Chapter 10.

The clearing exploded with golden light as the Doctor threw his arms and head back with a shout. The powers of regeneration coursing through his veins like white-hot fire. It's not my time yet…I'm not done… he kept repeating in his head.

He let out a final scream and, after another brilliant flash of light, it was all over. The Time-Lord fell to his knees once again pale faced and sweaty. Quickly he raised his hands to eye level, and then ran them over his face and up to his hair, which he tugged, a little too painfully. "I'm…still me? I don't-"

"What are you doing? Stop! Stop right now, rodent! Do you hear me? I said stop!"

Behind him the light was still flickering. The Doctor rolled onto his back, his mouth falling open at what he saw: the rest of the regeneration energy was swirling around the Were-hog, who laughed as it rolled of his quills and muscles quickly engulfing his body in a ball of golden energy. The ball grew, shimmered and crackled. Sonic curled into him-self, grinning at his friends, "You guys might wanna cover your ears." The Freedom Fighters nodded and dived behind any cover they could find peeking out to watch. Celosia looked around, confused, gripping her staff tightly (though the Doctor could see her hands shaking.) and the EKs stood still, awaiting orders that would never come. The noise grew deafening; the ball continued to expand and then, with a final muffled roar from the Were-Hog, exploded. The Doctor yelled in surprised curling up to protect him-self, the Freedom Fighters dived back behind their cover and the Goddess screamed in outrage. The whole area was bathed in the light before it died down. When it had Celosia was no-where to be seen and all that was left of the EKs were piles of sparkling black dust and smoky foot-prints.

The Doctor slowly opened his eyes to the damage and looked around the smoking crater left behind, what he assumed was a very powerful Chaos Blast. When they finally focused they met a pair of red shoes. From the shoes he followed blue legs up, past a peach coloured belly and found forest-green eyes staring back. He took the hand offered and got up onto his knees. The owner of the eyes smiled, making them twinkle in the sun-light, and nodded. The Doctor laughed out loud and lunged forward enveloping the newly returned Blue Blur. "I can't begin…Did you know?"

Sonic laughed along with him. "I don't either. But it did and I'm me again!"

"Sonic?" Tails and the others nervously crept out of their hiding places. They stepped over burning EK foot-prints and came to a stop a few meters away. The blue hedgehog let go of the Doctor, who got up and stepped to the side, and looked at each of his friends in turn…

And smiled.

Amy was first: she ran forward with a happy cry, wrapping her arms around his neck and weeping into his shoulder until Sonic had to pry her away. Tails was next: the little cub hugged his best bud tightly around the middle, nuzzling into his chest; Sonic messed up his fringe in return. Shadow followed: he approached Sonic wearily, not looking at him at first until Sonic sighed. When he did look up Sonic smirked softly with a wink. Shadow smirked back and nodded. Rouge was last: the white bat grasped both his hands in hers planting a small kiss on each cheek, with a whispered, "Welcome home."

"Good to be home." He whispered back squeezing her hands. A light pink dusting appeared on her cheeks and she nodded before joining Tails and Amy, who were talking animatedly with the Doctor about what they had just witnessed. The blue hero sighed with a warm smirk on his muzzle.

"It's good you've returned to us, faker, even-though the way you did was very risky, not to mention stupid. Did you know it would work?" Shadow stood beside him, and though Sonic couldn't see his expression he reckoned it was full of concern.

"No. I did what I've always done: jump first, ask questions later." Sonic faced him with a smirk, "And guess what? It worked! I'm here and I'm me again. Everything's fine."

Shadow frowned, "You and I both know that's not true. You're on borrowed time, hedgehog." He noticed the Doctor strolling towards them. Quickly turning so he had his back to the Time–Lord his arm grazed his blue counter-part's softly. When Sonic looked into his ruby gaze it was, as he had guessed, full of worry. "Do not waste it." He murmured walking away to re-join the others.

