Amy, Cream and Cheese were relaxing by a stream, watching some Chaos talking when all of a sudden a shadow fell over them. Amy, Cream, Cheese and the rest of the Chaos whirled around to see Eggman in his Egg Mobile, alongside Eggman Nega and Metal Sonic 3.0 in another Egg Mobile that Eggman had built for him. Eggman and Eggman Nega flew closer, Eggman laughing like a lunatic.

Rouge, E – 123 Omega, Tails and Sonic were all taking a walk by a stream with Vanilla the rabbit. A couple of G.U.N. soldiers had stopped to have a conversation with Vanilla but had recently moved on again. the four of them were about to head over a bridge when Sonic's quills suddenly stiffened and turned upwards, sharpened and dagger like. Sonic froze and tried his hardest not to laugh.

"this is not a laughing matter." He tried to remind himself, spining around and scanning the landscape. A few minutes later, the others noticed his absence and turned around too. Just then a green, yellow and red portal appeared in the sky. Sonic emitted a low growl like noise then realized his quills were still tickling him. he stroked one of the upturned spikes and they softened a bit. At least the tingling stopped.

"time for a change of pace!" announced Eggman as he marched out of the portal with Eggman Nega who was holding Amy by the neck.

"whoa…" muttered Sonic. "Amy…!" his tone grew slightly more irritated as he noticed she'd managed to get herself captured.

"do it!" exclaimed Eggman. Metal Sonic charged out from behind him, dodging around Sonic and running past Tails before the fox even knew what happened. Despite Rouge and E – 123 Omega's efforts to stop him, Metal Sonic grabbed Vanilla and ripped her from their hands, causing E – 123 Omega to fall flat on his face. Eggman and Metal Sonic, Vanilla in tow, walked back through the portal.

"let's go!" exclaimed Tails, flying towards the portal. Rouge followed him.

"hey, get back here!" she yelled, her voice echoing as the portal disappeared.

"if you left it to me, I'll finish this here!" Sonic muttered, staring down Eggman Nega. Nega jumped back and Metal Sonic 3.0 appeared from behind him, thwacking Sonic under the jaw. Sonic came off his feet, backflipped and landed like a cat, his hieghtened durability had been enhanced by the odd tingling coming from his still slightly upturned quills and he had felt almost no pain. E – 123 Omega finally pushed himself up so he could aid Sonic. "let's get going." Sonic said to him and charged towards Metal Sonic 3.0 who jumped at him, legs outstreached. One problem with that. Sonic grabbed Metal Sonic 3.0 and threw him towards E – 123 Omega who Metal Sonic 3.0 tried to hit while he was flying. E – 123 Omega did an impressive backflip to avoid him and Metal Sonic 3.0 was sent crashing into the bridge and tumbling along it, but somehow managed to land on his feet. Metal Sonic 3.0 charged again, stopping just short of E – 123 Omega. When Omega tried to attack, Metal Sonic 3.0 dodged him and kicked him back. Sonic charged at him again and this time, Metal Sonic 3.0 swept his arm in a wide arc to the left, catching Sonic in the side and nearly causing him to roll off the bridge. Sonic scrambled away from the edgeas fast as possible. Water was something that really terrified him, but it had actually given him an idea. Sonic got back to his feet and kicked Metal Sonic 3.0's legs out from underneath him. for the brief period when he was in the air, Sonic spun around to gain momentum, then lashed out with one leg, kicking Metal Sonic 3.0 off the bridge and into the stream. Which was really surprisingly deep.

"that can't be good for him." thought Sonic, a cocky smile covering his face.

"yeah… neat." Sonic crossed his arms, admiring his work. "…Tails?" he looked around but the fox was no where in sight.

"Rouge and Tails went through the portal." Said E – 123 omega, confirming Sonic's suspicions. Then the two walked across the bridge to decide what to do next. Meanwhile, up in space Rouge and Tails jumped from the portal into the Death Egg MKIII and found themselves surrounded by robots.

"whoa…!" Tails looked around fearfully.

"this is what you get." Said Eggman plainly. Then he laughed. Two red robots grabbed their arms and held them behind their backs. Rouge risked a look over to Vanilla. At least she could be assured the rabbit was safe… for now. One of the red robots carried them through the Death Egg and threw the two into a black cage. Red laser beams appeared over the entrance, locking them in. Tails and Rouge rolled over and sat up, unfortunately the laser beams made it impossible to escape. Rouge stood up but Tails stayed sitting, if she wanted to try and find a way out, fine by him but he didn't think there was a way. After poking around, Rouge admitted defeat. Just then, Tails remembered he had his radar on him and pulled it out. he'd recently modified it to find certain specific forms of organic matter so he'd know where Sonic was if he ran off again. but it was also useful for finding other people, especially if they had a known unique character traight… Shadow the hedgehog was walking through a neighbourhood when he heard a buzzing noise coming from a comlink on his arm. Rolling his eyes in a 'what now?' sort of way, Shadow pressed the answer button.

