Author's IMPORTANT note:

This is an info regarding of the poll that had the title choices for this fanfic! Apparently, two of the choices had ended up tying for 1st place. So there is now another poll with the choices that were mostly voted. Please, come check it out and vote for your favorite! The poll will end on March 14th 1:00am EST! Once the results are up, the new title, cover, AND next update will be up. Thank you in advance.

Chapter 6: The Strange Gem & Familiar Faces

Saura arrives to the Mystic Jungle after taking out a few enemies. She needs to search for the two life readings that Rouge detected. She had a little bit of fun on the way there. The water slides had been something she never experienced before. It would have been more fun if there weren't any enemies on it. Saura soon arrived at the front of the laboratory.

"The readings are really close now," Amy says through Saura's communicator. Saura flinches a bit, but not much. "Reinforcements will arrive soon, so meet up with them," she added. Saura nods as she walks a bit to the laboratory.

Suddenly, Saura noticed something glowing on the ground close to the laboratory. Curiously, she walks to it and sees a gem on the ground. The gem had the same color and pattern as the triangular gem the jackal had on his chest! Saura looks around cautiously to see if there are any signs of the jackal. Seeing the jackal is not around, the wolf picks up the gem to get a closer look at it. The moment her hand made contact with the gem, it started to glow! Saura gasps at this; however, that glow only lasted for a few seconds. She tilts her head in confusion. Perhaps she should show this to Knuckles to see if he knows anything about it.

Saura then hears someone coming! She puts the gem in her pocket and gets ready to see who it is. To her surprise, it's Sonic! But how? She saw him at HQ and Knuckles said he needed time to heal… Wait! This Sonic looks different! He looks younger and his quills aren't as spikey. The wolf then sees a two-tailed fox flying down as the young Sonic waves to show him Saura. The fox looks at the wolf in confusion as he lands. "Who are you?" the fox asks.

Saura flinches a bit as she takes a step back. "Hey rookie, did you find anything?" Knuckles asks through the communicator. Saura picks up the communicator and looks at it.

Just then, the fox looked shocked. "Knuckles?" the fox says with excitement.

"Tails, is that you?" Knuckles asks through the communicator with a surprised tone. "Thank goodness you're in one piece," he added with relief. "Come head back to HQ! I'm sure Sonic will be happy to see you are okay. The rookie and some reinforcements will help you back," he says to the fox, also known as Tails.

Tails shows a huge smile along with the hedgehog that looks like Sonic. He then looks to Saura and has his hand out. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you're with Knuckles and Sonic. I'm Tails," he says to the wolf. Saura looked unsure but shook the fox's hand. Tails smiles and mentions the hedgehog looking like Sonic. "And this is Sonic," he added. The fox notices the confused look on Saura's face. "He's a Sonic from another dimension," he explains. Saura nods to show she understands. Tails nods back. "What's your name?" he asks the wolf. Saura flinches at the thought of speaking, but she doesn't need to now. She, Tails, and Sonic see reinforcements arrive.

The younger Sonic, Tails, and Saura arrived at HQ walking to the computer room. Tails and the younger Sonic went in the room first. "Sonic," Tails exclaims when he sees Sonic with everyone else!

The older Sonic, who was waiting eagerly, sees Tails and smiles in excitement. "Tails," he says to the two-tailed fox!

Before Sonic could respond, Tails hugged him as tears appeared in the fox's eyes. "I-I was so worried! I-I thought you were-" was all Tails could say as he continues to cry a bit. Saura smiles as she watches the older Sonic and Tails hug like long lost brothers.

"Oh, you worry too much Tails," the older Sonic says to Tails. He stops hugging the fox, so he can show the fox he's alright. "See? I'm perfectly fine," he added with a smile. The older Sonic then turns to the younger Sonic. "It's been generations since I've seen you. You okay?" he asks the younger hedgehog.

When the younger Sonic gave a thumps up, Tails wipes away his tears and looks to the older Sonic with a smile. "The good news is you're safe," he says to the older blue hedgehog. He then frowns and looks to everyone in the room. "The bad news is: Eggman said he had some plan that would destroy us all in three days," he announces.

"Three days huh?" said the older Sonic. "Well, a lot can happen in that time," he added. Saura, however, thinks differently. Who knows what Eggman could be up to... not to mention Infinite.

It seems Knuckles was thinking the same thing. "But still, I don't like the sound of that," he says with a serious expression. "Normally, I'd just laugh at an Eggman plan, but he's already conquered most of the world," he added. He then looks to Tails. "So, what's this plan of his?" he asks the fox.

Saura suddenly hears someone calling through the computer! "Commander, we're under attack! A black hedgehog is tearing through our troops in the city! Requesting reinforcement," a voice shouted.

The older Sonic glares at the mention of a black hedgehog. "Shadow," he says in anger. "The last time I saw him, he was fighting for Eggman," he added as he taps his foot a bit.

Knuckles looked confused. "That doesn't make sense," said the echidna. In confusion. "Why would Shadow help the enemy?" he asks the older Sonic.

