"Sonic!" Chris said.
Suddenly, he grabbed Sonic's hand and took off running with him, far, far away. Everyone was shocked even more.
"Chris!" Chuck shouted out but Chris continued running with Sonic as far as he could.
"Chris!" Sonic said.
'I can't believe I'm doing this when I have a prophecy to take care of and my family to get back to.' he thought.
With determination, Chris tightened his grip on Sonic's hand and Sonic did the same. Sonic runs faster, and is running ahead of Chris.
"Sonic?" Chris said as his confusion vanished, and he too ran faster.
Back at the gateway portal.
"I hope that boy can come to his senses before it's too late." Chuck said.
Tanaka and Topaz returned from their search.
"Are they...?" Ella started but Tanaka shook his head.
"We could not find him anywhere." he said.
Nelson and Lindsey looked at each other in concern.
"We'll never find him now without help. The police will have to set up a large-scale search." Topaz said and Tanaka looked at her sadly. "As you know, this is serious. We have to find them quickly."
"Yes. We don't have much time to cause Chaos Control and send Sonic back. Soon, the melding of our two world will cause time to slow to a stop." Chuck said.
"Chris..." Lindsey said worried so they hugged and she struggled not to cry.
At Station Square morning came, and Chris and Sonic walked by the train station.
"What do we do now?" Chris asked.
'Get back home.' Sonic thought.
"I don't know." he said.
"Well, we can't go back home. Wait... Hey Sonic, look!" Chris said and spied a bicycle nearby.
He was soon riding it, with Sonic sitting on the back of it behind Chris. A boy was getting the mail and milk, when he realized his bike was stolen.
"Hey Mom, somebody took my old bike." he said.
"Your father left it in the city. He thought somebody could use it." she said.
The boy headed back into the house.
Chris was soon riding through a rich neighborhood. He had earlier ditched his suit, now only wearing his red tie and salmon dress shirt.
"How far should we go, Sonic?" he asked.
"We can go as far as you want to, Chris." Sonic said.
"Okay." Chris said determined and rode on, exerting his energy as he pedaled into the desert.
Soon they were eating at a diner.
"We have to stop somewhere." Chris said.
"I usually just keep running until I find someplace I like. The best trips are the ones you don't plan. Not knowing where you'll end up is part of the adventure." Sonic said.
"You know... the world sure seems big when you can go anyplace..." Chris aid as Sonic downed his burger. "Are you sure there's no place you want to go to?"
'Back to Mobotropolis.' Sonic thought.
"I think I've already gone every place I want to go." he said.
"Right. I forgot how much you like to travel. You probably ran across the whole planet already."
"That's why I'm happy to go wherever you say."
"Okay." Chris said then opened a map to a place called "Dolorado". "Well, let's see... The beach is definitely out... The desert's too hot..."
The man behind the counter turned on the TV.
"This is an SXN update. Sonic the Hedgehog has been abducted. Authorities are looking for this boy, Christopher Thorndyke, the only child of corporate tycoon Nelson Thorndyke and actress Lindsey Thorndyke, who has issued this emotional plead." a news reporter said on TV.
Chris was beyond shocked.
"Chris, darling... Your father and I are worried about you! Please come home!" Lindsey said on the TV crying.
Sonic saw the day he left.
"The enemy is not completely gone. He now is someone new and one of the four council will be gone until he is gone for good. The one to leave will be experienced with him. They will make their own team and one they will know while the other they will meet. They will help them and in reward be able to use something no one else can do but one other person with their permission. One day they will be gone and the defeater will be back with their family again."
Aleena, Sonia and Manic were confused while he already knew who it is.
"It's me isn't it? Uncle Chuck raised me when I was five and I was helping them get rid of the shield and such. Knuckles is the one that will help me because he's helped us a few times and I have to pretty much kill him without being a murder." he said.
"Yes. It is you Sonic." Oracle said.
"No!" Aleena, Sonia and Manic said together.
