That night, Sonic laid in a large field looking up at the starry night sky, "Man…what a day. Can't believe someone else got involved with the emeralds…"
Just as he closed his eyes to get some rest, Shadow teleported in front of him.
"Whoa!" Sonic said leaping back to his feet, "Don't scare me like that Shadow!"
"Sonic, you have to come quick. It's urgent." Shadow said folding his arms.
"What happened? Did we find out where the rest of the emeralds are located?" Sonic asked.
"Worse…the phantom ruby is here." Shadow said closing his eyes.
"What! But how?! Eggman sent this too?!" Sonic asked slightly panicking.
Shadow shook his head, "It's Tails…and he isn't looking so hot from the plane crash."
"He crashed the Tornado?! Where?" Sonic asked starting to super peelout.
"Its at a different castle but Sonic you ne-!" Shadow was stopped short as Sonic raced away.
Sonic ran around the Crystal Empire then back toward Ponyville where he looked up and saw Canterlot castle partially on fire. "Oh no, Tails!"
Flying by, Rainbow Dash saw Sonic's blur go by as she tried to keep up with him, "Hey, Sonic!"
"Can't talk right now RD! Gotta speed up!" Sonic said to her as he blazed by her and over the gates.
"Whoa…he's fast." Rainbow Dash said as she flew into Canterlot where she saw Sonic looking over the crashed plane, "What is that?"
Sonic just starred and started clenching his fists while breathing heavily.
"Sonic? You ok?" Rainbow Dash asked him seemingly worried.
In the blink of an eye, Sonic turned pitch black and let out a blood curdling scream.
Rainbow Dash watched Sonic race around Canterlot Castle shoving and throwing guards around, "Uh oh…"
Dark Sonic ran into Princess Luna who got ready for a fight, "Out of my way!" He yelled at her.
"Not on your life!" She yell back before a ray of light separated them.
"Calm down you 2. We are on the same side." Came a sweet and silky voice.
Dark Sonic saw a wavy, and majestic mane come into view as a white alicorn looked at him then to Luna.
"Sonic, calm down…Tails is alright." Said the alicorn causing Sonic to slow his breathing and return back to his normal form.
"Tails…is…ok?" Sonic asked the alicorn.
She nodded and brought Sonic into the room Luna was guarding to see Tails laying on a bed unconscious.
"I-is he ok?" Sonic asked the alicorn who nodded then shook her head.
She pulled back the blanket off of Tails to reveal a large gemstone lodged in his chest. "When we found him, he was out cold. I tried to take it out but it kept hurting him so I left it there."
Sonic's eyes went wide as he walked over to Tails and touched his arm causing the gem to react and shoot him into a wall.
Tails woke up and looked at Sonic, "Sonic!" He yelled before getting up and running over to his buddy's aid.
"Tails hold on!" Sonic yelled stopping Tails in his tracks. "Look at your chest."
Tails then looked down and gasped when he saw the phantom ruby stuck in his chest, "Oh no. Sonic? Am I in danger?"
Sonic shook his head and stood up, "Well it doesn't seem like that…but just in case, we need to get that thing out of your chest."
Tails smirked, "Heh, who do I look like?"
Sonic laughed, "I am the tallest of mountains, I am the roughest of waves."
Tails finished, "I'm the toughest of terrors, I am the darkest of days."
Luna watched them, "So you put it there on purpose?"
Tails nodded, "I don't even know how it got there…"
"Well tell us what happened." Said the alicorn.
"Uh, Sonic? Is this a ruby illusion?" Tails asked.
"Nope! All real!" Sonic said as he pat Luna and the other alicorn, "Meet Luna and, uh…"
"Celestia. It's a pleasure to meet you Sonic and Tails." Celestia said with a warm smile.
Tails sat down and took in everything. "Ok…so I'm in a dimension where there are alicorns…"
"Don't forget regular ponies, pegasi, and unicorns." Sonic said with a cheeky grin.
Tails looked at Sonic, "This is gonna give me a major brain ache." He stood and began to paced around the room.
"Anyway, you were saying, Tails?" Princess Luna asked.
"Right. Well after you and Shadow had been gone, Sonic, I figured out that you were in another dimension." Tails said.
"How did you figure that?" Sonic asked sitting on the bed looking at Tails.
"Well I had the chaos emerald radar and when brought close to the phantom ruby, I managed to get a signal from the emeralds. Therefore, all I had to do was dimension jump until I found a place with a stable signal." Tails responded.
