This takes place in a universe where Sonic is a girl, but everyone else is their usual gender. It's also basically the same as another one of my stories, but Shadow isn't related to Sonic.

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Sonic the Hedgehog or Sonic Underground!

They gazed up at the monitors, each showing different scenes unfold before them. One showed a dark alleyway festering with rats and scrap metal lying all along it. Another showed a plaza where all the aristocrats were gathered, having a party of some sort with tea, cakes, and other assorted party items. Wonder what they're celebrating?

In front of the screens was a magenta-and-orchid hedgehog, an emerald green hedgehog, and a lion all looking at the surveillance from the Spy Eyes that they had hacked into a few months back. They were preparing for their ultimate mission. If they could do this, they just might be able to win this war and save their home!

"You guys ready for this?"

The green hedgehog turned to his friend, giving him a thumbs up. "Of course, Cy! We're always ready!"

Cyrus laughed. "Of course, Manic. Dumb question."

"Come on, Manic, focus!" the hedgehog next to him scolded. "This could be dangerous!"

"Could be?"

"Manic!"

The boar just laughed. "Chill, Sonia. It's not like we're not used to situations like this." He put his arm around his sister. "It'll be just fine."

The sow only sighed in response. She had been kinda depressed lately. Manic couldn't see why though. They were about to start a mission that would give them a huge advantage in the war, not to mention it was their birth- Oh.

"You miss her."

She smiled sadly and nodded. "Yeah."

Manic tightened his grip around her shoulder. "Don't worry, sis. You've still got me, and I'm positive she wouldn't want you grieving all the time."

Sonia sniffed. "Yeah. I guess you're right." She leaned into her brother. "It's just weird doing this without her."

"Aren't I always right?"

"No!"

"Hey!"

They all burst out laughing. It helped to joke about it. They all missed their friend. But right now they had to focus; this was probably their most important mission yet.

Cyrus broke the moment almost as soon as it had started. "All right. Everyone is clear on the plan, right?" They both nodded.

"There will be five different teams, each destroying different factories around the city-," Manic started.

"-during the chaos, me and Manic will sneak into the base and find a way into the main control room-," Sonia continued.

"-and download all the information from the main computers while they're busy with the factories!" Cyrus finished.

Manic slapped the back of his friend's back affectionately. "This is a genius plan, Cy! There is no way we can lose after we get that info from Buttnik's place! Come on, Sonia! Let's go get into position."

"Wait a sec, guys!"

They turned around, slightly confused at the sudden recall.

"What is it, Cyrus?" Sonia asked.

He smiled. "Consider this an early birthday present." He turned and rapidly typed something on his keyboard and all the surveillance disappeared to be replaced with charts and graphs that only Cyrus could understand. "I did some readings on the explosion from the incident. I wanted to see if I could tell what caused it." He paused, taking a deep breath. The siblings next to his were ridged with anticipation at the mention of the incident that happened years ago. "I don't think that the explosion was lethal."

"What?!"

Cyrus pointed to one of the graphs. "The explosion seems to have been made out of Chaos Energy harnessed into one central area; from what I can tell the power was not destructive at all. There might have been a glitch in the machinery or something, but instead of destroying the area, it only transported anything within the area. But it didn't seem to go as far as transporting the entire building."

The two let loose a stream of questions almost instantly.

"Where was she teleported?"

"Why weren't we teleported too?"

"Chaos Energy? Don't they need a Chaos Emerald for that?"

"If it involves Chaos Energy do you think it might have something to do with the Floating Island disappearing?"

Cyrus held up his hands to stop the torrent coming at him. "Whoa, guys! Calm down! One question at a time!" They stopped. The lion released a sigh of relief as his friends finally calmed down. "Okay. First off, I'm not sure where it sent her to. All I could find is that she was sent away. As for your second question, you guys weren't close enough to the blast to be included in the transportation. They did have a Chaos Emerald for it, but from what I've seen, the Emerald was sent to the same place she was. I'm not entirely sure if it had anything to do with the Floating Island's disappearance, but it does make sense. Maybe the two Emeralds reacted with each other? I can look into that later." He looked up to the two hedgehogs before him. "You guys okay?"

They both had tears in their eyes. Sonia's knees shook so badly, she had to use Manic for support. Manic was holding onto his sister tightly, as if she might disappear as well. For so long, they had thought she was gone, that they would never see her again. Now, on their birthday, they had hope again. Hope that they would see their sister again.

Sonia steadied herself. "Yeah, fine." She gave Cyrus a hug. "Best birthday present I've ever gotten."

Manic came over and put a hand on his shoulder. "The best. And we'll be able to find her."

Cyrus nodded. "Right, but let's finish the mission before we go off on this wild goose chase."

The two's faces turned serious, although the smiles stayed. "Right."

The place was a mess. There were nuts and bolts scattered all around the floor. Not to mention all the tools everywhere. On the table, the couch, some had even gotten in the beds somehow! Luckily, there were enough tools gathered in one place for a certain two-tailed fox to work on his plane, the Tornado.

Of course, the plane wasn't actually his. He was only twelve; he couldn't buy a plane on his own. No, the red-and-white plane belonged to his best friend, who was sitting next to the young fox, handing him tools as he asked for them.

"Screwdriver, please."

"Here ya go."

Next to the red bi-plane was the blue-and-yellow plane the fox had built himself. He called it the Tornado 2. (He was pretty young when he made and named it.) He had already done a check on that one. There were other devices around the workshop too; he had either been building it or taking it apart.