He closed his eyes and sighed.
"If it involves ending him I'll do it." he said strong.
Oracle nodded.
"The medallion won't work so you will think of something and will be able to use something after doing something soon."
"What?! But- but what am I gonna do? Uncle Chuck had his own things that I used but still!"
Then he remembered something he made for when he gets fourteen and was now fourteen.
"THE POWER RINGS!"
"Huh?" Aleena, Sonia and Manic said confused while Oracle nodded.
"Uncle Chuck made rings that will only work with me and make me go faster. He said when I turn fourteen they'll work."
Aleena shook her head.
"The things Chuck comes up with." she said smiling.
"Where are they?" Manic asked.
"All I have to do is think about them and it'll be there in my hand or wherever I want it." he explained.
Then he opened his hand and thought about one. Then he felt a power ring in his hand.
"Awesome!" he said smiling.
Oracle nodded and he looked at his family.
"I'll be careful and end him for good. I have Knux to help me and whoever the other one is." he said and they gave each other a hug.
"Good. Now go make me proud and hopefully I'll see you soon." Aleena said.
He nodded and took off his medallion and handed it to her.
"Take care of this. It won't work and I don't want anyone to know who I truly am yet. When he's gone for good I'll expose who I really am. You can tell everyone I'll be gone if you want just make them swear to keep this quiet from everyone until I get back."
She nodded and held onto his medallion with a few tears coming down.
Then he looked at them again and started running.
He came back fighting tears.
Then they hit the trail again.
"When you have famous parents, you can't do anything without the world finding out." Chris said.
'You have no idea. Famous is one thing while a queen for a mother is something else.' Sonic thought seeing all the attention he gets at hom.
"They must be pretty worried." Sonic said.
'Tails and Knuckles are probably worried about me.' he thought.
"Oh yeah? How come... they're not... worried when I... need 'em... to be?" Chris asked. "Sonic doesn't seem worried either. Maybe I should go back." he said to himself then remembered Sonic has to get back to his own family.
"Oh yeah? How come... they're not... worried when I... need 'em... to be?" Chris asked. "Sonic doesn't seem worried either. Maybe I should go back." he said to himself.
Then he stopped when he heard and saw military helicopters behind them.
"Those are my dad's!" he said.
Sonic hopped off the bike.
"Well, Chris? You give up?" he asked and Chris shook his head.
'Damnit!'
"...No!" Chris said.
"Okay! Then wait right here."
There was a pickup truck reaching the crossing ahead of Chris. Sonic stopped right in front of the vehicle, forcing the driver to slam on the brakes. When he looked up, there was nothing.
"Hey... where'd he go?" the driver asked.
Sonic looked in from the roof of the vehicle.
"Can you give us a lift?" he asked.
Soon, the bike was ditched, and Chris and Sonic were safe inside the pickup truck. While Sonic was resting in the hay in the bed of the truck, Chris stared worriedly out the window, then at Sonic.
Sonic was seeing the days he was with Sonia and Manic saving them all.
Then the helicopter piloted suspected nothing.
At a forest the truck had stopped.
"Thanks again. Bye!" Chris said.
"Bye!" Sonic said and they disembarked from the truck and waved goodbye as the driver drove away.
"Let's go." Chris said and started walking into the forest, and Sonic followed.
As Chris struggled to climb over a fallen log, Sonic instantly vaulted it and ran ahead.
Now they were on a prairie walking along a set of train tracks.
"Sonic, have you ever been to this place before?" Chris asked.
"I might have run past it once." Sonic said.
"It's pretty easy to forget. You move so fast, and you've been so many places. Maybe you'll forget about me someday too..."
Then they stopped at a junction and looked at the mountains.
"I do forget. But it'd be impossible for me to forget you." Sonic said.
Chris turned to him.
"You mean it?" he asked.
"Of course I do! How could I forget somebody who's got me in so much trouble?"
Chris beamed and started running and Sonic walked after him thinking.
