-UNKNOWN LOCATION-

"Nnnngh…" Barry began to stir from his unconscious state.

"Wait," Barry thought to himself. "Wasn't I just running? Yeah…I was running…the diamond…" Barry could feel the diamond still in his hand. He didn't know whether to feel relieved or distressed. What he needed to figure out now was where he was. His senses were now recovering as he sat up from the ground. It was cold and wet; not the best surface to lie down on.

"Where…am I?" Barry could now clearly see his surroundings. He seemed to be on the sidewalk of a street in a city. At first, Barry thought he might've still been in Central City, but everything looked wrong. So very wrong. The sky was blocked out by dark clouds, the air smelled of pollution, and not a single person was on the streets. No pedestrians, no vehicles. Barry pressed his communicator to his ear.

"Guys, I must've blacked out. Can you hear me?" There was no reply. "Cisco, Caitlin, Dr. Wells, do you read?" Still no reply. "Oh no…oh no no no…where did I end up?" Barry was suddenly cut off by the sound of some kind of engine coming around the corner down the street. Barry fixed his view towards the sound of the engine and hopped to his feet, still feeling a little light-headed from the strange event. He walked over to the middle of the street and could see that the source of the engine was a very strange vehicle, but at this point, Barry needed to know where he was, and any kind of help would've been sufficient.

"Hey! Hey, stop!" Barry waved his hands to get the attention of the occupants of the vehicle. The vehicle stopped in front of Barry and the driver's side door opened followed by the passenger's side.

"Hey, listen, can you-" Barry couldn't finish his sentence because of the two occupants that came out of the vehicle. They were humanoid robots, but didn't look human at all. There was a red visor in place of where the eyes would go. The robots were also colored a silvery metallic color, had no mouths or noses, and had what looked like a gun in place of one of their respective hands. They were also bearing a logo of some kind of grinning head with a mustache and glasses. The robot that stepped out of the driver's side pointed at Barry.

"Unknown human, you are in possession of a Chaos Emerald. By the order of Dr. Eggman, you are to hand over the Chaos Emerald immediately. If you do not comply, you will be destroyed." The robot's voice was harsh and metallic, like it was made to unnerve whoever it was walking to.

"W-wait A Chaos Emerald? You mean this diamond I'm holding? And who's Dr. Eggman?" Barry tried to question the lifeless drone, but both robots aimed their guns at Barry.

"You have five seconds to surrender the Chaos Emerald," The passenger-side robot droned. Barry sighed.

"Alright, you two wanna put up a fight? Then let's fight." Barry zipped towards the driver robot and released a flurry of rapid speed punches while quickly moving to different positions around the robot to prevent getting attacked, but to no avail; it was like trying to dent a steel door with a feather. The robot finally figured out Barry's pattern and threw a punch at Barry, causing him to go soaring and hit the wall of a nearby building. The robots didn't hesitate to open fire on Barry, but because of his lightning fast reflexes, he was able to move out of the way of the projectiles which happened to be green lasers which left sizzling black marks where they hit the ground. Barry was now completely sure that wherever he was was, it was far ahead of Central City in terms of scientific progression.

"Great…how do I beat these guys?" Barry thought to himself. He suddenly remembered when he performed his super sonic punch on Tony Woodworth. Barry went so fast that his punch broke through Tony's steel skin, and the same looks like it could apply for the robots, but the problem was how fast did he need to go to break one of the robots? Mach 1 like with Tony? Or faster? Now didn't seem to be the time to think about it considering his life was at risk. Their armor appeared less dense than Tony's skin.

