Sorry for the late upload, I had gotten busy with stuff and kind of forgot to work on this chapter. Didn´t help that it turned out longer compared to the other chapters. I still hope you enjoy.

"And after I transformed the Mother Wisp back to her original state, using the positive energy of Chaos Emeralds, she banished Eggman to the borders of the universe and brought all the planets back to their proper place. And that was the story of how I saved the Wisps," Sonic finished his story. Ruby had listened intently to the whole thing, explicitly bopping up and down in place, with huge stars in her eyes.

"That sounds so cool and amazing! I would have loved to have gone to that amusement park just because it was in space."

The human girl raised her eyes to the sky.

"I wonder what it's like up there?"

"Yes, the park was really great, even though it was built by Eggman. Made me a bit sad that he was just using it as a front instead of actually changing. As for space…" Sonic's gaze wandered upwards as well. "It's something special. You see the great expanses of the universe and all the stars… but most of all I like looking at Mobius."

"Why exactly makes that so special?" Ruby asked curiously, cocking her head.

"You see your home in all its beauty. That's where you grew up, met your friends, experienced adventures and saw natural wonders. Being in space for the first time and seeing Mobius from afar cemented my resolve to protect the world from Eggman and other dangers. For the wonders it houses and all the people who want to live their lives, it's worth fighting for. Despite the bad things, because that's life. It has its bad moments, but that's exactly why you should try all the more to preserve the beautiful."

Ruby stared at Sonic, surprised to hear such words of wisdom from the hedgehogs. At the same time, these words touched her deeply. Hadn't she wanted to become a Huntress because of such similar ideas? To protect people and make the world a better place. A place that future generations could call a safe home. Home…

Ruby sighed. She wondered how things were at home. Were her sister and friends okay? Or would only death and destruction wait for her in Remnant?

"Hey Ruby, are you okay?" Tails asked.

"Hm? Yes of course… I'm just worried about my friends. And maybe I'm a bit homesick, too."

The Chao on Ruby's lap gave her a worried look and said sadly, "Chao...".

Tails got up and walked over to her, putting his arms around her.

"It will be alright. With the right knowledge and the necessary resources, I will be able to take you home. And when the time comes, you will see that everything is ok on Remnant."

Sonic stood up as well and put a hand on the shoulder of the Huntress-in-training.

"Tails is right. And try looking on the bright side. With her here, your friends don't have to worry about Cinder."

This made Ruby grin slightly.

"Well I guess there's something to it. Unfortunately that means we´re the ones that have to deal with her instead."

The blue hedgehog waved nonchalantly.

"Oh, we'll defeat her. Cinder may have some sort of mythical magic powers, but there are plenty of people here on Mobius who can rival her."

The said fox wanted to say something, but Knuckle's voice echoed over the loudspeaker system of the Resistance base: "Everyone please gather in the main room, the next meeting is coming up."

Annoyed, Sonic rolled his eyes.

"You serious Knux, now? Well I guess there's nothing you can do about it. Let's go guys, before Knuckles gets upset about us being late."

Rubys carefully set the Chao down and waved at him and the Wisps as she followed Sonic and Tails to the base. "Goodbye, it was nice meeting you."

The cute little creatures waved back at the human girl.

Not long and the three reached the conference room in just a few minutes, which was already full.

"Is everyone here?" Knuckles looked around. "Good. The next plans are to expand our territory from Mystiv Jungle. Thanks to the efforts of Tails, Omega and Ruby, this will be easier than the other missions. These three destroyed the Eggman base in Green Hill, along with many combat robots. The same applies to the ruins of a city."

"Why should we bother trying to conquer a bunch of ruins?", somebody asked.

"Because every bit of space for us means less space for Eggman to build his machines on. Plus, we don't know if there are any civilians still hiding in the ruins and in needing of help. Besides this place and Green Hill, we're going to tackle ather city. There are definitely people there who need our help. So… who wants to go where? Volunteers for Green Hill Zone?"

Sonic's hand immediately rose, followed by several others. After a few seconds, Ruby's hand rose.

Tails… hesitated. He was in conflict with himself. He wanted to accompany his friends, make sure nothing happens to them, but what if Infinite showed up and attacked him? He hadn't forgotten what the masked man had done to him.

