AN: A quick note here, Pink Annoyance's birthday passed so make sure when you review that you say, "Happy Birthday Pink Annoyance!"If you see any mistakes or anything, I'm posting this on the bus since I didn't update twice last month.

I waited too long, I apologise. But it's here now!I've hit 7.7k reads on this story and I'm very thankful to my loyal and witty readers. Thank you so so much!

Enjoy!

Tails' Workshop

Time: 12:00pm

Sonic sat with his stomach full of satisfaction. The taste of chilidogs always helped him to get his mind off the constant stress that he had to face recently. His relaxation was soon short-lived because as soon as he took a sip of water, the door opened with a stressed looking Team Chaotix.

"Hey guys, how did it go?" Sonic inquired. He had a finger crossed behind his back for good news.

Vector scratched behind his neck, Espio walked upstairs to take deep breaths on the balcony while Charmy buzzed off to find Cream and Tails in the kitchen, not wanting to be part of the news.

"Well...I don't think you're going to be pleased with this." Vector stated.

Sonic frowned in worry.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, uh. G.U.N wasn't impressed with us not finding anything at all. They said that the other team that they assigned had done miles better than us and that if we wanted to get the Chaos emerald, that we needed to work harder for it." Vector explained.

Sonic banged his fists on the table. Before Sonic could speak, Vector said something else that had shocked him.

"They also told me that Shadow is paralysed in the hospital and Rouge's wing got damaged because of us."

Sonic stood up and looked into the distance in confusion. Yes, he was worried about the people he was ordered to hurt but he was surprised that Amy had come out of the base with no bruises at all. If you don't count Blaze's outburst.

"Did you hear anything about Amy from them?" Sonic asked.

"No, they said her cheek was burnt but they said that it was from the mission," Vector replied.

'So she hasn't told them a thing, huh?' Sonic thought to himself.

Surprisingly, even though Amy wasn't on the team anymore, she still kept her loyalty. Sonic sighed as he knew he'd be seeing her later on.

"Gather everyone into the living area please," Sonic ordered Vector.

Vector nodded and went to gather everyone who had now returned from their lunch break.

"Hey Sonic, I'm heading out now. Do you want anything before you go?" Sally announced.

Sonic looked at her. They were the only ones in the room right now.

'I could always be honest with Sal and tell her that I'm going to meet up at the club with Amy and Rouge, but she'd probably flip and force me to come with her.' Sonic thought.

That would've been a silly move to make though. Why would his girlfriend stop him from trying to see an ex-friend? He wasn't a wuss and he wasn't going to chicken out of this one either. He was Sonic, the Hero. He was going to save himself from the stress and face his problems head-on. Something he wasn't keen on doing but he knew that he had to do it.

"Sonic?" Sally questioned, snapping him out of his train of thought.

"Oh, no Sal, stay safe," Sonic said, giving her a thumbs up.

Sally pouted and folded her arms in mock disappointment.

"Oh really? No affection before I leave?" she teased.

Sonic started to sweat with nervousness. This was not helping the situation at all. He stood up and walked over to hug her. Suddenly, she crashed her lips against his. When she felt Sonic was not returning the kiss, Sally looked up at him with a dejected face and sighed.

"What's wrong Sonic? I'm going away for two days and you're acting strange. Are you hiding something from me?" Sally inquired.

Sonic started to sweat. He was being too obvious about this. He covered up his troubles with a fake smile and kissed her on the cheek.

"I've just got a lot of stuff on my mind, Sal. I'm sorry. Just be careful when you go to Knothole and tell your father I said hi." he replied.

Sally eyed him suspiciously before genuinely smiling and winking at him.

"Alright, see you soon," she spoke and then left.

As soon as he heard the front door close, he relaxed and let go of a breath he didn't realise he was holding.

'What's taking Vector so long?' Sonic asked himself.

G.U.N HQ

12:47 pm

Saying that Amy was royally pissed off was an understatement. She was fuming. Not only that, but she was feeling all sorts of emotions at the moment. After reading that diary, she could not believe her eyes. On top of that, the news Rouge gave to her wasn't helping the situation at all.

