at the group, and that in turn got him to look at them.

It was right at that moment that he realized exactly what he had just done, despite his efforts to avoid it.

Yin was left completely flabbergasted. "Who…?"

"…Wha…?" Yang wasn't far behind.

The black hedgehog looked just as lost as them. "…Huh?"

Most everyone else, meanwhile, looked either utterly shocked or just very confused.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's too late for that already." That didn't stop Aurora from pointing it out, however.

Despite the awkwardness of the situation, Dimitri tried to continue. "Everyone, let me introduce you to the Omnipotent Omni-Viewer."

"But he'll take Omni for short." Aurora interjected, which seemed to amuse the Omni-Viewer. "His Sonic used to call him that all the time."

There it is again. "His Sonic." Amy immediately caught on to that. That Scourge guy from before said something about "my Knuckles" too.

Dimitri picked up from there. "He's the reason we're all gathered here. It's hard to explain, but he's…"

"…some kind of sentient energy field!" Tails spoke at the same time the cyborg was finishing his sentence, apparently having recovered enough to start talking again, and he was very enthusiastic about this discovery. "That's incredible! I didn't even think something like that was possible!"

The Omni-Viewer had a smile on his screen, surprisingly. "Well, Tails, a lot of things that don't seem normal are just common here in the Special Zone."

"Whoa, whoa, hang on!" Sonic immediately replied. "This is a Special Zone?"

Knuckles looked around again. "It looks a little too… normal to be a Special Zone."

"Believe me, it doesn't look this normal when we're outside, guys." Aurora was just as quick as Sonic.

Dimitri nodded again. "Indeed, Aurora. Right now, we're in the Land of the Dark, and this is Haven." Then he turned to look at Knuckles in particular. "I hope that at least you're familiar with it, Guardian."

"Why would I be?" Knuckles turned to him, raising an eyebrow as he did.

This only served to confuse Dimitri. "…Because this is Angel Island."

Right on cue, Sonic and his group of friends also turned to him as Knuckles' eyes widened.

"What?!" That was their collective response.

The others, however, looked like they had no idea what was going on, although the black hedgehog did seem slightly unnerved.

While Aurora and the Omni-Viewer flinched at the four's reaction, Dimitri did his best to remain composed. "I guess your Angel Island doesn't have a—"

That was all he could say before Knuckles made a beeline for the nearest exit, not even saying another word.

"Hey, Knuckles! Hold up!" Sonic followed suit not long after.

The Omni-Viewer seemed distressed at seeing the hedgehog leaving the room, but Aurora soon caught his notice when she looked at him.

"It's okay, Omni. I'll bring them back." And with that, she left the room to chase after them.

Once she was gone, Tails quickly broke the silence before it even had a chance to settle. "I think you guys have a lot to explain right now."

The robot nodded. "And not just to them."

The Omni-Viewer then glanced at Dimitri, who stayed silent for a moment before offering a very brief answer.

"…Indeed."

Meanwhile…

"No way…"

Having gotten far away from what Dimitri had described as "Haven" by this point, Sonic and Knuckles found themselves standing in front of, much to their shock, a familiar location: the shrine of the Master Emerald.

"It's… it's here." Knuckles' focus was set squarely on the shrine. "It's different, but… it really is Angel Island. The different locations, the shrine, the Master Emerald… it's all here."

Sonic, meanwhile, was too busy staring at the sky. "And we really are in a Special Zone."

Everywhere he turned, there was something strange that caught his notice. A multicolored sky that almost seemed to change tones every time he blinked. Multiple suns, stars, moons, and even planets, all spread around the skies in ways that he couldn't figure out. Random bits of debris floating around without any sense of direction. Physics apparently shifting all around the place in whatever direction they felt like without any rhyme or reason.

"No way something this trippy is anything but a Special Zone."

Knuckles nodded. "And that can only mean one thing."

Right as he turned his head to look at Sonic, he noticed the hedgehog doing the exact same thing to him.

"Those guys really were telling the truth." The two came to the exact same conclusion.

Then they were surprised by a familiar voice. "Well, of course we were."

Sure enough, the two immediately turned their attention to the source, and they saw Aurora standing nearby, just looking at them in what was probably the least threatening manner that anyone they knew had ever mustered up.

"None of us would lie to you like that. We really do need your help." Likewise, her tone of voice came off as very genuine. "Time is still running and we don't have a lot of options right now. Me and the guys were just lucky we were able to get together and bring you and all the others here."

Knuckles quickly asked her a question. "Who are those people?"

"Actually… I was hoping to ask them that myself." Aurora sheepishly admitted. "We definitely wanted to get the four of you, but I have no idea where the rest of them came from."

Sonic shrugged with a smirk. "Well, better ask 'em quickly then." Then he pointed at her. "Aurora, right?"

She nodded in response. "That's right."

"I like that name. Got a nice ring to it." Sonic switched the pointer finger for a trademark thumbs-up. "Lead the way, Aurora. I wanna get the skinny on this whole thing."

Much to Knuckles' surprise, Aurora replied with a similar gesture; she snapped her fingers and pointed at Sonic while making the finger gun gesture with both hands. "You got it."

"Heh, snazzy." Clearly, he found it pretty amusing.

Aurora began to head away, and before Knuckles could say anything, Sonic grabbed his arm.

"Come on, Knux. We gotta move."

With that, he ran in pursuit of the pink hedgehog with his friend in tow.

Nice girl. She seems pretty cool, and she's definitely got style and plenty of pizzazz. As he effortlessly caught up with her, he had a good, long look at her overall features. There's something weird about her, though. We've never met before, but she almost seems… familiar somehow…

It wasn't long before Aurora made her way back to Haven with Sonic and Knuckles in tow. The trio found most of the group sitting down on the floor, while the two more human-looking figures were still standing up tall; it was like they were waiting to listen to a story. Dimitri and the Omni-Viewer, meanwhile, were just looking at them like they were expecting their arrival right at that very moment.

"Thank you for bringing them back, Aurora." The Omni-Viewer smiled at her.

Aurora nodded and smiled back at him. "Of course, Omni."

"Knuckles?" Dimitri called out, which got the echidna's attention. "I'm sorry you had to find out like this, but… I hope you'll believe us now that you've seen it for yourself."

Knuckles looked down and sighed. "…I don't know what's going on, but you've told us nothing but the truth so far." Then he looked at the cyborg echidna again. "I've been tricked by bad people before, so don't make me regret trusting you."

"Thank you so much… Guardian." Despite being almost completely mechanical, Dimitri's voice made it clear that he'd be shedding tears right at that moment if he could.

Sonic smirked at that before looking to the others. "And now that we got that outta the way, anyone else wanna know what's goin' on, or is that just me?"

"Right!" Amy nodded before looking at Dimitri and the Omni-Viewer. "First of all, who was that Scourge guy that attacked us on Angel Island?"

Tails quickly followed suit. "How did he get to Angel Island?"

"Why did he want the Master Emerald?" Knuckles asked as he went to join them. "And how was he able to make its power work for him?"

Dimitri nodded at them. "It's a long and complicated story, but to sum it up as best as I can…" He then looked at Sonic. "…he is you, Sonic."

"Whoa, what?!" Needless to say, this took him by surprise.

Dimitri raised two of his tentacles defensively. "I know it must sound bizarre, but Scourge is an evil version of you from an alternate universe."

Right as he was saying that, everyone noticed that the Omni-Viewer's screen began to show scenes that they could only assume were meant to illustrate the description. They could see someone who looked exactly like Sonic, except he was wearing a black leather jacket and boots, along with some sunglasses.

"Oh." Before anyone could blink, Sonic quickly zipped over to where his friends were, taking a seat right between Amy and Tails. "Alright, you got my attention. Keep goin'."

"Of course." As Dimitri's explanation continued, the Omni-Viewer's screen kept up with everything he said. "At one point, he was just what you'd expect. He was just the evil Sonic from a parallel dimension where everything was the exact opposite of what was considered 'normal' in my dimension. He was the leader of his own gang, who took it upon themselves to conquer their world and make things as they wanted them to be, but in reality, he wasn't as tough as he liked to believe or much to be afraid of." He sighed once more. "That all changed the day he and Rouge the Bat tried to steal the Master Emerald and ended up fighting Knuckles' father Locke, who was once a Guardian just like his son."

As he watched the hedgehog getting on top of the Master Emerald and harnessing its power, Knuckles was at a loss for words.

I… have a father in that world? A father who's… alive? And he guarded the Master Emerald like I did?

"He didn't exactly get what he wanted, but in a way, I guess he still came out a winner." The group saw the aforementioned Locke punching the hedgehog right in the chest and forcing him off the emerald, which immediately gave way to him showing up again and proclaiming himself as "a real scourge" to both Rouge and Locke, finally looking like the one Sonic and his friends had encountered back on their own Angel Island. "He became more than just an evil double, and he embraced the change to such a degree that he returned to his own world to force it on everything and everyone there."

The Omni-Viewer played multiple scenes of Scourge doing as Dimitri had described, which made more than a few of them cringe.

"Holy mother of Foo…" Yin's eyes had widened so much that they practically took over her entire face.

Yang wasn't too far behind, either. "That guy seriously needs a hobby."

"I suppose he thought taking over entire worlds would be a good one." Dimitri kept on going. "After beating down every regional warlord in his own world and naming himself king, he tried to do the same with mine. It was just sheer good fortune that my Sonic was able to bring him down, but after that, he just completely disappeared from the map until recently."

Once the explanation finally ended, the Omni-Viewer's face came into view once more.

"That's when some strange activity started turning up in my universe, in the world outside of the Special Zone." He wasted no time in picking up from where Dimitri had left off. "Are you familiar with a monster called Chaos?"

Sonic and his friends immediately recognized the name.

"Yeah, he was our enemy once, but only because he was full of rage and negative energy from the Chaos Emeralds." Tails was the only one who answered him, though. "After we beat him, he became something like an ally. He appeared once during an adventure we had, and he seemed to be on our side… I think."

That seemed to surprise him. "Your Chaos was… not evil?"

"Wait, yours was evil?" The black hedgehog asked him.

Once again, his screen began to show different static images, but this time, he actually spoke as it did.

"He was, yes. Thousands of years ago, my Chaos was once a prosecutor of the Drakon Empire, a race of alien fish, and he was mutated into a water monster when he was exposed to Chaos energy." The images were then replaced by actual video footage. "He was released not too long ago by one of Dr. Robotnik's henchmen, and he went on a rampage as he searched for the Chaos Emeralds. Despite my Knuckles dispersing them all over the world, Chaos was able to gather them up and used them to transform into his most powerful form: Perfect Chaos."

The last frame, which depicted said form, raised Amy's eyebrow. "That… doesn't really look like Perfect Chaos."

"Well, I suppose that's yet another difference between your Chaos and mine." The Omni-Viewer's clip show continued up until a certain point. "But right as he was about to spread his influence all over the world, he just… disappeared."

"Hey, wait a second." Sonic quickly stood up, something apparently having caught his notice. "Run that again."

He complied, and as Perfect Chaos disappeared from the scene, the hedgehog's eyes widened slightly when he noticed how he disappeared.

"That was a Dimension Ring!"

Dimitri seemed surprised at that. "You have Warp Rings in your universe too?"

"That's not what we call 'em back home, but yeah. Not a whole lot, but we've seen 'em a few times." Sonic answered him quickly. "That Scourge guy had one on him too. It's how he got away with the Master Emerald… although his was a lot smaller before he made it grow. Still, other than that, it was pretty much exactly like what you just showed us."

The image on the Omni-Viewer's screen changed again. "Well, after that happened, I tried to track down the origin of the Warp Ring, but at first, all I found was a number of different worlds where attempts made at stealing their Master Emeralds failed." After displaying the worlds in question, his face showed up once more. "Eventually, I stumbled upon Dimitri's universe, which was apparently the starting point of the ring's travels."

"I was alone here when he showed up." Suddenly, Dimitri lowered his head with what almost seemed like a sad look on his face. "Knuckles had left to answer a distress call from our people, and the ones who were guarding our Master Emerald were… teleported somewhere else." He raised it up again after taking a moment to compose himself. "When he told me what had happened, we worked together to bring Angel Island here, to his Special Zone, in the hopes that it and the Master Emerald would be safe."

After staying quiet the whole time, the robot finally asked a question of his own. "How did you move an entire island from one universe to another?"

"When Dimitri agreed to hear me out, I connected myself to Haven's systems much like he had done." As if to prove his point, his face suddenly appeared on all of the monitors in the room. "Despite all my power, I am still essentially a sentient energy field, just as Tails had surmised. Thankfully, it made the task quite easy, but before I could teleport the island to my Special Zone, we still needed something more to tap into. Something analogous to my ability to transport things in and out of it, but dissimilar enough that finding and analyzing their similarities and differences would allow us to make it all come together."

Dimitri walked over to a different monitor. "Thank the Walkers we happened upon what we needed by mere chance." Then he used one of his tentacles to point to an object placed right above the monitor. "The Guiding Star Gem that my Knuckles lost when he was attacked by Scourge and the mercenary group he had joined up with, the Destructix. On its own, it has the power to teleport someone from one place to another, but combining it with the Omni-Viewer's great power and his own ability to open gateways between his Special Zone and the world beyond was what we needed to bring Angel Island here."

"It was… taxing, but we succeeded. After we made it here, I used most of my remaining power to close off the Special Zone from any kind of outside access. We can open portals from this side, but no one can enter or leave this place by any other means now. It was the best way to keep this Master Emerald safe."

"And why are these… emeralds so important?" The armored figure also had a question to ask.

Aurora, who by this point had already taken a seat at Tails' other side, looked at the two of them curiously. Apparently, even she didn't know that part.

"In each world, it seems the Master Emerald has a different sort of origin to it." The Omni-Viewer did his best to explain. "In my universe, it is one of the seven Chaos Emeralds that the Drakon Empire created in order to store the Chaos energy they discovered, and it is the biggest and most important out of them."

Dimitri looked at Sonic and Knuckles. "The one that you saw outside was created thanks to a combination of the power of fourteen green Chaos Emeralds."

"I don't know everything about mine, but it's said to have been created by the gods, and it has special powers that neutralize the energy of the Chaos Emeralds." Knuckles made his own observation.

"Despite all of these dissimilar origins, they do have something in common. They're all sources of infinite energy, and if Dimitri's word is to be believed, they could be used to supercharge a Warp Ring."

Suddenly, the cyborg seemed sad again. "…It's how Julie-Su and Saffron were taken away."

"I'm… sorry for your loss, my friend." For a moment, the Omni-Viewer's voice was full of sympathy.

