The story so far: Knuckles has moved the Floating Island. Meanwhile Bark's boss has shown interest in Bean's abilities.
Sonic and Tails drifted in the ocean. They were somewhat annoyed by Knuckles' approach to getting them to leave, but had realised it was the only way to get back to the mainland. The sea was calm, and the pair had headed back for the Green Hill Zone.
"Sonic," Tails said worriedly, "Do you think everyone will be mad at us?"
"Huh?" Sonic said confused. He had been enjoying a relaxing raft ride over calm waters, as best as he could.
"Well we may have beat Robotnik, and broken his mind control over Mobius, not to mention undid his Chaos Compressors global blast, but at the same time the Floating Island crushed half the Green Hill Zone, and we can't forget about all the people who must've died when Westside Island was destroyed." Tail said; his eyes to the sea bellow.
Sonic knelt down next to the fox, "Listen, these things happen. It is a tragedy, and there's no guarantee that there won't be other tragedies in this stupid fight, but we can't let Eggman win. If he wins everyone loses. You understand that li'l bro?"
"I think so," Tails mumbled.
The rest of the trip was quiet. Tails had nothing to say, and Sonic was too busy thinking about everything Kintobor had told him in the past three days. In particular Sonic couldn't get over the fact that Robotnik was one of the Servers of Chaos, and that Kintobor would stay as Robotnik, the longer Robotnik was exposed to Chaos Energy. Sonic didn't quite understand why he was the Prime Server, or why Knuckles wasn't one of the servers when Bean was, but he dismissed that, trying to perform a mental check of everyone he'd seen harness Chaos Energy.
The Green Hill Zone came in to view. To Tails' surprise it wasn't as badly damaged as he'd thought. Tails could see that much of it had been crushed, but for the most part the populated areas of the zone had been missed. As the pair dismounted from the raft, they were greeted to a heroes welcome by the populace. A small rabbit informed the pair that miraculously nobody had been heart.
Tails smiled slightly hearing that news. He was relieved to find hope in himself again. Sonic smiled to him as the Anthro's of the Green Hill Zone cheered in his and Tails' honour. Sonic's ego got the better of him as he told the audience the story of how he'd saved the day, and due to Bark's insistence to not be mentioned as involved, the story Sonic told was very different to the one that had actually happened, and as Tails noted, contained numerous plot holes so unanswerable, it'd leave many people wondering the logic behind what had happened. Tails put this mostly down to Sonic not understanding what exactly Robotnik had done, and partially down to Sonic's ego.
It was dark when the pair of them eventually made there way back to the lab. Tails sighed as he saw the wreckage. "Looks like I'll have to repair the place before I can work on a new plane Sonic," he said quietly.
"Don't worry about it now Tails," Sonic said, resting under a tree. I dunno about you but after that feast we just had I need some shut eye. We'll deal with everything else tomorrow."
"Everything else?" Tails questioned, "What else needs doing?"
"Well, firstly," Sonic answered slowly, trying to think himself, "we must get to those Chaos Emeralds before Robotnik. If they can extend his existence, then we'd better keep them away from him." Sonic shuddered. He didn't even want to think what might happen if Robotnik managed to tap into the power of the Chaos Emeralds.
"What else?" Tails asked.
"Well I dunno about you," Sonic said, "But I intend to check out many of those escape pods, see if we can find Robotnik. I also want to check those continental bridges. The one from Westside Island earlier had Mega Mack running through it, and I've got a feeling the others might do to."
"Yikes," Tails said quietly.
"Yeah," Sonic replied, "But once we've done all that we can get back to normal. No doubt Eggman will come up with another plan soon, and we'll have to be ready. Robotnik's got more of an incentive now, so there's no telling what he might try," Sonic paused, "anyway, enough of all that. It's late, and I think we should get some sleep," he said, laying against a palm tree. Sonic closed his eyes.
"Hey Sonic."
"Yes Tails?"
"Why didn't you hand Kintobor the fake emeralds instead of the Grey Emerald back in the lab?" Tails asked, still confused on that detail he'd heard Sonic mention to the public earlier, "it would've meant Robotnik wouldn't have got to Kintobor, and he might've figured out how to stay as Kintobor."
Sonic didn't answer. He rolled over, his back to Tails. Mentally Sonic kicked himself for what was a very hasty decision, that had it panned out the other way would've saved Mobius from Robotnik's evil ways.
"Kintobor will be back," Tails said, trying to cheer Sonic up, "It may be a little longer but he'll be back.
"We had him," Sonic said angrily, "We had everything as we wanted it, and it still got messed up," Sonic punched the tree he was resting against. Tails didn't say anything; there was nothing he could say. Sonic would calm down with sleep, thought Tails
"Sorry," Sonic said, realising he was making Tails uneasy, "We'll get Kintobor back, and beat Robotnik. I swear it, even if it's the last thing I do. You hear me Robotnik? I won't rest until you're gone forever!"
Both Sonic and Tails drifted to sleep soon after that. A small mechanical bug looked at the pair. It whirred slightly, sending a confirmation signal over a scrambled radio frequency before hiding itself amongst the ruins.
Will Sonic ever get Kintobor back? Just what was the bug transmitting? There's only one way to find out, keep reading.
