Merlene the Hedgehog, Sonic's sister part 2

by 24airgoodrosa

Merlene's childhood friend, Knuckles, works with Robotnik until he sees Robotnik try to steal the Master Emerald, and Merlene and her brother met Miles "Tails" Prower.

Sneak Peek: I Make This Look Good

Sonic and Merlene snowboard through the mountain, looking back at the tremendous work they did to the destroyed Egg Bots.

"Yeah! I make this look good!"

"Yeah, we did!"

Suddenly, Knuckles emerges from the explosion also snowboarding on the piece of metal of he Egg Bot as he landed with a grunt.

"Oh, great. The Winter Solider." Sonic groaned, rolling his eyes.

Merlene groaned, rubbing her face. They really need to stop meeting like this as she thought.

"Why am I friends with him in the first place? He's too good!"

Knuckles comes between them and punches Sonic to the side of the rocky wall. Merlene glares and kicks Knuckles in the stomach, causing him to kneel in pain.

"No one hurts my brother like that!"

She brings out her fuchsia blade she summons from her necklace and tries to cut him, which he dodged easily. Just as she goes for another swing, he grabs her arm and they spin for a second until Merlene finds herself being wrapped around the waist with her back facing him and her hand being held by his gloved hand. She spins him back, getting herself out of his grip when she finds herself facing him with their hands held still.

They look like they're doing "You'll Never Tango" dance, nut in snowboarding. She tries to push him back, but accidentally causes herself to fall when Knuckles catches her and dips her down. Their faces were inches apart. Merlene blushes in embarrassment and instinctively punches him straight in the face, causing him to let go of her.

"Ughh!" Knuckles groaned, rubbing his face.

"That was too close!" Merlene screamed in her own thoughts, snowboarding away from Knuckles.

Sonic manages to control his skidding without falling after that hit. Knuckles sees him and goes straight towards him with his fist raised.

"Sonic, look out!" Merlene warned.

Sonic sees him and quickly ducks as Knuckles punches through the trees, cutting them down.

"For a guy named Knuckles, you are really bad at punching."

Merlene rolled her eyes at that and glared at Knuckles, who caught up to them. Knuckles glared coldly at Sonic.

"You're no match for me! I've been training for this my entire life!"

"And I have no training at all, yet here I am ahead of you." Sonic teased.

Sonic and Merlene skids up ahead of Knuckles to avoid him, but he's on their trail.

"That's gotta be embarrassing!"

Sonic and Merlene skid up in the air from the rocky cliff with Knuckles behind, but he punches through the cliff with powerful strength, tearing everything into pieces. In slow motion, Sonic yelps, hanging upside down from flipping off the cliff as Knuckles' eyes glows red and he goes to punch Sonic. Merlene's eyes widens as she begins to summon her weapon.

Sneak Peek: Meet Knuckles

Lightning strikes as Sonic was shocked at the return of Robotnik that broke into his house. His face immediately changed to angry.

"I don't know how you got back, nut you made a big mistake coming here."

Robotnik smirked.

"Ooh! Contrermo freyr. The mistake was thinking you'd won."

"I get it." Sonic gritted his teeth.

Robotnik chuckled maliciously and pointed at him.

"I don't think you do."

He stepped forward.

"But you're about to and so will that idiot sheriff and his wife…"

Sonic's fist clenches as they glow bright blue with lightning coming out. Meanwhile, Merlene felt something is wrong as her necklace glows even brighter than ever and rushes down from the stairs.

"...and your little dog too! Especially what I'm about to do with your dear sister!"

This made Sonic snap and jump up to Robotnik with his fist raised. Time slowed as Robotnik smiled gleefully and stepped aside just as Sonic was about to punch him. Merlene comes down just in time and her eyes widened to see the red echidna going towards Sonic, who's just as shocked as her, fist glowing red.

Before they knew it, the red echidna gave Sonic a punch that caused the hedgehog to break through the wall where the TV stood and landed on the couch, destroying it in the process.

"Sonic!"

Merlene rushes down and comes to his aid. She looks back and scowls to see the red echidna facing them through the hole he made.

"Pitful." he scoffed.

"Who are you?" Sonic questioned.

Robotnik pops his head into the wall after the red echidna left to go around and faces them.

"Where are my manners?"

He then goes around the holed wall and approaches the hedgehog siblings with Knuckles, who glares at them. Merlene stands protectively in front of her brother with her two katanas drawn.

"Sonic, Merlene, meet Knuckles. My new BFFAE. Bestest friend forever and ever!"

"Knuckles… It's been a while since we last saw each other, red hot shot." Merlene glared angrily, recognizing that echidna.

This causes the three boys confuse that Merlene suddenly knows him until Knuckles immediately recognizes her along with that emerald necklace she's wearing. His eyes widens as he said those words he never thought he would see again.

"...Lena…?"

Lightning strikes again at the sudden turn of events.

"I'm sorry… Am I missing something here?" Robotnik questioned, looking on between Knuckles and Merlene.

Interview with CKN

"Welcome back to the show, guys! Are you ready for today's special guest? Say helo to Sonic the Hedgehog, his sister Merlene, and their buddy Tails!" CKN announced through the microphone he's holding.

There sitting next to them are Sonic, Merlene, and Tails who smiles at the readers.

"How does it feel to be back, Sonic and Merlene with a brand new movie?"

Sonic closes his eyes and waves his hands with a grin before opening his eyes.

"Please! I'm going by Blue Justice now, trademark pending."

Merlene scoffs at that.

"I'd rather be called Merlene than that horrible nickname. Though you call call me Marlene

whatever you like."

Sonic playfully glares at her before introducing Tails.

"And this is Tails. He's a double threat, fluffy and adorable."

"Very adorable. I mean, look at his face and his twin tails!" Merlene cooed, making Tails blush and smile and looking flattered.

"And what do you bring to the table, Tails?" CKN asked.

Tails looks shy and nervous as he looks at the hedgehog siblings with worry.

"I'm so nervous, guys. I've never been on camera before."

Sonic lightly punches the air.

"You're doing great, buddy."

"Showing them what you can do." Merlene assured, giving him a pat on the head.

Tails demonstrates by spinning his twin tails like a helicopter to fly. The mic comes closer to listen to the sound of the spinning tails before pulling away. Sonic and Merlene smiles at the accomplishment Tails made.

"Pretty cool, right?" Sonic asked.

CKN looks in awe.

"Whoa! That is so cool! You think you can teach me how to do that?"

"Of course!" Tails nodded.

"How's this film different from the first one?"

"It is bigger and better in every way." Sonic replied.

"It's awesome. It's got lots of actions and developments, especially when there's…"

Merlene lightly coughs to herself, slightly blushing.

"...romance going on."

This made Sonic raise his eyebrow at that part. Tails points to himself happily.

"And I'm in it!"

"Like my sis said, there's more action, more adventure. And since I have an agent now, there are perks. I have four words for you."

Sonic counts the words with his fingers.

"Contractual Chili Dog Breaks."

Tails nodded while Merlene playfully rolled her eyes.

"Of course you would say that."

CKN looks surprised.

"Wow! You must really like chili dogs."

"I love it." Sonic proudly said.

"Not as better as Cheeseburgers.." Merlene muttered to herself.

"Tell us about Knuckles. He's new to the movie. What's he like?"

"Well, he plays an echidna warrior, sent to destroy me at any cost and between us? I like to improv, keeping things loose. Knuckles goes method. And between takes, it gets weird."

This made Tails and Merlene laugh, knowing it's true.

"And he can be angry sometimes, a little too serious, and kinda… naive. Let's not get too critical here. I'm just saying since I know him." Merlene added, calming herself down.

"We, we have him here in the studio today. Knuckles, do you want to say anything?" CKN said.

They turned to see Knuckles standing in the corner with his fists on his hips, looking serious as ever.

"I do not." he stated.

"See? That's more than we usually get out of him. Though Merlene manage to get something out of him since they know each other, but she won't tell us anything." Sonic said.

"And I'd rather not since it's personal for him. I have to respect that." Merlene said, crossing her heart.

"Thank you, Merlene." Knuckles nodded with a small smile.

"Knuckles, how are you enjoying your visit to Earth? What's your favorite thing here?" CKN asked.

"Your society is full of soft and undisciplined weaklings. However, I do enjoy the plant's grapes. The grapes are delicious."

"Maybe after the show, you and Sonic can sit down and enjoy some grapes together?'

"Nah/No." Sonic and Knuckles said in unison.

"Oh well I tried, guys." CKN shrugged.

Merlene sighed, figured they would say that.

"What about with Merlene since you two are closest friends?"

This made Knuckles expression soften.

"Maybe…"

"I mean, I would like that." Merlene said, blushing a little.

CKN nodded at the answer.

"How does it feel to save the world?"

"Amazing! The kind of thing that only comes around once in a lifetime or twice. Maybe a third time if enough people watch the second time." Sonic said, adding a joke that made Tails and Merlene giggle silently.

"It feels great. It shows you have a purpose, especially knowing your own power." Merlene said, making the boys nod in agreement.

"Between you, Merlene, and Tails, who's better at video games?" CKN asked another.

"Uh, me? Merlene is good, but she's not that much of a gamer. Tails tends to die a lot and then fly back in a few moments later."

Tails gives them a shrug with a frown, showing that he's right and has a lot to learn. Merlene couldn't careless and just give them a shrug. She gives Tails a pat on the head again to assure him that he'll do his best.

"Hey, Tails. You reckon you can make Knuckles laugh?"

"Of course!"

Knuckles places his fists on his hips again and glances at him.

"I do not laugh."

"Pfft! Yeah, right! I'm Knuckles and I don't chuckle!" Merlene imitated his voice with a grumpy look, crossing her arms.

'Hey!"

This made everyone except Knuckles laugh.

"So Knuckles, I asked Sonic this question a loong time ago, but are you dating anyone?"

Knuckles froze at that question, glancing at Merlene, who also froze. She glances back at him and quickly looks away, feeling her face turn pink. He's also blushing as he quickly answered it before anyone can find anything suspicious.

"The question shall remain unanswered."

"Okay."

CKN shrugged to himself, though he had a feeling that Knuckles and Merlene are dating but they don't want to confirm it.

"Before you go, guys, we have Kaisen in the studio today. He is the BIGGEST fan. Can he get a selfie with you guys?"

"Absolutely."

Sonic jumped off of his seat and zoomed off with Merlene and Tails kept pace with him.

"Come on in, Kaisen!"

Kaisen walks in, looking pure excited and waving.

"Hi, Sonic! It's me, Kaisen!"

Kaisen gets in between the gang as they all took a pictures in their own pose with Sonic giving it a smile, Merlene with her peace sign, Tails giving thumbs up, and Knuckles just giving it a small smile, and Kaisen smiling big. With a click, they all left in a speed of light, not before leaving a gift for them.

Prologue

Years ago…

Young Merlene is sitting by the tree alone playing with her wooden guitar she made for herself.

She had went out without Longclaw's permission, wanting to explore outside more and knowing she can defend herself. She almost have a same habit as her brother, except she's not as reckless as him. She stares at her guitar, thinking of the song she could play. Longclaw had taught her a few things besides defending and fighting, like crafting, singing, drawing, etc. Her eyes lit up like an electric light bulb popped up from her head. Young Merlene begins to play her strings, letting the song come out.

As she plays, she didn't realize she caught someone's attention to the song as they hid themselves through the bushes and watched her play. The shadow figure was amazed and speechless at how good she is as she hits the strings as if summoning her magic. They leaned in a little closer to hear the song some more, memorizing the tune. Young Merlene couldn't help but feel someone's watching her, but it doesn't stop her from playing. Though she appreciate them listening to her song.

Once she was done playing, Young Merlene places her guitar against the tree bark next to her. She calmly closes her eyes and spoke, glancing at the figure behind the bushes over her shoulder.

"I've been field combat trained since before I could walk."

Young Merlene backflips herself up over to the tree branch for her to grab as they snap.

"Nobody gets the drop on me–"

She lands right in front of the bushes where they're hiding and brings out her stick in a defensive stance, glaring straight at them.

"-including you, stranger! Come out of there now!"

"Okay!" the voice exclaimed.

They got out of the bushes to reveal a younger-looking red echidna with a white paint on his dreadlocks and his face with a mask on his head and wearing beads around his neck. Young Merlene was surprised to see someone same age as her. Though in horror after taking a good look at him, she realizes that he's the echidna tribe. Plus, he's holding a spear.

He glares at Young Merlene and points his spear at her threateningly. She gulps and backs away fearfully. He advances on her.

"You're coming with me."

Young Merlene continues to back away and attempts to dodge around the echidna without turning her back on him. He tilts his head questioningly.

"What are you doing?"

Young Merlene glares angrily.

"Longclaw says to never turn your back on an echidna enemy!"

He smirk mockingly.

"You always do what Longclaw says?"

"No!"

"Betcha do! Bet you're Mommy's little girl."

He laughs, causing Young Merlene to look downcast. He keeps circling around her as they're near in the middle of the swamp.

"My father will be very proud to find I've caught a hedgehog who wields the power of that necklace you're wearing."

He points it at the emerald necklace around her neck, which she immediately covers it protectively.

"I won't let you!"

Young Merlene jumps off and lands on the log as she proceeds to jump onto another log when the young echidna follows her and lands behind her. The "log" turns out to be a giant lizard, which opens its eyes.

Young Merlene turns around to fight off the echidna, and her face takes on a look of fright. She starts to scream. The giant lizard opens its jaws behind the young echidna. He turns and then screams at the sight of that predator. He races away, and the giant lizard's jaws snap on empty air.

"Run!"

Young Merlene and the boy echidna climb a rock in the middle of the swamp.

"Whoa!"

A giant lizard pursues the kids, who climbs higher.

'The way!" she said.

They leap off. The giant lizard climbs onto the rock, snapping its jaws on empty air. It roars angrily.

Young Merlene and the boy echidna hop across several rocks. They pause in the midst of the swamp, panting.

The boy echidna laughs.

"That was a close one."

Young Merlene giggles.

"Yeah."

The ground rises beneath two, revealing several giant lizards.

"Whoa!"

Young Merlene screams in fright.

The giant lizard beneath the boy echidna snaps its jaws. He leaps away while swiping his spear at them. Meanwhile, Young Merlene climbs a nearby tree.

"Whoa!" he yelped.

"Hey, what about me?" she asked.

The boy echidna runs across the bodies of several giant lizards.

"I'll distract them! Run! Whoa!"

A giant lizard lifts its tail, causing the boy echidna to fall into the water, losing his spear. He emerges from underwater, flailing and coughing. A giant lizard swims toward the boy echidna.

From atop the tree, Young Merlene swats at a crocodile with a stick she pulled out from the tree she was holding onto. The giant lizards turn and advance on the boy echidna.

"Look out!" Young Merlene warned.

The boy echidna clings to a nearby tree, whimpering. A giant lizard's jaws surround him.

At the last second, the giant lizard's jaws shut, with Young Merlene standing on top.

"Move it!"

The boy echidna and Young Merlene climb the tree. The giant lizard lunges after them and bites the tree. The boy echidna climbs to the top of a nearby cliff and laughs triumphantly.

The tree shakes beneath Young Merlene as the giant lizard bites it.

"Whoa!"

She leaps to safety and sighs in relief. The two kids pants in tiredness and peers over the ledge to the swamp below as the giant lizards swarm up the side of the cliff but are unable to climb it since it's high and slippery.

"I did it."

Young Merlene gets more excitedly.

"I did it!"

She blows a raspberry.

"Ha!" the boy echidna laughed.

Young Merlene races off and the boy echidna follows her. The kids enter a clearing.

"Whoa, man! Did you see the size of those teeth? They were going, "Rawr! Rawr! Rawr!"

Young Merlene rolls onto her back.

"Rawr! Rawr!"

The boy echidna sits as the girl laughs and sits up.

"He was just totally eatin' you up right there, and I jumped on his head, and I bopped him so good… We make such a good team! And you…"

The boy echidna smiles crookedly as she continued.

"You were really brave."

"Yeah? You were pretty brae, too."

She smiles bashfully.

"My name's Knuckles. Knuckles the Echidna Warrior." he said proudly, punching his chest.

She gives him a closed eye smile.

"I'm Merlene. Merlene the Hedgehog."

Young Knuckles smiles at her.

"You know, you're not as bad as my tribe says. You really are a warrior."

"And you are too. I guess we both have some things in common."

Suddenly, a stern voice called.

"Knuckles! Is that you thrashing around in the woods? Where are you?"

Young Knuckles looks alarmed.

"Uh-oh! It's my father! If he see you, he'll take you away! You really are a good friend to make. I see it. And I don't want anything happen to you!"

Young Merlene feels happy that he's looking out for her. No one has ever defended her before not alone the echidna.

"Don't worry–I'll hide. We'll make a pact to keep our meeting a secret between us, okay? No matter what."

She brings out her hand. He looks at her for a moment, thinking through before they shake hands.

"It's a deal."

As promised, Young Knuckles quickly hides behind the bushes as Young Knuckles walks up to his father, who's waiting for him.

"Come on, boy! You've got a few more training to do!"

Young Knuckles wasn't paying attention to him as he was glancing back to where Young Knuckles was hiding as she stare back at him.

"Uhhh–right! Coming, Father…"

He and his father then left. Once she was sure they're gone, Young Merlene gets out of the bushes.

"See you later, Knuckles…"

"So long for now, Merlene… I hae a funny feeling that our paths will cross again some day!" Young Knuckles thought to himself.

Little did they know, their paths is beginning to cross at a different circumstances.

Meanwhile, Longclaw has been watching them interact the whole time and smile fondly. With that, she flews back home to check on Young Sonic.

Chapter 1: Seattle Rescue

In seattle, there standing on top of the building are Sonic the Hedgehog and his beloved sister Merlene the Hedgehog. They're watching down below as the robbers are in a getaway car away from the police cars that are chasing them.

"Do we have to do this? We should leave this to the cops."

"Oh, come on! Where's the fun in that? It's our calling for the heroes!"

Merlene sighs in dismay, knowing she can't convince her brother with a second thought. She's in her candy red hooded jacket with tawny-orange earrings on her hood and pockets.

She checks on her two blue bladed katanas she brought for the replacement of her wooden ones as they're sharp as ever before sheathing them from her back.

Sonic begins stretching along with Merlene. He did his jumps with blue electric beneath his shoes while she did the squats. He cracks his fingers and she cracks her neck. He air punches and she did karate moves. Sonic eats his chili dog while Merlene pops out bubblegum she chewed on. Finally, the hedgehog siblings jumps off the building and zooms after the getaway cars. While Sonic runs ahead, Merlene hops onto her motorcycle she secretly also brought without anyone knowing except her brother, who found out sooner than that.

She puts on her silver and neon blue helmet and drives off in speed.

Sonic zooms past the cars as he excuses them while Merlene drove past them and hops off, apologizing everyone for the trouble.

Sonic made an airplane sound.

"Watch out! Excuse me! Pardon me! Coming through!"

"Sorry! Make way! Watch out!"

Sonic made it to the truck where the robbers are. Merlene drives besides it as look out through her surroundings.

