"Sonic! You need to trust me!"

Sonic the Hedgehog, the Blue Blur and legendary hero of Mobius, did trust Tails Prower. He trusted Tails with a number of things; he trusted him to pick the right places to go out to eat whenever they'd hang out, he trusted him to make sure he remembered all of his friend's birthday's (including Tails' own), and he trusted him to completely disappear for an unspecified amount of time in order to find some way to destroy possibly the most powerful doomsday weapon Dr. Ivo Robotnik, better known as Eggman, had ever created.

Unfortunately, Sonic had found himself in the latter situation.

Typically, the power of the Chaos Emeralds and, by extention, Sonic's Super Form, were more than enough to put down whatever the evil Doctor. Be it a Death Egg, a Phantom Ruby, or something else, Sonic had always prevailed with the power of the Chaos Emeralds, but this new contraption was, to Sonic's utter disbelief, completely invulnerable to the invulnerable. It was another humanoid style suit, but not big and clunky like previous attempts; it was sleek, shining red and yellow frame, clad in a material Sonic had never seen before. It was only slightly bigger than Dr. Eggman's form, so it's maneuverability had drastically increased while causing it's hit box to suffer a dramatic descrease. It could take to the skies or operate on the ground at high speeds, and it was equipped with so many projectiles that Sonic wasn't entirely sure he wasn't using some sort of ritual to conjure up projectiles of all different kinds. The Blue Blur was almost surprised Eggman hadn't thought of this before.

Sonic wasn't worried for his health for NOW, of course, as he was totally impervious to damage; he couldn't get hurt, but he wasn't dishing out ANY punishment either. The new machine was taking hit after hit, and while Sonic was doing quite well in evading the arsenal of this Eggsuit, he had a feeling Eggman wasn't trying to knock him out of his super form; no, Eggman, who had fought alongside deadly enemies such as Metal Sonic and the Deadly Six, was fighting Sonic with an enemy Sonic couldn't fight at all.

Time. Sonic the Hedgehog was running out of time.

Soon, he would no longer be able to sustain his Super Form. He would fall back to Earth, quite literally, and this new mechanism would be the last thing he would ever see before Dr. Eggman finally removed the thorn from his side.

"You have to trust me!"

Miles "Tails" Prower had been getting readings on the suit since the fight started, as he traditionally did. Miles was already crazy smart when the two of them were just young, but since they had hit their early 20's, it was apparent that Tails was an absolute genius. His inventions and machines became more complex, more unbelievable, and much more useful than they had even already been; even the machines he would always use to analyze Sonic's opponents had kicked up several notches since their youth. Simple readings on speed and reach became fleshed out massively; typically, with Tails' new machines, he could get readings on the entire inner mechanisms on every robot and gadget Eggman had built. This changed the game for the pair, and thus, Eggman changed with it; when Tails went to read this new invention, his computer had exploded.

Sonic had feared the worst, and then he heard those words. Tails was going to get something that could beat this thing, and so Sonic had to trust him. He didn't know how long he'd take, but he knew it wouldn't be too long, and so he got up from the dirt he had so graciously been punched straight into and got back to work.

Sonic charged Eggman with a flying homing attack at the highest speed he could muster, but of course, it'd bounced right up. He was getting severly worried, but the most important thing was to buy time for Tails and to limit his physical exertion as to buy himself a few more precious minutes. Ducking under a missile fired from the Eggsuit, Sonic began hovering backwards just a few feet away from the mid-boost Eggsuit.

"I gotta say, Egghead, you've truly outdone yourself," he remarked, a smirk on his face. "I'm not really one for the arts, but I gotta admit it's real poetic how you'd try to finally kill me at a place like Green Hill. Remember all those ass kickings?" he asked with a snark. Eggman, despite the hedgehog's gloating, seemed to keep his cool as the two flew across the emerald hills and plains.

"It must be working well if you're stalling," remarked the Doctor. He fired a slew of bullets from the front of the suit, only to have Sonic dodge the attack almost faster than the eye could see. "It took far too long, but I've finally got you, hedgehog. If you land now and transform out of your Super Form, you have my word I'll make your death quick. Even your best friend has abandoned you." Sonic closed his eyes and let off a short chuckle at that one.

"Tails isn't the little guy anymore. Once he comes back, you're done for. And I mean real done. You've been proving to be MUCH more than a nuisance lately." Of course, the Doctor had always been an entirely legitimate threat to Mobius, but Sonic wasn't going to let him know that.

"I don't think so. You see, Sonic, I've been monitoring your Super Form across numerous encounters, and I've used the data gathered to give a live time status monitor right here on the screen in front of me. You have about seven minutes until your hourglass runs thin! I wouldn't count on your friend to save you!" Eggman flew up in altitude a bit before careening back downwards, which prompted Sonic to evade the attack by gliding to the right. He laughed wildly before resuming combat, but deep down, his nerves were beginning to rise.

Seven minutes! There's no way, he has to be lying, thought the Hedgehog as he evaded yet another strike. Attacking was useless, and would only exert him more; he had to be absolutely careful with exactly how much movement he could allow himself as to not waste any time, and maybe extend his invulnerability by a few precious seconds. That wasn't the only thing he had to look out for, of course; getting hit was out of the question, as any damage would impact the length that his Super Form could last. The attacks kept coming, but Sonic was smart about it; he couldn't stop moving, as the Eggsuit was far too fast to evade standing still, but he could do his absolute best to make his movements as minimal and fluid as possible. This lasted for a few minutes, until one of Sonic's attempts to evade a rocket was, to his surprise, a failure. It hit him directly in the shoulder, and spun him in air; the Eggsuit took advantage, and rammed straight into his prone and flailing body. The hedgehog soared across the Green Hill Zone, tearing the grass apart as he kicked up pounds upon pounds of dirt. The cruel reality set in; his time was almost up, and his power was fading rapidly.

