It was a nice day in Emerald Town. The residents of the are were smiling and it seemed like nothing could go wrong. However, the people had no clue just what loomed in the horizon. As people walked about calmly, a huge airship was approaching. Sprayed across the airship was a face that was easily recognizable by everyone on the planet of Mobius. It was a face with a toothy grin, glasses, and a long mustache, all sprayed in red.

Nobody noticed the airship, at least they wouldn't yet. While everyone's peaceful day continued, there was a raging battle on the deck of said airship. Three figures stood in a face-off, two glaring at the other one. Of course, the series of events must be very confusing right now, so why don't we go ahead and start from further back.

The day that now begins the story starts much like the already described one did, but without the sense of danger. To truly understand the story, it needs to be known how the residents of this area looked. Sure some of them seemed normal enough, but there were others who looked quite different. Whether it was because of their hairstyle, or by appearance, they looked different than the normal person. Keep in mind, there is nothing wrong with this, but this contributes to the story.

These other residents had three defining features; horns, wings, and tails. We won't go into detail with most residents like this, but there are quite a few that we will talk about. In fact, at this point in time, one of them was lounging on the beach. He's a teenage boy, which is where the normality in him ceases. This boy had blue hair that is spiked back into five blue quills. He wore white gloves and red sneakers with white stripes going down the sides and a golden buckle. He wore jeans and a blue and white hoodie. Poking out of the back of the jeans was a small blue tail. To top it all off, he had green eyes.

Anyway, this boy was sitting in a hammock, taking a moment to relax. He closed his eyes and sighed with relief as he leaned back.

"Sonic!" Someone shouted from out in the water. The boy sighed as he heard his name and stood up, quickly stretching his legs. The next peculiar thing about this kid is that he is the fastest thing alive. Sonic then took off down the beach and ran towards a dock. He was there within a few seconds and began to run down the dock towards the water. Before he could even think otherwise, he jumped from the dock towards where the scream had come from.

Sonic landed on a hoverboard that was flying along the water. On top was a blonde haired kid, only a few years younger than Sonic. This boy was another one of the special people that was mentioned. This boy also wore jeans, and red shoes with a white stripe. He had blue eyes and two yellow fox tails with white tips.

"What's going on Tails?" Sonic shouted over the noise.

"I don't know! Everything was going just fine a few seconds ago!" Tails shouted.

"Let's get out of here!" Sonic shouted. Tails nodded in agreement and began to spin his two tails. If he spun them fast enough, he could use them to fly into the air. Tails took off and grabbed Sonic's hands, pulling him up into the air along with him.

"Why did you ask for my help if you could just fly off?" Sonic questioned.

"I'm not always the best under pressure." Tails answered sheepishly. The two flew off towards the shore while the hover board continued to fly around out of control. The duo landed on the shore and highfived quickly, happy to be off of that crazy thing. It was then that they heard the explosion.

Both of them turned around slowly and saw smoke rising from a building in the distance. Sonic sighed and said, "Why can I never just sit down and relax for a few minutes?" They then both ran off towards the smoke.

Of course, the building where the hover board had to belong to someone that Sonic was already on shaky ground with. Sonic hesitated before knocking on the door, but eventually took a deep breath and knocked. The door was instantly thrown open and a girl dressed in purple stood in the doorway.

She had dark purple hair with a magenta streak running down the side. Sticking out of her forehead was a horn, and it was glowing brightly. Her purple eyes showed that she was completely furious with the two standing in front of her.

"Would one of you mind telling me what just happened?" The girl said calmly.

"Look, Twilight, it's not our fault." Tails began to explain.

"At the moment, I'm not blaming anyone, but if I don't get an explanation soon, then I'm going to start pointing fingers." Twilight said.

"You see, Tails's was playing with a hover board he made and at some point it went out of control so we jumped off of it. At that point, we weren't watching the hover board and it kind of... exploded." Sonic said quickly, hoping that the explanation was good enough.

Twilight took a deep breath and closed the door. All that the boys could hear was a loud scream before the door reopened. "Come inside." Twilight commanded. The two boys could do nothing but comply with her order. They slowly walked into the building while Twilight slowly closed the door behind them.

The inside of the building was a huge library that was filled with all kinds of books. Sonic gulped, wondering if a wall of books would be the last thing he saw before he died. Twilight walked further into the room and motioned for the duo to follow her.

She led them through the building, eventually coming upon the huge hole in one of the walls. She pointed at it and said, "You two are going to fix this, before I get really angry."

Sonic let out a deep breath in relief and said, "Of course, this will be a piece of cake!"

"We'll have this done in a jiffy!" Tails shouted. Twilight walked away from the duo, and the two got to work. Sonic ran through the hole to get supplies while Tails thought of ways to get the work done quickly. When everything was prepared, Tails stacked bricks in the hole to properly fix it. Sonic then quickly used mortar on the bricks, fixing the wall.

"At least we did it quickly." Sonic sighed.

"Think of it like this, we still have time to go and relax at the beach." Tails said.

Sonic smiled and said, "Yeah, you're right. Let's go!" So the duo ran out of the building and straight to the beach, trying once more to relax. But nothing ever truly goes as planned, now does it?

As Sonic and Tails ran, they heard an excited scream come from behind them. Then both boys were tackled to the ground by a pink figure. This figure had pink hair that sprawled out like cotton candy and a tail that matched. This person didn't have a horn or wings, but she made up for that with her abundance of energy.

"I can't believe it! I was just thinking about you guys and then I saw you! It's like magic!" The pink girl shouted excitedly.

"Pinkie, get off." Tails struggled to say. Pinkie got off of them, not realizing that she had been choking them.

"What do you want Pinkie?" Sonic asked through deep breaths of air.

"I made a new cupcake recipe and I wanted you two to try it out because how could I sell the cupcake if people didn't like it? So I figured you two should try it because I know that you guys will like it!" Pinkie explained. Sonic and Tails both sighed before running with Pinkie towards her bakery, Sugarcube Corner.

This seems normal right, just two people helping a friend. Well, for Pinkie it was a momentous occasion. Just as the two boys sat down, confetti exploded from the walls and fell slowly to the ground. A banner was dropped down that had, 'I hope you guys like it!' written across it in pink paint.

Sonic sighed and said, "At least this place always has great fanfare whenever we show up."

"How could I not give fanfare to you guys? You always stop that mean Eggman and save everyone, plus you're super good friends!" Pinkie shouted. The two boys shared a secret look before they started to eat the cupcakes that were in front of them. Within seconds, both of the cupcakes were gone.

Tails patted his stomach. "That was really good, thanks for letting us try them." He said with a smile plastered across his face.

"Yeah, now we should get going before anything else comes up." Sonic said. He then grabbed Tails and run out of the bakery. Sure, Pinkie was a good friend, but there was a certain amount of time that everyone could spend with her.

The two boys once again planned to go to the beach, but were once again pulled away from their destination. This time, they were running past the boutique of the town, owned by another one of their friends.

"Sonic, Tails, you simply must come inside." A girl said from the window of the building. Sonic and Tails stopped dead, they knew there was no way that they would be escaping this time.

They turned around to see a girl with long purple hair. The hair looked like it had been brushed recently, as did the matching tail. She wore fancy clothing, and had her hair wrapped just as fancy. Sticking out of her forehead was a horn. Everything about her screamed, 'Look at me and idolize me!' Sonic and Tails may have been looking at her, but they didn't idolize her like everyone else who met her.

"What is it Rarity?" Sonic asked.

"I've been working on some new clothes and I want you two to try some of them on." Rarity answered. Sonic and Tails looked at each other before trying to run away. No matter how fast they ran, no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't go further any distance. A blue aura surrounded the duo and lifted them into the air and through the door into the building. When Rarity wanted something, she got it.

Rarity began taking measurements of the boys and fitting the clothes to these measurements. "You do this every time we walk in here." Sonic said.

"Do what?" Rarity asked.

"Take our measurements." Tails answered.

"It's quite important to keep these records up to date." Rarity said, not even looking away from her work. While standing there and doing nothing, Sonic began to think of a plan to get them out of there. He looked around and began to think of a plan that he thought would work.

"Rarity, I believe that these clothes look quite drab. I think that we could use something to spice them up." Sonic said, using a voice that he hoped sounded fancy.

"You're quite right dear, but what do you think will work?" Rarity said.

"Some gems would really make these clothes stand out from the rest, but I don't know which gems would really work, perhaps if you were to grab a box of them, I could choose which ones work."

Rarity's eyes sparkled. "You're right, I'll go and grab a box for you."

As Rarity left the room, Tails looked over at Sonic. "What are you doing?" Tails asked.

Sonic smiled at Tails and said, "I know it might not seem like it, but I have a plan to get us out of here. Just go along with everything I say." Tails nodded and the two stood there quietly as Rarity walked back into the room.

"I've got the gems, now go ahead and pick the ones you want." She said, holding the box out to Sonic. Now, Sonic was never one for subtlety with his plans. Putting his plan into action, Sonic kicked the box into the air.

"Shoot it down Tails!" Sonic yelled. Tails pulled out an arm cannon and fired up at the box. This broke both the box and the gems located inside. Broken bits of gems flew to the ground, raining onto the heads of the three located in the room. Sonic took this opportunity to grab Tails's arm and run out as fast as he could. Considering the broken gems were raining down onto her, Rarity couldn't focus enough to use magic to bring them back.

Sonic and Tails ran straight to Tails's lab and locked the door behind them. They then smiled in triumph a began to pick broken bits of gems out of their hair.

"We should probably return these." Tails said.

"And risk going back there after what we just did? No way." Sonic said, still picking gems out of his spiky hair. "What do you think, should we try to go to the beach at this point?"

"Third times the charm." Tails said. The two boys left the lab, hoping that they could finally get some rest at the beach, but not everyone was through with the two, and it would be a while before Sonic and Tails would get to relax at the beach.

The beach came into their sight, and Sonic longingly reached his hand towards it. And then something crashed into him and barreled him over. Sonic stood up and rubbed his head, looking at the figure that crashed into him. He sighed when he saw who the girl on the ground was.

She had short, rainbow hair and a long rainbow tail. The girl had cyan wings and could use them to fly. In fact, this girl was considered the second fastest thing alive. She couldn't be the first, because that position was already filled by Sonic.

The girl stood up and said, "I want a rematch, Sonic!"

"I already told you, I'm not racing you again Rainbow Dash." Sonic said with an exasperated sigh.

"The last race wasn't fair, I had the sun in my eyes the whole time."

"It doesn't even matter, the last time we raced I beat you by a mile, and that wasn't even my top speed."

"I know, but I've gotten much better since then, honest." Rainbow Dash said, using the puppy dog eyes tactic.

Sonic had grown used to this tactic and was resistant to it, but the race would be an easy win, so he said, "Fine, one last race." Rainbow Dash smiled and hugged him before flying over to their usual race track.

"You didn't have to do that." Tails said, sad that they were yet again getting distracted from the beach.

"If I didn't say yes, she'd be bugging me all day." Sonic sighed. He then stretched his legs before he ran after Rainbow Dash. Tails looked longingly at the beach before he followed Sonic.

The race track for the two speedsters wasn't very complex. They both merely had to run from the entrance to the Holy Summit from Emerald Town, through Night Babylon into Central City, and back into Emerald Town where they repeated the cycle a few times. It wasn't complicated, but wasn't an easy task and required great speed to win.

Rainbow Dash and Sonic stood next to each other, prepared to take off when it was time to go. Tails caught up to the two and reached into his pocket, pulling out a starter pistol. Why he had this in his pocket, nobody really knew. Tails raised the pistol into the air and fired a single shot, signaling that the race had begun.

The two racers took off at great speeds, staying almost neck and neck. The two sped into Holy Summit. The mountainous terrain slowed Sonic down slightly, while Rainbow Dash was able to fly over the terrain easily. Once through the mountains, the two raced into Night Babylon.