"Good evening, gentlemen! Mind if I drive?"

Sonic kicks off the robbers from the driver's seat and takes the wheel. The robber was hanging outside of the opened door. Merlene noticed it and goes around and tossed the robber away to the sidewalk as he lands in the trash. She drives to the truck as Sonic turns the wheel.

"Better buckle up!"

The sudden turn caused the robbers to drop the flare. Merlene sees it and brings out her whip from her necklace and catches it and tosses it into the air as high as she could. It then explodes like fireworks.

"How are we doing back there?" Sonic asked, making a turn again.

"Doing good! No one got hurt!" Merlene replied.

She laughed at the sight to the robbers getting hit side to side everytime Sonic makes a wide turn from behind the truck.

"And now this way!"

Sonic is having fun as he laughs and cheers. Merlene rolls her eyes beneath her helmet. She still drives behind the truck with the police on their trail. She notices there's a hostage tied up with a duct tape on his mouth. He looks surprised and freaked out at the sight of the blue hedgehog he had never seen before. Sonic see this and smirks.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I don't speak duct tape."

He rips it off of the hostage's mouth as he breathes out.

"What the heck are you?!"

Merlene looks up ahead and her eyes widened.

"Uh, Sonic?"

"Fear not, citizen! I am the hero you need, and the hero you deserve. The Blue Dawn that banishes the dark–"

"Sonic! Pedestrian!" Merlene screamed.

Sonic looks up ahead of the road and his eyes goes wide.

"Holy crap!"

He sees a woman in a white coat walking across the street.

"Turn, turn, turn!"

Sonic and the hostage screams and he quickly makes a turn, thankfully dodging the lady before she could get hit. Merlene sighs in relief and guides her safely to the other side of the road and catches up to her brother.

"Don't worry! Nobody's gonna get hurt!"

"Yeah, right…" she scoffed.

She was just about to check on her brother when she heard the hostage's alarming voice.

"Bombs, bombs! They're bombs! Those are bombs!"

"The bombs?!" Merlene exclaimed, driving next to Sonic.

"Relax! They're not even lit! So I'll say it again, 'Nobody's gonna get–'"

Sonic was cut off by the bombs being lit by themselves.

"Please tell me that was the sound of someone's pants ripping!" Merlene asked.

"Aah! Oh, we're doomed! We're all gonna die!"

"Why aren't you slowing it down?! Hostage asked.

"Um, that would require breaks." Sonic said unsurely, stepping on the unconscious robber.

"Are you kidding me, bro?!"

"Hey, I'm trying!"

Sonic lifts up the bag of bombs with his feet while driving.

"Hot, hot, hot!"

"Throw the bombs to me!" Merlene exclaimed.

"I know!"

Sonic tosses the bombs into the air and spins them, nearly dropping them.

"Why didn't you just let the police handle this?"

"Right?! That's what I've been telling him!"

"Because… that's not what heroes do!"

Sonic finally catches them and tosses them to Merlene, who quickly caught them all with a whip and swings it towards the garbage truck in the back the trunk. Loud explosions was heard behind them them as they kept driving forward.

"Thank you very much! Please, hold your applause." Sonic assured with a smile.

Merlene is so gonna kill him once they're finish with this. He's gotta get both of them in trouble.

"Did you hear that? There's one bomb left." Hostage said.

"Wait, what?!"

"Uhhh, uh-oh."

Sonic begins searching for the bomb while Merlene looks through the back as she reverses.

"Did you check underneath the seat?"

"Of course, I checked underneath the seat!" Sonic retorted.

"You are terrible at this!"

Sonic glares at him through the fence.

"You know what? Your negative attitude isn't helping anyone!"

"I mean, he's not wrong."

Just as Sonic goes back to searching, the hostage noticed the bomb is in his quills.

"It's in your spiky things!"

Sonic spins his head rapidly and gets the bomb out of his quills.

"Ha! I could neer find anything in here!"

He tosses the last bomb to Merlene as she catches it and goes to throw it into the trash when Sonic accidentally caused the truck to bump into her. She drops it and the bomb went rolling into the sewer. She gulps, knowing they're in trouble. Sonic made a victory call.

"See? I told you nobody would get hurt."

Merlene looks ahead and gasps.

"Uh, Sonic?"

Sonic looks and his eyes widens to see the citizens sitting by the ice cream truck.

"Holy, sherbert!"

Sonic looks around and finds a screwdriver.

"Oh, hello!"

"You've got a plan, bro?"

Sonic grabs the tool and zooms up to the roof of the truck.

"Don't panic! This is only a drill."

He begins to unscrew the truck all around until he's drone and all the parts begin falling apart into pieces, leaving the hostage where he is as he starts screaming. The citizens sees this commotion and runs out of the way. Merlene gasps to see the boy standing there, holding two scoops of strawberry ice cream in a cone. She moves the handle forward to go faster. She then made it and parks her motorcycle in front of the boy to protect him as the missing piece of the truck came skidding to a stop and then it finally stopped along with the hostage's screaming as it was just a few inches apart.

She turns to the boy, who has his mouth agape in awe and shock.

"You okay?"

He slowly nodded. Her ears twitches through the helmet and she hurts to see the bomb inside the sewer has exploded. It causes the waters to sprung up from each of the sewer lids. The robbers gets up from being knocked out, only a little too late as the police cars came. That is her cue to get out of the scene as she bids the boy and the hostage a farewell before driving off in speed. Sonic's voice was heard and the hostage looks up to see him on the roof of the building with a bright moon behind him.

"No need to thank me citizens! All in for the nights for… Blue Justice!"

"You're a terrible hero!" Hostage exclaimed with a smile.

"Ha ha haaa!"

Sonic jumps off the building and zooms off. He catches up to his sister and pushes the motorcycle to go faster as they straight towards home. Green Hills.

Chapter 2: Home Alone

They're now back as the sky is bright, meaning it's morning. Sonic and Merlene zooms across the bridge towards the street where the big sign of Green Hills is with a police car parked next to it. Inside was Wade holding a speed velocity gun, trying to find speeding drivers passing through, until the hedgehog siblings zoom past him. It causes his radar gun beeps, indicating target speed they pulled.

"Morning, Wade!" they greeted in unison.

"Morning, Sonic and Merlene!" Wade greeted back.

They zoom up towards the mountain where they can see a full view of their home.

"Hoo hoo hoo!"

Sonic looks at Merlene. She smiles knowingly and they both shout together.

"Good morning, Green Hills!"

Their echoes were head through the distance and Sonic pushes the motorcycle Merlene is on once more and they zoom down towards the Wachowski's house. Merlene takes off her helmet and goes into the garage and parks her motorcycle there and places her helmet onto the handle of the vehicle and quickly closes it. She zooms up to the roof with Sonic and they made to the window where they can see their room. Sonic carefully flips the window open and they both jump down quietly. Sonic's bowling pin starts to fall at the movement of their landing and he caught it. As he sneaks his way to the bed, Merlene heads to her room quietly with no problem.

Her room is filled with amazing things full of music instruments, computers, desk, her bed, bookshelves, and a punching bag.

Merlene takes off her jacket and shoes and lies down onto her bed, pulling the blanket and covering her body with it. She looks over to see Sonic holding some stolen that was stuck to his shoes.

"Uh-oh."

He looks around nervously and gestures Merlene to keep it quiet. In response, she gives him a roll of her eyes. Ignoring that behavior, he opens the drawer with the sign "keep out". He places it inside and sees something and pulls it out before closing the drawer. He unfolds it to reveal the map of the world, but something falls off. Sonic picks it up to see Longclaw's feather. Merlene frowns, remembering her. Sonic feels just the same as her as he stares at the feather.

Flashback to when Young Sonic curls into a ball, rolls into the house, jumps up, and playfully bumps Longclaw while she is sleeping, causing her to wake up.

Young Sonic lands on the ground,now out of ball form, and he is laughing happily.

Young Sonic pulls out a sunflower and peony he picked from the outside, which makes Longclaw and Merlene happy.

"Sonic… Merlene…" Longclaw's voice echoed.

"We miss you, Longclaw. We're trying to make you proud."

Sonic smiles sadly and places the feather back into the map and folds it. He then grabs the bag full of rings and places the map inside before closing it up and placing it on his desk. Sonic goes up to his bed and grabs the blanket and covers himself, lying down.

"And now, for a little shut eye." he yawned.

Sonic and Merlene begins to sleep after a long night they have. Just as things were going well, Ozzy comes up to Sonic and licks his face.

"Uh! Ugh! Ozzy! Morning breath!"

He covers his face with the blanket to try and get some sleep. Ozzy comes up to Merlene and licks her face too.

"Eww! Come on! You know that doesn't wash off!"

She swats him away, giving him a pat on the head. Maddie comes up to them from a the stairs with a laundry basket.

"Sonic! Merlene! You two still in bed? You're supposed to meet Tom, remember?"

Ozzy goes back to Sonic and pulls the blanket off of him. This causes him to fall off of his bed, landing on his face. Merlene groans, forgetting that. She gets up and stretches.

"Alright, alright, I'm up! I'm up…"

"We got it…"

In the boat, Tom, Sonic, and Merlene are in the middle of the river fishing.

"Ah, what a day. Thanks for coming out, buds. You know, I feel like you two and me haven't had much time together lately."

Sonic and Merlene didn't reply as they're holding onto the fishing pole, waiting for the fish to get caught. Tom looks over to them from his shoulder.

"How's it going over there? Did you get any bites?"

"No…" Merlene tiredly said, trying to stay awake.

Sonic though snores loudly, while drooling. Tom turns to see Sonic nodding his head up and down to keep himself up but ended up falling into the water. This got Merlene up and awake and looked over to see Sonic flailing his arms as he struggles to swim.

"Ahh! I can't swim! Help! If I die, don't look into my closet!"

Tom comes to his rescue and gently picks him up back onto the boat.

"Hey, hey, you're good. You're alright. I got you."

"It's alright, bro. It's just water." Merlene assured, patting the shivering Sonic.

Tom grabs the towel.

"Take it easy."

He wraps it around Sonic to keep him dry and warm.

"You're good."

Sonic shivers loudly.

"Okay."

Merlene hugs him to keep him as warm as she could. Tom sits back and faces them.

"But! Now that you have a nap and a bath, I went to your rooms last night to bring you some new comics and mangas and um…"

Tom explains he found out about the fake Sonic he saw with a voice recorder of Sonic's voice and fart noises.

"Ugh, I knew I should've use real farts." Sonic groaned.

Tom brings out a newspaper "The Daily Observer – Mayhem in Seattle Crime Doesn't Spray" with the picture of the flowing water from the sewers. Merlene winces, knowing he would find out sooner than later. He gives them a look.

"How many times do we have to do this?"

"What? Past your line and not catch anything? Seems like a rebellion."

"I think you know what I'm talking about. Lying? The sneaking out? Pretending to be Batman and Robin?"

"Blue Justice, trademark pending."

"Whatever you're being reckless. And you Merlene, I know you're not, but you can't keep following your brother's footsteps."

Merlene looks down in shame.

"I know. I'm sorry. I tried to tell him we shouldn't do this, but he didn't listen as usual."

"Ugh. Not this conversation again." Sonic groaned.

"Hey, it's no fun for me either but if you keep getting irresponsible and getting your sister into your mess, we're gonna keep having this conversation."

"How is it irresponsible to use my powers? My sister went with me on her own."

"Because someone has to keep an eye on you from messing up."

Tom shows him the newspaper.

"Sonic, you destroyed the entire city block."

"That block was already messed up! Who cares?"

Sonic turns around to face something ahead and did a hero pose.

"Look, me and sis stopped a robbery. We are heroes."

"Not entirely." Merlene shook her head.

"No, you put people and Merlene in danger and that's not what a hero does." Tom argued.

Sonic turns around and sighs dejectedly.

"You're supposed to be my friend. Stop trying to be my dad."

This made Tom quiet while Merlene looks away silently. Sonic sits back down.

"I can take care of myself. And I know sis can take care of herself as well.

"Sonic, take care of yourself isn't what being a hero is all about. It's about taking responsibility for other people. And right now whether you want to hear this or not, you are still just a kid. You've got some more growing up to do before you're ready to be the hero."

Sonic and Merlene looks at Tom.

"Trust me when I tell you there will come a time when your powers will be needed. But you don't choose that moment, that moment chooses you."

"That's… wow." Merlene awed.

"Whoa. look at you. I just got… I just got goosebumps. Wait a second. Did you steal that from Oprah? Sonic teased.

"No, sir. That is a Wachowski family special. Came from my dad, in this very boat, on this very lake. He would always try to steer me in the right direction. That's what Maddie and I was trying to do with you two."

Sonic and Merlene smiles at him.

"So, until your moment arrives I want you to work on being a little more responsible."

Tom gives them a wink.

"Comprende?"

"Comprende." Soni and Merlene said in unison.

"High five on it!"

Tom raises his hand and Sonic gives him a high five and Merlene does the same with Tom.

"Yeah! Donut Lord, Neon Blue Angel, and Blue Justice are back at it again! Hang on!"

Sonic jumps onto the back of the boat and begins moving his feet up and down into the lake, making the boat go faster.

"Speed boat!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" Tom exclaimed.

"Oh, geez!" Merlene exclaimed.

"Ha ha haaa!"

"Sonic!" Tom and Merlene screamed in unison.

"Whoo hoo!" Sonic just cheered along the way.

They're now back in Wachowski's house as Tom and Maddie comes in with their bags packed up as Tom wears a Hawaii shirt. He looks beyond excited as he rambles about going to Hawaii while Maddie smiles. They stopped to see a ring portal where they can see the view the building and beach of Hawaii. Standing in front was Sonic, Merlene, Ozzy wearing sunglasses with Sonic wearing a black tie.

"Welcome to Sonic and Merlene Air. The fastest way to travel. Now boarding groups 1 and 2."

Maddie laughs and was in awe.

"Aww! Sonic! Merlene! This is so fun!"

She looks over to what appears to be a scanner when people walk through but in a fort full of bed cushions. Merlene stops Maddie from coming through the fort.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. You're group 3. Please wait for your turn. Anyone from groups 1 and 2?"

Maddie was surprised while Tom just smiled.

"Just let them get it out of their system." Tom said, playing along with this.

"Okay and everybody else? Right this way."

Maddie walks forward.

"Thank you."

Sonic begins "scan" over her body with a spatula while making a noise. Maddie and Merlene laughs. Maddie then walks out of the fort with her bag. Tom comes last as Sonic "scan" his body.

"Terrible shirt detected."

"There we go."

Tom walks through the fort with his bag as he stand next to his wife in front of the ring portal.

"Okay, and you're free to go. Enjoy your trip. Buh-bye now." Sonic said.

"See you, guys. Don't forget to bring the souvenir." Merlene said.

"Okay."

Tom kneels down to their level and brings out his arms.

"Bring it in."

Merlene doesn't hesitate to hug Tom, catching him by surprise and then hugging her back. She pulls away as Tom gestures to Sonic to come next.

"Tom, I'm about to be hedgehog of the house for the first time. I think I'm a little bit mature to hug you goodbye."

Merlene playfully rolled her eyes at that. Maddie kneels down and brings out her fist.

"Okay, what about a power bump?"

Tom brings out his fist.

"Power bump?"

"Yes! Power bump! That's more like it!"

Sonic and Merlene power bumps their fists onto Tom and Maddie's. Then they pulled their fists away.

"Wachowski!"

"Okay, use this one to get back home."

Sonic brings out a ring and tosses it to Tom.

He catches it.

"Alright, we're off. Hey, be good. I'm counting on you to keep an eye on your brother, Merlene."

"On it, Tom." Merlene saluted.

"Yes. you have our number…"

Tom and Maddie gets through the ring portal to Hawaii.

"Sorry! Can't hear your chatting across dimensional portal!"

"Missed you two already!"

"Okay?!"

"Have fun at Rachel's wedding!" Sonic and Merlene waved.

Maddie tried to call them but the ring portal already closes on them. Sonic faces Merlene and Ozzy.

"It's 48 hours until they come back. We have TV channels, streaming channel, the house full of food, and no supervision."

Ozzy barks in agreement.

"For once, you're right." Merlene grinned.

Sonic smiles and moves his head for his sunglasses to cover his eyes.

"Let's do this."

While Sonic begins to have fun around the house, Merlene makes things more fun as she plays guitar loudly and sings.

"Whoo! Go, sis!" Sonic cheered as he skate boards throughout the course he made in the house.

As she continues playing and singing, she spins her head around with her hair flowing wildly. Sonic made sure to clean up the mess he made by using the mowing truck with Ozzy riding behind in the wagon. Then Sonic brings out the small floating pool and dumps out the entire soap from the bottle before spinning around in speed, creating a big pile of bubbles. He puts you the blue and red police light to the ceiling and places the strainer on it as a crystal ball. He jumps into the bubbles and "swims" around, dancing.

Merlene and Sonic are sure having a great time and as soon she finishes singing and playing her guitar, her brother gives her a clap.

"Bravo! Bravo! I love you, sis!"

She looks bashfully.

"Aw, stop! You're making me blush!"

"You are amazing! Get use to it!"

Meanwhile in Green Hills, the leaves began rustling as a Ring portal opens and a yellow two-tailed fox pops out, which is revealed to be Tails, and he is reading the energy levels from Sonic and Merlene from a small handheld device.

"If these readings are accurate, they're here. I found them! I just hope I'm not too late."

Tails uses his tails like a helicopter to fly over the forests and into the town.

It was now night time as he glides down safely and hides behind the bushes. He looks back at device with a hum.

"Hmm. they're close. I just need to wait and reach them without being spotted."

He looks over the bushes to see a police car parked in front of the restaurant "Mean Bean".

"Standard human transport. Perfect!"

Prologue

Years ago…

Young Merlene is sitting by the tree alone playing with her wooden guitar she made for herself.

She had went out without Longclaw's permission, wanting to explore outside more and knowing she can defend herself. She almost have a same habit as her brother, except she's not as reckless as him. She stares at her guitar, thinking of the song she could play. Longclaw had taught her a few things besides defending and fighting, like crafting, singing, drawing, etc. Her eyes lit up like an electric light bulb popped up from her head. Young Merlene begins to play her strings, letting the song come out.

As she plays, she didn't realize she caught someone's attention to the song as they hid themselves through the bushes and watched her play. The shadow figure was amazed and speechless at how good she is as she hits the strings as if summoning her magic. They leaned in a little closer to hear the song some more, memorizing the tune. Young Merlene couldn't help but feel someone's watching her, but it doesn't stop her from playing. Though she appreciate them listening to her song.

Once she was done playing, Young Merlene places her guitar against the tree bark next to her. She calmly closes her eyes and spoke, glancing at the figure behind the bushes over her shoulder.

"I've been field combat trained since before I could walk."

Young Merlene backflips herself up over to the tree branch for her to grab as they snap.

"Nobody gets the drop on me–"

She lands right in front of the bushes where they're hiding and brings out her stick in a defensive stance, glaring straight at them.

"-including you, stranger! Come out of there now!"

