Ah, the scenic shores of Yoshi's Island. The beaches... The trees... The psycho killer robots that had recently taken the place over.... It was a perfect paradise. Off in the distance, a small boat was quickly approaching the island. On the deck of the ship was Peach and Toadsworth, and Toadsworth was still arguing about something.

"Are you sure we can trust that rodent with this mission?" Toadsworth protested, "He's probably secretly one of Bowser's minions looking for an opportunity to kidnap you!"

"Uh, huh..." Peach replied, obviously not really concerned, "And since when did Bowser have hedgehog minions?"

"Er... What about those porcupos you fought in Subcon? He looks an awful lot like one of those! I bet his real name is Sonic the Porcupo!"

"For starters, porcupos were Wart's minions, not Bowser's. Secondly, porcupos were purple, not blue. Now, if you excuse me, I must go tell Sonic that he has to get ready."

Peach then went below deck leaving Toadsworth to try and think of another reason to not trust Sonic

"Hey! Maybe he's a blue spiny wearing an ugly toupee! I knew that fur looked a little fake! Princess!..."


Below deck, Peach found Sonic sitting in his bunk reading some old magazines that were lying around, probably to get some information about the Mushroom Kingdom.

"We're getting near Yoshi's Island," Peach began, "Are you ready to go?"

"Oh, yeah!" Sonic answered as he threw the magazines aside and getting up off the bed, "This boat is a little to cramped for me, anyway. I can't wait until I can get out and running again!"

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Peach asked, "It's pretty dangerous what you're going to do..."

"Hey, don't worry about me! I've dealt with Eggman's robo-goons hundreds of times! Even if he roboticized every living thing on that island, I could take care of it without breaking a sweat! See ya!"

Sonic then revved up and blasted past Peach and out the cabin door. By the time Peach got back on the deck of the boat, he was nowhere to be seen.

"Huh? Where did he go?" Peach wondered out loud to herself.

"If you're talking about our little blue hoodlum friend," Toadsworth replied, pointing at the skid marks all over the deck, "He just ran by here a couple of seconds ago. He ran towards the bow of the ship, which is tilted upwards, and used it as a ramp to propel himself into the air and all the way to Yoshi's Island! Now he's using our ship as a skate park! He's going to be the death of us all!"

Toadsworth stopped ranting when he saw Peach sigh and look out at the ocean.

"Uh, Princess? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine..." Peach mumbled, "I'm just concerned about what Sonic said. If Mario was sent flying from that explosion at Bowser's Castle, now we don't know where Luigi or Mario is. I'm confident that Sonic can protect the Mushroom Kingdom for the time being, but he's never fought Bowser before. If Bowser returns to the Mushroom Kingdom before Mario does, will Sonic be able to stop him? If not, who's going to?..."


While Peach was wondering about Sonic's capability of protecting the Mushroom Kingdom against Bowser, the Blue Blur was racing through the forests of Yoshi's Island. Noticing a tall tree, Sonic ran at it dead-on and, instead of coming to a crashing halt, began to run straight up the tree. Once at the top, Sonic took a moment to observe the surrounding area for any robots.

"Dang..." Sonic mumbled, "All these trees make it hard to see anything. How am I supposed to find any robots hiding below all of..."

Sonic was cut off when he suddenly felt something wrap around his leg. Looking down, he saw that his leg was now tangled in a chain with a mace hanging on the end of it, which was a dead giveaway that a Yoshitron had found him. Further down Sonic could see the Yoshitron retracting its tongue in an attempt to pull him in. However, since its tongue had wrapped around both Sonic's leg and the top of the tree, the chain wouldn't budge, thus causing the Yoshitron to begin pulling itself up towards Sonic instead of Sonic towards it. Sonic, meanwhile, struggled to pull his leg free from the chain.

"Com'on..." Sonic grunted, "Stupid chain. Gotta get this thing off my leg..."