The sidewalks were crowded with people who had money to spend or who had already lost all of their money. This once again made it difficult for Sonic to run through everything, but Rainbow Dash could just fly over everything. Even with this problem, Sonic had nearly no issues keeping up with Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash looked down to see Sonic following closely behind her as he weaved his way through the crowds. Sonic noticed Rainbow Dash looking down at him, and smiled at her with a cocky grin. The two then quickly raced into Central City.

The streets here were less crowded, and Sonic was able to speed up. After gaining a lead on Rainbow Dash, Sonic ran at a brisk pace, never getting too far ahead. Sure, Sonic wanted to win to prove that he was still the fastest, but he didn't want to seem like a jerk.

The two continued to race around like this for just another minute or two. Sonic continued to keep his lead, but never went too far ahead. By the time the race was finished, Sonic took a deep breath at the finish line, savoring his first place win. Rainbow Dash stood close by, panting quietly.

"Now that we have that settled," Sonic said, "we can leave the races behind us for a while and move on."

Rainbow Dash looked up at him and said, "I'll accept the loss for now, but I'm going to train and get better."

"I'm counting on it. Next time I want to break a sweat." Sonic said as Rainbow Dash flew away.

"Do you think we'll finally make it to the beach this time?" Tails asked.

"I sure hope so." Sonic sighed. "All I want to do right now is relax." The heroic duo didn't even notice another one of their friends walk up to them. This particular friend was different from the rest since she was quiet and wouldn't really speak up.

"Hi guys." The girl said quietly. The two boys jumped into the air from the shock before turning around to see who had snuck up on them. She had long, pink hair that matched her tail. Part of her hair covered one of her eyes. Sprouting from her back was a pair of light yellow wings.

"Fluttershy, I didn't see you there." Sonic said.

Fluttershy seemed to shrink into her clothes when she said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you guys."

"We weren't scared, just surprised." Tails said.

"Well, I was just wondering if maybe you two could help me." Fluttershy said quietly.

The heroic duo looked at each other before looking back at Fluttershy and agreeing to help her out. Fluttershy quietly led the two towards her house. At the house, there were many pens for animals. What Fluttershy lacked in social skills, she more than made up for with her skills with animals.

"I promised Twilight that I would help her with some spells, but I still need to feed my animals. I was wondering if you two could feed them for me." Fluttershy said quietly.

Sonic smiled and said, "That's it? That'll be a piece of cake. We can definitely handle this." Fluttershy thanked them for about two minutes before finally leaving. Sonic and Tails were left instructions on which animals should eat what and just how much to give each animal.

The task seemed easy enough, and should have seemed even easier with Sonic's speed, but the animals were extremely picky. No matter how hard they tried, the animals wouldn't accept any food given to them by anyone who wasn't Fluttershy. After about an hour of attempting to feed the animals, Sonic and Tails left bags of food out before leaving Fluttershy's house.

"I think we'll finally be able to make it to the beach now." Sonic said.

"We really need to make some more guy friends." Tails said.

Just as the two were about to take off towards the beach, a voice shouted, "Sonic, Tails, we need your help!" The duo looked at each other before sighing and running towards the voice.

It turned out that Twilight was the one who had shouted at them. Sonic and Tails ran up to Twilight's house once more, but this time everyone had showed up.

"Good, you two are here. We can get started now." Twilight said.

"What's going on here?" Tails asked.

"We're testing out a new spell that I came across. It allows me to summon a portal that will teleport us a short distance so that way I don't have to expand my teleport spell." Twilight said.

Sonic turned his head away from the group and muttered, "The problems of a magic user, too busy making magic easier to make it useful."

Tails gave Sonic a slight push before saying, "And you want us to test it out?"

Twilight nodded and said, "It's only a short range teleport, so you won't turn up too far off from here. And just in case, we'll be sending Rainbow Dash with you."

"Just in case? You seem to have doubts in me." Sonic said smugly.

"No doubts, just that she wouldn't quit asking me to let her go with you."

"I'm not going to let you go on an adventure without me." Rainbow Dash said.

"Adventure? All we're doing is getting teleported." Sonic said.

"Have you been awake for the past few years? Nothing happens to you that doesn't become an adventure."

Sonic sighed before telling Twilight to create the portal.

"With that thought in mind, perhaps I should come along as well. If things were to go wrong I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt." Twilight said before beginning the spell.

"Our friends don't seem to have much confidence in us." Tails said to Sonic.

Sonic shrugged and said, "Nothing much we can do about that. If they don't believe in us after we've saved them so many times, there's nothing we can do to change that."

Twilight finished the spell and a purple vortex opened in front of the group. Sonic grinned and jumped in before anybody else could. Rainbow Dash, not wanting to be far behind, quickly flew in after him. Tails spun his tails and was lifted into the air. He then flew through the portal after the two speedsters.

Twilight looked at her friends and said, "We should be back soon, so don't go far." Her friends nodded in agreement and Twilight then walked through the portal. What waited on the other side was different than expected.

Located in Night Babylon was a not so hidden Eggman base. It had seemed to be empty for a while, and people payed it no mind. But then again, they never were able to see the inside. Inside of this base, known as Gimme Shelter, was an array of different robots. Each robot was programmed with the urge to kill, and were waiting to be activated.

It just so happened that a purple vortex had opened inside of said base. Sonic landed on both feet after having jumped through. He looked around and was surprised to find himself where he was. Just a few seconds later, Rainbow Dash flew through the portal. Unfortunately, she decided that stopping was a bad thing, and continued flying straight into a robot.

Rainbow Dash crashed into the robot, causing it to topple over. When it hit the ground, it made a loud sound. Down the lines, robots began to activate thanks to the sound. Rainbow Dash blushed, embarrassed about her mistake. Sonic simply smiled as Twilight and Tails came through the portal.

"I was afraid that nothing exciting would happen." Sonic said as he stretched his legs.

"We just got here and you already caused something bad to happen." Tails said, pulling out his arm cannon.

"You know me, never a dull moment." Robots began to come down from where they were hanging. Each one had both a robot arm and a gun. The guns on each robot began to charge with energy.

"Twilight, Rainbow Dash, go back through the portal, we've got it from here." he two girls nodded before turning to the portal. But nothing ever goes right while inside an enemy base and surrounded by the enemy. The vortex vanished, leaving the four friends stuck in the base.

"Can you open another portal?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"I could, but I'd need some time and I need to focus." Twilight answered.

"Don't worry, we can buy you time." Sonic said, getting into a fighting stance. Robots began to fire at the group, signaling the start of the fight. Sonic ran over to Twilight and picked her up bridal style, carrying her out of the crossfire. He placed her behind some cover before jumping back into the fray.

Sonic ran into a group of robots and began jumping on them, punching them, and dashing right through them. Tails fired his arm cannon at different robots, destroying multiple robots at a time. Rainbow Dash spread her wings and took flight, using her height to kick the robots away. The group made slow progress through the robots, and they began to get tired. Meanwhile, Twilight had yet to perform the spell.

"What's going on Twilight?" Sonic shouted over the sound of the battle.

"I can't focus!" Twilight shouted back.

Sonic dashed through another group of robots, causing them to explode. "Then we're going to have to make a new way out!"

"What do you mean?" Rainbow Dash shouted.

"Just trust him, he has a plan!" Tails shouted before returning to firing at the robots. Sonic smiled at Tails and turned towards the entrance to the base. A metal door covered the entrance. Sonic took a deep breath before curling up into a ball. He then began to accelerate at great speeds, spinning in place. Sonic then shot off into the door, spinning right into it.

The door resisted the attack, but eventually began to break. Once the door broke open, Sonic uncurled and spun around, motioning for the others to leave. Tails covered Rainbow Dash and Twilight as they ran towards the door, but a robot in the back of the room was able to aim at the two and fire. Sonic saw this and ran at the two, pushing them out of the way. As he pushed them, the bullet clipped Sonic's arm.

The two girls looked at Sonic with shock, while Sonic just smiled painfully and motioned for them to keep going. With scared looks on their faces, the two ran through the door and out of the base.

"Tails, time to go!" Sonic shouted. Tails nodded and flew out of the base, with Sonic following closely behind. With all threats out of the base, the remaining robots deactivated, waiting for a new threat.

"Sonic, are you ok?" Twilight asked, looking at Sonic's bleeding arm.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Sonic grunted. "The bullet only clipped me, I'll be fine."

"I'm sorry Sonic, I should have seen the robot." Tails said.

Sonic did a thumbs up to Tails and said, "Like I said, I'm fine. Now why don't we go back to your place for some relaxation?"

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather go to the beach?" Tails asked, still hopeful.

"I think that I could use some sleep, but you can go to the beach if you want." Sonic said.

"Fine, we'll go back to my lab." Tails said as the two turned to walk away. Twilight and Rainbow Dash watched the two go. Sonic had saved them countless times before, but this was the first time that they'd seen him get hurt doing it. Sure, they felt bad for what happened to him, but a new feeling surfaced inside both of the girls.

They had fallen in love with their hero.

Rainbow Dash happily flew away from Night Babylon. Another special thing about people with wings was that they had the ability to walk on clouds. With this talent, the winged people had created houses in the sky, seperating them from the other people. Rainbow Dash flew up to her house with a smile on her face.

"I can't believe I didn't notice this until now." Rainbow Dash said, thinking about Sonic. It was then that there was a knock at her door. Rainbow Dash walked to the door and opened it wide, with Fluttershy standing in the doorway.

"You didn't come back with Twilight, so I thought I would find you here." Fluttershy said quietly.

Rainbow Dash smiled at her friend and said, "Well, I'm fine, in fact, I'm better than fine."

"What happened?" Fluttershy asked with a confused look.

Rainbow Dash twirled into her house and said, "Sonic saved me."

"So?"

"He hurt himself saving me. Plus, when we got out, he didn't scold me or anything. He just smiled as if nothing had happened and walked off."

"So?"

"What do you mean so? He risked his life to save me and didn't even care that he got hurt. Don't you understand?"

"Considering I have yet to really fall in love, I don't really understand what you're talking about."

Rainbow Dash seemed like she was about to get angry, but cooled off and said, "I need to know whether or not he likes me back, and you're going to help me."

Fluttershy looked surprised. "Why me?"

"You're the one who's here right now, and the only one who can set foot in my house to help me."

Fluttershy sighed at her friend and quietly agreed to help. Rainbow Dash grinned and pulled Fluttershy into her room. The two then began to pick out some clothes for Rainbow Dash to wear to impress Sonic. They planned to throw a a celebration in honor of Sonic's victory. However, they might have said the word party one too many times.

"Did somebody say party?" Pinkie Pie shouted. Both Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy jumped into the air from fear and surprise.

"Pinkie, how did you get in here?" Rainbow Dash shouted.

"It's one of my super powers, when someone says party, then I have the chance to appear!" Pinkie Pie responded. Neither Rainbow Dash nor Fluttershy were completely sure if she was telling the truth, but Pinkie was someone that no one could understand.

Once Fluttershy had regained her composure, she said, "We're trying to plan a party thanking Sonic for helping Twilight and Rainbow Dash escape from Eggman's base."

Pinkie Pie gasped and jumped into the air over and over. "You're right! We should throw a party to celebrate!" With that said, Pinkie ran out of Rainbow Dash's door and to wherever it was that she went to plan her parties.

"Anyway, are you sure that Sonic will like this?" Rainbow Dash asked nervously.

"I'm not really sure. I don't really know what Sonic really likes." Fluttershy said.

"Well, I hope he likes it." Rainbow Dash sighed.

---

Meanwhile, Twilight was also swooning over the blue hero.

"Twilight, dear, are you sure you're alright?" Rarity asked.

"I'm perfectly fine." Twilight said.

"Are y'all sure?" Applejack asked.

"You have been acting strange since you got back." Rarity said.

Twilight smiled at the two and said, "Have you ever felt really good from an unfortunate accident?"

Applejack had a look of concern on her face. "Did you hit your head when you went through the portal."

Twilight's face lit up as she said, "Maybe if I did, Sonic would have carried me here and be taking care of me right now."

Rarity had a knowing smile on her face after that statement. "I believe that I know what's going on here."

Applejack, however, continued to look confused. "I'm sorry did I miss something?"