Dimitri took a moment to compose himself again before continuing. "But the point we were trying to make is that, from what we've been able to ascertain, Scourge seems to be using a supercharged Warp Ring to jump to multiple worlds and try to steal each of their Master Emeralds." His slightly casual tone gave way to something much more serious. "Whatever he plans to do with a collection of unlimited power sources, it can't be anything good, and from what we know, he already has two of them in his hands."

The armored figure followed his previous question up with another one. "How does that equal your reality being in danger?"

"Good question." Dimitri's answer came quickly this time. "In the Omni-Viewer's world, Dr. Robotnik managed to absorb the full power of the seven Chaos Emeralds once, and he was able to warp the entire world to his liking. If not for his Sonic's persistence and cleverness, the doctor would've been victorious."

Once again, the Omni-Viewer's screen illustrated exactly what was being described.

"And in Dimitri's world, a similar thing happened when Mammoth Mogul, a millennia-old wizard, stole the immense Chaos energy of an enemy on two separate occasions. He gained the power to destroy entire universes and quickly put it to use, thankfully only managing to reach a few before he was stopped by his Tails, both times with some assistance." As soon as the explanation ended, his face came into view once more. "With multiple Master Emeralds at his disposal, coupled with his unique mutation, it's a strong possibility that Scourge could gain a level of power that would dwarf even that of those two. If left unchecked—"

"Let me take a wild guess." The black hedgehog spoke up again. "Our entire reality could collapse and disappear into nothingness. Is that right?"

"You are correct."

Aurora raised a hand. "That doesn't explain why he came to my world. He didn't even ask about ours! He just stole my family's communicators and then left in a hurry!"

"I have to admit, that still confuses me." Dimitri couldn't offer much beyond an honest response. "But all the same, I can't thank you enough for offering to help us, Aurora."

She smiled at him in return. "After seeing that sad look on your face, how could I say no?" She followed this up with a chuckle and a confident smirk. "Besides, my family already saved one world lots of times. How hard can it be to save lots of worlds in one go?"

This got an amused chuckle out of Sonic.

"And out of a whole bunch of universes, you probably found the four of us because ours was Scourge's latest target." Amy finally spoke up again after a lot of thought.

"That's right, Amy." The Omni-Viewer quickly confirmed her thoughts. "In fact, that's how we happened to run into Aurora as well. I suppose it's just fortunate that you also come from a world that has already had experiences with different dimensions before."

Sonic finally sat down again. "Right, we've had our share of weird stories." A chuckle escaped him. "Talk about a two-for-one deal, huh, guys?"

"Okay, I think I get all of that, but I still have one more question." Everyone's attention was focused on Yin after she made a comment of her own. "What does that have to do with the rest of us?"

Yang suddenly turned to her, a surprised look stuck on his face. "Wait, did Little Miss I-Wish-There-Was-Something-I-Could-Do-To-Make-The-World-A-Better-Place just ask why this is any of her business?" He took out what appeared to be a bamboo sword and pointed it at her, although it seemed to be in a bit of a teasing manner. "Who are you and what did you do with my sister?"

"Not what I meant, Yang!" She snapped at him before bringing her focus back to the others. "If there's anything I can do to help, I'll help, but… we don't come from any of your worlds." She then pointed at Sonic and his friends, Aurora still sitting next to them. "I get how you brought them into this, but how didweget involved?"

The robot nodded. "Or us." Since he was standing right next to the armored figure, he didn't feel like he needed to point at him.

"I wish I could tell you, but… I have no idea what brought the rest of you here. By all logic, after I expended so much power cutting off the Special Zone from outside access, you should not have been able to arrive at all." The Omni-Viewer seemed genuinely confused, much to everyone's surprise. "I'm truly sorry."

"Oh." Yang turned to Dimitri and the Omni-Viewer, a huge smile plastered on his face. "Well, in that case, when do we get to kick that guy's butt?"

Somehow, that looked like it had caught the two off-guard.

"You… want to get involved?" Dimitri asked him. "Because we will understand if you don't really want to. There's plenty of space on Angel Island for you and your sister."

Yang snickered at that. "And miss a chance to karate-kick him in the pants and save the world? Are you kidding?" He took a few swings with his weapon. "We're the good guys! It's what we do!"

This actually got a laugh out of Yin. "He likes to fight."

"I like to fight!" Suddenly, his sword started to glow, some kind of magic power emanating from it.

This got a smile out of the Omni-Viewer. "I can't thank you enough for your selflessness, my friends. We'll be glad to have you on our side." He turned his attention to the others. "But I won't speak for the three of you. Will you also help us stop Scourge?"

Right as it looked like they were going to answer him, Sonic raised a hand.

"Hey, quick question before you get to that."

They all turned their attention to him, along with everyone else, but only the Omni-Viewer replied to him. "What is it, Sonic?"

"Not gonna lie, this is an interesting group we've got. I'm pretty sure we're gonna make it." He gestured in Aurora's direction with his head. "But me and Aurora here were talking just a while ago, and I think we're all gonna need names." He then crossed his arms. "Not really sure 'hey, you!' is gonna cut it with this many people. What d'you guys think?"

Aurora nodded at that. "It'd probably make things easier in the long run."

"I agree." Dimitri nodded before looking expectantly at the ones he didn't know.

The armored figure spoke up first.

"I am… the Guyver." For whatever reason, he seemed a little reluctant before he finished that sentence.

Next came the two rabbits.

"I'm Yin!"

"I'm Yang!"

Their next line was said in unison. "And we're Level 2 Woo Foo Knights!"

"Plus, I'm a Clown-Fu Master." Yang made one more comment. "Oh, yeah, that's right. You heard me."

Yin sighed at that. "Right. That too."

Following that, the robot gave a brief response.

"…Zero."

And finally, the only one left was the black hedgehog.

"I'm… Umbra. Umbra the Hedgehog." Much like the Guyver, his answer came off as a little reluctant.

Sonic gave them a thumbs-up. "Cool." Then he used it to point at himself. "I'm Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog."

"My name is Amy Rose." She waved at them.

Tails offered a calm smile. "Everyone calls me Tails."

"I'm Knuckles the Echidna." He crossed his arms. "Just call me Knuckles."

With that out of the way, Zero quickly turned his attention back to Dimitri and the Omni-Viewer. "Keep going."

"Of course." Dimitri wasted no time in answering him. "Like I told Yin and Yang, if you want to stay behind, we will not hold it against you."

The Omni-Viewer quickly picked up from there. "As far as we know, you were drafted here without your knowledge or consent. We could really use your help, but… we will understand if you don't want to be involved in this any more than you already are."

"Understood." Zero turned to the others. "What are you going to do?"

The Guyver brought a fist up to his chest. "I'm going to help."

"Me too." Umbra quickly followed. "It's not like I have a place to return to anyway."

Zero immediately looked at Dimitri and the Omni-Viewer again. "You can count on all of us."

"Great!" The Omni-Viewer seemed just as ecstatic as he was with Yin and Yang.

Sonic and Aurora suddenly made the exact same comment. "Cool. So what do we do now?" The second they noticed that, they both laughed at it, which raised Amy's eyebrow.

"I'm glad you asked." Dimitri quickly answered them. "Thanks to Aurora, we have one more piece of equipment that we can combine with the Guiding Star Gem and the Omni-Viewer's powers." Having said that, he used one of his tentacles to bring their attention to a small, flat white metal box that had been integrated into the console, which had a red button on top of it. "Unlike the others, this one truly is made specifically to travel between multiple dimensions, not just different parts of a world or two worlds in the same universe."

Sonic turned to her and gave her a thumbs-up. "Nice job!"

"Hey, what can I say?" This got a smile out of her. "I'm just a girl who's lucky enough to have a godfather that owns a portal gun."

The Omni-Viewer seemed pretty amused. "And for that, we are both fortunate and grateful to you." Then he got a little more serious as he focused on everyone. "I can interface with it and reach out to different worlds much more easily so we can track down Scourge and stop him, but with the amount of power I expended bringing all of you here and stopping anyone from following, I've only got enough energy left for a few more portals."

"We were hoping to solve that by gaining a power source that might recharge his energy reserves." Dimitri picked up from there, looking at Sonic's group for a moment. "Aurora's portal gun will allow him to open a gateway without exerting himself too much, which is how we rescued you, but it still takes some of his power, so he can't do it indefinitely, and because he closed off the Special Zone in order to protect us, it can't do it on its own."

"Why not use the Master Emerald?" Zero asked him. "You said it was a source of infinite energy, didn't you?"

Knuckles was the one who offered an answer this time. "It's also the only thing that keeps this place afloat. If we take it away from the shrine, the whole island will fall from its orbit."

"Correct." The Omni-Viewer also commented on it. "And in a place as wildly unpredictable as the Special Zone, there's no telling what would happen to it."

Yin and Yang ended up asking the same thing. "Well, what else is there?"

"The Chaos Emeralds." Umbra immediately took a guess. "Their power isn't infinite, but they're close enough to the Master Emerald that they should be just as good."

Dimitri nodded at that. "Indeed, but as you saw before, the ones from this universe disappeared along with Perfect Chaos, and as for the ones from my universe, those that are not on my version of the Special Zone are in the hands of other parties… and I doubt they'd be willing to hand them over."

"Same goes for my family. They get all antsy every time I ask about them." Aurora also chipped in.

"Which leaves us with only one option." The Omni-Viewer looked at them all for a moment before continuing. "We have to try to procure them from some other world."

"Well, let's try ours then." Sonic rapidly offered a suggestion, which earned him everyone's full attention. "They're always scattered all over the place, but we shouldn't have too much trouble tracking them down. Right now, it's the best option we have outside of hoping we can find any worlds that haven't been hit by that Scourge guy." He shrugged with a grin. "Besides, we just came from there. If Omni's really low on juice, a return trip's gotta be easier than looking for another world, right?"

Amy was confused by this. "What about those things that were going to attack us?"

"Grublins." Suddenly, the blue hedgehog got a lot more serious. "Yeah, they're not from our world, and I wanna know why and how they were there. Whatever's going on right now, it's gotta be big if they showed up." Then he gave his friends a look. "Look, these guys need me to go, so I'm going. I'm gonna hit the ground running and I'm not gonna stop for anything. Are you with me on this?"

The three of them looked at each other reluctantly at first, but after giving it some thought, they turned to him and nodded.

"We're with you all the way, Sonic." Tails spoke for the group in this case.

That got a smile out of him. "Heh, cool. Thanks, guys." He looked at Dimitri and the Omni-Viewer. "Alright, you heard 'em. Let's get this party started!"

"Very well then." The Omni-Viewer turned his focus elsewhere. "Aurora, if you could."

"You got it, Omni." Aurora walked over to the console before giving the others an apologetic look. "Sorry, guys, but I have to stay here to help them for now. Until Omni's firing on all cylinders again, it might be better if someone can control the portal gun manually, and I think Dimitri could use someone with fingers." Suddenly, her eyes widened slightly, as if she had just realized what she said, and she looked at Dimitri. "No offense."

The cyborg shook his head. "None taken. I appreciate the help, Aurora."

With a sigh of relief, she turned to the others again. "We'll hold the fort here, okay?"

"Sounds like a plan to me." Sonic gave her another thumbs-up.

And with that, Aurora pushed the red button, and a portal much like the one he and the others had jumped into appeared in front of the entire group.

"Okay, guys, it's now or never." Amy raised her Piko Piko Hammer and pointed it at the portal. "Let's go save our reality!"

With nothing but a nod, Sonic was the first to jump in. The others were quick to follow suit, leaving Aurora alone with Dimitri and the Omni-Viewer once more as it disappeared.

"This is going to work." Dimitri offered her some encouraging words.

The Omni-Viewer did the same. "We're all going to make it work."

Aurora just nodded before giving a very brief response.

"I know."

Chapter Text

"…This is your world?"

Zero's question left the group immensely shaken.

When Sonic and his friends were brought out of harm's way by Aurora, Dimitri and the Omni-Viewer, everything in their world looked fairly normal… outside of a pack of what Sonic called "Grublins" and Angel Island's impending crash, of course. Now, however…

"I'm guessing this isn't how you guys left it a minute ago…?"

This time, Yang's comment didn't manage to get an exasperated response from his sister; Yin was just as visibly surprised as he was.

Last thing they knew, Angel Island was on a collision course with the city. Not as bad as the Space Colony ARK incident, true, but they still wouldn't wish for anyone to be there while the landmass approached them.

Now, however? The tremendous crash and resulting damage were one thing, but the idea of Angel Island, the place where Sonic, Tails and Knuckles had one of their biggest adventures, having essentially crumbled down to nothing, to the degree that so many familiar locations like Mushroom Hill, Red Mountain and the Mystic Ruins were almost completely unrecognizable? That was just too much for them to process.

"We weren't even gone that long!" Knuckles had some serious trouble believing his eyes. "What happened here?!"

Umbra suddenly grunted, and when the group quickly turned their attention to him, they noticed he was holding his head in his hands, like he was nursing a headache or something.

"…Time dilation. It can flow differently from one universe to another." Even his voice came off like he was in pain. "A couple days in this world could be weeks, or years, or centuries on a neighboring world, and they could just as easily be mere seconds on another one." Once the pain seemed to lighten up, he looked at the others. "Either that, or the portal jumped us forward relative to when you last left this place, but it's one of those two."

It was only then that he noticed how most of them were staring at him like he was crazy.

Tails especially couldn't even try to hide his confusion. "How can you tell?"

"It's… complicated." The hedgehog brought his arms down. "I just… kinda know these things."

Amy was the only one who didn't seem lost, instead taking the chance to voice her concern. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah… yeah, I'm fine."

Knuckles suddenly realized something. "Jumped us forward? How much?"

"One of you…" He stretched out his arm and offered a hand to the group. "…give me your hand."

Once again, most of the group looked at each other in confusion.

For a moment, Yang looked like he was going to do as the hedgehog had asked, but Yin pulled him back and shook her head at him.

"I think he's talking about the ones who actually come from here."

Before any of them could say anything more, Sonic walked over and did exactly as Umbra had asked.

"What's this supposed to—?"

He didn't get to finish that sentence before… something happened. He wasn't sure how it could be put into words, but he felt some sort of jolt in his head. It was almost like a colony of ants decided to start dancing around his brain, except without the pain, which was just confusing.

He could only hold on for a few seconds before letting go and bringing that same hand up to his head. Despite having to close one of his eyes in order to do so, it didn't escape his notice that Umbra had the same reaction after he had released him.

Not just similar; exactly the same.