The kid was simply a prodigy. He had an IQ of over 300. He was often bullied until his friend and role model came along and changed everything. Now he had tons of friends and a lot more self-confidence because of her.

"Wrench."

"Wrench."

Finally he screwed in the last bolt. He was done!

As he started to sit up, he forgot that he was still partly under the plane and banged his head into the hard metal structure. "Ow!"

"You okay, Tails?"

The bruised fox looked at his friend. "Fine, Sonic. Just a bruise."

Said hedgehog smiled and looked closely at the now purple spot on the fox's head. "Yeah, you're right. I've had worse."

Tails got a devilish smile on his face. "From Amy, right?"

Sonica gave an exhausted sigh and smiled right back at her little brother. "Yes, from Amy. Mostly when she had a crush on me before I revealed my real gender."

This caused the two to have a giggling fit before they heard the door open and footsteps running toward them. Sonica peeked around the corner to find the exact person they were talking about. A pink hedgehog in a red dress and boots with white lining sprinting toward the hangar.

"I think we jinxed it," she whispered as her friend came to see their guest as well.

This got a quiet giggle out of the fox before he went up to the pink hedgehog. "Hey, Amy. What's goin' on?"

"Oh! Tails! Thereyouguysare! EveryoneswaitingforyouguysatGreenHillZone! We'rehavingapicnicyouguyshavetocome," she started to take a breath, which is where Sonica decided to cut in.

"Amy, calm down! We can't understand you when you talk like that!"

"I think I heard 'picnic' and 'Green Hill'," Tails said.

The over-excited hedgehog nodded. "Yeah. I was saying that everyone is at Green Hill Zone, having a picnic. They're all waiting for you guys."

"Now that I can understand." Sonic rushed out of the door, then peeped back in. "You guys coming?"

"Ha ha ha! Wait for us Sonic!" Tails started spinning his namesakes and flew off after the high-speed hedgehog.

"Wait for me, guys!"

In Robotropolis, two figures lurked in the dark, watching, waiting. It had been almost half an hour since they had taken their positions. By now, they should have been getting very impatient sitting there in the dark, cold corner. A series of the city, but they were too anxious for that. They were watching closely, looking for their sign to strike.

After what felt like an eternity, they finally heard it. A series of explosions from all around the city.

Manic looked to his sister. "Ready?"

Sonia gave a determined grin. "Ready. Let's do it to it!"

The two snuck over to an air vent and tore off the metal vents keeping them from accessing the building. They were soon crawling over one of the many hallways in the maze of Robotnik's fortress.

Manic stuck his head out of safety to check for any bots making their patrols, but they were all out, busy with their little distraction.

Manic helped his sister out as he looked up and down the corridor to double check. "I can't believe they actually fell for it."

"Yeah, well, their main brain disappeared with that blast back then," Sonia stated as she smoothed out her dress.

It was true Robotnik had disappeared along with their sister that day. That was the only upside to that explosion, and in their opinion, it wasn't worth losing her. Of course, his lackeys had taken his job as ruler, although they hadn't really changed anything. In fact, all of the Robotnik Rules had stayed. Knowing Sleet, he would have changed everything to honor him. They had just thought he was being lazy, but maybe…

'No. now is not the time to think about that,' Sonia thought as she ran through the fortress toward the control room.

After several minutes, and no robots to get in their way, they finally reached their goal. They slowly walked up to the door, looked to each other and nodded.

But as they were about to open the door, voices came through, making them jump back. After a moment, Manic came up to the door and cautiously cracked it open to hear the voices of Sleet, Dingo, and some man on the screen above them.

"Are you sure about this?" Sleet asked.

"Of course," boomed the man on the monitor. "Don't worry about it one bit."

Manic could see Sleet crossing his arms over his chest. "No offense, Eggman, but how many of your plans have worked so far?"

The figure now identified as Eggman huffed at the wolf. "It's all those hedgehogs' fault!"

The two eavesdroppers snapped their heads toward each other in surprise.

"Hedgehogs?" Manic mouthed.

Sonia pointed to the communicator around his wrist and mouthed back, "call."

He looked down at the watch that Cyrus had given him. If he called, the whole of Freedom HQ would hear what they heard. Right now, that was exactly what he needed to do.

He turned on mute and messaged Cyrus. When he saw the lion on the screen, he held his finger to his lips to indicate that they couldn't say anything as he saw Cyrus move his lips as he talked. Cyrus soon silenced and Manic pointed the small screen of the watch toward the villains.

"The hedgehogs?"

"Yes. Sonica and Shadow can be quite the annoyances."

Sonia and Manic instantly perked up. Did they hear that correctly? Did he really just say 'Sonica'?

"Sonic? That little pest?"

Yes! They had heard correctly! Sonica the Hedgehog was alive!

"Yes. She is very persistent. Quite childish as well. Unfortunately, Shadow would tear me limb-from-limb, rip out my spine, and play it like a xylophone if I hurt a quill on Sonica's head."

Definitely their Sonic. But who was this 'Shadow'? And why was he so violent and protective of Sonica?

"Perhaps if you told me more about your current predicament, I could be of service," Sleet suggested with a sly smile on his face.

"Oh, please." The reply came almost instantly. "You believe I actually trust you with that information?! Ha! Goodbye, Sleet." With that, the screen went black, leaving a frustrated Sleet to stare.

The two spies outside decided to head home. They had all the information they needed now. This was the best birthday present they could ever ask for!

Back at Freedom HQ, the room was filled with cheers as they listened to the news. Sonica the Hedgehog was alive and kickin'!