This is just a little idea for a story I had... I dunno if I'll continue it, but here it is anyway. Enjoy!

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Sonic stood at the edge of the cliff, looking down at the city that spread out in front of him. The sun was beginning to set behind the sparkling waters of the Emerald Bay, creating a brilliant red glow in the dusk sky. He took a deep breath and leant against a tree, enjoying the cool spring air. Sonic found it very relaxing, something which he needed very much at the moment. It had been several weeks since the Chaos incident, and people were just beginning to repair the damage the ancient creature had done to the city. Sonic remembered the final battle well. It was hard to forget, really…

//FLASHBACK//

Sonic gritted his teeth, ramming into Chaos once again. His super form protected him from most of Chaos's deadly aura, but he still felt a weak sensation every time he got close to the giant monster. Chaos roared in pain, before raising one of its tentacles high above its head, and swinging it towards the golden hedgehog. Sonic flew to the side, narrowly dodging the appendage. The battle had been raging for what seemed like hours, and Sonic knew that he had to end it soon. Glancing around desperately, he spotted something – A skywalk towards the end of the street. He hovered away from Chaos and smirked, provoking the beast. The entity lumbered down the pavement towards Sonic, tentacles swinging wildly at him. As Chaos approached him, Sonic suddenly flew upwards to the hanging walkway, and hovered near the cables it hung from. He gave each of the metal ropes an almighty punch, causing them to snap. The walkway broke off from its supports, tumbling towards Chaos. The behemoth only had time to cry out before the huge piece of metal came crashing down onto it, pinning it to the ground. Smirking, Sonic hovered down, and rammed Chaos one final time, as it cried out in pain before going completely limp.

//END FLASHBACK//

Sonic sighed. Although he had done the right thing and most people praised him greatly for stopping Chaos, there were still a few greedy bastards who felt that Sonic should pay for the damage, as he had helped cause it. Sonic just felt sad for those people. Despite that, it was still a great burden on his mind.

There was something else bothering him as well. Himself. He had been recently contemplating his love life, and he had realized that, despite his fame, he had never had a girlfriend.

'A real girlfriend…' Sonic reminded himself, as Amy suddenly sprung to mind.

Of course, there was more to it than the fact that he didn't have a girlfriend. Earlier, he had caught himself thinking about how sexy Knuckles looked while swimming. And that was why Sonic had come to the cliff. He needed to think about things. What if he was gay? What would the public think? More importantly, what would his friends think? He kept telling himself that if they were real friends then they wouldn't mind (Apart from Amy, of course), but there was still that nagging doubt.

The calm was suddenly interrupted by a loud ringing. Sonic reached into his quills and pulled out his cell phone, flipping it open while checking the screen to see who the caller was. 'Tails,' Sonic thought to himself, 'I wonder what he wants?'

"Hello, Sonic?" The kitsune said.

"Hey, little bro," Sonic replied, pushing himself off the tree trunk. "What's up?"

"I need you to come over to my workshop for a bit," Tails explained. "I need you to help me out with a test."

"Sure, Tails," Sonic said, walking over to the edge of the cliff. "That all you need?"

"For now…" Tails replied mysteriously.

"OK, I'll see you there!" Sonic said, flicking his mobile shut. The azure hero glanced over the cliff anxiously, before throwing himself over, savoring the cool air blowing through his spines. He bent his knees slightly, bracing for impact, and grunted as he hit the ground. Assuring himself that nothing was broken, he clambered back up and took off towards the Mystic Ruins.

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"Hey Tails!" Sonic called out as he ran through the door the fox's home.

"In here, Sonic!" Tails yelled to him from his lab.

Sonic jogged through to the large room, and entered. He looked around the sterile white environment. There were several benches with vials of liquid sitting on them, a bunch of scientific equipment, all foreign articles to Sonic, and, most impressively, an enormous room that was set underneath the entire lab.

"Wow, nice place." Sonic complimented, as his eyes fell across something that aroused his attention immensely. "Woah! You have six of the Chaos Emeralds?" He said in amazement, staring the six multicolored gems that were sitting in a heptagonal device.

"Yep!" Tails said simply, puffing out his chest proudly.

