Meanwhile, in Tails' mountain home, Tails, who was wearing a pair of leather mechanic goggles, a light brown scarf and a pair of brown metal worker shoes, filled up a watering can with water from his purified water tank. Tails hurried over to his indoor garden and stopped by a tall, giant, light red tulip. He said good morning to the tulip as he watered it. The tulip slightly swayed from side to side, in response to Tails' voice.
Tails smiled as the tulip's petals started to become more vibrant. Tails heard the sounds of pots and pans crashing on the ground, followed by the muffled sounds of Sonic and Cream talking to each other. Tails let out an endearing sigh. He placed the watering can on the ground and strolled to his kitchen, to check what Sonic and Cream were up to. Tails, worrying what damage the two of them might have caused, apprehensively entered his kitchen. He looked around and spotted something by his sink; Sonic and Cream frantically tried to pick up all the stuff they knocked over.
"Ahem..." Tails said. Sonic, with a cooking pot on his head, and Cream suddenly stopped when they heard Tails. They slowly looked up at Tails with deer in headlight eyes. Tails noticed Sonic had a slightly bloody nose and a splodge of blood on the floor. Sonic awkwardly chuckled as he stood up and quickly placed all the stuff he was carrying on the kitchen counter.
"Heh...heh, sorry about your cooking equipment, buddy," Sonic said. Cream placed the stuff she picked up with the rest of Tails' cooking equipment. She bowed to Tails and apologised as well.
"No-no, don't worry about it guys I was the one who called you here and I'm partly to blame for the situation since I forgot to unlock the front door.". Cream tapped Sonic on the Shoulder.
"Huh?". Sonic looked down at Cream.
"Mister Sonic, you have a cooking pot... on your head." Cream explained while pointing at his head. Sonic placed his hand on the cooking pot and picked it up while having a slightly surprised expression. Sonic scratched his head while looking at the cooking pot.
"It seems I did.". Tails and Cream chuckled, which shifted into laughing, at Sonic's realization, which made Sonic laugh as well.
A few minutes later in Tails' command centre, everyone Tails called had arrived, which included Sonic, Cream, Amy and Knuckles, in their casual attire. Cream wrapped a bandage around Sonic's nose before placing it back into her bag. Sonic thanked her and the two of them hurried over to Tails' giant computer, like the one from the old resistance base.
"Alright Tails, what's the issue, is Dark Oak back?" Knuckles, wearing his iconic clothing plus a treasure hunter hat and silver bracelets with a single glowing green ring on each wrist, asked. Tails opened a map on his computer and zoomed in on an area.
"Around twenty minutes ago, my T-Bot detected an anomaly in space-time at this location. I even had one of the T-Bots scan the area and it detected an energy signature that matches the one the Phantom Ruby gave off.". Knuckles crossed his arms as the group took in what Tails said.
"Could that mean someone's trying to make another Phantom Ruby?" Amy, who was wearing a lavender dress, lavender headband with small horns on them, purple versions of her original shoes and a pair of purple reading glasses, inquired. Tails nodded his head.
"That's a possibility but the T-Bots in the area didn't detect any other machines there, so we can't be sure.". Sonic abruptly clapped his hands, getting everyone's attention.
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"Sounds like to me that we better get a move on, don't want to keep are mysterious new adversary waiting, right buddy," Sonic remarked. Tails nodded his head. Sonic quickly glanced at the computer screen.
Sonic mentioned he'll go on ahead before he, in a split second, ran over to one of the windows opened it, ran back to where he was standing ran at top speed to the open the door-sized window and launched himself through it. Everyone watched Sonic soar through the sky before somehow landing in the only forest on the entire island. Cream looked out of the window and stared at the forest Sonic landed in. After a few seconds of waiting, Cream's face got a little apprehensive.
"Is he ok?". She let out a relieved sigh when Sonic, well the blue blur of him running, out of the forest. Sonic created a sonic boom as he boosted off the island and off into the horizon. Tails put his computer into rest mode. Tails noticed Cream was staring at a case of seven crystal rings that all had two white bands on each of them, as Amy and Knuckles were exiting the room.
"What're you up to, Cream?". Cream turned to face Tails.
"What are those, Tails?".
"Not sure, Sonic gave them to me when he came back, after going missing for a week.". Cream tilted her head and asked if Sonic mentioned where he went. Tails shook his head.
"Nothing comes to mind but I need to get going, take care Cream.". Tails waved before flying out the room. Cream's expression soured as she lifted her arm at Tails. She signed and lowered her arm. She flew out the open window, closed it behind herself and flew back home.
The sounds of a waterfall drowned out the sound of all the wildlife as Shadow, whose red parts around his eyes and on his spines were a slightly darker shade of red and he also seemed to be slightly taller than Sonic, meditated, by floating above a small pond. He opened his eyes and spotted Sonic racing over the ocean, causing him to angerly sigh. Shadow rotated his head and looked in the direction of the waterfall.
"All right Cosmic, it seems som-". Shadow paused when he saw Cosmic, a green hedgehog with seven quills with spine tips that were a slightly darker shade of green. Cosmic had his eyes closed and was balancing on his head, underneath the waterfall. Cosmic opened his dark purple eyes and looked directly at him.
"What's up, teach?". Cosmic Spindashed and landed on his feet. He quickly brushed off his shoes, which were yellow with a white stripe running from his black sock to the front of the shoe, and put his gold wrist rings on. Shadow teleported to his eight inhibitor rings, two for each limb, and started to put them on.
"I saw Sonic.".
"Oh so, you're planning on fighting him again?".
"No, that's next Thursday, he seems to be preoccupied with something.".
"Something bad?". Shadow just remained silent. He looked up at the X-Tornado 2 as it flew above the island he was on.
Sonic shaded his eyes from the sun and spotted the island the anomaly originated from. He lowered his hand and instantly zipped over to the shore. He instantly came to a stopped and a painful-looking expression spread over Sonic's face. Sonic grasped his left leg and face planted into the sand. He let out a muffled scream before rapidly rolling around. Sonic let out one last scream before standing back up.
He wobbled his way over to a tree while holding his leg. Chaos energy emitted from his hand and into his leg. Sonic let out a relieved exhale and took his hand off his leg. He spotted the X-Tornado 2 approaching in the distance. He quickly stretched his legs before sprinting off again.
Meanwhile, on the X-Tornado 2, Tails opened the X-Tornado's communicator and tried to call Sonic, while he was looking at the ship's minimap. Knuckles punched his fist together while grinning.
"Do you have to do that every time you think of fighting?" Amy asked while she was polishing her hammer.
"Sorry,". Knuckles placed his fist on the bench. The group awkwardly sat in silence, waiting for Sonic to answer Tails' call. Knuckles slowly looked from side to side.
"SoOooOoo.... how's your store doing?" Knuckles awkwardly asked. Amy smiled a little in response to Knuckles' question.
"It's doing surprisingly well and Emi's been a great help.". Knuckles let out a relieved sigh.
"Maybe if you wer-". Knuckles interrupted Amy by fake coughing.
"You know I can't do that, restoring the Master Emerald is my top priority.". Amy just let out a defeated sigh. The call eventually went through.
"What's up bud?". Tails explained that a T-Bot just picked up some magnetic interference which he believes is coming from some kind of large flying machine. Tails quickly sent the coordinates to Sonic's phone. Sonic thanked Tails for the heads up before hanging up. Tails suddenly remembered something and put the X-Tornado 2 on autopilot and hurried over to the storage section of the X-Tornado 2.