Within his private office, which once belonged to a notorious KGB agent, Solvetsky chuckled like an egotistical maniac as he drank vodka and rejoiced getting his hands on a valuable ancient treasure, which sat nearby, encased within an exhibit-like casing.

The Ratakyan Key in question was none other than the Green Key of Senga, which had been hidden in the rainforests of China in an ancient shrine set up a long time ago by the Ratakyans before their tribe disappeared. Solvetsky and his men had ventured there recently, gotten the key and blew up the shrine.

As a bonus, the black-haired maniac did his usual pranking and terrorizing of the innocent and even stole some loot.

Now, all that money and female jewelry was locked away in his vault and, to add fire to his ego, slapped a giant label on the vault with a Soviet symbol on it that said "Solvetsky's Stash".

It had been a great week for the maniac and he was happy to achieve a measure of victory over Lara Croft, viewing her as nothing more than a weak, pathetic, and stupid archeologist.

He was superior to her and he would do whatever it took to prove it, Solvetsky had vowed ages ago to achieve that goal.

"Oltlichnyy den' dlya menya." Solvetsky gloated in Russianas his voice echoed all over the compound, "I have obtained a key and begun to beat zat fool Lara Croft. Soon she will learn how superior her enemies are, nothing can stop me for I shall be rich and the world will fear the Soviet Union again!"

A short time later, after drinking enough vodka, the uniformed, blue eyed villain fell asleep at his desk and would sleep for a long time, not waking up and that would bite him hard once he did wake up.

As he slept, he dreamed of paradise, lovely blondes and brunettes, Lara Croft being embarrassed and humiliated, a resurrected Soviet Union, etc.

The reason Solvetsky had terrorized many people was because people like him would do whatever it took to achieve their goal of restoring the USSR.

—

"Well, what's the scoop, Lara?"

"Be a bit more patient, Sonic."

"C'mon. I'm waiting!"

"Quiet, the guards will notice and hear us."

It had been several hours since Sonic and Lara received the letter from Solvetsky back at the mansion in England, in the time between then and now, they'd gotten a bit of sleep and prepared to stage a mission against the terrorist leader and his minions to obtain the Ratakyan Key.

The two adventurers were not going to let a bunch of nutcases and psychos get in their way of accessing an ancient Ratakyan temple and getting the Yujunaka Statue and other riches, so many people wanted to get their hands on so much treasure.

Lara was wearing a fur hat, a brown parka with a green tank top beneath, combat boots and skintight black shorts along with purple legwarmers, even carrying multiple pistols in the pockets of her parka and in her red belt she wore around her waist.

Sonic was doing his best to keep warm himself, wearing a snow cloak over his shirt and shorts, even keeping his gloves and rocket shoes on.

A cold breeze swept through the trees and the air, sending snow everywhere, Tails and Oskar, who were accompanying the two heroes, were off scouting ahead and sneaking about the base, evading armed guards.

Lara and Sonic, as they waited for their friends to return, hid in the forest behind rocks, watching the area and making sure nobody spotted them, ducking from time to time whenever searchlights passed over.

"Jeeze, I just wish I could zip on in, grab that key, bash up some bozos and be out of there in several seconds." Sonic sighed, laying on his side and tapping his foot impatiently, "I was born for speed and born to deal with dangerous situations, while I'm fine with waiting, I just hate waiting for too long."

Lara, trying to stifle a giggle, face palmed, "Jeeze, what's with you?"

"Luck, stamina, charm, decency and bravery. That's what's with me."

"No, Sonic! I mean..." Lara rolled her eyes and looked at the blue hedgehog as he lay in the snow and made shapes in it, "Why are you an impatient, brash, impulsive, eager-to-barge-on-into-tricky-situations-and-get-it-done-in-an-unknown-period-of-time-instead-of-strategizing-everything guy?"

"Hey, I'm just like that ok, and I do strategize. I'm a fast thinker, I strategized the order of which key to go after first and which key to go after last, you do most of the planning. But I can still barge in, get that key, and get out in seconds, even KO some folks and maybe mess up a dude's day."

