The skies were blue, the clouds white and fluffy, a mild breeze blew across the expanse of green hills below.

Truly, this was a perfect day, thought Doctor Ivo Robotnik. A perfect day... To crush!

"Ooh, I quite like that one!" the nefarious Doctor suddenly said aloud inside his patented Egg Mobile, clapping his hands together as the machine automatically moved into auto-pilot at the lack of touch.

Truly a marvel of engineering, he thought as he pulled out a notebook to write down his latest villainous one-line.

"There he goes talking to himself again," Orbot, the Doctor's small red and roundish robotic attendant bemoaned, his synthesized voice sounding calm and refined.

"Why do you think he does that so much?" Cubot, Orbot's yellow squarish companion asked, his voice more high pitched and seemingly tuned to make him sound somewhat nasally.

"Oh quiet, you two!" Robotnik yelled and turned around in his seat to yell at his bumbling creations, "I do not talk to myself, why do you think I created you two?"

The two robots were quiet for a moment as they considered, before Orbot offered a suggestion.

"Manual labour?"

"Backup RAM?" Cubot chimed in.

"Extra eyes so you'll know we're being pursued?" Orbot pointed out the window behind them as he spoke.

"Emergency footrests!"

"To make you look comparatively competent?"

"Sous chefs!"

"See? Multi-purpose creations, now that's the sign of true genius!" Ivo went back to his journal before doing a double take, "wait what was that third one?"

The Egg Mobile jerked suddenly down and to one side, the tether attached to the bottom suddenly becoming strained and swinging from the capsule attached to it.

"What!?" Robotnik exclaimed as he turned around and looked out behind him, seeing a familiar biplane piloted by a two-tailed fox, "Tails, but then that means-"

He cut himself off as he pressed his face against the glass to look down at the swinging capsule and the blue menace he knew would be there,grinning back at him cockily.

"Sorry to drop in so suddenly," Sonic the Hedgehog quipped as he swung from one side of the Egg Mobile to the other, "but I'm gonna need to see a permit for these animals you're transporting!"

"Grrrr, Sonic!" the Doctor growled at his long-time nemesis, "you know full well that I'm banned from even applying for that paperwork!"

"Well that's what you get for being a repeat offender!" Sonic yelled and jumped onto the Egg Mobile proper, standing on the narrow lip on the front with his hands planted firmly on his hips "now we can do this the easy way or the hard way, your choice."

While his tone was overall fairly light, Sonic had Robotnik caught in a firm and aggressive stare. Clearly he wasn't prepared to let the Doctor off easily.

Robotnik quickly glanced back towards Tails and the Tornado as he weighed his options, before turning back to Sonic with a friendly smile.

The hedgehog tensed up.

"Well as tempting as your offer is, I'm afraid my plans are a little far along for that," he leaned back and smirked, "maybe if you were a little *faster* then giving up might have been worth my while."

"Excuse me?" Sonic's eyes widened and he let out a surprised chuckle, dropping his guard for just a moment, "if you want to see speed-!"

"How about you show me!" Robotnik took his chance while Sonic was distracted by the insult to his speedster pride to hit a button inside the cockpit, releasing the latch on the capsule with an audible clanking sound.

Sonic's eyes widened in surprise. He glanced to the capsule, falling away from the Egg Mobile. He glared at Robotnik who was grinning to himself. He looked toward Tails who was similarly shocked to see the capsule dropped.

The Tornado was still trailing behind, and even worse it wasn't equipped to rescue such a bulky object falling from the sky.

Sonic hopped over the cockpit, grabbed the back lip and lined himself up. He knew he had to get his trajectory just right to get to the capsule in time. He positioned his feet just right and kicked off, launching himself downward after the capsule and pushing the Egg Mobile off course again.

The time between the capsule being released and Sonic kicking off couldn't have been more than a second.

By the time Tails had reacted enough to steer the Tornado into a dive Sonic was almost at the capsule already.

Robotnik righted the Egg Mobile and grinned at his nemesis falling down to earth.

"Predictable," he sped away towards his latest secret base, chuckling to himself, "those fools will squander their advantages saving the animals and give me all the time I need to prepare my new ultimate weapon!"

He gesticulated wildly and laughed an evil laugh as Orbot and Cubot shrugged at each other.

Meanwhile Sonic was still plummeting to the earth alongside the capsule. His added momentum from his kick-off let him just catch up with the machine and he grabbed the huge yellow button on top with both hands.

"Alright, got it!" he exclaimed with a smile, the wind rushing past as he fell.

And he fell.

And his smile fell as well.

"Now what?" he asked, more to himself than anything else.

"Soooniiic~" Tails' voice rose above the rushing wind as the Tornado rushed down toward Sonic and the capsule.

The heroic hedgehog grinned for a moment before looking down at the rapidly approaching ground. There wasn't much time, and he knew they had to slow the descent of the capsule or...

"Tails!" he screamed to be heard by his pal and kicked his legs, "bring the wing in!"

Tails gasped as he realized what his friend was planning, "b-but Sonic-!"

