Last time on Sonic the Hedgehog, Jenni brings Sonic and his friends to Genocide City to meet with an old friend of hers, Rei. However, when they arrive, they are met by the World's Knights, a group of guild members who pride themselves on their teamwork and friendship together. After besting the Freedom Fighters, Rei offered them training in order to better their teamwork and chemistry. And so their training is soon to begin…

At West Island - more specifically, the Aquatic Ruins - Jenni is seen walking through the ruins, holding Nicole in one hand and a flashlight in another, due to the darkness of nighttime obscuring her vision otherwise.

Nicole: "Of all the places to be ravaged by the constant attacks, this place remains spared. But why?"

Jenni: "Sage must've found no reason to touch this place. It's just a bunch of ruins and doesn't hold much value… on the surface anyway."

Nicole: "On the surface? What do you mean, Lady Jen?"

Jenni looks around the set of ruins she wandered into, finding it familiar. Tearing away some overgrowth, the scientist finds some markings on the ground. The markings depict some unknown figures, each holding a gem. Seven total; three on one side, three on the other, with the seventh in the top center. Jenni pulls out one of the Chaos Emeralds and holds it to the markings. This causes the markings to glow a bright blue energy, which affected the rest of the ruins surrounding her and Nicole.

Nicole: "What… What is happening?"

Jenni: "Watch, Nicole."

Jenni steps off the platform with the markings as it slowly opens up, revealing a perfectly circular hole. Stairs formed of blue energy formed, allowing the scientist entry. As Jenni descends down into the chambers below, she begins to explain.

Jenni: "Years ago, my robots found these old ruins. During my drunk stupor, I didn't really acknowledge these ruins as nothing more than a tourist attraction. But one picture I found in my old files the other day showed that very platform we saw glow. It was a hypothesis, but I thought these ancient ruins may react to the Chaos Emeralds in some way. And I was right. But then that raises more questions… How old are these gems exactly? And how do they relate to these ruins?"

Nicole: "Do you think they may relate to the ruins Sonic told about as well?"

Jenni: "You mean South Island's Marble Zone Ruins? No clue. Those could be unrelated for all we know. Despite living on this planet for many millennia now, we homosapiens and mobosapiens don't know a lot about our own home world."

Nicole: "...Tell me, what are you hoping to find down here?"

Jenni: "...Nicole, this island has been getting very frequent attacks lately. I left Sonic with Rei in hopes he can get stronger, yes, but also to see if his magnet for trouble can pull away that trouble from West Island long enough for me to help the people here. There's a very real chance that the people here could be in danger."

Nicole: "So you deceived Sonic and his friends?"

Jenni: "Not intentionally. And not without getting incredible gains. I know Rei… They are in good hands."

The humans comes to the bottom of the spiral energy stairs and finds a long hallway ahead of her. The walls show more hieroglyphs of the creatures above. This time depicting some kind of transportation.

Nicole: "I've noticed something… These hieroglyphs don't match the ones on the surface. In fact, these are much… much older."

Jenni: "You're right. In fact that ones on the platforms were different too. But it is strange…"

Jenni shines her flashlight to several objects - spears and shields used by warriors of old. The craftsmanship is aged and touching them broke them in an instant.

Jenni: "These ruins were explored by the Mobians who took root here as well. Meaning they had a Chaos Emerald in their possession. But these hieroglyphs tell of a different story."

Jenni looks to the end of the hall and finds a door with markings that resemble a creature that did not look Mobian or human. But like the platform above, it reacted to Jenni's Chaos Emerald, allowing her entry into a chamber. The chamber held one thing of interest to the scientist, one that made her jaw drop in awe. She walked up to the object, staring at it speechlessly. The object was a broken, stone, ring-like contraption that levitated off the ground by some force of ancient magic. Examining the device, Jenni drew to one conclusion as to what this monolith was…

Jenni: "This is… a transportation device… A portal… A… Warp Ring."

The next morning at Genocide City, Sonic and the Freedom Fighters awaken at a hotel that, while it has seen better days, at least offered a nice breakfast. The hotel, ironically enough, is owned by an old cockroach couple.

Male Cockroach: "Thanks fer droppin' by our dingy ol' hotel, youngsters. Sorry 'bout the beddin' though… We don't get many customers…"

Female Cockroach: "I hope the breakfast I made is to yer likin'."

Sonic: "It's delicious, ma'am!"

Sally: "Yes. A good breakfast make a day start off fantastic."

The hotel owners happily nod before resuming their business at the counter, leaving the Freedom Fighters to talk amongst themselves.

Tails: "Never thought I'd see cockroaches in a hotel be a good thing before."

Julie: "Putting that aside, we need to talk about what Rei said yesterday. About synergy."

Sally: "Well… She's not wrong. Me and Sonic do work well with most of our group, but that's just two people capable of adapting. Tekno and Amy work well together since they've been friends forever, Tails is close friends with Sonic, I've trained with Julie and Rosie on very separate occasions."

Amy: "In other words, none of really know each other all that well, huh…?"