"Sonic..." Lara said softly, "Please, just like at the museum, be patient for our sakes. We'll do some reckless stuff later, let's wait until Tails returns. I maybe an adventurer like you, but not super brash and brave like you, I don't even have your speed. I make plans, yes. But I do it slowly."

The blue hedgehog sat up, thought about it for a second and then a full minute, being silent, until he shrugged and said, "You're right, Lara. Its just that... I'm a bit worried about the others and I'm worried about the key, what if those terrorists do something terrible to it and what somebody breaks into the mansion and steals the key we got? I just get the feeling we're on a time limit."

"It's alright, handsome hedgehog." Lara hugged Sonic and pat him on the head like he was a cat, "You're off the hook, you just got to learn more patience in the future, ok? I'd be happy to help you, friends always know when to help somebody out with small issues."

Sonic hugged Lara back, "No prob, Lara. Now let's concentrate on the task at hand, I think I can see Tails and Oskar now."

The heroic hedgehog was right, he could see Tails approaching, wearing winter combat gear, and holding onto Oskar, who was hanging on to one arm with both hands.

Much to the adventurers' relief, nobody was firing at them. The reason the lights and guards hadn't caught the group?

They were wearing special wrist bands that made them invisible and not easy to detect, but if you deactivated them, you were toast.

Sonic n' Lara's bands were at low power, hence the ducking, while Tails and Oskar's were at maximum, hence their luck at not being caught.

"Hey guys." Tails said, dropping Oskar upon landing.

"About time," Sonic rolled his eyes and tapping his foot, "Lara and I were waaaaiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiing for who knows how many minutes."

Tails shrugged, "Well, sorry. It was tough carrying a guy like Oskar, especially when he's how many inches tall and who knows how many ounces."

Oskar glared at Tails, "Oi, watch it. I eat healthy and stay in good shape."

"Sorry, man." Sonic pat Oskar on the shoulder, "Tails didn't mean to hurt your feelings or insult you."

Lara held up her hand, "What's the scoop? We gotta get that key and we do not have all night, so let's cut to the chase and hurry the bleedin' 'eck up. Who knows what these terrorists are gunna do if they ever get the treasure?"

It took a minute for Tails and Oskar to give Lara and Sonic the full report on who had the key, as well as how heavily guarded the fortress was.

Once that was done, Sonic chuckled, "Doesn't matter, we're invisible to those guards. All we gotta do is just barge on in, kick some butt, sneak into the office and grab that key, get back to the plane and go after our third key, huh?"

Lara was giggling nervously, "Ah, sure. Let's do it to it, your way, Sonic." The blue hedgehog punched the air happily, "Hooba dooba, let's do it to it."

—

Sneaking into enemy territory without the whole operation being blown so far was a piece of cake thanks to the special wrist bands, Sonic's speed, and everyone's ninja skills as well as combat strength.

As for getting inside the tightly guarded compound where Solvetsky had set up shop? Almost tricky, but not too hard.

All that the four heroes had to do was go around to the back, knock out a guard, climb the ladder and sneak into an air vent, which most people did during stealth missions and operations.

Tails went in first, with Sonic right behind him followed by Lara and Oskar.

Partial disadvantage of this? The sounds of banging as they crawled their way through the vent echoed everywhere, confusing a few guards elsewhere, not to mention it was a bit cramped and Sonic couldn't stand staring at Tail's rear end, even though it was covered by pants and the two tails weren't creepy.

"Ya know, buddy." The blue hero groaned, "Maybe you should hurry up a bit, we can't stare at each other's rear ends all day, you realize that, right?"

Tails scoffed, "Well, excuse me. You told me to go first, so shove it." Oskar shrugged, "Could be worse, huh? I'm kind of getting a view of..."

"Finish that bit and you're in big trouble," Lara interrupted.

"I was complainin', not makin' suggestive comments."

"Shush it, you Scottish-accented kid."

"No getting into heated discussions back there." Sonic hissed. "Besides, I think we may be getting closer to that Solvetsky guy's office."

