The morning sun slowly rose over the horizon, blanketing the Earth with a soft light. Sonic was still sleeping on the hill, relaxed and happy. As the sun's light reached his eye lids, the blue blur moved a little, before his eyes fluttered open. With a great yawn, the still sleepy hedgehog went to take a step forwards. And promptly tripped, forgetting he was on a hill.

Quickly, adrenaline woke him up fast, and he rolled into a spin, dashing down the decline. At the base, he hopped up, and looked around in newfound energy. As he did, a small honk sounded from his quills, and Sonic quickly fished out the little Flicky, who was dizzy from that whole spin. Chuckling, Sonic put the little critter down, as he looked around. It seemed to be barely morning, he noted.

Suddenly, he felt some vibrations under his feet. The cobalt speedster looked around, confused. Suddenly, a voice cried out; "Sonic, look out!" Before Sonic could respond, Natsuki leaped at him, pushing him as something burst from the ground. They both fell, but Sonic got up to his feet as soon as they hit the ground, and looked at this...thing.

It looked to be a giant drill, with long threads with wheels on the bottom keeping it up. At the very top was a familiar egg-shaped car, with an even more familiar egg-shaped man piloting it. Sonic felt Natsuki let go, and turned to see her running behind the nearby hill. 'Huh, getting cover. Smart.' Sonic thought, before facing to his long time adversary and giving him a glare.

The man looked down, and a giant grin broke out on him, giving his the image of a happy, jolly fellow. And then he spoke. "Ohohoho! Well if it isn't my pesky nemesis? Now, hand over tha-" he started demanding, hand outstretched, before he was suddenly smacked in the face with a rock. Sonic smirked, as the old man fell out of his hovercraft and onto the ground back first.

The hedgehog chuckled, before taking a step to help him up. It was the least he could do, the Doc looked like a turtle for Chaos' sake! Before he even took a step however, a rumble was felt by everyone there, and each and every one looked up to see the machine outfit itself with spinned armor, and the drill splitting into four smaller ones.

While Natsuki looked shocked and even more scared by this, Sonic just gave it a bored expression, and gave the Egg a look that just screamed 'Really? That's the best you could do?'. The mad doc himself was looking at the machine in awe, and only noticed Sonic's galre partially. Then, the drills started spinning, and Robotnik got up.

Sonic raised his fists, fully expecting him to at least get back on. But to his surprise, Robotnik turned around, and ran away as fast as possible. He looked up, and saw the drill coming down at him. 'Oh...' he thought, before quickly jumping out of the way. Landing next to the offending machine, he quickly spun and hit it in one of the flimsy supports, making it lean.

Sonic flashed a grin, before starting to rush around the machine. With quick strikes, he got 2 more of the supports out before it struck again, this time aiming right at the blur. To which Sonic jumped onto it's drill and ran the opposite direction of the spin, stopping the drill. Right as it stopped, Sonic leaped up right at the machine, and used one of his more newer maneuvers, homing in on the big light on it's eye and shattering it.

Sonic landed on the ground, and got up just in time for him to hear the machine falling apart behind himself. The stone rolled out of the cockpit and bumped the hedgehog's foot, catching his attention. He looked back at it, before putting it back in his quills, and went over to Natsuki. Said girl just had an awestruck expression as he walked over to her.

Sonic looked up at her and gave a 'What?' look. The manga reader could still only look speechless before a small ring was heard, snapping her out of her thoughts. She looked at a small device on her wrist, and got a wide eyed look. "Eep! I'm gonna be late!" she yelled, before starting to high-tail it out of there. Sonic watched her running for a moment, simply perplexed before shrugging.'Eh, guess I still can't understand girls.' he thought, before running after her.

While they were running, well, in Sonic's case jogging, the hedgehog couldn't help notice the way that Natsuki seemed to be running unevenly. Like a sort of limping gate, but he couldn't tell why. Before he could even get the chance to ask however, they already made it to the school, where Natsuki ran in without even saying thank you. Well, Sonic could live with that, as he decided to use this time now to go and find at least some of the Chaos Emeralds.

Before even that however, Sonic pulled the stone out of his quills, and looked at it's patterned surface. 'Now, what ARE you...?' Sonic thought, examining the stone. He tapped its surface, but nothing happened. No glow, no sound, it even felt like he was tapping nothingness itself. The Flicky popped out of Sonic's quills, but as it's gaze landed on the stone, immediately popped back into them, sending shivers across them. Sonic,none worse for wear, simply put the stone back into them, and dashed off, ready to start his search.

Hey guys, sorry for not updating in quite a while, I was helping with a lot of stuff. I'm getting back into this now, but be warned updates might not come out as fast as usual, mainly because I have lots of stuff still to do. I do have a question though. Should I change the name of this fic? And if so, what to? Anyways, see you all later!(Hopefully)