"Okay!" the voice exclaimed.

They got out of the bushes to reveal a younger-looking red echidna with a white paint on his dreadlocks and his face with a mask on his head and wearing beads around his neck. Young Merlene was surprised to see someone same age as her. Though in horror after taking a good look at him, she realizes that he's the echidna tribe. Plus, he's holding a spear.

He glares at Young Merlene and points his spear at her threateningly. She gulps and backs away fearfully. He advances on her.

"You're coming with me."

Young Merlene continues to back away and attempts to dodge around the echidna without turning her back on him. He tilts his head questioningly.

"What are you doing?"

Young Merlene glares angrily.

"Longclaw says to never turn your back on an echidna enemy!"

He smirk mockingly.

"You always do what Longclaw says?"

"No!"

"Betcha do! Bet you're Mommy's little girl."

He laughs, causing Young Merlene to look downcast. He keeps circling around her as they're near in the middle of the swamp.

"My father will be very proud to find I've caught a hedgehog who wields the power of that necklace you're wearing."

He points it at the emerald necklace around her neck, which she immediately covers it protectively.

"I won't let you!"

Young Merlene jumps off and lands on the log as she proceeds to jump onto another log when the young echidna follows her and lands behind her. The "log" turns out to be a giant lizard, which opens its eyes.

Young Merlene turns around to fight off the echidna, and her face takes on a look of fright. She starts to scream. The giant lizard opens its jaws behind the young echidna. He turns and then screams at the sight of that predator. He races away, and the giant lizard's jaws snap on empty air.

"Run!"

Young Merlene and the boy echidna climb a rock in the middle of the swamp.

"Whoa!"

A giant lizard pursues the kids, who climbs higher.

'The way!" she said.

They leap off. The giant lizard climbs onto the rock, snapping its jaws on empty air. It roars angrily.

Young Merlene and the boy echidna hop across several rocks. They pause in the midst of the swamp, panting.

The boy echidna laughs.

"That was a close one."

Young Merlene giggles.

"Yeah."

The ground rises beneath two, revealing several giant lizards.

"Whoa!"

Young Merlene screams in fright.

The giant lizard beneath the boy echidna snaps its jaws. He leaps away while swiping his spear at them. Meanwhile, Young Merlene climbs a nearby tree.

"Whoa!" he yelped.

"Hey, what about me?" she asked.

The boy echidna runs across the bodies of several giant lizards.

"I'll distract them! Run! Whoa!"

A giant lizard lifts its tail, causing the boy echidna to fall into the water, losing his spear. He emerges from underwater, flailing and coughing. A giant lizard swims toward the boy echidna.

From atop the tree, Young Merlene swats at a crocodile with a stick she pulled out from the tree she was holding onto. The giant lizards turn and advance on the boy echidna.

"Look out!" Young Merlene warned.

The boy echidna clings to a nearby tree, whimpering. A giant lizard's jaws surround him.

At the last second, the giant lizard's jaws shut, with Young Merlene standing on top.

"Move it!"

The boy echidna and Young Merlene climb the tree. The giant lizard lunges after them and bites the tree. The boy echidna climbs to the top of a nearby cliff and laughs triumphantly.

The tree shakes beneath Young Merlene as the giant lizard bites it.

"Whoa!"

She leaps to safety and sighs in relief. The two kids pants in tiredness and peers over the ledge to the swamp below as the giant lizards swarm up the side of the cliff but are unable to climb it since it's high and slippery.

"I did it."

Young Merlene gets more excitedly.

"I did it!"

She blows a raspberry.

"Ha!" the boy echidna laughed.

Young Merlene races off and the boy echidna follows her. The kids enter a clearing.

"Whoa, man! Did you see the size of those teeth? They were going, "Rawr! Rawr! Rawr!"

Young Merlene rolls onto her back.

"Rawr! Rawr!"

The boy echidna sits as the girl laughs and sits up.

"He was just totally eatin' you up right there, and I jumped on his head, and I bopped him so good… We make such a good team! And you…"

The boy echidna smiles crookedly as she continued.

"You were really brave."

"Yeah? You were pretty brae, too."

She smiles bashfully.

"My name's Knuckles. Knuckles the Echidna Warrior." he said proudly, punching his chest.

She gives him a closed eye smile.

"I'm Merlene. Merlene the Hedgehog."

Young Knuckles smiles at her.

"You know, you're not as bad as my tribe says. You really are a warrior."

"And you are too. I guess we both have some things in common."

Suddenly, a stern voice called.

"Knuckles! Is that you thrashing around in the woods? Where are you?"

Young Knuckles looks alarmed.

"Uh-oh! It's my father! If he see you, he'll take you away! You really are a good friend to make. I see it. And I don't want anything happen to you!"

Young Merlene feels happy that he's looking out for her. No one has ever defended her before not alone the echidna.

"Don't worry–I'll hide. We'll make a pact to keep our meeting a secret between us, okay? No matter what."

She brings out her hand. He looks at her for a moment, thinking through before they shake hands.

"It's a deal."

As promised, Young Knuckles quickly hides behind the bushes as Young Knuckles walks up to his father, who's waiting for him.

"Come on, boy! You've got a few more training to do!"

Young Knuckles wasn't paying attention to him as he was glancing back to where Young Knuckles was hiding as she stare back at him.

"Uhhh–right! Coming, Father…"

He and his father then left. Once she was sure they're gone, Young Merlene gets out of the bushes.

"See you later, Knuckles…"

"So long for now, Merlene… I hae a funny feeling that our paths will cross again some day!" Young Knuckles thought to himself.

Little did they know, their paths is beginning to cross at a different circumstances.

Meanwhile, Longclaw has been watching them interact the whole time and smile fondly. With that, she flews back home to check on Young Sonic.

Chapter 1: Seattle Rescue

In seattle, there standing on top of the building are Sonic the Hedgehog and his beloved sister Merlene the Hedgehog. They're watching down below as the robbers are in a getaway car away from the police cars that are chasing them.

"Do we have to do this? We should leave this to the cops."

"Oh, come on! Where's the fun in that? It's our calling for the heroes!"

Merlene sighs in dismay, knowing she can't convince her brother with a second thought. She's in her candy red hooded jacket with tawny-orange earrings on her hood and pockets.

She checks on her two blue bladed katanas she brought for the replacement of her wooden ones as they're sharp as ever before sheathing them from her back.

Sonic begins stretching along with Merlene. He did his jumps with blue electric beneath his shoes while she did the squats. He cracks his fingers and she cracks her neck. He air punches and she did karate moves. Sonic eats his chili dog while Merlene pops out bubblegum she chewed on. Finally, the hedgehog siblings jumps off the building and zooms after the getaway cars. While Sonic runs ahead, Merlene hops onto her motorcycle she secretly also brought without anyone knowing except her brother, who found out sooner than that.

She puts on her silver and neon blue helmet and drives off in speed.

Sonic zooms past the cars as he excuses them while Merlene drove past them and hops off, apologizing everyone for the trouble.

Sonic made an airplane sound.

"Watch out! Excuse me! Pardon me! Coming through!"

"Sorry! Make way! Watch out!"

Sonic made it to the truck where the robbers are. Merlene drives besides it as look out through her surroundings.

"Good evening, gentlemen! Mind if I drive?"

Sonic kicks off the robbers from the driver's seat and takes the wheel. The robber was hanging outside of the opened door. Merlene noticed it and goes around and tossed the robber away to the sidewalk as he lands in the trash. She drives to the truck as Sonic turns the wheel.

"Better buckle up!"

The sudden turn caused the robbers to drop the flare. Merlene sees it and brings out her whip from her necklace and catches it and tosses it into the air as high as she could. It then explodes like fireworks.

"How are we doing back there?" Sonic asked, making a turn again.

"Doing good! No one got hurt!" Merlene replied.

She laughed at the sight to the robbers getting hit side to side everytime Sonic makes a wide turn from behind the truck.

"And now this way!"

Sonic is having fun as he laughs and cheers. Merlene rolls her eyes beneath her helmet. She still drives behind the truck with the police on their trail. She notices there's a hostage tied up with a duct tape on his mouth. He looks surprised and freaked out at the sight of the blue hedgehog he had never seen before. Sonic see this and smirks.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I don't speak duct tape."

He rips it off of the hostage's mouth as he breathes out.

"What the heck are you?!"

Merlene looks up ahead and her eyes widened.

"Uh, Sonic?"

"Fear not, citizen! I am the hero you need, and the hero you deserve. The Blue Dawn that banishes the dark–"

"Sonic! Pedestrian!" Merlene screamed.

Sonic looks up ahead of the road and his eyes goes wide.

"Holy crap!"

He sees a woman in a white coat walking across the street.

"Turn, turn, turn!"

Sonic and the hostage screams and he quickly makes a turn, thankfully dodging the lady before she could get hit. Merlene sighs in relief and guides her safely to the other side of the road and catches up to her brother.

"Don't worry! Nobody's gonna get hurt!"

"Yeah, right…" she scoffed.

She was just about to check on her brother when she heard the hostage's alarming voice.

"Bombs, bombs! They're bombs! Those are bombs!"

"The bombs?!" Merlene exclaimed, driving next to Sonic.

"Relax! They're not even lit! So I'll say it again, 'Nobody's gonna get–'"

Sonic was cut off by the bombs being lit by themselves.

"Please tell me that was the sound of someone's pants ripping!" Merlene asked.

"Aah! Oh, we're doomed! We're all gonna die!"

"Why aren't you slowing it down?! Hostage asked.

"Um, that would require breaks." Sonic said unsurely, stepping on the unconscious robber.

"Are you kidding me, bro?!"

"Hey, I'm trying!"

Sonic lifts up the bag of bombs with his feet while driving.

"Hot, hot, hot!"

"Throw the bombs to me!" Merlene exclaimed.

"I know!"

Sonic tosses the bombs into the air and spins them, nearly dropping them.

"Why didn't you just let the police handle this?"

"Right?! That's what I've been telling him!"

"Because… that's not what heroes do!"

Sonic finally catches them and tosses them to Merlene, who quickly caught them all with a whip and swings it towards the garbage truck in the back the trunk. Loud explosions was heard behind them them as they kept driving forward.

"Thank you very much! Please, hold your applause." Sonic assured with a smile.

Merlene is so gonna kill him once they're finish with this. He's gotta get both of them in trouble.

"Did you hear that? There's one bomb left." Hostage said.

"Wait, what?!"

"Uhhh, uh-oh."

Sonic begins searching for the bomb while Merlene looks through the back as she reverses.

"Did you check underneath the seat?"

"Of course, I checked underneath the seat!" Sonic retorted.

"You are terrible at this!"

Sonic glares at him through the fence.

"You know what? Your negative attitude isn't helping anyone!"

"I mean, he's not wrong."

Just as Sonic goes back to searching, the hostage noticed the bomb is in his quills.

"It's in your spiky things!"

Sonic spins his head rapidly and gets the bomb out of his quills.

"Ha! I could neer find anything in here!"

He tosses the last bomb to Merlene as she catches it and goes to throw it into the trash when Sonic accidentally caused the truck to bump into her. She drops it and the bomb went rolling into the sewer. She gulps, knowing they're in trouble. Sonic made a victory call.

"See? I told you nobody would get hurt."

Merlene looks ahead and gasps.

"Uh, Sonic?"

Sonic looks and his eyes widens to see the citizens sitting by the ice cream truck.

"Holy, sherbert!"

Sonic looks around and finds a screwdriver.

"Oh, hello!"

"You've got a plan, bro?"

Sonic grabs the tool and zooms up to the roof of the truck.

"Don't panic! This is only a drill."

He begins to unscrew the truck all around until he's drone and all the parts begin falling apart into pieces, leaving the hostage where he is as he starts screaming. The citizens sees this commotion and runs out of the way. Merlene gasps to see the boy standing there, holding two scoops of strawberry ice cream in a cone. She moves the handle forward to go faster. She then made it and parks her motorcycle in front of the boy to protect him as the missing piece of the truck came skidding to a stop and then it finally stopped along with the hostage's screaming as it was just a few inches apart.

She turns to the boy, who has his mouth agape in awe and shock.

"You okay?"

He slowly nodded. Her ears twitches through the helmet and she hurts to see the bomb inside the sewer has exploded. It causes the waters to sprung up from each of the sewer lids. The robbers gets up from being knocked out, only a little too late as the police cars came. That is her cue to get out of the scene as she bids the boy and the hostage a farewell before driving off in speed. Sonic's voice was heard and the hostage looks up to see him on the roof of the building with a bright moon behind him.

"No need to thank me citizens! All in for the nights for… Blue Justice!"

"You're a terrible hero!" Hostage exclaimed with a smile.

"Ha ha haaa!"

Sonic jumps off the building and zooms off. He catches up to his sister and pushes the motorcycle to go faster as they straight towards home. Green Hills.

Chapter 2: Home Alone

They're now back as the sky is bright, meaning it's morning. Sonic and Merlene zooms across the bridge towards the street where the big sign of Green Hills is with a police car parked next to it. Inside was Wade holding a speed velocity gun, trying to find speeding drivers passing through, until the hedgehog siblings zoom past him. It causes his radar gun beeps, indicating target speed they pulled.

"Morning, Wade!" they greeted in unison.

"Morning, Sonic and Merlene!" Wade greeted back.

They zoom up towards the mountain where they can see a full view of their home.

"Hoo hoo hoo!"

Sonic looks at Merlene. She smiles knowingly and they both shout together.

"Good morning, Green Hills!"

Their echoes were head through the distance and Sonic pushes the motorcycle Merlene is on once more and they zoom down towards the Wachowski's house. Merlene takes off her helmet and goes into the garage and parks her motorcycle there and places her helmet onto the handle of the vehicle and quickly closes it. She zooms up to the roof with Sonic and they made to the window where they can see their room. Sonic carefully flips the window open and they both jump down quietly. Sonic's bowling pin starts to fall at the movement of their landing and he caught it. As he sneaks his way to the bed, Merlene heads to her room quietly with no problem.

Her room is filled with amazing things full of music instruments, computers, desk, her bed, bookshelves, and a punching bag.

Merlene takes off her jacket and shoes and lies down onto her bed, pulling the blanket and covering her body with it. She looks over to see Sonic holding some stolen that was stuck to his shoes.

"Uh-oh."

He looks around nervously and gestures Merlene to keep it quiet. In response, she gives him a roll of her eyes. Ignoring that behavior, he opens the drawer with the sign "keep out". He places it inside and sees something and pulls it out before closing the drawer. He unfolds it to reveal the map of the world, but something falls off. Sonic picks it up to see Longclaw's feather. Merlene frowns, remembering her. Sonic feels just the same as her as he stares at the feather.

Flashback to when Young Sonic curls into a ball, rolls into the house, jumps up, and playfully bumps Longclaw while she is sleeping, causing her to wake up.

Young Sonic lands on the ground,now out of ball form, and he is laughing happily.

Young Sonic pulls out a sunflower and peony he picked from the outside, which makes Longclaw and Merlene happy.

"Sonic… Merlene…" Longclaw's voice echoed.

"We miss you, Longclaw. We're trying to make you proud."

Sonic smiles sadly and places the feather back into the map and folds it. He then grabs the bag full of rings and places the map inside before closing it up and placing it on his desk. Sonic goes up to his bed and grabs the blanket and covers himself, lying down.

"And now, for a little shut eye." he yawned.

Sonic and Merlene begins to sleep after a long night they have. Just as things were going well, Ozzy comes up to Sonic and licks his face.

"Uh! Ugh! Ozzy! Morning breath!"

He covers his face with the blanket to try and get some sleep. Ozzy comes up to Merlene and licks her face too.

"Eww! Come on! You know that doesn't wash off!"

She swats him away, giving him a pat on the head. Maddie comes up to them from a the stairs with a laundry basket.

"Sonic! Merlene! You two still in bed? You're supposed to meet Tom, remember?"

Ozzy goes back to Sonic and pulls the blanket off of him. This causes him to fall off of his bed, landing on his face. Merlene groans, forgetting that. She gets up and stretches.

"Alright, alright, I'm up! I'm up…"

"We got it…"

In the boat, Tom, Sonic, and Merlene are in the middle of the river fishing.

"Ah, what a day. Thanks for coming out, buds. You know, I feel like you two and me haven't had much time together lately."

Sonic and Merlene didn't reply as they're holding onto the fishing pole, waiting for the fish to get caught. Tom looks over to them from his shoulder.

"How's it going over there? Did you get any bites?"

"No…" Merlene tiredly said, trying to stay awake.

Sonic though snores loudly, while drooling. Tom turns to see Sonic nodding his head up and down to keep himself up but ended up falling into the water. This got Merlene up and awake and looked over to see Sonic flailing his arms as he struggles to swim.

"Ahh! I can't swim! Help! If I die, don't look into my closet!"

Tom comes to his rescue and gently picks him up back onto the boat.

"Hey, hey, you're good. You're alright. I got you."

"It's alright, bro. It's just water." Merlene assured, patting the shivering Sonic.

Tom grabs the towel.

"Take it easy."

He wraps it around Sonic to keep him dry and warm.

"You're good."

Sonic shivers loudly.

"Okay."

Merlene hugs him to keep him as warm as she could. Tom sits back and faces them.

"But! Now that you have a nap and a bath, I went to your rooms last night to bring you some new comics and mangas and um…"

Tom explains he found out about the fake Sonic he saw with a voice recorder of Sonic's voice and fart noises.

"Ugh, I knew I should've use real farts." Sonic groaned.

Tom brings out a newspaper "The Daily Observer – Mayhem in Seattle Crime Doesn't Spray" with the picture of the flowing water from the sewers. Merlene winces, knowing he would find out sooner than later. He gives them a look.

"How many times do we have to do this?"

"What? Past your line and not catch anything? Seems like a rebellion."

"I think you know what I'm talking about. Lying? The sneaking out? Pretending to be Batman and Robin?"

"Blue Justice, trademark pending."

"Whatever you're being reckless. And you Merlene, I know you're not, but you can't keep following your brother's footsteps."

Merlene looks down in shame.

"I know. I'm sorry. I tried to tell him we shouldn't do this, but he didn't listen as usual."

"Ugh. Not this conversation again." Sonic groaned.

"Hey, it's no fun for me either but if you keep getting irresponsible and getting your sister into your mess, we're gonna keep having this conversation."

"How is it irresponsible to use my powers? My sister went with me on her own."

"Because someone has to keep an eye on you from messing up."

Tom shows him the newspaper.

"Sonic, you destroyed the entire city block."

"That block was already messed up! Who cares?"

Sonic turns around to face something ahead and did a hero pose.

"Look, me and sis stopped a robbery. We are heroes."

"Not entirely." Merlene shook her head.

"No, you put people and Merlene in danger and that's not what a hero does." Tom argued.

Sonic turns around and sighs dejectedly.

"You're supposed to be my friend. Stop trying to be my dad."

This made Tom quiet while Merlene looks away silently. Sonic sits back down.

"I can take care of myself. And I know sis can take care of herself as well.

