Once they're out of the bar, Tails flies them over to the mountains, the sun shining. "Hoo-hoo!" Sonic cheers as they look over the area. "Today's forecast calls for clear, sunny skies and a 100 percent chance of adventure," He states while glancing at his map.
"I pinpointed the coordinates. It's right up ahead," Tails explains, pointing forward and they look at a big mountain.
"Wow..." Sonic murmurs as Tails gets them around the mountain.
"What do you think we'll find there?" Sophia looks to them.
"I don't know, but we can do this," Sonic encourages her lovingly and she smiles. Tails turns around to her.
"Um...is it okay if I ask how you got turned into a hedgehog?"
"...Robotnik used Sonic's quill from when he was tracking him down, and then...used a serum on me. I didn't even know what was happening until I finally saw who I turned into..." She rubs her neck. "I don't know if there's a cure, but honestly, if I have to continue being a hedgehog, I'm fine with it. After all, this adventure wouldn't be nearly as fun," She winks at him and Tails smiles.
"Thanks for trusting me with that, Soph. I'm sorry Robotnik did that to you."
"Trust me, he'll get what's coming to him for this and for destroying my house," She huffs as she crosses her arms, though Sonic doesn't look very convinced that Sophia's okay with her hedgehog life. Something that doesn't go unnoticed by Tails, but he decides to wait for the right time.
Tails gets them to an opening and they jump to the ground. He lands in front of them. "Hey, Tails, wait up," Sonic calls out as they step further inside to see a door, with the symbol of an owl up top. "Whoa..." He bends down as Tails takes a look at his device, Sophia rubbing her chin. "Okay, we got a giant owl door. Seems encouraging." The three slide down to the water, walking up to the door. They slip through a small pathway, getting a closer look at the door.
"Whoa...check this out."
"Can you translate that?" Sonic wonders as there's some kind of writing on it.
"Uh, yeah. Ages ago, a fearsome group of warriors, known as the Echidnas, forged the Seven Chaos Emeralds into the most unstoppable weapon ever created."
"The Master Emerald," Sonic guesses correctly.
"Whoa...is that why Knuckles is after it?" Sophia murmurs and Tails continues.
"With it, a single warrior could defeat entire armies. Believing no one should have such power, an order of heroes recovered the emerald, and swore to protect it from evil. Sounds like the Owls and the Echidnas have been fighting each other for centuries."
"Like Vin Diesel and the Rock," Sonic states in thought, causing Sophia to giggle a bit. They glance to Tails walking off. "Whoa! Wait for us!" They catch up to him...to come across a room with a giant owl statue in the middle. "Okay, giant owl door, giant owl. Makes sense."
He steps forward and goes up the staircase, seeing four symbols. "Wait a second, I've seen these symbols before," He pulls out the map, seeing four symbols on the emerald on the map. He looks to the symbols, holding out his hands. "Here we go..." He turns them in the correct order, and they start glowing green, an emerald shape forming. The eyes glow green from the statue and it comes to life. "Well, that did something..." He slowly backs away as the wings come out, and it starts scanning them. An object comes out and lands in Sonic's hands. He holds it out into the air, and it forms into the compass. "Whoa! The compass!"
"This will lead us to the Emerald!" Tails adds in. The compass spins back into a coin and Sonic holds it...suddenly, a red dot is on Tails' head and Sophia looks up, backing away in alarm.
"Um..." She points to his forehead.
"Hey, you got a little something on your-" Tails tries to get rid of it...and then several other red dots appear. "Oh no," Sonic looks around in alarm. "Tails, get back!"
"We'll protect you," Sophia stands at his side as they look up to see Robotnik's drones closing on them. The hedgehogs glare knowingly.
"Run!" The duo shout, heading for the exit, but the drones blast it to cause a cave-in in front of them. Robotnik then yodels as he enters on his Egg Carrier, with Knuckles hanging onto the side.
"Aw, that guy again?" Tails asks in annoyance.
"Heads up, my little stalagmites. Someone call an Uber?"
"No," Sophia growls out at him.
"Hey, thanks for doing all the hard stuff. And for reminding me that making you a hedgehog wasn't a mistake!"
"Don't talk to her that way," Sonic grunts at his enemy, Knuckles jumping off and sliding down the statue. He lands in front of it with a boom, some rocks falling.
"But we'll take it from here..."
"Okay, we really gotta talk about your new look," Sonic speaks up to Robotnik. "It's like Professor X meets the Monopoly man." Robotnik recoils back, a bit offended as he touches his moustache. "And what kind of genius shows up to Siberia in a convertible?"
"Or, for that matter, what kind of genius expects us to let you get the compass? For someone bragging about their IQ all the time, you're not very smart," Sophia remarks as she crosses her arms.
