Hello, people. Man, I'm so excited about starting the sequel (which will have action in it) that I don't want to write this one any more. Oh well... =( This fic is going to get confusing with the different times. There are three time periods: Past (Tikal's time), Present (with Young Sonic, Mortimer, etc.), and Future (the current Sonic world, where apparently Mortimer is dead). Enjoy!

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The next few months of school passed by without much happening. Soon, it was winter. There was about two feet of snow on the ground. Sonic invited Knuckles over to play. The friends decided to have a snowball fight.
"I know!" Sonic exclaimed. "We can invite Mortimer and Isaac over, and have teams." They did. It was Sonic and Isaac against Mortimer and Knuckles.
Sonic and Knuckles used their respective speed and power to build snow forts. When they were done, the fight began. Knuckles started out by whipping a snowball at Sonic. Sonic just smiled, and bent backwards so the snowball sailed right over his head. Mortimer threw a snowball at Sonic's legs. He jumped up high, and started blasting down a flurry of snowballs in all directions. Knuckles punched or dodged all of them, but several hit Mortimer. Then, Knuckles noticed something.
"Where's Isaac?" Suddenly, Isaac burst out from behind a tree, holding a strange metal claw. "Eat snow!" he screamed. He pressed a button, and it started flinging snowballs everywhere. They all hit Mortimer. "Oh well," Mortimer said. "I'm out."
But Knuckles threw a bunch of snowballs at Isaac, catching him by surprise, and putting him out. It was just Knuckles and Sonic. It was a pretty close match. Sonic started blazing around, making huge piles of snowballs. Knuckles, however, was rolling one huge one around. Sonic threw several of his, but Knuckles threw his huge one. It destroyed all of Sonic's and was about to hit him. Sonic jumped up high. Knuckles threw a flurry of snowballs up high, hitting Sonic down into the big one. Sonic was out.
"I win!" Knuckles said happily. "Good game Sonic. Good game Isaac." At this point, Sonic's mom called them in for hot chocolate.
They drank their hot chocolate happily. Soon after, it was time for Sonic's friends to go home. They said their goodbyes, and went on their way.

* * *

Sonic rushed downstairs the next day. He had overslept again. "Mom! It's Monday! I have school today!"
"It's a snow day. There's so much snow, that the buses can't get to school, so school is closed today."
"Oh... Can I invite Knuckles over?"
"Well, okay. But can you run there yourself? The streets haven't been plowed yet."
These words were barely out of her mouth when Sonic shot out the door. He reached Knuckles' house in a few seconds. He went through the usual procedure: asking Mrs. Echidna, carrying Knuckles piggyback to home.
Sonic and Knuckles decided to play the tree game. Sonic messed up, and only got twelve. But something strange happened when Knuckles went up. He jumped, but stretched his body horizontally, and outstretched his hands. He seemed to be floating through mid-air!
Sonic gasped. "How did you do that?"

"I don't know," Knuckles said shakily as he landed on the tree.

Sonic smiled. "Well, I don't think I'll be able to beat you at this game anymore."

The two friends laughed, and went inside.

* * *

The next day when Sonic went out to play, he was still pondering how Knuckles did that floating thing. He went to play the tree game. But when he went up in the tree, he saw a floating trail of shining circles. He recalled his dad telling him about these. They were called Rings. Sonic went to jump to the next tree, but he felt an energy growing within him. The next thing he knew, he was blasting along the trail of rings faster than the speed of light.
As if that wasn't enough to scare little Sonic, he could somehow stand up at the side of the tree. He started to jump back and forth, bouncing off the trees. He easily broke his record. In fact, he got over 200 (in less than a minute) when he finally started to get bored. He jumped down from the tree. When he landed, he somehow curled up into a ball.
Poor Sonic was so shocked after this performance, he couldn't even stand up; his legs were shaking so much. Remembering Knuckles' 'floating' before, he wondered what was happening to him and his friends.

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Meanwhile, Isaac had big news too. His parents had conceived a child. They had already decided on a name: Miles.

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Okay, how was that? Sorry this chapter was so short. Ooh, Sonic and Knuckles are learning their new moves. See? SEE!? Isaac isn't Tails! So HA! And again I say HA!

Sorry, I'll stop.