Darkness, nothing but pitch black darkness. This was all Sonic could see after his encounter with Eggman. Nothing but darkness surrounded the lone blue hedgehog. "Where am I?" he thought to himself. He couldn't even see his own hands in front of him. A sudden sharp pain filled Sonic's entire body. Soon after it was followed by the sound of other voices. The voices were very muffled however. It was impossible to make out any words that were being said. Suddenly a bright light shined through the darkness, filling the room with color. After a quick examination of his surroundings, Sonic noticed he was in some sort of underground bunker. Sonic was strapped to a hospital bed with an oxygen mask placed over his mouth and nose. A few tubes were sticking into him. And in the corner was a heart monitor that seemed to be beeping at a decently consistent pace. After another inspection of the room, Sonic noticed a pink hedgehog in a red dress sitting on a chair near his hospital bed.
"Amy... is that you?" Sonic asked as he looked toward the pink hedgehog.
Instantly the pink hedgehog turned to look in his direction. "Sonic!? I'm not dreaming am I!?" You're actually awake!?" She asked in a panic. "Everyone get over here, Sonic actually woke up!"
"I thought you gave up on that delusion a long time ago," A red echidna responded as he walked into the room, followed by Tails the Fox. "I don't know why you guys think he's coming back to us. We've been keeping him on this machine for months now, it's just taking up space."
"Long time no see Knuckles." Sonic said as he turned his attention to the red echidna.
At that moment both Knuckles and Tails gasped in shock, meanwhile Amy jumped toward the bed hugging Sonic as tight as she could. "It's really you! You're back!" She said as she shed tears.
"Woah, calm down Amy," Sonic replied as he tried to throw her off of him. "Eggman really did a number to me yesterday, I've got to be in good shape to repay him."
Tails' face was filled with concern as he walked towards Sonic. "Actually... you've been knocked out for three and a half months. After I barely rescued you in time, I had to get to work trying to keep you alive."
"Wait a second, three and a half months!?" Sonic shouted in surprise. "How have I been surviving for that long while being knocked out."
"It wasn't exactly easy, thankfully Amy agreed to help maintain you." Tails replied.
"Alright, so that aside, how did you guys handle Eggman in my absence?" Sonic asked as he began to sit up straight.
"Now you see that's another problem..." Tails sighed. "After he took you out no one was able to oppose him. He spent the next few months waging war on the entire planet thanks to the two years he spent building up and army and soon after taking control of all seven chaos emeralds."
Sonic removed the oxygen mask from his face revealing a rather grim expression. "But the entire planet is too much for even Eggman. There's no way one man could win a war against the billions of people on this planet."
"You'd think so, but right now Eggman is in control of 70% of the world," Tails sighed. "We've been losing pretty badly. This bunker alone is near the edge of our controlled territory. But who knows for how long?"
Sonic got up from his bed and removed the tubes that were attached to him. "I'm going to go pay him a personal visit." He said as he cracked his knuckles.
Knuckles walked in front and glared at him in the eye. "What makes you think you can stop him right now? He's in control of all the chaos emeralds, and everyone else that's tried to stop him has failed. "
Sonic put on a cocky grin as he looked back at Knuckles. "That's because stopping Egghead is my job, and there's no one who does it better than me!"
Knuckles sighed as he got out of the way. "You can give it shot, but don't blame if anything happens to you." he muttered as he crossed him arms.
"Don't worry, I'll be back before you even know I was gone," Sonic joked while gesturing towards tails. "Come on Tails, I need a ride."
"Let me go with you too!" Amy insisted as she grabbed on to Sonic's hand.
"You and Knuckles should hold down the fort just in case anything happens." Sonic replied as he turned to look at Amy.
"Alright, just... just don't let anything happen to you this time..." She muttered while she let go of Sonic's hand.
Tails quickly followed after Sonic as the two left the room.
"Alright Tails, what's the plan?" Sonic asked as the two began walking down an underground hallway.
"You shouldn't just run off on dangerous missions without a plan in the first place," Tails responded in a disappointed tone. "However, for starters you'll being needing this." Tails handed over the communication watch that he gave to Sonic back during their trip to the sea.
"Oh hey, this old thing survived underwater?" Sonic asked with an impressed expression as he took the watch from Tails.
"Well, it's an updated model," Tails replied. "I added an emergency button that projects a force field around you in case you get put into another underwater situation."
"Now that's thinking ahead!" Sonic enthused.
"However resources have been limited recently, so it doesn't have enough power to last too long." Tails warned.
As the two arrived at a giant rusty steel door, Tails pushed some buttons on a code pad by the wall next to it which in turn opened the steel door. Inside was a rundown hangar bay for planes to go through. Off in the corner was the Tornado, Tails' red airplane that has gotten the two of them through many adventures in the past. Tails hopped into the cockpit while Sonic jumped up on top of one of the front wings. With the quick press of a few buttons, the plane took off through the hangar and into the air with Tails as its pilot.
Sonic looked over the horizon at the vast sea beneath them that led to a strip of land off in the distance. What was once grassy green plains was replaced with barren wastelands. "Eggman's really done it this time!" he barked.
"That's one of the many territories the Eggman is in control of up ahead," Tails pointed out. "I have a satellite tracker set to follow his mobile fortress that he's been using to move around in. It should be within a few more miles of here."
As the plane began flying over the wasteland, Sonic took a ready position and prepared himself. "Alright, the moment we get in range of the that fortress, I'm breaking in and teaching Eggman a lesson he won't soon for-"
Before Sonic had the chance to finish his sentence he was sent flying towards the ground below from the strike of a dark figure.
"Sonic, are you alright!?" Tails asked from above as he slowed down the tornado to go pick up his friend.
"Yeah," Sonic said while slowly getting back up and rubbing his jaw. "Something hit me right in face."
"You're as slow as ever, blue hedgehog." the mysterious figure mocked as it appeared in front of Sonic.
"That voice... it sounds so familiar." Sonic mentioned while focusing his attention on the figure in front of him. At that same moment Sonic's pained expression turned into an expression of shock and suprise."Wait a second! It's you! Shadow!"
To be continued...