"Oh, man…" Sonic murmured, running his hand over the glass circle that separated him and the green emerald. "It must have taken you forever to get all these…"

"Well, I already had two, Knuckles had another one, and I pulled some strings with GUN to get my hands on the other three." Tails explained to him.

"Hey, one's missing…" Sonic noted, seeing that there was an empty chamber on the device.

"I know. That's why I called you here, actually. See, I performed some scans I found that the seventh emerald is in…" Tails pressed a button on his computer console. "Eggman's base." He said glumly, as a geographical map of an area filled the screen.

"Oh…" Sonic scowled. He despised that crazy scientist. "I guess you want me to go retrieve it, then?"

"Yes." Tails said, closing down the map. "And be quick. This test has to be performed tonight, or it'll be months before the conditions are right again."

"Sure thing!" Sonic said, walking over to the door. "I'll be back soon!

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Night had fallen by the time Sonic arrived at Eggman's base. He approached the fortress quickly and quietly, staying in the shadows whenever he could. 'This will be so easy!' He thought smugly, as he leapt over the wall surrounding the base. He landed perfectly, and took one step forward, before alarm bells began ringing throughout the base. "Or not…" Sonic muttered to himself, posing in his battle stance. Several guard robots rolled out of the darkness, their launchers pointed at the blue intruder. Sonic spindashed towards them, weaving his way between the missiles being launched at him. He jumped on each of the robots, causing them to immolate into a fiery explosion. With the element of surprise completely ruined, Sonic ran towards the base's blast doors, narrowly avoiding bullets that the wall turrets spat at him. He rushed towards the doors, ramming them with all his might, but it barely dented he thick steel. Sonic looked around, desperately seeking another tactic. Finally, he found something. Backing up slightly, he ran at the doors as fast as he could but at the last second jumped onto them and began running towards the roof. The wall turrets continued to spray bullets at him, most of which ended up slamming into the split between the gates. As he reached the top of them, Sonic pushed off and back flipped to the ground, smirking proudly when he gently tapped the doors and they swung open. He ran into the building and sped off down the corridor, heading towards the centre of the base.

Meanwhile, in the core of the fortress Eggman was just finishing repairs on one of his robots when alarm bells suddenly rang out. "Gah!" The fat scientists cried out, the sudden shock causing him to drive a screwdriver straight through the mech's circuits. He looked up at the screen, and scowled when he saw the cause for the alarm. "Sonic…" He muttered angrily. His blood pressure jumped again when he heard an annoyingly familiar voice behind him. "Hey, Eggy!"

"It's you…" Eggman steamed, spinning around in his chair to face the blue hedgehog. "What do you want…"

"You have something that a friend of mine wants." Sonic explained, smirking. "The Chaos Emerald?"

"Yes, I do happen to have that." Now it was Eggman's turn to smirk. "But you won't be getting it! Robots, get him!" He shouted, pressing a button on his console. The caused several doors at the entrance of the room to swing open, but the only thing that fell out were heaps of broken metal, with the occasional spark.

"Wha…" Eggman began, his jaw dropping slightly.

Sonic smiled smugly. "Seriously, Eggy. You should do a better job hiding your guards."

Eggman simply scowled, picking up the purple Chaos Emerald sitting on the desk and throwing it at Sonic's head. "Just take the damn thing. It wouldn't even do what I needed it for, anyway."

"Whatever…" Sonic mumbled, rubbing at the rising lump of his head. He grabbed the jewel, that was now lying on the ground, and sped off back out of the base.

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Tails tapped his foot impatiently, staring back up at the door for what seemed like the thousandth time that night. 'Where the hell is he?' The kitsune thought to himself, frustrated with how long Sonic was taking to retrieve the emerald. He needed to start the test soon, otherwise it would be too late, and it was months until the conditions were right again. He needed to do the experiment now. He almost fell back out the his chair when he heard the front door swing open, and Sonic was barely inside the lab when Tails plucked the emerald from his hands. "Gee, a little hasty tonight, aren't we?" Sonic teased.