Sonic eventually got it off, and not a moment too soon. Just as Sonic freed his leg and began to run back down the tree, Yoshitron had pulled itself to the top and tried to slice a chunk off of Sonic with his razor claw, but since Sonic had made his escape moments earlier, all Yoshitron managed to chop off was the top of the tree. When it realized that it had missed, the Yoshitron dug its claw into the tree as it descended, causing the tree to begin splitting into four long planks. When Sonic saw this, he jumped off the tree and spun-dashed straight into an adjacent tree. After banging around in the tree for a few seconds, he shot out the bottom just as Yoshitron had hit the ground. There was no way for the Yoshitron to dodge Sonic's spin-dash, and Sonic slammed right into its chest. After the dust settled, Sonic was standing triumphantly next to a slightly dazed but non-robotic yoshi. Sonic didn't get a chance to take a breather, though. Suddenly, a group of robotic toads came through the bushes. They were holding spears, and they were pointing them at Sonic.

"Oh, no..." Sonic cried sarcastically, "More robots. Whatever shall I do?"

Without missing a beat, Sonic curled up into a ball again and spin-dashed right at the small army. He bounced off all of the robots like they were bumpers in a pinball machine and, about five seconds later, all that was left was a pile of robot parts and a bunch of confused toads. Before any of them could say thank-you, Sonic ran off in search of more robots to destroy.


Meanwhile, on the Death Egg, Grounder was using his newfound power to boss some lesser robots around telling them to load the Egg Carrier.

"Hey, you!" Grounder yelled, pointing at a random robot that really didn't do anything wrong, "Hurry up! Robotnik wants all this stuff delivered to him pronto!"

During his ranting, a messenger robot approached Grounder from behind and tapped him on the shoulder.

"WHAAA!!!" Grounder screamed before turning around and seeing that it was just another robot, "Hey! What are you doing, sneaking up on me like that! You nearly gave me a heart attack!... Well... If I had a heart, that is... I just have an oil can there..."

"GROUNDER." The robot began, "SONIC HAS FOUND THE DEATH EGG AND IS TRYING TO DESTROY ALL THE ROBOTS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE."

"W-What!?" Grounder muttered, "H-How c-could he..."

Looking out a conveniently placed window, Grounder could see little explosions (complete with clouds of smoke) and a blue vapor trail going from one to the next.

"Aw, great... Robotnik's gonna kill me... Everyone! Load up the Egg Carrier as fast as you can! Unless, of course, you want to be reduced to scrap metal by Sonic..."

The mentioning of Sonic seemed to bring the robots morale up considerably. None of them wanted to be destroyed by Sonic, so they all worked about ten times faster to load the carrier up. A minute or so later, everything was loaded up and Grounder quickly entered the Egg Carrier and prepared it for lift-off.


Sonic raced up to the Death Egg just in time to see the Egg Carrier come out of the top of the giant base. When Grounder saw Sonic standing far below him, he decided to taunt him.

"Hello down there, Stupic the Hedgehog!" Grounder teased through a loudspeaker so Sonic could hear, "What an embarrassment! I'm all the way up here and you can't get me! It must be shameful not even being able to defeat one of Robotnik's assistances! Even if you search the entire Death Egg, you'll never find a clue to where I'm going! So long, sucker!"

The Egg Carrier's boosters turned on and it took off into the distance. Sonic didn't bother to follow, since he knew he was on an island meaning that he'd have to somehow cross the ocean if he wanted to follow him. Instead he ran back to the boat to report to Princess Peach. When he got there, he was greeted by a huge crowd of the yoshis and toads he saved from a robotic doom.

"Good job, Sonic." Peach began, "I believe I speak for everyone here when I say thank-you."

"Humph..." Toadsworth grumbled, "He may have proved his worth, but he certainly isn't as good as Master Mario!"

"Hey, old man, can it." Sonic grunted before turning his attention back to Peach, "Yeah, I managed to save a bunch of your friends here, but Eggman is apparently moving out of this base for good, and I have no idea where his new HQ is..."

"That's ok," Peach replied, "But a more prominent problem is locating those Emerald Stars before Bowser or Eggman does. Could you perhaps help us look for them?"

"Of course! The emerald part of Emerald Stars is from my world, after all! Where do we start?"

Sonic, Peach, Toadsworth, and all the toads Sonic saved went on the boat and made their way back to Princess Peach's Castle (the yoshis stayed behind since Yoshi's Island was their home, obviously). It was clear what Sonic, and Mario once he found his way home, had to do: Find the Emerald Stars.