Or Sonic…

The fox boy pulled himself together. If he didn't want to abandon his friend, he needed to overcome his fears this time and better come with him. Tails raised his hand and shouted, "I'm coming too."

To everyone's surprise, Knuckles said, "No, I need you here. Aside from the Arnold thing, we have some other weapon and engineering issues that arose in your absence. We need your expertise."

"But I…"

Ruby put a hand on the fox shoulder. She gave him a confident smile. "Everything will be fine. I'll back Sonic up."

"Hey, I can take care of myself," the blue hedgehog said.

"I… I know…", Tails said with hesitance."But… we just have been reunited. I´m afraid that you, the both of you, would get captured and imprisoned or worse."

"I get it, Tails." Ruby gave the yellow fox a determined smile. "But look what we managed to do together. We managed to defeat huge amounts of killer robots, including a really huge one! And we even managed to hold our ground against Cinder. I´m sure me and Sonic will be alright as long as we stick together!"

Ruby's words calmed Tails down. Like she said, she and Sonic would not be alone on the battlefield. Both speedster were capable fighters, so whatever happens, the fox Mobian was sure his friends would be fine. He returned Ruby's smile and said, "Come back quickly then. Because I actually wanted to work with you to modify your weapon so that it can use Wisp energy. And maybe do some other projects as well."

Ruby's smile turned into an excited grin. "That you can count on! No killer robot or phantom monster will stop me from making cool weapons with my new gadget nerd friend."

Those words helped lift Tail's spirits. "All right then!"

He raised his fist in a fist punch which Ruby replied. Sonic looked at the whole thing with a smile, then called out to the silver-eyed girl.

"Well then, let's go. The sooner we finish the mission, the sooner you can start tinkering with your stuff."

With their talk finished, human and hedgehog waited until candidates for the other missions where chosen. Then everyone went off.

Sonic lead him and Ruby trough several corridors, until they reached a wide one that lead to a hall, judging from the echoing noises that come from its end. The silver eyed girl asked, "So... where are we actually going? How exactly will we be brought to our mission places?"

"Prior to Eggman's takeover, an military organization called G.U.N existed, which unfortunately was destroyed by the Doctor's forces. But many members have joined the Resistance and donated resources from G.U.N. Airships included."

Sonic expected Ruby to freak out with excitement again, like almost everything she heard about Mobius. To his surprise, she just nodded and said, "So we're going to travel on an airship, makes sense. In Remnant, some are often used to carry Hunters to their missions."

"So you guys already have advanced technologies."

"Oh yeah. Despite the Grimm, or maybe because of it, mankind had made great development. The Atlesian military would still be jealous of all that stuff Eggman builds." "Atlesian military?"

"I guess you could call them the Remnant equivalent to G.U.N. They are part of the kingdom of Atlas, the most technological developed kingdom on my world. They are the ones that are building the airships I mentioned. I wonder if they could be comparable in design."

Ruby got her answers when she and Sonic reached the hall. Well, it was more of a huge hangar. Giant airships, that dwarfed the ones from Atlas in size and design, stood in parallel to each other. Resistance members marches towards the open doors, taking seat inside and steeling their nerves for the upcoming battles.

Ruby just stood there and took the technological marvels in. "Nevermind, Atlas would also be jealous of the stuff G.U.N. build." She lowered her head. "Sci-Fi level of technologies, reality bending gemstones, aliens… and people actually able to work together in the face of crisis, despite different appearances. Man, my world really sucks in comparison."

Sonic stepped to her side. "Come on, I´m sure it has its bright spots. How about you tell me some of your adventures you had on your world."

That brought Ruby out of her mood.

"Guess that's only fair since you told me about your adventure with the Wisps."

As Ruby and Sonic entered one of the massive machines and took seat, the Huntress-in-training was about to recount how she was accepted into her academy, despite being a few years too young for it.

"One night I went to a Dust shop hoping to see my sister there. She often goes to such places after visiting and usually destroying the local bars. Anyway, I was standing in front of a shelf, slightly lost in thought and listening to music. Suddenly I thought I heard something. I took off my headphones and turned around. A gang member stood behind me and waved a red sword in front of my nose, demanding that I give up all my possessions. I was a bit confused and asked: `Are you robbing me?´ And the guy was like: `Yeah!´ And I went: `Oh!´ And then I beat him up."

