Tails and Sonic walked side by side through the forest. Loren was in the lead, the Amulet glowing in her hand. The army followed behind Sonic, bringing up the rear. Tails had found out from Amy that it was ten-thirty and he had been over four hours in the Black Region, without even realising. It had not seemed that long to him. Tails was deep in conversation with his old friend.

"So you organised this whole army thing? Wow..." Tails breathed, as he listened to Sonic retell the story of what had happened in Loren's world. He was especially intrigued by the tale of the Militon Roamers.

"I'm pretty impressed with what you did too, Tails. I mean, sheesh, when I got swallowed by that Orb, I was just hoping you'd get out of that alleyway safely. I never thought you'd be leading this great big mission."

"Ditto. Well, I've had my fair share of adventure. After this, I'm gonna retire."

"Tails! You've not even got a job yet!"

"I know, but I'm still gonna retire anyway. Don't you ever get tired of being the centre of attention? Since you got transported into Loren's world, I found that everything about this adventure was different. It's hard. And all the time it was Tails this and Tails that.....everyone was interested in me, it was always me they were trying to get. I know I've been chased after, before with you, but when you were gone I was the one in charge and I became the main target," Tails confessed.

"Yeah, you get used to it after a while." Sonic nodded sympathetically.

"I put others in danger, too. I wish I hadn't. When Stella kidnapped Amy I felt awful."

"Boy, do I know how that feels," Sonic agreed. "Not about Amy, of course," he added hastily, reluctant to have any association with her. Tails chuckled. Sonic and Amy were certainly an odd couple. She was mad about him, but he found her extremely annoying and showed as little affection as possible to her (Tails knew that he really did like her, of course).

One of the Regiment Guard soldiers ran up to Sonic.

"Sonic, we are missing half of the Guard. Sectors Twenty through to Thirty One have gone missing," he reported. Sonic started. He then paused for a moment, to think things through.

"Okay. It=s best if the entire army stops until we find the missing troops. We don't want to go further away from them. Call the march to a halt," said Sonic, before going to tell Loren what was going on. Tails assumed that Loren had agreed with Sonic, because she carried on as Sonic sped past them to stay with the army.

"See ya later!" he called to Tails.

* * * * *

Knuckles and Rouge sat together on the cliff top, watching the sun rising high into the midday sky. The waves lapped gently onto the rocks below them, and the sandy beaches stretched out for miles on either side of the mountain.

They were together now. It felt like everything was just getting better.

Rouge suddenly lifted her head from his shoulder.

"What's wrong?" asked Knuckles.

"I can hear something - down there." Rouge pointed down to the sands below them. "Didn't Tails say something about the Orb, that something was going to happen today?"

"I think you're right." Knuckles peered over the edge of the cliff, down at the sands. In the cover of the trees, he caught a glimpse of something that looked to him like the Plasmic Generator. "Let's check it out. If Tails needs our help, we should be there."

* * * * *