"So how did you manage to bring the Tornado 2?" Sonic asked.
"Tornado 2?" Princess Celestia asked.
"It's the name of my plane." Tails responded, "And to answer your question, Sonic, I build a holder for the ruby so it could transport me and the Tornado 2 cross dimension stably."
"What's a plane?" Luna had asked.
"The wreck you saw outside. Its what Tails uses to fly himself and me around places." Sonic responded.
Tails looked outside, "Aw man…Its going to take me hours to fix. Anyway," he cleared his throat, "I went around different dimensions and I found one that was moving. No other dimension travelled and distance. They were all stationary."
"That's odd. I never knew about that." Celestia said looking at her sister.
"Well, obviously I managed to make my way into this dimension…but the Tornado 2 gave out and I remember crashing but after that…nothing." Tails finished explaining.
"That crash must have lodged the ruby into your chest. A couple unicorns who helped you out of the crash said they saw it glowing before it slammed itself into your chest." Celestia said.
Tails looked at the ruby and it glowed before making a weird noise inverting all the colors around him, "Oh no!"
"Not again!" Sonic yelled reaching for Tails.
Tails disappeared before Sonic could grab him and reappeared next to the plane. "Woah…that was trippy." He said looking up at Sonic then looking at the Tornado 2.
Sonic ran down to Tails with Luna and Celestia flying down to watch him.
"Well Sonic…I'm going to need to start repairs on this immediately, but I need a place to repair it. Know any place where I could bring it to?" Sonic asked
Sonic thought about the Crystal Empire but decided not to since none of their enemies knew of Tails' arrival or of the phantom ruby's appearance and it would be best not to bring him to a place that was being watched by potential enemies.
"You can repair it here." Luna said levitating the plane from the open space. "Here, we can get you whatever you might need and no one but allies will know you're here."
"Really? That's great! Thanks for the hospitality!" Tails said before twirling his tails and flying with Luna to start on repairs.
Celestia watched slightly shocked, "Interesting. I didn't know foxes could do that."
"Only if those foxes are 2 tailed geniuses!" Sonic said very happy and relieved that his best buddy was alright and in good hands.
"So, you and Tails have history?" Celestia asked Sonic.
"Oh yeah, he and I go waaaay back. In fact, after my first ever adventure, I met him and he helped me stop Eggman. Ever since then, he's been my best buddy in the whole world, like a brother, y'know?" Sonic answered sitting down and taking a breather.
Celestia watched Sonic then gave a soft giggle, "It's getting late...you should get some rest."
"Oh, wait. Before you go, Twilight was telling us about some element of harmony stuff and said you could explain to us something odd." Sonic said.
"Well, the elements were destroyed. Why do you ask?" She responded looking at him.
"Well, Shadow managed to use chaos control and fully restored them back to their prime. Only one thing…" He explained.
"Which is?" Celestia asked.
"There is a 7th element that she didn't know existed." Sonic responded pulling out the 7th element.
"Unity." Celestia responded.
"Unity? What do you mean by that?" Asked the now confused hedgehog.
"That element is the element of unity. I kept it from Twilight since no one has been able to use this element as of current. It's meant for a user that is in perfect synergy with the other elements and can unify the world around them. Twilight cant hold more then one element so she, and neither of the other elements for that matter, can use unity." Celestia elaborated taking a close look at the unity element.
"Unity. Hm…" Sonic said, "Well I better get going, take care Princess!" He said before running off.
Next Morning
Sonic ran back to Canterlot to check on Tails only to see his leg in a robotic cast.
"Another injury?" He asked coming in.
"Oh, hey Sonic. No, just a sprain from the crash. Luna found it when I started on repairs." Tails responded as he started back on repairs.
"How is the uh…you know?" Sonic pointed to his chest.
"Well good news is that, its no danger to my life directly. Bad news is, it's an indirect danger to my life." Talis said standing and stretching.
"How is that?" Sonic asked handing Tails a wrench.
"Well as long as its in my chest, I'm ok. Removing it, however, is a no go. I could die if its removed." Tails said holding up a scanner, "Luna helped me run some tests and turns out…the ruby goes as deep as my heart. Sonic, there is no possible way to take it out of me."
Sonic sighed and punched a wall, "Damnit! This all wouldn't have happened if Eggman would've stayed away from the emeralds."
"Well, too late now, but maybe we can use this to our advantage." Tails said smiling and holding out his hand to show Sonic a small rotating yellow cube.
