Soon enough, Sonic was able to break through the window and climb into what used to be a bedroom. This room was worse than the rest of the house; the furniture was caught on fire, and so were the doors and the wallpaper. Sonic had to think fast before the whole building began to crumble.
"Hello? Any . . . one . . . here?" Sonic managed to cough out, finding it extremely difficult to breathe. But that didn't stop him from completing his rescue mission.
Two young ladies were stuck inside one of the restrooms of the apartment and Sonic had to break open the door to get them out.
"Hold on!" he told them. "You might wanna step away from the door!"
The two ladies stepped back as Sonic kicked the door down with his right foot, and then he ran up to both of them and scooped them over his shoulder. Back outside, the whole fire department was waiting for this peculiar large blue hedgehog in white gloves and red shoes to come back out with hopefully the other two victims, but he never did. Then the police captain ordered his men to begin spraying the building down at this time. Just as he shouted the command Sonic, nearly wheezing himself to death, came out from the main entrance to the apartment with the two coughing victims.
"How can we ever thank you enough?" asked the chief captain gratefully as the two ambulance trucks drove away to the nearest hospital they could find.
"Well," Sonic began before wheezing into another long, hard cough, "if you ever happen to find any . . . chaos emeralds here, that would be . . . enough."
"Here, take this," said one of the firefighters, handing him the same oxygen mask he'd rejected earlier.
"Thanks a lot," coughed Sonic, relieved that he could finally breathe again.
Then Sonic heard his name being called from behind, and he turned around to see Knuckles running up to the scene and over the barricades, waving his hands back and forth in the smoke-filled air.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" Knuckles asked Sonic.
"Oh, nothing much," replied Sonic, "other than rescuing a few hostages from a burning building, that's all. What's new with you?"
"SOMEBODY STOLE OUR CHAOS EMERALD!" Knuckles exploded before falling face down on the ground with a thud.
"Oh no, that can't be good," thought Sonic, taking the mask off now that could he could breathe well on his own.
"Did you see who it was?"
"NO!" Knuckles yelled, crossing his arms and standing back up suddenly. "They are NOT going to get away with this! They took the bag and the map along with it!"
"All right, all right. Calm down. Don't gotta wet your pants over it," sighed Sonic.
"I DON'T EVEN WEAR PANTS!" Knuckles exclaimed furiously.
"Thanks for the info. Anyhow, it's a good thing I took this one with me earlier," Sonic said with the yellow emerald in his hand.
"Ya know I'm pretty sure they might have some maps down at the bank a few ways from here," said the captain.
And just before Sonic and Knuckles left, the police chief remembered what Sonic had asked earlier, about the chaos emeralds.
"Oh! Hey, I think I might have something for you two," he said, walking them over to his police car and opening the trunk. Then he pulled out a silver chaos emerald and turned to Sonic.
"Here, I found this inside the apartment on the first floor," he said, handing Sonic the emerald.
"Thanks," said Sonic with a wink, "and take care of that fire while I'm gone."
"I will, mister uh . . ."
"I'm Sonic. Sonic the hedgehog."
"Right," the captain said as Sonic took off down the road in lightning speed with Knuckles running after him.
It was already 2225 hrs by the time they had left the fire, which meant they only had one hour and thirty-five minutes before the bomb would go off on top of the clock tower. So Sonic took Knuckles by the hand and took off in super-speed in order to reach the bank in time. When they arrived within five minutes, Knuckles swore to Sonic that if he ever pulled another stunt like that again, he'd wish he'd never been born.
"Hey, don't be jealous," said Sonic, taking a glance down at his shining, silver digital watch whose green screen on it was designed to glow in the dark. Then he began to juggle the two chaos emeralds around with his fingers.
"HA! And why would I be jealous of YOU," Knuckles scoffed.
"Because I'm the number-one hero that everybody loves and you're just a hot-tempered echidna that nobody knows about," Sonic laughed.
When they walked up to the woman at the desk, she was so busy on her computer that she didn't even notice them swipe a few maps off the counter. And right as Sonic and Knuckles stepped out of the building, some dark figure flashed across the empty parking lot like a ghost. Sonic noticed this, however, and had to get Knuckles to keep quiet in order to focus. Suddenly everything stopped. No sound. No movement. No breathing.
"What is it now?" asked Knuckles impatiently after pausing.
"The emeralds are gone!" Sonic exclaimed, looking down at his empty hands.
"WHAT! HOLY SHIATSU!" Knuckles exclaimed, smacking himself on the forehead. "AGAIN?"
"Hey, don't look at me," Sonic shrugged, holding his hands in the air as a gesture of innocence. "I didn't do anything with them. They just . . . disappeared suddenly."
"If it were me guarding the emeralds, this wouldn't have happened," Knuckles mumbled coldly.
"Just cool it, will ya? We'll figure something out," Sonic said.