Rarity grabbed Twilight's arm and sat her down on the couch. "When did you figure it out."

"When he took a bullet to save me." Twilight said with a distant look in her eyes.

"You mean metaphorically right?"

"No, he actually pushed me out of the path of a bullet and got hit."

Rarity clasped her hands together and said, "I see exactly why you fell for him. We need to make him yours!"

Applejack, who finally caught onto what was going on, said, "Well how are we going to do that?" And that was when three pink envelopes were slipped under the door. Applejack walked over and picked them up.

"These look like the invitations Pinkie normally sends out for a party." Applejack said after examining them. She then gave one envelope to each girl. They all opened them, and confetti flew into their faces. Inside of the envelopes were invitations to a party celebrating the groups successful escape from Eggman's base. The party was going to be held at Sugarcube Corner.

"This is perfect!" Rarity shouted. "We can get you all dressed up and you can impress Sonic!"

Twilight's eyes sparkled. "This will be perfect, Sonic will have fallen for me by the end of the night!"

Applejack sighed, "I might as well help since I'm here." Rarity grabbed the other two girls' arms and pulled them out of Twilight's house towards her boutique.

---

In Tails's lab, Sonic was leaning back in a recliner while Tails worked on his latest invention. Two pink envelopes were slipped under the door to the lab. After reading the letter inside, Tails told Sonic about the party.

Sonic grinned and said, "Well, what's stopping us from going?" When he stood up, he put a hand on the bandages that covered his newly acquired wound.

"Are you sure you're up for this?" Tails asked.

"Of course, besides, the party's being thrown in our honor. We can't miss something like this."

"Alright, then let's get ready and go." Sonic nodded and walked into one of the rooms in the lab, preparing for the party.

The party began at night, so Sonic and Tails had to wait for a bit before leaving. Once it was the right time to leave, the two quickly left the lab and walked over to Sugarcube Corner. Thankfully, nothing strange happened on the way there, and they knocked on the door to Sugarcube Corner with smiles on their faces.

"Come in!" Pinkie shouted from inside. The two boys opened the door to see a room filled with balloons, confetti, and other various party things.

"All this for us?" Sonic said smugly. Tails merely smiled and made his way over to the food.

"Looks like we're the first two to arrive." Sonic said while looking around. Pinkie was the only other one there. With the music playing, the two wasted time by dancing and talking. After twenty minutes, the three weren't sure whether or not anyone else would show up. That was when another knock was heard from the door.

"Come in!" Pinkie shouted with a huge smile on her face. The door slowly swung open as Twilight walked in wearing a purple dress that had a long skirt, short sleeves, and was covered in sparkles. She slowly walked into the room, trying her hardest not to stare into Sonic's eyes.

"Wow..." Sonic said before shaking his head to regain his composure. "Nice job making up for being late by being fancy."

"Of course." Twilight said.

"However, I didn't remember seeing anything about formal clothes being required on the invitation. Had I known, I might have dressed up as well." Sonic said with a smile.

Twilight blushed slightly at his comment, and was about to lose her cool when Applejack and Rarity walked in. Rarity had dressed up slightly, but not enough to look better than Twilight, and Applejack just wore normal clothes.

Sonic pointed at Applejack and said, "Somebody seemed to have gotten the memo." He was met with a blank stare from Applejack, a nervous look from Twilight, and an angry stare from Rarity. "Tough crowd." Sonic mumbled.

"Pinkie Pie, you simply must show me what you've done with the place." Rarity said.

Pinkie looked confused, "But there's a party going on."

"Yes, but Applejack and I would like to look at the pastries that you've made." That's all Pinkie needed to hear. She grabbed Rarity and Applejack pulling them into the back. Not wanting to be left out, Tails followed after them. Sonic was about to go after them as well, but Twilight grabbed his arm.

"Wait, why don't we sit down and talk?" Twilight asked with a hint of hope in her voice.

Sonic, not wanting to be the bad guy, followed her over to the couch and sat down.

"So how's your arm?" Twilight asked quickly.

Sonic grinned and said, "Perfectly fine, doesn't even hurt anymore."

"Can I see it?" Twilight questioned. Sonic complied, rolling up his sleeve and showing her the bandage. It was slightly stained red, and Twilight could barely make herself look at it.

"I'm sorry about what happened." Twlight said.

"Don't worry about it, if I was faced with the decision again, I would have done the same thing." Sonic said. Twilight cheered up with that, and smiled at her blue hero.

The two continued their conversation like this, until the other four finally walked out from the back. The conversation stopped, and the party began once more. Everyone danced, ate, and enjoyed the music. At one point, Sonic and Tails told the story of what happened, with a little bit of exageration.

Somehow, a slow song had come on. This was very strange considering this was a Pinkie Pie party. Sonic, not a huge fan of anything slow, went to go and sit down with Tails. As he was walking towards Tails, Twilight grabbed his arm again.

"How about a dance?" She asked nervously.

"Maybe when a faster song comes on, this one is too slow to dance to." Sonic said.

"Can't I get a dance of my choice with the person who saved me?"

"It normally works the other way around, but I don't see why not."

So Twilight pulled Sonic into the center of the room and pulled him close to her. Sonic was too busy thinking of faster music to notice this. Besides, after all that he had done, girls did this to him all the time. After a while, Sonic just got used to it.

So the two danced, or, more specifically, Sonic did. Twilight was too busy swooning to focus on dancing. Halfway through the song, Sonic looked over at Tails and mouthed the words, 'Commence party plan S.' Tails smiled and pulled out a universal remote. He aimed it at the radio playing the music and hit the fast forward button a few times.

The slow song began to speed up, but Twilight didn't notice this until she was thrown into the air. Having felt herself leave Sonic's warming embrace, she snapped back into reality.

"What's going on?" She shouted.

"Don't worry, all we're doing is kicking this party up to an eleven!" Sonic answered her. Reassured by Sonic, Twilight closed her eyes and went along with everything. The dance continued like this, Sonic moving about quickly with Twilight in his arms. The others joined in after a while, and for Twilight, it didn't seem like it could get any better.

Eventually, Sonic put her down and rushed over to the food. One of the things that Twilight could hardly stand about Sonic was how he ate like a pig. But this time, when she saw him stuffing himself, Twilight wasn't as disgusted. Time passed, and it was eventually time for everyone to head home.

"Tails and I will be going now, thanks for having us over Pinkie." Sonic said. Of course, just saying bye wouldn't be enough for Pinkie Pie. There was another few minutes of lengthy good byes, during which Rarity and Twilight plotted.

"You need to get him to walk you home!" Rarity hissed.

"Are you sure that he'll do it?" Twilight asked nervously.

"If you make him feel as though you are in enough distress then he won't be able to resist it. Heroes snap up opportunities like that quite quickly."

"I don't know, what if he thinks that I'm being weird?"

"If you don't do it, then I will walk up to him and ask him to walk me home."

Twilight then pushed Rarity aside and walked right up to Sonic without another thought.

"Sonic, I've had so much fun tonight that I've grown quite tired, could you walk me home?" Twilight asked, trying for the dramatic approach.

Sonic shrugged and said, "Sure, are you alright walking back by yourself Tails?"

"Yeah, I'll see you back at the lab later." Tails said. Sonic turned to Twilight and motioned towards the door. The two walked out and Twilight looked down at Sonic's hand, hanging by his side. Her cheeks flushed bright red as she reached her hand towards his, hoping that he wouldn't pull his hand away. And then, Sonic, hand and body, wasn't there anymore.

With wide eyes, Twilight looked into the sky where her hero had just been hoisted. A dark figure had grabbed Sonic and was flying away with him.

"Sonic!" Twilight shouted, with obvious fear in her voice. All Sonic did was raise his hand, stick up his thumb, and grin. For some unknown reason, this reassured Twilight to the point where she thought that what was happening meant nothing.

When Twilight was out of his sight, Sonic looked up towards the figure. He couldn't make out who it was, and he couldn't think of a way to escape the figure's grasp. All he could do was wait until the figure brought him to its desired location.

Within a few minutes, the mountains of Holy Summit came into view. Sonic breathed a sigh of relief as the mountains came into view. It seemed like the figure was going towards the mountains, and Sonic was glad that the flight was almost over.

One of the mountaintops had lights glowing on the top. There seemed to be another figure on top of the mountain. Sonic prepared himself for a fight, waiting for the flying figure to put him down. When the figure holding Sonic was at the mountaintop, instead of dropping him, the figure landed and let go of Sonic's arms. The lights grew brighter and revealed Rainbow Dash sitting by a picnic blanket. The other figure was revealed to be Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash was wearing a navy blue dress that had a short skirt and short sleeves. Her hair had been done up and seemed to glow by itself. Sonic was left speechless and could only stare at the girl before him.

"Sonic, I'm sorry with the means used to get you here, but I wanted this to be special." Rainbow Dash said.

Sonic snapped out of his trance and said, "All you had to do was invite me, you didn't need to have Fluttershy snatch me." Fluttershy seemed to grow smaller after hearing that comment.

Rainbow Dash blushed slightly and said, "I didn't want my thank you to seem normal, I wanted to mix things up."

"Well, there's nothing wrong with trying to thank me, but why didn't you just show up at Pinkie's party?"

"Like I said, I wanted this to be different." Rainbow Dash pulled Sonic over to the picnic blanket and the two sat down. Rainbow Dash had butterflies in her stomach, but the hero didn't even know what the rainbow haired girl was trying ot do. The moon came out from behind the clouds, bathing the pair in light.

"You missed a pretty good party." Sonic said, trying to make conversation.

Rainbow Dash sighed. "I don't want to talk about the party let's just talk about something else."

Sonic shrugged. "Just trying to make conversation."

"So, about how you saved me earlier."

"What about it?"

"Why did you throw yourself into danger to save me?"

"First, I wasn't throwing myself into danger, just into more of it. Second, I did it because you're my friend, and I wasn't going to let any robot get in the way of that."

Rainbow Dash smiled at the words of her hero, but inside she frowned, feeling like she had been friend zoned. It was then that Fluttershy flew down with a basket in her hands. Rainbow Dash quickly grabbed the basket and dismissed the thought. She opened it and the smell made Sonic's mouth water.

"Do I smell chili dogs?" Sonic asked with excitement.

"What else would I make for you to eat?" Rainbow Dash said with a smile. Fluttershy glared at her slightly, for she was truly the one who had prepared the food. Rainbow Dash just ignored her friend's stare and pulled out a chili dog for Sonic. He greedily snatched the food and began to chow down. Unlike Twilight, Rainbow Dash never really cared about how he was a messy eater.

Rainbow Dash pulled out a salad, for she was a vegetarian, as were the other six girls in the group. She ate it quietly as she watched her hero chow down on the many chili dogs. It was a good thing that she had asked Fluttershy to make so many, because Sonic was quickly going through the supply.

Rainbow Dash finished her food a minute after Sonic made it through the chili dog supply. She looked over to where Fluttershy had been standing, and motioned for her to commence the next phase of the plan. Fluttershy flew down to the bottom of the mountain and grabbed a small stereo that they had hidden there. She flew back up with the stereo in hand and landed where she had been before.

Sonic hadn't noticed any of this, and was wiping his mouth with his gloved hand. He was only snapped out of his daze when music began playing. Rainbow Dash stood up and held out her hand, her cheeks slightly red. It had been a long day and Sonic was tired, but he figured he had enough energy left in him to do one more dance. He jumped up from his seated position and grabbed Rainbow Dash's hand, making her cheeks blush an even brighter red.

The song playing was a fast one, and the two speedsters were in their element. Their dancing wasn't anything spectacular, and they weren't even on the mountain half off the time. The music energized them enough to cause them to both fly and run around the place. Fluttershy couldn't help but smiile at the two's behavior.

When the song ended, the two came to a stop on top of the mountain. Rainbow Dash was panting, but Sonic looked as though he hadn't even broken a sweat.

"That was fun." Sonic said while doing some stretches.

"Yeah." Rainbow Dash said.

"You know, we could have done this at the party Pinkie threw. Why are we doing it here?"

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and mentally prepared herself to tell him the truth. "I have a good reason for doing this here."

