Two days later, in the middle of a city, Rouge stood on top of a building and walked up to the edge.
She exclaimed "Aw yeah, this is happenin."
Looking over the edge, she saw Knuckles trying to fly the Tornado and failing miserably.
"How did I manage to design these controls, my hands are far too big for them"
In an attempt to regain control, Knuckles pulled up on the joystick until it ripped out of its socket. He screamed as the Tornado went further out and plunged into a nosedive. Knowing there was nothing he could do to regain control of the Tornado, he leapt from his seat and glided down safely as the Tornado spiraled out of control and crashed somewhere in the distance. Smoke rose from where the Tornado had landed, creating an impromptu landmark.
Rouge's ears perked up and her eyes widened "That doesn't look good, I better go check on Knuckles and see what happened."
She glided off of the building and gently landed on the sidewalk. Looking around for a second, she heard a familiar voice come out of nowhere.
"Rouge!"
Shadow emerged and walked towards Rouge as My Sweet Passion played in the background
"Uhhh...Shadow, w...what are you doing here?"
"I've been following you around since this morning"
"I don't have time for whatever you have planned right now, I just saw Knu…"
"What's with you anyway!? You've been acting like you don't have time for me anymore all day!"
"Fine, I need your help, I just saw Knuckles crash the Tornado and I'm concerned about him"
"Ok, I'll help you out, but only if you promise to marry me"
"What!?"
"I'm sure they'll accept that in court, let's go help Knuckles together!"
Rouge looked at Shadow with visible frustration before she ran off. Shadow followed after Rouge had already gotten a few yards away from him
"Wait, don't leave without me!"
Rouge and Shadow met up with Knuckles, who was brushing debris off himself. Rouge looked over Knuckles to check if he was injured anywhere. Satisfied when she found nothing, she asked about what happened.
Knuckles replied "I don't know! It's like the controls were made for someone way smaller than me. I could barely fit into the cockpit, let alone mess with the tiny buttons"
"From the looks of it, I could fit in it just fine"
"True, but I'm sure I would have designed it for multiple people to use.
"So why exactly were you out flying it anyway" asked Shadow
"Well, I had just added a new modification to the engine and wanted to try it out
He pointed to the nose cone, which appeared to be a chaos emerald shoved deep into the nose and poorly held in place with duct tape.
"I was trying to make a duplicate of Tornado II by adding a chaos emerald to the first one because I ended up destroying the original Tornado II by mistake."
"How did you break it"
Knuckles thought back to when he was trying to modify the Tornado II. He attempted to align a propeller blade, but bent it. In an effort to repair the damage, he bent it the other way, causing it to snap. Out of ideas, he took wood glue and smeared it on both ends of the break, shoved them together, and wrapped them in duct tape. Fearing that the blade might perform poorly, he decided to make the engine faster. The best way he could think to add more power was to add energy from a chaos emerald, so he hammered a chaos emerald into the nose of the plane.
"It seems that I have suddenly lost the ability to build anything"
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll remember how to do it soon..." said Shadow encouragingly
Suddenly a robotic arm came out of nowhere and took the chaos emerald from Knuckles.
Cream boasted, having swiped the emerald.
"Mwahahaha! Fools, do you think you can beat me? Taking that chaos emerald was like taking candy from a baby!"
"Dr. Cream! What could you possibly be up to this time?!" shouted Rouge
"You'll find out soon enough. Now that I've stolen the emerald, I'll be on my way to set my plan in motion."
Cream pressed a button and the robot arm retracted inside the egg mobile, sealing away the emerald. The Eggmobile soon flew away to the sound of Cream's laughter growing fainter.
Rouge came up with their next course of action, "We need to go after her, let's go find everyone else to get some help tracking her down. We'll handle her better if we're together anyway"
Shadow cheerfully responded "I say we split up. Me and Rouge are one group, and you can be the other group!"
"Shadow, I'm one person, how am I a group?" replied Knuckles, annoyed.
"Because...uhhh...your...intelligence is...bigger than some groups of people?" Said Shadow, trying to come up with an excuse
Knuckles considered what Shadow had said for a moment
"You know what, you're right. You guys need to stick together. I'll be fine by myself since I'm smart, and you guys combined should have enough smartness to be fine. You guys look for Amy, I'll look for Eggman. We can meet back at my workshop when you guys are done"
The three split up with Shadow and Rouge in one group and Knuckles by himself in another.
"So how do you think we're going to find Amy?" queried Shadow
"To find Amy, all we have to do is think like Amy. Now lets see, if I was a mopey and brooding pink hedgehog, where would I be?"
"Ooh, I know! Standing on top of a building staring at a white-haired bat standing in the street"
"Good idea, how did you figure that out?"
"Because she's staring at us right now"
Rouge looked up to find Amy standing on top of a building, staring at them with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.
Amy glared down at the pair of heroes beneath her.
"What? That white bat again, of all places!"
