The black hedgehog

A loud commotion outside woke Sonia up. She spent a few moments realigning herself with reality, and then looked in the direction of the noise, outside her prison.

There was definitely something going on out there. SWATbot were being destroyed mid-warning, and the sound of them exploding was ringing in her ears. Then it grew eerily quiet. Sonia wondered for a moment what was going on, when she heard a call of "Chaos Spear!" Something exploded against the door of her prison. Then she heard a sound. She recognized it immediately. It was the sound of a Sonic Spin.

Sonia held her breath as she saw a spinning ball of quills finish burrowing its way through the metal. The hedgehog uncurled and landed on the ground. Even though the lighting was poor and she couldn't make out his form too well, there was no doubt in her mind as to the identity of her savior.

"Sonic! It's you! I knew you couldn't be dead! But where have you been!? I-" The hedgehog held up a hand for silence and motion out the opening. He then turned and climbed through. Sonia stood there for a moment. That had been odd. Sonic had made no wisecracks, no comment, given no indication of how he felt about being with his sister again. Sonia walked towards the opening and slowly climbed through.

On the other side, she realized she had made a mistake.

The hedgehog had an uncanny resemblance to her brother. There were only a few differences. His spikes, in contrast to Sonic's cobalt blue, were black and the tips were red. His eyes were different too. They were red and hard and spoke of someone who took things seriously, unlike Sonic's brown eyes, which had always seemed to sparkle with his carefree nature. On closer inspection, his shoes were different too.

The hedgehog was standing there, with his arms crossed, watching Sonia as she emerged. For a moment, Sonia wondered if maybe this was her brother, and that whatever ordeal he had gone through while he was gone had changed him.

"Sonic?" She asked cautiously.

The hedgehog shook his head, "No. Although it's not the first time someone has mistaken me for him, but I had thought that his sister could see the difference"

"Then who…?"

"There will time for that later. Right now, we need to move," He grabbed her arm and pulled her along the corridor. Sonia then remembered something important. Manic.

"Wait! I need to find my brother!" She called to the black hedgehog.

"He's already being taken care of," He responded.

She wanted to argue but realized that at this point, she had no choice but to trust this mysterious black hedgehog. As they moved through the corridors of Robotnik's citadel, she noticed SWATbot remain strewn all over. Obviously this hedgehog had done a lot of damage on his way to her.

When they reached an intersection of corridors, Sonia spotted two Mobians running up. One of them she recognized instantly.

"Manic!"

"Sonia!?"

Sonia pulled herself free of the black hedgehog's grip and pushed passed him. She ran up to her dear brother and hugged him tightly. Manic didn't return the embrace, he simply pretended to be embarrassed.

"Missed you too sis."

"I'm so glad you're alright!" Sonia exclaimed, giving the green hedgehog a quick kiss on the cheek.

"As sweet as this is, we really need to get moving," said the other Mobian, a female bat who was questionably dressed.

"Did you get the other things we needed?" The black hedgehog asked.

"Of course, what do you take me for?" The bat walked up to Sonia and Manic and held out a paw. When Sonia looked, she saw that there, in the bat's hand, was a pair of crystal medallions.

"Where did you get these?" Manic asked.

The bat shrugged, "I picked them up."

Slowly, Sonia reached out and took her medallion from the bat's hand. Her medallion was shaped like a keyboard, even engraved with piano keys if one looked closely enough. She put the string loop over her head. The medallion came to rest on her chest, exactly where it belonged. She took a minute to admire it, contemplating all it meant.

Suddenly she was pushed very roughly to the side. She turned quickly just in time to see the black hedgehog become a blur. She heard the sound of laser firing. SWATbots! Quickly looking in the direction, Sonia was just in time to see the black hedgehog quickly spinball into three bots in succession, destroying them.

Wow. Sonia couldn't believe it. This hedgehog had to nearly as fast as Sonic, and he seemed so strong! Just who was he?

She couldn't dwell on it much longer. There were more SWATbots approaching. Instinctively, her hand went to her medallion and she activated it. It transformed into a real keyboard. She took aim at SWATbots and pressed one of the keys to shoot,

But nothing other than music came out.

What!? Something was wrong here. A glance at Manic behind his drums told her that a similar thing had just happened to him as well.