"You're the one who took forever getting it…" Tails grumbled, walking over to the device housing the emeralds. He flipped open the glass cover on the empty chamber and placed the purple emerald inside. The centre of the heptagon began to glow faintly.

"Hey, what's happening?" Sonic asked, staring at the dim light.

"The core is reacting to the emeralds being in such close proximity. It's the only thing stopping them from separating again."

Sonic nodded thoughtfully. He knew very well what happened when you brought all seven emeralds together. If you had Chaos powers like himself, you would be converted into a super version of yourself for a length of time, and once the effect wore off, the emeralds would scatter themselves to various parts of the globe. Sonic had always guessed that was some ancient spell designed to protect the emeralds from those who would misuse them.

"Hmm…" Tails murmured, looking back up at Sonic. "I'm going to need a bit more of your help."

"OK… What with?" Sonic said curiously.

"I was planning on placing the emeralds in the reaction chamber myself, and then coming back up to the control room, but because there's not much time left, I'm going to need you to take the core down there and place it in the reactor."

"Wouldn't that be a little dangerous?" Sonic said nervously. "I mean, this is the Chaos Emeralds you're dealing with here. Not even Knuckles knows everything about them."

"Well, I did some calculations, and there's only a 0.6% chance of any sort of problem occurring. You should be fine." Tails said reassuringly.

"I guess so…" Sonic mumbled. He was still unsure about all this, but then again, if he could trust anyone's calculations, it was Tails'. Tails pushed a trolley under the device, and motioned for Sonic to come over. "Alright, here's what I need you to do," Tails began to explain, "Go into the elevator, and take it down the reactor. I'll control all the doors and things from down here. When I say so, just push the cart and the emeralds into the middle of the room, and I'll control things from there."

"OK…" Sonic murmured, wheeling the cart over to the lift.

"Oh, and Sonic?" Tails called out to him.

"Yeah?" Sonic glanced over his shoulder.

"Good luck." Tails said, his face slightly worried. Sonic just smiled and pushed the cart into the elevator, pressing the lone button inside. The doors slid shut and Sonic felt his stomach drop slightly as the elevator began its descent. A few seconds later, there was a loud 'Ping!' and the doors slid open, revealing a white corridor. Sonic pushed the trolley out and followed the corridor, until he reached the end, which led out into a giant, copper-walled room. Sonic walked out into it, and the blast doors slammed shut behind him. "Point of no return, eh…" Sonic mumbled to himself, wishing there was some wood to touch.

"OK, Sonic?" Tails voice crackled out over the intercom. "Now place the device into the reactor."

"Right!" Sonic shouted back, though he wasn't sure if Tails could even hear him. He rolled the cart over to the heptagonal hole in the middle of the room, and pushed the device off into it. The two fit perfectly.

"Alright, I'm beginning the warm up. There won't be any radiation yet, so don't worry too much. I'll let you out in a minute."

Sonic stared on anxiously as the device slowly began to rotate, the multicolored gems encased within it turning into a blur. A long column protruded from the ceiling, and descended on the centrifuge, stopping barely a centimetre above it.

"Power usage at 50%." Tails said over the intercom. It comforted Sonic a little to hear another voice in the unnaturally quiet chamber. "At 75%. 90%. Power usage at… 110%?" Tails voice instantly became panicked.

"Tails! What's happening?" Sonic shouted, unsure of what was now happening?"

"The emeralds power in overloading the system! Hang on… I'll see what I can…" Suddenly, there was a deafening crash and the top of the column snapped off, hurtling into a wall.

"Sonic!" Tails screamed desperately, trying to shut down the system. "It won't – It won't shut down!" Suddenly, his face went emotionless, his wide eyes the only thing telling Sonic that something was terribly, terribly wrong. "It's not… It's not shutting down!"

Suddenly, a white light began to shine from the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic raised a hand to his eyes, blocking them from the blinding glow. "Tails!" He shouted into the purgatory. "Wh-what's going on!"

"Get down!" Tails screamed, before the intercom's feed changed to a loud whine.

Sonic felt around wildly, trying to find some sort of grip.

The light was the only thing he could make out.

The light was the only thing that existed.

Sonic let out one final, desperate cry and with that he disappeared in a flash of light.