—

Sound asleep in his personal office and drunk, Solvetsky dreamed of wealth and fame, not even hearing the air vent opening.

The notorious terrorist leader never woke up even though he would soon, if he did now, he would see who was in the room.

Never in his life would he imagine the famous Lara Croft teaming up with world hero and speedy blue hero Sonic the Hedgehog to track down the surviving legacies of the ancient Ratakyan tribe, but once he woke up, he was going to be in for a rude awakening and was going to be humiliated.

"Lets not wake this guy up, ok?" Lara whispered, "Find the bloody key, grab it and get the heck out of here, that's what we're gonna do." Sonic winked at Lara before he, Tails and Oskar set to work scoping the office.

"Actually, never mind. Found it!" Lara hissed, setting her sights upon a glass casing containing a big key, identical to one of the ones in the chart. Sure enough, it was the Green Key of Senga and the casing looked suspiciously like a museum exhibit casing.

"How are we gonna get it outta here?" Oskar asked.

"Shhh!" Sonic, Tails and Lara shushed; Oskar had raised his voice a bit to a point where it sounded like he had an outdoor voice.

If they weren't careful, that drunken terrorist was gonna wake up and sound the alarm, or a guard would come and the group would be caught.

Then once Solvetsky woke up, he would be pleased to know that he'd captured Lara Croft and probably would order her execution.

"Oi, sorry." Oskar whispered, breathing in the fresh air as well as a bit of that vodka smell coming from the sleeping Solvetsky, who also had terrible body odor, "Let's do this stealing thing, I almost feel guilty but… you know."

"Yes, we know we're the guys and gals who got our hands on the chart and scroll, now shush about it." Sonic nodded as he, Lara and Tails worked on opening the casing without dropping and breaking anything.

"Hurry up!" Tails grunted, keeping his ears peeled and on alert for any approaching footsteps or the sounds of somebody like Solvetsky waking up from his sleep after a while.

Creeeeeaaaak! The lid creaked as the gang finally opened the casing, which allowing Sonic to grab the key on Lara's behalf. "Yes." Oskar high-fived Lara, "We got two keys down, only two more to go, let's get outta here!"

"But first, let's try to humiliate that bastard even further." Sonic pointed to the nearby vault with the name tag that read Solvetsky's Stash. Lara giggled, "Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to do more thieving."

Handing Tails and Oskar the key, which they took before going up into the airshaft, Sonic and Lara snuck their way across the room to the vault, surprisingly, there was no lock or a required combination when they tried to open the vault door and, when it did open...

"My gosh!" Sonic exclaimed, "Who could've thought this guy was a thief and a collector of jewelry."

Inside the vault lay a gigantic collection pile of jewelry and various other collectables Solvetsky and his minions had obviously stolen from people during their raid in the very territory they'd gotten the Ratakyan key, the pile was so big it would be impossible to take it all... unless they destroyed it.

Lara reached into her left pocket and pulled out three bombs, activating them with two clicks and setting them to detonate in just seven minutes.

"You're one resourceful gal." Sonic whispered as he and Lara closed the vault and headed back into the airshaft. "Thanks." Lara replied.

However, unlike the trip in, Lara went in first before Sonic, this resulted in the blue hedgehog following Lara as they followed Tails and Oskar. Basically, Sonic ended up staring at the teenage archeologist's rear end as they crawled back the way they'd come in from.

"For Pete's sake!" Sonic groaned, "Can we get out a lot faster, I don't wanna stare at your ass all day, Lara."

Lara scoffed sarcastically, "Oi, SCREW YOU, I look good, I have a great figure and I like my tail end. My precious booty is super cool and kicks butt."

Sure, what the heck." Sonic rolled his eyes, knowing full well that he liked attractive females with good looks and what not. He'd teamed up with plenty of girls when it came to fighting villains and he'd hung out with and dated 'em all.

"PIPE DOWN YOU TWO!" Oskar and Tails shouted.

Unfortunately, because all four of them had spoken loudly above a whisper, their voices echoed all over the airshaft and into multiple rooms in the base.