Tapping her fingers angrily on her knees as she waited outside to hand in her mission report, she reluctantly remembered what she had laid her eyes on a few moments ago and grit her teeth together as her quills threatened to bristle in anger and betrayal.

(Flashback.)

Amy swiftly connected her wrist communicator to her computer via Bluetooth. Then she put her USB stick into her computer to save the diary onto there on top of the mission report. She then decided to take a deep breath before opening the diary. She decided to read from the start out loud.

Dear Diary,

I shouldn't be writing like a little child who portrays their little fantasies onto paper, but who else do I have to talk to instead of these useless talking machines? Moving on, these good for nothing freedom fighters have been snooping everywhere and so has G.U.N trying to find out my next plans. Alistair Rose and I have decided to come up with a new plan to crush the freedom fighters first. I have an IQ of 300 and these baffoons think I sit there and do absolutely nothing but design robots. All we need to do is just find out one of their vulnerabilities and exploit it against them. For now, I used Alistair Rose and put him into a container somewhere in this base. He was very unwise to try and trust one of the planet's most evil geniuses.

Amy gulped as she continued to read the rest with Rouge standing behind her. She took a deep breath to prepare herself.

After a while, I looked through Alistair's' background and connections. Of course, I had a good enough reason to leave him in the darn container after I found out that he had connections with the pink brat on the freedom fighters. However, when I checked through some records, I saw that Alistair had done something to his daughter. So I released him and surprisingly, he still wanted to work with me and answered all of my questions. He suggested an idea that would work. Though this base was too dangerous to stay in, I told him to prepare and make plans to visit one of our old bases which had the necessary equipment to pull this off.

"Damn, why didn't he explain the idea?" Rouge questioned. Had he anticipated that someone was going to read it?

"I feel like going to that base is a trap," Amy said, furrowing her brows in confusion and betrayal.

"Why?" Rouge questioned.

"Well. for starters, my mother is on holiday with my father right now. Also, do you think Eggman would leave a diary this important hanging around? Also, check out the date it was written." Amy replied.

Dated: July 15th XXXX

"There's only one way to find out," Rouge responded.

"Wait. Let me hand in the mission report first." Amy spoke.

(Flashback ended.)

Amy whipped her work phone out of her pocket, not caring if the call could be traced. She dialled her mother's phone number. She needed to know where her father was. She had never deemed her father to be an evil person or work with Eggman. She needed to know the truth now.

Ring Ring...Ring Ring...Ring—

"Hello? Aria Rose here. If you're here to ask me to complete any surveys, I—"

"Why hello there, Mother. Long time no see." Amy interposed.

There was silence. Amy's mother hadn't expected to receive a call from her daughter.

"Hold on dear, is this Amy?" Aria replied in shock.

"Yes mum, I'm calling to see if Dad's there with you," Amy responded, cutting to the chase.

"Of course he is dear! You sound so grown up since the last time I've seen you—"

"Don't lie to me Aria. This is serious. Where is Father?" Amy growled.

"..."

"Well?"

"Your father left as soon as he heard the news...that you were no longer with the Freedom Fighters. I tried to ask him to stay, I told him that you were a big girl and that you would be alright but... he insisted that he had important matters to tend to," she replied.

"Important matters like what, Mum? Leaving you behind? You know you're easily sick and the one time I trust you two to go on holiday without me, you guys do this? Why didn't you call me straight away Mother?" Amy complained.

"He insisted that I didn't. That you needed time to yourself because you were probably hurting Amy."

"What?! That's a lie! I would need my parents the most in those times to give me advice! I called and called but you never called back. I thought something had happened to you!"

"I know, I know. I'm sorry Amelia."

"Well tell me this. What did dad do to me when I was younger?" Amy inquired.

"Pardon? What are you implying?!" her mother sharply inquired.

"You guys told me that the only thing wrong with me was some powers that needed inhibitor rings because of a gene in our descendants. But if that was the case, why don't you wear them?"

"...I think you're going to need to ask your father about this."

"What?! No, mum, wait—!" Amy growled.

Beep—Beep—Beep.

"Call ended."

"Special Agent Rose?" a hamster called.