"Shadow! Rouge and I got into some big trouble on the Death Egg MKIII!" came Tails' voice. Shadow huffed.

"ok. I'll take care of it." He said, turning to stare up at the sky. Rescuing Rouge and Tails would only be slightly more interesting than his walk, something he was only doing to make his day interesting, and if Dr. Eggman decided to get in his way, well that would make things a heap of a lot more interesting, as well as give him the chance to show someone the power of the ultimate life form.

"so as far as we know, Eggman has freed Eggman Nega and Metal Sonic 3.0 and created some form of teleport portal. He's also captured Amy, and Vanilla. Tails and Rouge are no nowhere to be found and we're going to assume they've gone to get Vanilla back."

"that is correct." Replied E – 123 Omega to Sonic's statement.

"…well we should probably find our own way onto the Death Egg MKIII and… help them I suppose? Or at least find a way of getting them back." Sonic threw the question at E – 123 Omega.

"either way would be something productive." The robot replied, plain as ever.

"well, I'll tell you what's not productive. Standing around here! Let's go!" E – 123 Omega led the way as the two headed off to see what they could do about Eggman's newest scheme.

Meanwhile onboard the Death Egg MKIII, Eggman was reviewing the data on Metal Sonic 3.0 that Bokkun had collected while inspecting him.

"not bad… not bad at all." Eggman muttered. He had to applaud his decendent's work. Meanwhile, Tails was playing around on his radar while Rouge was nonchalantly leaning on the bars of the cage trying to contemplate weather or not slipping through the lasers was possible or just charging through would work when Shadow appeared outside. Tails looked up from the radar.

"Shadow!" he said happily. The black hedgehog calmly, almost boredly, walked over and pressed a switch on the wall. the laser beams deactivated and Rouge and Tails exited the cage. "good going Shadow." Tails congratulated him and almost hugged him before remembering that Shadow probably didn't want to be hugged.

"so… what's going on here?" Shadow asked, eyes half closed, not exactly interested.

"um… well it's kind of a long story…" Tails scratched his head. "ya see…"

"it looks like a pesky rat has stuck it's nose in where it doesn't belong." It was Dr. Eggman. Metal Sonic dived forward, grabbed Shadow's arms and threw him from the room into the wall. Shadow hit the wall and rolled down a nearby set of stairs.

"damnit." Shadow growled at himself for not seeing that coming. He looked up in time to see Metal Sonic arrive at the top of the stairs. The robot started down the stairs towards him again. Shadow stood up and made sure he was ready this time. When Metal Sonic came too close, Shadow grabbed him by the neck and made a 180 turn. Emitting a low growl like noise of anger and annoyance, Shadow punched the robot sending him flying. Shadow snorted unimpressed then turned to a noise behind him. Rouge came shooting down the stairs riding on top of Bokkun. Rouge went shooting past Shadow who turned to watch her riding the robot like a surfboard until it stopped sliding and Rouge jumped off, cartwheeled in mid air and landed on both feet. "guess that was alright." Said Shadow, walking up with Tails.

"huh?" Rouge spotted something and Shadow and Tails turned in time to see a massive blue robot with a shield come running at them. The shield connected and sent all three flying back. two red robots had just finished reparing the wall Super Sonic had crashed through earlier when Shadow, Rouge and Tails smashed through it again. one of the robots turned and threw their hard hat on the floor while the other repeatedly smashed his face into his pickaxe.

"I can't… die here…" Shadow said to himself. But then Tails grabbed his radar again and typed an interception command to his red rocketship. Tails' rocket picked them all up and headed back to Mobius. Unbeknownst to them, Sonic and E – 123 Omega were being watched. Suddenly a dark shadow dropped down in front of them.

"you again?" asked E – 123 Omega. The purple, colourless striped hedgehog resembling creature just smiled, it's freaky yellow eyes shining with evil. Suddenly, it metaporphed into a gigantic version of itself, grabbing E – 123 Omega and throwing him as if he were a toy. When it turned to face Sonic, Sonic slid through it's legs and jumped up, kicking him on the back of his head. The creature turned, carelessly swinging one of it's arms in a wide arc, catching Sonic and sending him flying into a hole, which happened to contain a massive cannon. The cannon aimed at Angel Island in the distance and fired Sonic onto it. E – 123 Omega came flying at the creature and kicked him in the face, throwing him back but he recovered and flung E – 123 Omega backwards with a Chaos Blast. Meanwhile on Angel Island, Sonic saw a small band of dingos and heard them plotting to steal the Master Emerald. They then spotted Sonic and, not wanting to risk what he may (or may not have) heard, they attacked him. Sonic punched the first attacking dingo under the jaw and knocked him out before kicking the second attacking dingo back. the third dingo jumped on Sonic's back while the fourth punched him in the face. Sonic summersaulted and threw the thrid dingo off him with such force he actually fell of Angel Island itself. E – 123 Omega tried to punch the massive hedgehog like creature but it grabbed him and threw him to the ground before sitting on him.