Inside another office, two guards, who were busy filling out paperwork, heard the echoing voices and looked at each other.

"Hey, Peter?" A not-so intelligent, English-speaking, brown haired guard named Josef asked, "Did you hear that? I think we have uninvited guests."

Peter, a black-haired man with a scarred eye, nodded, "Yup. Sounds like it."

"Does this mean I have 'destroy intruder' duty?"

"Go for it, without waking who knows how many folks up."

Josef grabbed his machine gun and loaded it up while donning some sunglasses, "Time to eliminate some folks from the face of the universe!"

Not too far off, Sonic, Lara and their companions finally made it out of the airshaft back onto the roof of Solvetsky's headquarters and turned invisible again using their bracelets just as the guard they'd knocked out started to regain consciousness and get to his feet.

"Get him!" Lara hissed and Sonic knocked the guard off balance with a Kung Fu kick to the legs, causing said guard to lose consciousness again.

"I could've done that too, you know, handsome." Lara teased the speedster as they made their way towards the ladder, the blue hedgehog grunted, "You told me to knock him out, Lara."

"Can we get the heck out of here already?" Tails asked, he'd already picked up Oskar and was taking off with his two tails, "We can't linger here for too long or we're gonna push our luck and get caught, meet you at the plane."

Given the fact the bracelets allowed them to not be seen by anybody else, Sonic and Lara could still see each other as well as Tails and Oskar.

As they watched Tails fly away back towards the woods, bypassing the searchlights, Sonic and Lara looked at each other and the blue hedgehog said, "We have the key, right? If we lose it, we're in trouble. Either way, we gotta go."

The two of them jumped off the roof, down onto the ground as a patrol passed by. Breathing in the cold air, Sonic and Lara were making their way towards the woods when the bombs went off and decimated most of Solvetsky's HQ, a brown-haired guard soon emerged, machine gun in hand.

"WE HAVE INTRUDERS IN THE AREA!" He shouted, "I KNOW YOU'RE HERE, PREPARE TO BE GUNNED DOWN!"

He raised his gun and fired off a few bullets into the sky, parading about like a dummy and chuckling, "Hi-ho! Hi-ho! Off to shoot folks, I go."

"Lets get the heck out of here." Sonic took Lara by the hand and zoomed towards the forest at rapid speed.

Alarms started to blare and machine gun nests blazed to life as a mechanized voice blared in Russian, "Zloumyshlennik! U NAS YEST' INTRUDER!"

Solvetsky, still alive and covered in soot, drunk and shaking with rage, burst out of the building.

"SOMEBODY STOLE MY KEY AND BLEW UP MY STASH." The terrorist leader yelled, "If somebody was behind this, ITS LARA CROFT! I'LL GET MY HANDS ON HER, SHE WILL PAY FOR THIS!"

Deep in the woods, away from the terrorist militant base, Sonic and Lara deactivated their wrist bands and became visible to their surroundings once again, completely scaring a Russian bear that instantly ran off into the trees and causing a flock of birds to fly off into the sky.

"Ok, where's the plane and the others?" Sonic asked, checking his surroundings to make sure nobody was following them, "Are we near the plane at all?" Before Lara could say something, Tails' voice from not to far ahead echoed through the trees, "Sonic! Lara!"

Hearing approaching vehicles, Sonic and Lara got moving again, heading in the direction of Tails' voice until they made it to where he and Oskar were waiting just next to the Tornado.

"C'mon, guys." Tails beckoned, he was already in the pilot's seat, "Let's go, back to the mansion for rest and then we gotta go find the next key before somebody else beats us to it again."

Climbing into the front seat with Oskar, Tails started up the ignition and the plane's rotors spun to life again, the engines activating. Sonic and Lara jumped into the back seats and buckled all seatbelts, making sure the key was still safe, even as Oskar and Tails assured them that it was.

The Tornado Mark II took flight again and Tails charted course for England, they needed to rest before going after their third key and eventually going after the underwater key, somehow…