While Knuckles was busy face-palming himself, Sonic had figured out who that ghost was.
"Yo, I'm afraid we're gonna have to make a quick return to the clock tower," he said.
Meanwhile, at this time, on the flip side of our adventure with Sonic, 2250 hrs:
"So, did you collect the five emeralds?" asked Dr. Eggman, who was hovering over the clock tower where Alexa was still trapped inside the hourglass.
"Yes," replied a deep, low voice.
"Good job, Mephiles," Eggman chuckled. "Soon this world will be under my subjugation, and Sonic will finally be destroyed at last! HO HO HO! After all these years!"
"You're never going to win! Nothing can stop Sonic from defeating you!" Alexa tried shouting, but nothing she said could be heard.
Just then, Sonic could be seen speeding up the clock tower as fast as he could with Knuckles climbing behind him . . . way behind him.
"Hey! Wait up!" Knuckles yelled after him.
"WHAT? No! Sonic. I knew he'd come! Mephiles, quick, dispose of that blasted hedgehog," Eggman ordered as he pointed his finger down at Sonic.
As Sonic arrived to the top of the building, he had to stop for a long breath, for it was pretty hard to run that fast, vertically that is.
"Ha . . . ha . . . ha! You think . . . you can . . . beat me?" Sonic laughed, wiping his forehead and standing up straight. "Think again!"
"Oh you're wrong," laughed the doctor, "I KNOW I WILL beat you!"
"Mephiles!" Sonic exclaimed in surprise that his theory about the emerald thief was true.
"You pathetic little nuisance will suffer the consequences for helping these rebellious humans and saving their futile world," said Mephiles as Dr. Eggman tossed him a silver chaos emerald.
"Do your thing," Eggman laughed maliciously.
Then, with the power of the five emeralds, Mephiles closed his eyes as they surrounded him, glowing brighter than before in the blackness of the midnight sky.
"NOOOO!" yelled Knuckles once he reached the top.
Knuckles immediately pushed Mephiles over just before he was able to absorb the emeralds' power. Both of them fell over the edge of the tall clock tower while fighting in the air as three emeralds (yellow, purple, and silver btw) landed around Sonic's feet, who stood on the clock tower ready to face Dr. Eggman.
"Uh-oh," the defenseless doctor gulped, feeling a bit disparaged.
Sonic took a deep breath and stood there with both arms stretched out at his sides and head held high as the three emeralds slowly began to rise into the air and then increasingly circle around him while shining much brighter than they did when Mephiles tried using their power before.
"NO! NO! NO!" the foiled doctor yelled in frustration.
"HA ha ha!" Sonic laughed as he turned into Supersonic, a bright yellow hedgehog with longer quills and red eyes.
Golden streams of fire whirled around him as he threw a punch at the hourglass with Alexa inside, surprisingly causing it to shatter into thousands of pieces. Then he quickly picked Alexa up and swung her over his shoulder and flew her away in the sky to a building lower than the clock tower and away from the bomb, which was to go off in exactly thirty minutes.
"I knew you'd come," she said with a smile of amazement and confidence in Sonic.
"Yeah, me too," Sonic chuckled with a tear in his eye.
Alexa gave Sonic a big hug before he flew away to destroy the bomb and save the world.
"Muah ha ha ha!" Dr. Eggman cackled. "You thought you could fool me?"
"Well I do it all the time," Sonic shrugged while still hovering in the air near the bomb.
Just then, Shadow and Rouge appeared through a portal and landed on the clock tower by Sonic.
"Hey guys, what took ya so long?" asked Sonic, scratching his head.
"How did you . . ." Shadow began before Amy ran up to Sonic and gave him a tight hug.
"Yikes, Amy! Take it easy!" said Sonic.
"Wow! I forgot how hot you look when you turn into Super Sonic," she exclaimed dreamily. "So who is this Alexa chick I've heard about, huh?" Amy asked, taking out her hammer for some reason.
"What? No, it's just a friend," Sonic stuttered uncomfortably.
"Did you tell her about me?" Amy was dying to know.
"Hey, could we talk about this later, Amy?" Sonic said as Mephiles rose up into the sky.
Now he was in his third form of appearance: a crystalline anthropomorphic hedgehog with no visible mouth, nose, or feet. The color of his eyes had changed from a dark-palish green to a light-glowing green, and the sclera of his eyes had turned red.
"Where did you get those emeralds?" Shadow wanted to know.
"Finders keepers never tell weepers their secrets," said Super Sonic with a wink as he landed down on the top of the clock tower.
"Mephiles! No wonder our emeralds disappeared!" Rouge exclaimed, pointing her finger at the dark hedgehog glowing in the sky. "He's got our emeralds!"
"At least he's only got two," said Shadow.
"I, Mephiles the Dark," Mephiles declared in an echoey voice, "will rule the world! MUAH HA HA HA!"