"Just gotta go 5.3 miles away and break the sound barrier again. No problem." Barry thought to himself as he dodged another laser blast and immediately took off in the opposite direction of the robots. Although the he wasn't familiar with the city's layout, all he could do was run in the opposite direction. He soon stopped at what felt like 5.3 miles, give or take. He turned back in the direction that he came from, took a deep breath, and began running back toward the robots with all of his might, but still making sure not to use the "Chaos Emerald's" power. After running a few more seconds, he felt it; he broke the sound barrier. He could see the robots quickly coming into his line of sight. Right at the last second, Barry gave one last push and thrusted his fist at the chest of the driver robot. As soon as his fist made contact with the robot's armor, the whole robot broke apart and its broken remains flew in every direction. He did it again; another super sonic punch. However, his little celebration wouldn't last long as his fist was in pain just like the last time and was so distracted by the pain that he forgot about the other bot. As Barry tried to regain his senses, the other bot fired its laser at Barry's leg, resulting in a direct hit. Barry let out a sharp cry of pain as he tumbled to the ground. The area of his leg that was shot was now severely burned. It wouldn't have be a problem with his accelerated healing, but he had bigger problems right now, like the passenger bot that was standing right above him and pointing its gun straight at Barry's head. As much as Barry wanted to hop on his feet, his burnt foot refused to cooperate with him. It looked like he couldn't escape in any way now. Before he could even register what happened, some kind of blue blur suddenly shot out of nowhere and knocked the robot's head clean off, causing the rest of the bot's body to fall limply to the pavement with a loud clang. Barry shifted his body to where he could see where the strange blue object landed. Barry tried to say something to what was standing there, but the thing that was there caused Barry's words to get caught in his throat. It looked like some kind of blue hedgehog standing on two legs with green eyes and red shoes.

"Hey, you okay?" The creature spoke, causing Barry to be even more shocked. "I was near here and heard a sonic boom, so I thought I'd check it out. I see you took down one of the bots. Anyone who can destroy Eggman's bots like that is good in my book," the hedgehog smirked. "Kind of a dumb question, but did that sonic boom happen to be caused by you?" The creature asked.

"Y…yeah, that was me," Barry was still in shock and unsure of what side this creature was on, so he vibrated his vocal chords when he talked to protect his identity.

"Well how'd you do it? I don't see a vehicle besides the one that those hunks of junk use," The blue hedgehog motioned towards the robot vehicle.

"Well, I ran," Barry answered. The creature raised a brow.

"Hold on, you ran as in super speed ran?" The hedgehog asked. He seemed to sound interested by the idea of that for some reason.

"Yeah, that's right. Look, it's a long story and I'm not sure I can trust you with the details seeing as how I have no idea where I am. The hedgehog raised another brow.

"How do you not know where you are? This is Robotropolis; a 100% robotic city, except for its tyrannical ruler: Dr. Eggman." The hedgehog grimaced just from saying the name. An enemy from the sound of it.

"I heard those robots mention that name. Said something about handing over a Chaos Emerald. I think they were talking about this," Barry held out and showed the diamond, which caused the hedgehog to jump back in shock.

"A Chaos Emerald?! How did you…" Whatever this Chaos Emerald was, it seemed to be of great importance. "It's a good thing you didn't give those junk buckets the emerald. Dr. Eggman uses the emeralds for his evil plans. He's always trying to either search for the others or take the ones that we own. The emeralds contain immense power that-"

"Wait a second, there are more than one of these?" Barry looked at the emerald then back to the hedgehog.

"Yup, there's seven of them in total, including the one you're holding. They give off powerful energies that we haven't fully made sense of yet."

"Well that probably explains how I got here in the first place," Barry rubbed the bridge of his nose. "If only I could somehow make contact with my friends, I could really figure out what's going on here."

"Hmm…" The hedgehog rubbed his chin. "I have an idea. Maybe my friends can help you. Can you stand up?" Barry replied by slowly getting to his feet.

"My leg is still a little singed, but I can run it off," Barry acknowledged.

"Oh, where are my manners? The name's Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog." Sonic held out his hand for a handshake. Barry felt that he could trust Sonic. Judging from the run-down state of this "Robotropolis" and how Eggman's bots attacked, Sonic isn't lying about Eggman being evil.

"Barry. Barry Allen," Barry shook back with a smile.

"So, Barry, you say you can run fast? Well, guess who can run fast as well? Just make sure you keep up," Sonic smirked and shot out of sight before Barry could reply.

"Oh, no way," A big smile grew on Barry's face. He couldn't believe it. Another person who could run at super speed like him. Without a second thought, Barry shot in the direction of Sonic and eventually caught up right beside him.

"Where are we going?" Barry asked as they passed the city limits and we're now entering the edge of a forest.

"Knothole, the home of the Freedom Fighters, which I happen to be a part of. We dedicate our time to stopping Eggman's evil schemes, and we're gonna help ya out." Sonic replied as they entered the forest by now. Barry suddenly felt good about the situation. Something in his gut told him that he was going to find a way out of this.