Sonic burst out laughing. "Wow. Just wow. And what happened after that?"

"His colleagues attacked me and I beat them up too."

"Neat."

"And of course the guy who hired them was more than disappointed and fled. I tried to catch him but he got help from a person who was flying a helicopter and threw fire at me."

"Wait... fire?"

"Yes, it was most likely Cinder. This gangster leader, his name was Roman Torchwick, had helped her cause the Grimm attack and wreak havoc. Even if it ended up costing him his own life." Ruby shuddered as she thought back to the criminal being devoured by a giant Griffon Grimm. She pushed back the memories and continued with her story. "So I face these many fire attacks, but then someone saves me. It was a teacher from my soon to be academy, Glynda Goodwitch. She´s a powerful Huntress and very skilled with her Semblance of telekinesis."

"Telekinesis, huh? We have someone like that too. His name is Silver, I thin I saw him entering one of the other airships. Maybe you could met him later."

"That would be cool. But back on topic, not much happened after that. Cinder and Torchwick escaped and Goodwitch gave me a lecture about how irresponsible I was. And then the director of Beacon Academy, Professor Ozpin, appeared. He said he was amazed by my skills and abilities and…" Ruby's brows furrowed. "He also mentioned my silver eyes."

"In what way?" While Ruby had his attention, now she had his curiosity.

"He just said they were silver, with an interested tone in his voice. I was a little confused at the time, but quickly forgot about it, because I was so excited about the fact that I was allowed to go to Beacon."

"Do you think he knew about your silver eye abilities?"

"Cinder hinted that he didn't tell me everything. Perhaps she meant his knowledge of the existence of the Maidens and the potential of the Silver Eyes."

Sonic thought about this for a moment, before asking: "Aren't there any legends about people with silver eyes? Like there are stories about the Maidens?"

"I tried to look for some stories and reports, but my dad immediately told me not to. He always seemed so sad and upset when I brought the topic up or he catched me doing research for it. I think it was because of my mom."

"What about her?" Sonic asked hesitantly, unsure if he wasn't poking around at a sensitive topic. A lot of people thought he was very brash and didn't know when to stop talking. In truth, Sonic knew how to respect the boundaries of others. That's why, when he, for example, wanted to tease Shadow he never brought up anything about Maria or his origin as an artificial being.

"My mom..." Ruby started, but she was cut off. It was announced loudly that they had reached their destination and that everyone had to get ready immediately.

"I guess we're ready then, let's destroy robots!" Ruby exclaimed, her otherwise cheerful and lively demeanor now somewhat forced. Sonic was now absolutely certain that 'Mom' was a sore topic for the human girl and decided not to pursue it any further. The blue hedgehog himself got a bit of a shock anyway when he stepped out of the airship and saw Ash Field Zone.

He, of course, had heard the rumors regarding the state of the area, but seeing it with his own eyes was something else. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists.

"Eggman", said the blue hedgehog, his voice filled with venom and his fists clenched into shacking fists. While Ruby didn't know him for too long, Sonic had made the impression of an easy going, kind and slightly cocky guy on her. Seeing him like this made her take some steps away from him.

Sonic took notice and immediately eased up. He gave Ruby an apologetic look.

"Sorry, I… I just really care a lot about this place. Its kind of a secondary home for me, the place where I spend a lot of my childhood and saved people from Eggman for the first time." He scowled towards the desecrated nature. "So seeing it like this…"

He didn't finish, but Ruby gave and understanding nod and came back to his side. "I've also never seen anything so desolate."

"…I'd like to say I'm surprised, but Eggman has shown increasing cruelty over the past few years."

Ruby tilted her head. "Hasn't he always been this...?" She waved towards the burned and dead hills.

"In the beginning he actually only wanted to build his personal amusement park and used very unethical means to do so. Later he developed some form of complex and wanted to rule the world. But even then, he had still displayed a certain level of morality. He had once worked with me and my friends to save the planet from a crashing space station and had shown an aversion to such levels of destruction and death. Only to then, years later, fire a massive laser beam at Mobius himself and shatter the planet into pieces. Although I was able to put everything back in order, there were many fatalities in this catastrophe. And after that, Eggman got even worse. He uses all possible means to defeat me and to realize the visions of his world. And now, unfortunately, he has also accessed means that affect your world."

