Dr. Eggman smacked his face with his palm and shouted, "YOU'RE not the one ruling the world! I AM here! You were just supposed to collect the chaos emeralds for me!"

"HA HA HA! Do you really think I did that for you?" scoffed Mephiles, now hovering closer to Eggman's aircraft.

Super Sonic flew higher in the air to meet Mephiles in the sky face to face. They were really high now, twenty-five stories up but only a few feet above the shattered hourglass and the time bomb, which only had fifteen minutes before its explosion.

"Ha ha ha ha! Nothing can stop me! Not even YOU," Mephiles laughed with an evil look in his eye.

Just then, when Knuckles climbed over the top of the clock tower again and was just about to attack him, Sonic held up his hand and clicked his tongue.

"Nah uh uh," he said, closing his eyes and tilting his head a little. "My battle, not yours."

"But . . . Are you sure you'll survive against Mephiles?" Amy yelled from below.

"It's okay, I'll be fine," laughed Sonic confidently.

But before anything could happen, he found himself being punched hard in the stomach and before he could even think to breathe, he was sent flying away through the black sky.

Sonic got back up again and immediately stopped himself in midair and then turned again to face Mephiles.

"I was just going easy on ya," he chuckled confidently.

"No, I was going easy on YOU," said Mephiles quite ready for Sonic to give up already.

Then Sonic closed his eyes and focused all his energy on the chaos emeralds. He felt fire burning inside him until he clenched his sweaty fists hard enough for flames to come out of each.

"See how you like this!" he yelled as he opened up his hand and, directing it at Mephiles, let out all the fire he could from his palms, very greatly burning Mephiles in the chest.

"AAARRRGGH! Curse you, Sonic the hedgehog!" he exclaimed in outrage.

"HA HA! That's right! Kiss my—" Sonic began before he was blown away by a massive current of negative energy, as if someone threw a brick straight at you, sending you flying through the sky in supersonic speed. Ouch, I know right.

"AAAEEHHHHAAAAAAH!"

As Super Sonic flew backwards through the sky, Mephiles felt so good and powerful that I literally believe at that time nothing really could stop him due to the amount of excitement, determination, rage, and energy all racing around inside him.

Shadow saw this as an opportunity to help Sonic as something came over him.

"Hey, Shads?" asked Amy curiously. "Sonic could really use your help right now."

"I don't have any emeralds," Shadow sighed, trying to force himself not to give in.

"Here's one," Amy said, holding up a bright green chaos emerald, shining much more brightly than normal because of its attraction to the other emeralds nearby.

"Hey, where'd you find this?"

"Oh, I had it all along," said Amy with a wink. "Thought it might be useful later, so I kept it a secret."

"Ugh . . . Figures," Shadow sighed in annoyance before closing his eyes and then focusing his power on the emerald.

"Hey! You get your little grubby hands off of him!" Shadow shouted, now turning into Super Shadow.

"Oh great, another menace," Mephiles muttered to himself before glancing down at the bomb.

Then he came up with an idea.

Shadow and Sonic flew toward Mephiles at super-speed but just as they got to him, he decided to use chaos control, which he had learned to do from Shadow obviously. And before they could even touch him, he positioned them to skydive head first into the time bomb itself. When time went back to normal—now that's when the chaos began.

"YIKES!" exclaimed Sonic, trying to stop himself, but he was much faster than he could control.

"What's happening!" asked Shadow, quickly stopping himself fast enough to avoid slamming into the broken hourglass.

"NOOOOOOO!" screamed a terrified Amy when she heard a dreadful crashing noise into shattered glass.

She rushed over to see what had happened but was surprised to see who it was.

"Now that's what I call taking out the trash," Sonic said with a wink and a thumbs up.

"SONIC! YOU'RE ALIVE!" exclaimed Amy overjoyfully as Sonic soared down below his friends on the clock tower to see the actual clock itself.

"Oh no, only five minutes," he thought.

Then he immediately came up with a brilliant idea.

"Everybody, get down from the clock tower as fast as you can!" Sonic yelled loud enough for everyone to hear. Just then, dozens and dozens of screeching police cars, S.W.A.T. teams, and then a chopper from North Metropolis came over to the scene to watch what this strange golden hedgehog was doing.

"We've got him surrounded . . . again," said one of the S.W.A.T. officers in the chopper.

"Great. Not those douche bags again!" Knuckles huffed in annoyance.

"What are those big machines?" yelled Amy through the loud, boisterous and deafening noise of the incessant beating of the propellers on the helicopter.

Sonic prudently removed the bomb from its place; and then, using their super strength from the chaos emeralds, both he and Super Shadow took the huge, heavy bomb away from the clock tower as the two hedgehogs held both green and silver emeralds up to each other and shouted "Chaos control!" in order to pause time so that they could take the bomb out to sea. And there they would drown it in the ocean, far away from all civilization.

When Super Sonic and Super Shadow returned from exploding the bomb far out in the ocean, which ended up saving the city from destruction by the way, each turned back to normal Sonic and Shadow; and then everyone took a chaos emerald each (silver, red, turquoise, yellow, purple, silver, and green) . . . except for Dr. Eggman. Sonic got two since there were six emeralds present and only five of them vs. Dr. Eggman, who had none.