"You can…" Sonic said visibly shocked.
"If someone as desperate as Infinite can use this on a whim…then why cant a genius like me learn how to use it like him?" Tails said adding I light child-like laugh.
"Tails…how long did it take for you to learn how to use it?" Sonic asked.
"It took a while but Luna helped me out. Turns out, she has had some moments with darkness herself so she helped me turn that darkness to light." Tails responded giving Sonic the cube.
He took the cube and looked at it, "It doesn't hurt. Nice job, buddy." Sonic said smiling.
"What are you idiots doing in here?" Came a voice from behind.
When they looked, Sonic saw Shadow holding the yellow emerald.
"The emeralds were acting funny so I thought I would find y-!" Shadow froze seeing the phantom ruby.
"Shadow, calm down." Sonic said.
"How do we even know that's Tails?" Shadow said getting defensive.
Sonic looked at Tails, "Well, he is trying to help us. That's enough right?"
"Trying to help us? Or help himself?" Shadow responded crossing his arms.
"Shadow…I can tell a fake Tails from the original. Trust me on this." Sonic said rolling his eyes. "If he really wanted to harm anyone…he would have already done so by now."
"You say that now…but what if he turns on us at the most critical moment? What if he backstabs us at the last second?" Shadow asked, seemingly irritated.
"Shadow…be honest…are you mad because you had to stop spending time with Flurry Heart?" Sonic asked only to get kicked into a wall.
"What I do with whoever is none of your concern, nor does it make a difference." Shadow yelled before looking at Tails who went back to repairing the Tornado 2, "Hmph."
Tails watched Shadow walk out and focused on repairing, "So…gonna fill me in on who this, Flurry Heart, is?"
Sonic got out of the wall and rubbed his back, "Just the filly of the prince and princess of the Crystal Empire. Apparently, she managed to get past that tough exterior. In my opinion, it's for the best."
"Guy's gotta learn to relax." Tails said before getting lightly shocked, "Yikes!"
Sonic watched him and the phantom ruby reacted putting energy around his finger, healing it completely.
"It healed! That was quick." Tails said before looking at his leg and pulling off the cast and seeing there wasn't a scratch on him. "Sonic! Grab my tablet and scan my leg!"
Sonic quickly grabbed the tablet and started scanning Tails, "Good new buddy. You're healed!" Sonic shouted.
"Fascinating, so the ruby passively healed me without me thinking about it. I guess that would explain why it was so difficult to beat Infinite." Tails deducted.
Suddenly there was an explosion and a wild shake from the ground.
Sonic stumbled outside and saw a large red centaur with a blue and red robot next to him.
"You said there was an emerald located here. Where is it?!" Yelled the red centaur.
The robot looked around then saw Sonic and flew at him at near light speed.
Sonic wasn't quick enough to avoid getting hit as he was knocked high into the air and slammed into the ground then held by his throat by the robot.
The robot was then hit by a ray of pure light as Celestia came to Sonic's aid only to gasp seeing the centaur, "Tirek!"
"Celestia! Its been a long time since we last met." Said Lord Tirek as he bowed mockingly.
"Not long enough it seems." Celestia said as she formed orbs of light and shot them at him only for the robot to use Sonic as a shield forcing him to get hit by a few then threw him at Celestia.
Luna flew up and caught Sonic causing the robot to go after her.
Lord Tirek began to laugh at Celestia causing her to raise an eyebrow, "What's so funny?"
Lord Tirek held out the red and clear emeralds, "Oh nothing. It's just that, as long as I have these…you will never be able to come close to beating me!"
She watched as he grew slightly bigger and could feel his power spike tremendously, "You're going to learn really quick princess, that your time of ruling is going to come to a quick end!"
He fired a large beam at her causing her to retaliate and do the same only for hers to get overpowered and pushed back.
The townsponies watched Celestia get hit by the beam and was petrified into a marble statue with a look of terror on her face.
Lord Tirek laughed as Luna and Sonic were still being chased by the robot who was not letting up.
"Get back here! I'm not finished with you yet!" Yelled the robot who was closing in on them.
Luna looked at Sonic who nodded at her then started spindashing in her grasp before throwing him at the robot who quickly reacted and kicked him away.
The robot then grabbed her and slammed her into the ground before holding her there and pulling her wings making her yell in pain, "DIE!"
Shadow teleported behind the robot only to get elbowed in the gut and sent flying into a tree. Out cold.
