"Welcome, Sonic!"

Sonic stopped, glaring at Eggman as the doctor loomed over him. "Glad you could make it to your funeral! Infinite, do it!"

Infinite snickered, raising his hand. "Take this."

A dark ball of power appeared in his hand, and quickly expanded in the sky.

"What is that?!" Sonic hissed.

Eggman cackled. "That, my spiky little friend, is null space!"

"Null space?!" Sonic asked. He quickly turned his attention to Tails, who just appeared, and motioned him to hide. The fox nodded and hid behind some crates as the doctor began. "It's a little something that the Phantom Ruby cooked up. A closed off space where absolutely nothing exists! Goodbye, Sonic, my soon to be eradicated nemesis! Enjoy all the nothing!"

Sonic gulped quietly as Infinite raised his hand again, making the portal expand. Tails yelped, clinging to a pole with all of his might.

Sonic yelped as well, trying to keep to the ground.

"SONIC!"

Sonic's eyes narrowed, gritting his teeth. "Penny?!"

He felt someone grab his hand. Sonic turned to Penny, his eyes wide. "Penny, don't! You'll get sucked in too!"

She didn't answer, she just kept a strong hold of her grappling hook and his wrist. She let out a shriek as her grappling hook snapped, and she felt Sonic clung to her protectively as the two fell into the portal.

Tails grunted as he collapsed. "But we DESTROYED the Phantom Ruby's power source!"

"Tisk tisk!"

Tails glanced up to see Eggman grinning down at him. "Since you ALWAYS destroy the power source of my weapons, I decided to LEARN from my mistakes. I had a back up power source created under Metropolis."

It had taken a while to break free from the portal, but Sonic and Penny both managed to escape. The hedgehog landed skillfully on the ground, catching Penny in his arms.

Orbot noticed and began tapping Eggman. "Excuse me? Boss?"

Eggman swiped Orbot away, and his eyes widened to see Sonic and Penny down there, alive. "It CAN'T BE! It's impossible to get out of the Phantom Ruby's null space!"

Penny's gaze drifted to Infinite, and she gulped, inching a bit closer to Sonic. The hedgehog glanced down at her and squeezed her hand reassuringly, and glanced at Eggman. "Maybe by myself, but I had a little help from my friends. Something you wouldn't understand since you don't have any friends!"

Eggman grumbled angrily. "This changes nothing! Dr. Eggman will still have the last laugh!" He flew off, leaving Orbot and Cubot behind.

Sonic snickered as he watched the clumsy robots follow Eggman. "Maybe he'd have more friends if he didn't talk himself in the third person."

Penny nodded, giggling.

"We've got less than an hour before Eggman's plan goes down." Knuckles announced.

"Less then one hour?!" Penny gulped nervously.

"There's no more time!" Shadow hissed. "We have to break into the fortress now!"

"Indeed." Silver said. "This is it...our last opportunity to bring peace back into the world!"

"But...when the battle ends, we'll have to part with Sonic...I mean this Sonic, won't we?" Tails asked, glancing at Classic.

Amy nodded. "Yes. If the Phantom Ruby is gone, then I guess he'll be returned to his dimension."

Tails glanced sadly at Classic. "Thank you for everything Sonic. I'll never forget what you did for us."

"Save the sentiments for later." Espio said. "This is not over yet. We still have a battle to fight."

"Battle..." Penny whispered, clutching her Wispon close to her. Sonic glanced at Penny, pulling her in a comforting hug as Knuckles spoke. "Exactly. This is our last chance. Give it everything you've got!"

"I hope...I hope this all ends well." Penny said, leaning in Sonic's comforting grasp.

"It will. Don't worry." The blue hedgehog said, tightening his grip on her.

They hugged for a while until Penny felt her confidence gaining back up again. She took a deep breath and nodded at Sonic and said two words.

"I'm ready."