"Are you alright?" Sonic heard the Guyver's voice clearly in the middle of his discomfort.

He slowly nodded in response. "Yeah, it's cool. Feels like a bunch of Moto Bugs are throwing a party inside my skull, but it's nothing I can't run off." After a heavy sigh, he put his hand down and turned his attention over to Umbra once more. "Got anything from that?"

"Yeah, I'm just trying to place it. Hang on a second…"

After seemingly straining himself for a few moments, Umbra eventually brought his hand back down as well and looked at the others.

"…You've been gone for one day."

Amy, Tails and Knuckles all had the same reaction. "One day?!"

"How does all of this happen in one day?!" Yin frantically asked.

Yang got her attention by tapping her on the shoulder. "Hey, uh, Yin? We've had worse stuff than this in less time. Remember… the Dark Tomorroooooow?"

The overly dramatic way in which he said that confused most of the group, but he was too focused on his sister to notice.

He could see she was about to argue, but then she quickly stopped herself. "…Right. That barely took up a few hours."

"Yeah? Well, cleaning up this mess is gonna take even less than that." Sonic spoke up again, which got their attention. "We just gotta kick butt, save the world, and keep it together. We can do that, right, guys?"

While they, along with Zero and the Guyver, exchanged glances, seemingly confused by his apparent lack of concern for the situation, Sonic's group of friends were quick to answer him.

"Right!" As Amy tightened her grip on her hammer, Tails nodded at Sonic while Knuckles clenched his fists.

Although Zero's expression was unchanged and the Guyver's face couldn't be made out at all, which contrasted with how Yin and Yang were smiling at each other after the display of confidence, all four of them followed suit. "Right."

Umbra was the last one, letting out a sigh before he finally pitched in. "…Right."

Despite his less-than-enthusiastic response, Sonic was unfazed as he turned his attention over to his best friend.

"Cool. Time to let the smart ones plan everything out." He gave him a light punch on the shoulder. "Got any ideas on where we should start, Tails?"

The little fox began to think, but much to Sonic's surprise, his attention was suddenly grabbed by something else, and before anyone could think about asking him what it was, he quickly took off flying in its direction.

"…Alright, you heard the man." Sonic bounced back just as quickly, however. "Follow him!"

No one even got to think about saying anything before he zipped away in Tails' direction. They could only do exactly as he said and follow the two as best as possible.

Naturally, Sonic was the first to catch up with Tails…

"Hey, what's got you in such a— oh."

…and he quickly noticed what it was that got his attention.

"Is that…?"

Tails nodded without even turning to look at him. "The Tornado 2? Yeah… or what's left of it, anyway."

That comment made Sonic wince.

If his little buddy was upset at him right now, he couldn't blame him; while his quick thinking got them out of Angel Island safely, he had completely failed to account for the fact that it was Tails' plane that helped them arrive there quickly… and that they had left it behind when the island began to fall. The wreckage that Tails was looking at barely even resembled a plane anymore after what was always doomed to be nothing short of a disastrous impact.

"Right… um…" Sonic paused for a moment. "Sorry about that. Guess I didn't think things through back there."

He was surprised when Tails shook his head at this.

"Don't worry about it." He then turned around to look at the hedgehog. "You made the right call, Sonic. I don't know if we could've gotten it to start up fast enough to leave the island before the crash."

This got Sonic to relax a little. "Yeah, but I know how much you love your planes, buddy."

"Thanks. I appreciate it, Sonic." Despite everything he had just said, Tails let out a sigh. "But it's fine, really. It's not the first time the Tornado 2 gets wrecked like this. I'll just… I-I'll fix it again."

Sonic wasn't entirely convinced, but he finally decided to let it go after seeing how adamant Tails was about it. And right on time, too, as the rest of their group finally caught up to them.

"Hey, Tails, why'd you take off so—?" Knuckles was quick to ask.

Amy was just as quick to interrupt him when she noticed what was going on. "Oh, no… I'm so sorry, Tails."

"Yeah… me too." The little fox turned his attention to the others. "It's just that I saw it here and thought we could use it to get to my workshop… but it's never going to fly like this."

While his friends were upset at this comment, most of the others were just surprised.

"Is that an airplane?" Zero asked.

Tails sighed once more. "It… used to be."

"How did the four of you just… come across a plane?" The Guyver was the next one.

Sonic couldn't help but be amused by that. "Pfft, 'come across' nothing." He then pointed at Tails. "He made it!"

"You… made your own plane?" Yin asked the fox. "An entire plane? All by yourself?"

Amy was the one who answered, however. "Yeah, more than one! He's got a real gift with inventions and gadgets."

The two rabbits looked at each other incredulously before turning their attention over to Tails again, right as Yang asked a question of his own.

"…How old are you again?"

Tails answered him without skipping a beat. "I'm eight years old."

For a moment, Yin and Yang's eyes widened so much at that assertion that you'd swear their heads were nothing but their eyes.

"Eight years old?!" They even ended up asking the exact same question in unison.

While the Guyver's face still couldn't be made out because of his suit, his voice made it clear that he was similarly impressed. "You built more than one of these before turning ten?"

"Come on, that's nothing." Sonic chipped in once again. "This guy has been right by my side and helping me save the world since he was four, and he's never stopped doing what he does best! Planes, cars, sailboats, hoverboards, space rockets… you name it, he's probably made it." He then gave Tails a light punch on the shoulder. "Looking for the smartest dude around? You got him right here!"

Zero's attention was set on the wrecked plane. "I only know one other person who was that gifted. She'd be impressed by your skills if she was here."

Tails couldn't stop himself from chuckling bashfully at the amount of praise he was getting, to the visible joy of both Sonic and Amy.

However, this left Knuckles as the only one to point out what everyone else seemed to be ignoring. "…Well, even so, I don't think a broken plane's going to do us any good."

"And even if we could somehow get the Tornado 2 back in the air, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be big enough for Cyrax and Blue Beetle over here." Umbra followed suit, pointing at Zero and the Guyver without even looking at them as he finished that sentence. "So, unless one of you guys is hiding Shendu's magic talismans in their pocket, does anyone have a Plan B?"

Much to his shock, Yin's response was both quick and fairly enthusiastic.

"Lucky for us, I have a Plan T!"

Most everyone looked at her in confusion and said the same thing. "Plan… T?"

Yang, meanwhile, had more of an expectant look on his face.

"Yeah, the T stands for…" Right on cue, Yin's hands started to glow, and she aimed them right at the Tornado 2. "…Transfoomate!"

With that, she fired what looked like a light blue beam of energy at the plane. The others could only stare in awe as it started to react to what she was doing.

"Oh yeah, Woo Foo to the rescue!" All except for Yang, that is.

And then, it was almost like someone pressed the rewind button while watching a movie. Not only did the wrecked vehicle's damage suddenly start undoing itself, but even the many bits and pieces that had been broken off began to fly back into their proper place and then stayed there, as if they had never been gone at all.

In mere seconds, the Tornado 2 was back to its former glory.

"You…" Tails immediately approached his creation, trying to find any visible signs of the damage it used to have. "It… it looks just like new!"

While Sonic joined in on his little buddy's endeavor, Amy and Knuckles' attention was set firmly on the two rabbits.

"How did you do that?" Knuckles asked Yin as he walked up to her.

Yin's hands stopped glowing. "Oh, you know, it's just a Level 1 Woo Foo move. No biggie."

"Was that… magic?" Amy, on the other hand, went over to talk with Yang instead.

Yang planted his bamboo sword on the ground before leaning against it. "Yeah, Woo Foo's all about might and magic. You guys have magic here, don't you?"

"How do you figure?" Amy was quick to ask.

Yin's answer came just as quickly. "Well, we're supposed to be hunting for a bunch of emeralds with some kinda special power that should help us out, and we're walking on an island that used to float in the air after leaving behind another version of the exact same island that also had a robot head with tentacles in a glass bubble and a talking computer with a face that can send you to other worlds and landed us here a day late. That all sounds pretty magical to me."

"Yeah, we've had to deal with our own share of weird magic stuff back home. Mindwipe amulets with reset buttons, glasses that make you smart, stupid fairies that bring your toys to life, pizza deliveries…" Yang also made an observation of his own. "Plus, we aren't turning into freaky versions of ourselves like we did when we went to that sucky world full of weird giants, and neither are you."

Yin nodded. "And thank Foo for that, because that was just the worst."

"Uhh… okay…" That was all that Knuckles could muster up as he stared at the two in utter confusion.

By contrast, Amy looked like she had just realized something.

"Actually, that would explain both Little Planet and Maginaryworld perfectly." She blinked a few times, surprised at her own conclusion. "I've always had a bit of a thing for magic myself. I'm surprised I didn't think of it like that!"

However, the conversation came to an abrupt stop when they heard a loud whistle.

"Yeah, um, hello?" It was Umbra, who pointed at Yin as soon as he had everyone's attention. "I know this little chitchat is riveting and all, but you heard Widget here. We're supposed to be looking for something." He then brought his hand down. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm guessing it'd be a lot easier in a universe that hasn't been ripped apart like cheap toilet paper, so can we get moving before time and space start circling the drain?"

Right on cue, Sonic and Tails rejoined the group.

"Well, he may be a buzzkill, but he's got a point." Sonic spoke up first. "The sooner we get the Chaos Emeralds, the better."

Tails nodded. "The good news is, the Tornado 2 is working again, so flying back to Emerald Town should be easy!"

"Emerald Town?" The name caught the Guyver's attention. "Is that where the emeralds are?"

The young fox shook his head. "It's where my lab is. I'm sure we can figure out a way to track them all down from there."

"If we can figure out how to get there…" Zero added.

Yang let out a frustrated sigh. "Yeah, I really hate to agree with what Pointy McSour said before, but how are we all supposed to fit into that plane? FYI, if it has a trunk, I am not gonna ride in there!"

Before Tails could offer an answer, Yin raised her hand.

"Actually, I think I have an idea." She brought it down as soon as she had everyone's attention, and then she looked directly at him. "How many of us can you fit on that plane, Tails?"

He looked at the Tornado 2 for a moment before turning back to her. "I think four would be the most; one on each seat and one on each side of the wings."

"Okay, we just need to carry five more." Yin then turned to the others. "Any of you have a rope? A chain? A snake that won't bite my fingers off?"

This in turn made Sonic realize something. "Hey, Tails, I know you based your planes on mine. Does the Tornado 2 have that thing we used to carry the Master Emerald back when we were dealing with the Death Egg?"

"The tether?" Tails asked, to which his friend nodded. "Well, I did build it with one, but I never really had a chance to test or use it, so… I don't really know if it works."

Sonic nudged him slightly. "Hey, I always say that when you want to do something, you should do it right away." He gestured towards the Tornado 2 with his head. "No time like the present, right, pal?"

Tails couldn't help but look at the plane as soon as he heard that, and while he felt somewhat uncomfortable in front of everyone once he noticed that most of the group's attention was set directly on him, he relaxed as soon as he noticed how his friends were looking at him.

"…Right." He took a deep breath. "It's the only way to live a life without regrets."

And with that, he flew over to the Tornado 2's pilot seat and began to go through the controls.

"You really trust him that much?" Once he was out of earshot, the Guyver asked a question of Sonic and his friends.

Amy raised an eyebrow at him. "What, you thought we weren't being serious before?"

"Too bad, 'cause it's all true." Sonic crossed his arms. "I'd trust that guy with my life."

Knuckles also spoke up. "I don't always understand what he does, but he's never made things worse for us before."

It was right at that moment that the Tornado 2 made some noises, and when the group turned their attention over to it, the tether that Sonic and Tails had talked about came out from the back of the plane.

"Got it!" Tails looked over at the others. "It's ready!"

Sonic smirked before giving him a thumbs-up. "Never doubted ya for a second, Tails."

Meanwhile, Yin walked over to the tether and briefly inspected it before going back to the others.

"Alright, that should work." She turned to Sonic, Amy and Knuckles in particular. "You guys are going with him, right?"

The blue hedgehog nodded. "You got it, Yin."

"Neat!" Just like before, her hands began to glow right as she aimed them at her target. "Who goes where?"

Sonic was very quick to answer. "I call dibs on the wings. It's what I always do."

"And if he's on the wings, then so am I!" Amy immediately added.

Knuckles was the last one. "Guess that leaves the backseat to me again."

"Alright, hang on!"

Suddenly, Amy and Knuckles felt themselves being lifted into the air, enveloped by an aura that matched the glow on Yin's hands. After they were moved over to the exact locations they asked for, Yin brought her arms back down and the two landed on said spots.

"Wow, that was easy." Amy looked down at where Sonic and Yin were standing and waved at them. "Thank you!"

Yin waved right back at her. "You're welcome!" Then she looked at Sonic. "You can get up there by yourself, right?"

"Yeah, no sweat."

That got a big smile out of the rabbit girl.

"Great! Because I'm going to need your help." She switched her focus over to the rest of the group. "Everyone, get over here!"

As they walked in her direction just as she asked, the Guyver took a moment to ask Yang a question.

"What's her plan?"

Much to his surprise, Yang shrugged in response. "Dunno, but hey, as long as it doesn't involve goat dolls, evil chickens or a giant pair of pants, we're good."

Unsure how to respond to that… oddly blasé comment, the Guyver decided to keep quiet and let the subject go.

Before long, all five of them were all gathered at the same spot: right behind the Tornado 2.

"We're here. What's next?" Zero asked Yin.

In response, the glow on her hands suddenly got much brighter.

"Glad you asked." She sat down, crossed her legs, and raised her arms up high. "Foo Field!"

With those words, a force field suddenly appeared around everyone except for Sonic. Once again, while most everyone looked fairly impressed at this display, Yang had a look on his face that showed he knew this was coming.

"A… magic bubble?" Umbra asked as he looked all around himself.

After placing his hand on the field, the Guyver was surprised by the results. "It's not a bubble. It's… solid."

Zero raised a hand, and the others noticed his palm starting to glow.

"Hey, is that a Z on your hand?" Yang asked him as soon as he noticed what the glowing part looked like.

After only a few seconds, Zero used his open hand to hit the field that currently surrounded them. He could feel the impact all around the area, much like the others did, but once he brought his hand back down, it was exactly as he suspected.

"…No damage at all." He turned his attention over to Yin. "It's resilient."

In response, she stood back up and looked at her companions for a moment. "Yep! It's another Level 1 move, but I've been practicing with it for a while. All I have to do is stay focused and we're good." And then she turned over to Sonic, who had been watching the whole display. "Good enough to be attached to the back of a plane, at least."

It was at that point that he understood why she said she needed his help.

