Preface: Hello everyone! This is an installment of my one-shot line, and probably one of my personal favorites! I hope you enjoy!


Emerald Theft

[Party Selected: Sonic, Tails]
[Current World: Mobius]
[Current Location: Hedgehogtropolis, Tails' Lab]

[BGM: S.T.F Band - Character Select (Get into the Wave 2)]

Tails typed quickly on his keyboard. Usually, he'd be doing it because Sonic wasn't known for being patient, but he was doing it quickly right now because the situation was quite urgent.

Sonic sneered at the picture of a space station surrounding Little Planet, with several multicolored orbs coming out of it. "What's Eggman up to now?" he asked.

"It looks like he went back to the Death Egg mk. II and is working on expanding it," Tails explained. "It doesn't look like he's done any real damage yet, and since the space station is in a vulnerable state, destruction should be easy." Tails turned around and pressed a button, causing an orange, one-man rocket to emerge from the ground. "I call this the Lunar Fox," he continued, "and this will be how I'll send you up there."

Sonic inspected the Lunar Fox, impressed by Tails' work. The fox had previously made a rocket for him behind the scenes of his first adventure on Mirage Island. While admiring the Lunar Fox, however, Sonic noticed seven empty slots. "Uh, Tails? Are these supposed to be empty?" he asked.

Tails rushed over and panicked once he saw the sight. "Oh, no! The Chaos Emeralds were supposed to be in there! I've been robbed!"

"Calm down, man!" said Sonic. "Weren't you working on an emerald tracker or something?"

Tails snapped out of his funk. "That's right!" He took out his Miles Electric and opened the tracker he was working on. "Looks like whoever took them is in Sunset City," he reported.

Sunset City was a city over on the other side of South Island, so Sonic knew it was time to get a move on. "Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's juice!"

[Location Change: South Island, Sunset City]

[BGM: S.T.F. Band - Advertise (KIYO)]

Before long, the two were at the entrance to Sunset City, which was bustling like nothing dire was happening. Tails looked at the Electric. "It seems that figure up there has the emeralds."

Sonic looked at the hotel building to their left and saw the figure Tails was referring to standing on top. It looked almost like a mobian weasel, but overall, Sonic wasn't able to make out who the figure was. Suddenly, the figure took out a popgun and fired a bullet at the two.

"Hey! That dude's firing at us!" Sonic cried. "Now it's personal!" The two immediately took off after the figure, who continued running across the rooftops. Sonic jumped over and dodged the cars and pedestrians as he ran through the streets, and Tails flew behind him.

"Man, that guy's quick!" Tails said, flying low to dodge a traffic light. At that moment, he and Sonic stopped. There was a huge traffic jam, and getting around it was going to be quite tricky.

Sonic looked around for the figure and saw him vanish into a giant ring that was located atop the bank. "Don't think the Special Zone can hide ya, coward!" the hedgehog cried. He took off towards the apartment complex and ran up the wall, Tails following behind closely. They hopped onto the roof of the bank and jumped through the ring, bracing themselves for what they would find there.

[World Change: Special Zone]
[Location Change: Warp of Confusion]

Sonic opened his eyes after entering the ring and was met with the sight of a giant fish that morphed into a bird. He crashed into the wall behind him and saw the entire thing begin to rotate. Bad memories from when he went to South Island to stop Eggman after he overthrew King Acorn filled his head. "The Warp of Confusion," he muttered. "It had to be the Warp of Confusion."

Tails fell face-first through a grouping of rings and into a bumper. "You really never get used to this," he groaned. Quickly, he began to twirl his tails into a propeller and stopped crashing into things.

Sonic grabbed onto one of Tails' hands right before he would hit a bumper that would reverse the maze's rotation. "Can you pick up his signal through all this madness?" he asked Tails.

Tails looked at his Miles Electric with his spare hand. "Doesn't look any worse for wear," he said. He took a closer look at where the emeralds were being tracked. "That's odd. It seems there's a bubble of space where things aren't rotating."

"Makes sense that the dude would want to go there," said Sonic. "Let's go after it!"

