Tails waited until night fell to sneak into the professor's laboratory. He was allowed to help out there and put together gadgets, including the tracker he was about to steal. It had activated several times over a few days, emitting an energy signal stronger than anything that had been observed so far, but they were always short-lived only active few seconds. Several months passed, and it remained dormant. It was dismissed as a malfunction, the zone it was coming from was not even advanced. There was no reason a person able to activate the Chaos Emeralds would be there. Efforts were refocused on pursuing more likely leads, and no matter how much Tails insisted his tracker found the one they were looking for, nobody listened.

Normally, Tails wouldn't have had the courage to do something like this. Breaking the rules and going off on his own with a Power Ring to a new world was dangerous. But things were getting dire on Mobius.

Tails picked up the tracker and heard footsteps upstairs making their way towards the stairway leading to the lab.

A voice called out, "Tails? Is that you down there?"

Panicking, he threw his Power Ring and thought of the zone he tracked the signal to months ago. The ring rapidly expanded, revealing a beautiful green landscape on the other side. There was no time to second guess if this was the right place, and he stepped through.

"Woohoo!" Sonic yelled out as he ran down the highway, dodging through cars and leaving only a blue bur behind him. He screeched to a halt in front of Tom's cop car, stationed at its usual spot.

"Ice cream delivery!" Sonic said, excitedly extending his arms towards Tom who still sitting in the car.

"I think you forgot the ice cream," Tom said nodding toward the pair of mostly empty sugar cones in Sonic's gloved hands.

Tom was certain there were a couple of scoops melting in the sun right outside Ice Paradise. Again.

"Oops, guess I went a little too fast…they gave me a new flavor today, too." Sonic said, sounding depressed.

"That's okay buddy, I like the cones too," and he took one of the cones.

Sonic's expression reverted to excited wonder almost instantly and he popped one of the cones in its entirety into his mouth.

"Sonic, be careful not to go so fast you use your powers. Robotnik might be gone, but you don't want to go drawing attention from the government again by knocking satellites out of the sky."

"I know, I know. Don't worry, I haven't used them since we sent Eggman packing!" Sonic whined, "Besides the Prez loves me"

Tom shook his head, it had been a whirlwind of a week when the President had visited Green Hills to meet Sonic. It had been part of the deal to keep quiet about the whole incident a year ago.

"What about the people who chased you before you came here? We don't want them showing up on Earth. Robotnik was bad enough, but he was just another human. Who was after you before, anyway? You've never talked about them."

Sonic suddenly looked anxious. Sounding unsure he said, "Green Hills is so far away, there's no way they'd find me….Okay, I'm off! See you at home!" and Sonic dashed away to finish his daily routine.

Tails flew high above the trees, eyeing the device which had begun to track a faint signal. He knew it! Now that he was actually in the Zone he was able to pick it up even when it was weak. Scanning the landscape, he saw a wind blast through the trees in a thin line. A blue shape emerged from the forest out onto a large diamond-shaped field. It then ran along the edge of the diamond in irregular patterns.

He landed far away enough that he hoped he wouldn't be seen. Could this be the Hero they were looking for? He crawled up behind a bush and peeked over.

There seemed to be several people in the field, but never at the same time. Every time he blinked one of them showed up in a new spot. He scrunched up his face, trying to concentrate on the figures. He realized it was just one hedgehog moving very fast between the small white bumps on the ground, throwing a ball to itself. It was the fastest person Tails had ever seen, maybe the fastest thing alive.

Tails barely noticed that the tracker was beeping more loudly now that he had gotten closer. It must have been loud enough for the hedgehog to hear because he stopped and looked over in his direction.

"Who's there?" the hedgehog called out.

Tails shrank behind the hedge, too scared to move. The wind rushed into his ears for a moment and stopped. He gulped and looked up slowly.

The hedgehog was smiling and asked, "Whatcha doin' down there buddy?"

End of Chapter 1