Sonic and Shahra ran along the Lost Prologue until they reached a portal of some kind, almost like an open door. It seemed like something out of science-fiction: a doorway to another dimension. Crossing over, they found themselves in some old ruins. Stepping outside revealed the duo was in a sandy location with palm trees and shrubs scattered all around. Various pools of water with more ruins and stone buildings were additionally in the landscape. In the distance the sun was setting. This was a place Shahra fondly called the "Sand Oasis". Appropriately named.

Sonic didn't wait a second. Firing up his boost again, he bolted into the blazing heat, running across the surface of a pool of water. "First, let's find the king's palace!"

"Yes, let's hurry," Shahra reiterated.

Running across the water's surface kept him cool, but, even that wouldn't compensate for the water he'd lose in this heat. Reaching down with both hands, he was able to channel water up his arms and into his mouth while on the run by using a weak form of hydrokinesis taught to him by his teacher of the Yang style of Ta'i Chi Ch'uan back in his world. He would have to stay intensely hydrated throughout his stay here. Having drank as much as he could, Sonic continued to run towards the shore. Reaching solid ground, he bolted for a small trail leading through some foliage. Arriving at another body of water, he jumped and landed on a block of stone in the lake's center. While he glanced around for another route, two spears fired at his backside.

The speedster felt a buzzing in the back of his skull, right about where his "quills" were. Sonic was highly keen to danger, aided by some kind of "sixth sense" which would alert him of incoming threats or surprise attacks.

Whoops! The blue streak back-flipped over the two javelins, which impaled the rock where he once stood. Gazing in the direction of the attacks, he spotted two small humanoid monsters on a ledge ahead. Each looked similar to a cheap cloth ghost for Halloween but decorated with royal colors and Arabic text. The larger of the two even breathed fire.

"Erazor's henchmen!" Shahra pointed.

"Not to worry." Sonic crouched and leaped towards the ledge. He then froze in midair as he began curling into a ball, almost like he was hovering. Spinning vertically, as if he was performing rapid-fire front-flips, he somehow shot himself at the smaller of the two djinns. Striking it, the fiend dissipated into Arabic text.

Well, that explains what happened to the words of this world…

Bouncing up from the impact, Sonic spun into a ball again and bolted for the bigger henchman. Although the evil spirit tried moving out of the way, Sonic's spin dash followed the djinn's path, effectively destroying it.

Landing on the ledge, Sonic looked down at Shahra, who was again surprised. "It's a sequential, enemy or object-seeking, aerial spin dash," he explained. "I call it a 'Homing Attack' for simplicity's sake."

Sonic jumped off the ledge to a higher stone platform. After running along it for a few minutes, he came across a small village in the Oasis.

"Just ahead is the king's palace," Shahra informed him.

Sonic looked in the distance. "There it is! I see it!" He picked up the pace as the duo rushed for the palace gates.

Sonic and Shahra had been wandering about the palace for minutes calling for the sultan. The palace was empty like a ghost town. The silence was giving the speedster the creeps. Finally, after arriving in a large area with several large, clay water jars, Sonic stopped walking.

"Where is he…?" he asked. "Are we too late?"

—CRASH—

A jar toppled over and shattered.

Sonic whipped around.

Clay jars didn't fall by themselves.

He saw the reason: a six foot, eight inch, man with purple robes and a turban was hiding inside. The teenager clenched his fists. Several features on this man made him all too familiar: the egg-shaped body, the ragged, over-sized mustache, the dark glasses. The speedster knew exactly who this was.

An angry look came over Sonic's face. "What's Dr. Eggman doing here?! Aha! I knew it! This is all another one of your schemes!"

The Eggman look-alike did not understand. His voice even matched the evil doctor's. "What is the meaning of this? I am Shahryar, king of this land!"

"Okay, Ro-butt-nik, if you won't talk, I'm going to beat the answers out of you!" Sonic began to walk threateningly in his direction. "Eggman, what are you up to this time?"

Shahra flew in front of Shahryar. "Sonic, wait! You're making a mistake! This is him. This is King Shahryar!"

Sonic was shocked. "Wait, what? Really?!"

Shahryar was none the happier about being threatened and accused. "Such insolence! Guards! Seize this blue, spiky man at once!"

An awkward silence passed.

Shahra finally spoke. "Where are your men, Your Highness?"

"Oh, that's right," Shahryar remembered. "Let me explain… When the evil spirits came out of nowhere, everyone turned and ran. And I was stuck having to hide in that jar…"

—WHOOSH!—

Sonic watched in shock as a featherless, bird-like creature snatched Shahryar off the ground and into the air, carrying him through the palace gates and out of sight. A pteranodon?! I thought those things were extinct!

Shahryar screamed as he was carried off. "Nooooooo! Help meeeeeee!"

The aerokinetic took a closer look at the living fossil. On its back was the Erazor Djinn who scoffed at the blue streak's failed attempts to protect the sultan.

Oh, great. That explains a pterosaur in the palace kidnapping the king… Sonic faced the doorway and crossed his arms. "Well, well. Guess it's time for a little action."

Where could they have gone? They can't have just disappeared into thin air… Sonic and his genie companion had been running around the oasis for over thirty minutes and still no sign of the king. The speedster stopped by a pool of water to hydrate himself again. When finished, he stood up and glanced to his left.

A young kid about ten years of age was cornered against a building by two of Erazor's minions.