"Sonic, take care of yourself isn't what being a hero is all about. It's about taking responsibility for other people. And right now whether you want to hear this or not, you are still just a kid. You've got some more growing up to do before you're ready to be the hero."

Sonic and Merlene looks at Tom.

"Trust me when I tell you there will come a time when your powers will be needed. But you don't choose that moment, that moment chooses you."

"That's… wow." Merlene awed.

"Whoa. look at you. I just got… I just got goosebumps. Wait a second. Did you steal that from Oprah? Sonic teased.

"No, sir. That is a Wachowski family special. Came from my dad, in this very boat, on this very lake. He would always try to steer me in the right direction. That's what Maddie and I was trying to do with you two."

Sonic and Merlene smiles at him.

"So, until your moment arrives I want you to work on being a little more responsible."

Tom gives them a wink.

"Comprende?"

"Comprende." Soni and Merlene said in unison.

"High five on it!"

Tom raises his hand and Sonic gives him a high five and Merlene does the same with Tom.

"Yeah! Donut Lord, Neon Blue Angel, and Blue Justice are back at it again! Hang on!"

Sonic jumps onto the back of the boat and begins moving his feet up and down into the lake, making the boat go faster.

"Speed boat!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" Tom exclaimed.

"Oh, geez!" Merlene exclaimed.

"Ha ha haaa!"

"Sonic!" Tom and Merlene screamed in unison.

"Whoo hoo!" Sonic just cheered along the way.

They're now back in Wachowski's house as Tom and Maddie comes in with their bags packed up as Tom wears a Hawaii shirt. He looks beyond excited as he rambles about going to Hawaii while Maddie smiles. They stopped to see a ring portal where they can see the view the building and beach of Hawaii. Standing in front was Sonic, Merlene, Ozzy wearing sunglasses with Sonic wearing a black tie.

"Welcome to Sonic and Merlene Air. The fastest way to travel. Now boarding groups 1 and 2."

Maddie laughs and was in awe.

"Aww! Sonic! Merlene! This is so fun!"

She looks over to what appears to be a scanner when people walk through but in a fort full of bed cushions. Merlene stops Maddie from coming through the fort.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. You're group 3. Please wait for your turn. Anyone from groups 1 and 2?"

Maddie was surprised while Tom just smiled.

"Just let them get it out of their system." Tom said, playing along with this.

"Okay and everybody else? Right this way."

Maddie walks forward.

"Thank you."

Sonic begins "scan" over her body with a spatula while making a noise. Maddie and Merlene laughs. Maddie then walks out of the fort with her bag. Tom comes last as Sonic "scan" his body.

"Terrible shirt detected."

"There we go."

Tom walks through the fort with his bag as he stand next to his wife in front of the ring portal.

"Okay, and you're free to go. Enjoy your trip. Buh-bye now." Sonic said.

"See you, guys. Don't forget to bring the souvenir." Merlene said.

"Okay."

Tom kneels down to their level and brings out his arms.

"Bring it in."

Merlene doesn't hesitate to hug Tom, catching him by surprise and then hugging her back. She pulls away as Tom gestures to Sonic to come next.

"Tom, I'm about to be hedgehog of the house for the first time. I think I'm a little bit mature to hug you goodbye."

Merlene playfully rolled her eyes at that. Maddie kneels down and brings out her fist.

"Okay, what about a power bump?"

Tom brings out his fist.

"Power bump?"

"Yes! Power bump! That's more like it!"

Sonic and Merlene power bumps their fists onto Tom and Maddie's. Then they pulled their fists away.

"Wachowski!"

"Okay, use this one to get back home."

Sonic brings out a ring and tosses it to Tom.

He catches it.

"Alright, we're off. Hey, be good. I'm counting on you to keep an eye on your brother, Merlene."

"On it, Tom." Merlene saluted.

"Yes. you have our number…"

Tom and Maddie gets through the ring portal to Hawaii.

"Sorry! Can't hear your chatting across dimensional portal!"

"Missed you two already!"

"Okay?!"

"Have fun at Rachel's wedding!" Sonic and Merlene waved.

Maddie tried to call them but the ring portal already closes on them. Sonic faces Merlene and Ozzy.

"It's 48 hours until they come back. We have TV channels, streaming channel, the house full of food, and no supervision."

Ozzy barks in agreement.

"For once, you're right." Merlene grinned.

Sonic smiles and moves his head for his sunglasses to cover his eyes.

"Let's do this."

While Sonic begins to have fun around the house, Merlene makes things more fun as she plays guitar loudly and sings.

"Whoo! Go, sis!" Sonic cheered as he skate boards throughout the course he made in the house.

As she continues playing and singing, she spins her head around with her hair flowing wildly. Sonic made sure to clean up the mess he made by using the mowing truck with Ozzy riding behind in the wagon. Then Sonic brings out the small floating pool and dumps out the entire soap from the bottle before spinning around in speed, creating a big pile of bubbles. He puts you the blue and red police light to the ceiling and places the strainer on it as a crystal ball. He jumps into the bubbles and "swims" around, dancing.

Merlene and Sonic are sure having a great time and as soon she finishes singing and playing her guitar, her brother gives her a clap.

"Bravo! Bravo! I love you, sis!"

She looks bashfully.

"Aw, stop! You're making me blush!"

"You are amazing! Get use to it!"

Meanwhile in Green Hills, the leaves began rustling as a Ring portal opens and a yellow two-tailed fox pops out, which is revealed to be Tails, and he is reading the energy levels from Sonic and Merlene from a small handheld device.

"If these readings are accurate, they're here. I found them! I just hope I'm not too late."

Tails uses his tails like a helicopter to fly over the forests and into the town.

It was now night time as he glides down safely and hides behind the bushes. He looks back at device with a hum.

"Hmm. they're close. I just need to wait and reach them without being spotted."

He looks over the bushes to see a police car parked in front of the restaurant "Mean Bean".

"Standard human transport. Perfect!"

Chapter 3: New Enemy

Just as things were going good with the hedgehog siblings, they heard a vibration. Sonic looks over and dives into the bubbles and pulls out his phone to see Tom's profile.

"Uh-oh. Oh, boy…"

Sonic looks at the mess he made and winces. He looks at Merlene, who nods. They begin cleaning up the house with their power of speed and sits on the couch together. Merlene holding out manga to make it look like she's reading while Sonic lies down casually and clears his throat before answering his phone. Tom's face is on video as he greets them.

"Aloha! Ha ha! How's it going, buds?"

"Oh, you know. Just a quiet night at home, settling in with a good book, sis reading her manga and making music."

He shows Tom for him to see Merlene as she waves at him with a smile.

"Hey, there!"

"And you? What's up with you?"

"Oh, I just called to say we're here but now every word and everyone else is making me suspicious."

"Suspicious? How suspicious?" Merlene questioned in confusion.

"What? You gotta relax, buddy. You're at the four seasons Oahu. Have a my time and your summer time with your wife. Get sunburn somewhere embarrassing. This weekend is about you."

"You know what? You're right. We power bumped on it and whatever it is you two are doing, I'm sure you can undo it by the time we get home, yeah?"

Sonic looks nervous and assures him.

"Exactly! I mean, I am deeply offended by such accusations."

Merlene rolls her eyes at how smooth her brother spoke. She comes into view for her to see Tom.

"So how's Rachel's fiance! Is he good looking as he is in pictures?"

Tom looks unsure as he looks over to see Randall kissing Rachel.

"Uhhh, somehow better looking."

"Wow! You're about to be the third best looking dude in the family, but hey, still on the podium."

"Ha ha ha. Alright. I better go introduce myself. Stay out of trouble."

Tom gives them a stern look.

"Trouble? No worry. Everything here is completely normal."

That was an understatement as Ozzy walks past the hedgehog siblings with bubbles covering his fur. Tom looks unconvinced.

"Uh-huh. Night, buds."

Tom ends the call.

"Nice pep talk, dude." Merlene said.

"Hey, at least, I didn't get us in trouble. We got this."

"Right… I gotta go and write the song I just sing before I forget."

"Alright. And if you're done, you can come and pick a movie you like."

She turns to him in surprise.

"Really? You mean it?"

"Yeah. Taking turns is fair."

"Thanks, bro."

Merlene then walks up the stairs to the attic towards her room as she sits on her desk and writes her songs on the paper. What she didn't notice is hat danger is now on loose as the ring portal comes in view right where Sonic was watching TV with Ozzy.

A flapping noise was heard and she turns smiling knowingly as the horned owl came into view and landed on her shoulder.

She found that owl right after they begin living in Wachowski's house when it flew into the window and all stunned. It had a broken wing and injury on the stomach. Merlene didn't want to leave it to die and decided to take care of it until that horned owl is healed enough for it to fly. The horned owl was surprisingly calm as if knowing Merlene is trying to help. She even found out that owl is a she after doing some research about an owl. She couldn't but call her Longclaw because of the similarity of her feathered body and face.

Once she was healed, Longclaw flew off into the night. Merlene thought she would never see her again until she came back and hadn't stop visiting her since then. She came her to thank Merlene for helping her and taking care of her well-being. They're technically companions now.

"Hey, Longclaw. How's your flight going? Good?"

She gives Longclaw a scratch on the chin, making her eyes flutter at the contact.

"I thought so."

Longclaw jumps off her shoulder and lands on her desk to look at the note of her songs.

"You like it? It just came into my mind as soon as Tom and Maddie left on vacation. Pretty much wanting to be home alone where I can be myself for a little bit."

Longclaw just stare at her as if knowing what she is saying. Merlene looks around her room and notices something underneath. She comes over and picks it up to reveal her old small guitar she made when she was a kid and attached to it is the black beaded bracelet. Merlene smiles at the memory she would never forget, especially that special friend of hers whom he would always remember in her heart.

All of the sudden, the room turns dark, surprising her and Longclaw.

"What the?"

Lights flickered, making Sonic nervous as he approaches to the door to see who's there and where all the ruckus come from after a sudden blackout.

"Um, if this is the pizza guy, it's really unprofessional."

Sonic places his hands on the door and listens for any more knocks. He slowly and cautiously reaches for the door knob when sparks sprung out. He pulls himself far away from the door as the knob was cut off and it opened to reveal Robotnik with a taser on his finger glove.

"Eggman?!" Sonic exclaimed in shock.

Robotnik blows off the taser and grins maliciously at Sonic.

"Hello, hedgehog. Did you miss me?"

Lightning strikes as Sonic was shocked at the return of Robotnik that broke into his house. His face immediately changed and angry.

"I don't know how you got back, but you made a big mistake coming here."

Robotnik smirked.

"Ooh! Comtrermo freyr. The mistake was thinking you'd won. But that was just a prelude, an orderf, an a poteaf, and a musbush."

"I get it." Sonic gritted his teeth, having enough of Robotnik.

Robotnik chuckled maliciously and pointed at him.

"I don't think you do."

He stepped forward.

"But you're about to and so will that idiot sheriff and his wife…"

Sonic's fist clenches as they glow bright blue with lightning coming out. Meanwhile, Merlene felt something is wrong as her necklace glows even brighter than ever and rushes down from the stairs. The owl Longclaw watches her leave.

"...and your little dog too! Especially what I'm about to do to your dear sister!"

This made Sonic snap at the last straw and jump up to Robotnik with his fist raised. Time slowed as Robotnik smiled gleefully and stepped aside just as Sonic was about to punch him. Merlene comes down just in time and her eyes widened to see the red echidna going towards Sonic, who's just as shocked as her, fist glowing red.

Before they knew it, the red echidna gave Sonic a punch that caused the hedgehog to break through the wall where the TV stood and landed on the couch, destroying it in the process.

"Sonic!"

Merlene rushes down and comes to his aid. He shakes off the pain he felt from the single punch. She looks back and scowls to see the red echidna facing them through the hole he made.

"Pitiful." he scoffed with shame.

Sonic narrowed his eyes.

"What?... Who are you?"

Robotnik pops his head into the hole after the red echidna left to go around and faces them with glee.

"Where are my manners?"

He then goes around the holed wall and approaches the hedgehog siblings with Knuckles, who glares at them. Merlene stands protectively in front of her brother with her two katanas drawn.

"Sonic, Merlene, Meet Knuckles. My new BFFAE. Bestest friend forever and ever!"

"Knuckles… It's been a while since we last saw each other, red hot shot." Merlene glared angrily, recognizing that echidna.

This causes the three boys confuse that Merlene suddenly knows him until Knuckles immediately recognized her along with that emerald necklace she's wearing. His eyes widens as he said those words he never thought he would see again.

"...Lena…?"

Lightning strikes again at the sudden turn of events.

~ FLASHBACK ~

Young Knuckles and Young Merlene race to freedom after getting out of training and hiding, laughing. The two kids pause.

"Alright! It worked!" he cheered.

"We lost them." she said, smiling.

Young Knuckles lifts his chain pridefully.

Young Merlene starts to walk off, but pauses and looks back in disgust.

"Hey, genius, it was my idea."

He gestures to himself with one hand.

"...pulled it off."

"With me!" she corrected.

"Oh, yeah?"

Young Knuckles pounces on Young Merlene.

"Hiyah!"

The two roll on the ground. Young Merlene pins Young Knuckles on his back.

"Ha!"

He looks up at her with a surprise gasp.

"Pinned ya!"

"Hey, let me up!"

Young Knuckles shoves Young Merlene off. She starts to walk away, shin raised smugly. He smiles impishly, then pounces on her again.

"Hiyah!"

They roll down a steep embankment, laughing along the way. Young Merlene pins Young Knuckles on his back once again.

"Pinned ya again."

They both began laughing.

Another scene that those two would never forget. Young Merlene gives him a black beaded bracelet with a silver crown she made and places it around his wrist.

"Take this as a token of friendship. Best friends forever."

Young Knuckles smiles, touching it fondly.

"Funny I was going to give this to you and say the same thing."

He hands her bracelet that matches hers only it's green and has a golden crown."

She looks at him surprise and smiles. He puts it around her wrist and the two hug each other. That was the last time they've spoke and play.

~ FLASHBACK ENDS ~

"I'm sorry… Am I missing something here?" Robotnik questioned, looking on between Knuckles and Merlene.

They both said nothing and just stare at each other. One with shock, disbelief while the other with anger, betrayal. Their moments was cut off by Sonic.

"Look, Robotnik. I don't care who you brought to help you."

He picks up the pouch full of rings with a map inside and places the strap around him for him to hold.

"You're never going to get my or my sister's power."

Knuckles glares daggers.

"Do I look like I need your power?"

He brings up his fist as they glow electric red. Robotnik leans his arm against the wall casually with his other on his hip. Merlene and Sonic gets into their fighting stance and charges at Knuckles. But he punches them both straight through the wall and land in the patio. Merlene slowly gets up, looking stunned at the harsh punch she receives while Sonic lies there as his entire body is in pain.

Knuckles jumps down before them and glares daggers, punching his fists as they glow red with electric bolts. Robotnik comes in view with a bowl of popcorn to watch this scene.

"So nice when diabolical evil lives up to the hype."

Sonic groans as Merlene helps him up before facing the echidna.

"Where is it?" Knuckles demanded.

"Where is that? Because you gotta be more specific." Merlene retorted.

Sonic wipes the excessive damage on his lip.

"Oh, you want it? Here it comes!"

His body and eyes showed sparks on his body with fists raised while Merlene's eyes showed magenta with her katanas pointed straight at Knuckles as the blades also show spark as they glow from her necklace that have upgrade it. Knuckles was unfazed with the threat.

"I was expecting more of you. You're unskilled…"

Sonic breathes in and out angrily as his body sparks up even more. Merlene did her best to look calm, gripping her handles tight.

"...untrained…"

Sonic gets on the ground in a running position, ready to take action. Merlene kneels into her fighting stance, also ready to take action.

"...and unworthy!"

Robotnik chews on the popcorn excitedly.

"You forget one. Unstoppable."

Merlene lets Sonic go first as he zooms towards Knuckles inspeed. She looks and notices Knuckles looks calm and then a big light blinds everyone. Everything is in slow motion. Merlene unshields her eyes and was in shock to see Knuckles standing holding the spinning Sonic with his big glove hand. He holds it there and takes a step forward then he brings his fist up and slams him down hard with a battle cry. A big red explosion was made causes Merlene to go flying and Robotnik's bowl of popcorn to flip off as he flinches back and his eyes are closed at the impact.

Sonic's body was in the air for a second after he bounce from one punch until Knuckles grabbed him and slammed him against the tree bark. Time went back to normal as Knuckles had Sonic pinned with his glove hand around his neck. Sonic struggles to get out of his grip.

"It is my destiny to do what my ancestors couldn't! To restore the ultimate power, to the home of my people."

Robotnik's eyes lit up to hear the word 'ultimate power' while Merlene gets up.

"Ultimate power? I don't know what you're talking about! You've got the wrong guy!"

"Ultimate power… Now you speaking my language." Robotnik smirked, slowly approaching them.

"What are you talking about?" Merlene questioned, picking up her katanas.

"Don't play dumb with me, apprentices of Longclaw." Knuckles said, facing her while holding Sonic there.

Her face darkens that he remembers that.

"What? You knew Longclaw?" Sonic asked in shock.

Knuckles pulls his fist back, glowing electric red ready to finish him off.

"Longclaw and her people were the sworn enemy of my tribe, the echidnas. We fought and died at their hands and now you will die in my–"

Merlene had enough and summoned her whip and wrapped it around his glove, stopping him. Knuckles and Sonic turned to see her standing before them, looking angry.

" .Go!"

"Stay out of this, Lena. This is between me and your brother."

"Not until you release him! There's one thing I hate is you hurting and attempting to kill my own brother! I thought you were better than this! I thought you are friend! You want a fight?"

She spins her now glowing katanas and points it at him.

"You've got one!"

Knuckles looks alarmed and conflicted.

"Don't make me ask again. I don't want to hurt you."

Merlene wasn't gonna let that happen and doesn't care if she's fighting against her childhood friend.

"I think you don't have a choice."

There's no turning back now nor backing dow any further. She's so determined and stubborn as she had been waiting for this moment to come. Robotnik senses tension and backs away, knowing how things will go. Knuckles sighs and releases Sonic as the blue hedgehog slid down from the tree.

"If that is now it's going to be…"

"So beat it." she finished his sentence.

Merlene glares daggers at him, swinging her glowing katanas again and again. Knuckles punches his boxing gloves as they're surrounded by red electric bolts. The two walk in the circle, facing each other and waiting for one of them to attack. Robotnik and Sonic watches in anticipation. Merlene takes a deep breath, closing her eyes.

With that, she begins to charge him in speed with her feet raised. Knuckles sees that and blocks a downward strike with both his boxing gloves. The feet that attacked him brought a powerful aura he had ever felt.

Electric bolts and aura matched in a vicious fury. Knuckles swung his fist at the hedgehog lady's head while Merlene raised her foot and stopped the fist's momentum right between the spikes of his gloves before going for a thrust with her other foot. Knuckles blocked it with his other fist and then kicked Merlene as hard as he could. The hedgehog lady went flying back before flipping and plunging her feet into the ground, stopping her from moving back any further. Standing up, Merlene then propelled herself at the echidna, spinning in a tornado motion.