"On it!" Rather than dwelling on how long it took for it to hit him, he went straight for the tether and attached it to the force field. "There you go. Ready for takeoff!"

Once again, Yin and Yang ended up saying the same thing. "Neat!"

"Alright, you guys hang back here." Sonic gestured upwards with his head. "I'll give Tails the go-ahead."

Before any of them could respond, he had already jumped towards the force field. Quickly leaping up into the air, he pulled an aerial backflip before landing on the Tornado 2's horizontal stabilizer, only to immediately leap forwards and make it to the right side of the upper supporting plane.

"Oh yeah, nailed it."

He gave Amy and Knuckles a quick glance; both of his friends were in position and were pleased to see him doing the same. Then he turned his attention over to Tails.

"We're ready for takeoff, Captain." It was only after those words that he noticed his friend's eyes were elsewhere. "…But you already knew that, didn't you?"

Indeed, Tails had been watching the whole thing, and he was visibly surprised by what had just happened.

"It's cool. She's got this. C'mon, fire up the engines and let's get rolling!"

The boy forced himself to look away and did as he was asked. Soon enough, the Tornado 2 powered itself up, and it wasn't long before it took to the air just like before. Knuckles straightened himself up on his seat, while Sonic and Amy turned their sights to the front of the plane just as Tails had done.

"Next stop: Emerald Town!" Tails loudly announced.

As the plane began to head for its destination, the rest of the team could only stare at Sonic as he steadied himself for the trip.

"He's faster than any Reploid I've ever faced." Zero's tone remained even, but he seemed interested regardless. "Much more agile, too."

The Guyver nodded. "I thought only Zoanoids and Guyver units could go that fast."

"Guess that's why they call him Sonic." Yin was similarly impressed. "If he can do that and Tails can build planes, I can't wait to see the others in action. I bet Amy's going to be awesome!"

She was ready to say more, but she found herself distracted by the sound of her brother snickering loudly.

"He said 'hang back'! I just got it!" Yang barely managed to get that out there before he burst out laughing. "Oh man, this is gonna be great!"

Yin was confused at first, but when she turned away from him and saw the tether that was attached to her Foo Field again, it finally sank in with her… and she immediately facepalmed.

"Oh, for the love of Foo… that was a pun? He makes puns?"

The others said nothing more as Yang kept on laughing.

Unknown to the heroes, someone was watching them from a distance as they sped away.

"I told ya! I told ya he'd come back in no time! Who'd know Sonic better than me?"

It was none other than Scourge the Hedgehog, who was speaking into a device strapped onto his right wrist. It looked like a gray triangle with rounded edges and corners, a black wrist strap, and a black touchpad with cyan lights on it.

"Maybe your supposed 'insight' is not entirely worthless after all." A voice came out of it, and going by the tone it had, its owner was not amused with him at all.

The green hedgehog rolled his eyes at this. "Is that how you arty types say 'you're a genius' in your language? 'Cuz yeah, I know I am!"

"If you were, you would have dealt with him and everyone on his side as soon as you met them. I'm beginning to suspect that maybe you can't do it."

Scourge scoffed at the accusation. "Oh, yeah? Why don't you do it then, wise guy?"

"You were the one who said Sonic was yours to take down, if I recall correctly. 'Every single one of him', in your own words. Besides, I have much more important work that needs my undivided attention."

This only made him laugh. "And that's why you don't get to critique how I deal with ol' Blue. You need me to keep him and his new band of idiots away from your little workshop of horrors, but I get to do it however the heck I want!"

"Is that so? Was facing him and eight others a part of your plan?"

He shrugged derisively, as if whoever was on the other side of the conversation could actually see him doing so.

"Well, I could use some backup to keep the dead weight out of my way, but you've got my new gang busy dealing with my old gang over at my home turf, and Trout Boy is still busy with that freaky little project of yours, so the same goes for the ghost and Mangy McGee. Not much of a choice there."

In response, he heard a noise behind him, followed by some wind blowing in his direction.

"If that concerns you so much, there are others who'll be happy to assist you."

By the time he turned around, all he could see were two other people standing before him, both of them wearing communicators not too different from his own. One was about his size and close to his own color, and was wearing a communicator that almost looked like a light bulb with pink highlights on his right wrist. The other one was much taller and looked like something that Eggman guy would build if he had lost all sense of good taste and stopped making robot hedgehogs, and his communicator was more like a gray square with red lights and was strapped around his right forearm.

"They're more than familiar with Sonic's new friends, and they also share your… particular brand of motivation." The voice paused briefly. "I trust you will not disappoint me again."

Scourge could hear the transmission being cut off, but he couldn't care less. As soon as he got a good look at the characters standing with him, he grinned maliciously.

"…Oh yeah, you guys definitely look like you're more my speed."

"So many islands…"

As the Tornado 2 made its way to its destination, what was familiar territory for Sonic and his friends caught the attention of their new companions.

"That's where your kind comes from?" Zero asked, his stoic expression unchanged despite his curiosity.

Tails stayed focused on his flight plan as he answered him. "Yeah, the humans live in the bigger countries, but folks like us usually stick to these smaller spots."

"Not always, though." Sonic also chipped in. "Amy used to have an apartment down in Station Square, and Tails has already set up a bunch of workshops and labs all over the map."

That last part caught the Guyver's notice. "You have more than just the one at Emerald Town?"

"Yeah, but that's the one where most of my tools were before all of this happened." Tails' reply was quick. "It's our best option right now."

Then came his other question. "Is that where you originally came from?"

"Actually, I'm from West Side Island."

Once again, Sonic decided to contribute. "That's where we first met. Heh, good times."

"Are you from there too, Sonic?" Zero asked him.

The hedgehog shook his head. "Nope. Christmas Island." Then he chuckled lightly. "Bit of a weird place. I haven't been there in some time, but it's still cool. Pretty sure you guys would like it."

"What about Knuckles?" Yin wondered aloud.

Umbra replied almost immediately, much to the surprise of the others. "Angel Island."

"Oh, you mean the one from before that was—?" Yang began to talk, but as soon as she realized what he was about to say, Yin immediately covered his mouth.

Despite her efforts, Knuckles lowered his head with a sigh. "…Yeah."

Everyone quickly fell silent. Sonic and Amy's faces fell as they turned their attention over to their echidna friend, and despite Tails being too busy with the Tornado 2's flight plan to look at him, he was no happier than they were.

"…Dimitri did say he was counting on Knuckles recognizing the other one." It was Zero who eventually found something to say, if only because it felt like no one else wanted to.

Knuckles said nothing. He could only clench his fists while trying to contain his anger at the whole situation.

"We'll get it back, Knux." Sonic spoke up again, his tone as unexpectedly serious as it was when he was giving his thoughts on the Grublins that he and his friends had spotted before. "As soon as Omni's juiced back up, that'll be the next item on our to-do list, right alongside kicking that Scourge guy's prickly green butt."

Tails nodded. "He caught us by surprise the first time, and then he left as soon as he started to lose his advantage. I don't think he's as tough as he claims."

"The next time we run into him, there won't be enough left to make a handbag." Amy topped it off with a threat that earned her a surprised look from Sonic.

Before she could notice it, though, a scoff escaped him.

"Now there's a side of yours we don't see every day, Amy."

She grinned at him in response. "You're not the only one who's full of surprises, Sonic."

"Bad guys, beware! Don't mess with this hedgehog's friends." And that in turn got Sonic to grin back at her. "That's an attitude I can get behind."

She giggled for a moment. "Yeah, well, there's more where that came from."

Before he could say anything in response, the conversation was interrupted by a loud whistle.

"Hate to break up the banter, lovebirds, but you better be serious about that drive of yours." Much like before, Umbra spoke up as soon as he had their attention. "Something tells me we're going to need it."

Turning their eyes away from him, it was only then that they noticed how surprised Tails seemed to be.

"We've got incoming!"

When Sonic and Amy turned back around, they saw exactly what he meant, and while she was merely surprised, he was alarmed at the sight of their attackers. They were similar to the ones he and the others had managed to avoid before, except smaller and with what looked like giant fly wings.

"Whoa! Grublin Flies!" He immediately looked over to his best friend again. "Tails, better get armed and ready. These guys don't mess around!"

The young fox nodded before engaging the Tornado 2's weapons.

"Hold on, everyone!"

Sonic nodded, and then he kneeled down before holding onto the wing he was on top of with both hands, which quickly prompted Amy to do the same.

Right as the creatures at the front were about to strike with their clubs, the Tornado 2 suddenly slowed down slightly, making them miss their swing by a slim margin. Before they had a chance to recover, they were hit by a barrage of missiles, which chased them even as they tried to avoid the attack. The ones behind them barely had a chance to scatter before they were surprised by the plane's machine gun fire, which took down more than a few of them. The ones that managed to avoid the attack backed away before heading for the plane again, this time from the back.

When he spotted the attempted attack, Umbra spoke up again. "Open a hole on this thing!"

"What?!" Yin asked in shock.

While he didn't look at her, he still answered her. "Do it!"

Despite not appreciating his tone, she did as he asked and opened a hole on the force field big enough for him to jump through, which he quickly did, the hole closing just on time for him to stand atop the force field. Before any of the others could question his course of action, his body suddenly burst into flames, and then he jumped right at the incoming flock of enemies, curling up into a ball before hitting them, with the force of the impact being enough for him to cut right through their numbers. As soon as he made it to the opposite side of where they were flying, the remainder of the flock's attention had shifted entirely over to him.

Once he lost his momentum, he uncurled himself before turning to look at the monsters, floating in the air as if held up by the wind itself.

"You want them? You'll have to deal with me first."

As if in answer, they immediately went on the attack again. Umbra curled up into a ball again before hitting them with a series of what looked like Homing Attacks, the distraction allowing the Tornado 2 to fly ahead uninterrupted.

"How did he do that?" Knuckles asked, having turned around and watched the whole thing.

Yin narrowed her eyes at the sight. "Good question."

"We can worry about it later!" Tails yelled out before resuming the attack on the group right in front of him, firing another barrage of homing missiles.

After the attack, the Grublins in front of them seemed to disperse and fly away, much to the group's relief.

"We're approaching the lab." Tails began to lower the plane. "Almost there, guys."

Much to the surprise of the ones still inside the force field, however, Zero reached for the weapon mounted on his right leg.

"Yes, but it's under attack."

This caught the group off-guard, and after taking a closer look, they noticed the two enormous figures that seemed to be heading for a gray building not too far away from Tails' house.

"Oh, great… Trolls. They're dumb as a sack of rocks, but they hit just as hard." Once again, Sonic provided some insight on the enemy. "We're gonna need some heavy hitters down there. One's bad enough on its own, but two?"

Tails seemed concerned. "The door's reinforced, but I don't know how long it's going to last against monsters that big." He quickly engaged the autopilot before looking behind him, the plane slowly stopping its descent as he did. "Knuckles, could you—?"

That was when he noticed that the Tornado 2's back seat was empty. Despite his initial confusion, it only took about a second before he looked down… and indeed, Knuckles had jumped out of the plane and was already on his way down.

This didn't escape the others' notice, with Yang in particular looking more impressed than shocked at the sudden decision.

"Wow…" He quickly looked at his companions. "Okay, anyone else?"

While Yin looked at him while he was crazy, Zero merely tightened his grip on what looked like the handle of his laser sword, while the protrusions on the forearms of the Guyver's suit suddenly extended far enough to double as bladed weapons.

Yang smiled at this. "Oh, you guys speak my language."

Much to their surprise, Yin's expression suddenly shifted into one of concern.

"Ah, pellets…"

When they turned to look at what she was seeing, they noticed the prior flock of Grublins had regrouped and was heading straight for them again.

"Tails! Incoming from behind!" Yin shouted.

This would've rattled the fox enough all by itself, but before he could even think of responding, he heard Sonic's voice again.

"Wyverns closing in!"

And indeed, he could see a pair of flying Grublins, both of which vaguely resembled the mythical creature they were apparently named after, heading in their direction.

"What do we do?!" Amy asked in a panic.

And so, with a deep breath, the boy steeled himself before his next maneuver, gripping the controls tightly.

"Yin, drop the others." He then pushed a button, which caused a robotic arm to come out of the right side of the plane and position itself close to where the others were. "Then grab on."

The rabbit girl was taken aback for a second, but she did as Tails asked and made the Foo Field disappear. While she quickly used a lasso-like beam of energy to hold onto the robotic arm, her brother and her companions immediately fell down as soon as that happened.

"Alright, let's go!" Needless to say, Yang was ecstatic. "Chee! Hoo! Waa!"

Once he confirmed that they had gotten away from the plane safely, Tails looked up at his two friends, who had seen the whole thing.

"Sonic! Amy! I'm switching to high-speed mode!"

Much to his relief, Sonic smirked at him. "Say no more, little bro. I'll keep 'em off your back!"

With that, he jumped off the plane and went straight for the closest Wyvern, hitting it with a Homing Attack before landing on its back and throwing off its flight plan.

"Not without me, you don't!"

In a move that caught both Sonic and Tails by surprise, Amy did the exact same thing when the other Wyvern came close enough, flying in the opposite direction and out of the plane's way.

"Amy!"

Despite his obvious concern for his friend, the fox ultimately forced himself to get back to his controls, and with the push of a button, the robotic arm put Yin down on the back seat before retracting back into the plane.

"So, what's the plan?" Yin asked after fastening her seatbelt.

His response was quick. "We're doing a somersault! Hang on!"

Before she could say anything to that, he pulled up on the controls, and thus the Tornado 2 began to fly upwards. The Grublins apparently elected not to follow suit, choosing instead to continue flying in a straight line.

"Can you make a force field big enough to protect the Tornado 2?" Tails asked as the plane started approaching the halfway point.

Yin was surprised by the request. "This isn't the Woo Foo Battle Cruiser, but… maybe a skin-level one? Does that work?"

"That's… actually better than what I was planning." Impressed, Tails quickly found the button he needed and pushed it. "Okay, transforming now!"

Right on cue, the plane's four wings rearranged themselves into the shape of an X, its tractor screws and wheels retracted fully, and the lower half of its fuselage raised itself, which made room for a rocket booster on the bottom.

"We're ready! Go for it!"

As they began to descend, Yin closed her eyes, raised her hands, and concentrated hard. Right before the somersault was completed, Tails managed to briefly see a force field surrounding them before it turned invisible, and he took that as the cue for the next step of his plan.

"Aileron roll! Hang on!"

