Knuckles, carrying some moderately large box, the content of which he had not yet known. To say it didn't peak his interest.
As Amy kept roaming around, she rammed into the echidna.
"Knuckles!" She exclaimed, instantly noticing what he had carried with him. "Is that for us?"
"I don't know yet," Knuckles answered, still wondering about what was inside the box. "It's not very heavy, though..."
"Well, bring it inside," Amy said excitedly, which is what the echidna did.
As Sonic and Tails noticed Knuckles coming here and carrying something, they both got up from their seats, Sonic somewhat more slowly.
"Knuckles," Sonic exclaimed. "What's that?" he wondered, having seen him carrying a box.
"It's gotta be something for us," Knuckles said, pointing at the label on the box. "I haven't opened it yet, though."
As soon as the echidna reached to open it, though:
"Wait!" Tails interrupted. "How do you know it's not a trap?"
To this, he and Knuckles stared at each other with mild tension.
"I don't," the echidna answered, with a slight tone of insecurity in his voice. "There is only one way to find out."
After Knuckles said that, all four of them stared at the box for a few seconds, with a sense of uncertainty.
"Well, open it then," Amy finally advised.
The echidna still stared at it for some more, until:
"I guess you're right," he inquired, as he brought the scalpel closer to the box to cut the tape that had been sealing it. Sonic, Tail and Amy watched this scenery with great concern. Tails was still worried in the case this really was a trap. Eventually, Knuckles finally opened the box...
Only to discover that what the box contained was nothing more than a small piece of paper.
"What?!" Sonic exclaimed in disappointment. "This big a box for just some piece of paper?"
Knuckles took that piece of paper out of the box, in case something was written on it.
And, oh yes, it was.
Hello, blue hedgehog and friends.
You, by all chances, don't know who I am.
You see, i was an assistant to Dr. Robotnik, now with the good doctor gone"
Im coming for revenge.
"Dammit," was Knuckles' first reaction to the unsigned letter. "How many times do we have to face Robotnik?"
"Maybe you guys are just not careful enough," Amy responded, to which the echidna directed the look of disbelief towards her.
Tails, on the other hand, could have now sworn on his whole being that this was a trap. A very malicious one, on top of that. But he didn't say anything.
"Any ideas?" Sonic asked.
There was suddenly a loud boom
" That came from the town" Amy said
" Lets go " Sonic said
The group headed into Green Hills, they soon noticed smoke coming from the railways
"Follow that train." Tails said
Sonic and Knuckles looked at the railway, trying to see where it led - only in one of the two directions, though, the one that led to some big city that could be seen in the distance, beneath a mountain - only to see no train coming from there.
"What train?" Knuckles therefore wondered. Just then, all four heard something coming from the opposite direction, turning around to see what that was. A freight train.
With only two wagons.
"Perhaps that train," Amy said. Sonic scratched his head as to why a freight train would only carry so few wagons.
"Well, come on, guys," Knuckles said, starting to run towards that train, that wasn't moving very fast. Eventually, he successfully climbed on top of it. Sonic and Amy did the same, while Tails simply just flew upward there,
"So... now we wait?" Tails asked, meaning until the train arrived wherever it arrived.
No one had an answer. All four of them looked around, mainly looking at the city they were about to arrive in.
Quickly enough, Knuckles noticed that on the opposite side of the train from where they had climbed it - the first wagon's door was opened.
"Guys..." he told the rest, pointing at this discovery, to which all four went inside - with a little delay by Tails, whose suspicions of this being a trap only rose. And the wagon was almost empty.
Almost.
What they saw there was something that it couldn't be said they didn't expect to see, but not in this way.
"A Chaos Emerald," Sonic exclaimed. Knuckles immediately picked the emerald up, in sheer confusion. The other three completely froze from discomfort for a moment, until Tails noticed that they were getting near a bridge over some river, and that right now, they were going right above a wide avenue, not too far from some roundabout.
It was at that very moment that even Sonic started to feel that something was not right, just like the fox had all this time.
"That man did not "find" that Chaos Emerald, did he?" he wondered aloud.
And therefore, in a determined tone of voice:
"Very well, then," he said - as he jumped!
"Sonic!" tails gasped, as he flew downwards to the avenue that the hedgehog was coming closer to. Naturally, Knuckles and Amy jumped down too - but not before Knuckles got hold tight of the Chaos Emerald. As they landed on the road however, their act of running on the avenue, towards the west, only lasted for a few seconds - before they heard:
"FREEZE!"
They were quickly surrounded by a number of police cars!
"Wait, we can explain everything!" Knuckles shouted, in a desperate move, but this got Amy confused, knowing it wasn't true.
"No, we can't," she promptly corrected him.
A police officer that got out of his car and began approaching them sharply yelled:
"Oh its you guys," Wade aaid
" Wade?" Knuckles then responded to the officer's statement, only realizing one moment later that he had been holding an emerald in his hand, That is, until the officer answered the echidna's question.
"So who's the pink one?."
And this just left all four of them flabbergasted. Seriously Wade?!
" Hi im Amy Rose " Amy said introducing herself
" Hi Amy im Wade " Wade said, " Your a hedgehog like Sonic ?"
" Yes "
" Are you as fast as Sonic"
" No one is as fast as Sonic "
" What happened here?"
" We dont know" Tails said.
" Well im sure you will figure it out and save the town like you always do " Wade replied, the four hoped Wade was right.