"Did I interrupt a moment?" Asked the Doctor noticing the pinkish glow on the blue hedgehogs' face. Sonic shook his head. "Ah…I see…" He gave a knowing smile. Sonic's face grew pinker as he glanced down suddenly becoming very interested in his shoes. The Doctor leaned close, "Don't worry," he tapped the side of his nose with a finger. "I won't tell anyone." Sonic smiled a little in gratitude, the Doctor straightened and cleared his throat, "Alright, troops! Ugh, gotta find a better word…Anyway to business: it seems The Goddess has done a bunk, the slippery little minx. At last count she has two Eyes to our one and that's not good. We have our dear Blue Blur back and she's lost a good number of EK's and her brute-force of a brother. The bad guys have an intergalactic Battle-Ship…"

"And we do not." Shadow pointed out with folded arms, "The Goddess and Eggman still have your TARDIS, Doctor, or have you forgotten?"

The Doctor beamed at them, "Oh my broody little black one," Shadow growled playfully at him. "You forget that Eggman gave me back my screwdriver." Taking said gadget from his pocket he twirled it between his fingers, the others looked blankly at him. "If I take this and the Eye of Gaia…" From his back quills Sonic tossed him the fully charged green orb while the others stared wide eyed, "and do this," lifting the Eye to his lips the Doctor blew on it, to the Freedom Fighters astonishment, a fine cloud of sparkling golden dust flew from his mouth coating the Eye. "And this..." Holding the Eye up he gave it a blast of sonic energy. The Eye glowed yellow and then faded back to green, the shrill whistle of the sonic died down and the group looked around. Finding nothing they turned as one towards the Time-Lord.

"And that was supposed to do what exactly?" Asked Rouge.

The Doctor just grinned, "Donna would be so proud of me. When is a key not a key?"

The bat shrugged, "I dunno. When's it's not?"

Another grin, "Exactly! Eggman's key is a fake, doesn't open anything. My key is safe inside the TARDIS herself. And speaking of which…" It was quiet and then they heard it, a sound they had grown to love, a sound like a hundred singing elephants. Next to the Doctor a very familiar blue shape faded into existence. The TARDIS became solid and landed with a groan; the Doctor ran up to his machine and hugged it. "Oh, my old thing! Are you alright? Did they hurt you?" He pressed a kiss to the front doors, "Forgive me, darling! I'm sorry, so sorry!"

"Uh…Doc? Are you kissing a wooden box?" Sonic's smirk was back. Amy and Tails hid their smiles behind their hands, Rogue was shaking her head in disbelief and Shadow just raised a brow.

The Doctor turned and gave them all a challenging look, "Problem?"

"No! No problem!" They shouted, waving their arms. With a huff the Doctor safely pocketed his sonic and the Eye of Earth and stepped back from the double doors.

"So…" Said Sonic, coming up to his side, "how you gonna get in without your key?"

The Doctor tossed him a smirk, "Like this," Raising his hand he snapped his fingers together. With a whine the doors opened bathing the group in warm orange light. "Well, shall we?"

Amy and Tail ran into the TARDIS together with big grins on their faces, weaving in and out of the coral pillars and laughing childishly. Shadow, still cautious of the time machine, slowly walked up the entry ramp running his finger-tips over the railing. The TARDIS hummed softly and he smiled shyly, taking a seat on the battered pilot chair. Rouge took a running leap and flew through the open doors circling the pillars until she reached the balconies. Finding her favourite item of clothing (namely the Doctor's old scarf) waiting for her she wrap it around herself with a smile and settled into a comfortable position.

Sonic watched his friends enter the blue box utterly speechless. The Doctor paused at the doors and held out his hand, "Well, come on, then!" Sonic slowly took the offered limb and was pulled through the double doors, as soon as he crossed the threshold the doors snickered shut behind him making him jump. The Doctor chuckled softly, "Seems she doesn't want to lose you again, Sonic. You're trapped here now."

"Um… thank-you?" The TARDIS cooed happily, flickering the lights. Sonic allowed himself to be towed to the main console where the Doctor let go and started rummaging underneath for something, something very important. "You need help?"