"Are you going to tell me what that reason is?"

"It's because after what you did for me, I began to..." Rainbow Dash began to say. Before she could finish her sentence, a dark figure flew straight at them and lifted Sonic into the air by his arms. Rainbow Dash could do nothing but stay still for a minute before snapping out of her surprise and following after the figure. Fluttershy took a little longer, but flew after the figure as well, at a slower rate.

At first, it was easy for Rainbow Dash to catch up, but the figure slowly began to go even faster than Rainbow Dash could. Before long, it became apparent that the figure would leave her behind.

"Don't worry about me!" Sonic shouted over the wind.

"You're in trouble, I have to help!" Rainbow Dash shouted back.

"I'll be fine, I always am!" Sonic shouted. Rainbow Dash couldn't help but agree. She began to slow down, putting faith in the blue hero. When Rainbow Dash landed on the ground, she realized that tears were streaming down her face. Fluttershy landed beside her and patted her on the back. They both looked up and watched as both the figure and Sonic flew off into the night.

A few minutes later, Sonic and the figure began to approach something that was spinning in the air. As they got closer, the object stopped spinning and began to glow. Sonic realized that the object was a warp ring. He had no clue where it would lead, but the figure who was kidnapping him seemed to know.

The figure flew through the ring without any hesitation. After the initial bright light that came with going through a warp ring, Sonic opened his eyes to get a good view of the place he had been dragged to. The sky was a light purple, and lightning would flash occasionally. Below him were two mechanical blue roads that seemed to stretch on forever. There was no ground besides the roads, and a giant silhouette of Eggman could be seen in the distance.

Sonic was dropped from above the road, and once he landed on one of the roads, he wasted no time running along it. The figure descended onto the road beside him and sped along it. Without their feet touching the ground, the figure was easily keeping up with Sonic.

"It appears my trap has been sprung successfully!" A familiar voice sounded in the distance.

Sonic could recognize that voice easily. "Eggman, what's going on?" He shouted.

"I simply brought you here for a little race." Eggman said with a sense of false innocence in his voice. Sonic looked around trying to find the source of the madman's voice, and quickly noticed the speakers placed at regular intervals. He thought it must have taken Eggman a long time to place those, so Sonic made it a point to kick each one that he passed.

"Here are the terms of this race." Eggman began.

"Who said that I've even agreed to race?" Sonic said with a smirk.

"If you don't race, there will be big problems coming towards your friends." Sonic continued to smirk as if he wasn't worried, but he couldn't let Eggman go anywhere near his friends.

"Alright, I'll race, but no dirty tricks!" A maniacal laugh could then be heard. Cages sprung up around Sonic's path, blocking any attempt of escape. The hairs on the back of Sonic's neck stood on edge, showing him that the cages were electrified. He looked to his left at the other road and could tell that the figure didn't have to deal with cages.

Sonic then began to run even faster. Glancing to the side, he could see the figure keeping up easily. It wasn't easy to find someone who could keep up with Sonic, near impossible in fact, but Sonic didn't have time for shock. He had a race to win, and he had no clue what Eggman would do if he lost.

So with much acceleration by both racers, the race went on. After a while, Sonic seemed to have slightly more speed than the figure and was slowly beginning to gain ground. Both he and the figure noticed the difference and reacted to it in different ways. Sonic smirked at his opponent, while the figure began to rise into the air. It was then that its hands began to glow with some kind of energy.

Sonic barely had a second to register this fact before a ball of energy was thrown at the cage, causing it to explode. The figure then flew through the hole and began to chase Sonic, charging more of the energy balls. With the rest of the road still surrounded by the cages, there wasn't much room to dodge around. And the only known exit was located behind the murderous figure. This was the perfect time for improvisation.

When the next energy ball was thrown, Sonic was ready. He spun around so he was facing the figure and attempted to kick the ball of energy. To his surprise, the ball was actually knocked back towards the figure. The figure hadn't been expecting this either, and didn't react to the reflected energy ball. Once it was hit by the ball, there was a flash of lightning and Sonic was finally able to see what his opponent looked like. The appearence of the figure left him slightly shocked.

"That's... a robot version of me." Sonic said with disbelief. The figure had silver metalic skin, with metal spikes on the back of the head painted blue. The rest of the features were robotic versions of the blue hero. The scariest part of the robot was its eyes. Two glowing red eyes that showed only anger.

Sonic shook his head to regain his composure just in time to kick another energy ball back at his robot version. It was then that Sonic got an idea. When the next ball of energy was thrown at him, Sonic kicked it into the cage and quickly jumped over to the other road before the robot could catch him.

Without any of the restraints the cages brought him, Sonic was able to dodge the energy balls with more ease. And then, the road behind the two began to break apart, and it was clear that the rest would fall soon. Sonic looked as far down the road as he could, and he could barely see something shiny out in the distance. At first, Sonic couldn't discern what it was, but after a second, he could tell that it was another warp ring.

With a grin, Sonic began to increase his speed. His feet were going so fast that they became a blur, and the robot was getting left behind. Sonic made it to the warp ring quickly, and was just about to jump through when he got a chill spread throughout his body. Thinking nothing of it, Sonic jumped through the ring and vanished from sight.

With a metallic voice, the robot said, "Scan complete." When the robot said that, Eggman broke into a fit of laughter, overjoyed with the success of his latest plan.

Sonic flew through the air for a second before landing on his feet. After jumping through the warp ring, Sonic didn't exactly know where he was. Jumping through the warp ring without a second thought had seemed like a good idea at the time, but checking on where it would bring him would have been an even better idea.

Scanning his surroundings, Sonic began to get a better idea of where he was. He was standing in the middle of a road, a highway more like it. Red rails lined the sides and streetlamps had been placed in regular intervals.

As Sonic took in his surroundings, he heard a loud nose approach him. Turning towards the sound, Sonic sighed at his luck. A car was heading straight for him, and it showed no signs of stopping. Sighing, Sonic leaded into the air towards one of the streetlamps. The car barely missed his feet as Sonic soared through the air and landed on the pole.

With more cars speeding past the hero, an opportunity for a fun way of travel presented itself. Sonic's grin stretched from ear to ear as he leaped off of the pole. When it seemed like he would hit the ground, a car dashed under him just in time to catch him on its roof. Riding on the roof of that car would have been easy, but Sonic found no fun in easy. He leaped from roof to roof, hoping that the cars wouldn't stop or speed up unexpectedly.

It took about five minutes, but Sonic soon saw buildings in the distance. Taking it easy for the last bit of distance between him and the buildings, Sonic sat on the roof of the car he had been standing on. Finally able to inspect the buildings now that he was no longer jumping about, Sonic recognized the city he was approaching. The buildings of Central City were very inviting after what Sonic had just been through.

Once the car had driven close enough to the city, Sonic jumped off and landed by the road. After brushing himself off, he ran towards Tails' lab, hoping that nothing bad had happened while he was gone. As he ran, Sonic looked up at the sky. From the position of the sun in the sky, he figured that it was about noon. He had been gone for a while, and Sonic had no clue how his friends would react. At least, the friends that knew he had been missing.

When Tails' lab had come into sight, Sonic noticed his friends grouped around the door, and they didn't look happy. All it took was a quick glimpse from Tails before everyone else had turned to see him coming. Within a few more seconds, Sonic had reached the group and was receiving hugs from them all. The hugs from Twilight and Rainbow Dash were slightly tighter than the others.

"It's not like this is the first time I've vanished unexpectedly and come back." Sonic said.

"Every time that happens we feel like there's a smaller chance that you'll be coming back." Tails said.

"No need to worry about me, I'll always turn out okay." Sonic said with a smile. Twilight and Rainbow Dash stared at their hero with loving looks, and both Fluttershy and Rarity noticed.

Rarity pulled Twilight to the side as the others swarmed around Sonic. "So, did you figure out how Sonic felt about you as he walked you home?" Rarity asked.

"I already told you, a dark figure showed up and grabbed Sonic after we had walked out of the party." Twilight sighed. "I didn't even get a chance to ask." After Twilight had said that, she heard Eggman's name come up in the conversation behind them.

"Did you say, Eggman?" She asked Sonic.

"Yeah, why?" Sonic replied.

"We have to go and report this!"

"No we don't! I handled the situation, nothing went wrong."

"After what happened last time, we've been told to report all Eggman sightings."

"The only reason Eggman was able to blow up that casino was because no one told me that they saw him, not because they didn't tell G.U.N."

"We are reporting this, and that's that." Sonic knew that he could win many fights, but a fight against an determined girl wasn't one that either he or anybody could win.

"Fine, we'll go and report it..." Sonic said with a sigh. Twilight smiled at her victory and grabbed Sonic's arm.

"Let's go." She commanded, feeling in charge thanks to her little victory. Rainbow Dash grew jealous seeing someone act like that to Sonic, so she grabbed his other arm.

"You're not going without me!" She asserted. Sonic looked down at the two girls. He was used to girls trying to cling to him considering he had saved everyone on multiple occasions, but his friends never normally acted like this, it left him slightly confused, but he assumed that it was bound to happen.

"Alright, let's go then." Sonic said. He waved goodbye to the rest of his friends and grabbed the hands of both Rainbow Dash and Twilight. This brought blushes to both of their faces. Sonic then turned around to face Central City and dashed away, dragging Rainbow Dash and Twilight along.

As they screeched to a stop in front of one of the bigger buildings in the city, Sonic smiled at the two as they brushed the dust off of their clothes.

"I could have just teleported us here." Twilight said with an angry look.

"And I could have flown instead of being dragged." Rainbow Dash said indignantly.

"How would that be fun for me?" Sonic asked. The girls could do nothing but sigh at him in response. They all entered the building and were quickly swarmed by guards. Once there identities had been confirmed, they were lead through the building to an elevator. The elevator led them to the top floor, where they were led through a complex maze of hallways. The guards stopped them in front of a big door.

"You guys do know that we could walk here by ourselves, right?" Sonic questioned. The guards didn't answer, they weren't payed enough to answer questions. Two other guards approached the door and pulled out two keys. They stuck the keys into two different locks and both turned them at the same time. The door opened slowly and revealed a big office.

A chair behind the desk in the room spun around and revealed a pale skinned woman. Her hair flowed behind her as though there was an ever present fan. A horn protruded from her forehead and wings stuck out of her sides.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of this meeting?" The woman asked.

"We're here to report an Eggman sighting, Celestia." Twilight said.

"It's good that you decided to do so, after what happened last time, we can't take any chances."

"That's what I told Sonic, but he didn't want to report the sighting."

"I handled the situation. I've also handled all of the other situations involving Eggman. Meanwhile, you just sit here and pretend that you're helping me when most of the time you're getting in my way!" Sonic said angrily.

"You know that we do all we can, Sonic." Celestia said calmly.

"You have a big budget, tons of soldiers, and advanced technology, and you still don't get more done than a teenage boy."

"A teenage boy with super speed." Twilight looked at Sonic and Celestia. Sonic was angry at Celestia, but she wasn't sure why. Meanwhile, Celestia stared at Sonic coolly, unaffected by his words. Twilight began to rethink bringing Sonic to report the Eggman sighting.

"We must get back to the matter at hand." Celestia began. "Where was it that you saw Eggman?"

"It was Stardust Speedway." Sonic said. "Now, with that done, we should be on our way." He turned and began to walk towards the closed door.

"Hold on." Celestia stopped him. "What's that around your wrist?"

Sonic looked down at his wrist and noticed for the first time the ring that was wrapped around it. "A ring, apparently." He said.

"Really, because it seems like one of the rare portable warp rings. The chance of receiving one when warping through a warp ring is very small."

"Look at that, an asset that I have to fight Eggman and you don't. Does this make you feel inferior yet?"

"You have one warp ring, I have an army, weapons, and tons of money."

"You forgot to mention my many victories against Eggman and my winning smile." With those words exchanged, Sonic once again turned towards the door, knocked three times, and waited for it to open. Once it did, he stormed out of the room and was led out of the building.

The two girls stared at the door with surprised looks in their eyes. Neither of them knew what to say about Sonic's actions. Celestia was a high ranked figure in society, and everyone respected her, or, most everybody.

