After thirty long minutes of flying, the duo of speed and magic arrived at a kind of city in the sky. Watchtowers, pillars, and abandoned, old buildings were on something that was flying forward.

Sonic gazed at the floating towns in awe. "So what is this, some kind of 'Levitated Ruin'?"

"Pretty much," Shahra responded.

"But, what's making the city fly?"

"The Rukh."

"You mean this whole city is on the backside of a living fossil?"

"Yes, it is."

Flying the carpet underneath and in front of the creature revealed what it really was. "This thing isn't a bird," the speedster concluded. "It's a giant manta ray with teeth in its mouth!"

Sonic brought the magic carpet to hover close enough to one of the Rukh's backsides. Jumping off the rug and onto its flat, stiff tail, he instantly found himself being literally blown backwards. "Whoa! The wind is strong here! It's pushing me back!"

Digging his heels into the cobblestone walkway, the speedster accelerated his running and slowly started gaining ground. After about a minute of fighting against the wind, he reached the watchtower of the first airship. It was simple in structure: round with a circular stone pathway spiraling up its interior. Inside were three stone gargoyle statues with wings.

Sonic looked up, observing the open roof. Something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye.

Wait a minute! Did that statue… move…?

The center gargoyle came to life and began shooting light from its eyes in the blue streak's direction.

"Watch out!" Shahra shouted. "You'll turn to stone if that hits you!"

Sonic dove for cover behind a rock pillar. "Oh, that's right. I think I remember reading about that."

The gargoyle spread its stone wings and flew out the front door, trailing a path of flat yellow energy behind it.

Sonic jumped out from behind the pillar. "Get back here! I'm not done with you yet!"

"Hey, Sonic," Shahra nervously said. "W-wait!"

The speedster stepped on the yellow ribbon while running after the beast. Surprisingly, his foot didn't go through it. The trail was made up of light, but was solid to the touch.

Sonic ran up the pathway, chasing the gargoyle who tried to turn him to stone. The ribbon of light stretched into the sky and over the ground miles below. It twisted and turned, even corkscrewed, but he still stuck to the path like a car on a roller coaster track. It was like it had its own center of gravity.

Sonic continued pursuing the beast as it wound in and out of the flying fleet. "Hey, if you want to play tag, go do it someplace else!"

The gargoyle made several spirals forward like a military jet fighter as it finally flew over the largest of the giant manta rays.

Firing up his blue aura again, Sonic bolted along the corkscrew path, yelling as he ran. "Yahooooooo!"

Shahra screamed as she was dragged along at the high rate.

The blue blur caught up with and smashed the stone beast after a few seconds. The running through the loops reminded him of his first encounter with Dr. Eggman, known back then as Dr. Ivo Robotnik.

Loving the exhilaration, Sonic leaped off of the light ribbon's end and landed on a Rukh below, laughing as he fell. "Yeah! Excellent!"

This time, it was Shahra who was frightened by moving quickly at high altitudes. "Oh! You are so reckless!" she scolded.

The speedster ran to the tower ahead. Climbing the spiral staircase to the open roof above, he noticed a large, circular cage with a young man inside, sealed off by four rings of cyan light.

"Hey, is that Sinbad?" Sonic asked.

The speedster walked up to the cage taking a closer look. The imprisoned man wore a pair of gloves with two spikes coming out of the knuckles of each hand, something that was all too familiar for Sonic.

Spiked fists, red hair, big hands, bigger temper… I know who this is!

Sonic waved to the encaged sailor. "Hey, Knuckles! How'd you get here?"

The prisoner stood up. "I am Sinbad of the Seven Seas! Adventurer of adventurers! Who the heck are you?"

Oh, right. The whole lookalike thing fooled me again…

Shahra flew up to the cage, anxious to finally meet the hero face to face. "Oh, Sinbad, it truly is you the great adventurer?"

The sailor nodded.

"Would you be willing to give us some of your worldly wisdom?" Shahra asked.

Sinbad struggled with her name. "Hey, er, miss, uh…"

"Shahra."

"Shahra… Listen, I hate to break it to you, but I'm kind of stuck here. You're the ones who should be helping me."

The genie noted the bands of light sealing the prison shut. "I sense a strong magical force here. It must be the work of the Erazor Djinn. Which means, if we can break the spell, we can undo this lock."

"Now you're talking! That's the ticket, Shahra!"

Sonic finally spoke, annoyed with the excessive small talk. "Come on, Shahra. Let's just leave him there."

Sinbad looked at Sonic. "Hey, listen, bub. Life's a game of give-and-take, see? You help me get out of here, and in return I'll help you out later. Not a bad deal, huh?"