Tekno: "Sonic and Sally seem to be the common denominator though as our general interactions with one of them has kept us from just… breaking off."

Voice: "And that common denominator is why they are considered the best to lead a group of pups like you."

The group turn to the voice to see Rei in the doorway, giving a 'sup?' wave gesture.

Sonic: "Oh hey! What's up?"

Rei: "Nothing, other than you lot are as loud as a car with how much you're all talking."

Tails: "A-Are we that loud? I thought we were pretty soft speakers…"

Rei: "Hehe. These large ears of mine aren't just for show. Because I'm blind, I rely on my ears to "see" things, if that makes sense."

Sally: "Echolocation."

Rei: "Yep. Because I rely on a lot of sound, I have to concentrate to drown out any background noise and listen in on my targets. In this case, you guys. Your voices provided me enough of a mental map to find your little hangout."

Tekno: "Wow… That's incredible! But how did you lose your sight, Rei?"

Rei: "Story for another day. There's only so much daylight hours. So let's talk about all of you…"

Rei grabs a chair and sit down, leaning onto the table with a serious expression.

Rei: "As you've all no doubt deduced - or remembered from my scathing review - your problem of teamwork comes from not knowing who you all are as a team. Some of you are fire forged friends or can learn about each other on the spot, but for others… Not the case. So that's where today's exercise comes into play."

Rei pulls out three sheets, each containing a different request of sorts.

Rei: "As a guild, our job is often to take requests and take the time to see them completed. I picked out three specific requests that will test your teamwork while with a different leader. Amy and Julie? You'll be going with Relic. Sally and Tekno? You'll be going with Bunnie and Antoine. Tails and Rosie? You'll be with Tiara."

Sonic: "What about me?"

Rei: "You will have a different objective. With me. I want to see what kind of Freedom Fighter you are."

Sally: "I get it now. You're splitting us up into unfamiliar teams with unfamiliar territories to do some odd jobs. Basically, you're starting us over from square one."

Rei: "Exactly. You catch on quick. That's right. In order to become a team, you need to learn about each other. And I figure tossing you straight into the lion's den would be a surefire way to do so. You'll need to learn your strengths and weaknesses and learn to cover for both. Or else, you'll stand no chance against your ultimate foe - Ivo Robotnik."

Sally and Sonic turned to each other, then to their friends. No objections… Just a nod from each of them to reassure them that they needed this kind of exercise.

Sally: "Alright. We're in."

Rei: "Good. Then let me explain the missions. Team Relic, you three will handle some dungeon crawling. A set of ancient ruins in the north side of this island has some unexplored sections that… someone wants to explore. Guess who requested this mission…"

Julie grabs the sheet and - outside of being written both in regular letters and Braille - sees who sent the request. "Relic", of course… Make sense in hindsight.

Rei: "Team D'Coolette will be hunting down a thief on the rise as of late. Regardless of your capturing the thief, teamwork will be a necessity."

Sally: "Understood. Tekno? I hope you don't mind getting your feathers a little dirty."

Tekno: "I haven't already? Just leave the crafty contraptions to me."

Rei: "And that leaves Team Tiara. Team Tiara will be handling an easier mission with delivery. Some sensitive material needs to taken to its destination with all due haste. Contents are left secret but your mission should be clear all the same."

Tails: "Okay. Delivery. We can do that, right, Rosie?"

Rosie: "Of course. I was once a delivery girl during my off time at the Kingdom of Acorn. So we'll handle this posthaste."

Rei: "Good. All of you will be meeting up with your leaders. Follow their direction, be careful… But most importantly, have fun."

Sally: "Alright. Everyone! Good luck with your assignments! We'll meet back up and see where the wind takes us next."

Sonic: "Hopefully that wind takes us straight to Eggman. The sooner we stop his tyranny, the better."

The group nods and finishes up their breakfast, leaving to find their team leaders. Sonic and Rei though are the last to leave.

Sonic: "So what's our deal, Rei?"

Rei: "Jen tells me you're something… special. And judging by our brief fight yesterday, I felt a glimpse at that. I want to feel it again, but this time… under a different set of circumstances."

Sonic: "Alright. Bring it on, lady. I can take it."

Rei simply chuckles at this bravado, looking ready to take it down a peg or two just to humble the hedgehog. But as they leave, a trio was listening in on the conversation from the corner. A green bird who was spinning a bomb, a tall yellow polar bear with boxing gloves, and a purple weasel with a notable bucktooth was straightening his hat as he smiles.

Weasel: "Well, boys. We got some shmucks in town. And it sounds like they need some fixin' up. Know what I'm sayin'? Bean? Bark?"

Bean: "Sounds like they need some hard knocks to knock some sense into their heads."

Bark: "...Hmph."

Weasel: "No kiddin'. We take care of these bozos, then we take out ol' Rei and be doneszos with these so called 'Knights'. So says… Fang the Sniper."

The weasel and his compatriots step out of the shadows, Fang cleaning his pistol as he holsters it, smiling evilly as they get ready to cause trouble for the heroes…

To be continued…