"Now please . . . Can't we just work out a deal or something?" Dr. Eggman pleaded them all as they gathered in a circle around him. The chopper came closer to see him on his knees before Sonic.

"I think we've got a new suspect," said the S.W.A.T. officer.

"Sorry, no time to talk," said Sonic, speeding down the clock tower as a big bright spotlight from one of the helicopters centered on him.

The whole town was cheering and shouting in victory and amazement and celebration when the people saw their hero speeding down the tower and then up the same building where Alexa stood in tears.

"Hey there," Sonic said with a smile.

"Oh! I'm so happy! You truly did it!" said Alexa, hugging Sonic's neck.

Alexa's parents were in the crowd of cheering citizens, and when Alexa looked down, she somehow spotted them instantly.

Sonic decided to speed her down the tall building to the streets where Alexa found her parents in tears as well.

"Oh! We were so worried about you! We're so thankful you're alive," said her mother as both of Alexa's parents gave her a great hug.

Then Alexa turned to Sonic and introduced him to her parents, who were completely thrilled to meet such a wondrous creature as this. Alexa was so overjoyed in knowing that they finally believed that her fairy tale heroes of old could come true and that there was still hope for the world.

Just a few nights ago, before she wished upon that shooting star for an adventure, Alexa was full of no hope or adventures; but NOW she was filled with excitement and adventure and had a true hero, too—her own fairy tale prince—one who had saved Metro World's South City from the threats of an evil villain and made her dreams come true.

Anyway, being ten minutes past midnight by now, Sonic and Shadow, Rouge, Knuckles, and Amy gathered around in the center of South City with the six chaos emeralds in hand. Now all they needed was the seventh, and then they could go back home.

But what happened to Mephiles and Dr. Eggman, you wonder? Well, simple. When Sonic and Shadow took the bomb out to sea and froze time to do so, Sonic had come up with a brilliant idea of exploding Mephiles along with the bomb. Then Dr. Eggman was sent to the Jail Tower of Metro World in North Metropolis where he would serve the rest of his years in, well, jail.

Now back with Team Sonic; South City, Metro World; 1320 hrs:

The next afternoon, Alexa had arranged a picnic lunch in her backyard for Sonic and his friends.

Mr. and Mrs. Remington were out at work since it was Monday (even though in the summer), so she had the house all to herself—which was a pretty big responsibility for a twelve-year-old with five talking animals from a different world all living in her house.

"I wish we had the last chaos emerald," Knuckles sighed, feeling homesick and bored. Mostly bored.

"Sure . . . Then what would you do?" asked Sonic, relaxing against a tree. "Oh wait . . . I forgot. You never do anything. But sleep."

"What! I don't sleep! I guard the master emerald all day!" exclaimed Knuckles hotly.

"Oh, so you usually guard it with your eyes closed all day?" asked Sonic, easily annoying Knuckles as always. "Huh. That's why it was so easy for Eggman to sneak past your sight with the emeralds so easily."

"Would you like some more tea?" asked Alexa.

"Why sure, don't mind if I do," said Amy Rose politely.

"This is pathetic," sighed Shadow with a light face-palm.

"Hey Knuckie," said Rouge flirtatiously.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" Knuckles answered as he stopped chasing Sonic to see Rouge standing there in a fancy dress.

While Sonic was busy running around the yard, Knuckles walked up to her and whistled.

"What are you wearing?" he asked.

"Oh! You like it? I had it custom made," chuckled Rouge flirtishly.

"Sure, it just looks like someone threw up on it, that's all," Knuckles shrugged nonchalantly.

Rouge got easily offended and then tackled him over to the ground began wrestling with him.

Sonic walked up to Alexa a few minutes later, and sitting on her knees, she turned to face him.

"Thank you ever so much for all you've done here, Sonic," she said with a tear falling from her cheek.

"You're more than welcome, Alexa," said Sonic with a smile of compassion.

Then Alexa leaned over and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek, causing him to blush a little. And then everyone turned to Knuckles and just stared at him for a minute.

"What?" he asked wearily and flustered.

"What's that on your face?" asked Sonic, trying not to laugh.

Then everyone burst out laughing at Knuckles, who had no clue what was going on. Amy handed him a pocket mirror.

"WHAT THE #%&*! DID YOU DO TO ME, ROUGE!" he exclaimed when he saw lipstick written all over his face. "I WILL KILL YOU FOR THIS!" he said before chasing her around the yard.

Well, Sonic and Alexa had become best friends in this world, but he was determined to find the rest of his friends who were more than likely sent to Metro World as well—such as Tails, Cream and Cheese, E-102 (one of Dr. Eggman's robots commonly referred to as Gamma), and others from the world of Mobius. Maybe they would face more villains in the future, or maybe Knuckles would have the opportunity to once again resume his position as Guardian of the Master Emerald on Emerald Shrine, Angel Island. Only Gaia knows. But for now:

THE END

© Sonic the Hedgehog by Sega

©2012 Sonic in Metro World by me