"Couldn't have said it any better, Sunshine," Sonic points at her.
"The kind of genius that can turn up the heat..." He puts down his goggles. "With a flick of a switch." He presses on a screen and then fires a missile from his Carrier. Sonic flips and catches it, throwing the projectile right back at the statue. Knuckles jumps away as there's an explosion. "Oh! Whoo!" Robotnik just laughs while Knuckles holds out an arm to brace himself from the rocks. "Good one! I'm sure that wasn't important!"
The statue falls over and causes some icicles to fall. "Tails, Sunshine, that's our exit. Come on," Sonic and Sophia run forward while Tails flies, following them. They run up the statue in a spin dash, only for a drone to come up in front of them. They knock right into it and grab a piece from it. Robotnik growls as he watches them go up the statue and out into the snow. The two hedgehogs yelp and come to a stop as they see...well, a not-so-safe path in front of them. "Uh-huh. Let's split up. You go high, we go low. Sunshine, you go right and I'll go left."
"Right!" They both nod and Sonic stretches his arms.
"Um...quick question, we're gonna survive this, right?" She asks nervously and he scoffs.
"Of course we are...maybe. Can't hurt to try! Here we go!" He flips and dives down, and she yelps in alarm. She looks back and sighs slowly, jumping into the air. Sonic laughs as he touches the snow with his hand, Sophia sitting on the make-shift snowboard. Sonic touches his feet on it to start skating down the snow. Sophia hangs on for dear life as she sways her body to the right. The drones come out from the hidden area and start to follow them. Sonic looks back and sees them. "Oh, so you wanna play?"
Half of them go to the right after seeing Sophia. They lock onto the hedgehogs, Sophia glancing back as they fire, hitting the snow to cause explosions towards the both of them.
"That's new," Sonic comments, speeding up, but getting knocked into the air by an explosion. He does a flip and lands down below. Sophia looks up ahead at a hill and goes flying into the air, spinning around while hanging on.
"Ohh, I'm not ready for this!" She shouts as she lands safely, but she's shaking. Sonic moves to his right as he goes down a hill, Sophia sledding down one. She glances back as Sonic is getting fired at, and he barely misses the lasers. Tails looks down and sees them.
"Sonic! Sophia!" He tries to fly down to help, an explosion occurring right near him. He yelps, screaming as Eggman and a drone are flying after him. He screams in alarm while Robotnik just laughs. Knuckles stands at the top while the drones fly past and he punches one to grab part of its metal. He jumps and uses it as a snowboard. Sonic glances at Sophia while jumping up and she looks back. Her Chaos Spear forms in her hand and she flicks it behind her to destroy some drones.
"Nice one, Sunshine!" He pumps his fists and she laughs, the drones locking their targets on them. Sonic gathers up some snow in his hands. "Snowball fight!" He rapidly throws them to knock down some drones, laughing as they crash into the snow. "It's too easy!" Sophia skids to the side, bringing up some snow to cover the drones, distracting them long enough to crash. "Come on, challenge us!"
"Sonic!" Sophia yells in alarm and he glances to her. She points forward and he jumps off a hill...to be met with much more drones. He gasps as they all form lasers and he jumps off the make-shift snowboard. Sophia looks up at him as he does a split in the air, hugging himself and landing on a drone. He jumps on another one, doing a little dance.
"Whoo!" He hollers while jumping on another one, jumping again and pretending like he's swimming. "We are talking style and pizzazz," He flips and lands on one, using its weapons to destroy the last of them. He lands on the snowboard safely. "Yeah! I make this look good," He crosses his arms while looking back. He glances to the side to see several drones going towards Sophia, who narrows her eyes with a small smirk. She feels much more confident being on the snowboard since she knows that they can't hurt her, she is invulnerable to their lasers. She grips the snowboard while still kneeling and then vaults off a small hill, readying her Chaos Spears. She spins around while being surrounded by drones, destroying them left and right before landing back first on her snowboard. She places her arms behind her back while looking up at the explosions.
"And you make yourself look good," Sonic winks while giving her a finger gun. She just scoffs, laughing at his comment.
"You're so ridiculous," She giggles at him...and then her smile drops as she sits up to see Knuckles appearing from the explosions, going after them both.
"Oh great," Sonic rolls his eyes. "The Winter Soldier."
Sophia glares at Knuckles and leans to her left to get closer to them. Once Knuckles has caught up with them, he uses his fists to knock them both into trees. They both regain their balance, but don't see Knuckles until he comes up from the side with his fists ready. Sonic yelps and grabs Sophia's hand, pulling her out of the way as Knuckles knocks into some trees instead of them.
"For a guy named Knuckles, you are really bad at punching," Sonic teases him while still holding Sophia's hand. She looks back and blows a raspberry at him.