Later, Chris was sitting on a bench, and Sonic was reclining on a wooden crate nearby both eating bread. There were pigeons everywhere.
"Guess everybody's looking for us." Chris said.
"We won't be too easy to find. It's a big planet." Sonic said.
Chris crumpled his slice of bread and let the pigeons eat it.
"Yeah. We could hide out for a long time. They might stop lookin' for us. Even... my family." he said and stood up. "Let's go."
Then they got up and left. Soon they reached a waterfall. Sonic watched Chris as he attempted to scale it. Sonic reached the top, and there was a rock that was just out of Chris' reach so he stretched out his hand, and Chris grabbed it. Sonic pulled him to safety and gave him a wink and thumbs-up. Later they were climbing a hill. Chris started running, but stumbled over a stone.
"Chris!" Sonic said as he fell to the ground just as Sonic arrived. "Here, let me give you a hand."
Chris got up.
"I don't need a hand! I can do it myself. Come on!" he said and kept running then stopped at the top of the hill.
Sonic joined him and their jaws dropped at something they saw.
"I've never been here before. How'd you know about this place?" Sonic asked.
At Thorndyke Mansion Living room while Lindsey wept on the couch, Nelson was pacing the floor on the phone.
"I don't understand what's taking you so long! Do you have all our choppers searching? Well then, buy some more! Call up the Air Force! Rent out some airplanes, too! Put the business on hold! I want the whole company working on this 24/7 until Chris is found! ... I don't care how much it costs! I just want my son found now!" he said on the phone.
Lindsey finally looked up.
"Nelson, let's broadcast a message that Chris can have whatever he wants if he comes home!" she said and stood up. "Call the toy store and tell them to send one of everything."
"Hey, I have a better idea. Let's buy Chris his own toy store!" he said and dialed a number.
"I hope this works. I want Chris back.
Ella, Tanaka, and Chuck entered.
"What do you think you're doing?" Chuck shouted out.
Lindsey gasped.
"Put that phone down. Do it!" he said to Nelson stern and Nelson hesitantly hung up. "You're making a big mistake, Son. You can't rely on your corporate empire to bring your son back home because that's part of what's driving him away. You won't convince Chris to return until you understand the reason why he left in the first place. Now, why do you think Chris ran off? Was it only because of Sonic? Or was Chris afraid that when his friend left, he'd be all alone again, like he was before? You won't get Chris back unless you prove you want to be together as a family."
"But how?" Nelson asked.
"What should we do? We'll do anything to find him." Lindsey said.
"Well, you don't have to use fleets of helicopters or bribe him with toys on TV. Chris wants to be found, not by government forces or by your employees, but by his mother and father." Chuck said and Lindsey walked closer to Nelson. "My guess is that Chris is someplace where he knows you can find him. Go there before it's too late."
Nelson dropped the phone.
"Oh, Chris..." Lindsey said and wept bitterly, but was hugged by Nelson.
Meanwhile Chris and Sonic walked toward a villa of some sort. It was now sunset.
"You know this place?" Sonic asked.
"Yeah. I used to come here every summer with my mom and dad... when I was a little kid." Chris said and tried the lock on the front door, but to no avail. "It's no use." he said and looked in the window.
Everything was covered in cobwebs.
"One year, we just stopped coming. They kept saying we'd come back the next summer, but they were always too busy."
Sonic tried the lock and it came undone.
"Huh. Looks like the chain broke." he said.
Chris gave a sheepish thumbs-up.
That night, they were camping out by the lake.
That night, they were camping out by the lake and Sonic was thinking about all the hideout he was in his childhood.
"Hey Sonic! I collected some firewood!" Chris said and emerged from the clearing carrying a huge armload of wood.
However, he tripped over a rock and fell. Sonic rushed over and caught both him and the wood.
"You okay, Chris?" he asked.
"I'm fine."
"Want some help?"
Chris stood up and took the wood from Sonic.