She jumped out of the way of a SWATbot laser. Why didn't their instruments work? The only other time that the crystal objects had failed to work was when…Sonia suddenly had a sinking realization. The medallions worked only as long as her and her dear brothers were in harmony with one another as long as, their occasional sibling rivalry aside, they still acknowledged and loved each other as family.

"Get down! Damn it!" The black hedgehog shoved Sonia out of the way of a stray laser. He became a black blur once again and there were several explosions as SWATbots were destroyed.

Sonia, however, was lost in her own thoughts. How could the medallions work if something happened to her or one of her brothers? A lump suddenly formed in her throat. What if something had happened to Sonic? Maybe that was the reason he hadn't come back yet. Because he simply wasn't around anymore. A voice in her head screamed at her, telling her that something could not have happened to her speedster brother, that there was likely some other explanation for the medallions to suddenly stop working. But another voice told her that it was still a possibility

"Chaos Spear!" The black hedgehog let out an incredible surge of spear shaped energy, which destroyed whatever remained of the SWATbots. "Come on!" He grabbed Sonia's arm, jolting the pink hedgehog back to reality. He pulled her along one corridor. Behind her, Sonia could hear Manic and the bat following them.

Up ahead she saw it. An exit in the form of a hangar. And the hangar door was rapidly closing.

The black hedgehog stopped abruptly. He turned around as Manic and the bat finished catching up. To the bat he said, "Can you get yourself out of here?"

The bat smiled, "If I can't, then the echidna's the better treasure hunter. And there's no way in hell I'm going to let that be true."

"Good." He reached over and grabbed Manic's arm with his free hand.

"Dude, what are y-WHOAA!" Manic never got to finish his sentence as the black hedgehog suddenly took off with both the pink and green hedgehog in tow. Sonia was surprised both by the sudden movement forward and the hedgehog's speed. He has to be nearly as fast as Sonic. The black hedgehog was moving forward using the jet skates that his shoes apparently were. At the speed they were going, Sonia wasn't even worried whether they would make it out of the hangar. SWATbots fired at them, but the black hedgehog easily jetted past them.

Sonia didn't start worrying until they were out the hangar. Below them, was a long fall. And there was nothing between them and the ground besides thin air. Suddenly, she wondered if the hedgehog who had rescued them was slightly crazy. She screamed as they began to fall.

"Grab on to me!" The black hedgehog yelled. Sonia didn't argue. She wrapped her arms around the black hedgehog's neck and shut her eyes. The other set of arms on the hedgehog's neck told her that Manic was also clinging for dear life. She was jolted as their decent was suddenly slowed. She managed to summon up the courage to look down. The black hedgehog had activated his jet shoes, and their apparent hovering capability, which was unable to hold up all three of them, nevertheless was enough to slow their fall.

The second they hit the ground, the black hedgehog took off again. Sonia wondered where they were going now. Other thoughts entered her mind. Who was this black hedgehog? Why had he saved them? And why had her and Manic's medallions mysteriously stopped working?

The black hedgehog came to a halt in front of a manhole cover. Sonia let go, thoroughly shaken. Manic did the same. Sonia heard something off in the distance. After a few moments, she realized that it sounded like a battle was occurring. Was Robotnik conducting another raid?

The black hedgehog walked over to the manhole cover and opened it up. "In here." He jumped into the manhole, vanishing into the sewers below. Sonia wrinkled her nose in disgust,

"Ick, do we really have to go down there?"

"I don't think we have much choice sis. There's going to be a whole bunch of SWATbots looking for us and without our medallions, we're pretty much powerless. As mysterious as this guy is, he did save our tails. I think we can trust him," said Manic as he walked over to the manhole and began climbing down the ladder, "Besides it's not that bad, I lived down here for years."

As Manic vanished down the manhole, Sonia slowly walked over. She turned around, and began climbing down the ladder. Manic and the black hedgehog were waiting at the bottom. A few steps from the ground she jumped off. The black hedgehog spoke again,

"This way, there's a meeting point where we're going to rendezvous with others."

As he began to walk off, Manic interjected, "Wait! What about that bat?"

"She can take care of herself," The black hedgehog replied.

"Who exactly are we meeting?" Sonia asked.

"You'll see. Now come on."

He continued walking. Sonia and Manic looked at each other. After a moment's consideration, they silently decided that they didn't have any other option and followed their mysterious rescuer into the underground tunnels.