The somersault finally ended with the two of them right behind the group of Grublins, and just as Tails said, after a sharp U-turn, the plane began to spin rapidly. Despite taking aim at multiple targets, which was helped by the maneuver, he didn't open fire, choosing instead to keep on spinning as the Tornado 2 headed straight for the enemy group.

"Tails, what are you doing?!" Yin cried out, even as she kept her spell going.

Tails didn't react to this. Instead, he did his best to stay focused as his vehicle directly rammed the monsters while spinning rapidly, the impact of said attack taking out a good chunk of them almost instantly. Putting some distance between them and the Tornado 2 once they started dispersing, he began to stabilize the plane so they were flying straight once more, no longer spinning around.

"And now, U-turn!" He gave Yin a quick look. "Drop the force field!"

Pulling up on the controls again, he stopped halfway through what appeared to be a somersault and spun just enough for the plane to straighten itself back up. Yin took that as her cue and put her hands down, the invisible force field briefly coming back into view before it disappeared completely. Once the Grublins were back on his sights, Tails fired one last barrage of missiles at all the targets he had previously locked onto, before using the machine gun to take down any remaining stragglers.

"Alright, we did it!" Tails exclaimed happily.

Yin looked around, trying to make sure that all their enemies had been taken down, before focusing directly on him. "That… was the plan?"

"Not at first." The boy engaged the autopilot again, disengaged the transformation, and then he turned around so he could look her in the eye. "That probably would've blown us up without your help!"

She gave him a disbelieving look. "Wait, you came up with that… right after I told you about my skin-level invisible Foo Field? Just like that?!"

Instead of providing an answer, Tails' expression suddenly turned giddy, much to her confusion.

"Didn't I say my best friend was the smartest guy around?"

Yin quickly turned her attention to the source of the familiar voice, only to be surprised by the sight of Sonic and Amy riding the Wyverns that they had attacked before.

"Nice job, Tails!" Amy cheerfully addressed her friend. "How did you know that'd work?"

A nervous chuckle escaped him. "It's probably going to sound crazy, but after seeing Yin's magic in action… I don't know, I just trusted that she'd have my back."

"Makes sense to me." Clearly, Sonic didn't find it quite as crazy as he expected.

Yin, for her part, just seemed confused as she looked at the two hedgehogs. "Did you guys know you could ride those things when you jumped off?"

"Oh yeah, I had to pull it off once. It's a long story." Sonic then gestured in Amy's direction with his head. "And I'm guessin' Amy just learned by example."

In response, she turned her attention to him. "Actually, Shadow and I had to do this to some aliens once. They weren't too far off from these guys."

"Sounds like another long story." He soon did the same to her. "You're gonna have to tell me about that one of these days!"

Amy raised an eyebrow, a cheeky grin appearing on her face. "Maybe. We'll see."

This seemingly amused Sonic, which didn't escape Yin's notice.

"Anyway…" However, instead of dwelling on it, she just turned back around and straightened herself up on her seat. "We should catch up with the others."

Tails nodded. "Right!" He also turned back around, disengaging the autopilot once more before taking the controls. "We're going down. Hold on!"

Sonic and Amy watched as the Tornado 2 started to descend, and they exchanged a glance and a nod before following suit.

"You heard him, ugly!"

"Down we go!"

Meanwhile…

As he continued to nosedive, Knuckles clenched his fists.

The Master Emerald had been taken by Scourge, his home had crashed down into a city as a result, and now these "Trolls" that Sonic was talking about were trying to ruin his chance to set things right? Not if he had anything to say about it. He was ready to hit these monsters with everything he had!

After adjusting his trajectory slightly, he landed right in front of the two creatures, striking the ground with a powerful punch as he did. The impact was strong enough to momentarily throw his opponents off balance, and this gave him a chance to really see what he was up against. The two were mostly similar to each other, both of them being tall, hulking brutes with bulky arms that seemed to support their weight and looking like they were made out of rock and dirt and soil. The only major difference between them was the color of their bodies, one being mostly green while the other had an orange-brownish shade to it.

And while Sonic probably would've thrown out a snippy quote, the echidna was in no mood for jokes.

"Take this!"

He went straight for the green Troll, lunging right at it before hitting it with a Spiral Upper. That knocked it further off balance, leaving it open for further strikes. He quickly struck it in the chest area with two strong punches before following that up with a twisting uppercut, putting enough force into them to leave the creature staggering backwards, and he finished his attack with one last punch… one so ridiculously powerful that it produced an explosion upon impact.

While his assault was enough to drop the hulking beast on its back, it was only when he heard a loud roar right behind him that he remembered there were supposed to be two of them. By the time he turned around, the other Troll was ready to pound him with one of its arms…

"Man Smash!"

…only for both of them to be blindsided when the Troll was hit right on the head. By another head. And with enough force that its other arm couldn't support it.

"Man Smash! Man Smash! Man Smash! Man Smash!" As if that wasn't enough, a few more hits ensured that it'd stay down a little longer.

Knuckles could only stare at the scene before him in disbelief before the attacker landed right in front of him.

"Oh man, I haven't done that in forever! Good thing it still works!" It was Yang, who seemed gleefully unaware of what he had just done as he pointed at him. "Did your fist just explode back there?"

Knuckles completely failed to answer his question. "Did you just…?" He couldn't find the words he was looking for, so he just pointed at his own head. "Are you okay?"

"Dude, I'm a cartoon rabbit." Yang knocked on his own head a couple times. "I don't get hurt unless the plot needs me to!"

Before Knuckles could find something to say, he saw Yang gearing up for a fight again. He turned around on instinct, and sure enough, he noticed the green Troll had gotten back up, only barely managing to dodge its attack once he did.

"I bet they can't say the same for themselves."

Right on cue, the orange one got back up after the hits it suffered, with Knuckles assuming a fighting stance in response as he and Yang stood side by side.

"It's two on two now." He clenched his fists once more. "We can take them."

Yang laughed at this. "Obviously! Except it's not just two on two!"

"What?" Knuckles asked him.

Instead of answering, Yang simply yelled something out loud. "Paws of Pain!"

The two Trolls raised their arms and prepared to crush the two, and while Knuckles simply used his strength to stop the green one's attack, he was surprised to find that Yang had done the same to the orange one, except his fists had suddenly grown much, much bigger.

"Just gotta hold 'em in place." He then gestured upwards with his head. "They said they had a plan. I don't normally care about plans because that's more Yin's thing than mine, but I wanna see what they do!"

Knuckles turned away from him, making sure not to give his enemy an inch. "Who is 'they'?"

"Wait for it…" Once again, Yang's answer was less clear than he'd have liked.

Nevertheless, he continued to push back against his Troll, and while he wasn't looking at him, he could only assume Yang was doing the same thing with the orange one.

"Okay, now! Push back, then jump back!"

Once again, he simply did as he was told, and he was surprised to find that he and Yang were almost perfectly in sync, which he wasn't really used to. Even his usual synergy with Sonic, Tails, or even both would run into the occasional hiccup every now and then, but this goofy blue rabbit was keeping up with him and acting as if they were on the exact same wavelength.

Before he could even think about questioning why that was, he was even more surprised by what happened right after.

Just as the Trolls were trying to recover their balance, Zero dropped in right in front of them, holding his saber above his head with both hands before suddenly swinging forward. His attack struck the ground with such power that an explosion of energy seemed to come out of the impacted area, and the two monsters suddenly found themselves paralyzed, as if they had been hit by a lightning bolt.

Almost immediately after that, he jumped backwards, and right on cue, the Guyver made his own entrance, with his arms stretched out to the sides before taking a swing with each of them as he landed. The creatures went completely still, and as he leapt away from them, their heads dropped down to the ground.

The Guyver stood up tall next to Zero, who had grabbed what looked like a gun and loaded the hilt of his saber on it as if it were an ammo cartridge, and as the robot took aim at the remains of the orange Troll, he looked over to the green one. Without so much as a word, Zero pulled the trigger, and a hail of energy bullets went straight for his target, while the Guyver's helmet suddenly began to fire a similar barrage of laser beams.

While Knuckles could only stare in awe as the two headless bodies began to disintegrate, Yang's eyes widened, a huge smile quickly appearing on his face.

"That… was… awesome!" His fists shrank back down to their usual size as he jumped up and down from the excitement, which got their attention.

Zero put his gun away while the Guyver merely looked at their two shorter companions, and much to the surprise of Knuckles, they didn't even react to Yang's enthusiasm before turning to each other.

"You did good." The Guyver offered his hand to the robot.

Zero stared at it for a moment, but ultimately returned the gesture with a nod. "Thanks. So did you."

Before Knuckles could say anything to them, they both turned their attention over to him.

"And you as well." Zero spoke up first.

The Guyver nodded. "We couldn't have done it without the two of you."

Knuckles was slightly taken aback by this, but he did his best to bounce back. "Thanks. And… yourself."

"Aw, yeah! Best team ever!" Yang, on the other hand, was still as giddy as before.

Before any of the others could say anything to that, they heard the Tornado 2 approaching, and were surprised to see it landing and coming to a stop not too far away from them.

"Oh, I don't know about that." As if on cue, Yin jumped out of her seat and landed right next to her brother. "I think Tails and I did pretty good too."

At the mention of his name, Tails also got out of the plane and ran towards the rest of the group.

"Knuckles!" He came to a stop right in front of his friend. "Are you alright?"

The echidna clenched his fists once more. "I will be once we're done with all of this." And then, it was as if he had just realized something. "…Where are Sonic and Amy?"

Right on cue, the group's collective attention was grabbed by a loud screech, and once they turned to the source, they noticed two Wyverns heading in their direction. While the more combat-oriented members of the group got on their guard, Tails and Yin simply watched expectantly.

Sure enough, once they were close enough, they noticed that Sonic and Amy were riding the two beasts. The hedgehogs kept heading towards the ground, and upon impact, as their mounts began to very painfully grind to a halt, they jumped up into the air and landed in front of everyone just as they fully came to a stop.

"Whoo, nailed it!" Sonic quickly stood up straight and celebrated the maneuver.

Amy did so more calmly as she sighed in relief. "That worked out better than I thought it would."

"What, you doubted this would be fun?" Sonic asked her with an accusatory look.

This got an eyeroll out of the pink hedgehog. "It always is with you, isn't it?"

"You know it!" And that in turn only served to amuse him.

It was only then that they noticed how Knuckles and the others hadn't dropped their guard, and before they could even ask about it, Tails and Yin pointed behind the two.

"Um, guys?"

They turned around to look at whatever it was that they were pointing to, and sure enough, they were just as shocked when they noticed what seemed to be some sort of fireball or meteor heading in their direction.

Before anyone could say or do anything more, the object finally landed with a powerful shock and a blast of fire… and even when Yin produced a Foo Field to protect them in just a fraction of a second, it didn't escape anyone's notice that the impact zone was precisely the spot where the Wyverns had crashed.

Once the smoke and dust from the impact cleared out, they were all surprised to find that not only was there no sign of the monsters anywhere, but also that someone else had essentially taken their place.

"…And that's the last of them."

It was Umbra the Hedgehog, the one that the entire group had lost track of earlier.

"Is everyone okay?" He stood up and looked at them, almost as if nothing had happened.

As most of the group finally put away their weapons, Yin dropped the Foo Field, an annoyed look plastered on her face. "Just barely!"

"What was that?!" Knuckles was just as upset as she was.

That made him sigh and drop his head. "…I'm sorry. I didn't think. I just saw the monsters and… reacted."

"Trust me, I know the feeling." Sonic, on the other hand, was more sympathetic to him. "But yeah, next time, give a guy some warning. A good heads-up never killed anyone, is all I'm saying."

As he raised his head, he noticed that Amy and Tails simply nodded in agreement, which made him feel just a little less awful.

"…Alright."

Unknown to the group, however, not too far away from Tails' lab, three figures were listening in on their conversation.

One of them merely watched intently, his gaze focused on the taller members of the group. Another one was only barely holding back the urge to throw up at the whole display. The last one gleefully smiled as he quietly thought something to himself.

Maybe not a heads-up… but I sure know what'll kill ya, Blue.

Chapter Text

Wild Canyon.

By all outward appearances, you wouldn't be blamed if you assumed it was some kind of leftover ruins from Egypt, what with all the statues and hieroglyphics that adorn the place. Other than that, however, the place wasn't especially remarkable; aside from an impressively powerful wind tunnel, it was mostly just a dry canyon area.

"Oh, great. My sister gets to go to the beach, while I get stuck in a desert. Cool."

"I've seen worse."

To Zero and Yang, who were dropped off there by the others, it wasn't anything more than that.

"We won't be here for long anyway. I just have to focus."

However, to Knuckles the Echidna, who was also there with them, it was familiar territory.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath so he could concentrate, and as he did, he completely missed the curious way his new teammates were looking at him. It didn't take long before all he could hear were his own thoughts and the sound of the desert wind.

A few moments ago…

As the group found themselves inside Tails' lab, some of them were once again confounded by what was nothing but familiar to Sonic and his friends.

Bookshelves, potted plants, a half-eaten donut on a plate, a cup of cocoa with a logo that looked like two tails… the place almost looked more like his home than a laboratory.

…Up until the point where they noticed the monitors and tools and assorted tech that was also littered around the place, along with a spot that was being occupied by a plane other than the one they had arrived in and the blackboard that was chock-full of calculations and theories that seemed far too advanced for an 8-year-old boy.

"This… is where you work?" The Guyver couldn't even try to hide his amazement.

Tails suddenly found himself laughing nervously, much to his confusion. "If it helps, I'm sorry you and Zero had to enter through the back. Most of my guests aren't that much taller than me."

As Sonic nudged his friend with an amused chuckle, the Guyver shook his head.

"It's not that. I'm just surprised." He then had another look around the place. "I don't usually run into technology this advanced unless it's being used to turn people into monsters. It's… a good change of pace."

Amy couldn't help but frown at that. "Is that what happened to you? I hope not."

"It's… a long story." After noticing that, he once again shook his head. "I'm not sure you want to hear about it, Amy."

Before he knew what happened, Sonic had already made his way to Amy's side.

"Hey, don't count her out just yet. You wouldn't believe what she's lived through." He topped that off by giving him a thumbs-up. "Trust me, we're all tougher than we look."

Despite his face seemingly being covered up, which kept him from outwardly displaying any kind of emotion, the two hedgehogs heard what almost seemed like a scoff coming from him.

"After seeing your friends in action just now, I don't doubt that at all."

Conversely, Sonic didn't even try to hide the smirk that took over his face. "Good to know, because there's more where that came from."

As Amy giggled in response, none of them noticed how Zero was quietly watching them from a different part of the lab.

