Chapter 3: Tails' Invention

Sonic walked up the path to Amy's door, his heart pounding in his chest, not knowing why he was so nervous. Despite having no idea what to say, he knocked on the door. About 30 seconds passed. No reply. He tried again, but still no reply. "Amy?" he said, "Look... about before...".

Still no reply, Sonic sighed, annoyed with himself and decided to find Tails, maybe seeing him would cheer him up.

It took Sonic not much more than a minute to get to Tails' Workshop, all of the lights were on and there was a loud noise inside. "Tails!?" Sonic rang the doorbell and let himself in. He found Tails cutting a piece of metal with an electric saw. "Tails!" He bellowed over the noise, Tails jumped and turned around, "Oh, Sonic," Tails turned off the saw. "How come you're here?" he asked.

"Just wondering what that project you mentioned earlier was." Sonic placed a fake grin on his face.

"Oh that," Tails turned back to work on the machine, but carried on talking, "I'm pretty much done, this machine should allow us to travel between alternate dimensions. We'll be able to see Blaze and Marine again!"

"Great!" Sonic cheered up "Even Silver?"

"Who?"

"Never mind." Sonic smirked. (A/N - Remember, only Sonic can remember the events of Sonic '06)

"Its done!" Tails exclaimed as he tightened the final bolt on the machine, "But we need a sufficient power source. We need a chaos emerald...

Sonic remembered that earlier that day Eggman had stolen all of thier emeralds and let out an annoyed sigh, then sat down...

"Wait! The kid! What was his name? Andrew? Alex? Axel!" Sonic shot up and made Tails jump again. Sonic recieved a blank stare from Tails.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'll be right back Tails!"

"Wha--"

Sonic had already ran out of the room leaving a trail of scattered papers in his wake, Tails sighed and took to picking them up.

Minutes later Sonic returned with Axel and a yellow chaos emerald.

"Who's this?" asked Tails.

"Tails, this is Axel, Axel, this is Tails." said Sonic, before turning to Tails, "Axel's let us have his chaos emerald as long as he gets to see the machine in action."

"Ok i guess, Axel, how did you find that emerald?" Tails took it out of Axel's hand.

Axel looked at the shining gem, "I dunno, I thought it was just a pretty rock." He smirked.

"Okay I'm starting the machine, stand back!" Tails flicked a few switches on the machine, before pulling down a massive lever. The machine started to click and whir, lights started to flash and after a few seconds there was a loud crack, and what could only be described as a "portal" opened in thin air inside the large metal frame.

"Well, here goes nothing!" Tails disappeared into the bright light.

Several tense minutes passed as Sonic and Axel waited for Tails to re-emerge from the portal.

After what seemed like a life time, the golden kitsune burst from the light with an all too familiar lilac cat. "Blaze!" Sonic wrapped his arms around his old friend.

"Good to see you Sonic." replied Blaze, a little bewildered. "My friend Silver will be coming through in a few minutes, you'll like him, he's telekinetic you know."

"You're kidding!" Tails exclaimed as Sonic forced himself to hold back a laugh.

"Hey Axel, you've not said anything for a while," Sonic turned to the red hedgehog, who had his eyes fixed on Blaze. "Hey, kid." Sonic nudged him, waking Axel from his dream like state.

"Soniiic... who is she?" Axel whispered rather loudly, Blaze was telling Tails more about Silver and pretended not to hear. Sonic smirked, "She's called Blaze," Axel's eyes had strayed back to the back of Blaze's head, "If you want her, you've got you're work cut out."

"What? Me? Her?" Axel answered quickly, "Nooooo. Noo. No- You think I could?" he looked up at Sonic.

"Talk to her."

"Erm, yeah, sure.... I'll talk to her." Axel glanced at Blaze, and quickly back as she was looking back. Her keen hearing had let her hear most of the conversation. Axel was indeed a bad whisperer.

He shuffled awkwardly towards the feline and said "Hi" to attract her attention.

"Hello." she said.

"I'm Axel," He smiled and put out his hand.

"Blaze." she smiled and shook his hand.

"Erm...." Axel realised now that he should have thought of what he was going to say before diving in. His skin went almost as red as his fur.

The silence was interrupted by a loud crack followed by a white flash, as a grey hedgehog stepped from the portal who Sonic recognised as Silver. "Hey Silver" he said.

"Hey," the silver hedgehog smiled, "So Blaze has told you about me?" He put his arm over her shoulder.

"Yeah," Axel came into the conversation, "So, are you two... a couple?" Axel bit his lip. No one noticed though.

"Yup!" the two replied in unison and Silver gave Blaze a peck on the cheek.

"Oh..." Axel hung his head. Sonic couldn't help but feel sorry for the kid.

"So," Blaze turned to Tails, "Why have you brought us here Tails?"

Tails looked up, "Just to see old friends really, and as long as that chaos emerald stays there, we'll be like close neighbours!" he smiled.

"That's great!" everyone said at once.

Everyone except the red hedgehog, who turned away and muttered; "Great, now Silver can rub it in my face every day..."