Rouge shook her head and spoke to Shadow
"It looks like we're gonna come to Amy, I'm not waiting for her to come to us"
Rouge placed her left hand between Shadow's shoulder blades and her other above the back of his knees, sweeping Shadow off his feet. She bent her knees slightly before jumping up to get a boost as she flew to meet Amy.
Midair, Shadow whispered into Rouge's ear
"Is this how you're going to hold me on our wedding day?"
Rouge blushed and turned away at Shadow's comment. She landed on top of the building and set Shadow down, the two of them began to approach Amy.
Amy sighed and spoke to the pair.
"Let me guess, you need my help to defeat Dr. Cream."
"Uh, yeah. You don't like us to contact you at all, but you especially dislike when it's not important"
"Perhaps you're smarter than you look. Not as smart as the Doctor or Knuckles, but smarter than Eggman anyway. So tell me, what's important enough that you need my help?"
"Dr. Cream stole Knuckles' chaos emerald. We don't even know what evil scheme Cream's concocted."
"It's just like Knuckles to lose a chaos emerald so easily. He takes after you I see."
"Hey, he tried his best! Although his best wasn't particularly great…"
"As the ultimate lifeform, I fail to understand the feeling"
Shadow chimed in "If you're the ultimate lifeform, then how come you can't understand the feeling?"
"I'll make you eat those words!"
Amy tried charging at Shadow, but she immediately tripped and fell to the ground.
"What happened, I'm supposed to have the ultimate power!"
Amy stood back up and tried to charge at them again, only to wind up grinding her feet across the ground, gaining absolutely no momentum. She then realized why she couldn't move.
"Where are my rocket skates? I know I had them back when we fought the Doctor"
Shadow said "I haven't seen them anywhere to be honest"
Amy stared at Shadow, her sight fixated on his shoes. "It must have been one of the doctor's plans to steal them from me and replace them. You've convinced me to join, let's go after her!"
Elsewhere in town, Knuckles stood outside a fitness center.
He muttered to himself "If that meathead Eggman isn't here, I don't know where else he could possibly be"
He walked up to the sliding doors and headed inside to find Eggman. He stopped at the entrance to scan the environment for Eggman until he was interrupted by a voice coming from the front desk
"Excuse me sir, you need a membership to use the equipment"
Knuckles spun around to speak with a cheerful employee speaking to him
"Huh, what? I don't have a membership here, but I was just looking for a friend"
"Sir, you can do all the socializing you want once you have a membership but, until that time, I can't let you use the equipment"
Visibly frustrated, Knuckles slowly explained the situation to the employee.
"LIsten to me, I'm not trying to use the equipment, I'm just looking for someone who I think is working out here. Can I please just go look for my friend?"
"Sir, I'm sorry, those are the rules. I didn't make them. If you have a problem with our store policy, I can get a manager to discuss the issue or I can give you a number to call"
"I don't need a manager, I'm just trying to look for my friend."
"Sir, I've told you, if you want to use the facility, you need a membership"
"Fine, is there some sort of trial period I can use?"
"Why of course sir! I can set that up right over here"
The employee guided Knuckles through several papers requiring signatures and the details of his contract. Once Knuckles finished the paper portion of the membership process, the employee guided him to the ID card photo station.
"Alright sir, once this photo is taken, I'll be able to print out a card for you and you'll be free to use the facilities!"
"Finally, let's just get this over with so I can get back to what I was doing"
The employee instructed Knuckles on what to do for the photo and positioned him to be perfectly in frame.
"OKay, I'll count down to zero. Three…..two…."
Suddenly a shout was heard from further in the gym
"Knuckles, you've come to get buff like me!"
Knuckles turned to see Eggman curling a barbell, shirtless. Droplets of sweat hung on the ends of his mustache while a radiant sheen of perspiration covered his torso, reflecting the glaring fluorescents lights above. There was a visible disparity in skin tone between his head and neck, and the rest of his oft-covered upper body.
"Uhh, no. Rouge, Shadow, and I need your help, Dr. Cream has just stolen a chaos emerald from us." said Knuckles, disturbed by what he was looking at.
"I can't go now, I haven't gotten totally jacked yet!" Eggman flexed his arms and chest for Knuckles "Just give me a few more days, maybe a week or a month or two."
"Isn't it your job to guard chaos emeralds?"
"And what if it is my job? No point in guarding something that's already been stolen. Right now my job is to get positively massive"
"You know Eggman, I've heard that, though dangerous, combat is quite vigorous exercise"
Eggman dropped his barbell, denting the floor beneath it.
"Really, then what are we waiting for?"
The two walked out of the building, leaving the employee one step away from completing a new membership. They exited the gym and found Rouge, Shadow, and Amy waiting outside
Knuckles said "So I see you got Amy to help us"
"I'm only helping you guys because I have to"
"Is there anyone else we need to join us before we try to track down Dr. Cream?"
A voice came out of nowhere
"Hey everyone, long time no see"
The four looked up to see Tails standing on top of the gym. He flew down to them and landed gently on the ground.
