Chapter 2

Sonic knelt down and knocked on the uneven part of the floor that he was standing on. He was unsure of exactly what he was doing, but the voice inside him told him exactly what to do.

The floor panel slid out from under his feet!

"Whoa!" Sonic yelled, It immediately registered in his mind that there was another floor not far down below him, but it took awhile for that sharp feeling in his chest to subside. He landed on his feet, and extended his arms out to the side of him. In front of him was an orange Mobian fox with two tails. He seemed to be typing away at the keyboard of a large supercomputer. Images of Super Badniks, messages from the Resistance (the organization that won back the world from Eggman's grasp), and lines of code ran across each little monitor. The fox spun around in his chair. A weak smile on his face, his eyes tired.

"Hey Sonic," The fox said, drowsily. "Glad you're here."

"Of course I am. What, you thought I'd be late?" Sonic tapped his foot and folded his arms, pretending to be offended. After a second, the two chuckled. "So, why did you call me here anyways, Tails?"

"Well, Sonic... you... might want to see for yourself," Tails' voice trailed off. He double clicked on an icon on the screen. A video file started playing. "My cameras captured this footage near the coast of Green Hill Zone, one of the calmer parts of South Island as a whole."

The video showed a storm in the distance, the sky purple and red with some strange particles. Not clouds, but something else. Little dots flew across the screen. Tails zoomed in and the dots turned out to be Mobinis, the smallest Mobian animals, who struggled to fly around the storm of earth and rock.

"No way!" Sonic yelled. He hated what he was seeing. And he knew just who it was behind it. "Eggman just can't leave us alone, can he?!"

As he said this, the screen went black. A paper-white figure came into view. Its features were indistinct, just black dots to suggest eyes. The camera shook a little. The figure opened its mouth to speak, but just as it did, the camera snapped back to the wretched scene of a devastated portion of Green Hill Zone. There was a loud crashing sound. A huge boulder tossed by the storm had crashed into the camera. The camera crashed down onto the ground, putting its flight capabilities completely out of commission. The screen flickered as the rock floated off into the storm. The video ended.

"Do you really think it's Eggman?" Tails asked. "This seems a bit out of his reach, if he's working alone."

"Has to be," Sonic replied. "Who else could it be? Witchcart, the witch who drives around a cart? Black Doom, the carnivorous alien regime leader?"

"I mean, Witchcart isn't as much of a push-over as you think," Tails argued. "And remember how Black Doom also opened a vortex in the sky?"

"Fair, fair," Sonic groaned. "I guess that means we should go check it out, right?"

"About that, I think you should go alone," Tails said. "I still have some stuff I need to do here." Tails paused. "Sonic, you should really come back to the Resistance... I know a few months ago, when we beat Eggman, you said you wanted nothing to do with it, and you wanted to be free of the responsibility... But we could really use your help right now."

"Nuh-uh, not happening," Sonic refused. He shook his head at supersonic speeds side to side. "Sorry."

"Alright, I guess," Tails sighed. "Well, good luck out there, Sonic. I'll give you the coordinates of the storm through the Miles Electric." The Miles Electric was the multi-function handheld tablet that translated languages, code, or communicate over vast distances. The possibilities were never ending.

Sonic gave a thumbs-up and a smile. "Well, see ya, buddy!" And with that, Sonic blasted out of the lab and ran up the ladder.

Tails laughed nervously. "See ya," He said.

Later...

Across the Xyaxis Sea, the body of water separating Westside and South Island, the sun shone brightly upon the hot, sandy wasteland of the Green Hill Zone. Or, as it's now called by the locals, Sand Hill Zone. This area was one of the hardest hit during the Great Eggman War, the aforementioned war where Eggman almost took over all of Mobius. Green Hill used to be a lush, beautiful and tropical sight to behold. It was also where Sonic made one of his very first stands against Eggman. When the war started, the Eggman Empire drained the water and chiseled out the land to make it suitable for further imperialization. This killed nearly all plant life in the Zone. When Eggman was done, pyramids with mechanical insides had been constructed, where prisoners of war would be forced to work for the empire they fought against just days before. The land was coated in an iron shell as sand replaced any lush water source that may have been found before.

After the war, the Resistance worked to restore Green Hill to the beauty it once was. This was made clear as Sonic ran across a cliff that overlooked a huge ravine that seemed to go down forever. Repurposed Resistance battleships with nozzles affixed to them that sprayed water onto the dead and dry sand dunes. Sonic entered Mach Speed and looked like beam of blue energy.

As he sped past a Resistance outpost, one bear Mobian cried out; "Sonic! It's Sonic the Hedgehog!" Other Mobians waved at the blue blur. Sonic slowed down for his fans, smiled his signature smile and waved his finger back and forth. Then, putting both arms behind him, he sped up again. He ran up a Jump Panel, which rocketed him into the air.

"Yahoooo!" Sonic exclaimed as he rocketed into the clouds. For a second, he felt like he was back in his first adventure, chasing Eggman through South Island to save the little critters that the mad scientist was stuffing into Badniks.

Sonic dashed downwards as he saw a slope below him. Wind blew through his spines, as he went into ball form and fell back down. As soon as he hit the ground, he boosted forward with the help of the Drop Dash. He rushed around a loop-de-loop, without a slow down. But then, the ground beneath him came to an end, forcing him to do the same. Skidding to a stop, he stopped right on the edge of a cliff. He flailed his arms, one foot off the ground, and then he caught his balance.