While his face didn't appear to be covered the same way the Guyver's face was, his expression arguably did a much better job of hiding what he was thinking.

They're so different, but it doesn't matter to them… I wish you could see this, X.

His gaze shifted over to Tails, who had made his way over to a table and grabbed what looked like a small, circular device. Knuckles was standing close to him and silently watching him work with a serious expression, while Yin got a little closer, as if trying to get a better look.

"Alright, let's get started." He pushed a button, and after the device's screen powered up, he offered it to the girl. "Could you hold onto this for me?"

She simply nodded before doing as he asked, and then he grabbed what looked like a wide yellow rectangle with two handles on each side. Zero managed to get a better look at it when it was being held up straight, and noticed it looked almost like some kind of handheld computer.

"I've been making adjustments to it since the EX World Grand Prix. With any luck, it should tell us what we need." The bigger device also powered up, and after pushing a few buttons, the display began to shift rapidly. "Now, when I ask you to, push the right button. If it works, I need to take note of everything we can get out of it."

As the two began their work, Zero took note of the boy's expression.

His technical skills are on par with Cerveau, but he still seems insecure somehow, and yet his friends don't doubt him… he really is just like Ciel.

Before he could even consider giving either device's screen a closer look, his view was blocked by Knuckles, who apparently wanted to know what they were up to. Instead of trying to get a better view once more, he found himself gazing at the skies above through one of the windows.

Ciel… thank you for believing in me. I know you and the others will make it all worthwhile.

And then, before he knew what happened, one of the others suddenly jumped up to his face.

"Dude!"

It was Yang, who had already dropped back down to the floor by the time he finished saying that.

"You have a gun too?!" His enthusiasm, on the other hand, was through the roof. "How many more weapons do you have?! How much can you do?!"

Zero eyed him curiously for a moment.

"…Not that much." He brought out his gun, his sword hilt still loaded on it as if it were an ammo cartridge. "They call this a Buster Shot. I got it from a member of the Resistance in our world. His name was Milan."

Instead of asking for more details, Yang merely ogled the weapon. "Oooooohhh…"

Zero quietly stared at him for a moment before deciding to move on. After unloading the hilt from the Buster Shot, he put the gun away again.

"And this…" Then he held it properly before making the blade appear. "…is my Z-Saber. I've had it for most of my life."

Yang soon found himself eyeing it with his tongue hanging out, but not before making another comment.

"So… cool…"

Once again, Zero could only look at him in utter bemusement.

"Are you a weapons expert?" That was all he could muster in that state.

Surprisingly, it was enough to break Yang out of his stupor, even if his enthusiasm was somehow magnified instead of tempered.

"Oh, well, I don't like to brag." He quickly brought his own sword into view. "I love to brag! Mostly about my weapons and butt-kicking skills!"

Zero merely blinked a couple times, and yet somehow, the blue rabbit picked up on what seemed to be confusion on his part.

"I used to think my sword sucked. It's blunt and my master likes to take bites out of it and it's nowhere near as cool as yours." As if in response, his sword began to glow. "Until I had to use it to fight off some cats and found out that I can make it as awesome as I want!"

And then, the weapon morphed into a completely different shape, looking more like a boomerang.

"Sure, I still had to do boring chores after that, but I learned something useful for once!" Then it morphed again, this time into a bamboo staff. "I've got a whole arsenal here, I get to use it however I want, and now I've been sucked into an adventure where I can do more of that and kick a bunch of all-new bad guys around! My destiny is awesome!"

After yet another morph, with the weapon turning into nunchaku this time, Zero couldn't help but turn his eyes away after hearing that last word.

"Destiny…?" He raised his hand and stared at his Z-Saber for a moment. "…Do you really believe in that sort of thing?"

Yang tilted his head to the side in confusion, his weapon finally changing back into a sword as he did. "What, you don't?"

Before Zero could really answer him, however, Tails' voice got their attention.

"Okay, guys, I think we're ready!"

As they and the others began to approach him, they quickly noticed that Knuckles and Yin had stayed by the fox's side during their entire conversation.

"Alright, Tails, what do we do?" As expected, the echidna wasted no time.

He and Yin then stepped away so they could join the rest of the group, while Tails took a deep breath.

"I guess my newest invention is getting a test run ahead of time." He then turned his device around so the others could get a clear view of the screen. "Meet the Miles Electric. I was hoping it'd work as a personal computer of sorts, but it's not really finished yet. I had to really rush through the programming steps so we can use the world map and radar features, and the latter was originally designed to be for detecting hostiles, so I don't know how well it'll work after having to change the coding so suddenly."

In sharp contrast to his apologetic tone, Sonic gave him an amused scoff.

"It'll work, pal. It always does."

Amy eyed the screen curiously. "So, it's got a Chaos Emerald radar?"

"For the moment. I'm hoping it works once we get closer to one of the Emeralds, but right now, I'm mainly using it to keep track of the locations we've got." The little fox lowered his device before pointing at Yin, who was still holding the smaller device in her hand. "I actually had to copy them over from the original radar that I built."

She then raised it up, and the screen on it showed a vague 3D map with a dot marked as "TARGET" on it.

"I managed to increase its range of effect, but the screen is much smaller and is normally focused on only one at a time." Tails brought the bigger device back up so the others could see its screen again. "With the Miles Electric's map, we can get a better idea of where to start looking."

While the others fixated on the small radar, Sonic, Amy and Knuckles stepped closer to their friend so that they could have a better look at the bigger device… and they were surprised by what they found.

"Wild Canyon…?" Knuckles asked in slight disbelief.

Amy had a similar reaction. "…Soleanna?"

"California, huh?" Sonic tilted his head at the sight. "What are the odds?"

Back in the present…

"So… how come we didn't get fancy toys like Sonic and Tails did?" Yang asked.

Zero merely watched curiously as Knuckles slowly opened his eyes.

"Tails said he only had the two radars, and they're going to need them, but you chose to stick with me." The echidna began to walk towards the canyon. "I'm a treasure hunter, Yang. I am the radar."

While Zero followed him without a second thought, Yang could only stare at him in utter amazement for a moment.

"Dude… that was way cooler than it had any right to be."

And then he realized he needed to keep up with the others, which he quickly tried to do.

"Where do we start, Knuckles?" Zero asked as he got a good look at the area.

Knuckles also surveyed the place for a moment before answering.

"I'm sensing that at least one of the Emeralds is around here somewhere, but it's very faint. If we don't find it up here, we'll have to get down to the lower level and look there."

Zero nodded. "Understood. Do you want me to take point?"

"Thanks, but I should go first. I can check around the place and see if anything comes up."

Without even waiting for a response, Knuckles jumped down and then began to glide around the place.

Yang tilted his head at the odd sight. "Wait, how's he doing that?"

"How did you land on your head without dying?" Zero asked without skipping a beat.

The rabbit tried to answer him, but ultimately, he realized the question basically answered itself before… or rather, he answered it.

"…Yeah, okay, you win."

Zero didn't respond. He merely watched Knuckles do his work, with Yang following suit soon after.

Before long, the trio made their way to the bottom level, just as Knuckles had suspected.

"I'm getting a better read on that Chaos Emerald now."

As the echidna stood atop a tall structure, Zero got on top of a different one that was nearby, with Yang along for the ride. "You really are familiar with this place, aren't you?"

"Just enough not to try and ride the wind tunnel down here."

Yang instantly made a comment. "I didn't know it was that strong!"

"You couldn't tell just by watching?" Zero asked in response, much to his shock.

The boy instantly gave him a strange look.

"Was that… a joke? You actually know how to joke?"

While Zero didn't respond to that, Knuckles couldn't help but stifle a laugh.

"I remember my first time here. That's all." He then closed his eyes once more, trying to concentrate. "Honestly, I'd rather be back on Angel Island… if I could."

Yang looked at him curiously. "What, you didn't have deserts there?"

"I did, actually, but at least it was more than just that." With a sigh, he opened his eyes before looking at his companions. "Sandopolis was one of the many different regions on my island. It wasn't one of my favorite places, but I knew my way around it well enough that I could reach the intruder I was looking for in one piece."

Yang raised an eyebrow. "An intruder? On a floating island? What, did he come in-tru-da window?"

Zero briefly glared at him, which he didn't notice, but Knuckles kept on going regardless.

"He was a robot who looked and fought like Sonic, except he could fly. I guess he was just one of Dr. Eggman's leftovers from when he invaded the island and tricked me into fighting Sonic and Tails."

Zero asked a more serious question. "…Is that what you meant when you were talking to Dimitri?"

"Yeah… he's done that to me more times than I'd like." The echidna frowned at his own comment. "The first time, he stole the Master Emerald so he could use it as a battery. We stopped him, but then the robot stole it too and used it to power himself up. Gave me a pretty tough fight."

Yang suddenly became more visibly interested. "They did it twice? How many times has that thing been stolen from you?"

"…Too many."

With that, Knuckles closed his eyes once again.

"Sometimes, I guess I can't help but wonder if I'll ever truly get to be at peace." As he tried to focus once again, he could only hope his face wouldn't give away what he was feeling too much. "I'm not going to stop until we get the Master Emerald back, but… what am I supposed to do now that my island is gone?" He clenched his fists, almost instinctively. "It feels like… my destiny wanted to test me, and I failed."

Zero found his gaze drifting away from him, missing Yang's reaction completely as he considered what Knuckles had just said.

Your destiny…?

Before he could speak up, however, Knuckles' eyes suddenly darted open.

"There!"

And right away, he jumped up into the air before gliding toward the nearest wall, using his knuckles to hang onto it and climb up.

"And suddenly he's all business again." Yang was visibly puzzled.

Zero shook his head at him.

"He has a mission to fulfill, and he won't give up on it. I know how he feels." Then he kneeled right next to him. "Get on. We have to keep up with him."

Yang was confused, but did as his teammate asked.

Without another word, Zero brought out his Z-Saber… and then brought out an identical one from the holster on his left leg.

"Wait, you have two?" Yang quickly asked.

The red robot offered no response. He simply twirled the two sabers, so as to hold them in what seemed like a reverse grip, and turned in the direction that Knuckles had taken off to. When they came on, instead of the shape that the others had seen in action previously, the blades resembled a pair of tonfa instead.

"Hey, you didn't tell me you could—"

Before he could finish that, Zero appeared to attack the structure right beneath them, and then the two were propelled high up into the air. Despite the rabbit's sudden panicked scream, he remained calm as they flew towards Knuckles' intended destination.

Reacting quickly, he put the saber on his left hand away, and when he pointed the right one at the ceiling, it shot out what looked like a chain with a miniature version of the saber's energy blade at the tip. Once the tip made contact with the ceiling, the chain retracted slightly, and after swinging back and forth for a moment, the two of them were left hanging only a few inches from the ground right beneath them.

Without skipping a beat, the chain extended just enough for Zero to make contact with the ground, and as Yang jumped off his back, it came loose and retracted back into its original shape just in time for Zero to put it away once more.

"…We could've died just now!" Yang's yelling gave the impression that he was upset, but when Zero turned to look at him, he was surprised by how happy he looked instead. "Can we do that again?!"

His attention was suddenly grabbed by Knuckles, who had just made it up to where they were now standing.

"So, you made it up here too." After standing up straight, he briefly smiled at them. "Good to know you can keep up with me. Now let's get going. Follow me."

Zero merely did as he was asked without another word.

"You said you didn't have that many weapons." Yang followed suit right next to him, his excitement still fully visible. "Why didn't you tell me you were a weapons expert too? We could've talked about so many things back at Tails' lab!"

Zero's response was simple. "We didn't have the time."

"Well, if we do later, we so gotta have a fight." The boy brought his bamboo sword out. "I wanna see how your sword does against mine!"

Once again, Zero was slightly taken aback.

I haven't seen such a love for combat outside of Harpuia and the Four Guardians. And they weren't children. What kind of world do he and his sister come from?

Despite his bemusement, he did his best to answer.

"…We'll see."

Meanwhile, Knuckles was fully focused on his goal, and after a few steps, he stopped in front of what almost looked like a big square container, which was blocked by four wooden boxes.

"It's here."

Yang seemed confused once again. "Boxed up in a giant box by more boxes? Does that seem redundant to you, or is it just me?"

Knuckles did not answer. Instead, he merely punched the boxes one by one until they were all destroyed.

Once he was done, he and the others were greeted by the sight of a red gemstone.

"There we are."

Yang seemed interested as he watched Knuckles grab it. "And you managed to sense it all the way down here? Really?"

"That's right." The echidna turned back around. "It's kind of a sixth sense I've always had. It always worked with the Master Emerald, and I suppose the Chaos Emeralds are similar enough that it works for them too." His gaze suddenly drifted away. "I guess being its guardian really was just meant to be my destiny."

When he focused on his teammates again, he noticed that Zero had quickly turned his back on them.

"Do you honestly believe that?" Much to his and Yang's surprise, Zero's voice wasn't quite as stoic as they were used to. "Both of you… do you feel like your destiny is just an inescapable fact?"

Knuckles was taken aback by the question, while Yang tilted his head to the side.

"Yeah… no. It's less an unscala— unscrapa— erm… what you said." He quickly shook his head before continuing. "It's less that and more just something fun to do! Kicking butt in the name of saving the world is what I like the most!"

Knuckles, impressed by the earnestness his teammate had displayed, decided to follow suit.

"I didn't choose to be alone on Angel Island. It's just the life I always knew." A sigh escaped him, not quite as melancholy as the others. "I could get away from it if I needed to, but at the end of the day, it's what I knew and I returned to it every time. I was never forced into it; I chose to embrace it."

After a moment of silence, Zero spoke up again.

"Yang… you asked me before if I believed in destiny."

Finally, he found it in himself to turn back around and face the others.

"…My destiny was to destroy the world." As he closed his eyes for a moment, he could almost hear the memories playing out in his head. "It's what I was made for. It's all my creator really wanted, but no matter how hard he tried… the world had different plans for me."

After opening them again, he noticed how much his answer had genuinely shocked the others.

"The one I was supposed to fight became my closest friend. The utopia he created in the name of equality ended up driving a wedge between the people it was supposed to unite. The hero made to protect the world from threats like me… very nearly ended it instead."

After reflecting on the rest of his life for a moment, he brought his attention over to Yang in particular.

"No, I don't… I can't believe in destiny. Where I come from… nothing is absolute." Then he looked over in Knuckles' direction. "Everything I do, I've chosen to do for the sake of those I believe in. And right now, I trust Aurora and the others."

It was only after that statement that he noticed the look they were giving him. It reminded him a lot of the way the Resistance soldiers seemed to look at him whenever he came back from a successful mission.