Tails began to fly through the maze, keeping his eyes on the tablet, for the odd sight of the fish-birds transforming made him disoriented. Sonic kept a lookout, guiding him away from anything that would cause them to crash. Eventually, he saw a small chunk of land that seemed to be stationary against the maze's rotation, with the figure standing right there. "I think we found him," said Sonic. "Let's do it to it."

[BGM: S.T.F. Band - Game Start (Are You Ready?)]

Tails flew over to the piece of land and let Sonic go before touching ground himself, exhausted from all the flying. "Wow! This piece really isn't rotating!" said Sonic, surprised. But then he got a closer look at the figure, and recognized his purple fur and cowboy attire, with the hat, gloves, belt, and boots. "Wait a minute, I know who you are - you're that jewel thief Nack the Weasel, aren't you?"

The weasel looked up at the two. "Oh, please," he said, sneering, "my friends call me Fang." He clapped his hands, and a green duck with a red bandanna on his neck and a polar bear with a ski cap and scarf hopped onto the piece of land.

"Team Hooligan," said Tails. "I never thought we'd meet you face-to-face."

"Never thought we'd meet Sonic the Hedgehog face-to-face, either," said Nack. He turned to the duck and polar bear. "Bean, Bark, let's get em!"

[BGM: S.T.F. Band - Casino Night (Here We Go)]

"On it, sir!" said Bean, eagerly. He began to toss bombs at Tails, who rolled away just in time. At the same time, Nack fired his popgun at Sonic, who jumped over the bullet and did a Super Sonic Spin Attack right in Nack's face. Unfortunately, Bark simply picked up the hedgehog and threw him right at the still-recovering Tails. Rings flew out of the two as they made an impact.

"Well, if those guys are gonna combine their power," said Sonic, trying to get rid of his dizziness, "we might as well too, right, bro?"

Tails stood up. "Yeah, why not?" The two charged at Team Hooligan, who prepared to fight again. Just as Nack was about to fire his popgun, Sonic began to spin around him, making him dizzy and causing him to drop his popgun. Nack's dizziness gave Sonic the opportunity to clap his hands in the weasel's face, knocking him to the ground.

"You okay, sir?" cried Bean, worried.

"Oh, just get 'em while they're still open to attack!" gritted Nack.

"Alrighty!" said Bean, facing Bark. "Sir, your order of a baker's dozen quick bombs is up and ready!" After his call to Sonic, he threw twelve bombs at Bark, who punched it towards the hedgehog. After this, Nack grabbed his popgun and fired a bullet, completing the baker's dozen.

While Tails panicked from the sight, Sonic instead shifted his speed to his senses, causing time to slow down around him just before the explosives made impact. He grabbed one of the bombs and pretended to take a bite out of it, before spitting and saying in his best Gordon Ramsey impression, "Ugh! These quick bombs are raw!" After that, one by one, he placed the bombs right in Team Hooligan's way, slower than usual. Then, he threw the lone bullet away and returned his speed to his movements, bracing for impact.

"Oh, crap!" cried Bean, stunned by what happened. The bombs blew up in everyone's face, causing rings to scatter and even more dizziness. "𐐒oʎ' ʇɥɐʇ ɹǝɐllʎ ɯɐʞǝs ɯǝ ɟǝǝl ndsᴉpǝ-poʍu!" said Bean, before he fell off the piece of land.

Tails stopped panicking. "Wow, you really mastered that bullet-time thingy!" he said, going up to Nack and swinging his tails in his face, sending him down with the duck.

"It really seems like all of my tricks are born from accidents!" Sonic laughed remembering how he invented the trick.

Bark was the only one remaining, and he was not willing to give up just yet. Bark snuck up behind Sonic and grabbed him, twirling him above his head. "Wow, you never did change from Christmas Island, did you, Bark?" said Sonic as he saw the Warp of Confusion's background spinning around him.

This time, when Tails saw Sonic being thrown right at him, he didn't panic. He spun around and sent Sonic flying right back at Bark with his tails, and the polar bear joined his comrades in falling off of the piece of land. Wiping his hands off as Sonic landed, the fox noticed that Nack had left a suitcase behind and gave it to the hedgehog.

"Whaddya know," said Sonic, opening the suitcase. "The emeralds were here all along." He noticed that the white one was missing. "Wait, aren't there supposed to be seven?"