Amy struggled not to bristle her quills as she squeezed the poor phone in anger, cracks and damage threatening to appear. Despite this, she smiled calmly at the peach hamster.

"Yes? How can I help?" she answered.

"CEO Honeywell is ready to see you."

1:05 pm

As the Freedom Fighters sat in the living room in taking the information, Sonic bounced his leg on the floor, deep on thought. He had always felt like he was free, in control of what he wanted and needed and never liked being told what to do. Now he was being held down by all these criticisms, responsibilities and relationships. Did he want to do things for other people's sake, and at what cost?

As he thought deeply, he concluded. If G.U.N wanted to take this piss out of this then so could he. He needed to go about this carefully.

"Tails. How do we go about the situation with G.U.N?" Sonic inquired.

Tails frowned, he was confused. What was Sonic trying to imply?

"What do you mean Sonic? We wait for the next mission and tread carefully right?" Tails responded.

Sonic vigorously shook his head with a grin.

"Nope. We take matters into our own hands." Sonic spoke.

Everyone looked at him in shock.

"Sonic, what are you planning? We're not planning to go along with some improvised near-death plan." Knuckles stated.

Sonic chuckled. He knew exactly what he was going to do.

"We don't know what G.U.N is planning, but we do suspect that they are trying to hold some power over us with that emerald. Do they want harder work? We'll give it to them. Then they'll have no excuse. If they do, however, we'll know something's up."

Everyone nodded in agreement. For once, the blue blur had a point.

"And how exactly do you plan to do this?" Blaze asked, eyeing him lazily.

Tails smirked. He finally had something to say.

"Simple. On the next mission they request, they're likely to make it harder for us since they've underestimated what we can do thanks to the last mission report. On this mission, we plan carefully. Usually, they give us missions every two weeks, but they're most likely planning to catch us off guard by sending us earlier. On this mission, we do our absolute best and capture every moment of it with hard, solid evidence." Tails explained.

Soft murmurs travelled around the room. Everyone understood what Tails was saying but was worried about how they were going to pull it off. Without Amy on the team, there wasn't any organisation. Sally was supposed to handle that, but she was on her way to Knothole. Sonic eyed Knuckles to see if he would get the hint and then whispered in Tails ear.

"We'll give them the plan by tonight, right now, we need to discuss something," Sonic whispered.

Tails nodded and announced it. Everyone got up and headed for the door leaving the three heroes in the house.

"So, Sonic. Are you planning to tell Amy tonight?" Knuckles asked.

Sonic chuckled as he saw Tails confusion.

"Even though I don't want to, I'll have to," Sonic replied.

"Can someone tell me what's going on here?" Tails inquired.

"No can do. I have to go treasure hunting tonight. You can ask Sonic though." Knuckles replied with a smug face while walking through the door.

Tails just looked at Knuckles in shock.

"So what's this whole thing about, Sonic?" Tails asked.

"Knuckles and I are going on a double date with Rouge and Amy." Sonic quickly stated.

"What?! Amy? What about Sally?" Tails inquired.

"We're just going to talk." Sonic hissed.

Tails looked taken aback.

"Alright Sonic. Whatever you do, don't get drunk." Tails sighed.

His best friend always got himself into all kinds of predicaments.

2:00pm

(Flashback)

Amy walked into the office, mentally astonished. She had never seen an office like this one. Marble floors shined underneath her dull heels. It was like the furniture itself was a designer brand.

"Ahem." The golden bear cleared his throat. LTC Honeywell sat at his desk, staring straight into her soul.

"Good Afternoon CEO Honeywell. How do you do?" Amy stated. This talk was too formal of her, but she wanted to make a good first impression.

The CEO smirked. He had gotten a polite, strong agent today. He was impressed.

"I'm impressed with the amount of information retrieved from your mission. However, the understanding of it is very... vague." He blandly stated.

Amy plastered on a fake smile. She was not in the mood for any bad news today.

"To piece the lost information together, you must locate and target one of Eggman's old bases and find diaries similar to these. As Elite Agents, you do it yourselves," he spoke, dragging out that last like to see if Amy would react to it.