"That's good enough for me."

After speaking up, Knuckles surprised Zero by walking up to him.

"We'll fight together and save the universe." Then he offered him a fist. "If I have to do that with someone other than my friends at my side, I'm glad it's with you, Zero."

Yang suddenly zipped forward and put his fist right next to Knuckles' own.

"Yeah, dude, don't worry about anything else right now. Just do your thing and keep being awesome, and we'll keep up with you!" He topped this off with a thumbs-up from his other hand. "We're teammates now. We've got your back."

For the briefest of moments, as Zero crouched down so he could better look him in the eye, he could've sworn he saw and heard something different.

Just the thought of wiping the floor with those Mavericks makes my trigger finger itch!

And when he turned to look at Knuckles instead, the same thing happened.

There's no time to be wishy-washy here. Even as we speak, Mavericks are causing havoc.

He couldn't help but raise his own hand, staring at the Z-shaped chip on his palm in contemplation.

Well, no matter what the Mavericks are up to, looks like I'll have to stop 'em.

Finally, he clenched his hand into a fist and bumped it against theirs.

"…And I'll watch yours." He nodded at the two.

They both returned the gesture, and then they took back their hands.

"We should head for the upper section again." Zero did the same before standing back up. "It'll make it easier for us to contact the others without risking any signal interference."

With a nod, Knuckles jumped up before gliding in the wind tunnel's general direction, while Zero and Yang jumped down to a nearby platform, only to jump off it right away.

"Right. The sooner Tails can pick us up, the better." The echidna landed close to the middle of the room, and as he heard the others landing right behind him, he scoffed. "Besides, that means Yang can ride the wind tunnel the right way this time."

Yang immediately facepalmed at this. "I'm never gonna live that down, am I?"

Suddenly, the three heard a loud noise on their left. When they turned to the source, they saw that a bunch of sand had been raised up by whatever impact made that noise.

"…You won't have enough time to do it."

As the three of them got ready for combat, with Yang's sword changing into a staff, the voice's owner took a few steps in their direction, and they got a better look at him.

He was a robot that looked similar to Zero, except shorter and with a stockier look to him. His armor was black with a gold trim, and his helmet had what looked like large yellow fins. Both his forehead and his chest were adorned by a blue jewel, one of them shaped like a cross while the other looked more like a triangle. His face had purple stripes running down from his eyes, and the eyes themselves were red.

"Hello there, little brother."

Zero immediately reacted by grabbing his Buster Shot and aiming it at him.

Knuckles, on the other hand, turned to him in confusion. "Did he just call you 'brother'?"

"How does a robot have brothers?" Yang asked as he did the same. "I mean, I had a robot brother once, but—"

The other robot interrupted him by taking a shot at the ground right in front of them… but not in the same way Zero had done before.

"An arm cannon?" And he quickly took notice.

In response, the black robot smirked, and he followed it up by taking aim at Knuckles and Yang.

"No!"

Before the first shot was even fired, Zero dashed in front of the two, Z-Saber in hand. By the time the shots began to close in, he placed his weapon's hilt on his wrist, and it began to spin as it powered up, acting as a shield that successfully deflected the attack even as it kept coming.

"Oh man, it's a shield too?!" Yang couldn't even try to hide his excitement.

Knuckles was similarly impressed… but he quickly noticed that their foe was not.

"Treble! Fetch!"

He suddenly heard a loud noise next to him.

"What the— hey!" And then came Yang's voice.

When he turned to look at it, he was surprised to see the rabbit trying to pull his weapon away from the jaws of some kind of purple wolf-looking robot.

"That is not a chew toy! Who do you think you are, my d—"

His speech quickly devolved into unintelligible babbling and yelling as the wolf began to shake him around like he was a ragdoll.

"You heard him, Treble." The enemy robot spoke up again. "Drop it!"

Right on command, the wolf stopped shaking Yang around and tossed him in Knuckles' direction, knocking the two of them down on the floor before he tackled them, his body covered by some kind of light green energy as he did.

The more humanoid robot finally stopped his assault, just in time for Zero to see his two teammates being swept away by the wind tunnel.

At the upper level…

By the time Knuckles managed to straighten himself up, he noticed that he was already atop the wind tunnel, and that Yang was still having problems. With a little effort, he reached his teammate, and after getting a hold of his staff, he managed to pull him out of the wind tunnel.

"Are you okay?"

After they landed, Yang quickly stood up straight… for all of a second before he started to stumble around.

"I will be… as soon as the canyon stops spinning." His weapon changed back into a sword, and he jammed it into the ground so he could hang onto it. "…And after I find out who invited Deluxe Zarnot and Robo-Schnozface to the party."

Knuckles immediately began to search for the way back down.

"That robot called Zero 'brother'." As soon as he spotted it, he made his way to it. "I don't know what's going on, but he's going to need our help."

However, right as he was going to jump down, he was interrupted by something appearing in front of him, which apparently had risen up from the ground. It looked like some kind of red-eyed, brownish rock man clad in gray boots, arm bracers, a horned helmet and what he could only describe as a skirt… and it apparently had a goatee made of rock too.

"What the…?"

And no sooner did he say this than two more appeared in the exact same way. They didn't speak, but the fact that they were blocking his path said more than enough.

"…Okay, I think I'm good."

Yang's voice got his attention, and when he turned to look at him, he was surprised to see his expression change from relief to annoyance.

"Ah, pellets. These guys again? Really?"

Knuckles' eyes widened. "You know them?"

"Yeah, they're a bunch of garage sale soldiers that were used and dropped twice over. Not super excited to see them again."

That made Knuckles raise an eyebrow. "A… bunch?"

As if in answer, more of them began to appear all around them. Everywhere they turned to look, a whole group of identical rock soldiers suddenly turned up. Before long, practically the entire upper level was covered with enemies.

"…Right, a bunch." Knuckles sighed before facepalming. "I get it now."

Yang, meanwhile, transformed his sword into a pair of nunchaku. "At least we still get some action. Old bad guys are better than no bad guys, and these guys come cheaper by the dozen!"

He then ran up to Knuckles and turned around, just so they could stand back-to-back as they prepared for battle.

"You've fought them before. How do we beat them?" Knuckles asked as he raised his fists.

Yang was quick to answer. "Punch 'em, kick 'em, slice 'em, crush 'em… y'know, the usual ways."

"Simple. Just the way I like it." Knuckles found himself smiling as he cracked his namesakes. "Okay, we have a plan. Bash these guys, then go back down and help Zero."

His teammate chuckled at that. "That's my favorite kind of plan, Knuckles."

"What are we waiting for then? It's time for a knuckle sandwich!"

And with that, the enemy soldiers began to attack, but not before Yang let out a battle cry of his own.

"Chee! Hoo! Waa!"

Back in the lower level…

Zero and his current opponent stared each other down, neither one of them being intimidated by the other.

"So, you're the one that was going to surpass me?" The other robot laughed derisively as his wolf-like companion joined him at his side. "If your friends are any indication, I have to say that I'm disappointed, brother."

Even with his enemy's weapon pointed at him, Zero was unimpressed.

"Why do you keep calling me that?"

In response, the black-and-gold robot lowered his arm cannon, which was quickly replaced by a hand.

"Don't you recognize me?" He followed this up with a smirk. "I thought the old man would have a little more pride in his greatest creation. Without me, you wouldn't even exist!"

Zero's eyes widened in shock.

"The old man…?"

And suddenly, a different memory flashed before his eyes.

Zero… my masterpiece…

A memory he didn't even know he had… and one that quickly led to another.

G…Go, Zero! You're the strongest robot!

He did his best to shake it off, bringing out his Z-Saber out of reflex.

"How do you know him?" And then he pointed it at him. "Who are you?!"

After he said that, he noticed how surprised the other robot seemed to be.

"You… really don't know, do you?"

Zero's silent, unflinching expression was all the answer he needed.

"Fine. You deserve to know how you came to be." As he spoke, he pointed at himself with one hand, and he used the other to gesture in his companion's direction. "I'm Bass, and he's Treble. We were created by Dr. Albert Wily."

A smirk suddenly returned to his face.

"Your father… our father."

Once again, Zero's eyes widened at what he had heard, and he unknowingly lowered his weapon from the shock.

"After so many worthless junk robots, he finally had a stroke of true genius and made me, even if it was by accident… and yet he thought he could do better when he made you." Bass rolled his eyes at the memory. "He said he studied the process of my creation and the energy that keeps me going, and claimed he'd use that to make something that could surpass me."

Treble began to growl, as though he could sense his partner's annoyance.

"He made it sound like it'd take years for you to come about… but here you are, right before my eyes and fully combat ready." He balled his hand up into a fist, only for it to disappear in favor of his arm cannon once more. "It's time to see if you truly can live up to his boasting."

Taking advantage of Zero's seeming confusion, Bass quickly raised his weapon and fired a much bigger energy blast at him. It wasn't enough to take him down, but it hit him and managed to do some damage regardless.

"The first hit is mine."

Wasting no time, Bass dashed in Zero's direction, arm cannon ready to fire again. However, he was caught off-guard when Zero also dashed toward him; he noticed that he was holding his saber, but it looked like it wasn't on.

When it looked like Zero wouldn't stop, Bass did so instead… and was taken by surprise when his opponent seemed to phase right through him. In a quick maneuver, as soon as Zero was behind Bass, he turned himself around, and with a few swings of his saber, Bass was hit in the back by an equal number of energy shockwaves.

As soon as Zero stood up straight, he heard Treble growling again, but before anything could come of it, Bass spoke up.

"Treble, stay!"

Zero didn't turn around to confirm if the robotic wolf had complied. His attention was set squarely on Bass, who got back up and turned in his direction.

"That's more like it." And once again, he aimed his arm cannon at his foe. "Let's find out exactly what you're made of, brother!"

Zero gave him no answer. He merely reached for his Buster Shot and prepared to do exactly as he had been asked.

At the upper level…

Before long, Knuckles and Yang's battle against the legions of enemies had moved to a different part of the canyon. Along with the many pieces of oddly placed architecture, there was what looked like a giant sphynx head, with the rest of the body likely long buried under the sands of the desert.

"Take that!"

With a single powerful punch, Knuckles sent one of the soldiers flying towards a small group; the impact was strong enough for all of them to completely break apart.

"Jam Hammer!"

At the sound of that, he turned around, only barely getting to see another soldier behind him before Yang hit him with a different kind of weapon, which looked like a big hammer… with a picture of a strawberry on it, for some reason.

"A jam… hammer?" Knuckles asked in utter bafflement.

Yang, meanwhile, hit a few others with the weapon before looking at him. The echidna was further confused when he noticed that every hit was accompanied by a deluge of what he could only assume was jam.

"What did you expect? A jelly hammer?" The rabbit then licked some leftover jam off his hammer. "Ooh, grape!"

Knuckles tilted his head to the side. "What's the difference?"

"Easy. You see those guys?"

Yang pointed to a few groups of soldiers, who had been impacted by both the ones he had attacked with his hammer and the jam that came with them. Knuckles was no less confused at first, but soon noticed that all of them were slipping and tripping over themselves while trying to get to him.

"…Yes?"

His teammate suddenly grinned in amusement. "It wouldn't work if you said 'oh man, they're in a tight jelly' right now, would it?"

And with that, he started laughing, much to Knuckles' surprise.

…So much so, in fact, that he didn't notice that one of the soldiers was coming for him.

"Behind you!" Knuckles cried out before running past him and delivering a much stronger punch than before.

The impact was so powerful, not only did the soldier instantly shatter from the explosion it produced, but his scattered remains were blown back into a nearby metal press that kept on moving up and down on its own, and they were further crushed beyond any hope of reassembly.

"Whoa…" And Yang managed to see it, much to his delight. "I knew your fist had exploded back then!"

Then his eyes widened, and suddenly his fists became giant-sized.

"More of them!"

The two spoke up at the same time, and when they each turned around, they saw that the other was right. As they backed up against each other, they noticed the enemy had managed to surround them.

"Man, these guys are stupid cheap, but there's so many of them!" Yang sighed, disappointed. "You know what really sucks? I had this cool idea for a team move that Yin would never want to do, but we can't do it like this."

Knuckles just clenched his fists. "We can still fight."

"Yeah, but it's gonna get old quick!" Each time one of the soldiers attacked, Yang punched him back. "And we gotta get back down quicker than that!"

The echidna did the same a few times. "I hate to admit it, but we could use some help."

Suddenly, two more enemies leapt at them at the same time…

"But who's gonna happen to be around a big, empty desert to help us out by sheer coincidence?"

…and were immediately intercepted in midair by what looked like… giant ninja stars?

Knuckles' eyes widened at this, while Yang did the same thing, but for a different reason.

"Please tell me that's not what I think it is."

Their enemies suddenly began to look around, but before any of them knew what happened, several of them began to fall or stumble back after being hit by something they couldn't see.

Next thing they knew, more of them were hit by something they could see, but they were paralyzed by it before they could do anything about it. The attacking object traveled very quickly before flying upwards, and as Knuckles and Yang looked up to see where it was heading, they once again had different reactions when they noticed the object was actually a person.

Or rather, a big crocodile with a golden necklace and headphones being carried around by a bee with an aviator helmet who looked far too small to handle his size and weight as well as he was.

"Vector? Charmy?" Knuckles was even more surprised than before.

Yang, on the other hand, sighed in relief. "Oh, thank Foo. No ninja glam rock today."

As another rock soldier fell down before them, Knuckles seemed to catch on.

"Espio?"

Right on cue, a purple chameleon appeared in front of them, standing on top of their enemy.

"Are you alright, Knuckles?"

He followed this up by throwing another ninja star at an enemy that was approaching him, not even turning around to see how it knocked him back.

Knuckles could only nod in silence, while Yang was once again smiling widely at the sight before him.

"So awesome…!"

Taking that as his own cue, Vector let go of Charmy's hands and put his own hands together into a collective fist… but not before tossing an entire bubblegum pack into his mouth.

As he slammed down to the ground, crushing a few soldiers with the strength of his body weight, Charmy flew down and picked Espio up. He quickly flew back up, just in time for Vector to start spinning around in place and firing out what looked like a lot of pink gum bubbles everywhere, which all exploded as soon as they came into contact with their targets.

Once the attack was completed, Espio let go and tossed a flurry of stars at more targets, while Charmy went to the ones that his teammate hadn't targeted and began to sting them.

Yang somehow managed to tear his eyes away from the spectacle and look at Knuckles. "Friends of yours?"

"Yeah, we've met a few times." While he did his best to answer, he couldn't ignore the question that he had. "But how did they know we were here?"