[BGM: S.T.F. Band - Death Egg's Hanger (Hurry Up)]

"There sure are!" said Nack, suddenly emerging from under the piece of land. He was riding a yellow hovercraft with some sort of explosive underneath it. "And I still have it! Get ready to say goodbye!" Nack took out the white Chaos Emerald and placed it into some kind of canister on his hovercraft.

Tails' eyes grew incredibly wide in panic. "That thing's totally gonna kill us!" he shouted.

Sonic gave a resigned sigh, not because he was about to die, but because he was going to be dead tired. He focused on splitting his speed between his movements and senses, and time slowed around him once more. But he still ran so fast that he created a cocoon of speed around the explosive. He ran around it about twenty times, just enough to ensure the explosion would be contained. He would've probably gone twenty-five times if he hadn't suddenly collapsed from exhaustion at that moment…

[BGM: End]


[World Change: Mobius]
[Location Change: South Island, Sunset City]

When Sonic finally woke up, he was lying on a park bench, back in Sunset City. Looking over, he saw Tails and three human police officers, each arresting a different member of Team Hooligan.

"Thanks, little guy," said the blonde one. "These guys won't be seeing the light of day for a long time."

Nack sighed. "That's what we get for going up against Sonic the Hedgehog."

Sonic got up from the park bench and ran up to Tails. "Did you report them yourself?"

"Yeah!" said Tails. "Even with that cocoon of speed you made, we were all thrown out of the Special Zone, and we conveniently landed next to the police station."

Sonic held out his fist, and Tails accepted the fist bump. "All in a day's work," said Sonic. "Way past cool." Just then, he remembered something. "Oh, crap! We still gotta stop Eggman!"

Tails opened Nack's suitcase, and all seven Chaos Emeralds sat in it. "I'm ready to launch when you are!"

Sonic gave a nod of approval. "Good on you, bro. We really do make a good team."

The End


Credits:

Voices:
Issac Ryan Brown - Sonic
Kate Higgins - Tails
Steve Blum - Nack
Daran Norris - Bean
Jesus von Any - Police Officer

Music:
Maki Morrow / Takenobu Mitsuyoshi

Additional Music:
S.T.F. Band - Ending Theme (Take Me Away) - Credits

Written by: Alfred von Any

Edits by: Jesus von Any

Original Work by: Sega AM2


Postface: I'm honestly pretty proud with how this one turned out. It's a nice way of showing Sonic and Tails' dynamic while shedding some light on some underused Sonic characters, not to mention the references I made!

Trivia time! I intended this story as being a loose adaptation of the arcade game Sonic the Fighters, where Bean and Bark first appeared. That game involved Dr. Eggman creating a Death Egg II and Sonic and his allies doing battle for eight Chaos Emeralds instead of the usual seven. I streamlined the story here to have it make a bit more sense in the main Sonic canon - one of the ways I did that was by making the Death Egg II there the same as the Death Egg mk. II from Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II (plus, that game's never-resolved cliffhanger gets taken care of, too!). As for Sunset City, that's a location from the IDW comics - it was the main location of the two-part 'Crisis City' story, and I'm pretty sure it's intended to be the City area from Sonic Forces. And now for my favorite part - I really like the Archie comics' take on the Special Stages from the early Sonic games, where they were all part of a dimension called the Special Zone. Since this story's set on South Island, I decided to include Sonic 1's Special Stage, which was called the Warp of Confusion in the sources based off of Sega of America's revised backstory for the hedgehog, including the Sonic the Hedgehog Bible, the Stay Sonic book, and the Sonic the Comic magazine. Another cue from the Archie comics - Bark doesn't speak! The voice actors for Nack and Bean, in the meantime, were my little hat-tip to PhantomHeartless5 and his story Sonic Mania: The Novelization. Lastly, a couple of cues from Nack's first appearance, Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble - Nack was often found in the Special Stages in that game, so having him be based there made sense, and his little mobile from that game appears at the end, too!

That should be it! Please read, review, and share around, and I'll see you all later! Stay diamond, everyone!

-Alfred


~Sonic the Hedgehog and everything related to him are properties of Sega Corp. No copyright infringement with this company nor financial gain was intended in the making of this story. Any resemblance to real-world people or events are either coincidental or done fictitiously.~