Agent Stone prepares a latte, putting in the coffee beans and letting it cool. He holds up two latte sticks and starts working his magic on the foam. When he's done, he looks down to see that he had drawn Robotnik. "Doctor, where are you?" He laments before the art is ruined by someone stirring the cup. He flinches as the man throws down the spoon and then leaves with his latte.
"Weirdo..."
Agent Stone then sighs as he's working there at the Mean Bean café, which opened up not too long ago, but he still misses Robotnik. And since he hadn't been since ever since his encounter with Sonic and Sophia, he had been working there to try and make something of his life...to no avail. His watch beeps and he looks at it to see a message along with a coffee emoji.
'Prepare my latte.'
"Oh!" Stone exclaims in shock, glancing up at the café. "Uh, I'm sorry, folks. I-I have to close early! Everybody out! Everybody out, thank you for visiting the Mean Bean. All right, good night. Good night," Once he's ushered everybody out, he closes the door, putting up the closed sign. He also switches the inspection grade from A to F. He rushes over to the boiler, and the gauge from it turns into a retina scanner. It scans his eye and then a red button appears underneath the drink machine. Stone presses it and it causes a satellite to open up.
He stands at the register, processing what's going on. "He's back...HE'S BAAAAACK!"
An egg-shaped pod detaches itself from the satellite, falling towards Earth. It fires up like a comet, heading towards Robotnik's location. He puts his goggles on as he watches the pod land in front of him, smoke appearing everywhere. The pod gets out its own landing equipment and lands safely in front of the man, who smirks a little. He storms up to the pod as it opens up various panels, revealing all of his robots. He puts on a red/black jacket, adjusting the collar before putting on some black gloves. His mustache gets fixed, his nose gets trimmed, and has...mouthwash squirted into his mouth. He rinses his mouth with it and then spits it out. He inhales and emerges from the pod, walking down to the ground with all his robots surrounding him. "That's more like it! I've been...rehatched!" He exclaims, pumping his fists.
Knuckles is scaling the cliff, using his fists to do so. He continues climbing until a laser hits the spot right next to him. He turns around to see some of the drones and some bee-shaped robots surrounding him, threatening to fire. Robotnik comes up from the top of the area to look down at him.
"So, my...massively metacarpaled friend, you mentioned..." He starts howling the letter U. "Ultimate power...back at the house?"
"The Master Emerald?" Knuckles wonders to him and then gets defensive. "It does not concern you! I got you off that planet and you brought me to the hedgehogs. We have no more use for each other!" He exclaims up at Robotnik, since he could just find them on his own.
"Well, I hate to be a contrarian but..." He takes a moment to tap a button from his glove. "I think we might." His robots get closer to Knuckles, who isn't fazed at all.
"You think these machines are a match for me? I will shatter them like the bones from a fallen-" He looks down and notices something. "Oh. They are stairs," He sees that they were actually creating a path for him to get back up. He steps on the drones, descending upwards to reach Robotnik, walking alongside him until the man stands in front of him.
"You see...Earth is my turf, G. If ya don't know how to floss, you'd be lost without me," He then starts flossing in front of Knuckles to prove his point.
"I understand nothing of what you just said," Knuckles tells him bluntly.
"I help you retrieve the emerald, and you use it to..." He starts swinging the hand that has the blue quill in a rapid fashion. "Destroy the HEDGEHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGS!"
"You're suggesting an alliance?" The echidna looks up at him.
"Around here, we simply grip each other's hands tightly," He reaches down his hand towards the creature, who grasps it so tight that bones can be heard breaking. Robotnik grovels in pain, letting go of his hand immediately. "You truculent space bumpkin! You've crushed my favorite hand!"
"Really?" Knuckles looks down at his fist. "My hand is uninjured. But I am now convinced of your commitment," He gestures to himself, Robotnik still in pain.
"Oh, goodie. He exclaimed, while he reset two of his knuckles," He cracks them back into place, but they still hurt just as bad. "I'mmmm...delighted to be...on the same...team." He then presses a few buttons again to make his Egg Mobile appear between the two of them. "Road trip! I'll let you stick your nose out the window."
"Uh, Sonic? Sophia?" Tails asks in confusion as they're at Wade's house. "Where are we?"
"Welcome to the Wadecave!" Wade shows them the garage. "Which is something I hope to someday say to a woman...A woman who's not my mom," He chuckles a little and Sophia shakes her head.
"Wade, focus," Sonic looks up at him. "We need to figure out why Knuckles thinks we're the key to finding the Master Emerald. And why did he mention Longclaw?" He places his hands on his hips, confused by that bit.
"And if I'm so invulnerable, how can he land a hit on me?" Sophia wonders, rubbing her chin. "But even then, I never knew Longclaw, I only know of her."
"There must be a connection," Tails points out. "But I can answer the Knuckles part. He's trained so hard that even invulnerable people aren't weaknesses to him."
"Wait a minute, there is a connection!" Sonic smiles in realization, taking out the map Longclaw gave to him. "Look! There's an emerald symbol on the map Longclaw gave me," He shows it to them and sure enough, there's a big emerald on the map with question marks in front of it, drawn by Sonic. "I never knew what it meant before."