The silver-eyed girl tried to cheer her new friend up. "Tails told me how you managed to stop that guy before, so I´m sure you and the rest of Mobius will do it again. And I will help as best as I can."

Buzz bombers approached the airship and wanted to open fire on it. Ruby brought down the robots from the sky with her sniper rifle.

"Starting with getting this place out of Eggman's grip."

Sonic took a deep breath. Then his signature smile appeared. "You're right. Let's scrap robots!"

The Resistance group split up, some stayed behind to guard the airship, the rest spread out in the surrounding area and started destroying combat robots and their production facilities. Sonic and Ruby were no exception. The two speedsters… well... sped through the devastated fields, kicking up ash and destroying any robots that stood in their way.

An Egg Burner aimed its flamethrowers at Ruby, but Sonic quickly ran in a circle around the machine. The robot tried desperately to track the movements, but it only overloaded its systems. When the robot became completely disoriented, Sonic curled up and smashed into it several times, destroying the Egg Burner.

"Man you were so fast, I thought you were creating a tornado," Ruby remarked. Her partner just shrugged nonchalantly.

"I can actually do that, if I move around in circles fast enough. But I only used this tactic in fights against stronger opponents or high masses of regular enemies."

"You mean like them?" The human girl pointed at a small army of Egg Pawns marching towards them.

"Yup pretty much. You better hold on because this promises to be wild!"

Sonic started running. The first of the robots started firing, but the hedgehog dodged easily and began circling around the machines. He ran faster and faster. And sure enough, a tornado formed, sucking in ash and Egg Pawns. Sonic was in there too, spinning around curled up, dashing at all the enemies. Ruby drove the blade of Crescent Rose into the ground and held on with all her strength. Her red cloak fluttered in the direction of the tornado and she had to tuck it under her arm. Still, Ruby watched the whole spectacle with her mouth open and amazement in her eyes. When the artificially generated tornado subsided, Sonic stood on the field with a satisfied smile, surrounded by several robot scraps. He wiped ash from his arms, legs, and quills.

"And, what do you say?"

"The. was. SO COOL! I mean your speed... to create a TORNADO... you have to... wow."

Unfortunately, this little fan and idol moment was ruined by more robots. The duo immediately set about destroying these as well.

They made good progress.

One production site after another they took down, by blowing them up with the Egg Burner's gas tanks. Finally they arrived at what had to be the last place. There were a lot of robots there, but not as many as before.

"What do you think? Do you want me to make another tornado?"

Ruby tapped her finger against her chin and stared up into the air, seemingly lost in thought. Then she said, grinning, "Nah. I haven't had enough action for today."

Sonic returned her grin. "All right then, together."

They started sprinting at the same time. The speedsters ran right beside each other, getting so close that the two touched briefly came into contact. Energy crackled between them and the speed of both human and Mobian increased. In fact, they had gotten so fast that they literally ran over robots. Overwhelmed and surprised by this sudden event, Sonic and Ruby stopped.

"Woah! What was that!?"

"No idea! Did my Aura... increase your speed? But your ability isn't a Semblance or anything, right? And how could you make me faster?"

"My ability is more based on Chaos Energy. Actually, my speed can make me even channel some additional Chaos Energy while running, and with enough of it I can cast an ability called Boost. Maybe that has something to do with what just happened?"

Their musings were interrupted by attacking robots.

"Let's work this out with Tails later. Now we should focus on the rest of our mission."

Ruby nodded and sliced an Egg Pawn with an electrical baton in half. Its upper half still tried to swing its weapon at her, but Sonic finished it of with a Spindash.

Armed Egg Pawns and Egg Ponds started firing, but the speedsters destroyed the remaining Eggman robots and the last manufacturing facility.

"All right then. That should have been it for our area. To be on the safe side, we should check everything again thoroughly and then see how the other groups are doing."

Said and done.

Finally, Sonic and Ruby ran back to the airship. Nothing had changed there, apart from some broken robot parts joining the Buzz Bombers Sonic and Ruby busted up earlier. One of the guards, taking care of some wounded rookie, looked up.

"Finished? Shouldn't surprise me, after all it's you, Sonic, and I was told that the new girl can keep up with you."

"Yup. Everything cleaned. We can help the others."

"Actually, we just got reports from our team in the city. They report being attacked by Shadow."