"No! No-No! It's here somewhere…just need to…" Around them the chattering grew louder and more garbled. After a good few minutes the Doctor growled, scrambling out from under the console, a little too fast and thus smacking his head on it. With an alien curse he stood, sucking in a big breath. "Right then you lot!" He shouted, the others stopped talking at once. "That's better. Now, seeing as the Goddess has the book about the Eyes it's safe to assume that it's only a matter of time before she has the last one. Before you start, Shadow: No, we cannot follow her, we don't know where the last Eye is…but we do know where the resting place of the Nazo Serpent is likely to be and we should head there instead."

"WHAT!"

"You know where it is?"

"Why didn't you tell us?"

The Doctor flapped his hands about, "OI! Shut it!" Four of the five glared at him, he sighed, "Look, it's just an educated guess and to confirm it…we turn to you blue hedgehog." Five sets of eyes fixed on Sonic who backed up and bumped into the console. The Doctor reached under the console and pulled out a wired up crash-helmet. "Sonic, you've seen this before. I used it on Shadow to tell us the location of the Lost Library, do you remember?" Sonic slowly nodded, "Good boy. I need you to let the TARDIS scan your mind. We need any information about the Nazo Serpent that Celosia managed to decipher from Dark Astrology: The Lost and Forgotten. Do you understand?"

"I…I understand." Nervously he glanced at his friends, "If it's alright with you, Doc, I'd like to be just us."

The Doctor blinked, "Oh? Oh, of course! I just need to put the Earth Eye in the Labs, and I'm sure the others have things to do before the big fi—"

"No. I mean…" Sonic nodded towards the central pillar, "just me and her."

The Doctor's eyes widen in surprise, "Ohhh! OK, I get you now." The Time-Lord jerked his head towards the doors leading to the inner sanctum. The four friends looked blankly at him and then each-other before all going "OH!" and filing out as quickly as they were able. Only Shadow paused to look back, the Doctor nodded encouragingly and he reluctantly followed the others. He turned to Sonic, "Ready?" he asked holding up the helmet.

"Don't have a choice, do I?" The Doctor shook his head flicking switches and pushing buttons. Sonic sighed deeply. "OK…let's do it." The helmet was clipped into place. "So…How's this thing work?"

"I've set you up. When-ever you're ready just flick that switch there." He pointed to button with a spiral design on it. "A word of warning: if there's something you don't want her to see, put up a door and lock it."

"Gonna be a lot of doors then." The blue hedgehog joked. The Doctor didn't smile, "What's wrong?"

"I'm sure it's nothing…TEA!" He suddenly blurted out making Sonic jump. "I'll make you a nice cup of Tea. Tea solves everything…Though I'm not so sure about…" The rest of his sentence was cut off as the TARDIS let out a loud, complaining whine. "Yes! I heard you!" The Doctor grinned sheepishly at him, "She's all yours, just be gentle with her."

Sonic smirked, "Don't worry. I will." The Doctor rolled his eyes with an amused snort and left them to it. Sonic counted to three in his head and then flicked the spiral switch. He sat comfortably on the pilot chair and grunted a second later feeling the TARDIS probing his mind; this isn't so bad…oops! "Sorry, lady," he quickly put up a door; snickering feeling her annoyance, "some things are private." Not to mention a little too naughty for an old gal like you. He smirked at her embarrassment. A big yawn left his lips and he slouched against the cushions, one arm draped over the back of the chair and the other on the arm.

Soon Sonic found him-self in a battle of wits with the TARDIS, her annoyance growing with each door he put up. His laughter, after yet another locked door appeared, was cut short when a sharp pain shot through his body. The TARDIS gave a low hum, sending soothing tingles his way. Sonic smiled tiredly at the console in relief as the pain slowly faded away and settled back in the chair, yawning again.

Unknown to Sonic and the TARDIS, the hand that was hidden behind the chair faded in and out of existence while glowing softly with left-over regeneration energy.

Hope that's OK until next time. Hugs to those who get the Sonic Easter Egg!