"No thanks. I can do it myself."
"Okay..."
"Sonic's probably mad that I stopped him from going home. I wonder why he came with me?" Chris said to himself.
Soon they had a fire going.
"Sonic? You haven't said anything about how I kept you from going home." Chris said.
"I was waiting to hear what you had to say." Sonic said.
"Sonic... why did you come with me? Are you gonna stay?"
"That's up to you."
"Uh... So if I say... "I don't want you to go back home"... will you... stay here with me forever?"
"I'll do whatever you tell me to do."
Chris was surprised.
"You saved me when I first came to this world."
Chris stood up a little upset.
"So that's it. You've been acting like my friend all this time 'cause you thought you owed me!"
"That's not true."
"You felt like you had to be my friend 'cause I pulled you out of that pool." Chris said teary.
There was a flashback of Sonic soaring through the air. He realized where he was about to land.
"A pool?" he said and grinned sheepishly. "Uh... oh..." he said and tried to run in midair to land elsewhere, but couldn't. "See ya!" he said and landed in the water with a tremendous splash, waking Chris.
He tried to leap out of the water, but couldn't. He spotted a ladder on the pool's wall so tried to run to it, but found it impossible. Chris turned on the light and looked out the window. Then he raced out of his room, down the hall, down the stairs, and out the door on route to the pool. Sonic was still running, but finally gave up. Suddenly, the figure of the boy broke through the surface and stretched out his hand. He took Sonic's hand and pulled him to the surface.
"And you paid me back by pretending to be my friend." Chris said.
"No, Chris. You know that I really am your friend." Sonic said.
"You... are?"
"If you need me to stay here with you, then I will. You just have to decide. It's up to you." Sonic said. "I can go home... or stay. The decision is yours."
"Well... I'm not sure. I'd be happier if you stayed in this world. If time does stop, we could stay here forever. Our friendship would never have to end. But Sonic... don't stay here... if it's gonna make you unhappy."
"Don't worry about me." Sonic said and stood up. "As long as there's somewhere to run..." he said and started running. "...I'll be happy." he said and stopped in front of Chris. "I really wouldn't mind stayin' here with ya. Honest!"
'That's it, think about what I have to do.' he thought.
"But... you can't stay here, Sonic. It wouldn't be right, would it? I can't let time stop because I wouldn't want to lose your friendship." Chris said and started crying again. "It was wrong of me... to try to keep you in this world... It's just... I wasn't ready to say goodbye yet... You've always been there for me when I needed you, but in the end, I let you down." he said and his tears started flowing. "I'm sorry! I was just selfish... Please forgive me..." he said and sat down as his tears landed on the ground. "And you still have to get back to your family while mines right here!"
'There we go.' Sonic thought.
Sonic placed his hand on Chris' shoulder.
"Hey. No tears." he said.
"When you're gone, I'll be alone again, like I was before you came."
A flashback of the toddler Chris at the door after his parents leave. Another shot of Chris with his parents' presents.
"Ever since I was little, I've been waiting for a friend like you, Sonic. It's just so hard to say goodbye."
Sonic leapt onto a nearby rock.
"Maybe this isn't goodbye. Maybe our worlds were meant to come together somehow. If that's true... then we will see each other again... some day..." he said.
Chris stood up.
"Some day..." he said and hugged Sonic.
"In the meantime, whenever we miss each other, we can look at the moon. It looks the same from both worlds, you know."
Meanwhile Nelson and Lindsey were running through a forest, Nelson bearing a flashlight. They were searching for Chris, as it has now been twenty-four hours since Chris shut down the portal and run off with Sonic.
"Chris was so happy when we came here years ago. He's here. I'm sure!" Lindsey said.
"I bet Chris is waiting for us... and we'll have a chance to make everything up to him now.
Soon the villa was in sight.
They search the grounds for Chris who was standing on the dock.
"Chris!" Lindsey said.
"Chris!" Nelson said.
Chris turned around and smiled.