A week passes by and the others have returned to Sonic's mansion; everyone has Chaos Emerald in their hand. Tails awaits them in the conference room, checking off everyone's name on the checklist.

"Ok, seems like everyone's here." Keeping his eyes on the paper; everyone else look at each, realizing someone is missing.

"Tails…where is Sonic…?" concerns Amy; the others are also worried.

"I tried contacting him last week…" shrugging his shoulders; Amy has a face of disapproval.

"You haven't called again to check on him!?" Raising her voice suddenly; Tails backs away.

"Hold on now…"-he puts his hands up to calm her-"Sonic can handle himself, he'll be fine, he's probably found the Chaos Emerald about now." Tails didn't sound too sincere; perhaps he also worried for Sonic's safety?

Amy's unconvinced, "I don't know…something tells me we should go look for him. Sonic's not the kind of person to not tell us anything if he's in danger."

There's a sudden pause in the room; an incoming video call displays on the giant monitor. Tails clicks it and Dr. Eggman appears, holding the Chaos Emerald, with Roque and Orbot and Cubot in the background.

"It's quite nice to see you all again. Mrs. Rose and young Cream, Knuckles and the Chaotix and of course Tails…" the mood intensifies as he guffaws, showing off the shiny Green emerald.

"How'd you get that!" points Knuckles at the Chaos Emerald.

"Simple, Roque here crushed a certain Blue hedgehog to a bloody pulp. We grabbed our prize after the show! It's up to you if you want to retrieve his corpse." Amy drops her emerald on the floor and her lips quiver, falling back into the chair in complete disbelief.

"Where…where is he!" she screams, trying to deny the image in her head of the possibility.

"He is somewhere near the Red Canyon, if you're lucky, his body won't be rotting yet." Dr. Eggman places the emerald in front, "My business is with you all. I want to make an exchange with you, the 7 Chaos Emeralds for the Master Emerald. It's what you want, eh Knuckles?" waving the emerald at them.

"You're insane if you think we'd ever hand them to you!" yells Cream.

Tails massages his eyes, "How did you even get our IP address?"

"It was simple; I've been following you five since my failure on the Lost Hex. I tracked all your movements and studied you closely, learning of all your strengths and weaknesses and of your plans to take me down and retrieve the Master Emerald!"

Everyone's surprised and stay silent, knowing they can't hide the plan. Dr. Eggman takes out a map and shows them it. "Our Rendezvous will take place on the abandoned G.U.N base located 600 miles off the shore of Adabat. I shall give you 11 days of preparation before the deal is off."

"And what if we don't accept your conditions…" proposes Julie-Su, wanting to call Dr. Eggman's bluff.

"I'll attack you all myself and take all 7 Chaos Emerald's to go along with the Master Emerald."-Silencing Julie-Su-"So…Do we have a deal?"Folding his hands together and relaxing back, waiting for response from Tails.

"You have a deal…" agrees Tails, "But promise me you won't try anything funny." Taking off his glasses and glaring a Dr. Eggman.

"You have my word Tails, no funny business." Dr. Eggman hangs up; everyone yells at Tails, disagreeing with his choice.

"Tails, we have no business making a deal with Dr. Eggman!" argues Knuckles.

"We can take him down with these numbers!" joins Mighty.

"Shut up!" responds Tails, silencing them. He sighs heavily, "Look, I understand if you don't agree with my choice but, we have no logical option. If we fight that Roque guy, we'll be in serious trouble."

"Wait…! Sonic, we have to find Sonic!" panics Amy, looking for the exit.

He stays calm, "Ok, we make two teams: Search team and Medical team. The search team will search for him while the medical team takes care of him once he's been retrieved. The Search team will be composed of Amy, Knuckles, Cream, Mighty, Ray and myself; the rest of you will be the medical team, make preparations for a room for him."-Turning to Charmy-"make sure your equipment set up by the time we return!" Tails and the others mentioned above leave in the jets and set their destination for the Red canyon.

