Meanwhile, Knuckles was swimming towards Tails who was doing his best to get out of his restraints. The moment he saw Knuckles he calmed down a bit as Knuckles tried to break the net. Luckily Knuckles was a lot stronger and was able to break them in no time. Once out they both swam towards the surface.
When they finally breached the water they were stunned to see Sonic struggling. He was surrounded by dozens of robots and the numbers just kept increasing. Knuckles wasted no time waiting and began swimming to go help. While he did that he told Tails to run and hide.
Tails stared at Knuckles as he quickly made it to Sonic to assist with the fight but even with both of them it would still take forever to beat them all. If they didn't hurry, Eggman would get the rings first and he felt he was responsible for it since he got caught and delayed their fight and search. It was in that instance he decided to ignore Knuckle's instructions and began to dive into the lake.
Knuckles noticed this and yelled, "What are you doing?!"
"What?" Sonic asked.
"Twin tail dove back into the lake." Knuckles said, obviously annoyed.
"What?" was all Sonic could say before he was interrupted by another robot. He couldn't think about what to do. He just had to hope Tails knew what he was doing.
Tails continued his search for the rings. The lake was deep but he had experience with diving and could hold his breath for a while. However, that didn't mean he could hold it forever. In his search, he wound up having to resurface 3 times before he noticed something shining at the bottom of the lake.
He began to swim towards it but before he could reach it a submarine robot attacked him. He grabbed his tails and dragged him back. When he looked back towards the rings another robot was retrieving them. Tails was upset and began to struggle trying to get out of the robot's grip but it was no use. The robot, with the rings, was now out of sight, and the robot that had Tails released him once they were back at the surface.
Tails felt like he had failed but he knew he had to swim back anyway. However, he couldn't bring himself to do it yet. He didn't like the feeling of failing and causing trouble for Sonic or Knuckles but he really wanted to be of use to them so he went back to the location of the rings. He wasn't sure what he could do; he just hoped there was something.
Back at the surface, Sonic and Knuckles were still fighting their hardest. They were having better luck now and the robot's numbers finally started to dwindle but there were still a lot. Just then they saw the robot with the rings and it handed them over to Eggman. When Eggman grabbed them he sent out a joyous laugh.
"HAHA! Finally! Now I have the power too…" but before he could finish he realized he felt nothing from the rings. He looked at them and to him, they looked like ordinary gold rings. "What is this? Are these really the power rings?" he asked himself.
Sonic watched in confusion and began to wonder the same thing. When Knuckles noticed his confusion he whispered, "Remember not everyone can use them."
"Oh right," Sonic said now remembering that bit of detail.
Eggman was not amused and in a fit of anger yelled, "Well if I can't use this power I will just get rid of you now and retrieve the emeralds!" he pushed many buttons and every robot around began their attack. Even the ones that were still in the lake appeared.
Sonic and Knuckles were not happy. The numbers were up and they were surrounded. To make matters worse their stamina was running low. Just then Sonic heard a familiar sound.
"Sonic!" He turned towards the lake and saw Tails flying closer to him.
"Tails get back. It's too dangerous!" Sonic warned but Tails didn't listen. He continued to get closer.
"Don't get in the way, Twin Tail!" Knuckles yelled.
Tails still didn't listen and continued to fly. Once he was close enough Sonic noticed Tails had something in his hands.
Once Tails was quite close he threw the item, "Sonic caught!" To Sonic's surprise, it was a ring. Now he wasn't sure if it would work or not but his buddy went through a lot to get it so he took the chance. Sonic ran straight for the ring with Eggman wondering what he was doing. At this point, Eggman still believed the rings were useless so he was confused about what Sonic was doing going for it.
The minute Sonic was close he reached for it and the moment it was in his hand he felt something. The ring began to glow and Sonic felt a power boost. It was nowhere close to the chaos emerald but it was a boost nonetheless. He was thrilled that it worked and he immediately began to run towards the remaining robots.
Sonic found that the ring increased his speed by a lot. He didn't feel invincible like with the chaos emerald but he knew the power was enough to take down the robots. Sonic amped his speed and rolled into a ball. With his speed and power, he was able to literally crash through robots. He left holes and heavy dents in everyone now. Knuckles was impressed but didn't want Sonic to get all the fun so he went back into action punching and destroying everything in his path. In no time there were no robots left much to Eggman's surprise.
"How can this be?" He said.
"Guess these rings can be quite useful when you can use them," Sonic said sarcastically causing Eggman to get even angrier.
"Well too bad I won't see the rest." Eggman then began to make his retreat but Sonic was not done.
"Knuckles. Do me a favor and throw me towards Egghead."
"With pleasure." Knuckles said.
He grabbed Sonic and threw him as hard as he could. Using the power of the rings he quickly crashed into the eggmobile and caused Eggman to lose the rings he had retrieved.
"NO!" Eggman said as he watched the rings drop.
Underneath Tails was there and caught them in the air before flying over to get Sonic.
Sonic grabbed on with a smile, "Nice catch."
Tails was happy that he could help him and he flew Sonic back to Knuckles. Once they landed they watched as Eggman slowly flew away in his very damaged eggmobile. They all chuckled as they heard him grumbling but none could make out what he was saying but with how mad he was that was probably a good thing.
Once Eggman was gone Knuckles turned toward Tails and started yelling, "What were you thinking! That was the most reckless thing I have seen! You could have gotten hurt or worse! What's more, you could have dragged us with you!" He went on and on with his lecture to the point Tails was about to cry but Tails couldn't really argue.
Sonic at first let him continue his lecture since he was in agreement but after seeing Tails beginning to cry he put a stop to it. "Alright. That's enough. He only did it to help us out and frankly, he was a huge help." Sonic then looked over at Tails, "But that doesn't mean I want you to do that again. It was very dangerous and it would have been too late if something happened. Do you understand?" Tails whipped his tears away and nodded his head. "Alright!" Sonic said happily. "Now that we have these…" he held up the power rings. "We no longer need the emeralds. Thanks for the help…" but before he could thank Knuckles he saw that Knuckles was walking away. "Hey, where are you going?"
"You have the rings now. You no longer need me. I will be going on my own from now on to look for the other emeralds." Knuckles said without looking back.
"Really?" Sonic whined. "After everything, you are still going to say that."
"Yes. But…" He looked back "...I guess I can trust you to look for them as well." but then he turned around and sternly told both of them. "If you do somehow find another DO NOT USE THEM!" He then turned back around and walked away.
Sonic and Tails watched him go before looking at each other. They stood in silence for a moment before Sonic broke the silence.
"Are you ready to go?" Sonic said with a smile.
"Let's go," Tail replied.
They then went back to the plane. However, the moment they arrived they were shocked to see Knuckles.
"Knuckles! What are you doing here?" Sonic asked in complete shock.
Knuckles looked embarrassed and turned his head. "I forgot I have no way to get to land. Can I come with you till the next town?"Sonic and Tails couldn't help but laugh at his slight blunder which aggravated him but seeing as he couldn't really say anything to defend himself he just let them be. They agreed and all three of them quickly packed up and headed for the skies once again.