Note:Yep, taking a long time again. But as we near the end of the story, it's hard to say that any of the timne you had to wait for chapters was ever wasted.

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Chapter 9

Almost six hours after Eggman delivered his ultimatum, a single plane landed in the spot in New York formally called Times Square. Sonic jumped off the wings, and Tails took off again. In Sonic's hand was a small box large enough to hold the 5 emeralds that they had.

Sonic leaned against one of the buildings and waited, tapping his foot against the unused streets, looking around at the blank light boards and the advertisements. A few of the ads was for products Sonic didn't recognize, but most of them were for familiar products, like Coke. He also noticed that Sega looked like it was planning to reenter the console race sometime over the last ten years.

Sonic heard a noise, and he looked up. Eggman was flying in on his normal oval ship, and Cream was in the back seat. Her hands and feet were both chained together, and she had a gag around her mouth. It was obvious she wasn't escaping anytime soon.

Sonic stepped away from the building and walked forward to meet Eggman. Cream tried to say something through her gag, but Sonic couldn't understand what it was. But he knew that if Eggman betrayed him, he was ready.

"I have your Emeralds," Sonic said, handing him the box. "Now release Cream and bring Amy here."

"Be patient, Sonic," Eggman said.

Eggman opened the box, and gazed at the five colorful and shiny emeralds in front of him. He grinned as he shut the box and gave a nod. Suddenly, Sonic heard gunfire from right behind him, and jumped out of the way just in time. He looked back to see that the one who was shooting at him was Amy. And she was shooting the bullets from her fingers.

"I see you've met my newest creation, the first cyborg ever," Eggman laughed. "I used DNA samples of Amy's fur taken from the site of her old apartment building for her skin and features. Small heaters hidden under the skin made her body feel warm. I also programmed her to have the skills, voice, and personality Amy had, so I could track her location and find where your rebellion was hiding. Now, Amy, take care of Sonic,"

"Yes, master Eggman," she said in Amy's voice, aiming the fingers at Sonic again.

Sonic knew that he had to fight, but he wasn't sure if he could. Though it was trying to kill him, it still looked and sounded exactly like Amy did. He knew he had to come up with something quick, or it wasn't going to end well.
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As Eggman watched, he heard a sound much like a helicopter. The strange thing was, he did away with all helicopters after his takeover. And even stranger was that it was right behind him. He turned around quick to see Tails. He had a new contraption on his back to allow him to fly. It was red, with helicopter blades sticking out the back. But what really caught his attention was that he was using it to take Cream from right under his nose and take her to safety.

"Get back here, fox!" Eggman said, turning his egg ship towards him and firing lasers. Tails was able to swerve and avoid being hit. Before Eggman could fire another round, a red blur slammed into the side of his egg vessel and hung on. Eggman turned to see it was Knuckles.

As Eggman struggled to dislodge the echidna, Tails placed Cream safely on a large building. He then was about to leave to go help, when Cream stopped him, turned him towards her, and brought him forward in a kiss.

"Good luck," she said. Tails nodded and turned to help Knuckles
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While all this was happening, Sonic was dodging the shots from the cyborg Amy, as well as trying to talk to it. Since the real Amy would never betray her friends, and since the robot had Amy's personality, he hoped that it would override the loyalty chip inside of it.

"Amy, I know you would never do this. I know you, probably better than any of the others. I know that you probably love me more than anything in this world, and your friends are more important than anything. You even gave up a music career because of how it was affecting your friendships," he said.

Amy blinked, as her computerized mind processed the information fed to her. Her body kept still for a few minutes, and then something blew inside the robot. A plume of smoke rose from inside the robot, and it fell to the ground.
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Meanwhile, Eggman was able to shake Knuckles off, and kept him and Tails at bay with his lasers. Then he saw the Amy cyborg blow a fuse and fall to the ground in a dead heap. He just laughed as he saw that, not caring that his cyborg was now a useless heap on the ground.
"It fulfilled its purpose, and I got all the Emeralds now," he said. "So you better prepare yourself for the Eggman Empire."

As it flew off, Sonic laughed and said, "How long do you think it'll take before he finds out those emeralds are fake?"

"Not long. I wasn't given a lot of time, so it'll take ten minutes at most," Tails answered, before he went over to the Amy cyborg and started searching through its metal parts. He soon stood and held up a Chaos Emerald that was used to power the cyborg.

"That's six. Let's get back to Angel Island," Sonic said.
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"So, Amy was just a tracker, meant to help us reveal the location of our base," Shadow said.

"Yeah. Now, I need to get back to my time, before we waste any more time," Sonic said.

Shadow and the others blinked. They all knew that Sonic needed all seven of the Emeralds to travel back to his time. Did he forget how many he had? Or was he talking about something else.

Before he could speak, they all heard something in the distance. Something that sounded familiar to all of them, since they've seen it before. And it wasn't anything pleasant.

"An air raid," Shadow yelled, pointing at a large Eggman air fleet that was approximately fifty miles away from the edge of the island. "Eggman figured it out, and it looks like he's not happy. So he's attacking the island."

"Chatoix, get all the animals to safety," Knuckles yelled, and they nodded and ran off. "Tails, Cream, get the Tornado ready. Sonic, if you have a plan, better get it going now."

Sonic nodded, and then looked at Shadow for a moment before talking to him. His voice had the tone of someone that had something to say, but didn't want to say it.

"This is going to be one of the hardest things I ever said to you Shadow, but it needs to be said," Sonic said. Then he took a deep breath before saying, "I need your help."

To be continued…