Sonic and Wave immediately took the lead, going through the lush, green paradise, and avoiding spikes as the ground transitioned to a serene, pink and blue aesthetic. As Wave exited a pathway, however, she heard a voice say,

"FUTURE!"

"What the heck?" She said, looking for the owner of the voice, before a green portal opened up in front of her and Sonic, immediately sucking them into a barren, metallic wasteland. "What happened!? How'd we get here?"

"We're in the Bad Future." Sonic replied, an uncharacteristic tone of seriousness in his voice. "It's a timeline where Eggman took over during his initial attack. I stopped it from being the ONLY future, but some of it sticks around like a scar. Who KNOWS if the planet will ever fully heal from it?" Wave nodded, understanding what Sonic was saying...In concept, at least. "Sounds like a sore spot for you."

"Yeah...Just follow me for a bit, okay? I'll get us back to the present." Sonic said, giving a smile and a thumbs up.

Knuckles and Storm were neck and neck, barely giving each other any ground for most of the race. Knuckles pulled off to the side to utilize a shortcut, and Storm followed...When they both felt the tingle of a strange energy as their perspective shifted. Knuckles looked around, small imperfections in the metallic floor were now huge ramps and pits, the ceiling looked as high as the sky, and he got a growing knowledge of how little this area had been swept. "WHOA! Did this room just get bigger?" Storm asked, his voice sounding very high pitched. "It looks like WE'RE the ones that shrunk!" Knuckles replied, his voice sounding equally squeaky as he did some tricks off of one of the new ramps. "I think I've heard of these before, we've just got to find a growth ray!"

It didn't take long for the two to find their way through the shortcut, which grew more proportional to them as they got closer and closer to the end, before expanding again near a blue ray. "That's it! We're home free!" Knuckles said as he pulled ahead into the ray, growing him back to full size...But in the process, knocking the diminutive Storm backwards into another pathway. "Um...Sorry!" Knuckles said as he rode off to inform a Glamor Chao.

"Yeah, yeah, I KNOW!" Lucy groaned as her air shoes gave her another low air warning. Thankfully, ramps had been fairly plentiful as the finish line grew closer, but she was still having a hard time maintaining her place in the race. Lucy thought for a moment. Speed was clearly not on her side, so what COULD be?

Then she remembered going through a time warp earlier. It had effectively acted as a shortcut, bringing her from 8th place to 4th in a matter of minutes to her, and seconds to everyone else. She checked her chronal map...She was traveling through the past right now...And a future sign was ahead of her. If she could carefully manage her speed and air for JUST long enough...Enter and exit the time warp with JUST the right timing...

She closed her map and smiled as she forged on ahead. Yeah, she could do it.