Luna was still yelling in pain as the robot kept pulling not letting her get up.
Just then, the robot was hit by a large golden cube as Tails walked out with a look of anger on his face, "Get away from them!"
Tirek watched and smirked, "Well, what are you waiting for Metal Shadic? Get him!"
Metal Shadic flew straight at Tails who got hit but stood strong like a unit.
Metal Shadic hesitated for a second and looked at Tails who grabbed his arm and threw him into the sky and threw and onslaught of golden cubes at him.
Metal Shadic smacked and kicked some of the cubes away only managing to stop all but 1 from hitting him.
Tails yelled and flew at him quickly and started throwing punches at Metal but to no avail as Metal was too fast for them to hit.
Metal Shadic grabbed Tails by the throat and threw him to the ground before throwing multiple chaos torrents at him.
Sonic, now injured, looked up and saw Tails get thrown then hit by the torrents, "Tails!" He looked up at Metal and turned into Dark Sonic, "I'm going to tear you apart!
Metal Shadic got ready as Dark Sonic started teleporting all around him. He managed to predict the movements of the angry hedgehog and punched him out of his dark form.
Sonic coughed up blood only to get punched again and again, and again until he slammed Sonic to the ground.
Tails slowly got up and watched as Metal Shadic pointed a finger at Sonic and it started glowing, "You could never beat me."
He threw another onslaught of cubes at Metal only for them to circle around him then start to form into someone this time, someone familiar.
"Long time no see Shadic!" Said the being before knocking Metal away and flying after him.
Tails ran to help up Sonic only to get a warning shot from Tirek, "Oh no you don't."
Tails saw the 2 emeralds in his hands and smirked before running toward him, "This might be a crazy idea. But the odds are on my side!"
Tirek started firing lasers at Tails who skillfully dodged them and began flying faster at him.
Tails landed on his arms and sent some cubes into Tirek's hands and when they looked, the emeralds were gone.
"What did you do!?" Tirek yelled at him only for Tails to smirk.
"Have fun in the special zones." Tails said only to get knocked unconscious by Tirek and get sent flying.
Meanwhile, Metal Shadic was fighting of his new opponent only to get kicked around against his will, "What's wrong Shadic? Having trouble keeping up?"
Metal went on the defensive before getting a fist punched through his chest and ripped out quickly then was kicked into the ground.
Metal started glitching and malfunctioning as he couldn't pull himself up.
Triek ran and grabbed Metal then ran off toward a forest giving Tails and company to recuperate from the fight.
Tails helped up Sonic and started to heal him with the phantom ruby. While Shadow woke up from his bad hit.
He came over and watched Tails heal Sonic and waited for Sonic to open his eyes.
"Ouch…where did that metalhead go?" Sonic as slowly standing.
"Tirek took him and ran off after Nazo here handled him." Tails said as Nazo landed next to him causing Shadow to ready up for another fight.
"Relax Shadow, he is on our side. I made him from the phantom ruby. Just like how Infinite created fake clones of Chaos, Metal Sonic, Zavok, and you." Tails said as Nazo took a bow.
"It's only natural that I fight a robot copy of my sworn enemy." Nazo said clenching a fist.
Shadow raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean by that?"
"Were you not paying attention? That robot isn't Metal Sonic. Its instead, Metal Shadic you moron." Nazo said with a laugh.
"How is that possible? There is no way Eggman could have gotten data on Shadic…unless." Shadow looked at Sonic.
"It must have been just before we defused! Metal Sonic was in shambles when we unfused. You don't suppose Eggman sent scrap metal in as a suicide mission just to gether data?" Sonic asked walking over.
"Wouldn't put it past him. Think about it. Trading a weaker system for another stronger system. Outdated data, vs. new and improved data." Shadow mentioned to him.
Nazo looked at both of them before turning back into cubes then into hexagonal prisms and levitated around Tails.
Tails chuckled, "See, I told you I could handle and control the ruby." Tails said leaning to his side and smiling big.
They all took a sigh of relief before hearing crying. It was Luna laying at the petrified statue of her sister crying and bawling her eyes out.
Sonic walked over and looked at the statue, "Luna…I'm sorry…we weren't strong enough to stop them. Please, you have to be strong."
Luna looked at him then to the statue, "My sister! Look at her!"
Tails looked at the statue then walked up to it and placed his hand on it causing the statue to react and start cracking.
"Tails! What did you do?!" Sonic asked as pools of light started seeping then pouring out of the cracks.