Sonic's posture tensed. "I'll be on my way immediately!"

A hand rested on his shoulder. "WE will be on our way immediately," Ruby said.

"All right then. But we're going to have to be REALLY quick. I'll go full speed and I'm not sure if you can go THAT fast."

"I uhm…"

"Don't worry, it´s not a problem."

"Uh what do you- AH!"

Ruby let out a surprised squeak as Sonic took her in his arms bridal style. Ruby let out an even louder scream as the landscape rushed past them at top speed. Everything blurred into a chaotic mass and the wind was roaring into her ears and scrapping her skin like a wave of unrelenting knifes. Before Ruby could get used to all of these overloading sensations, it was already over after a few seconds. In just a few seconds they were at their destination. Sonic put the trembling girl down.

"You okay? Experiencing the potential of my true speed for the first time can be a bit… overwhelming. Even if you yourself are a speedster."

"Uh uh. That was the worst and best experience of my life. My, or any other Semblance, doesn't even come close to what you did."

Ruby's stood up, despite her knees still shaking. Sonic helped to steady her. After she stopped trembling, Ruby looked around. "Yeah. This is definitely the place me and Tails and Omega passed by on our way to Green Hill. We couldn't help the city back then because we were too few. Feels good to be able to fix that now."

Screams and explosions echoed from behind some buildings. The two speedsters immediately rushed to the source of the noise and found Resistance members protecting rescued civilians from several robots. These looked different than the previous ones.

They were of a roundish build too, but they walked on four metal spider legs and their arms ended in huge razor blades. The eyes were large and shone bright white, reminiscent of searchlights.

All lights were aimed at the fighters. Ruby and Sonic rushed to the aid of their allies. The blue hedgehog crushed several robots before they could realize what was happening to them. His human companion cut off the bladed limbs and extinguished cold glowing eyes with precise shoots. Spotlight immediately fell on Ruby and Sonic. The robots attacked them. But they were at a great disadvantage because they were now in between to front of enemies. On one was the speedster duo, on the other the members of the Resistance. The danger was quickly processed into a scrap heap.

One remaining robot tried one last desperate attack in attempt of ruining the victory of the heroes. It jumped high over the air, over the Resistance members, and would have landed on the civilians with its sharp spider legs, if it weren't for a turquoise energy stopping it midair. Said energy then crushed the machine and threw it away.

It was done by the leader of the group, Silver the hedgehog. After taking care of the last enemy, he hissed in pain and clutched his side. A deep, burned wound was there.

Despite this, Silver said relieved: "Good thing you're here. The mission turned out to be more difficult than expected."

"Is it true that Shadow is here?", Sonic asked.

His fellow hedgehog Mobian nodded.

"Yes. Everything went well. Team Chaotix was able to locate the main generator for the local machines and are in the process of disabling it. My group took care of rescue operations. Even tough the robots were more brutal than expected, we managed to secure some civilians. But then Shadow appeared. His presence complicated everything. I tried to hold him back, but he managed to caught me off guard." Silver once again clutched his side. "I managed to buy enough time to flee with the others here. But I'm unsure what happened to the other teams or civilians."

"Don't worry, I'll take care of Shadow." Sonic turned to his partner. "Ruby, stay here and help Silver and the others secure the civilians."

"Are you sure?"

"Don't worry about me. I can handle Shads, whether real or fake. The people here on the other hand definitely need help."

The hedgehog Mobian pointed upwards. Ruby followed his finger and saw a huge hatch open in the facade of a skyscraper and more of these bladed robots appeared and crawled down the walls of the tall building. Seeing this, the civilians began to get nervous, some started to cry. Ruby looked at these people.

Now, outside of a battle, she could take a closer look at them. The humans and Mobians were of different ages and species, but they all had one thing in common: emaciated bodies and faces, tired expressions, gray and dirty overalls as clothing, and scars. Scars of varying ages. Ruby looked again at the coming robots. They were the guards of these poor souls who painfully forced them to work in captivity. Her fingers tightened on her weapon.

"Go Sonic. I'll stay here and help. Good luck!"

"Thanks. To you too!"

As Sonic disappeared, Ruby turned her attention to Silver.

"What's the plan?"