"The plane or the animals we can only save one!" Sonic insisted, his tone clearly leaving no room for argument.

Tails yelled in frustration but complied, swinging the plane in irresponsibly close. He expertly guided the wings around his friend so that Sonic could hook his legs around the struts.

"Got it!" Sonic yelled as he firmly gripped the Tornado's wing struts with his legs, "now, pull up!"

Tails grunted again in annoyance. He loved his friend, but sometimes Sonic's daredevil antics were difficult to put up with.

Making sure to not slam Sonic directly into the wings, a very difficult task considering the situation, Tails pulled the Tornado in a mostly upward direction.

Immediately Sonic yelled out in pain, his body being strained between the pull of the heavy capsule and the Tornado's pull. The descent was slowed, but the ground was still quickly approaching and the pain made it difficult to focus.

"You're the one I was worried about, Sonic!" Tails yelled, "I can build a new Tornado, but if you-"

"I'll be fine!" Sonic screamed, "just keep slowing me down and jump out before you hit the ground!"

Tails' hands shook on the controls. He said nothing more, and just focused on the approaching ground. He tried to ignore his friend's pained screams for the five seconds before they were close enough to the ground.

"Now, jump!" Sonic yelled at once and unhooked his legs from the Tornado. Tails didn't question and just followed as his friend told him, letting the airplane spiral away and crash into a nearby rock as he flew safely away.

Sonic didn't get off so easily. A split second after letting go of the Tornado the capsule hit the ground and Sonic slammed face first into the button, releasing the shaken up animals, before bouncing off and tumbling along the grass for a few feet.

Sonic rolled to a stop and immediately looked to the open capsule. To his relief the animals were fine, and he let out a sigh of relief before a groan of pain.

"Sonic!" Tails' concerned voice rung through the air almost before Sonic could start feeling the pain from his reckless stunt, as the young fox touched down right next to him, "are you alright?"

"Ah, nothing an ice pack can't fix!" Sonic said boldly before jumping onto his feet to show off, only to wince in pain immediately, "actually, make it a full spa day for this one."

Tails sighed and shook his head, but smiled a little. He was too relieved in the moment to try and chastise his friend for reckless heroism.

Sonic returned the smile as he rolled his shoulders. While it the strain had hurt, he had been through a lot worse in the past and he knew he would be fine.

The two were broken away from their relief over the successful animal rescue by a beeping from Tails' hand. Just before escaping the Tornado he had grabbed the tablet computer he'd built.

"Oh, someone's calling us," Tails said as he pressed a few buttons and brought up a video feed, "Amy, what's up?"

"Tails! Are you okay? Where's Sonic?" Amy asked in a panic, the video feed of her face shaking and blurring as she shook her device on the other end, "is he okay? We saw you both falling and there was a huge crash and-!"

"Amy! We're fine!" Sonic said as he stepped behind Tails, bringing him into the frame on Amy's end.

"What do you mean fine!?" Amy yelled when she caught sight of Sonic, "you look almost like you had a fight with Metal!"

Sonic looked down at himself in surprise. He looked pretty dirty from his roll through the field, but Amy was pretty clearly exaggerating.

"Aw, come on," he started, it's not THAT-"

"Never mind that!" Knuckles yelled and grabbed the tablet from Amy, ignoring her protest, "are the animals alright? That's the whole reason we're out here in the first place after all!"

Tails looked over at the capsule, where the animals were staggering around dizzily but clearly were in better shape then Sonic at least.

"Well, they look a little shaken..." Tails said with trepidation before finishing more confidently, "but they're okay!"

"Alright, good," Knuckles said before looking off into the sky, "Robotnik went that way, I'm going to follow him."

"What, don't you think I can handle this on my own?" Sonic asked with a grin, "I bet I'll have the whole animal rescue finished up before you even get there."

"This isn't a game, Sonic," Knuckles said coldly and narrowed his eyes, "Robotnik was quiet for months, and now he's back on his old animal abduction game suddenly?

"Something's not right about all this, it's too simple."

"Knuckles is right," Tails stroked his chin thoughtfully, "whatever Robotnik is up to, it's gotta be more complicated than just what we're seeing now."

"Well then, I guess we'll just have to go find out the hard way!" Sonic said with a grin, "race you there, Knux!"

Knuckles tried to respond, but Sonic was already gone, speeding off in the direction Robotnik had fled to.

"Agh, darnit!" he yelled and shoved the tablet back at Amy, "take this, I'm going after him!"

"Hey! Rude!" Amy huffed and turned back to the screen, "sorry Tails, gotta go, I need to make sure those two don't get themselves into any more serious trouble!"

She turned the call off before Tails could respond, leaving him to sigh and talk to himself.

"Bye Amy, bye Knuckles, bye Sonic," he shook his head, "I'll catch up once I see what I can salvage from the Tornado."

He slowly walked toward his downed aircraft, thinking about Knuckles' words.

"I should do this quickly," he said with determination, "just grab my tools and run, Sonic might need me!"