Back at the Red Canyon, Sonic hauls himself over to a nearby rock and rests there; his legs are dead, so had to drag his entire body by his arm. He places his hand where the open wound is and sees something he would rather not. Well, that's not a good sign…his right glove is completely red, he can only open one eye due to the wound being very close to the eyes. He pants, struggling to rise to his feet. He grabs the rock as support and forces himself up, leaning against the rock; his strength depleted.

I can't…I can't let them reach the others…They'll die! He attempts to run, but fails, opening his wound even more as he collapses to the floor. This is pathetic! The Sonic from two years back would slap me silly. Laughing alone; He ponders on the words of Roque, the words about the mysterious Spade. Who…the hell is Spade? And how…does he know me…? he fades away more and more as blood spills from his wound, So this is what it feels like…my own blood…it's so warm and red, now I feel so hollow. Everyone, I'm sorry…He passes out from the blood loss.

The search team arrives at the Red canyon 2 hours later; Amy is anxious to find Sonic, Knuckles stays close to Mighty and Ray, Tails keeps guard of Cream. Amy searches restless and finds a body lying in a puddle of blood; Amy shrieks in horror, running over to him as fast as she could. She holds him and begins to sob, pressing her head against his.

Tails scoots in, "Amy, we need to recover him…" gently prying Sonic from her grasps; Amy's broken.

"Amy, please retain your composure…" comforts Cream, giving her a hug.

They get back on the ship and fly to the Emerald Republic, holding sonic in a room by himself; Amy sits by his side, gazing at the one she once loved with obsession, grabbing his hand and making a prayer.

In the main room, the guys try to get gossip from cream about Amy's feelings for Sonic, but Cream doesn't throw her out there. Tails pilots the ship and also shows interest in the conversation at hand, turning the system to autopilot to join in.

Knuckles starts acting childish, "C'mon Cream, spill the beans…I thought Amy was over Sonic!"

"I won't answer! Now quit meddling in her affairs, don't you have a woman of your own to worry about?" sassing at Knuckles; the others make an "ooooh" sound after he just got told.

"I'm not meddling; it's simply that Amy seemingly changed. She took up Archery, and martial arts-things she'd never do, ever! She ends up going on her own adventures and to cap it all off, she gave us the impression that she moved on from him. I thought it was the best move on her part."

Cream sighs in frustration, "Look, she never got over him. She grew up, realizing that she wasn't going to win him over if she was so clingy to him. She buried her emotions deep down and never even discussed his name in the past two years; She honestly looked emotionless-even growing out her quills, attempting to release her feelings for him with that as her symbolism."

The others pause as they near the Emerald Republic, "So she just repressed her feelings?" asks Mighty, fully engaged.

Cream nods, "Amy didn't show any sign of happiness, until a few weeks back when we first came to Emerald Republic and happened to run into a certain Blue blur. She was elated after that; she didn't show it around you guys because of how obvious she crushed on him in the past. It'd be a headache if she followed the same pattern as back then."

"Ok…" jumps Tails, switching subjects, "we have 11 days to come up with a plan, what you propose we do?"

Everyone stands silent, with no idea of a plan. Amy enters the room, her eyes are flushed from all the crying and she doesn't look in any mood to converse. She sits down at the table and covers her head.

"Get me an aspirin, Cream."

Tails turns to Amy in hope that she has an idea, "Amy, what do you think we should do next? "

Amy gets irritated, "You're joking right? Do you not see who is dying right now!? You call yourself his best friend?" Amy gets up and walks away in disgust; Tails stands mute, with the others staring at him.

"I trust Sonic, he's not one to let something like this kill him…" they arrive at Emerald Republic and rush sonic to the mansion; the hospital would be too expensive and too much hassle since the patient would be a super famous hedgehog.

Entering the mansion, they placed Sonic in his room upstairs where Charmy and Saffron waited to tend to him. The rest stand out in the hallway; Amy's outside in the backyard, wanting to be alone. It's a frantic period for everyone, Dr. Eggman applied pressure to them, a new and powerful enemy has surfaced, and Sonic's near death. Only 11 days until a battle approaches…