Knuckles blocked and parried the blow as best as he could, this girl is fast as he thought. He jumped away in midair and spin dashes. Merlene steadies her position to count the exact time as he comes close. Then she swiftly kicks him straight in the chest, pushing him away. He was shocked that she got through his speed. Knuckles got back on his feet and looked at her. Both the hedgehog and the echidna ran at each other, matching each other in speed and precision. And for a quick moment they met in a strike, both gazing into each other's eyes as Knuckles smirks at her.

"Look at you."

She glares and turns. Right by the pressure of her body, her katanas went flying in the air. Knuckles looks at her when she suddenly turns herself around.

"Longclaw taught me a lot of things– including this 'flip back kick!'"

Merlene brought out her leg to flip back kick him straight towards Knuckles, causing him to fall on his butt. She then catches two of her katanas in each hand. He gets up and looks at her, impressed.

"Not bad."

She points two of her katanas to his neck in an 'X' position.

"Thanks."

The two fought once more. Then she charges and Knuckles blocks every attacks she throws at him. Merlene spins her katanas backwards then she trips him. He rolls out of the way as she brings down her katanas. He grabs her arm and the two came rolling on the ground until Merlene manages to get out of his grip and pins Knuckles, who looks up in recognition and shock that she remembers that. She glares down at him. The two are panting, tired from the fight they had. Merlene points her katana at his face.

"Pinned ya."

Chapter 4: Secrets of Master Emerald

Sonic and Robotnik were surprised at almost a long battle between those two whom had known each other would get tired as they have match each other's speed and precision.

Knuckles and Merlene stayed there for a moment as she was about to finish the blow, but now that the moment is here…

She stares at him, who looks at her many emotions she can't describe what he's feeling. What is she thinking? She could finish him for what he did, but at the same time she couldn't. She realizes she can't kill her friend. She itched in frustration, and falls back, letting him go.

Knuckles sits up, looking shocked that she didn't finish him off. Merlene said nothing and just held out a hand for him to take.

"Come on. Don't make it weird."

He looks unsure and then he takes her hand as she lifts him back up. He was about to say something when they heard a police siren. They turned to see a police car crashing through the fence, coming straight towards Knuckles and Merlene. Knuckles pushes her out of the way and goes to punch the car, but it was a little too late as the car ram into him. He went flying and crash into the storage, breaking them. Robotnik looks surprised and made a whirring noise, doing a shrug gesture.

Tails pops his head out of the window.

"Come on! Get in, you two! I'm on your side!"

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Sonic questioned.

"Yeah, who are you?" Merlene asked, getting up.

Tails looks at her and feels his heart just got stabbed by the cupid arrow, stunned by her presence to respond. He gets into a trance-like fantasy state. A groan was heard, interrupting Tails' fantasy. They turned to see Knuckles down with broken wooden parts all over him. Sonic looks back at Tails.

"You know what? It doesn't matter."

Sonic hops into the car through the window. Merlene though looks back at Knuckles for a while.

"Come on, sis!"

She hesitate and eventually get inside the police car to the back. They're about to leave when Robotnik comes in front of them. Sonic, Merlene, and Tails screams at the sight of him.

"Get us out of here!"

Tails pressed the button of the device and the electric bolts beneath him pressed the gas pedal and off they go as the car did a reverse.

"Go, go, go!"

Robotnik jumps onto the glass window and begins to try and bite Sonic, making wild animal noises. Sonic flinches while Merlene grossed out.

"Gah, he's got rabid!"

Robotnik keeps growling and scratching the window and starts licking.

"Gross! Is he licking it?" Tails exclaimed in disgust.

"Ugh! He is!"

Tails turns the wheel.

"See ya!"

That turn causes Robotnik to fall off the police car and lands near the plants.

"Make sure to get your shots, Eggman!" Sonic joked.

"Or get put down for good!" Merlene added, making the boys laugh.

Knuckles gets up and breathes in and out angrily. Lightning strikes as his eyes glows red and then he speeds off after them with red trail behind him.

Tails makes a fast turn, causing Sonic and Merlene to fall to the side and hand on tight. Merlene looks through the back window and sees Knuckles catches up and chases them in speed.

"How is he so fast?! There's no way he would get a power like that!" Merlene exclaimed.

Tails begins to introduce himself in his fanboy mood.

"Wow! Okay! Let me just say it is an honor to finally meet you, Sonic and Merlene. Is it okay if I call you Sonic and Merlene? Everyone calls me Tails. You're probably wondering why."

"Let us guess. Because of the extra tail?" Sonic and Merlene said in unison, looking uninterested.

Tails lit up with joy.

"That's right! I should've known you two get that."

"Cool. Also, what is going on?! Sonic exclaimed, looking now all panicked.

"Robotnik's back? And who is Clifford the Big Red Rage Monster?!"

"Obviously he's Knuckles the Echidna Warrior. I should know that because I know him." Merlene sassed.

"She's right. But he's the last of the echidnas and the most dangerous warrior in the galaxy. He's obsessed with finding the Master Emerald." Tails explained.

Sonic and Merlene looks surprised.

"Are you serious? The Master Emerald?"

"I thought it's just a myth."

"Well, he believes it's real and he must think you're the key in finding it. Especially, you Merlene. It has something to do with that necklace you're wearing that holds the fragment of the Master Emerald."

She grips onto her necklace in shock.

"Wait, what?!"

Sonic looks ahead and sees the streetlight turned red.

"Red light, red light! Give me the heel!"

Sonic scoots over to the driver's seat, moving Tails away and taking the wheel.

"Hey! What are you–?!"

"Move your butt!"

"Trust me! He knows what he's doing!" Merlene exclaimed, pulling Tails to the other side of the front seat.

Sonic dodges the incoming cars and sees a honking giant truck and manages to swerve to the side, dodging it as they made it through. Sonic looks back, thinking the truck will block Knuckles' path. He sighs in relief and looks at Tails and Merlene.

"I think we lost him."

Merlene looks back and then suddenly Knuckles punches through the truck with super strength.

"You just have to jinx it!"

He power jumps over the street and lands on top of the police car, and plunges his fist inside, nearly hitting Sonic and Tails, who screamed at the sight of his big spiked boxing glove. Knuckles pulled his fist back and tears off the door where Tails is sitting.

"We didn't lose him! We definitely didn't lose him!"

Tails nearly fall off to the edge of the cliff they're on now as Sonic drive.

"You keep driving! He and I have some unfinished business!"

Merlene opens the door and kicks Knuckles, almost making him fall off if he didn't hold on to the side of the car. Knuckles turns to see her jumping towards him with her katana raised, ready to stab him. He caught the blade using both of his boxing gloves and flips her. She fell on top of the roof and manged to roll out of the way as Knuckles brings down his fist, creating a dent. Merlene flip kick him in the face and then spins around to kick him again when he blocks every kicks with his fists.

Meanwhile, Tails looks down at the edge and his eyes lit up.

"I got an idea. Do you trust me?"

"Of course not! We literally just met you!" Sonic exclaimed.

"Well, I trust him!" Merlene yelled, blocking Knuckles' fist and twisting his arm.

"Just let me!"

Tails takes the wheel and turns it to the right where the edge is.

"Whoa! What are you doing?!" Sonic exclaimed in alarm.

Merlene noticed it and prayed that Tails knows what he's doing and held onto the car. They then crash through the fence and began to fall. Sonic begins screaming. Tails grabs onto Sonic and Merlene and begins to fly using his twin tails. Knuckles tries to grab them, but they're already high up in the sky. He jumps off the police car and plunges his spikes onto the cliff to hold on. The police car crashed into the tree, creating explosion. Sonic kept screaming as Merlene looked at him in annoyance.

"You done?"

He stopped and found himself in the air with Tails holding onto them.

"We're flying! Uh, did your butt just turned into a helicopter?"

Tails laughed at Sonic's question.

"Ha ha ha! Heli-butt-copter! Oh, only Sonic the Hedgehog could come up with something like that."

"You're amazing! It's no wonder they called you Tails!"

Tails blushed at her praise.

"He he! Thanks!"

Merlene glances down and looks at Knuckles, frowning. Knuckles looks back at her as she takes off into the distance before he starts climbing.

After their flight, they're now in Wade's house as they heard into the garage with Wade leading them here.

"Uh, Sonic? Merlene? Where are we?" Tails asked.

"Welcome to the Wade Cave, which is I something I hope to someday say to a woman. A woman who's not my mom." Wade said with a little joke.

"Wade, focus." Merlene scolded.

"Sis is right. We need to figure out why Knuckles thinks we're the key to finding the Master Emerald."

"Obviously my necklace is the reason, but that's all we know so far."

"Yes, that. And why did he mention Longclaw?"

"There must be a connection." Tails said.

"Wait a minute! There is! Look!"

Sonic pulls out the map and shows it to Tails. Merlene's eyes widen in recognition.

"That's right! The map! See that? There's an emerald symbol on the map Longclaw gave us. We never knew what it meant before."

"Something's happening." Tails warned.

They see the blue light tracing the lines of the drawings of the map and spreading everywhere. Sonic drops it in shock.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!"

The bright light lits up and the basement turn dark and the map shows the hologram of Longclaw. Sonic and Merlene's eyes widened in shock.

"Longclaw?"

"Hello, Sonic and Merlene. If you're watching this, then something has happened to me and I pray you two made it to Earth unharmed. This world has been chosen for a very important reason. It's the secret location of the Master Emerald."

She unfolds her wings to reveal the hologram of the shiny Master Emerald.

"Whoa!"

"The emerald has the power to turn thoughts into reality."

"I just take off more somewhere from Ghostbusters." Wade muttered out in awe.

"Shh!" Tails shushed him.

"In the wrong hands, it could threaten all life in the universe. Protecting the emerald was my sacred duty and now I must pass that responsibility to you two."

"This… is our moment." Sonic gasped.

"That necklace you're wearing, Merlene. It is the fragment of the Master Emerald. It was somehow removed when the echidnas were attempted to take it back. And now, it calls to you. Use it well, use it wisely."

Merlene gently grips onto the necklace, nodding.

"Follow the map, find the emerald, and keep it safe. My dear children, you two have a heart like no creatures I've ever known. I love you both so much. Goodbye."

"No, Longclaw. Wait…" Merlene cried.

Sonic tried to reach out of her.

"No, no, wait."

Longclaw disappears, leaving only her feather as it falls into his hand and then fades into glittery dust. The lights in Wade's basement turns back on.

"We won't let you down, Longclaw."

Merlene wipes the tears off of her face. Tails feels bad for their loss.

"So is that… your dad?" Wade pointed at Tails.

"What?"

Sonic and Merlene stares at him.

"Now?"

Ignoring him, Sonic, Merlene, and Tails approaches the now clear map as Sonic picks it up.

"According to this map, the first clue is in Siberia. It's a compass that will lead to the emerald."

And with Knuckles already here, it's a race."

"Knuckles? You know I knew a kid in middle school named Knuckles could fit his whole fist in his mouth." Wade said.

Sonic, Merlene, and Tails looks at each other, feeling concerned.

"If this is the same Knuckles, we are screwed."

"This Knuckles? That Knuckles? It doesn't matter. We're gonna get there first."

Sonic pulls out a ring and tosses it, creating a portal where they can see a snowstorm. Tails looks nervous.

"Ha ha. Um, you mean you and Merlene, right?"

"Oh, no. You're coming with us." Merlene said with a smile.

"Ho ho! No, no, no ,no! I just came here to warn you two! I'm not a field guy!"

"Don't worry, we got your back. We won't let anything happen to you." Sonic said.

"Plus, we need a genius like you and you're the perfect one." Merlene added, making Tails blush.

Sonic and Merlene brings out their fist. Tails approaches and looks at them in confusion.

"It's a power bump. On Earth, it means an unbreakable promise."

He looks unsure for a moment and then smiles.

"Okay. I'm in!"

Tails power bumps Sonic and Merlene. And off they go to their adventure.

Meanwhile in Mean Bean restaurant, Knuckles was siting in the table where Robotnik and Stone are coming up with the plan by the big screen full of machines. His mind went to Merlene whom he never thought he would see again. She looks all grown up and mature than he'd ever expected. He had never seen her so amazing during their fight. So courageous and loyal, and… beautiful.

He quickly shook his head, putting aside the strange feeling in his chest. No! There's no way he could ever like her! They're just friends… right? Maybe not since she's grown to be mad at him.

Knuckles brings out something inside his boxing glove to reveal a friendship bracelet he had kept for years. He never once take it off and he never will. Little did he know, Merlene is also wearing a friendship bracelet without Sonic and Tails knowing.

Chapter 5: Dance Fight

Sonic, Merlene, and Tails are struggling to get through the harsh snowstorm, but it was too strong and they're all covered up in snow.

"I absolutely can't find my way! We completely, totally, unequivocally lost!" Sonic shouted.

"No kidding! Thanks, Sonic!" Merlene sassed.

Tails looks through his device called Miles Electric.

"Sonic, Merlene! In this weather, there's no way we can get any readings on this thing! Should we go back?"

Sonic, however, spots a public restaurant nearby.

"No, no, no, no! There's a light up ahead! Maybe we could take shelter in there!"

"Are you sure? Remember the last time we went into the bar?"

"This is different!"

Sonic, Merlene, and Tails heads over to the cabin. Sonic looks over the snowy hill and sees winter clothes and goggles.

"Ah, perfect!"

"Are you sure about this? We don't know who's inside." Tails asked in concern.

"Yeah, I don't think it's a good idea." Merlene added, remembering the bar incident.

"Don't worry! On Earth, people are very welcoming and love taking complete strangers into their homes." Sonic assured with a smile.

"Yeah, right." Merlene rolled her eyes.

Inside the cabin, men and women are chatting in the table loudly with smiles and cheers. Some of them are dancing through the music while the waitress is serving them. The door opened loudly wit a creak to reveal Sonic, Merlene, and Tails in their winter clothes disguises. They get an icy and threatening reception from the patrons. One man turns with a scar on his face right where his left eye is. Sonic and Tails gasped while Merlene just stared. They turned to see another man sitting next to the other and stabbed the table with his knife.

Sonic and Tails gasped again and turned to the old lady in a rocking chair, knitting. They sighed in relief, but then she turned to them and showed a knitted skull face. They screamed again as Merlene looks ready to fight them off. The Butcher cuts off the head of the fish, causing to fall and go rolling towards them.

"Run." it said before dying in that spot.

Tails begins to faint if it wasn't for Merlene catching him. Sonic quickly change the atmosphere.

"Table for three, please!"

They're now sitting in the table as the waitress gives them menus. She asked them what they want in Siberian language.

"Three beef stews, please." Tails said.

His Miles Electric translated for him in a same language as hers. The waitress rolls her eyes and takes away their menus rudely.

"Where'd you get all these cool gadgets?" Sonic asked in admiration.

"I invented them. That's… kind of my thing. In fact, my inventions is how I discovered you two. Remember that night at the baseball field? Your energy blast reached all the way to my home planet. I saw you two save your whole village from that crazy mustache guy."

"Wait, so you've been watching us this whole time?" Sonic asked in surprise.

"Even in the shower?" Merlene cringed, slightly backing away.

"Ah, that's a trick question. Sonic the Hedgehog prefers bubble baths. Merlene the Hedgehog prefers privacy and sauna."

Sonic and Merlene were in awe.

"Wow…"

"Man, you're good!"

"When I learned Knuckles was on your trail, I knew I couldn't just sit back and watch anymore. I had to come warn you guys."

A notification beep was heard.

"Oh, what? Hang on, one second. Donut Lord's checking it."

Sonic pulls out his phone and gets a text message from Tom, prompting Sonic to write one back as he did.

"How's it goin' ?"

"Just chillin. Watching TV"

"And your sister?"

"Doing good. Just reading boring mangas"

"Another boring night at home"

Seeing those text messages, Merlene smacks him in the arm looking offended that he called her mangas boring. He gives her a Mischievous grin and keeps texting Tom back.

Meanwhile, back in Green Hills, Robotnik and Stone have intercepted Sonic and Tom text messages.

"The hedgehogs has returned home!" Knuckles exclaimed.

"Vansov, which is latin for 'Wrongo'."

Robotnik pinpointed his location in Siberia with his technology.

"According to my Worldwide Network Cell Tower Triangulation, he's lying. All the way… from the majestic hinterlands of eastern Siberia."

He shows the hologram of Sonic and Merlene where they're near the hologram of mountains as he peers dow at them.

"He's a long distance liar!"

He begins to fiddle the holograms of Sonic and Merlene.

"Yeah, there's more where that came from."

Knuckles crushed the hologram of Sonic with his boxing glove, except Merlene.

"Tiny magic hedgehog destroyed."

Robotnik stares at him.

"Now let's begin our quest."

Robotnik is surprised he didn't crush the hologram of Merlene and had a suspicion that the echidna really cares for her. He and Knuckles begins to head out.

"Wait, what about your minion? The goat milker."

Knuckles gestured to Stone as he sweeps out the broken parts Knuckles have crushed.

"There's no room on the ship for Stone. I say we ditch him, ghost him, blow him off."

Knuckles doesn't like that.

"Dishonor!"

"This is how I roll."

Robotnik then opens door out of the coffee cafe with Knuckles following him.

In Siberia, Sonic, Merlene, and Tails get the wrong dishes as the waitress served them some kind of octopus tentacles.

Tails groans in disgust while Merlene looks like she's going to puke. He turns to the waitress.

"Uh, I'm sorry, but I asked for the beef stew."

Tails brings out his device to correct her, but his translators glitches and turns his question into an insult.

"Her breath smells like goat poop."

That came out wrong as the waitress looks offended and demands what he just said. Tails doesn't know what to say and looks nervous. She calls everyone to come and see what he just said. The patrons approaches them.

"Uh, what's going on?" Sonic asked.

"Tails, what did you do?" Merlene asked.

"Maybe they think it's my birthday?"

Tails tries to fix his translator.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of this."

Sonic and Merlene stands up on top of the table.

"Okay, everybody! Take it easy! I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for whatever our friends said or did."

"He's pretty new to this and he really didn't mean to offend you."

It just worse as the translator tells them to stand back and that he farted. The patrons looks disgusted. As the the situation escalates, the patrons tear off their disguises for everyone to see. The two space alien hedgehogs and a fox.

"Uh, meow?" Sonic meowed.

One of the patrons shouted to throw these monsters into the fire. Immediately, Sonic, Merlene, and Tails are grabbed by the patrons. The three struggled to get out of their grip.

"Oh, no, no, no, no! Come on, guys! Take it easy!" Let's talk this though! Let's talk this though!" Sonic exclaimed in panic.

"I don't think they'll listen!" Merlene gulped.

Tails struggles to find a solution through his Miles Electric. They're now near to the fireplace and the patrons prepare to throw them into it as they swung them back and forth.

"Come on, come on! Scanning Siberian customs! Oh, there's got to be something in here!"

"Tails, whatever you're doing, do it fast!"

"And hurry! Or else we'll be toast!"

Tails finally found something.