"Do you think he could be under the control by that strange power from Infinite?" Silver asks to come up with a solution.

The older Sonic looks to Silver. "Whatever it is, I'll figure it out," he says to the white hedgehog. Sonic, once he's sure he has a communicator, walks out of the room to head into the city. On the way out, Sonic glances at Saura for he noticed the wolf had still not said a word the entire time. He wonders when the female wolf will soon speak up. When he's out of the room, Sonic runs to the city.

Saura watches the older Sonic leaves and flinches a bit as she sees him watching her a bit. As soon as Sonic is out of the room, she looks around the room and sees everyone too occupied to see her since they appear to be either helping the older Sonic or thinking of another attack. She places her hand in her pocket that contains the gem she found earlier. It looks like she'll have to show the gem later. So, Saura walks out to go to her room.

Once Saura is in her room and shuts the door, she takes out the gem and looks at it. She had to wonder what it was doing in the jungle to begin with. This gem reminds the wolf of… him. Yes, him; the male jackal, or in this case Infinite, that she saved in the jungle last night. Actually, the gem almost looks exactly like the gem on Infinite's chest. Last night's encounter had started to fill in her head. She wondered why the jackal didn't kill her… Was it because she saved him or is there more to it? She remembered the question the jackal asked her last night. Who is she and why did she save him? Well, she saved him because it was the right thing to do… at least that's what she believes. And who is she? Saura places the wispon down so she can look at her hand. At first, she thought she is a coward… The weakest wolf in the world who is too afraid to speak... or rather that's what her uncle always said to her… Memories of her time when she was young replays in her head…

Saura was once a bit talkative at a young age. But when she started to go to school, everyone began giggling at her whenever she speaks. Wanting answers and ways to defend herself, she turned to her uncle when her parents were away. He made her go through some serious training that involved with her getting hurt in the process. When she tries to get out of it, her uncle locked her away and claimed how much he hated her voice, for it was the cause everyone picks on her, and wanted it gone. And to do that, he tried to…

Saura shivers as more memories of her time with her uncle replay in her head that causes her to drop everything and have her hands to her head. No, she can't think of that, not now! Not after how far she's come! The wolf feels something wet running through her muzzle. Realizing she's crying, Saura quickly wipes the tears off. She shouldn't be thinking that. The wolf should be happy that she's alive thanks to her parents. True, she took what her uncle said by heart and that caused her to never speak to anyone except for her parents. However, that will not stop her from at least trying to talk to others… until she knows she can trust them enough they won't make fun of her voice. But after all the adventures she went through with Knuckles, Amy, Silver, Espio, Charmy, Vector, and Sonic, she feels like she can trust them. Perhaps she should give them a chance. After the next mission Knuckles assigns her, Saura will start talking to the group! Saura wants to think of a good subject to speak about. The wolf looks to the gem and picks it up again. This gem could be a good start! Then, the jackal came back to her head. Sometimes when she sees him, she thinks of her uncle. But at other times, she doesn't. She wonders why that is.

"Do you really think they want to hear you talk? I believe it will only become a nuisance to them."

Saura flinched at the voice. That may be true, but it can't hurt to try... And she will try. The wolf continues to stare at the gem along with having a jackal stuck in her head until she hears a knock on her door. Once Saura puts the gem away in her pocket and picks up her wispon, she answers the door to see Silver. "Oh, thank goodness you're in there," he says with a smile. "Hey, Knuckles needs us in the meeting room this time," he added. "Come on, lets go meet with him and some members of the resistance," he said to the wolf. Saura nods as she walks with Silver to the meeting room.

When Silver and Saura arrived at the meeting room, they see Knuckles, Espio, Charmy, Vector, Tails, the younger Sonic, and a lot of unfamiliar faces. Saura shivers when she sees all of the strangers in the room but stops as she stands next to Silver when they joined in the crowd. Once Knuckles sees Silver and Saura, he decided to start the meeting. "Alright everyone, listen up," he announces loudly to get everyone's attention! "We just got word that Eggman's forces are undermanned at his headquarters in Metropolis," he explains the news.

Espio thinks on why that could be the case. "They're probably staging somewhere else as part of Eggman's plan," he tells his opinion. The chameleon then realizes something! "This could be out only chance to take the city," he says with surprise.

"Exactly," Knuckles says to Espio with a smirk. He then looks to the rest of the crowd. "That's why we're focusing on a full-frontal assault on Metropolis," he explains while showing a diagram of Metropolis. "I'm calling it: "Operation Big Wave,"" he says with pride!

Author's note:

Hi everyone! We now have Tails and Classic Sonic in the resistance! Not only that, we finally learn a little bit about Saura. I didn't want to explain too much for future updates. And for that, I will go ahead and change this rating to Rated M for those upcoming updates. In the next update, it will be an interlude. An interlude is an alternative chapter that helps us explain what's going on somewhere else during this time. The interlude for the next update will take place during the previous and this updates. We need to know what's going on with our "friend." Anyways, that is all for this update! Thank you for reading! :)