"Part of the group will stay here and stop the coming robots. The other part will take the civilians to the airship that we landed between two hills outside of town. Once we're done with that, everyone will go around town again trying to save more people. We don't know if disabling the generator will be successful."

"Sounds good Mr…"

"My name is Silver. And you're Ruby, right? From the other world?"

"Yup. Heh, actually Sonic mentioned you during our flight towards Green Hill. But I had hoped we would meet under happier circumstances."

"If we manage to turn this mission into a success, then we will have plenty to celebrate and be happy about. So let´s give our all!"

"Yeah!"

Crescent Rose readied in her scythe mode and gloved hands glowing with telekinetic energy, the two of them charged towards the first of the oncoming robots, while their allies started firing their Wispons.

Through the empty streets a little human girl ran for her life. She had escaped one of those creepy robots at the cost of a searing gash on her back, but now she was being pursued by someone far more dangerous. A spear of pure energy struck just behind her feet and the small explosion knocked her down. She hit the ground hard. Panicked, she rolled onto her back and saw her pursuer. A black hedgehog Mobian with eyes and stripes of a blood red color. His expression was cold.

"P-please don't hurt me."

"Pathetic. You weak humans should all be exterminated."

A Chaos Spear formed in the black hedgehog's hands and he raised it, ready to impale the crying child. When suddenly a blue orb slammed into his face, knocking him back. The Chaos Spear slipped from his hand and dissolved. The ball unfolded to Sonic, who turned to face the girl and knelt by her.

"Hey are you ok little one?"

Worried the blue hedgehog eyed her. She couldn't have been more than ten. The brown hair was dirty, her green eyes looked at him confused and anxious.

"It's okay. I won't hurt you."

"Aren't you... Sonic?"

"The one and only. And who are you?"

"My name is Lola. Didn't Eggman defeat you?"

Shadow, briefly knocked out by the Spindash, stirred, moaning and growling.

"Look, that's a bit of a long story. Listen Lola, you have to run as fast as you can right now and I'll take care of Shadow here. Run until you find members of the resistance. They will help you. OK?"

Lola nodded trembling. Sonic helped her up and she ran. Shadow, who was trying to get up, was startled by her movement and went to throw a Chaos Spear, but Sonic threw a Spindash into his plans again. But this time, Shadow recovered faster and growled at Sonic.

"Why of all people do YOU show up here, Faker?"

"Faker? I think you're the fake hedgehog running around trying to kill little kids. The real Shadow would never do such a thing."

Shadow grinned cruelly. "And what makes you so sure? Because friendship? Please, friends make you weak."

"That's exactly why I'm sure. Shadow and I may not be friends, but we respect each other. He would never say such things and behave so cruelly. He's been through a lot, but his heart is in the right place. You're just another phantom, just like Chaos and Zavok. And just like them, you too will end up fading like a bad memory."

Phantom Shadow growled and attacked.

So here we got a lot of stuff happening. Sonic and Ruby sharing some adventure stories, the two of them fighting together for the first time, discovering the potential of the Double Boost, Ruby meeting Silver and our introducing for the Phantom Shadow boss fight next chapter. I hope you will like it.

To Guest: Yes, like this chapter showed, Ruby and Sonic will have many battles together and Ruby greatly enjoying the presence of the blue blur. Sonic wont actually do many jokes, maybe none at all, as the situation is rather serious and I want Sonic to be more mature than making `big oof´ jokes when someone dies. Also, is Yang even a jokester? As far as I am aware, she made one joke during the first original three seasons and the fandom kinda memed her into one. And no, Amy wont be jealous, at this point in the timeline she is more mature than this. But she will be a bit clingy, but that is rather for a strong worry she has towards Sonic, after he was imprisoned and still continues to go to dangerous missions.

To EndeavorT: Thats actually a retcon I wanted to explain lather in the story, but the Maidens can only control elements of their respective seasons. Otherwise I don't even see the point of their whole season name theme. And while it sound like I am depowering Cinder, see might turn out stronger in this fanfic than she did in canon. Because the Fall Magic empowered her heat based semblance into full blown pyromagic with additonal tricks, alongside the original element the Fall Magic controls, Cinder basically got two Maiden powers for the price of one. This will be clear once we reach the later battles with her.

To Frontiers9: 1) Oh you will get Sonic vs. Cinder.

2) and 3) Yes.