"Surrender the compass!" He demands to the both of them. "You two are no match for me. Not even invulnerability can save you," He growls at Sophia, who gasps at him. "I've been training for this my entire life!"
"How did you know about-"
"And I had no training at all, yet here we are ahead of you," Sonic remarks, all of them still going down the hill. "That's gotta be embarrassing." The duo flip off of a hill, which Knuckles breaks through and they both shout in alarm, seeing his flashing red eyes. They land roughly, losing their snowboards as they grip the edge of the cliff. And Sonic also loses his bag of rings, and they all fall from the bag. "My rings!"
Knuckles stomps in front of them and Sophia growls at him. "Oh, you're so gonna regret that."
"Has anyone ever told you you've got serious anger issues?" Sonic narrows his eyes while helping Sophia get onto her feet.
"You mock me with your weak jokes, but you know nothing about me, hedgehogs."
Sonic gets onto his feet, annoyed. "Well, we know you Echidnas have a habit of showing up uninvited and ruining my life."
"Ruining your life? Another bad joke. I lost everything because of you," He points to the both of them, Sophia looking in confusion. "My tribe was on the verge of its greatest victory. The last of the Owl warriors had been located. Soon Longclaw's Emerald secrets would be ours."
A young Knuckles in armor looked up ahead as the leader watched over the army preparing to move out. An older echidna bent down to him. "But my father stopped me from joining the fight. He said my moment to honor our tribe would come, but it was not this moment."
Knuckles looked dismayed at what his father told him. "Those were the last words he spoke to me."
Sophia gasps at his explanation. "I never saw him again...and if it wasn't for your association with him, I wouldn't have to involve you," He points at Sophia.
"...We both lost everything that day," Sonic looks away sadly.
The echidnas tracked down Longclaw, shot her down, and she looked back at Sonic. "Goodbye, Sonic."
"No! Longclaw!"
Sophia glances at her boyfriend sadly as he ended up telling her what happened in full detail eventually. She doesn't bring Longclaw up because she doesn't like seeing him so sad, but she could tell how much he missed her. She gives him a gentle hug, silently looking up at Knuckles, and his eyes soften at her look as he could tell that Longclaw didn't survive the attack either. Suddenly he's tied up with electric ropes, Tails flying in from above.
"Sonic! Sophia! Are you okay?" He calls out to them.
"Deceivers!" Knuckles accuses them, thinking that this was all a trick.
"No, no, it wasn't a trick!" Sonic tries to tell him.
"It was the truth-"
Knuckles breaks free from the restraints. "Tails," Sonic looks up at the fox. "Take the compass and get out of here!" He tosses it to Tails...but Robotnik swoops in and catches it. He prepares his jets while glancing back at them.
"Later, haters!"
Sophia is about to protest when Robotnik fires two missiles from behind, both of them hitting Tails. He screams and falls to the snow. "Tails!" The hedgehogs shout before speeding forward to go grab him. He falls to the snow and Knuckles jumps onto the side of the Egg Carrier. He watches as the two bend down to the fox. "Tails, come on, wake up!"
"Oh no..." Sophia murmurs in worry with a deep frown.
"They chose helping the fox over pursuing the compass," Knuckles points out, since they didn't even seem to focus on Robotnik stealing it.
"Of course they did. New friend, same pathetic weakness," Robotnik dismisses, Knuckles looking at him in contempt. It's another comment like that which really makes him question Robotnik's morals...
"He looks really banged up," Sophia looks up at him.
Sonic glances at the ground as it starts to shake...and his heart drops as he looks to see that an avalanche is approaching. Sophia notices it too and her ears fall in dismay. "Oh, no. No, no, no," He looks to Tails, who's unconscious. "Okay, we're in real trouble here. Come on, Tails. We need to fly us out of here. Time to wake up!" The snow starts coming down towards all of them. Sonic continues shaking Tails, but Sophia is trying to get his attention.
"Sonic. Sonic!" She places a hand on his shoulder and he looks up to see her determined face. "Tails is too banged up to fly, we can't do much for him here. The only way we're gonna get out of this is by working together to come up with a plan."
Sonic bites his lip, realizing that she's right; he can't rely on Tails for this. "...Okay," He nods at her.
"See ya, kids! Enjoy the fresh powder," Robotnik flies off with Knuckles. Sonic puts Tails over his shoulder, using the snowboard to go down the hill.
"What do we do?!" He turns to his girlfriend, who gasps, turning to him.
"Dad! He's got a ring, remember?! We can take Tails to Mom!"
He gasps in realization and pulls out his phone, hoping that he's not too busy...
Angel: I don't know why, but the snowboard scene not only I knew was a nod to the games, but it also kinda reminded me of the snow scene from the Michael Bay TMNT movie, the first one? Anyone else get that impression or was it just me lol