"Please forgive Sonic's behavior." Rainbow Dash said after a minute.

"He doesn't know what he's talking about." Twilight said, trying to smooth things over.

"While Sonic acts harsh, I know his intentions in this matter are good. There is no need to apologize for him." Celestia told the two. They all smiled at each other before Twilight and Rainbow Dash followed after Sonic. He was waiting for them outside, and he seemed happier than when he was inside.

"Now that that's finally over with, why don't we go get our friends and do something fun?" Sonic asked with a smile. The two girls smiled back and nodded eagerly, excited to spend some time with the blue hero.

A few days had passed since Sonic had returned, and he and his friends were all hanging out at the beach. Sonic was relaxing in a beach chair while the others were playing in the water. Tails approached him with something in his hands.

"Did you fix it?" Sonic questioned.

"Yep!" Tails said as he held up a newer version of the board that had exploded before. "It should work a lot better than last time."

"Cool! Are you going to try it out now?"

"Well, I thought that maybe..."

"You want me to do it don't you?"

"If you don't mind."

"Give it here." Sonic said as he grabbed the board. After Tails explained how to properly use it, Sonic ran towards the water, threw it in front of him into the water, jumped into the air, and landed on it. He then slammed his foot down onto the pedal that controlled the speed, and the board sped forward.

The girls had to dodge out of the way as Sonic rocketed past, splashing water onto all of them. Rarity screamed as she felt her freshly wet hair. Sonic grimaced as he thought about the punishment he would receive for that.

Things were going fine after that. The board didn't malfunction and, most importantly, explode. Things started to go wrong when Sonic decided to do some tricks. He would spin around in the water, spewing more of it onto the now soaked girls. When nothing went wrong then, Sonic grabbed the bottom of the board, and jumped, pulling it into the air with him.

"No, it's not ready for jumps yet!" Tails shouted from the shore, but Sonic couldn't hear him. He then performed more jumps, getting higher and higher each time. Deciding to perform some real tricks, he began to do a spin in the air. It wasn't just a simple spin, it was one of his unique Sonic spins. This was more than the board would take.

The rockets that were propelling board then accelerated to full blast as the board was pointed towards the water. This interrupted Sonic's spin and caused both him and the board to fly right into the water, sinking below the waves. As soon as Sonic's friends saw this, they sprung into action. They knew that if there was one thing that Sonic hated most in the world, it was water.

He had been pretty far out, so those who couldn't fly had to swim over to him. Those who could fly, reached the area pretty quickly. The problem was, none of them could breathe underwater. Rainbow Dash knew this, and decided that getting down there as fast as she could. So she flew straight into the air, and then flew at the water as fast as she could. Everyone else saw her rocket straight into the water as they all surrounded the location.

The thing is, while they were far out, the water wasn't deep enough for Rainbow Dash to slow down before hitting the seafloor. She didn't hit it hard enough to kill herself, but she did get knocked out from the hit. The last thing she saw before completely losing consciousness was a dark figure illuminated by a bright light.

Tails and the others saw the same light coming from below them. They then saw the same dark figure rocketing towards them from the depths.

"Move out of the way!" Twilight shouted. The others either swam or flew out of the way as the figure quickly approached. The figure then quickly broke through the surface and rocketed into the air. The group looked up at the figure and recognized it within a few seconds.

"It's Sonic!" Pinkie Pie shouted.

"What does he have in his hands?" Applejack wondered. Sonic then flipped in midair and began to fall towards the docks. Noticing this, his friends quickly went to the docks as well. When Sonic landed on the wooden docks, he put what he was holding down and took a few steps back. When his friends made it to the dock, they saw that Sonic had been carrying Rainbow Dash.

"Is she alright?" Fluttershy asked quietly.

"She's alright, she just hit her head is all." Sonic said.

"How can you be sure she's alright after hitting her head like that?" Twilight asked.

"I suppose we can't really tell until she wakes up." Tails responded. They all stood around her and waited for her to wake up. Twilight looked over at Sonic and noticed some burn marks on the back of his neck and arms.

"Are you alright?" She asked him. Sonic looked confused until he looked down at his arms.

"Well, I guess so. I don't feel any pain." Sonic answered as he continued to stare at his wounds. It was then that Rainbow Dash began to stir.

"Hey guys, did I miss a party or something?" Rainbow Dash asked with a far away look in her eyes.

"Rainbow Dash! Can you hear us!" Pinkie Pie shouted.

Rainbow Dash flinched before saying, "Of course I can. Why, did you guys do something to me?"

"We better take her to the hospital." Twilight said with a worried look in her eyes. Rainbow Dash looked up at Sonic and smiled.

"Well, why don't we go together?" She asked.

"What do you mean?" Sonic asked, completely confused.

"What I mean is you and me should go to the hospital together, just the two of us."

"Why bring me?"

"You clearly have some wounds of your own, hospitals are for people with wounds. It makes sense."

"I should be fine, I haven't gone to a hospital before, I won't need to now."

Rainbow Dash groaned. "You don't get it. I want to spend some-"

"I'll take her." Fluttershy quickly cut in. She knew that if Rainbow Dash accidentally revealed her feelings for Sonic like this then she would be extremely embarrassed. So the only thing for Fluttershy to do would be to keep Rainbow Dash away from Sonic while she was like this. Before anyone could object to what she said, Fluttershy grabbed Rainbow Dash's arm and pulled her towards the hospital.

"What about your wounds, Sonic?" Rarity asked.

"I don't know, bandage them up and put some ice on them I guess." Sonic replied.

"That doesn't sound like a good idea." Applejack said.

"Maybe you should go to the hospital with Rainbow Dash." Pinkie Pie said.

Sonic waved his hand dismissively. "I've had worse wounds without a trip to the hospital. I'll be fine with some self treatment."

Tails couldn't meet his friend's eyes. "I'm sorry that it was my machine that caused this. I should have given you a more detailed list of instructions."

"Don't worry about it. Even if you had, I would have done the exact same thing that I just did. Besides, think on the bright side, the explosion didn't cause as much damage this time."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Why don't we go home? I think I've had enough fun for today." The others nodded in agreement and they all went in seperate directions, besides Sonic and Tails, who walked together. None of them noticed the small metal lense sink under the sand as they all walked away.

Rarity smiled happily as she looked at her bed. After a full day of swimming with her friends, she was ready for a full night of beauty sleep. Just as she had sat down and was grabbing her blanket, there was a knock at her front door. Rarity sighed as she stood up, checked her hair in the mirror, and walked to the door.

"Who's there?" She asked as she opened the door. It was dark outside, and the streetlights barely provided any light. All Rarity could see in the doorway was a silhouette that looked like Sonic.

"Sonic, what are you doing out this late? Come in." Rarity grabbed the silhouette's arm and felt the cold feeling of metal. After that, she felt an electric shock flow through her body. Rarity crumpled onto the ground and didn't move.

"First target, acquired." A metallic voice said.

---

Next, we find ourselves in Fluttershy's house. She was also preparing herself to get some sleep. Just as she was about to climb into bed, there was a strange sound coming from outside. Fluttershy recognized the sound as some kind of wounded animal. With her instincts taking over, Fluttershy rushed out of her house to try and locate the wounded animal. All she found was a dark silhouette standing right outside her door.

"Excuse me." She whispered. "Have you seen a hurt animal?" The silhouette responded by placing a hand on her shoulder. Fluttershy then felt an electric shock flow through her as she fell to the ground, unconscious.

"Second target, acquired." A metallic voice said.

---

Now it's the morning, and we find our hero rising from his bed. Bandages were wrapped around his arms and the back of his neck. After doing a few quick stretches, Sonic walked out of his room to find Tails tinkering with some kind of machine.

"What are you working on Tails?" Sonic asked.

Tails looked up from what he was working on and said, "I'm making some long distance communicators to allow us to stay in touch while out on missions."

"That's pretty cool. These will definitely come in handy." Just then there was a frantic knock at the door. A second after thee first knock had finished, the knocking began again. Sensing the urgency, Sonic sped over to the door. He threw it open, revealing Twilight, who still continued to knock at where the door was.

"What is it?" Sonic asked, trying to stifle a laugh from the display at the door.

"Fluttershy and Rarity have gone missing!" Twilight shouted. Sonic didn't have anymore trouble stifling his laugh after that.

"Did they leave anything saying what happened?"

"Nothing! Just two empty houses!"

Sonic turned to Tails. "When we were in Gimme Shelter that other time, there was a computer there, right?"

Tails nodded. "Yeah, and it was a pretty big one too."

"Do you think there would be any recent data stored on that?"

"Maybe, but I'd only know if I were able to access the computer."

Sonic turned back to Twilight. "I'm going to need you to do me a slight favor."

"What kind of favor?" She asked.

"I'm going to need you to make another portal into Gimme Shelter."

"Are you crazy?"

"Slightly."

"I'm not going to do that, especially after what happened last time!"

"If you don't help me, I'm going to break in myself."

"You wouldn't."

"Are you willing to bet that?" Twilight still refused to create another portal. Partly because of how dangerous it was, partly because she had teleported them to Gimme Shelter on accident last time.

"Tails, follow me." Sonic said as he walked out the door and past Twilight. Tails got up and grabbed a few tools before following after Sonic. Twilight ran in front of the duo and stopped in front of them with her arms out to her sides, attempting to stop them.

"You're going to get hurt!" She shouted.

"Probably." Sonic said as he ducked under her arm.

"But what's the reward without a great risk?" Tails asked as he ducked under the other arm.

"You two are crazy!" Twilight shouted.

"Glad you finally get it." Sonic said without looking back. At first, Twilight fell to her knees and dreaded what could happen to the duo. Then, she stared at them in confusion, wondering how they could walk into danger with such courage. Finally, she decided to follow after the two.

"Is there anyway that you can get us into the base without tripping any alarms?" Sonic asked Tails.

"I don't think so." Tails answered.

"Good, then we get in my way." The three of them walked through Central City into Night Babylon. When they stood just outside of Gimme Shelter, Sonic cracked his knuckles and did a few stretches.

"What I'm about to do is stupid and really shouldn't be done. When I do it, I want you to sneak to the computer Tails, because we are going to set off a lot of alarms. I'll cover you." Sonic explained as he finished stretching.

"What should I do?" Twilight asked.

"It's going to be dangerous in there. Like you said, we could get really hurt. All I need you to do is stay out here, away from any of the danger." Twilight didn't like that idea. The thought of her hero throwing himself into danger while she stood to the side safely angered her. She agreed to his plan, but secretly decided to sneak into the base while Sonic wasn't looking.

"Alright then. 3, 2, 1, go!" Sonic shouted as he began a Sonic spin. He blasted right through the front entrance at full speed, and set off plenty alarms in the process. Tails jumped through the hole in the wall and rushed for the computer as robots climbed down from the walls.

"Just try and find the locations of Rarity and Fluttershy!" Sonic shouted to Tails. Tails nodded in response and began to get to work on the computer. "Alright metal heads, come and get me!"

The robots all turned to face Sonic as they're guns began to warm up. Sonic jumped into the air and put all of his focus on one robot. He then curled into the air at the peak of his jump, and shot towards the robot, propelling himself with pure focus and willpower. Sonic slammed right into the robot's chest and was propelled back into the air as the robot exploded. He repeated this pattern with the other robots all around the room.

Twilight began to slip through the hole in the wall and entered the base. Unsure of how she could help, she snuck off to the side and hid behind some metal barrels. Things seemed to be going well, until one of the robots noticed her over there. As soon as Twilight noticed the robot standing behind her while pointing a gun at her back, she screamed for help.

Sonic lost focus for just a second as he heard the scream. This second was all that was needed for him to mess up one of his homing attacks, leaving him vulnerable. Taking advantage of this, three robots all slammed down on his back with their guns at the same time. Sonic fell to the ground with a thud, and he had lost his breath.