Espio was the one who answered him. "We didn't. Our new client did."

"New client?"

The chameleon then pointed right behind Knuckles, who quickly turned around. While he wasn't fast enough to get a good look, he briefly spotted some kind of green blur.

"Oh, no…" He quickly turned back to Espio, alarmed. "Tell me that wasn't another hedgehog."

Much to his relief, that merely confused his ninja friend.

"No, she's not." And Charmy was even more lost than he was. "Why? Do you know another hedgehog?"

Knuckles sighed. "It's… a long story."

"And who's your new friend?" Charmy asked as he flew up to Yang's face. "And why are his ears floating above his head?"

Vector jumped up to where the others were, biting down on an enemy's head before flinging him in the direction of another.

"Easy there, boys. We'll have plenty of time to talk." And then, out of nowhere, he pulled out a big microphone. "But for now…"

As soon as they saw that, Espio and Charmy went to join their boss before bringing out their own instruments: a shamisen and a big drum, respectively.

Yang then noticed Knuckles instantly panicking and rushing to cover his ears… assuming he had ears underneath his quills, anyway.

…And then Team Chaotix began their recital.

Back in the lower level…

True to his word, Zero's "brother" had proven to be a tougher opponent than expected.

Bass fired an enormous charged shot from his arm cannon, which Zero barely managed to dodge by hanging onto a nearby pillar with his chain. Leaping off the structure with a dash to avoid a second shot, he aimed for his opponent with a rolling sword slash, only for Bass to jump back and dodge it. He then jumped up before dashing ahead, covered in some kind of glowing aura, but Zero brought out his shield in response.

Seemingly stopping his attack, Bass instead switched to what looked like a kick, jumping off the shield and landing on his feet again. Zero reacted quickly and dashed toward him, and as soon as he was right in front of Bass, he brought his two sabers out and twirled them around. Bass was confused at first, but was then taken by surprise when they lit up and looked like tonfa instead of their familiar shape.

Before he could react, Zero began to strike him rapidly, landing several good hits on his enemy until a smaller charged shot aimed at the ground forced him to back away. The dust and sand raised by this move provided Bass with a good enough cover to surprise Zero by dashing right up to him and striking him with a powerful somersault kick, followed by another smaller charged shot.

He followed this up with a barrage of much smaller energy shots, but Zero countered them all by using his gun to fire back. As he did, he took cover behind one of the pillars.

"You're going to hide now, brother?" Bass asked in a mocking tone, before firing a shot at the pillar. "Come on! Finish this fight! Or are you not as strong as the old coot said you'd be?"

In response, Zero quickly came into view and fired a fully charged shot from his gun. Much to Bass' confusion, the shot looked more like a green laser, but regardless, he quickly leaped out of the way… only for his confusion to grow when the shot seemingly bounced off the wall and the ground, made its way back to him and hit him in the back, making him fall down.

"…Okay, you are strong." As he managed to get back up, he noticed that Zero had taken cover once again. "And smart. He definitely worked hard on you. However, he overlooked something important."

Before he could question what he meant, Zero was caught off-guard by Treble, who lunged toward him. Although he was able to dodge the strike by rolling to the side, the robotic wolf quickly fired a single energy shot from his mouth, which managed to strike him and threw him off-balance.

"My support is always close to me." Bass spoke as his companion growled. "But yours is gone."

As if in answer, Treble once again jumped and got ready to attack Zero…

…only to be intercepted in midair by a saber slash from a completely different figure.

Bass watched in shock and confusion as his partner landed next to him. After tending to him for a moment and making sure he wasn't seriously hurt, he focused all his attention on the attacker, who was slowly descending to the ground after that attack.

"Are you sure about that?"

It looked like a green armored figure with wings on his back, as well as similar protrusions on his helmet, and wielding a pair of energy blades similar to Zero's own.

While Bass was merely irritated at the sudden intervention, Zero stared at him in confusion as he got back on his feet.

…Harpuia? No, it can't be. He doesn't look right, and the voice is different. Who is he?

Before he could reflect on it any further, Bass echoed a similar sentiment as he aimed his arm cannon at the newcomer.

"Who are you?"

His response came quickly. "That's for me to know, and for you to find out."

As Bass' irritation grew, he fired at the mysterious character, but the shots were easily swatted away by his swords.

After jumping back so he could stand at Zero's side, he followed that up with a much stronger swing using both swords. Although the attack itself didn't reach Bass or Treble, the sheer force behind it was apparently enough to launch a pair of cyclones; one of them was launched behind him, while the other was headed straight for his two opponents.

"You've just made a big mistake, stranger!"

Both of them jumped out of the way, and much like what Bass had done earlier, the cyclones were strong enough to raise up a lot of dust and sand, giving them the perfect cover.

Seemingly realizing this, Zero brought out a single Z-Saber and powered it up, but when he turned to his new ally, he was surprised to find the green armored figure had been replaced by a completely different character… and one whose design was less familiar by comparison.

Where did he…? Wait… this one almost looks like Phantom, but the color and the face don't match. What is—?

Once again, his thoughts were interrupted, this time by the one next to him.

"ENEMY SCANNED." His voice was flat and monotone. "ATTACKS ALLOWED WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY. DAMAGE PRIOR TO INTERVENTION CONSIDERABLE. ENEMY LIKELY TO RETREAT IF MORE DAMAGE IS SUSTAINED."

He then moved quickly so he and Zero could stand back-to-back.

"Maybe, but they got some hits in too." The red robot visually scanned his surroundings for a moment. "And right now, they have the advantage."

The purple ninja was undisturbed. "SUBTANKS AVAILABLE. RECOVERY FULLY POSSIBLE."

Zero was taken aback by him knowing about his reserves, but remained silent.

"RADAR SCOPE ACTIVE. VISIBILITY UNIMPAIRED." Conversely, his ally had more to say. "ENEMY LOCATED. READY TO ATTACK LEFT SIDE."

Sure enough, a charged shot was fired, but thanks to the early warning, Zero blocked it by using his saber as a shield once more.

"I guess I was wrong."

As soon as the two heard Bass' voice, the mysterious character fired several kunai at him, the weapons only barely missing him as he changed his position.

"Your support might actually match up to mine, brother. Maybe we should test that out. Treble!"

This was followed by a loud growling noise once again.

"ATTACKS EXPECTED FROM OPPOSITE SIDES. RECOMMEND SPLITTING UP." The ninja spoke one more time. "NORMAL VISIBILITY RETURNING SHORTLY."

Right on cue, Zero saw Bass jumping at him, arm cannon ready to fire, and jumped away from his ally to avoid him. He tried to attack him with his open hand, the chip on his palm glowing brightly as he did, but Bass managed to grab his arm and stop him, and when he tried to aim his cannon at Zero's head, his attempt was also stopped in the exact same way, leaving the two robots grappling with each other.

Soon enough, the sand finally fell back down, just as promised, and as everyone's vision became clearer, Zero's attention was grabbed by what sounded like a very powerful punch.

When he turned to the source, Treble had apparently been launched towards one of the nearby pillars, and the one who had assisted him had disappeared and been replaced once again. This time, he saw what appeared to be a very muscular individual clad in orange armor holding an enormous cannon with one hand.

"Stay down. You don't want any more of this."

At first, he was tempted to believe this was Fighting Fefnir, but the distinctly female voice quickly put an end to that.

And unlike him, Treble was not impressed, as he stood up in direct defiance of her advice and prepared to charge her once again. Her face showed no reaction, and she instead planted an object onto the ground before jumping back.

Sure enough, as soon as Treble landed on the object, it exploded and sent him flying back against the same pillar as before.

"Treble!" Bass exclaimed as soon as he saw it, which gave Zero enough of an opening to push him away.

The black robot didn't seem to care, however, as he quickly approached the woman with his arm cannon aimed at her.

"Leave him alone!"

As soon as he started to fire, she jumped up into the air and headed in Zero's direction, but not before using the cannon on her other hand to fire a big bomb that instantly exploded upon making contact with Bass' back. Just as the impact flung him in Treble's direction, she landed right next to Zero and put her weapons away.

"You're not so tough when the odds aren't in your favor."

Despite the implicit surrender request, both Bass and Treble stood up once again, though not without effort. The black robot stubbornly raised his arm cannon and aimed it at his two opponents… before the device on his right forearm began to make sounds and its lights came on.

"Fall back." An unfamiliar voice spoke to him. "You can't win this battle."

This only served to enrage him. "No! I… I can still fight! I'm the strongest robot! I'm finishing this now!"

As he and Treble prepared to continue the fight, the voice spoke up one more time.

"…You fool."

Suddenly, a Warp Ring opened up right in front of them. Having dashed ahead thoughtlessly, Bass and Treble found themselves falling into it, while Zero and the unknown woman were taken by surprise.

"Wait!"

Zero tried to head for it as well, but he only managed to take a few steps before he was stopped by the sudden appearance of a small group of brownish rock men, who slowly rose up from the ground as the portal created by the ring closed.

Suddenly, he heard some footsteps approaching him… along with a different voice.

"Hey, more of the guys from the upper level!" It was distinctly male, and quite youthful. "Hang back and heal up. I'll take care of them!"

The owner of that voice dashed ahead to face the enemies, and just as before, knowing that it was a male and getting a good look at him, Zero was thrown off by his uncanny resemblance to Fairy Leviathan, given his blue armor and the halberd he was wielding.

Speaking of his weapon, the boy quickly put it to good use. With a quick swing of it, he created a spiked ice ball, and before it could even fall to the ground, he took another swing and broke it, launching several ice shards that quickly flew towards the rock soldiers, freezing them solid upon impact. After spinning it in a circle a couple times, he took one last swing directly at the newly-formed block of ice, completely shattering both it and the rock soldiers inside.

Despite the seeming victory, Zero averted his eyes with a frown.

"…They got away."

The boy, on the other hand, was much more confident. "Don't worry. I'm sure we'll see them again."

And suddenly, after a bright flash of light, he was replaced by an armored figure completely unlike any of the others.

"You know, when you said you hoped we'd meet again, I didn't think it'd be this soon! This day just keeps on getting better all the time."

The voice and general body shape were now those of a female, and she sported a long, flowing, platinum-blue ponytail. Her armor was mostly different shades of black and gray, along with red highlights and a pair of yellow horns on the helmet.

"…Who are you?" Zero asked, not recognizing her at all.

This made her laugh in a sarcastic manner.

"Yeah, right. Really funny. I tell you I want people to learn about me, and you act like you don't remember—"

While she originally had her back turned to him, she seemed just as confused as he was when she finally turned around and got a good look at him.

"Hey, you're not Vent! Who are you?"

Zero didn't answer her. Now that he had a good look at her, he couldn't help but stare at her as he tried to figure out why she seemed so familiar, all while trying to process the idea that she was all four of the figures who had helped him.

"Hello?" She wasn't as quiet as he was, however. "Didn't you hear me? I said—"

Zero's eyes widened as he interrupted her by very quickly aiming his Buster Shot at her.

Before she could reach for her weapons, he took a shot… at an enemy who was behind her and ready to take a swipe at her. By the time she realized what had happened, she only barely managed to spot the rock man falling down with a single hole going right though his head.

"…You missed one."

Zero's one-liner got her to look back at him, and when she noticed the serious look on his face had not changed one bit as he put his weapon away, she couldn't help but chuckle.

"So… who are you again?"

And then she got her answer, but not from him.

"Zero!"

She quickly turned around again, and was greeted by the sight of Team Chaotix and the ones they had stopped to help back in the upper area.

"Are you alright?" Knuckles asked.

Zero nodded. "What about you?"

"We're cool." Yang quickly answered him. "We had some backup!"

Knuckles then found himself curiously eyeing Zero's female companion. "And it looks like you did too."

In turn, Zero's eyes were drawn to the colorful trio standing behind his two teammates.

"Who are they?"

Knuckles rolled his eyes in what almost seemed like amusement. "Some old friends of mine. Meet Vector the Crocodile, Espio the Chameleon, and Charmy Bee."

As if to top it off, Vector pounded his chest a few times.

"But the bad guys know us better as… Team Chaotix!"

And then, as if in sync, the woman made a comment of her own. "The baddest detectives in town!"

This got Charmy to squeal in delight.

"See? See?! I told you, guys! It does sound super cool!"

Espio sighed and shook his head, while Vector merely rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, okay, sure. Whatever you say, Charmy."

Yang, meanwhile, shuddered briefly.

"And the worst musicians ever. Seriously, I'll never be able to un-hear that." He then pointed at the armored woman. "So… that would be your client?"

And then, with another brief chuckle, she raised her hand high up into the air. After a bright flash of light, her appearance had changed once more, although not as radically as before. This time, her armor merely disappeared, allowing the others a better look at her green eyes, lightly colored hair and fair skin. They also noticed she was wearing an orange vest with white highlights, matching boots, fingerless gloves and a gray belt with many brown pockets on it, as well as a gun holstered on the back.

"That's me!" As she held up some kind of artifact that greatly resembled her armor, she proudly answered his question. "The name's Ashe, and I'm a Hunter."

While putting away the artifact, she noticed the strange look that Knuckles was suddenly giving her.

"Are you… a treasure hunter?"

Ashe shrugged at this.

"A Ruin Hunter, actually, but we do run into some treasures every now and then." She walked up to him before kneeling down, just so they could look each other in the eye. "Judging by the big hands, I'm guessing you're Knuckles?"

Predictably, that made Yang laugh, but this time, Charmy couldn't stop himself from doing the same.

"Have we met before?" Knuckles asked as he tilted his head to the side.

Ashe had herself a bit of a laugh at the visual.

"No, but when I ended up here, I was told to look for Knuckles the Echidna, so I hired them to help me find you." She gestured at Team Chaotix with her head as she finished that sentence. "I found some booty that I think you'll be interested in."

She reached inside one of the sleeves on her vest, and when she pulled her hand back out, Knuckles was instantly shocked and amazed, as were Zero and Yang.

"Another Chaos Emerald?!"

Ashe merely smirked in response.

Yes, indeed, the item she had presented them with was a cyan gemstone that was otherwise completely identical to the red one they had found earlier.

"How did you find it?" Zero asked her.

Handing the Chaos Emerald to Knuckles, she stood up straight before stretching her arms a little. "Now, that? That is a long story."

"We've got time." The echidna put the gemstone away before looking at Ashe with his arms crossed.

And out of nowhere, as if trying to undercut the sudden tension in the air, Vector felt the need to speak up.

"…Is this a bad time to ask for our finder's fee, Ms. Ashe?"