"Hello all." I turned around to find…

"Caleb?" We asked. Mom and I glanced at each other before looking at Caleb who was holding Baby Princeton.

"What are you doing here?" I asked as I hopped off Mom's lap.

"Where is Sonic?" Mom asked him.

Princeton started to cry. Mom went straight to Caleb and took Princeton in her arms to calm him down.

"We were attacked by a robot."

"What?!" we asked worried and scared.

Mom slowly walked closer to my younger cousins.

"Mr. Sonic is in the forest fighting the robot. It came out of nowhere but it targeted Mr. Sonic. He sent me with Princeton."

"Everybody inside, now." My mom told us. I had never seen Mom more serious… or scared.

As we started to pick up everything though, Dad came back. "Did I miss the party?"

"Daddy!" I exclaimed.

"Sonic!"

He walked up to Mom who gave him a hug and a kiss.

"Oh Sonic, I was so worried-"

Dad kissed Mom.

"Daddy are you okay?" I asked when I made it to him.

"Never better." He scooped up Princeton from Mom's arms and then he scooped me up. He held us in different arms and hugged us tightly.

"Daddy, what happened to the robot?" I asked him. "What kind of robot was it?"

"It's gone Sweetie, don't worry. Daddy took care of it." He kissed my forehead.

"But why did it attack? None of Uncle Tails' machines attack us."

"She's right. The only other time robots attacked you was back when Dr. Eggman was still alive." Caleb explained.

That's right. Dad would tell me stories about his adventures and the one villain that kept popping up was Dr. Eggman. I looked up at him and asked, "He's not, he's not alive, is he? I mean he can't be, right? You saw him die."

He looked at me funny. He was trying to figure out how to explain it to me. He sighed and said, "I don't know Annie." Then he looked at my mom. "But we're going to find out." Then he looked at me. "And you're going to have a big play date with your cousins."

"You're not going to leave me alone with all of them are you?!" I asked terrified. All of my other cousins were babies or toddlers. I couldn't handle more than 2 at a time at best and that's if I didn't have to make sure Princeton stayed out of trouble.

Mom and Dad laughed a little. "No, no Annie. We'd never leave you by yourselves." I felt better, but not by much. I had a bad feeling about all of this.

We went inside, I took a look at Caleb, there was a red mark on his cheek. "Hey Caleb, you've got something…" I pointed to my cheek.

He looked at me confused and wiped his cheek with his fingers. He looked at his fingers, "Oh, it's just blood."

"Blood?" I asked him. Then I saw more red on his face. "You're still bleeding?!"

"I am?" He wiped his face again and looked at his hand. "That's odd."

"Sit down and watch my cousins please. I'll go get the first aid kit." I pulled his arm towards my younger cousins who set up their toys near the coffee table.

"But Annie-"

I ran to the bathroom before I could hear the rest. When I came back, I saw Caleb sitting down next to my cousins and looking at Ben's drawing.

I heard him say, "This is amazing. I didn't know you could draw this well Ben."

I sat down next to Caleb with the kit and told him, "Hold still Caleb."

"Annie, I'm healed." He said. "See?" I looked and didn't see anymore blood, I touched his cheek and nothing came out. No red on my fingers either.

"I will have to wash my glove though."

"What happened to your cut? When I get a cut, you could still see where it is. You don't even that bumpy stuff on your face."

"I heal faster than a normal person. I thought you knew." He looked at me with almost a blank face.

"No." I was more confused than anything. "Since when can you do that?"

"Always."

"Really?" Looking back, it makes sense. I never saw him with an injury or cut before that day because he would heal that quickly. Even when he trained with his dad and he would be sore for about an hour the next morning. By the time he came for a play date, he would okay."

He nodded. "Yes, remember when I told you I sprained my ankle?"

"Yeah, you fell out of a high tree."

"I was trying to get that flower I gave to you on your birthday the next day."

"But you were walking just fine."

He nodded again and waited for me to get it.

"Oh… that's how fast your ankle got fixed."

He nodded again.

"How fast can you heal a broken bone?"

He looked out into space.

"I don't know. I haven't broken a bone yet."

"Well, if a fall from a tree can sprain your ankle, maybe you just need to fall from something higher to break your leg."

"Maybe." We looked at each other and nodded casually. "But I don't want to break my leg on purpose."

"Yeah, we'd probably get into big trouble."

"What would get you into big trouble?" We turned around to see my mom and dad. He looked at us with slight concern.

"If we tried to break Caleb's leg on purpose." I told them.

"Why?" Mom asked.

"To see how long it would take for me to heal." Caleb said and I nodded.

Mom looked at us with a worried look and said, "Please don't try anything like that."

Meanwhile, Dad looked out into space trying to see our logic. Mom looked at Dad noticing the look on his face.

"Sonic?" She asked him.

"You gotta admit, it's a good question."

"Sonic?!" Mom exclaimed, not believing what she was hearing.

"I thought so too." I said. "But I don't want to hurt Caleb like that."

"We'll find out soon, I think." Caleb said. We all looked at Caleb. "My father wants to teach me survival skills in the woods in two days. He said we'll be out there for two weeks. I might break a bone then."

"Okay!" Mom said and grabbed her head with her hands. "How about we stop talking about Caleb breaking a bone and tidy up the house before everyone comes, yeah?"

We kind of all looked around at each other and then at Mom.

"Good. Annie, would you like to help me make brownies?" Mama smiled at me.

"Sure Mama."

I went to help make brownies with Mom and the kitchen while Dad and Caleb watched Princeton and my cousins. The brownies weren't done by the time everybody made it to the house. They all seemed kind of secretive and scared. The feeling in my gut felt more right then. Something was going to happen. I didn't know what, but I knew it something big.

I remember Ms. Maria and my Aunt Cream watched us while the rest were in the basement.

"What do you think is going on?" I whispered to Caleb as I poured milk into a glass.

He took a deep breath. "I think they're discussing a battle plan."

"What does that mean?" I took a bite of my brownie.

"They want to plan out what to do in case something like this happens again." He took a bite out of his brownie. "This is delicious by the way."

"Thanks. It's mom's favorite recipe." I wondered a little bit. Caleb knew more about this kind of stuff than I did. "Do you think it'll happen again?" I took a few more bites.

"I don't know." He took a sip of milk. "I hope not." He looked at me kind of sad and intense.

"Caleb?" I looked at him funny. "What is it?" I scooted closer to him. He never looked at me like that before.

He looked away from me. "Nothing, I think."

"That doesn't help."

He looked at me and smiled. "I'm pretty sure it's nothing."

I wasn't sure if I should believe him but I knew he wasn't going to tell me anything else even if I tried to get him to talk.