"Tails…" muttered Sonic as he flew right up. The Eggsuit was coming at him at a blazing speed, and with absolutely all of his willpower, Sonic glided out of the way just in time. It flew past him, managing to almost sweep him off his feet, and to Sonic's inevitable horror, it began to slow momentum and then turn right back around. Sonic clenched his fist; he couldn't move out of the way this time, he knew. This was it; every battle, every memory, every conflict led to this moment. The power was surging out of his body, and this next impact would almost certainly knock him well out of his Super Form. The Eggsuit was gaining momentum, and so Sonic closed his eyes and braced for the hard impact. He began thinking of every battle he'd had with the Doctor here, with those ridiculous wrecking ball contraptions—

"SONIC! DO NOT MOVE!"

Tails!

Sonic's eyes shot open, but he didn't dare move an inch; whatever Tails had come up with, he knew in his heart it would turn the tides. The Eggsuit was careening towards him, and it was only picking up momentum. It had just about passed the halfway mark between him and where the robot had turned around to make it's charge when he saw a laser of some sort briefly fly towards him from the corner of his eye; he had an instinct to dodge it, but it was far too fast, and hit made contact with him right in his side. Expecting pain, he got the exact opposite; when that laser hit him, he felt a surge of power beyond anything he'd ever felt before. His muscles swelled with strength, and raw energy coursed through his entire body. Sonic felt like a shock had been delivered to a still beating heart, and with a burst he could only half control, he took off like shot directly at the charging metal suit.

"Oooh, this is gonna hurt," exclaimed Sonic, a smile painted wide on his face. The Eggsuit seemed to know that something had happened, but it seemed that the Doctor was still confident; he activated the boosters on the suit, propelling him further even faster. It didn't take long before they collided, with Sonic throwing the hardest punch he could muster. As it turned out, what he could muster was a lot.

There was an explosion of light. It was blinding only for a second, but it didn't last too long, because the end result was clear; the pieces of scrap that were the suit came raining down like confetti, with only a chunk slightly larger than usual reduced to a heaping pile of rubble. Sonic merely stared at his hand, still hanging right in air where the punch had connected; his super form had run its course, turning him back to normal, but he hardly seemed to notice.

What the hell…I couldn't even dent this thing in my super form, and then I destroy it with one punch? What was that?

The world creeped back into view, and it took a second for Sonic to register that Tails was calling out to him.

"Wooooohoooo! Did you see that! I mean, you were the one DOING it, but I still can't believe it! It worked! I mean, I'd been developing theorems regarding the chaos energy's reaction to—"

"Tails," Sonic said simply. "I've gone into hyper form, and I don't know if I've ever felt that powerful before. What was that? That..beam," Sonic asked. He was, of course, happy it worked, but he was still baffled by his almost immediate increase in power. His concerns grew further when a sheepish grin grew across the fox's face.

"YYYYYYYYYYeeeaaahhhh, about that," Tails began. "So, you uh, remember that Quantum Mechanical Time Portal Defilterer I had finally figured out? The one that used excess amounts of chaos energy to open dimensional portals?"

"Yes…" began Sonic, clearly suspicious of where the story was headed. Somehow, Tails' face flooded with an even deeper red.

"Well, I went to the Sol Dimension and, uh, well…I stole this." From his back, which Sonic had not noticed he'd had a hand behind during the course of the conversation, he pulled out a gleaming orange emerald, chiseled perfectly rectangular. There was no doubt about it; it was a Sol Emerald, and bright and brilliant as Sonic had remembered them.

"I focused the energy through a concentration beam and fired away at your super form. I actually had no idea how the Emeralds would react to each other, but I began to develop theories after seeing you and Blaze use their powers in conjunction. As it turns out, the chaos and sol energy blend to create something crazy powerful; and that was only with one!" Tails had a beaming, thrilled smile on his face, but his jolly attitude dropped to the floor when he saw a tidal wave of anger surge through the now-blue hedgehog.

"Tails, you just took an artifact that Blaze has sworn her LIFE to protect, and now she won't know who took it! She'll search far and wide all around her world to find out what happened to it and she's gonna be so pissed when we take it back—" Sonic stopped mid-sentence as Tails' grin once again grew sheepish; he was hiding something, and once Sonic realized what it was, a look of pure horror spread across his face like wildfire.

"Oh gods, Tails…she didn't see you take it, did she?" The look on Tails' face was all he needed to know.

"No no no no no no no no no…" began Sonic, starting to pace back and forth. "Tails, Blaze will kick all of our asses. We're gonna have MUCH bigger problems than damn Eggman! She could be here any—wait, where's the Doctor?" Sonic and Tails looked around Green Hill, which had been carved and torn apart by the ensuing battle, but there was no Doctor Eggman to be seen; he'd escaped during the aftermath of the explosion, it had seemed.

"Well, Egghead is gonna be the least of our problems," Sonic remarked, turning back to Tails. "You just stole an inanely powerful gem from another dimension, and Blaze is gonna want a real good explanation for it."

"You're damn right about that," came a voice from above.