Twilight saw this, and it made her steaming mad. She held up her hand towards the robot who was standing behind her. A circular shield went up around the gun. Twilight pulled her hand towards her, pulling the force field toward her. This ripped the gun off of the robot's hand. Twilight then grabbed the gun from the force field and pointed it towards the robot. It took a second, but she found the trigger and fired at the robot. A few holes appeared in the robot, and it fell over, no longer attempting to fight.

The robots that were surrounding Sonic were then shot by Twilight, freeing Sonic to get back up and get back in the fight.

"Are you almost done Tails?" Sonic shouted.

"Give me another minute!" Tails responded. So Sonic and Twilight held off the robots. There weren't anymore close calls, and Twilight held her own pretty well. Of course, Sonic always kept her in his line of sight just in case she needed his help.

"Done!" Tails shouted.

"Where are they?" Twilight asked.

"They're out at one of Eggman's bases in the Holy Summit."

"Good enough for me!" Sonic shouted. He ran towards Twilight and grabbed her hand. "Let's go, Tails!" Tails nodded and flew away from the computer towards the hole in the wall. Sonic ran in the same direction, dragging Twilight along with him. He threw Twilight through the hole after Tails had flown through, and then followed after them.

"Give me the gun." Sonic said. Twilight looked down at the gun and held it out to him grudgingly. Sonic took the gun, examined it, and then put it into his pocket as best as he could. "How deep in the Holy Summit is the base?"

"About five miles north." Tails answered.

"I'm going to run back to the house to grab a bag and then head out to the base. You two stay safe."

"You're not going without us." Twilight said.

"Yes I am. Eggman knows that we're coming after him so a team of one will be the best way to do this. Since I can get there the fastest, fight the best, and I'm the hero, it only makes sense that I would be the one to go."

"At least take us to the base with you." Twilight pleaded.

"After that stunt you just pulled, I'm not taking you anywhere near there."

"Wait, Sonic, take this communicator with you." Tails said as he held out one of the communicators from earlier.

"Have you finished these?" Sonic asked as he took it.

"It's good enough to work for now, just don't try and test it."

"I'll keep that in mind." Sonic turned around to run off, but his arm was grabbed by Twilight before he could run. She then pulled him into a hug.

"Stay safe." She whispered to him.

"When don't I?" Sonic asked before running away. He ran back to Tails' house and grabbed a backpack. He slipped the gun into it along with the communicator. After that, Sonic took off towards the Holy Summit. Five miles north would be no problem. He had made it to the base in no time at all. The main reason that he knew it was the base was the amount of robots in the area.

Sonic looked around to try and find the entrance. Once he saw the door, he looked around at the enemies. Not too many of them were located near the door, but all of them were equipped with enough fire power to kill anything trying to get to the door. Well, anything that wasn't moving at extremely fast speeds.

Sonic began to run in place, his feet becoming blurs. As he did this, he pulled out the gun and aimed at the door. Sonic charged straight at the door with great speeds and fired at the hings of the door. It fell over as he ran through.

"They just don't make them like they used to." Sonic muttered as he ran through the doorway. He was in the base now, and he had to make it to wherever Rarity and Fluttershy were without getting seriously injured or killed.

Sonic put the gun back in the bag and continued down the first hallway. There were many doors to the sides, but Sonic didn't know which one held his friends.

He pulled out the communicator. "Tails, do you happen to know where they are in this base specifically?"

"They're about two floors below you. That's all I've got." Tails' voice came from the communicator.

"Alright, that's all I should need." Sonic said before putting the communicator away. "I wonder if there's an elevator here." Sonic muttered to himself. Looking around, he saw too many doors. If he was ever going to get down two floors below him quickly, it wasn't going to be through the use of stairs or elevators.

Sonic jumped into the air and curled into a ball, putting all of his focus on the floor directly beneath him. He was then propeled downward with great force and slammed right through the floor. After landing on the floor below him, Sonic repeated the process.

"I really need to think of plans that don't involve me slamming my head through something." Sonic sighed as he rubbed his head. Looking around, he noticed that this floor didn't have many doors, and each door was labeled.

"All I have to do is find the room that they're being held in." Sonic said. It was then that the alarms went off. "Perhaps I should also avoid any robots that come my way." He ran towards the closest door and threw it wide open. Inside were a bunch of pods with a green liquid inside. The liquid surrounded some kind of figure in the pods, but Sonic didn't have time to investigate.

He ran to the next door and threw it open. Inside was a computer that seemed to be processing some kind of data. It went on like this for a few minutes, Sonic running to a door, opening it, and finding nothing of use inside. The strangest part was that no robots showed up within this time, even though the alarms were still blaring.

Finally, Sonic found the door that held his friends. He knew it was the right door considering it wouldn't open.

"Am I going to have to do this again?" Sonic muttered as he curled into a ball. He began to spin so that he could break through the door, but it opened just as he fired off towards it. Sonic bounced around the room as he attempted to uncurl. Once he finally managed it, he saw the destruction that he had wrought in the room.

Sonic shrugged as he scanned the room for his friends. He saw a cage in the middle of the room and decided that his friends would most likely be in there. He walked up to the cage and could hear a faint rattling from the inside.

"Anyone there?" Sonic asked as he approached the cage.

The rattling stopped and a voice said, "Sonic, is that you?" Sonic breathed a sigh of relief as he heard Rarity's voice.

"Don't worry, I'm here to spring you out." Sonic made it to the side of the cave and saw Rarity and Fluttershy sitting on the floor with their pajamas on. There was a lock on the door of the cage, and it seemed very complicated.

"Did you see this key for this?" Sonic asked. Both Fluttershy and Rarity shook their heads in response. Sonic sighed and looked around for something to break the lock with. When he found nothing, he pulled out the communicator and examined it for some kind of device that would pick a lock. Luckily, Tails had decided to add such a feature to the communicator.

Once the lock had been picked, the two girls quickly got out of the cage.

"Alright, let's get out of here." Sonic said as he turned towards the door.

"Wait." Rarity said as she held up a glowing blue gem.

Sonic's eyes widened as he looked at what she held. "A chaos emerald!"

The chaos emeralds are seven emeralds that are made of pure energy. Just one alone grants the owner considerable power, but when all seven are gathered together, the owner obtains the ultimate power. The fact that Eggman had one just lying around was absurd.

"Where did you find that?" Sonic asked.

"It was in the cage with us when we woke up." Fluttershy whispered.

"Why would Eggman just leave a chaos emerald in a cage where he was holding prisoners?" Sonic wondered aloud. "Anyway, we should get out of here." He took the emerald from Rarity and led the girls to the hole he had made in the ceiling. After helping them through the two holes, Sonic led them to the entrance of the base. That was when things started to go wrong.

Stationed outside of the front of the base was a whole squad of robots, each one of them pointing a weapon at the trio that walked out of the door. Sonic's ear twitched as the first robot fired. Sensing the danger, he pushed the girls out of the way, and just in time. After the first robot had fired, the other robots also fired their weapons.

Sonic held up the chaos emerald as the bullets were fired. He didn't know why he held it up, but he did anyway. Since he had pushed the girls away, the were out of the danger, but Sonic had no more time to react to the rest of the bullets. His body shook as the majority of the bullets met their mark.

When the firing had stopped, Sonic turned towards the girls. He collapsed while facing them, and they raced to his side. Sonic smiled and held up the chaos emerald. He didn't know what to do, but a voice in the back of his head seemed to.

"Chaos control!" Sonic shouted without knowing he did. Two things happened before the ability known as chaos control teleported them away. The two girls stared into Sonic's eyes and felt something inside of them change. He had taken many bullets while protecting them. Sonic had put his life on the line just to save them. Deep inside the two girls something had changed, a new feeling had surfaced. Rarity and Fluttershy had fallen in love with the blue hero.

Meanwhile, Sonic used the last of his strength to reach into his backpack. His hand moved around inside of it, searching for a specific item. His hand closed around an object in the bag, and there was a dinging sound as he grabbed it. After that, the trio were teleported out of the area and away from the robot threat.

When the blinding light faded from their eyes, Rarity and Fluttershy quickly looked around to find Sonic. They both saw him lying on the ground, blood flowing from some of his wounds. Both girls rushed to his side, trying to avoid touching him to make things worse. Sonic groaned as he pushed himself off the ground into a sitting position.

"You shouldn't move." Fluttershy whispered.

"I'm fine." Sonic said through gritted teeth.

"How are you even alive?" Rarity asked.

Sonic was able to force a smile and pull his hand out of his backpack. He was tightly gripping a golden circular object in his hand.

"A ring!" The two girls gasped.

"Yeah, the magical properties of the ring are stopping the serious wounds from killing me. If I had more I would be fine, but since I only have the one, I'm still going to have plenty of wounds. However, if I let this ring leave my immediate presence, then the wounds will come back and that won't exactly be good." Sonic explained.

Neither of the girls really knew what to say. After Sonic had just saved their lives and nearly died in the process. It was then that the two girls understood how their friends felt towards him. However, Rarity didn't know about Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy didn't know about Twilight. The one thought passing through their heads was that they couldn't let either of the other girls know.

Sonic grunted as he slowly got to his feet. Both girls rushed to his side and supported him.

"We need to get going." Sonic said through once again gritted teeth. "I may have gotten us out of the situation, but I didn't put us too close to the town."

"How far away are we?" Rarity asked.

"Maybe a mile or two from Emerald Town. I could get us there faster if I could run, but in the condition I'm in, running probably won't be an option."

"Don't worry," Fluttershy whispered, "we'll get you back." So the three set out, Rarity and Fluttershy supporting Sonic as they walked at a slow pace. At this point, Rarity would have been complaining about walking through such a dusty area, but she found herself unable to complain while she was helping her hero.

They walked for about an hour before a ringing noise could be heard. Sonic reached into his bag and pulled out the communicator Tails had given him.

"Are you alright Sonic?" Tails' voice came out of the communicator. "I haven't heard from you in a while."

"I'm perfectly fine. I found the girls and we're on our way now. We got into a fight against an army of robots, so that's why we're taking so long." Sonic responded.

"So you're all ok?" Twilight's voice asked.

"We're all fine, couldn't be better. We'll be back soon." Before anyone else could ask a question or object to his responses, Sonic put the communicator back into his bag.

"Why did you lie?" Rarity asked.

"I didn't lie, like I said, we're all fine."

"Maybe we are, but you're not." Fluttershy quietly objected.

"As long as I've kept everyone safe, I'm just fine. No matter what happens to me." Sonic answered. That statement made the girls smile. "Anyway, we should hurry, we should try to get back before dark so the others don't get too worried." The girls both nodded their heads and they all increased their pace.

Within another hour, Emerald Town came into sight. Rarity and Fluttershy were so happy they let go of Sonic and ran towards the town. Once that happened, Sonic stumbled and fell onto the ground, forgotten by the elated girls.

---

Tails was waiting by his workshop with Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie. The group of four saw Rarity and Fluttershy running towards them.

"You guys are alright!" Pinkie Pie shouted as soon as the two girls made it close to the group.

"I'm so glad to see you alright." Twilight said with a sigh of relief.

"I don't mean to be a downer here," Applejack said, "but where's Sonic?" Rarity and Fluttershy both looked at each other as they realized what they had done. After a brief explanation of Sonic's condition, the two girls led the others to where they had last seen the blue blur. It didn't take long for them to find the area, and all six people in the group gasped at what they saw.

It looked like a murder had gone on in front of them. Sonic's body lay motionless on the ground, and a lot of blood surrounded the body. None of them could see his face, so no one knew if he was even alive at that point.

"Sonic!" Tails shouted in an attempt to cause him to stir. When it became clear he wasn't going to move, the group rushed over to him. Tails put his fingers on Sonic's neck, hoping to feel a pulse.

"What happened to the ring?" Rarity asked.

"What ring?" Twilight asked.

"Sonic had a ring with him that he said could heal the worst of the wounds, maybe if we found it, Sonic could use it to get better."

"Don't bother searching for it. If he dropped the ring when you two ran towards the town, it would have disappeared by now." Tails said, still searching for a pulse.

"What do ya mean, disappeared?" Applejack asked.

"When a magic ring like the one Sonic possessed is dropped, there is a very short time to pick it back up before it disappears."