"Phew..." Sonic sighed. He took a step backwards from the edge of the cliff. The ground he was standing on just seconds ago gave out. Sonic, not concerned by this in the slightest, looked forward. Something had caught his eye. "Um... wow..." In the distance, a humongous towering mansion loomed overhead, piercing the sky, casting a dark shadow onto Sonic and his vast surroundings. Sonic looked up and tried to see the top, He saw the same red and purple particles from the video swirling above. The cliff that he was standing on before was swept up into the void above. Sonic reached into his bag, and pulled out the Miles Electric and sent a speech-to-text message to Tails. "Tails, I think I'm here," He said into the microphone. Tails appeared on the screen.

"Sonic! You're there?" Tails asked, a little panicky. "Uh, Sonic?" said Tails, with panic in his voice.

"Yeah?" Little did he know, a chunk of rock was heading straight for him.

"Behind you!!!" Tails shouted.

"What?" Sonic exclaimed, seeing the rock reflect off the screen of the Miles Electric. He ducked and braced for impact. Was this the end?

Not quite. His time had not come. Like a meteor, a red blur glid overhead and crashed into the piece of rock from behind. The rock exploded into a million pieces and were quickly sucked up into the void. The red blur stomped down onto the ground as Sonic's eyes focused. Knuckles the Echidna!

"Whoa, Knuckles!" Sonic exclaimed. "Thanks for the save, bud!"

"Heh, it's no big deal," Knuckles said modestly. "What kind of world-renowned hero would I be if I didn't save another?"

"I guess I owe you one, Knux. And cool hat," Sonic replied, looking at Knuckles' cowboy hat with stars on it. "But right now we have a bigger problem on our hands." Sonic gestured towards the mansion.

"What in the world is that?" Knuckles asked. "It's sucking up the ground!"

"Oh, hey, Knuckles!" Tails said over the Miles Electric. "Um... let me explain. This storm showed up yesterday. Since then, anybody who wandered too close to it, be it Mobinis, Resistance members, or even curious locals never returned. Some say they were swept into the sky vortex."

"So why aren't we being sucked up into the vortex?" Knuckles asked.

"Good question. Unlike us, there are Mobians that don't have any kind of special powers," Tails explained. "But you, Sonic, and I do. People like us have checked it out before, and while they didn't get swept up into the storm, they didn't find anything. So I thought that, if they can go here safely, why can't we?"

"And you didn't think to tell us this beforehand?" Sonic jeered playfully.

"Sorry, sorry... I was a little tired," Tails apologized. "But I didn't send Knuckles here. How did you get here, Knuckles?"

"The Master Emerald told me I should go here, obviously," Knuckles said, as if it was perfectly normal. Sonic and Tails exchanged confused glances through the screen. The Master Emerald is a precious gem with a power that can oust even the power of the Chaos Emeralds, seven gems with infinite power. However, Sonic never heard him say the Master Emerald could speak to him.

"What's going on with that huge mansion?" Tails asked. "That wasn't on any of my cams before. What gives?"

"I... don't know." Sonic sighed.

"What's wrong?" Knuckles asked, concerned.

"This mansion just kind of... showed up, right?" Sonic asked. "Who do we know who can make things appear out of thin air, and has a knack for being scary and intimidating? Likes purple and red?"

"Amy?" Knuckles asked, confused.

"No! Well, kind of... That's not the point!" Sonic exclaimed. He realized he was being a little harsh when he saw Tails and Knuckles' confused faces. He took a deep breath, and said very calmly and carefully: "Did they ever find Infinite?"

"Can't say they did," said Knuckles. "I'm the leader of the Resistance, so if they did, I would have been informed of it. Infinite and the Phantom Ruby was pretty much the reason Eggman could start the war. We've been looking for him, but so far, there's been no luck."

"Well, he could be anywhere. Who's to say he isn't right here?" Sonic asked.

"I think that's something we'll have to find out ourselves," Tails stated. "We need to see what's going on. And that mansion may have something to do with it. A base, maybe."

Sonic sighed. "You're right, Tails," He said. "So, let's crack this case wide open!"

"Yeah!" Knuckles cried, shooting his fist into the air. With that, the two ran towards the mansion, as a sinking feeling made its way into Sonic's chest. There was something wrong about this. He didn't know what, and he needed to find out.

As they approached the mansion, Sonic noticed something off about the surrounding vegetation. It wasn't dead like some parts of Green Hill, but it didn't look like Green Hill either. The grass was darker, and not just because of the storm overhead, it was less vibrant and colorful. There were plants that Sonic had never seen before in Green Hill or even the entirety of South Island. Palm trees were absent, so were sunflowers. They were able to be seen off in the distance, sure, but inside the storm there weren't any as far as the naked eye could see.

Within seconds, Sonic had reached what seemed to be the front yard. It was adorned with chiseled stones, a flowing fountain, rocks large enough to sit on, and dead oak trees.

"So, what now?" Knuckles asked. "Do we knock?"

"Maybe it's open," Sonic answered, unsure of himself. "Let's take a closer look."

Sonic and Knuckles ran up the steps, and got to the door.

To try to open it, go to Chapter 5

To peer through the windows, go to Chapter 4