The hedgehog paced, looking over the edge of the rocky ledge her and her brother were standing on. "Where is he?" She asked her brother, clearly frustrated, whipping her head around to face him, making her pink quills fly up for a moment. "He's always late!" She added, showing her digital watch to her brother for emphasis.

"Chill sis." The green hedgehog sitting beside her laughed. "He'll be here, don't worry 'bout it." He was leaning against the steep rock wall behind them with his eyes closed, drumsticks in hand, playing imaginary drums.

They were Sonia and Manic Hedgehog, and the city which they were now just outside of was Robotropolis. The plan was to go in and destroy a new SWAbot factory, and as always, it had gone wrong before it even started. This was, of course, by no fault of their own. Because their brother was, as always, late.

"When has he ever let us down?" He questioned his sister.

She opened her mouth to answer, but her brother cut her off.

"And not nearly, but how many times has he really not come through for us?"

"Hmph." She muttered, crossing her arms.

The green hedgehog beside her just smiled, his point proven.

Almost immediately after she spoke, a blue blur came and spun both hedgehogs around, Sonia falling on the ground.

"See, told you." Manic smiled, back in his original position with his back against the wall, his eyes still closed, and his drumsticks never missing a beat.

The blue hedgehog now standing in front of them laughed too, as his sister stood up.

"Sonic Hedgehog!" She yelled, facing him, and he jumped a little. "Why can you never just-"

"I know, I know!" He said, raising his hands. "Stick to the plan!" He rolled his eyes. "Cool it sis, I'm here, aren't I?"

Manic just laughed to himself again, watching his siblings argue.

Sonia turned to glare at both of her brothers. "Fine. You guys go plant the bombs then." She tossed them each a backpack that contained said bombs, and a pair of goggles each.

"Uhh... and these are for?" Sonic was looking at his goggles like they were some alien object.

"They're the new goggles Cyrus gave me. This way you can't trip any traps."

"Me? Trip a trap? You're kidding, right? Please tell me you're kidding!" Sonic asked incredulously, acting insulted.

His sister started to reply, but he had already grabbed his brother and vanished in a blue blur, leaving an afterimage and a cloud of dust in his wake.

The pink hedgehog, having been knocked down again, stood up and patting down her skirt, rolled her eyes. "Boys." She muttered to herself.

_ _ _ _ _

"Ok, let's meet back here in 20 minutes." Manic said as he and his brother stood at the outskirts of Robotropolis.

Sonic flashed him a grin, and asked "How about 20 seconds?" Without giving his brother a chance to respond, he sped off in the opposite direction, disappearing into a blur. A few seconds later, a sonic boom reached Manic's ears, and he grinned to himself.

Running of to do his own job, the green hedgehog soon came to the factory. He opened a map of the building on one of the goggles screens, so that it overlapped what he was seeing through the regular side.

He looked around quickly, pushing himself against the wall. He looked up and saw a metal grate, supposedly leading into the building's ventilation system. He grinned. He took a running leap, and kicked the metal grate. He kicked away from the wall doing a backflip, and grabbed the edge of the opening as he came back down. He knew some guards would have heard the noise of the metal cover falling to the ground, but by the time they arrived he was already out of sight.

As he crawled through the narrow metal shaft, he saw light up ahead of him. When he reached it, he looked down through another grate in the floor of the tunnel he was in. He saw some large generators in the room below. "Bingo." He said.

Jumping to the floor, he quickly took out the only two guards in the room before they had time to alert anyone else. He pushed passed the smoldering SWATbots and into the main room. He quickly placed each of his bombs, then went to make his way back to the outside.

Sonic hat to take out his own generator room, but he also got the control room, because let's face it, he was a lot faster. "Sonic?" Manic spoke through his headset.

"What up bro?"

Manic suppressed a laugh. "I'm done on my end, how about you?"

"Good to go!"

Manic could picture his brother giving a thumbs up, even though there was no one there to see him. "You know, that isn't necessary when you're on a headset." He told him.

"What? How did you?" Sonic sounded thoroughly confused now, and Manic couldn't help but laugh at him.

"Well? Can you two fool around when you get back? We kind of have a factory to blow up here, or did you guys forget?"

Manic and Sonic both fell silent, fearing their sisters wrath. "Uh... yeah. I'll be there in a sonic second." Sonic finally said.

Manic grinned again, then jumped back into the hole he left from entering. Once he was back in the shaft, he began making his way to his exit. He froze when he heard a voice. A real, Mobian's voice, not robots.

"Hey! Watch the tails!"

Manic crawled over to where the sound was coming from and looked down. He could barely make out the shape of two SWATbots at the end of the hallway, coming towards him. They were spitting out the regular, SWATbot speech.

'Blablabla, resistance is futile, blablabla, surrender now, blablabla, something Robotnik, you get the idea.'

As they got closer, he could make out a furry yellow shape in between them. A Mobian! And that must mean... that there was a robotisizer in this place!

He leaned down even more, trying to get a better view while not falling out of his hiding spot. The shape made itself known to be a fox, struggling in the grip of the two SWATbots. And surprisingly, he was... laughing? "Go ahead, robotisize me. Actually, I would love to see that!"

Manic watched as the shapes passed by underneath of him, and dropped down into the hallway once it was clear again. As he began to follow the SWATbots, he heard his sisters voice again.

"Manic! What are you doing in there? You're going the wrong way!"

"What? Sonia, there's a kid in here."

"...A what? What are you talking about?"

"You know, a kid? A small child? A young Mobian?"

"Manic! Be serious! I know what a kid is. But what are you doing following him? You're running out of time, you have to get out of there!"

"And leave him here? Sonia, he can't be more than 10, I swear. Are you saying I should just walk out right now, and forget about him? Sonia, think about it."

When she didn't answer, he flicked off his head set and continued down the hallway. He came to a large set of heavy metal doors, and knew the robotisizing chamber was probably just on the other side. Then he heard the machine starting up.

_ _ _ _ _

Sonic was pacing, except he was doing so at super sonic speeds, so he looked like a mini blue tornado, and was leaving deep scorch marks in the ground. "Well?"

"He just turned off his headset!" His sister suddenly yelled, removing her own and tossing her own on the ground. "Why he! I can't believe this!" She was going into her 'panic-mode', which Sonic knew from experience wasn't pretty. He felt sorry for Manic when he got back.

"So, what's he doing?" He asked angrily.

"He's following a kid."

"Well he'd better stop following the kid! He's only got 8 more minutes!" He tapped his foot impatiently for another couple of seconds, before revving his legs, preparing to go back and get his brother. Suddenly, he was jolded backwards, and looked to see his sister gripping his arm tightly.

"Hey! Whatchya doing?" He asked.

"Having both of you in there won't help the situation at all, Sonic. Manic can take care of himself, we'll just have to trust him."

Sonic hesitated, looking like he was about t argue. Then he looked down at his sister's hand again and sighed. He sat down and crossed his arms, one eye open, glaring up at his sister. "I hope you're right..."