"I don't know! Everybody down!" Tails yelled before dropping to the floor along with Shadow, Sonic, and Luna.
The statue shattered into pieces and from the statue emerged Celestia, but something was different about her. Her glow was brighter, and she seemed a lot stronger than before.
Sonic and Shadow reared back a bit while Tails watched in awe.
Celestia looked at herself, "Well, this is a shock. I feel…different." Her mane was more vibrant, and her wings were glimmering in the sunlight.
"S-sister?" Luna asked walking close to Celestia who smiled at her, "What happened?"
Celestia shrugged, "I don't know. Everything went dark when Tirek hit me with that beam. Then there was a small glimmer of light. When I touched it, I felt a rush and a surge then before I knew it, here I am."
"I must have been when Tails touched the statue." Sonic said.
"Statue? What statue?" Celestia said causing Luna to tear up.
"When Tirek hit you with that beam, you were turned into a large crystal statue. We didn't know what to do. Then you just…broke out of it." Luna informed her.
Celestia looked at Tails and smiled, "Well, Tails? Do you have an explanation for this?" She asked gently.
Tails blushed and stuttered for a second before taking a deep breath and composing himself, "Well, I'm not really well versed in magic…but if I have to hypothesize what happened…I would say that, when Tirek shot you with that beam, I noticed he had 2 chaos emeralds in his hands. He must have somehow mixed chaos energy with raw magic and hit you with it. You magic may have been able to keep you from being fully petrified, but the emeralds power must have kept you fully entact. Then when I touched the statue of you, the phantom ruby must have reacted to the 2 energies mixing and added itself which set off a chain reaction and gave you enough power to break out. What happened after is tricky to understand."
Sonic scratched his ear while Shadow crossed his arms, "Well I would assume that she obtained some energy from the magic, chaos emeralds, and phantom ruby. You essentially just gave her an energy cocktail that didn't kill her somehow. She is lucky."
"Oh! And speaking of the chaos emeralds, I managed to get my hands on the other 2." Tails said which excited Sonic.
"Sweet! Where are they?" He held out his hands.
"Oh uh…I don't have them." Tails responded.
"Wait…then where are they?" Sonic asked pulling his hand away.
Tails gave a big smile, "I sent'em straight to the special zone! Home to all the special stages!"
Sonic laughed and placed his hand on Tails' shoulder, "Oh they are gonna have a super fun bad time there!"
Shadow growled and grabbed Tails by his chest fur, "Are you insane! What were you thinking?"
Tails gulped and looked at Shadow, "What do you mean? It's the special zones. They wont know what they are doing."
"You forget…WHO DO THEY HAVE ON THEIR TEAM?!" Shadow screamed at Tails who gulped. "Exactly! He is a robot from our dimension! He could easily navigate through the special zones. Not to mention if anyone else stumbles into there, they are exposing themselves to raw, untamed chaos energy. If it doesn't kill them, what do you think will happen?" He started shaking Tails who started thinking.
"Well…worse case scenario they just get chaos energy in their system." He responded.
"No it isn't, worst case scenario is they become a supercharged being filled with chaos energy. A walking generator!" Shadow said.
Sonic walked up and separated the 2 and looked at Shadow, "Hey…ease up Shadow. There wasn't a lot Tails could have done in that situation. What was he supposed to do? Grab the emeralds? Then what? Tirek blasts how without warning? Or even better, after Metal was finished with you, me, and Luna…he goes after Tails and not only retrieves the emeralds, but takes the phantom ruby from out his chest which would kill him. Granted maybe the special zone thing was a bit of an overstep…just teleporting them to a random place here would be an even worse option…right?"
Shadow went silent and turned away folding his arms back again, "All I'm saying is that, if we don't work fast…someone could get seriously hurt…or worse. Need I remind you, Eggman doesn't care about this dimension. All he wants is to just get the emeralds back and will do whatever he need to do, and say whatever he needs to say to get them and leave us here stranded."
"Well even with that we still have our way home. Tails has the ruby. He can just get us home if Eggman get the emeralds back home." Sonic said pointing to Tails who shook his head.
"Sorry, Sonic, but because the ruby is lodged in my chest, I sit it in the Tornado 2's reciprocal for dimensional transport. This means that I wont even be able to bring the Tornado 2 with me once we need to go home." Tails responded.
"Well things just got a helluva lot worse…" Shadow said looking at the surrounding area and seeing the destruction.