Sonic and Tails zoomed by Green Hill Zone, dodging any spikes and avoiding any trenches as they whizzed through the grassy fields at sonic speeds. Sonic was running while Tails flew close behind. Suddenly, an enormous plasma blast shot down at Sonic. Sonic had to jump back to avoid being disintegrated. As Sonic jumped back, the floating Tails caught him in the air and thunder shot him at the buzz bomber that had fired the blast. Sonic bounced back in recoil and was caught by Tails once again, but the Wasp was still there. "Woah!" Tails exclaimed. "They used to fire small orbs, not plasma blasts!"
"And," Sonic continued, "they used to die in one strike. But look at this one; it took a hit, yet it's fine!" The Buzz Bomber seemed unimpressed and fired another blast. Tails and Sonic dodged in separate directions. As the duo dodged laser blasts, many more Buzz Bombers began appearing from all directions. They fired barrages of blasts as Sonic and Tails acrobatically dodged them all. Tails and Sonic landed back-to-back, panting. "This is gonna be tough," Tails noted.
Knuckles hated to admit it, but he was having difficulty keeping up with the agile Amy. Amy was flipping through the Sky Sanctuary with ease as Knuckles glided alongside her. Amy took out her Piko-Piko hammer upon the arrival of a new obstruction, a slivery-looking moto-bug that approached the two. It charged at her with surprising speed, but Amy was still faster and managed to jump over it. Then she pointed her hammer down, sat on it, and spun down on it. The badnik was knocked back, but it got up with ease. Knuckles then punched it from behind as Amy swung it up with her mallet, to which Knuckles followed by jumping up to the bandit and slamming it down with his two fists. Amy ended the combo by launching a tornado from her hammer that knocked the moto-bug off of the sanctuary. Soon many more motobugs began to arrive from the horizon. "Well, Knuckles," Amy grinned, "you ready for some fun?" Knuckles popped his neck.
"You know it!" he replied. The two charged into the mess of titanium ladybug-chao cyborgs.
In the beautiful Twinkle Snow zone, Cream, Cheese, and Tikal ran through a loop that ended with a slanted-up ledge that sent the team flying into a spring on a wall facing forward. The spring launched them horizontally into a spinning handle that they let go of at an angle that sent them at a diagonal trajectory into a dash ring that shot the two ladies to a new platform which moved on its own, giving them a chance to rest. "Cream," Tikal panted, "how can one so young have such exceptional stamina?" Cream shrugged.
"I suppose it's just my experience," she guessed. "Are you going to be okay, Miss Tikal?" Tikal nodded, too out of breath to respond with words. Cream smiled at the reassurance on the safety of her new friend. "How about you, Cheese?" Cream asked. Cheese responded with a happy, "Chao!" Cream giggled.
"That's good to hear!" she said. Tikal tapped lightly on Cream's shoulder and said,
"The platform is reaching its end. Let's get ready to leap onto the next area." Cream nodded. The two jumped as far as they could with Cheese flying next to them. The three girls made vanished into a giant ring. As they reappeared out of another giant ring, they found themselves next to their allies, all just as tired as them.
"Cream!" Amy cried joyously as she hugged her best friend. "Are you, Tikal and Cheese alright? Even knuckles and I had a struggle against these new enemies." Knuckles scoffed.
"Oh please," he gloated, "it wasn't that difficult; not for me at least." Sonic chuckled.
"Those scratches and bruises say otherwise." Tails laughed, earning a growl from Knuckles.
"Don't encourage him!" Knuckles complained to the two-tailed fox. Tikal looked around, just now noticing where they all were.
"Friends," she pointed out, "we are in the Mystic Ruins." Tails gasped.
"Then that means-" he was cut off by a maniacal laugh. The seven heroes looked up and noticed Doctor Eggman on his Eggmobile with Mecha Sonic on the ground below him.
"Well, you puny rodents," Eggman announced, "I hope you feel ready to meet your end!" Sonic smiled.
"Isn't that what you always say?" he mocked. Eggman growled.
"I'll see to it myself that you're destroyed this time. Mecha Sonic, attack!" Mecha Sonic then charged at them with a yellow aura around him that sped him up. He plowed straight through the team of heroes, knocking them all away in separate directions.
"Please stop this!" Tikal advocated as she rose. Cream placed her hand on Tikal's shoulders with sad eyes.
"We won't be able to convince him," she said softly. "Emerl, Shadow, Gamma and Chaos Gamma proved some weapons can have feelings, but robots like these prove some can't. I'm just as pacifistic as you, but we must be mature enough to know when someone draws the line. Chaos Gamma taught me that." Tikal grunted, knowing Cream was right. Mecha Sonic rolled into a bladed sphere and charged at the heroes. This time, they all dodged, except Knuckles, who caught the rolling ball form of Mecha sonic and hurled it at Eggman. Eggman fired at the projectile by instinct, blasting Mecha Sonic back at the team. Tikal kicked it back at Eggman, and this time, he merely dodged. Mecha Sonic fell into the water, exploding on contact.
"Hey!" a deep voice bellowed from bellow. Big the Cat appeared from under the stairs leading to the platform everyone was on. In his hand was a fishing rod that had half of the string missing. He pointed at Eggman. "Your machine killed my rod," he complained, "bad Eggman!" He then drew a new, intact rod and swung the string at Eggman. The hook of the rod latched onto his collar bone. Big then leaped over the floating eggmobile Eggman was on, propelling his body with the rod attatched to Eggman, and landed behind Eggman. He swung forward, flipping Eggman forward and into the sea. All the heroes stared at Big.
"Woah," Knuckles interjected. Amy ran up to Big and gave him a hug. Cream quickly did the same.
"Big, that was amazing!" Amy cheered.
"Incredible," Tails agreed. "But I wonder, what happened to Eggman?"
"Aw thanks," Big smiled. "The Doctor? He's probably a goner. Let's just go home." Everyone nodded and headed to Tails' workshop to celebrate without any idea of what was in store for them.