"There must be something we can do." Twilight said.

"I'm going to fly him to the hospital. I felt his pulse, but it's very faint. If I hurry, maybe I can get him there before it's too late." Tails said as he carefully picked up Sonic's limp body. Spinning his tails as fast as he could, Tails flew into the air and towards the hospital.

---

We now find ourselves with Rainbow Dash as she begins to wake at the hospital. As she opens her eyes, she hopes that being in the hospital was just a bad dream and that she was at home. To her dismay, she was met with the sight of her hospital room. Bored out of her mind, she turned to look out of the door. She saw Tails standing near the room, talking to a nurse. Hoping that he was there to take her out of the hospital, Rainbow Dash smiled and waited. She was surprised when he walked away without even entering the room.

Rainbow Dash then called in the nurse. "What was Tails doing here?" She asked.

"Mr. Prower was asking about his friend Sonic." The nurse responded.

"Why would he be asking about Sonic?"

"He was checked into the hospital last night in critical condition."

"What happened to him!?"

"I don't know, you would have to ask your friends or the doctors who worked on him." So Rainbow Dash got out of her bed, figured out the room Sonic was staying in, and quickly went to visit. As she approached the room she heard loud voices.

"You can't make me stay here any longer!" Came a voice that was easily recognizable as Sonic's.

"You're not in the condition to leave, you have to stay so we can help you!" Came an unknown voice.

"Just try and stop me!" Sonic shouted. A few seconds later, there was a loud crash that sounded like breaking glass. Rainbow Dash quickly hurried into the room and was met with a strange scene. One of the doctor's in the hospital was reaching towards the window, Tails was attempting to apologize to said doctor, and Sonic was in the process of escaping the hospital. It wasn't hard to put together what happened. Sonic had jumped out of the window in an attempt to escape.

When he landed on the ground, he took off running, attempting to get as far away from the hospital as he could. As Rainbow Dash looked upon the scene she couldn't help but smile at the brashness of her hero.

A few days later and Rainbow Dash is released from the hospital. Of course, one of the first things she decides to do once getting out was visit Sonic. After what had happened at the hospital, she was curious to see how he was doing. Imagine her surprise when she saw both Tails' house and workshop boarded up.

"What's going on here?" Rainbow Dash asked aloud.

"Who approaches?" A familiar voice boomed.

"Rainbow Dash." She had answered, unsure of what else to say. A hidden hatch then opened in the sidewalk beneath her. Without being given a moment to react, Rainbow Dash fell through the hatch and onto some kind of slide, sliding through a hidden tunnel. It would have been a lot more fun if she wasn't terrified about where she was going.

With only a minute passing, Rainbow Dash fell from the ending of the slide onto a mattress. Gathered around the mattress were Sonic, Tails, and her other friends.

"What the heck is going on?" Rainbow Dash nearly shouted in panic.

"It's a long story." Sonic sighed.

"After what just happened, I'm ready for a story."

Sonic stretched before walking over to a cushioned, circular couch that could fit the rest of them. After the others had helped Rainbow Dash up, they all walked over to the couch. Once they had all sat down, Sonic slowly took a seat, his face giving off signs of pain.

"As you know," he began, "I've been home for a few days now. Of course, hearing about my trip to the hospital, there was a crowd of my admirers waiting by the front door. It was the normal group, kids, adults, all kinds of people. Included in this, is the category some of us call, the crazy fangirl category."

"Those girls were crazy." Tails muttered. "Nearly pulled my tails off."

"Normally, we don't have too much of a problem dealing with these kinds of girls. Just a quick signature of some merchandise, maybe a quick wink in their direction, and then I can walk away. However, there was one girl who wouldn't give up. She had short, pink hair, a red dress with white going around the edges, and red boots with white stripes going down the middle."

"Don't forget the giant hammer." Tails quickly mentioned.

"How could I forget that hammer? There was a huge space cleared for the two of us just so people wouldn't get by that thing! Anyway, she was going on about the normal crazy fangirl stuff. How we would get married one day, how she's my biggest fan. The crazy thing was, she seemed to be younger than Tails! But she wouldn't give up!"

"So we had to board everything up and make use of hidden bunker just to avoid her!" Tails groaned, clearly not enjoying the fact that he was stuck down here.

Before Rainbow Dash could respond to the story, a young voice could be heard coming from a speaker in the corner of the room. "Sonic!" The voice screamed. Sonic motioned for everyone to be quiet, and everyone in the room fell silent.

"I know you're there!" The voice shouted. After a few minutes without being answered, the voice said, "Fine, I'll come back tomorrow!" And with that, everything was silent. After a few minutes, Sonic smiled and everyone else started to talk again.

"I need to get out of here." Sonic said. "Being cooped up in this space is driving me crazy."

"After that stunt you pulled at the hospital, you're not going anywhere until you're well rested." Twilight told him.

"Besides, what's outside that you can't find in here?" Rarity asked.

"Wide open plains, fresh air, adventure. Would you like me to go on?" Sonic responded.

"One of us should go with you." Rainbow Dash piped up.

"That would probably be for the best." Fluttershy whispered.

"I'll be fine, besides, you guys would just slow me down. If I'm going to go on a run to calm my nerves, it has to involve me running as fast as I can." Sonic said, attempting to stop any attempts of the others following him. The others looked as though they were about to argue, until Tails spoke up.

"There's no stopping him at this point." He said. "When he puts his mind to something, there's no stopping him from doing it." Sonic smiled at his best friend and walked over to the wall across from the couch. He then slammed his fist against a red button on the wall. A tube lowered itself from the ceiling and placed itself over Sonic. Rainbow Dash was the only one in the group who hadn't seen the exit from the bunker, and she watched the events with surprise. Sonic smiled at his friends before he was sucked through the tube.

Sonic laughed in entertainment through the whole process. Once he reached the end of the system, he was ejected from the roof of Tails' workshop. After landing in front of the building, Sonic smiled and took off towards the Holy Summit, excited to finally be able to run again. He had no clue that he was secretly being followed.

---

At the Holy Summit, Sonic ran over the mountains for hours, relishing the moments. If only that girl would leave him alone so he could get back to doing this all the time. If there was one thing Sonic hated, it was being kept from moments where he could run as long as he wanted.

As the sun began to set, Sonic decided to sit down on the tallest mountain he could see and watch as the sun set below the other mountaintops.

"Nothing beats a view like this." Sonic said happily.

"It's a better view if someone else is there to watch it." A feminine voice said from not too far behind. Sonic spun around and saw the girl he had described earlier standing on the other side of the mountaintop.

"How did you find me?" Sonic questioned, ready to flee at any moment.

"Once I saw you leave the workshop, I saw you run towards Holy Summit. Once I got there, I waited for you to stop, and then I climbed up the mountain after you." The girl said with a smile. She took a few steps towards Sonic, causing him to take a few steps back.

"If I don't show up again, my friends know where I am."

"Why wouldn't you show up again? I just want to spend some time with you."

"I don't even know who you are."

"I'm Amy Rose, you're number one fan!" Amy exclaimed with a smile.

"Number one fan or not, I don't spend my time watching sunsets with strangers." Sonic said, continuing to back away.

"I know that you hate being cooped up like you are. I know that you love to run free. If you let me sit with you to watch the sun set, then I'll make sure the crazy girls leave you alone so you can run around again."

Sonic was surprised. This girl definitely knew the proper way to negotiate with him. Still, he wasn't quite sure that he should go along with it.

"I don't know..." Sonic said tentatively.

"Plus, I'll deliver a fresh batch of chili dogs to you every morning." Amy said. Sonic knew there was no way he could resist this. The promise of crazy fans staying away and chili dogs made for him everyday was something he couldn't turn down.

"Fine." Sonic said. Even if Amy could bribe him, she couldn't make him trust her just yet. Amy squealed with delight and quickly sat down next to her hero. Sonic slowly sat down, his face once again showing the pain from his previous wounds.

Eventually, Amy was able to start a conversation with Sonic where he would keep the conversation going. She talked about her life, her home, and her friends. Sonic was begged to share the stories of his adventures from a first person perspective.

After some time had passed, Sonic found himself having a good time. The two didn't even notice when the sun had set. About three or four hours after the sun had set, Sonic stood up.

"I should be going now." He said as he turned to walk away.

"Do you have to?" Amy complained.

"My friends have probably been wondering where I've gone, and in the state I'm in, they're probably worried since I've been gone so long."

"Fine..." Amy gave in. "I'll see you in the morning then."

"Don't forget the chili dogs!" Sonic shouted as he ran off. As both of them left, they thought about two different things. Sonic thought about both chili dogs and how he possibly made a great new friend. As Amy walked back to her house with a huge smile on her face, she thought about how that moment she spent with Sonic was a date.

At that moment, Amy's mind molded Sonic into something that he wasn't. Her mind molded Sonic into her boyfriend.

When Sonic got back to the hideout, everyone but Tails had gone home. Once Sonic had explained that their troubles with crazy girls would be over, Tails excitedly jumped up from the couch. The duo exited the hideout and began taking the boards down from the windows and doors.

Once that was over, the two happily went over to Tails' house and into their respective rooms. While Tails flopped onto his bed, Sonic climbed into the hammock hanging in his room. They both slept peacefully through the night, thankful that they were able to return to their beds.

In the morning, the two were woken by a feminine voice at the door. Accustomed to Pinkie Pie doing this, Tails rose from his bed to let her in. He was not expecting Amy to be standing there.

"I brought the chili dogs!" Amy said excitedly. Tails quickly slammed the door.

"Sonic!" He shouted. Sonic rose from his hammock slowly, wishing that he could get some more sleep.

"What is it Tails?" Sonic asked as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Tails ran into the room with a scared expression on his face.

"I thought you said that you handled the situation." Tails said.

"Yeah, so?" Sonic asked with a curious look in his eyes.

"What is she doing at our door?"

"Oh, Amy got here with the chili dogs already?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I made a deal with her, she'll keep the fangirls away and bring me chili dogs every morning."

"What did you have to do for her in return?"

"I watched a sunset with her, a small price to pay for free chili dogs for life."

"Are you sure that was a good idea?"

"I'm about ninety percent sure this is a good idea." Sonic said as he made his way to the front door. Just in case, he took a running position before opening the door.

"I brought the chili dogs!" Amy said happily when the door had opened.

"Sweet!" Sonic shouted as he grabbed the plate, shut the door, and proceeded to stuff his face with the chili dogs. Amy knocked on the door, hoping Sonic would open it again.

Sonic did open it, and asked between mouthfuls of chili dog, "What's up?"

Amy smiled as she answered. "I was just wondering if you were doing anything today."

Sonic looked over at Tails, who still seemed apprehensive about the situation. "Do we have any plans today?"

"Do we ever start the day with any plans?" Tails asked.

"Good point." Sonic turned back to Amy. "Nothing yet, but with the way things go for me, some kind of plans should show up soon."

"Well, would you like to..." Amy began.

"Hey everyone!" Sonic shouted. Amy turned around and saw the six girls approaching. She had seen them with Sonic before, so she wasn't worried about trying to keep them away. At least, she wasn't worried security wise. In her head, those six could ruin her relationship with Sonic.

"Hi Sonic!" The six girls said in unison. When they saw Amy, they stopped in their tracks, wondering what was going on. Twilight, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash were angered at the sight of the stranger. They each hoped that she wasn't there because she was Sonic's girlfriend or anything like that.

"Who's this?" Pinkie asked.

Sonic looked at Amy, "This is Amy."

"Do you have any relation to her?" Rarity asked.

"I meet her the other day. She agreed to take care of the fangirl problem and bring me chili dogs everyday." The four girls previously mentioned breathed a mental sigh of relief. It seemed like Sonic didn't like Amy that way.

"So, any plans for today?" Sonic asked.

"We thought you would have something to do." Rainbow Dash said.

It was then that Sonic got an idea. "Well, during my rescue mission, we got a chaos emerald from Eggman's base. The problem is, it was just left in the cage with the girls. So the question is, why would Eggman do that?"

"Maybe he just forgot it there." Applejack said.