"Oh, I think I got it! Pivonka! Pivonka! Pivonka!"

The patrons stops at what they're doing and repeats the word 'Pivonka'. Soon after, they put Sonic, Merlene, and Tails down as everyone's attention turns to a single man in the restaurant, wearing a lion jacket. He turns to the trio and faces them.

"Dance. Pivonka!"

He accepts the Pivonka challenge. Everyone cheers and began to spread out, removing chairs and tables to make a room around thee circle.

"Tails? What's a Pivonka?" Sonic asked nervously.

"It's a Siberian custom to resolve disputes. If we win, they let us go. If we lose…"

On cue, the fireplace lits up, scaring the trio.

"Okay, we have to get the map and get out of here. Ugh, where's the map?"

"Oh no! I left it on the table! Look!"

They see the map on the table, which the waitress takes away. The Pivonka challenger then steps forward and takes off his shirt to reveal a tattoo of himself on the chest in a T-pose that he's doing right now.

"What?"

The bands play the music and the Pivonka challenger begins dancing to local music, which makes Sonic and Merlene realize what "Pivonka" is.

"Oh my god! It's a dance fight!"

"I'm not ready for this!"

"Uhhh, Sonic? Merlene? What do we do?"

"We dance."

"And we get that map!"

"Here we go."

Sonic, Merlene, and Tails try to dance, but can't get the rhythm right. Everyone boos at their horrible dance. They tried again but they ended up bumping into each other. The Pivonka challenger dances very well.

"Okay, this isn't going well. Channing Tatum makes it look so easy."

"No kidding!"

"Wait, Sonic, Merlene! Look!"

They see the map stuck to the Pivonka challenger's shoe as he dances with the backup dancers following his move.

"The map! Come on, let's grab it!"

Sonic tries to get it, but the Pivonka challenger gets it first and shows it at them tauntingly.

"You want? Come get! Freaks!"

He puts the map in his pants. Everyone begins calling them 'freaks', which make Tails start to lose his nerve as he breathes in and out panicky. Merlene notices this and pats him on the head.

"Hey, what's wrong, Tails?"

"Come on! We need you!" Sonic urged.

"I can't do this, guys! I'm not brave like you two! My gadget got us into this mess and I lost your map and we're gonna get tossed into a fire!"

Sonic and Merlene looks around and sees the speakers. They get an idea and Sonic zooms over and hooks his phone up to the speakers.

"New DJ coming in!"

He plays the music "Uptown Funk". Sonic comes back to them and everyone stops to hear a new music.

"Come on, pal. We got an idea."

Sonic and Merlene begins to dance their way around confusing Tails.

"They call us freaks…"

"...so let's get freaky!"

Sonic and Merlene goes to each side of Tails and brings out their hand.

"Just follow our moves. You'll be fine."

Tails grabs their hands and they begin to dance to their own music in their own way, which is much more successful and better as they do a spin with their hands on the floor. Everyone claps to the beat. Pivonka challenger was surprised. The trio move their arms up and down while moving their hips. Tails summons with holograms of himself using his Miles Electric.

"Alright! Backup dancers!"

"Now we're talking!"

Sonic, Merlene, and Tails kept dancing as more clones of Tails comes.

"Here we go!"

The Tails clones surrounded the hedgehog siblings and tossed them up in the air. They both did a spin and their own pose before landing back down. The real Tails accidentally trip himself and grab Merlene and twirl her around.

"For a little guy from another planet, you've got some move." Merlene laughed.

"Oh, that wasn't a move. That was an accident, but I accept the compliment."

The Pivonka challenger tries to beat them by doing his own dance, but it was no use. Tails grabs Sonic and Merlene and up they go. The trio spins around in the air, laughing wholeheartedly at how much fun they're having. Tails adds more clones but instead it's Sonic and Merlene as the clones copies them.

"Whoo-hoo!"

"There's a lot of us right there!"

Tails swings them towards the chandelier before joining them.

"I love Pivonka!"

"Me too!"

"And… the band is out!"

The clones of themselves disappears and the trio lands back down. Sonic gestures his sister to do the honors and she gladly faces the Pivonka challenger and does her solo dance, surprising Tails and everyone.

As she finishes dancing down the pose, the Pivonka challenger looks like he's about faint at any second. But she wasn't done yet as she brings out her guitar she secretly took with her her before her whole fighting against Knuckles.

"Ohh! Things about to get real!"

Sonic zooms over and brings out the light as it shines over Merlene. She begins to play the strings of the electric guitar like a pro as she nods her head to the beat and starts singing. Sonic and Tails dance to the beat as her backup dancers.

"I can do it, I can run, I can hunt you down

You can try, but you can't stop me 'cause I'm gaining ground

I'm light on my feet, and I'm quick to the punch

I had a heavy breakfast, but a real light lunch

I'm a raging bonfire, a cherry bomb; I'm me

I'm rough-and-tumble, I'm the one to beat,

I'm a fresh coat of blacktop burnin' at your feet

I've got a poisonous sting, when I rain I pour

I'm the best of the best; I'm the soup du jour

I'm smooth as glass and sharp as a tack, I'm me

I'm the last and best stick of gum in the pack; I'm me

I'm a strong woman, fast-talking, big-bad-dog walking,

High falutin', drum-breatin', foot stompin', corn-poppin',

Speeding locomotive that just won't stop!

I'm a hot apple pie with a cherry on top!

I'm a crowd pleasin', head spinnin',

Winnin' in the ninth inning,

Whip-lashing, record-smashin',

Black-tie party crashing!

Cyclone of fun, I'm an army of one!

I'm strawberry sprinkles on a hot cross bun!

I've got you beat by a nose at the finish line

I'm a semi truck trailer with a scent of pine

I'm the cold hard walls of a prison cell

I'm a blood-red rose with a string of thorns, I'm me!

I'm a heart-shaped locket on a cold steel chain, I'm me!

I'm a big haymaker in a title fight

I'm a cute black kitten with a nasty bite

I'm an action double-feature on a Friday night!

I'm me! (x5)"

Soon after, Sonic, Merlene, and Tails hold hands and brought them up together in victory. Finally, the Pivonka challenger was finished as he collapsed on the ground.

"Ha ha ha! I'll take that!"

Sonic takes back the map from the fainted Pivonka challenger and the trio get carried and hailed by the patrons as the winners.

"Ha ha ha! Whoo-hoo! We did it!"

"That's amazing!"

"Heck yeah! Way yo go, Tails!"

Tails smiles at the hedgehog siblings, who smiles back. Aftermath, Sonic, Merlene, and Tails are resting on the bar table as everyone either left or fallen asleep or knocked out from drinking.

"Wow! Only Sonic and Merlene the Hedgehog could win a dance battle that epic!" Tails said in amazement.

"Well, stick with us, pal. Earth can be a scary place, but sis and I know everything about this old pale blue dot."

"There's a lot of things you get to see. I even heard they've got some mechanics like you." Merlene added, getting Tails excited.

"Do you two really mean that?"

"I mean, not everything but I watch a lot of Discovery Channel while sis gets out most of the time and–"

"I meant about… me being your pal."

Sonic sits up and looks at him softly.

"Of course, buddy."

"Yeah. Plus, you are the most adorable fox I've ever meet. Especially those fluffy tails of yours that makes me wanna cuddle it."

Tails was surprised and then hugged them with his twin-tails tickling Merlene's face.

"Ho, ho, ho! Coming in hot!" sonic exclaimed in surprise.

"Oooh!" Merlene yelped and then giggled, feeling her face tickled.

Tails pulls away and explains, looking saddened.

"Growing up, I didn't have any friends. Everyone in my village thought my two tails was weird."

"Hey, we know that feeling."

"But then I saw you two! The fastest and bravest creatures in the galaxy! You both are weird too! But you both are legends! That made me think maybe being weird isn't so bad! You inspired me to leave my village to find you and help you in your mission."

"We're really glad you're here, Tails."

"I'm glad I'm here too, Sonic and Merlene."

They got off of the bar table, looking tired as Sonic yawned.

"Well, might as well get sleep. This feels like a good place to spend the night. You'll be able to get clear readings on your gizmo thing once the storm is over. So I'd–"

"Shh!"

Merlene shushed him to be quiet and pointed to show Tails is sleeping near the fireplace. Sonic smiles and comes over and tugs Tails in a blanket. Merlene lies down between Tails and Sonic.

"Night, sis. Night, Tails."

"Night, bro. Night, Tails."

Sonic's back is turned as he sleeps while Merlene sleeps on her back. Tails' twin-tails consciously moves and covers the hedgehog siblings to keep them warm. Merlene smiles in her sleep and snuggles into those fluffy tails.

The next morning, Sonic wakes up, yawning with a smile on his face. Though that was quickly wiped off to find an old lady hugging him in their sleep. Sonic taps Merlene and Tails awake.

"Sis? Tails? We hae a situation."

Chapter 6: Snow Chase

Not long after, Sonic and Merlene are being carried through the mountains by Tails.

"Hoo hoo! Today's forecast calls for clear sunny skies and a 100% chance of adventure!"

Tails' Miles Electric beeps loudly.

" i pinpointed the coordinates. It's right up ahead."

There, they find a giant snowy mountain.

"Wow!"

"That's big!"

They went inside the mountains as Tails gently put them down.

"Hey Tails! Wait up!"

They find an ancient temple with a giant statue of an owl on the door.

"Whoa!" Merlene gasped in awe.

"Okay, we got a giant owl door. Seems encouraging."

Heading into the template, the trio finds a wall with ancient inscriptions.

"Whoa! Check this out!"

"Can you translate that?" Sonic asked, looking curious.

Suddenly, Merlene's emerald necklace begins to glow along with her eyes as she looks through the ancient inscriptions and explains. Flashback shows the echidna warriors combining the seven different colored emeralds.

"Ages ago, a fearsome group of warriors known as the echidna forged the seven Chaos Emeralds into the most unstoppable weapon ever created…"

"The Master Emerald." Sonic concluded as Merlene continued.

The Master Emerald powers the echidna warrior and blasts out the enemies in the blink of an eye.

"With it, a single warrior could defeat entire armies."

Merlene could hear cries of the downed armies. The the owls came and fly towards the echidna warrior and began to fight him off. Their battle shook the planet. They managed to defeat the echidna warrior and took the Master Emerald away, leaving him out of reach.

"Believing no one should have such power, an order of heroes recovered the emerald and swore to protect it from evil."

With the end of the story, her eyes went back to her normal emerald-kelly ones as the emerald necklace stopped glowing.

"Sounds like the owls and echidnas have been fighting each other for centuries." Tails said, looking through his device.

"Like Vin Diesel and the Rock."

Sonic sees Merlene and Tails walking ahead of him.

"Whoa! Wait for me!"

Heading deeper into the temple, Sonic, Merlene, and Tails find a giant owl statue. They were speechless at the sight of it.

"Okay, giant owl door, giant owl. Makes sense."

"We know."

Sonic and Merlene approaches to the statue, walking upstairs. There they noticed on the bottom of the statue are inscribed slots.

"Wait a second! I've seen these symbols before."

Sonic pulls out Longclaw's map and sees the exact same symbol and notices the difference. Merlene gestures her brother to do the honors.

"Here we go."

Sonic aligns the symbols like those on the map. This triggers a mystical mechanism as its eyes glows the same green emerald as Merlene's necklace along with the room.

"Well, that did something."

The hedgehog siblings back away with Tails behind them. The statue slowly unfolds its wing and raises them. The emerald light brightens and points out like a laser point from the chest and begins to move down to scab. Once it lands on Sonic and Merlene, it hands them something. Sonic takes it to reveal a golden orb with color dots of the seven Chaos Emeralds. He let it float in the air and it glows emerald green, spinning.

"Whoa! The compass!"

"Nice design they did!"

"This will lead us to the emerald!" Tails concluded in excitement.

Sonic grabs the golden compass and stores at it. Suddenly, the red dot was on Tails' head. Sonic and Merlene noticed it.

"Hey, you got a little something on your–"

Tails taps his head with a finger to find nothing until more red laser dots are pointed at him.

"Uh, guys?"

Merlene pointed something up ahead. They see robots of Badniks surrounding them.

"Oh no. Tails get back." Sonic said as Merlene holds Tails by the hand.

As the the Badniks begins to close in, more red laser dots are pointed at Sonic and Merlene's heads.

"Run!"

They rushed over to the door only for it to be blasting by a missile, destroying their way out.

"Yodelayhee! Yodelayhee! Yodelayheehoo!"

They looked up to see Robotnik appeared in his Egg Mobile with several more Badniks as they pointed lasers at the three. Knuckles was holding firmly to the side of the Egg Mobile, shooting dirty looks at Sonic and Tails while shooting a soft look at Merlene.

"Ugh, that guy again?" Tails groaned in annoyance.

"Of course he would be here." Merlene rolled her eyes, not looking surprised.

"Heads up, my little stallic mites!

Someone call an Uber? Hey! Thanks for doing all the hard stuff!" Robotnik grinned.

Knuckles gets off the Egg Mobile and drags his spikes on the giant owl statue and lands in front of them with a big thud, shaking the room. He smirks at them.

"But we'll take it from here."

"Okay, we really gotta talk about your new look. It's like Professor X meets the Monopoly man." Sonic mocked.

Robotnik brushes his mustache, looking offended.

"And what kind of genius shows up to Siberia in a convertible?" Merlene added with sass.

"The kind of genius that could turn up the heat…"

Robotnik puts on his goggles.

"...with a flick of the switch."

With just a touch of a button, a missile was launched at them. Merlene goes in front of Sonic and Merlene creates a fuchsia shield from her necklace to protect them. Sonic jumps over his sister and grabs the missile and redirects into the owl statue, which Knuckles dodges that.

"Oh! Whoa! Ha ha ha!" Robotnik laughed.

Knuckles holds his fist up to stop the broken parts from falling on top of him, trapping him inside.

"I'm sure that wasn't important!"

It caused the temple to start carving in and open a way for them.

"Sis, Tails! That's our exit! Come on!"

Sonic runs up to the statue, Merlene runs, and Tails uses his twin-tails to follow after them. They dodged the incoming missiles from the Badniks following after them. Two of the Badniks were about to shoot Sonic and Merlene when Sonic spin dashes it while Merlene smashes it with her shield. The panels broke and they snatched it before they reach a steep drop off a mountainside.

"That's high!" Merlene yelped.

"Uh-huh. Let's split up! You go high, me and sis go low!"

"Right!" Tails nodded and flew off.

Sonic and Merlene begins to stretch.

"Quick little stretch and… here we go!"

Sonic and Merlene heads down the mountain on the panel like a snowboard.

"Hoo hoo hoo!"

"Yeah, baby!"

However, the badniks pursue them.

"Oh, do you want to play?"

The Badniks brings out laser pointers and begins to open fire.

"That's new!"

"Watch out!"

Merlene summons her shield to protect herself as she and Sonic snowboard away from the Badniks, dodging as much open fire as they can. Tails sees the trouble.

"Sonic! Merlene!"

But he's unable to get close due to the fire and a laughing Robotnik chasing after him. Meanwhile, Knuckles, who got stuck in the temple, has escaped and uses another piece from a Badnik he destroyed like a snowboard to pursue Sonic and Merlene.

Meanwhile, Sonic uses snowballs at high to throw off his pursuers.

"Snowball fight!"

Merlene was about to do the same with snowballs when her necklace begins to glow and it summons something in her hand she never expected. A kusarigama. Smirking, she swings it and slices each of the Badniks into pieces as they exploded. Then she stabs the Badnik right where the eye is and swings it around and throws it towards the other Badniks.

"Ha ha haa! Nice one, sis!"

"It's too easy! Come on! Challenge us!"

They reach the edge and glide up high, only to run into another swarm of them. However, Sonic grabs Merlene by the hand and then they both jump off of the panels. He manages to dodge them all at super speed.

"We're talking style and posses!"

Merlene helps her brother using a Buzz Bomber to destroy the others. Then they landed back on their panels, skating backwards to look where they had previously escaped, arms crossed and all.

"Yeah! I make this look good!"

"Yeah, we did!"

Suddenly, Knuckles emerges from the explosion and lands on the ground while skidding towards them.

"Oh, great. The Winter Solider." Sonic groaned, rolling his eyes.

Merlene groaned, rubbing her face. They really need to stop meeting like this as she thought.

'Why am I friends with him in the first place? He's too good!"

Knuckles comes in between them and punches Sonic to the side of the rock wall. Sonic skated away from there. Seeing this, Merlene glares and kicks Knuckles in the stomach, causing him to kneel in pain.

"No one hurts my brother like that!"

She brings out her fuchsia blade she summons from her necklace and tries to cut him, which he dodged easily. Just as she goes for another swing, he grabs her arm and they spin for a second until Merlene finds herself being wrapped around the waist with her back facing him and her hand being held by his gloved hand. She spins him back, getting herself out of his grip when she finds herself facing him with their hands held still.

They look like they're doing "You'll Never Tango" dance, nut in snowboarding. She tries to push him back, but accidentally causes herself to fall when Knuckles catches her and dips her down. Their faces were inches apart. Merlene blushes in embarrassment and instinctively punches him straight in the face, causing him to let go of her.

"Ughh!" Knuckles groaned, rubbing his face.

"That was too close!" Merlene screamed in her own thoughts, snowboarding away from Knuckles.

Sonic manages to control his skidding without falling after that hit. Knuckles sees him and goes straight towards him with his fist raised.

"What the?"

Knuckles sees him and goes straight towards him. Merlene noticed this.

"Sonic, look out!"

Sonic looks behind him and his eyes widens as Knuckles threw his fist in his direction. Sonic quickly ducks, causing Knuckles to miss his target and hits several trees, destroying one in the blink of an eye. Sonic smiled triumphantly and raised his fits.

"For a guy named Knuckles, you are really bad at punching."

Merlene rolled her eyes at that and glared at Knuckles, who caught up to them. Knuckles looked at Sonic and glared, raising his fist to point at him.

"Surrender the compass! You're no match for me! I've been training for this my entire life!" he exclaimed with his fist on his chest.

Sonic rolled his eyes.

"And I have no training at all, yet her I am ahead of you."

Sonic and Merlene skid through the snow in zig zags, noticing a small hill in front of them.

"That's gotta be embarrassing!"

When they reached the edge, they flip off in the air. Suddenly, the hill they slid off was crushed into rumbles, caused by Knuckles' powerful punch. In slow motion, Sonic yelps, hanging upside down, and covers his face with his hand as Knuckles' eyes glows red and raises his fist to punch Sonic. Merlene's eyes widens as she begins to summon her weapons. But her and Sonic land on the edge of the cliff and they hang on, causing the Rings inside Sonic's pouch to fall out.

"My rings!" Sonic exclaimed.

"Oh, no!"

Merlene tried to reach for them, using her necklace to summon her whip when Knuckles appears in front of them.

"Has anyone ever told you you've got serious anger issues?" Sonic mocked, getting up from the edge of the cliff with Merlene.

Knuckles narrowed his eyes, raising his fists.

"You mock me withe your weak jokes? But you know nothing about me, hedgehog."

