Rocket and Sally were currently in Castle Acorn analyzing the machine they had liberated from Eggman's stronghold. Rocket took apart the machine and found the other magnets.

"What exactly are those, Rocket," Sally asked.

"I'm not sure myself, Sal," Rocket replied as he held the magnets in the palm of his hand.

"Whatever these things are, Shadow, Sonic, and I are all wearing one." Rocket then noticed something etched onto the magnets, so he grabbed a magnifying glass and took a closer look at the magnets.

"Find something?"

"Yeah. Looks like these have a tiny letter etched into them. There's two different versions of these: ones with an S and ones with an N. Looks like there's three N's missing from this set. I'm sure that's the magnet class Shadow, Sonic, and I have on us. The only question is what they're programmed to do," Rocket said.

"We need to find that out for ourselves," Sally said. Suddenly, the rest of the magnets started glowing. One of the S-class magnets attached itself to Sally's back and a magnetic field was created that bonded Rocket and Sally together. Seconds later, the other six magnets went to find their rightful targets.

"OK. Now we know what the magnets were for. The S magnets were for the girls while the N magnets were for the guys. Eggman planned this from the start. I should've known that. The magnets' purpose was to incapacitate us so we wouldn't interfere in any more of Eggman's schemes. Guess he was one step ahead of me this time. He knew that we would be looking for a weapon of destruction, not a trashcan. He knew what that thing did when we didn't. Guess he won this time."

"Are you crazy? You never let Eggman win in the past, but you're letting him win now. What happened?"

"Look at what's going on. We're stuck together in a magnetic field that the magnets on our backs created. We can't fight like this," Rocket said.

"You're not being yourself. Just think of what you would do if it was Blaze instead of me," Sally said.

"Well, I did come up with a way that can let us do anything despite being magnetically bonded to each other."

"Good. Use that so we could get back to the others."

"Right. Follow my lead. I got a plan," Rocket said before he and Sally walked out of the room.

"This is just great. I get stuck to the one person Rocket and I both don't like: Amy Rose," Sonic said while Amy was magnetically bonded to him.

"Come on, Sonic. We can make this work. Besides, I get to be next to my favorite person in the world without that annoyance to get in the way," Amy said.

"Somebody call my name," Rocket asked as he stood in the doorway.

"Hey, Rocket. I guess you were the only one unaffected by the machine Eggman made."

"I don't know about that." Rocket then walked into the room with Sally magnetically bonded to his back.

"Is Frost here," Sally asked.

"Yeah. Frost, Rocket and Sally just came in," Sonic said.

"One sec, Sonic," Frost said before coming into the room with Blaze magnetically bonded to his back.

"I guess Leaf and Silver are the only ones unaffected by the machine," Rocket said.

"Yeah. The only question is 'Who else was affected?'"

"That would be us," Knuckles said as he and Julie came in the room.

"Guess we're not the only ones who are magnetically bonded," Julie said.

"Join the club, Jules. We're in the same state you two are right now," Frost remarked.

"So why is Blaze magnetically bonded to you and not Leaf?"

"I don't know. I guess opposites really do attract after all."

"He's right. Fire and ice are polar opposites, and by extension, so are him and Blaze."

"Well, I can't go around like this all day," Frost said.

"Maybe you don't have to," Rocket said.

"What do you mean?"

"Follow me. I just remembered something." Rocket and Sally walked out of the room with the others following close behind.