Surprisingly, Amy restrained herself, but Rouge didn't. It was like the roles had been swapped.

"When is this supposed to be done by?" Rouge inquired.

The CEO smirked cunningly.

"Two days. Nothing more, nothing less," he stated.

Rouge looked shocked. She wanted nothing more than to protest but Amy beat her to it.

"Isn't 2 days a short amount of time to predict where Eggman has—?"

"I don't want to hear it, Special Agent Amy. I have high expectations of you since you survived the self-destruction with only a scratch. So do as I say." he spoke.

Amy suspiciously raised a brow, how did he know about that? She hadn't documented it in the report. The CEO grinned at her reaction.

"Also, your teammate Shadow needs to be with you on this mission. Elite Agents shouldn't be in the hospital for more than 4 days," he stated.

"With all due respect sir, Shadow is injured—? Amy started but was cut off by the CEO.

"Well, he had better find some way to heal. You are dismissed."

(Flashback End.)

Amy was trying her best to keep her cool as she sat next to Shadow, waiting for him to wake up. She had hoped he had healed well but she doubted that as it had only been a day. Still, he was the Ultimate Lifeform. Maybe he had something special in his DNA which could cause him to heal quickly. She gulped nervously as she thought it over. Then she decided that she would check for herself.

She put out her hand to pull the hospital sheets down to his legs. She saw indeed that the gauze had been changed and the injuries on his less had mostly healed and turned into scars.

'Wow...' she thought.

She was happy that she didn't have to end up dragging him on a mission while he was injured, but telling him was hard. Amy sighed in frustration, her job made her want to go crazy, ballistic even.

'Why does everything have to be so unfair...?' she asked herself.

She then looked at Shadow's sleeping face. She unconsciously blushed. She had never seen Shadow looking so relaxed and peaceful. She felt her heart start to beat faster the more she stared at him.

She looked around the room to see if anyone was watching. Rouge had gone out to get the three of them lunch. Tasha was busy talking to some other nurses.

Without thinking, she trailed her hand up to his chest fur.

'It's soft and fluffy...' she thought.

Something that she liked about him.

Amy froze.

'His chest fur is something I like about him—?'

"What are you doing?" Shadow spoke.

"Ah! Sh—Shadow! Hey there." Amy replied, nervously sweat dropping.

Shadow raised a brow and sighed. He wasn't going to bother to let her know that he was awake the whole time.

"What brings you here?" he asked.

"Oh...we came to see how you were doing. Rouge went to get some lunch for the three of us," she replied.

Shadow grunted a response. Why did they insist on looking after him like a child? Then again...he could use the company. He sat up in his bed and faced her.

"I see. What's become of the Chaos emerald?"

"Oh...it's in your room."

Shadow scoffed.

"You entered my room?"

Amy looked away from his gaze and tried to change the subject.

"LTC Honeywell mentioned to us that we need to locate another base which is likely to have a diary or some other information that can lead us to Eggman's next plans."

Shadow frowned. He hadn't read the diary nor the mission report.

"He also said that you need to come on the mission with us next week."

2:38 pm

Knuckles walked around Mystic Ruins in search of any treasure. It wasn't only for his girlfriend, however, treasure hunting was something that took his mind off certain things.

He was supposed to be going on a double date today and he was sure it was going to end in disaster. He sighed as he remembered the times he would just relax in his solitude...guarding the master emerald, looking after the Chaos with Tikal and then suddenly having an abrupt change in his life after meeting Rouge.

He wasn't complaining though. Okay, maybe a little.

As he felt the winds pick up, he squinted as a few grains of sand entered his eyes. He hissed in great annoyance as a few tears left his eyes. When all the sand came out, he stared into the direction that his body was pointing. There was a pile of treasure inside the building. He smirked to himself, thinking that he had good treasure hunting skills but still, he mentally thanked those grains of sand. He found a bag of ancient jewellery which Rouge would've been sure to look into and a bag of shiny new pearls.

As he walked further into the building, he squinted as the sun reflected off of a purple object. He grunted in annoyance as he squatted down to look at it.

It was the last Sol Emerald they were looking for.