"Well, I know you echidnas have a habit of showing up uninvited and then ruining our life." Merlene retorted.

"Ruining your life? Another weak joke! I lost everything because of you!"

"What?... What are you talking about?"

Knuckles begins his story. Flashback shows years ago, the echidna tribe is marching out of their home with their weapons, ready for battle.

"My tribe was on the verge of its greatest victory. The last of the owl warriors had been located. Soon, Longclaw's emerald secrets would be ours."

A echidna warrior was watching the tribe march off and behind him was young Knuckles coming out of the home with a spear, ready to join the tribe. He kneels down to young Knuckles' height and places a hand on his shoulder, giving him a soft, sadden look.

"But my father stopped me from joining the fight. He said, 'My moment to honor our tribe would come, but it was not this moment.'"

"Those were the last words he spoke to me. I never saw him again."

Knuckles closes his eyes to hide the pain he's feeling at the loss of his father. Merlene was shocked to hear that he lost his dear father she remembered seeing at some time during their secret playtime. She looks at him with sympathy.

"I… I'm sorry. I don't know."

Sonic looks saddened.

"We both lost everything that day."

Flashbacks to Longclaw notices a tribe of echidnas in the trees, aiming their weapons at the trio.

Longclaw, Merlene, and Sonic escape through the back window as the echidnas continue firing arrows at them.

Longclaw looks back at Sonic and Merlene, one last time as the echidnas get even closer.

"Goodbye, Sonic and Merlene."

"No! Longclaw!"

Seeing them sad, Knuckles lets down his guard and goes to comfort Merlene however, Tails restrains him from behind with a gadget of his.

"Knuckles!" Merlene exclaimed in concern.

"Sonic, Merlene! Are you okay?!"

Merlene goes to get Knuckles out of these restraints.

"Wait, don't touch them!" Tails warned.

Her hands get tased by the gadget. She pulled her hands away in pain.

"Ow!"

"Deceiver!" Knuckles called Sonic, glaring straight at him.

"No, no, no! It wasn't a trick!"

Knuckles breaks free, not listening to Sonic's attempts to defend himself.

"Tails! Take the compass and get out of here!"

Sonic tries passing the compass over to Tails after throwing it, but Robotnik swoops in, in his Egg Mobile and snatches the compass.

"Later, haters!"

He then fires some missiles and knocks Tails out cold, causing him to fall.

"Tails!" Sonic and Merlene called in unison.

They speed off to help Tails. Knuckles hitches a ride with Robotnik, looking down at the three.

"Tails? Come on! Wake up!"

"Tails? Tails? Can you hear me?"

Merlene lightly tapped his face to wake him up.

"They chose to helping the fox over pursuing the compass." Knuckles said, looking puzzled.

"Ha! 'Course they did. New friends, same pathetic weakness." Robotnik noted, much to Knuckles' suspicion.

Immediately after, the ground begins to shake and everyone looked to see an avalanche from the mountains. The hedgehogs were very concerned.

"Oh, no! No, no, no! Okay, we're in real trouble here! Come on, Tails! I need you to fly us out of here! Time to wake up!"

But he's waking up anytime since he took a bad hit from the explosions.

"We need to move! Now!" Merlene urged.

"See you, kids! Enjoy the fresh powder!"

Robotnik and Knuckles then went off, leaving Sonic and Merlene to try snowboarding away as Sonic carries Tails over his shoulder.

Chapter 7: Separated

Meanwhile in Hawaii, Rachel and Randall's wedding ceremony is underway, in a beautiful decorated altar where Rachel and Randall stands in the center. Jojo comes over to the couple with two golden rings on a pillow. Randall picks one up and faces Rachel. Then they heard a noise and turned to see a biplane arranged by Randall flying a banner tributing the couple by "Rachel & Randall 4eva". Everyone clapped at the show. Rachel turns to him in surprise.

"Did you?"

Randall answers by kissing her hand. Meanwhile, Sonic pulls out his phone and begins to call Tom. Merlene looks back at the avalanche that's coming close, causing her to panic.

Meanwhile, Knuckles was looking back to where Sonic and Merlene have gone. He was beginning to worry for what's going to happen to her.

"Wait! We need Merlene! She can help us find the Master Emerald!"

"What?! Why?"

"She has the key to unlock the power of the Master Emerald."

"You sure?"

"Yes!"

Knuckles jumps off the Egg Mobile and snatches the panel he dropped earlier and skids after Sonic and Merlene.

Back to the wedding ceremony, Rachel and Randall are looking at the pastor who was holding a book they used at weddings. The pastor spoke to them about their loyal commitment.

"These rings signify the–"

He was cut off by "Green Hill Zone" ringtone coming from Tom's phone. They all look at him as he struggled to find his phone.

"Oh! Ha! Sorry! Got to leave it on silent."

Tom declines the call and puts his phone away. Rachel glares at Tom for a moment before turning to Randall. Pastor begins to speak again..

"These rings–"

Sonic calls again, much to Tom's annoyance as everyone gave him a glare.

"So help me, Thomas!" Rachel yelled in annoyance, squeezing her bouquet of flowers.

Tom picked it up to see Sonic's text message.

"EMERGENCY! CALL ME BACK NOW!"

"Okay, sorry, sorry. Excuse me. It's an emergency. Sorry."

Tom gets up from his seat and walks away to avoid interrupting their wedding. Once he's far away, he quickly answered it as their faces comes in view from the video.

"What?! This better be important I just–"

He stops to see Sonic and Merlene snowboarding through the avalanche.

"Are you two skiing?"

Sonic's voice spoke on the other side of the line.

"Snowboarding, actually! But we need your help now! Life or death situation this very second! I need you to use the ring I gave you to save us. Like, right now!"

"Yeah, and hurry! I don't know how long we can keep this up!" Merlene shouted, looking over at Tails with worry.

"Okay, slow down, slow down! I don't even know where you are!"

"You gotta picture where you want the Ring to go! So picture this!"

Sonic turns his phone for Tom to see a snowy forest of Siberia.

"Oh, my god. Okay, okay. Hang on."

Tom digs into his pocket and finds the golden ring. He proceeds to throw the Ring, but nothing happens.

"What?" he questioned.

"Did you throw it?" Sonic asked.

Taking a closer look, Tom realizes the Ring he got was Rachel's as it shows her name on it.

"Oh, god!"

"What? What? What do you mean 'oh, god'? What's going on, Tom?!" Merlene demanded.

"I think I mixed up the rings when I was teasing Jojo!"

"What?! Where is it?! Then where is it?!" Sonic and Merlene exclaimed in unison.

Tom turns to see Randall currently putting the Ring on Rachel.

"You don't want to know."

"Oh, but we do, Tom! We very much want to know before we become hedgehog flavored snowcones!"

"Hang tight, buddies. I got this." Tom assured before turning off his phone.

Merlene looks back at the avalanche again, only to see Knuckles skiing after them.

"Why is he after us now?! He has the compass, so what does he want now?!"

In realization, Merlene looks down at her necklace. She turns to her brother.

"He's after me, Sonic! We gotta go faster!"

Sonic looks back to see Knuckles and groaned.

"Ugh! Are you kidding me?!"

Back in the wedding ceremony, Randall holds up a Ring to Rachel as he speaks his vows.

"With this ring, Rachel, I–"

Tom disrupts the wedding ceremony as he rushes over to the wedding couple.

"Hey! Hi! Uh…"

"Everything okay, bud?" Randall asked.

"Ehh, not really."

"Tom! What are you doing?" Maddie, who's a bridesmaid, asked in confusion and concern.

"This is gonna sound really crazy, but I'm gonna need to see that ring for just one second, one second."

Everyone in their seat murmurs at what's going on.

"Have you lost your mind?" Rachel demanded.

"I'm gonna give it right back. I promise. Hey, please Randall. It's really important. Can I–?"

"No, bro. Go sit down." Randall said.

"Randall, give me the ring, please. Just–"

Rachel interrupted Tom and turned to Randall.

"Okay, Randall, don't look at him. Look at me."

"Randall, Randall. One second."

"Randall, put the ring on my finger."

"No, Randall, listen to me."

"Randall? Look at me, ring on my finger!"

"Randall, give me the ring! Just one sec–"

"Put a ring on it!"

Randall doesn't know who to listen.

"Please, love? Okay?"

"With this ring…" Randall started.

"Yes, baby." Rachel smiled.

Tom knew what he had to do and doesn't have a choice.

"I'm so sorry about this."

Tom punches Randall in the face, causing everyone to gasp at the scene and stand up from their seat. Tom gets the Ring back and then opens the Ring portal in front of the wedding reception, where they can see Sonic, Merlene, and Tails snowboarding away from the avalanche. Randall turns to Tom to confront him when he sees everyone watching the Ring portal and turns, seeing it too.

"Snow my god." Rachel gasped, dropping her bouquet.

"Oh, boy." Tom sighed, ready for what he had to face.

Before Sonic, Merlene, and Tails could get through, Knuckles tackled Merlene to the side as they went rolling, leaving only Sonic and Tails to go as they crashed through the wedding. Knuckles and Merlene kept rolling as they luckily got away from the avalanche as they flow through the portal ring where Sonic and Tails escaped to.

The both of them landed harshly on the floor, causing them go unconscious.

"Incoming!" Sonic yelled.

The pile of snow buried everyone while some go away in time. Tom and Maddie comes over to Sonic and Tails' aid.

"Everybody hurt? Sonic!"

"Ah, Hawaii." Sonic groaned, sitting up all covered in snow.

"You okay?" Tom asked.

"What's happening? Are you hurt?" Maddie asked.

"No, no, no. We're fine."

"Okay, good. 'Cause you're in so much trouble!" Tom yelled, now angry.

Maddie calmed him down before turning to Sonic.

"Okay! You calm down! You! Talk!"

"Okay, quick version: Robotnik is back on Earth and he's after the magic emerald."

Rachel raises her hands in frustration at another problem they're having. Randall looks at her in concern.

"We need to get it back or the world is doomed."

"Okay, but where's Merlene?" Maddie asked, looking around for her.

"What are you talking about? She's right…"

He stopped to find her not here and all that's left is her panel.

"Oh, no! No, no, no! Where is she?! Where's sis?!"

"You mean she's not with you?!" Tom exclaimed.

Sonic's eyes widened in realization.

"Oh, geez! Knuckles took her!"

"Who?" Tom and Maddie asked in unison.

Sonic was about to explain when he sees the unconscious Tails.

"Tails!"

He comes over to his aid and digs the snow out that buried him and holds him.

"Wait! All the time since yesterday?" Maddie asked about Robotnik.

"Wait, wait! Who's Tails?" Tom asked.

Sonic checks on him.

"Tails, can you hear me?"

"Oh, lord. There are three of them now." Rachel gasped.

"Okay, okay. Let me think, let me think. Tails, come on, bud."

Sonic was suddenly hit by a taser net and knocked out as everyone of Randall's guests draw taser pistols at the Wachowskis, much to Rachel's confusion.

"Hey!" Tom glared.

"Randall? Why do all of your friends have weapons?"

Commander Walters then shows up and steps over the little girl's sandcastle, much to her shock.

"You really should've taken me up on that brunch, Mr. and Mrs. Wachowski."

"Olive Garden Guy?" Tom questioned, recognizing him.

"It's okay, everyone. We're federal agents."

He holds up the badge for everyone to see. He then turns to Randall.

"You too, Agent. Go ahead."

Randall looks regrettably at Rachel, who's confused, and pulls out a badge necklace. Rachel couldn't believe it.

"You need to tell me… that this entire wedding was a setup?!"

"Rachel…" Randall tried to explain.

"That's correct, ma'am. Every single aspect of Operation: Catfish was a complete fabrication."

"Operation: Catfish?!" Rachel turned angrily at Randall, who's silent. "So is everyone here an agent?"

She turns to the pastor.

"Are you an agent?!"

He reveals a gun the bible before closing it.

"Son of a… Was the florist an agent?! How about the photographer?! The woman who waxed my… of the spa? Is Jojo an agent?"

"Rachel…"

Jojo looks shocked and in disbelief.

"...What?"

"Rachel. Look, listen to me."

"I'm dome listening! I am done listening!"

Rachel lose her temper and tries to attack Randall, bur is restrained by one of the federal agent. Rachel begins to cry.

"I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I really am. I am so sorry." Randall apologized.

Meanwhile, an unconscious Sonic and Tails are hauled away in cages. Tom sees this and tries to stop them.

"No. Hey, no!"

He pushes the person out of the way.

"Let him go! Hey!"

He pushes the agent off and punches the other and goes to free Sonic.

"Sonic, hang on."

But he is held back by Randall.

"Take it easy. It's not worth it."

"Tom!"

Maddie tries to save her husband when Walters blocks her path.

"Ah, ah, ah."

"Sonic isn't a threat. He's on our side."

"It's an uncontrolled extraterrestrial, and your days of eating in the bedroom are over. Secure them in the hotel until the chopper arrives."

Sonic and Tails, including Tom are taken away.

"You're making a mistake." Tom warned.

Rachel, however, wasn't done with them.

"Hold on, Major A-hole! This is still my day, and someone is gonna explain to me what the hell is going on here?!"

"After the events in San Francisco, a global taskforce was created, devoted to protecting our planet from alien threats. That day, Guardian Units of Nations was born."

"G.U.N. Seriously?" Rachel pointed out, not liking the name.

"GUN, yeah." Walters said.

"What about protecting our planet from Dr. Robotnik?" Maddie insisted.

"Robotnik is dead." Walters said, not believing her.

"You're wrong. He's back. And you just hauled away the only ones who could stop him. Plus, Merlene is out there and she's in danger."

Walters brings up his walkie-talkie.

"Sounds like Robotnik might be back and if he is, I want him found immediately."

He looks back at Maddie and leaves.

"And cancel my 5'clock at the Olive Garden."

Jojo walks up to Maddie.

"Aunt Maddie?"

"Yeah?"

"Sonic and his friend drop this."

She brings her Tails' backpack as Maddie opens it to see gadgets. Maddie looks at Rachel.

"I have an idea."

"And I want to have a word with my fiance, ant that word is 'murder'."

Maddie and Rachel are off to save Sonic, Tails, and Tom from the G.U.N.

Meanwhile in Siberia, Merlene groans and opens her eyes, feeling light pecks awakening her from being unconscious. She looks around to find herself in the snowy place still, much to her dismay.

"At least, Sonic and Tails escaped…"

She was about to get up when she felt something soft beneath her and it's not the snow she's feeling. Slowly looking down, she nearly scream to see the unconscious Knuckles. Merlene observed every part of his face as his angry, serious expression from earlier is now soft and calm. This is the first time for her to see him this.

"You know, for an asshole… you look kinda cute."

She notices the position they're in as she's lying on top of him, causing her face to turn pink. Before she could move, she unknowingly notices Knuckles began to stir awake. Their faces were pretty close and when he opened his eyes, he was startled at how close she was, causing him to bash his head into hers. Merlene landed back, rubbing her head.

"Ow! What the heck?!"

Knuckles rubbed his head too.

"It's your fault! You were so close!"

"Well excuse me! I'm not the one that tackled someone out from attempting to escape!"

He was about to retort her when nothing came out of his mouth, realizing that she's right. Merlene smirks and the realizes the situation she's in.

"Hold on…"

She stands and juts her head at Knuckles, who gets up and flinches backward.

"Why'd you tackle me like that and trap me here? Who do you think you are?!"

Knuckles scoffs, crossing his arms.

"I think I'm the one that just saved your life!"

He actually did save her as he noticed the portal was a bit out of range, giving it a disadvantage for her to go through. This made him worry for what's going to happen her and that's when he talked her.

"Look, I had everything under control." she said firmly.

"Not where I'm standing." he said with a smirk.

"Then move downwind. I need to find my family."

Merlene turns and stalks off when Knuckles steps in her way. She turns away, bur he intercepts again. Knuckles smirks at Merlene. She glares back at him and tries to dodge around Knuckles, bur he blocks her path again. Merlene attempts another dodge, but Knuckles intercepts her. She gets into her fighting position and lift her foot and spins and kicks him, sending him flying to the pile of snow.

"Sorry, but I need to get back to them."

She runs away from Knuckles just as Robotnik comes in and sees her getting away.

"Yo, Knuckles! Get up! You said she could help us get to the source of the ultimate power!"

Knuckles gets up and splutters out the snow.

"I know!"

He begins to chase after her in speed with glowing red trails behind him.

"Merlene!"

She looks behind her to see him catching up to her and grabs the long tree branch that was in front of her and pulls it with her all the way until she lets go of it. Knuckles sees this and quickly ducks as it swings with a snap. Merlene notices that he kept up pace and sees the large snowy rock above her and summons her whip, catch ing it and brining it down. The rock came rolling towards him to crush him when he easily punches through with tremendous strength.

Stopping, she finds herself at the dead end, surrounded by trees. She heard his running footsteps and quickly hides within the trees by climbing. Knuckles comes in and stops to see her gone. He slowly approaches, looking around cautiously.

"You can't hide from me! I know you! Remember when we use to play hide and seek? I'm always good at finding you."

Merlene mentally curses herself, forgetting that he does that. Look like she has no choice but to fight back. She slowly brings her kusarigama from her emerald necklace. Knuckles keeps looking around for any sight of her through the trees that covered in snow. He had to give her credit for taking a good hiding spot.

All of the sudden, there's a loud whoosh. Hearing it, he dodges to the side just in time to see the blade of the kusarigama as it stabs the tree. Knuckles looks back to see Merlene wielding it. She charges him and jumps up high and swings her kusarigama back the tree and towards Knuckles. He quickly kicks it away. She swings it again using the end of her chains that has sharp, pointy green-fuchsia emerald.

Knuckles grabs the chains and pulls it back. Merlene notices the kusarigama was going straight towards her and swings it back away from her. Knuckles swings the chains as it circles around her waist. Then he swings another towards the tree branch. Before she knew it, the chains were wrapped around her body and Knuckles pulls it back, tightening and fully restraining her.

She swings from a tree as Knuckles calmly approaches her with a neutral look. Merlene sees him and growls and tries to kick him but ends up swinging back and forth as he was just a few feet away from her.

"Gah! Argh! You! You bastard! Sonic and Tails will be triumphant! I will undo the evil that is you and Robotnik, Knuckles! I will take you down as long as I imprison my body! I will strike you down! All the world will be saved!"

Knuckles frowns and raises his fist to pint at her.

"You are very troubled, and very confused. Sonic is the evil one, not me. Robotnik told me this, every word. I know evil when I see one."

"Deceiver! Worm! Scum!" Merlene badmouthed him while swinging.

"Now you're just repeating yourself." he stated, deadpanned.

Merlene grunts as she struggles to get out of these restraints of her own weapon. While she's doing that, Knuckles ponders to himself.

"I wonder if it's possible for her to ever belief that Sonic is the evil and not me."

She swings forth and badmouths him again before she was swinging back.

"Lecherous Snake!"

"...Perhaps not."

Merlene stops and looks at Knuckles.

"Knuckles, whatever Robotnik is telling you, he's lying to you. You have to believe me. He's just using you."

