"Sonic? Sonic, Where are you?" Tails called out.
Knuckles moved a couple boxes and looked behind any surface along with the others.
"All I see are empty boxes and discarded paper lying around. He's not here." Shadow grunted.
"He's gotta be!" Amy yelled. "We haven't come all this way to be stopped now-"
She was interrupted when the sound of footsteps approached the door. Everyone stopped and looked over at the door and a shadow appeared from under the door frame.
"Someone's coming!" Silver gasped.
"Everyone, take cover!" Knuckles ordered.
They all hid behind the desk as a man walked holding some photos as he approached a fax machine beside them.
"Yes, I do. I have them all! I even have a couple pictures here I wanna show you, I just need your fax number…" The voice spoke.
Shadow was going to peek over the side to see who the man was, but jumped back like everyone else when a large bag was dropped next to them.
"Who still uses a fax machine nowadays?" Tails whispered which Shadow gave a shush in response as he and the others peeked over.
"That's a lot of numbers, ha ha! No, I got it." Kevin spoke as he pressed almost every button on the machine.
"Wait… That's him! He took Sonic!" Amy nearly screamed.
They continued to stare as they watched the kidnapper talk and laugh on the phone.
"And… the pièce de résistance! I promise this will be the crown jewel of your museum!"
He put some kind of photo into the machine and it slowly came back out and fell to the ground. Once it landed, the crew was able to recognize the little blue hedgehog figure in the photo.
"That's Sonic!" Knuckles exclaimed.
"That's your Sonic?" Silver questioned.
"There's no time to explain. Quickly, get in the bag! He'll take us right to him!" Shadow ordered.
"You don't need to be so bossy…" Tails mumbled.
"Now!" Shadow growled.
Tails immediately jumped into the bag, along with Amy, Knuckles, and their new friends. Finally, Shadow jumped in and zipped up before Kevin got hold of the bag and danced with glee about his greed.
"I'm gonna be rich! Rich, rich, filthy stinkin' rich!"
Kevin walked out of his office and entered his car placing the bag in the passenger seat. Shadow and the others heard the ignition and the car started to move. They all had to stay silent as the man drove them closer to his apartment building. After what seemed like a few minutes of driving, the car engine ceased and the sound of a door opening and slammed shut caught their attention.
"He didn't take the bag!" Tails yelped.
"No time to waste!" Knuckles exclaimed before he jumped out. He looked out the window and saw Kevin enter the elevator through the main entrance.
"He's getting into the elevator!"
One by one they all left the bag and Knuckles and Shadow climbed up to the window as they saw Kevin enter the building and into the elevator. Shadow jumped off and latched onto the handle to open the door and tried to pull, but he wasn't strong enough.
"Knuckles, help me with this!" He barked.
The Echidna responded and jumped in to help and both of them together tried to pull the handle. Tails, Amy, and everyone else just stared as they hopelessly tried to open the door. The cream colored rabbit saw something above the two that didn't look quite right. She sneakily walked past everyone and jumped on top to where she saw some kind of plastic pushed down.
"Um, Mr. Shadow? Mr. Knuckles?"
The hedgehog and echidna look up in response to see the rabbit standing above them.
"I think it's locked…" She pointed at the plastic piece. Then, she saw two buttons combined which had a padlock symbol on each side. One was locked, the other wasn't. She thought it must've been the lock controls as she jumped onto the unlock button. When she landed, there was enough force to push it down and the door was unlocked. Tails was impressed by this act.
"Great thinking, Cream!"
"Chao! Chao!" Cheese said with glee.
"That's my daughter." Vanilla said.
Cream could only blush at the attention as Knuckles and Shadow finally open the door and they all start running towards the door. They see the elevator door close, but they could see what level Kevin was heading to. It slowly increased floor by floor until it stopped at the highest level.
"Dam, he's on floor 23…" Shadow grunted.
"How are we gonna get up there?" Amy asked.
"Well, what if we float to the top with balloons?" Silver asked.
"No way, that's crazy!" Knuckles yelled.