Sonic quickly jumped for the fiends and smashed them into Arabic text, prompting the kid to let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh thank you! I thought I was done for!" the boy said gratefully.

Is that—? Sonic stared at him for a few seconds. "Tails? What are you doing here, too?"

The Miles Prower doppelganger did not understand. "Tails? My-my name is Ali Baba…"

Always messin' around, are we? Sonic pointed a finger in the kid's direction. "Come on, Tails! I know it's you!"

Shahra floated down and spoke to Ali Baba. "I'm very sorry. He seems to have mistaken you for someone else."

Ali Baba smiled. "Oh, it's okay. I'm still very grateful that you saved me. I might not be very strong, but I've still got some tricks up my sleeve. If you ever need my help in return it would be the least I could do to repay you."

"Thank you," Shahra replied as Sonic got ready to search again. "If something comes up, we'll be sure to call you."

About an hour had gone by and still no sign of the sultan. Sonic stopped by a whirlpool of sand to rest. Dehydrated and exhausted from the heat, he sat down on a rock.

Shahra glanced at him with concern.

"I'm fine," he explained. "I just need water."

Shahra created a flask of water and handed it to her master who was suffering from the glare of the sun. As Sonic guzzled the cool liquid down, he asked her if there was a place that wasn't so dry and scorching. Her response was that there was a jungle about a mile to the east where ancient creatures thrived.

Sonic finished draining the last of the fluid from the container. "Fine by me. Let's head there next. Shahryar might have been taken there."

The ground began to shake as the speedster got to his feet. Off to the left, the whirlpool of sand began to sift and swirl.

"Sonic, look!" Shahra pointed.

With one final rumble, a giant purple beast burst out of the dunes. It looked like a mutated scorpion with two tails, no pincers, and a set of huge eyes running up the tails and one on its back. One additional eye was inside the arachnid's massive, sharp-toothed jaws.

"Whoa! I take it that's not something you see every day, huh?" Sonic stated.

"That must be a monster summoned forth by the Erazor Djinn."

"Shahra, can't you do something about it with your magic?"

Shahra's face saddened. "I'm sorry, Sonic. My magic is no match for that of the Erazor Djinn…"

"Okay. Guess I'll have to deal with it the old-fashioned way. And hey, don't look so glum, Shahra. I'll have you smiling by the end of this. And that's not me ordering you as your master. That's a promise from a friend… From me to you." The blue streak held out his little finger.

Shahra did the same and their fingers locked. "Yes… Alright…"

Sonic began to stretch as Shahra sat down on a rock. "Okay! Let's do it!"

Shahra continued to stare at her finger. "A promise…" She looked on from the distance as Sonic leaped into the fray to face the monster.

The Sand Scorpion leaped out of its hiding place and onto a dirt road, running up the trail with Sonic in hot pursuit.

Okayyy, based on my experiences with Eggman's badniks, I'm guessing smash the eyes as they are the only visible weakpoints.

The speedster jumped and sequentially hit the eyes all along the beast's left tail.

Raising its other stinger, the scorpion attempted to stop the blue streak's attacks.

Sonic quickly stepped to the left, dodging the blow and smashing the rest of the eyes on its backside with his Homing Attack.

The violet arachnid turned around, revealing its enormous toothy jaw. Trying to eat its enemy alive, the beast opened its mouth and lunged for the blue blur.

Sonic stopped on a dime and spin-dashed into the scorpion's mouth, effectively destroying the final eye.

The monster let out a screech of pain and fell to the ground, dead, slowly dissipating into Arabic text.

Sonic stared at his fallen adversary. "Sorry but you were in my way."

As the final bits of black characters faded from the spot, a large yellow ring like the ones binding an old-fashioned book came into view. The ring had some kind of thick, white Middle-Eastern-themed etching on it.

Shahra floated beside her master. "There it is, Sonic!"

The blue streak stared at the strange yellow band. "So, that's…"

"This must be one of the seven World Rings the Erazor Djinn spoke of." Shahra reached for it. Her hand passed through the object as if it was a hologram. "What…? I… I can't pick it up…"

Sonic cautiously reached for it himself. He was successful in grabbing it, but the very second he did so, it gave him a powerful jolt of yellow electricity. "Ow! What the—?"

Shahra quoted a segment from the book as the electrocution stopped, "'When darkness descends upon the Arabian Nights, the legendary blue hedgehog from another world shall come.'"

Sonic felt unusually happy after hearing Shahra call him a legend. "Me? Legendary? You've got to be kidding. You're going to make me blush!"

Shahra continued to quote the passage. "'When the seven the seven rings that control the worlds are gathered, the portal between the worlds shall open… But the life of the collector of the rings shall be offered up in sacrifice as the key for that control.' That is what is written in the newest chapter of the Arabian Nights."

Sonic couldn't believe his ears. "Say what?! I'm supposed to be a sacrifice?!"

"That I cannot say for sure, but I do believe these rings hold the key to unlocking some sort of mystery and that we need to collect them to get to the bottom of the mystery."

The aerokinetic pressed a finger to the flame in his chest. "Well, considering I still have this arrow in me to deal with, I guess I'm in a pinch either way, right?"

Shahra lowered her head. "I'm sorry. It's my fault all of this is happening to…"

Her apology was interrupted by her master's laughter. "Hey, don't worry about it. Besides, don't you know how fast I am?" The blue streak took off running towards the jungle once more. "Time may fly, but I'm even faster!"