Sonic was shocked. "Wisdom… Knuckles…?!" The friend he knew in his world wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. "Ah, never mind." The blue streak looked at his genie companion. "Come on. Let's find that key."

Sonic and Shahra hopped on the magic carpet again scanning the fleet of Rukh for solutions. The speedster spotted a giant mirror on top of one of the towers.

Sonic pointed to the structure. "Yo, Shahra, can you land us near that? Maybe that'll give us a clue."

The genie did as instructed. The blue streak hopped off and found a lever switch near the massive mirror.

Sonic yanked on the lever. "Hey, what's this do?"

The mirror turned in the direction of the setting sun. Catching its rays, the glass surface reflected a beam of light at Sinbad's cage, striking one of the cyan bands sealing the sailor in. The ring shattered as the beam dissipated.

Sinbad shouted from the distance. "Hey! Whatever it was you did, do that again! That broke one of the locks!"

Shahra yelled back. "Don't worry, Sinbad! We'll rescue you!"

"Yeah! Any day, now! Thanks!"

Sonic rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on…"

The duo of speed and magic set off for the three other mirrors located in the flock of manta rays, repeating the process until Sinbad was freed from his cage. When they finally got back, they found Ali Baba waiting for them by the now-released sailor.

"Yo, Ali Baba, how'd you get up here?" Sonic asked.

"I did some scouting around the Evil Foundry while you guys were gone," he explained. "I found some old, metal parts left over from the mechanical spirits and made a small machine that allows me to fly. See?" The kid turned around, revealing a large, crude, iron propeller strapped to his lower back via a harness.

Man, oh man. He's REALLY starting to remind me of Tails, now…

Ali Baba continued. "I also briefed him on what's happening with the Ifrit and asked him what can be done about it."

Sinbad then finished stretching, glad to be out of his confinement. "Whew. Okay, so about the fire genie, then… Why not just try splashing some water on him?"

Sonic snickered, struggling to keep himself from laughing out loud. Oh, yeah. Nice one Captain Obvious! His face bore a mocking look as he taunted Sinbad. "Wow! The wisdom of Sinbad of the Seven Seas, the adventurer of adventurers!"

The sailor clenched his fists, angered by the insult. He walked threateningly toward the blue streak. "Hey! I don't see you coming up with any better ideas!"

Sonic got ready for another fisticuff with "Knuckles". Some things never change…

Ali Baba leaped in between the two. "Stop it! The real problem is how are we going to get enough water to put out a fire genie, right?"

Sinbad put his fists down. "I was getting to that! You see, the pirates who locked me up here took the Water Blue Ring I use to control storms."

"A Water Blue…?"

"Ring," Shahra finished.

Sonic cracked his knuckles. "First a fire genie, now pirates, huh? The Arabian Nights really are worlds of endless adventures, aren't they?"

The blue streak and his companion had just made their way down the circular flight of steps and stepped outside the tower where Sinbad was once held captive. The speedster's skull started buzzing again.

To the left, a pack of six, live, stone gargoyles charged for the speedster.

Oh, great. The other two from earlier brought friends… Sonic bolted for the tower, running up its wall. "That's right, keep following." Once he reached a certain height, he flipped off the wall and destroyed the pack with a carefully timed spin dash.

Sonic landed on the cobblestone walkway. "Man… There's just no end to these evil spirits, is there?"

Shahra elbowed her master and pointed to the tower's base.

Underneath a pile of demolished gargoyles was a faint blue glow. Clearing the rubble revealed one of them had been carrying a large, cobalt blue band inside of it.

"It must be another one of the seven World Rings," Sonic guessed, picking it up. As expected, the ring gave him a jolt, but, this one felt a lot stronger than the last two. The force of the surge of energy was enough to bring him to his knees.

"Are you okay?" Shahra asked with concern as the electrocution stopped.

Sonic grunted in pain, struggling to his feet. "Yeah… I'm fine… Okay… Alright…" He inhaled deeply and regained his composure. "Just touching it makes me feel like I've got a whirlpool of emotions spiraling around inside me! I can't even begin to imagine what having all seven would do to someone…" Sonic strangely felt a strong feeling of hope for Erazor's tyranny to soon end.

Shahra reached into her sash and pulled out a gold sphere with intricate Arabic designs carved into the orb. "Sonic… here… I want you to hold onto this."

Her master grabbed the golden ball. "Uh, okay. What is it?"

"If nothing else we do is able to stop him, this will be our final resort."

"Shahra…?"

The genie's expression was solemn, almost one of sadness as she turned away and floated down the path. "I cannot use it by myself…"

Sonic stared at her and back at the object in his hand. Just what exactly is this anyway? And what's going on with her?