"Something's happening," Tails notices as the emerald starts to glow from the map, which spreads throughout the entire paper.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" Sonic tosses the map and it falls to the ground. The lights start to flicker and blue smoke appears. A hologram of Longclaw forms from the map as she spreads out her wings. Sophia gasps at her appearance, Sonic shocked as this never happened before in his 10 years on Earth. "Longclaw?"
"Hello, Sonic. If you're watching this, then something has happened to me and I pray you've made it to Earth unharmed. This world has been chosen for a very important reason. It's the secret location of the Master Emerald." She spreads out her wings again, showing the big green emerald.
"Whoa..." He murmurs in awe.
"So that's the infamous Master Emerald..." Sophia says to herself; Sonic never told her about it before.
"The emerald has the power to turn thoughts into reality."
"Like the stay puft marshmallow man from Ghostbusters," Wade whispers and Tails shushes him.
"In the wrong hands, it can threaten all life in the universe. Protecting the emerald was my sacred duty," She closes her wings. "And now, I must pass that responsibility to you."
Sonic realizes that...this is the big moment Tom was talking about, where he'd have to step up. "This...is my moment," He grabs Sophia's hand gently.
"Follow the map, find the emerald, and keep it safe. My dear Sonic, you have a heart like no creature I've ever known. I love you so much..." She gives him a longing look like a mother would to her child. "Goodbye." And with that, the hologram descends down towards the map.
"No, no, no, wait," He murmurs softly, holding out a hand as a holographic feather lands on his hand and he grasps it. He closes his eyes sadly as he remembers losing her, clenching a fist as the lights turn on. "I won't let you down, Longclaw."
Sophia hugs him gently and he smiles weakly, turning to the pink hedgehog. "She would've loved you, Sunshine."
"Would she really?" She smiles weakly up at him.
"Yeah...I know she would," He kisses her forehead. "Who wouldn't?" The two nuzzle each other with small soft smiles on their faces. It would've been nice to be able to talk to Longclaw together and for her to meet Sophia...Tails just looks sympathetic for the two since he couldn't imagine losing someone he loved or could've looked up to...
"So, are those you—your parents?" Wade points between the three.
"What?" Tails looks up at the man, baffled.
"Uncle Wade!" Sophia sighs in embarrassment, pulling away from Sonic. "Why?" She asks him in disbelief as he unintentionally ruined the moment.
"No?"
"Ugh..." She just drags a hand down her face, Sonic approaching the map.
"According to this map, the first clue is in Siberia," The blue hedgehog bends down and grabs the paper. "It's a compass that will lead to the emerald."
"And with Knuckles already here, it's a race," Tails adds in.
"But if he's so powerful enough on his own, why does he want the emerald and what does that have to do with us?" Sophia couldn't help but wonder. "He'd just become like a god or something with that kind of power, and Knuckles has been around for years right? So why seek it now? And we didn't know anything of the emerald until just now, 10 years after...well," She glances at Sonic, meaning Longclaw's death. "It's not like he knew we'd know anything about it." Even if she somehow had come across the emerald indirectly, it was still a huge stretch that Knuckles would assume she has any involvement. She used to be a human, she wouldn't know anything if it hadn't been for Sonic. If it's because of Longclaw, maybe, but Sonic or herself didn't meet Knuckles until tonight. And she didn't have any past history with the owl aside from just being with the hedgehog that she protected until her death.
"Maybe it's because I came along," Sonic tells her, shaking his head. "Even when you don't know things, I still affect your life," His ears droop and she frowns at him.
"Hey, don't say that," She argues to him. "None of that. It's probably just a misunderstanding. Even you thought this wasn't a big deal until now, remember?"
He smiles weakly at her comfort.
"Knuckles?" Wade glances between the three creatures. "I knew a kid in middle school named Knuckles. Could fit his whole fist in his mouth." Sonic glances at the other two, baffled by that. "If this is the same Knuckles, we are screwed."
"This Knuckles, that Knuckles. It doesn't matter," Sonic smirks, holding up a ring. "We're gonna get there first," He tosses a ring and it opens up a portal to Siberia.
"He he he," Tails chuckles nervously upon hearing that. "What do you mean, we?"
"You're coming with us," Sonic explains plain and simple as Sophia joins his side.
"Oh no, no, no, no, no," He denies immediately to them. "I just came here to warn you two. I'm not a field guy."
"Oh, so stealing a police car and hijacking it to come get us means nothing?" Sophia teases with hands on her hips.
"That was different, you were being under attack from the people I had to warn you about," Tails argues back and she rolls her eyes in amusement.
"Don't worry. We got your back. We won't let anything happen to you," Sonic holds out his fist and the pink hedgehog smiles, doing the same with a hand on her hip. Tails walks up to the both of them. "It's a power bump. On Earth, it means an unbreakable promise."
"Okay..." He hesitates as he looks at his fist before smiling. "I'm in!" He smiles and bumps their fists back.