Tails just stood next to the group thinking before an idea came to him. He turned his head and saw something of interest as he ran to the side of the door.
"Then how else will we get in? We cannot just walk through the front door." Blaze asked.
"Guys! Over here!"
Everyone looked over and saw the fox figure struggling to pull out a nearby vent cover. Knuckles and Silver rushed over to help and they were successful removing it.
"Every building has a ventilation system, we could use this to get to Sonic! Let's go!" Tails announced before he jumped and started running deep inside.
They all took his lead and followed him until they reached a four way intersection.
"Which way should we go?" The little rabbit asked.
Tails tried to answer, but there was no way to be certain.
"Maybe if we split up, we could cover more ground."
"But, what if we all get lost?" she squealed.
Vanilla comforted her daughter as she started to panic. She voiced her objection as well,
"I don't believe that is a good idea. Perhaps we should-"
Loud humming stormed the vents and everything shook in its wake. Some of them nearly fell on the vent floor as they tried to stabilize themselves. Cream clung herself to her mother for support until it would pass.
"What's going on!?" Amy yelled.
"I don't know!" Knuckles screamed back.
Tails looked down each of the paths in front of them to find the source of this quake. He looks back at where they came from, to their left, in the front, and finally to their right. Down that path, it looked as though the vent wall was moving down into the ground.
"Wait a minute… Guys! It's the elevator!" He announced.
Just as he spoke, the elevator stopped just as the roof of it lined up with the floor. A bright yellowish light illuminated the area.
They all stopped at the opening and looked up the elevator shaft and saw how tall it was.
"That's really long…" Silver whispered.
Tails was the first to jump onto the roof. He looked back and gave out his hand.
"Come on, guys. We don't have time. Let's get Sonic and go home!"
A bit of hesitation was everyone's response besides Shadow's. He walked next to Tails and crossed his arms, expecting the others to follow. One by one, they all got on board and just as the last of them did, the sound of the elevator starting startled them. Looks like they're on their way.
"How much is it to overnight five or six packages to Japan?"
Kevin was in his apartment, packing up all the merchandise into boxes as he sent them down to the lobby.
Sonic and the others were laying in foam insulation made specifically for them nearby. Two of them are foam shaped to fit a box. They would've been loaded into a large green case behind them, but Kevin was too busy on the phone with other boxes.
"What? Is that in YEN? Dollars?! Ugh! You really like taking advantage of people in a hurry, huh?"
Kevin stammers as he tries to think about the price to ship his gold mine.
"You know what? Fine! But you better be down here in 15 minutes, I have a plane to catch!"
He pushes a small trolley as he heads towards the door and scolds the person on the other line of the call. Once he shut the door, Sonia bursted out of her spot with a cheer.
"We are finally going! Can you guys believe this?"
"Yeah, Sis! We got first class tickets to the big show!" Manic beamed.
Sonic slowly rose up from his spot and moved his hand to feel the protective foam he laid in. He was actually doing this… He was leaving to be with his family he never knew he had.
"You know what? I'm actually excited about this, I mean it!" Sonic announced.
"Why shouldn't you be?" Manic asked.
The royal triplets jumped around, dancing in excitement. Aleena was still in her box and stood upright next to them, along with Robotnik's. Sleet and Dingo stood next to their boss behind them, just watching. They weren't in the mood to dance as much as the royal family were. They just want to get everything over with.
After their dance session, Sonic tripped on Aleena's box and fell to the ground.
"Sonic! Are you alright?" She gasped.
"Ha Ha Ha! Yeah, I'm fine, Mom."
Sonia attempted to help him up by grabbing both his arms, but Sonic just laughed as she did so from the touch.
"He he he he. H-hold on, now. I'm ticklish, ok?"
"Oh? You are?" She said with a devilish smile.
"No… No! Hahaha! Stop! Please, Stop! Haha!" He cried from laughter. Sonia continued to tickle him as Manic and Aleena started to chuckle at the reaction. The villains in the back just scoffed except for Dingo who also started to giggle, but stopped when Sleet elbowed him.