"Tails, you know it's only been two days since we last saw each other" said Shadow
"I heard there was a chaos emerald involved in this and thought I might help you. Besides, I believe it will make a fine addition to my collection"
"Nice try fox boy, you know those are too dangerous for someone like you to own" stated Eggman
"Dangerous or not, I want it to be mine, consider it a reward for me helping you"
The original four then huddled together in a circle and whispered to each other.
"Just play along with it for now, we'll figure it out when we get there" whispered Rouge
They all nodded in agreement and disbanded the circle, looking back at Tails.
Knuckles spoke for the team
"Okay, you can come with us, but we'll discuss your 'payment' once we're done"
"Fine by me, when Dr. Cream sees my moves, she'll be running scared"
With varying levels of disappointment, the full group headed further into the city to try to track where Cream went to. In the middle of their journey, they ran into Sonic who was picking daffodils and eating an ice cream cone. He was wearing a sundress that was clearly too small for him. The openings of its pockets were caked with a mixture of melted vanilla ice cream and daffodil petals which smelled of a cool sweetness.
"Oh, hi everyone! Did you all come here to go pick flowers too?"
Rouge smiled at him and told him their plans
"We're headed to go find Dr. Cream. So we all grouped together to take her down. Maybe when we're done we'll go pick flowers today. Sound like a plan?"
Sonic beamed at the suggestion
"I hope you get Dr. Cream quickly then, she's mean and she's keeping you from spending time with me!"
"Don't worry, you're speaking to the fastest bat alive! Say, you haven't seen Dr. Cream around here have you?"
"Oh, I just saw her pass by when I came here. I think I could show you where she went, if that's what you want"
"Ok great, lead the way"
Amy questioned Rouge's decision "Wait, you're going to trust him to lead the way?"
"Well, do you have a better idea?"
"Good point, I guess we don't have too much choice"
The group set off again with Sonic leading them.
They eventually found their way into a public park where Cream was out in the open being guarded by a few robots with rabbit ears poorly attached to their heads.
Sonic stopped when Cream was in view
"See, I knew I could be helpful! Cream is in the park over there, but I want to stay away from her, she's too mean."
Rouge pat Sonic on the head and thanked her.
"You did great, and you don't have to come with us. We especially don't want you getting hurt"
The rest of the group went further out to confront Cream. Before they came too close to Cream, Rouge held up her hand, signalling them to stop.
"Remember, we don't know what Cream could be planning now that she has the chaos emerald. She may look relatively unguarded, but it's anyone's guess how much more she has hidden. Watch for any tricks she might pull"
Having finished the brief meeting, the group ran to charge Cream and her robots. Shadow pulled out a rusted claw hammer to fight with.
Shadow noticed some of the members looking at his new weapon and addressed their concerns
"I thought I should have a hammer, and this was the best I could find. I got a good deal on it at a thrift store"
Eggman shook his head at Shadows decision
"I don't get why you'd use a hammer when you have a perfectly good pair of fists already with you!"
Completely oblivious to their approach, Cream's robots were attacked by the group of heroes. Cream turned around to check what the metallic crashing and grinding noises she was hearing were. She threw her arms up in exasperation upon seeing her robots losing the fight.
Shadow repeatedly attacked one of the robots with the hammer, doing little more than putting dents in it until the hammer's head broke off. He heard an adult voice behind him
"See Shadow, I told you that nothing beats your fist!"
Eggman jumped in and threw a mighty right hook at the robots head. The robot was left unphased, but Eggman's expression changed to one of surprise. He yelped in pain and pulled his hand back, holding it in the other
"You know, maybe a hammer isn't such a bad idea"
Amy stood in the back making a defensive stance against two robots
"Pathetic machines, I'll show you the ultimate power"
The robot kicked her, sending her tumbling a few feet before she slid to a halt
Getting back on her feet, she questioned herself
"How could I have overestimated myself this much?"
Tails was trying to hypnotize one of the robots by doing a suggestive dance in front of it, the robot was clearly just confused due to Tails' appearance and simply smacked him out of the way.
Rouge came to Shadow's aid, decapitating the robot with a well placed kick.
"It seems that Dr. Cream has done something that made us less powerful, but it doesn't seem to have affected me, I'll go after her"
Rouge glided to Cream and boarded the Eggmobile on the side, she then began to look for a weak spot. After finding nothing, Rouge asked for help
"I don't know what to do here, anyone want to try their hand at this?"
Knuckles jumped on to the Eggmobile "I think I can handle it, just gently…"
He unintentionally punched his fist right into the sheet metal and ripped the entire fuel tank out with ease
"Whoops"
The two jumped off of the craft, leaving it to crash. They all surrounded Cream as she climbed out of the wrecked Eggmobile. Rouge snatched the chaos emerald before Cream could get back up.
"You may have won this time Rouge, but I will rise again" growled Cream, as best she could given her size and age.
Knuckles walked up to her "So what exactly were you planning this time?"
"Well I was going to use...the...uhh...I don't know actually"
The group stared at her in confusion.
Tails responded "We've got the emerald, and that's all I'm concerned about. Let's get back already, every second we spend here is a second I can't look for more gems"