"Who would just forget where they put something like a chaos emerald?" Sonic questioned.

"Eggman sure wouldn't." Tails said.

"So how do we find out why?" Fluttershy asked in a small voice.

"Simple, we find the rest of them." Sonic said with a grin.

"But what if that's what Eggman wants?" Twilight asked.

"If Eggman wants me to be able to kick his butt even faster with the chaos emeralds, then who am I to complain?"

"How do we even know where to start looking?" Amy asked. Everyone except Sonic was surprised that she had invited herself into this, but Sonic continued as if she was in the plan the whole time.

"Tails, you still have the radar from when we found the emeralds the last time, right?" Sonic asked.

"Yeah, let me go get it." Tails said as he ran back inside to grab the radar.

"Alright, this could be dangerous, could take a while..." Sonic began.

"We're in." All of the girls said in unison.

"Couldn't even let me finish my inspirational speech..." Sonic muttered. "Anyway, once we can pinpoint the location of the first emerald, we'll set out, so everyone gather whatever supplies you'll need and then meet up back here. And, break!"

The girls all split up and went back to their homes to gather supplies. Within thirty minutes, Everyone was back together, except for Rarity.

"Where is she?" Sonic complained. "If I have to wait here for just a few more minutes, then I'm running off by myself." The others were about to respond when they all heard a creaking sound. When they turned to see what had made the noise, the could see Rarity pulling a giant cart filed with suitcases. Sonic face palmed while the others stared agape at the sight.

"Is everyone ready to go?" Rarity asked as she got within hearing distance.

"Everyone but one person." Sonic replied.

"And who would that be?"

"You." Sonic ran over and quickly grabbed the reins of the cart from Rarity's hands. He quickly sped away with it before Rarity could retaliate. Sonic pulled it all the way back to Rarity's boutique, left it inside, and grabbed a backpack. After quickly filling it with the true essentials, Sonic ran back to the group.

He handed Rarity the backpack and said, "There, now you're ready."

Rarity stared down at the backpack in her hands. "But how will I survive?" Rarity whined.

"You'll survive much easier with that small backpack than you will lugging around some huge cart."

Rarity looked up into Sonic's eyes, anger welling in hers. "How dare you take my belongings!"

Sonic began to get nervous. "Wait, what?"

"A gentleman should not take a lady's things from her hands!"

"Who says I'm a gentleman?"

"Well you should be one!"

Sonic turned to the others. "A little help?"

"Sorry, you started the fire here, this one's all on you." Rainbow Dash said with a smile. Sonic looked between Rarity and the others. Making a decision, Sonic turned towards where Tails had said the radar had picked up a signal of a chaos emerald. Flashing a quick grin, Sonic sped off as fast as he could. Rarity slipped on her backpack and began to chase after him.

"It's not polite to run away while someone is talking to you!" Rarity shouted. The others laughed before following after the two of them.

Rarity calmed down eventually. Throughout her pursuit of the blue hero, she told herself that this was just one of Sonic's quirks that she would have to deal with now. Ever since Sonic had rescued her, Rarity couldn't bring herself to stay mad at him for extended periods of time.

When the others had caught up with the two, the adventure truly began. They joked with each other as they walked, telling tales of times past. They covered a lot of ground, always following where the emerald radar told them to go.

Within a few hours, night began to fall. "My feet hurt." Rarity complained as the sun began to set.

"I don't see how, you had Sonic carry you for the last few hours." Twilight moaned.

"Maybe we should set up camp for now." Sonic said, happy to find a reason to put Rarity down. "Did anybody bring any tents?"

"I did." Tails said as he reached into his bag. He pulled out the supplies to set up a few tents and handed them to Sonic.

"This will be just a second." Sonic said as he grabbed the supplies. Within the blink of an eye, he had set up three different tents.

"Alright, Tails and I will sleep in one tent, the rest of you need to pick a tent to stay in." Sonic said as he walked away from his work. "While you figure that out, I'm going to get some wood to make a fire."

Sonic ran off and Tails went into one of the tents. The girls all turned towards each other. Everyone was wary of Amy, since they hardly knew her. After a while, they decided that Twilight, Amy, Rarity, and Pinkie would stay in one tent. The other tent would be occupied by Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Applejack.

Once they finished deciding, Sonic came back with wood for a fire. Tails came out of his tent and started the fire. They all sat down around it, soaking in its warmth. The stars began to sparkle in the sky and caught the attention of the adventurers as they sat there.

"Sure is a beautiful night." Applejack said.

"The stars are lighting up the sky like its some kind of party!" Pinkie shouted excitedly. A few of them turned their heads to face Sonic with a sparkle in their eyes, but he wasn't paying any attention to his friends that surrounded him. He stared off into the distance towards their destination.

Sonic went on adventures like these all the time, and life threatening situations were no problem for him, but he had so many people with him this time. The possibility that one of them would get hurt was so much higher with such a large party at his side.

"I need to go for a run." Sonic said suddenly. "I'll be back soon, and then we should get some rest for the journey ahead." He then ran off without another word. His friends could tell that he seemed troubled, so Rainbow Dash flew after him. She found him standing a few hundred feet from their campsite, and he seemed to be lost in thought.

"Is something wrong?" Rainbow Dash asked him when she got close enough.

"I'm just worried." Sonic said with. "I should have thought about how everyone could get hurt before I dragged you along with me."

"You don't have to worry about us, we can handle ourselves."

"You haven't seen what Eggman is capable of. I've seen things much worse than what makes it to the city. I've destroyed some terrible creations of his, and I never want anyone else to take my place."

"Don't you ever want to stop fighting Eggman?"

"Part of me wants to stop, but another part of me never wants to give up the thrill of fighting him. But nobody should have to go through all the fights I've been through."

"Why do you have to be the one to fight Eggman?"

"Because when the people needed a hero, I rose to the challenge and proved that I was the one that could save them all. Anyway, that's enough about my thoughts, let's head back to the camp."

As the two walked back, Rainbow Dash thought about what Sonic had said. She never really thought about his many fights with Eggman or what kind of toll they took on him.

When they got back to the camp, everyone said goodnight and separated into their tents. In Twilight's tent, Amy began to ask the other girls a few questions.

"So, let's have a little bit of girl talk." Amy said with a smile. "Do you have crushes?"

"Why would I have a crush? That would be weird? What does crush mean in that way anyway?" Pinkie began to ramble. Rarity looked over at Twilight, finally realizing something. She had helped Twilight to impress Sonic at Pinkie's party, and now Rarity had fallen for him too.

How could she admit that she had a crush on Sonic when she had already helped Twilight attempt to win him over. The could ruin their friendship, or, even worse, make Rarity seem rude and improper. In her head, Rarity promised not to talk about her crush on Sonic, but still try to win him over.

While Rarity had been thinking this, Twilight had been blushing furiously. She figured there was no use trying to hide it, since her face felt like it was actually on fire.

"I... kind of have a crush on someone..." Twilight said quietly, rivaling Fluttershy with her lack of volume.

"And who would that be?" Amy questioned, moving closer to Twilight.

"I don't want to talk about it!" Twilight said quickly. "Anyway, like Sonic said, we should get some rest." Twilight's voice had sounded strange when she had said Sonic's name, and Amy had noticed. For a second, Amy thought that Twilight had a crush on her Sonic, but quickly waved the notion away.

The four girls clambered into their sleeping bags and quickly fell asleep. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash was unable to fall asleep in the other tent. After an hour of tossing and turning, she got out of her sleeping bag and quietly left her tent, trying not to disturb everyone who was asleep.

Once outside, Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and sighed happily. The fresh air calmed her nerves and helped her to feel somewhat tired. She began to look around at the surrounding area, until her eyes stopped on a black figure in the distance.

When she looked at it, it seemed to radiate hatred. The feeling became so overpowering, that Rainbow Dash began to be afraid of standing out in the open in front of it. She turned quickly and ran into the nearest tent.

Once inside the tent, Rainbow Dash took a deep breath to calm herself. Once she felt as though she had adequately calmed down, she looked on the ground for her sleeping bag. While searching, she noticed that only two were on the floor and they were both filled. At first, that seemed fine since there were two other people sleeping in her tent, but her attitude soon changed when she saw who was sleeping in one of the bags.

Sonic's sleeping face was turned towards Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash knew that she should have left as soon as she saw Sonic sleeping, but the way that he looked while sleeping stopped her from leaving. She decided that it wouldn't be a bad thing if she were to lie down next to him for a few minutes.

This ended up being a mistake since she fell asleep almost at the same instance her head reached the ground. This was fine for a few minutes, until Sonic rolled over and his arm fell on Rainbow's side. The contact woke Sonic up, and his eyes widened when he saw Rainbow's face so close to his.

Sonic quietly rose from his sleeping bag, being careful to avoid waking Rainbow Dash and Tails. Once he was standing, he lifted Rainbow Dash into his arms and carried her back to her tent. After that, he started to return to his tent, but felt that something strange was in the area.

Sonic turned his head to where he felt the disturbance had been and saw only a black blur in the distance. When Sonic had blinked, the blur was gone. Shrugging of the sight as a delusion due to the need for sleep, Sonic went back into his tent and went back to sleep, the black blur still in his mind.

In the stillness of the night, crickets chirped, filling the air with a soothing music. On a night like this, it would make sense for everyone to be sleeping. However, in our band of heroes, there were a few people that couldn't sleep. Twilight tossed and turned, unable to keep still knowing that her hero was sleeping just a tent away. Rarity twiddled her thumbs quietly while hiding in her sleeping bag, facing a moral dilemma about what to do. Amy grinned as she pretended to sleep, waiting for the others to drift off before leaving the tent.

Unable to rest, the three of them all popped up and simultaneously said, "I need some air!"

The three looked at each other awkwardly, but all decided to rise and leave the tent anyway, leaving Pinkie sleeping in her bag (at least, they assumed she was sleeping). They ducked through the entrance to the tent one by one, and once through, they split up. Rarity walked off towards the nearby woods to clear her head, Twilight looked up at the stars to try and calm herself, and Amy wandered off without saying anything.

Rarity leaned against a tree and began to talk to herself. "Oh, what should I do? It's clear that Twilight's crush is on Sonic, and I know I shouldn't feel bad for liking him too, but why does it hurt so much? Sonic's such a child, the exact opposite of the type of man I look for in a relationship, but he's still managed to capture my heart. Why?"

As Rarity questioned herself, Twilight looked at the stars to psych herself up. She wanted to go over to Sonic's tent and just take a peek in. It isn't wrong if I just take a look at him, she convinced herself. Twilight began to take steps towards his tent from around the back. As soon as she came around and looked at the entrance, she saw Amy reaching to open the entrance to Sonic's tent.

"What are you doing?" Twilight asked, surprised to see Amy.

"What does it look like? I'm going into my darling Sonic's tent." Amy responded calmly. Hearing Amy call Sonic her 'darling' irritated Twilight, but also caused her to blush slightly.

"You can't go in there!" Twilight whispered harshly.

"And why not?"

"Because, he's asleep, and he's a boy, and you're a girl!"

"Alright, fine." Amy began to close the entrance to the tent and then stopped and began to smile. "What were you doing coming over here?"

Twilight began to blush even more. "I-I was just going to make sure everything was ok..!"

Amy was about to say more, but it was then that Rarity came back from the woods, drawing the attention of both Amy and Twilight. Not wanting to cause more of a scene, Twilight grabbed Amy's arm and dragged her back to the tent, entering back inside with Rarity following after. Not long after they had zipped up the entrance to their tent, the entrance to Sonic's tent opened.

Tails poked his head out and rubbed his eyes sleepily. He looked around, trying to find the source of the noise that he had heard, but gave up after a few seconds. The entrance was zipped up once more, and everyone was asleep, or, more precisely, back in their tents.

It was then that a low chuckle quietly sounded through the woods. "This is what I'm up against?" A deep voice questioned. "These fools will prove to be no problem." The woods brightened as flames began to appear.

"Now isn't the right time to attack, but I look forward to ridding the world of these fools." The deep voice said. The owner of the voice then raced away, leaving a burning trail behind it.