"I think I know what I'm doing."

"No, you're not. You can't trust him. He's evil. He tried to kill us and take away our powers."

Before he could retort, Robotnik came over in his Egg Mobile. He sees her all chained up and smiles.

"Great! Now that you caught your prey, shall we get to the Master Emerald?"

Knuckles and Merlene stare at him.

Chapter 8: Temple of Master Emerald

Meanwhile, Robotnik, Knuckles, Merlene, who's all chained up, and some Badniks arrive at an island not too far from there via a Ring.

"The owls were fools to think they could hide this." Knuckles said, holding the golden compass.

"Hey! You don't get to insult the owls like that. For me, they did their best to prevent you from making the same mistake you're going to regret."

Knuckles scoffs, ignoring her. Using his control glove's scanner, Robotnik locates a pedestal in the sand.

"Huh." Knuckles hummed and placed the compass onto the pedestal.

Soon after, a mystical mechanism is activated as it shows the emerald green lines tracing on the ancient symbols of the owl, and the trail of green moves far ahead in the sea.

"What's happening?" Knuckles asked.

Robotnik holds up his finger.

"Wait for it."

Then the sea in front of them split apart to reveal an ancient temple in the middle of it.

"Oh!" Robotnik exclaimed in surprise.

"Whoa!" Merlene exclaimed, just as surprise as him.

Knuckles' eyes widen in shock. Robotnik laughed, looking excited like a child receives a birthday present.

"Yes! Eureka! I've found it!"

The sea spread apart to reveal stairs for them to enter. Merlene didn't like where this is going.

"Come on."

Knuckles grabs her arm where there's no chains rather gently and guides her down the stairs.

"You know I can walk on my own. I'm not going anywhere."

He said nothing and just kept walking downstairs with Robotnik and Badniks following behind.

Back on Hawaii, after rescuing them, Maddie is tending to the unconscious Tails when she, Sonic, Tom and a bound and gagged Walters notice storm clouds and a green pillar of energy in the horizon.

"Sonic? What is that?" Tom asked worriedly.

Sonic recognizes it and looks worried.

"A big problem. The compass led Robotnik to the emerald."

"That's gotta be hundreds of miles away." Maddie guessed, seeing how far the temple is.

"Alright, huddle up. We figure out the plan. Together."

"There's no time for that. I'm the only one that can get there fast enough." Sonic shook his head.

"Sonic, this is way too big for you to do by yourself." Maddie said, disagreeing with him.

Sonic turns to them.

"You see that little fox over there? He came all the way across the universe to meet his hero, and what does his hero do? I practically got him killed. Not only that, but I left my sister behind and now she's in the hands of Robotnik. You know what? You were right. My moment came and I blew it. I'm no hero."

"Wait…" Tom started.

"No, I'm not letting anyone else get hurt because of me. I'm gonna fix this while I still can. I'll get my sister back."

Sonic then runs off.

"Sonic!"

Tails wakes up immediately after.

"Sonic, wait!"

He tries to follow Sonic, using his twin-tails to fly but he's too weak and falls down. Tom and Maddie sees Tails and immediately comes to his aid.

"Oh! Hold on, hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Don't move."

"Hey, hey. Take it easy, little guy. You're hurt."

"We have to help him. You don't know what he's up against."

Tom, Maddie, and Tails look back to where the temple is.

Sonic is at the coastline. He looks down at the ocean and frowns.

"Ugh! Water. Why did it have to be water?"

Sonic looks up ahead and knows he can't back down. He takes a deep breath, pulls himself together and charges up his energy, getting inti his running position.

"Okay. you can do this. Gotta go fast."

He starts running at full speed across the sea towards the temple. However, the rough waves makes it hard for Sonic to navigate. He manages to run over the waves and jumps higher than ever as he goes past some waves before landing and kept on running. But more waves kept coming his way, and he eventually crashes into a wave, blacking out. Fortunately, he wakes up soon after on the island with the Master Emerald's temple in front of it.

Inside said temple, Robotnik, Knuckles, Merlene, and some badniks are running their way through a labyrinth of traps. Knuckles had to reluctantly get her out of those chains, seeing so many traps up ahead and wanting her to be safe. Arrows shoots out from the wall, which they barely were able to dodge them. Robotnik's accompanying Badniks gets destroyed by the long sharp points like teeth. They ran the other way and saw a flying giant spiked ball. Knuckles grabs Merlene's hand and moves her behind him as he and Robotnik moves out of the way, except the lasts of the few Badniks as they get destroyed.

Then they kept running as Knuckles keeps holding her hand, much to her surprise. The same giant spiked ball comes down rolling towards them.

"I don't want to die like this! It's derivative!" Robotnik exclaimed.

The wall in front of them began to close in.

"Make room for daddy!"

Knuckles grabs Merlene and throws her over as she slide under. He came after and hold up the wall using his spikes on his gloves with so much strength as he could. Robotnik came last and slides underneath the wall before Knuckles let go and the wall behind them fully closes before it got crashed by the spiked ball. Knuckles and Robotnik are on the ground with their feet up. Knuckles looks surprised, nearly getting himself killed while Merlene looks like she's going to pass out.

"Two, two. Great. We're still bipedals, more or less."

They get up and look around until Robotnik spotted something.

"Fire in the hole!"

The blazing fire bursts out from the owl eyes. The three ducked from that.

"I've solved it. There's a booby trap every seven secoo…"

Robotnik stops to see a swinging axe, which he barely was able to dodge nearly cutting off his mustache as they shake. Knuckles pushes Merlene back to protect her. The swinging axe stabbed against the wall.

"That was a little early."

Robotnik sighs in relief.

"So glad it didn't cut off my… mustache."

Knuckles and Merlene just look at him oddly before walking away. Robotnik though stopped them.

"Hey, little red wrecking ball. I know you're dying to get your emerald on, but can we be a little bit more mindful of our surroundings?"

Merlene sighs at this.

"For once, he's right. We don't know what kind of other more traps we're dealing with. And you're forgetting that I'm the key to unlocking and finding the Master Emerald."

She gestures to her emerald necklace and her eyes turns fuchsia. She looks up ahead and begins to walk, looking side to side until she stops and turns to them.

"Left. 30 feet up ahead."

Merlene proceeds to keep walking, ignoring the surprising Knuckles looks down at him.

"Work smarter, not harder." he advised before they follow after her.

Elsewhere, Sonic enters the labyrinth, screaming as he slides through water slide and lands roughly.

"Augh! My pelvis!"

He gets up and looks around.

"Okay, secret temple. Let''s see what you got."

He then run through it at high speed in hopes of reaching the center, either moving too fast for the traps or barely dodging them along the way.

Meanwhile, Knuckles punches down a wall as he, Merlene, and Robotnik reach the center of the temple.

"Whelp. We're here." Merlene informed.

"Wow. That really opened up the space. I can't even picture it with an impenetrable wall now, and the rumble is always a nice touch."

Finally, they see the Master Emerald on the pedestal ahead of them. Merlene couldn't believe she's seeing it in person and was in awe. It was bigger then she imagined in her dreams she's seeing.

"There it is." she gasped.

Suddenly, her emerald necklace around her neck begins to float, glowing brighter than ever. It's asking her to go closer. Knuckles notices and looks back at the emerald.

"At least, the Master Emerald."

"Ultimate power." Robotik awed.

"Soon, order will be restored all because of what we have done together."

"Such a lovely sentiment, Knuckles. I think I feel a single tear forming."

Robotnik wipes out a little tear from his eye. Merlene rolls her eyes at this. Knuckles places gloved hand on her back.

"Keep going."

He lightly pushes her to walk towards the Master Emerald as she reluctantly did with him following her. What they didn't know Robotnik prepares to backstab Knuckles with his control glove's taser.

"Sadly, you're as useful to me now as a backstage pass to their biscuit."

Merlene turns and her eyes widens. Just as she goes to defend Knuckles, however, they hear Sonic speed and his screams through the labyrinth before coming crashing through the roof and landing in front of them.

"Nailed it!" Sonic coughed out.

Then the spiked ball landed behind him, nearly squishing him.

"Sonic!" Merlene smiled in relief to see him.

"This guy is always trying to spoil a bad thing!"

Robotnik blows off the taser from his control glove.

"Oh! You guys are here too? Took the long way, huh? Hi, sis!" Sonic joked before waving at her.

Knuckles looks furious.

"Is everything a joke to you?! Why must you constantly interfere with my destiny?!"

Sonic stands up and glares at him.

"Because my destiny is to protect my friends and family, including my sister!"

"I think I just threw up in my mouth." Robotnik deadpanned.

"And if you want that emerald? You're gonna to go through me!"

Sonic's body begins to spark as his eyes glowed bright blue. Robotnik gulps. Sonic then speeds for the Master Emerald, but Knuckles intercepts him in speed as well. Merlene follows after them.

"Whoa-ho!" Robotnik exclaimed at how fast these creatures are.

Merlene zooms past the boys and makes it to the Master Emerald before turing to see those two engage in an intense fight. Sparked up Knuckles is on the rocky ceiling as he glare daggers at Sonic, who's also on the rocky ceiling before they jumped off. Sonic and Knuckles fly towards each other and collide their arm together in a big flash, glaring at each other. Then they throw punches and kicks at each other in the air. Sonic jumps up to the statue owl's nose before he humps off and slams into Knuckles, bringing him down. Merlene winces at every hit they've brought.

As Sonic and Knuckles clash, the tide of battle constantly shifting, Robotnik takes that as a distraction and gets to the Master Emerald without Merlene knowing.

"The echidna's taking on prisoners today! Sonic has heart, but will he loose the quill to live?"

Sonic skids back after managing to hit Knuckles down to the ground.

"I don't want to fight you, but you're not giving me much choice!"

Knuckles raised both of his sparked fists and punched Sonic towards the waterfall before he could land a hit on him.

"Too easy! Let's do this!" he grunted.

He begins to walk up to the Master Emerald, which Merlene immediately stands in front of it.

"I can't let you do this, Knuckles."

"Move out of the way. This is my destiny."

"It doesn't have to be that way. You can make your own choice. Don't be like those kinds of yours. It will only lead to more pain than it already has happened."

Knuckles was about to retort when he stops midway up the steps to hear a flash. He turns, but was then knocked off by the speed of Sonic. Sonic runs up to the ceiling and comes down by spin dashing. He slams and slams at Knuckles with every single hit, burying him deep onto the ground. Sonic jumps off and lands.

Knuckles digs out of the stairs and starts to throw variety of punches at Sonic. He quickly dodges them thanks to his speed.

"Why don't you stand still and die with honor?!"

"Let me think about it! Okay, I thought about it, and I passed!"

In anger, Knuckles kept throwing more punches that are faster than ever, even Sonic couldn't see until he was punched far away, much to the echidna's satisfaction. Merlene was about to act she sees Robotnik near the Master Emerald. She goes to stop him when he sees her and brings out his taser from his gloves and shocks her.

"Ahh!" she screamed in pain and collapsed.

Robotnik turns back to the Master Emerald, gazing upon it.

"Hi there, beautiful. You're the real deal, aren't you? Donde has estado toda mi vida? (Where have you been all my life?)"

Sonic sits up and gasps to see Knuckles carrying the giant boulder with his spikes.

"Say goodbye, hedgehog."

Sonic looks over and was horrified to see Robotnik and the hurt Merlene.

"Knuckles stop. Robotnik's stealing the emerald!"

"What kind of fool do you take me for?"

"Just look! And Merlene is hurt!"

With those words, Knuckles looks back to see that Sonic is right. Robotnik steps closer to steal the Master Emerald.

"Mine."

"Wait! That wasn't the deal!"

Knuckles places the boulder down and faces the threat of Robotnik.

"Oh, you poor naive creature. It's not your fault. The more advanced data like would have seen this move coming a mile away or 1.6 kilometers."

"But i trusted you, you're my friend!"

Robotnik laughs loudly.

"I'm sorry, that just hit me funny. Let this be my final lesson to you, you dimwitted celestial skin tag. Friends are open, honest and vulnerable with each other. Which means x squared times the hypotenuse of y squared divided by the absolute value of friendship = DOOKIE!"

Robotnik was about get back to the Master Emerald when he stopped and looking back at Knuckles.

"And one more thing. Next time, listen to your little girlfriend of yours 'cause she's been right about me all along. You would've gotten a chance to stop me sooner that later."

"Oh no!" Sonic gasped.

Then he places his hands on the Master Emerald and waits for the power to flow into him. But then… nothing happened.

"What? Why isn't it working?"

This left knuckles and Sonic both confused and relieved.

"Why is it not working?! You said it gives ultimate power! So why isn't it doing anything?"

Robotnik looks at Knuckles for explanation when his eyes landed on Merlene, who's getting up. Then he sees the emerald necklace around her neck. He slowly grins evilly. Sonic and Knuckles noticed it and were now worried. Robotnik approaches her and holds her up the neck. Merlene gasps and struggles to get out of his grip.

"Let her go!" Knuckles demanded.

"Now I see why Knuckles wanted to protect you. You have the last piece of it."

He rips it off from her neck and lets the shard fly back into the now full power emerald.

"Thanks for your help."

Robotnik throws her over the stairs and he lands roughly on the floor. With the Master Emerald now on power, Robotnik grabs it and the speed of light flashes before them and the force sends Sonic, Knuckles, and Merlene flying. As an energy surge is unleashed, Robotnik absorbs the Master Emerald, lifting it up in the air.

"CHAOS… IS… POWERRRR!"

He then warps away in a flash. That causes the temple to crumple. Water begins flooding into the crumbling temple.

"Let's get out of here!"

Sonic starts to flee. However, Merlene about to follow when she notices the pillar was about to fall on Knuckles. She rushes over and pushes him out of the way. Knuckles gets up, stunned. He then begins to flee, but when he was up to the top he noticed only Sonic is there.

"Where is she?!" he demanded.

Sonic's eyes widens in realization.

"Oh no!"

They turned to see Merlene has been pinned down by a pillar, unable to get free on her own as she tried to push it. The water begins to rise and she takes a deep breath before the water fully consumes her.

"Sis!" Sonic screamed in worry.

Knuckles didn't hesitate to dive down. He swims down towards her and starts to push the pillar as hard as he can, using his strength. Merlene sees this and tries to help him, but it was no use and the slight move hits the pressure of her stomach that's causing her to lose her breath.

Merlene clap both hands over her mouth and nose, trying desperately to hold the air in, shuddering hard, almost like she was having some kind of seizure, but she couldn't hold it back. She tried to use her legs to at least move away or anything to get out of this pillar, but it was no use. Even with Knuckles' attempt to help push the pillar away , it was too heavy. She felt finished, not knowing how long she can hold her breath as her eyes begins to close, causing Knuckles to panic. He can't lose her. He can't. He already lost his people and his father, he's not losing her too. Suddenly he gets an idea and it's going to be embarrassing.

Just as Merlene was about to accept her fate, she felt Knuckles' boxing gloves suddenly pant themselves on either side of her cheeks.

Opening her mouth, the last bubbles of air escaping, Merlene was just about to suck in a lungful of water, when suddenly she felt something warm press itself firmly to her mouth, and instead of sucking in water, she was breathing in air. Warm air, but air nonetheless, and Merlene breathed in deeply. Opening her eyes slightly, Merlene was stunned to see purple eyes looking right back her own emerald-kelly ones. Merlene stared at the echidna, cheeks growing deeply red, feeling her heart beating fast, warm tingles sparking throughout her nerves, along with the relief of having air in her lungs again.

Meanwhile with Sonic, he's getting worried of what's taking them so long. He needs to act now or else he'll lose them.

"Water? Again? Come on!"

Hitching a ride on a falling boulder, Sonic gets down to Knuckles and Merlene and tries moving the pillar. He sees a big bubble and slurps it up to get more air for him to hold before moving the pillar. Knuckles and Merlene notices him and they begin work together to remove the pillar. Sonic immediately stops them to what they're doing as he shows them a countdown on a three. They nodded at him and once the countdown was down to a one, they all fully moved the pillar, allowing Merlene to escape. Knuckles grabs her by wrapping his arm around her waist and begins to swim to the surface with her. Sonic, however, being unable to swim, he tries to swim up to the surface with them.

Knuckles emerges above water, holding Merlene close. He swims toward shore of the island. He carries her onto dry land and gently places her down. Merlene coughs, looking up.

"Knuckles…?"

Only to see him diving back down into the water. She sits up, waiting while feeling worried at the same time for the two boys she cared for. Just then, Knuckles emerges with Sonic as he drags him onto the dry land. Sonic coughs out water.

"Sonic!"

Merlene runs over and hugs him. They turned to Knuckles as he silently sat down on the sand, brooding.

"You saved us." Sonic said.

"I didn't do it for you. I did it for her. Don't talk to me. I'm not in a mood."

A sandball was thrown at Knuckles. He turns and glares at Sonic, who did it.

"How dare you attack me in my hour of sorrow?!"

He gets hit by another sandball.

"Why did you save me if it's for her?"

Sonic was about to throw another sandball when a giant sandball was thrown back at him, burying him. Merlene manages to get out of the way, while shocked at how did Knuckles made such a big sandball.

"Because she saved me first, which clearly gave you a tactical advantage I don't understand."

Knuckles rolls up another sandball, ready to throw it at Sonic, who digs himself out of the sandball.

"It wasn't a tactic, Knuckles. I couldn't just let you get hurt and leave you there to die." Merlene said.

Knuckles stops, looking surprised as he drops the sandball.

"Why? I've been trying to destroy your brother since the moment we met. I didn't listen to you after you tried to warn me and I ignore you and nearly got you killed."

"Because being hero isn't about taking care of yourself, it's about taking responsibility for other people." Sonic said, reciting Tom's advice.

Knuckles sits down next to them with a hum.

"Wise words. An ancient Earth proper?"

"No, sir, that's a Wachowski family special. We got it from a guy in rowboat. Someone who meas a lot to us."

"Plus… I couldn't stand to lose my childhood best friend. Not after we get to finally meet all these years. You're my very first friend I've ever made despite our differences. I know why you did it. You just wanted to restore what was lost and you… have a pure heart. And… I couldn't forget you." Merlene added.

She shows him her friendship bracelet around her wrist. Knuckles was surprised and pulled it out from inside of his glove to show her the exact same bracelet as hers but in a different color.

"...I'm sorry about everything." he said.

"It's alright. I honestly don't blame you, except the part about beating up my brother."

This made him smile a little.

"Can we… start over? See where this relationship leads us?" he asked.

"Yes, we can." she smiled.

Merlene and knuckles then hug each other. The sunlight shines over the two and it flashes to reveal a young version of themselves as kids just like this one when they hugged for the last time before they were separated. Sonic watches with a smile. His ear twitches at the noise.

"Wait a second. What's that sound?"

Knuckles and Merlene pull away and look up to see Tails arrive at the island in the Tornado.

"Only Sonic and Merlene the hedgehog needs rescuing this much!"

"Tails!" Merlene smiled to see him okay.

"Haha! That sly little fox!" Sonic cheered.

They turned to see Knuckles brooding still.

"Come on, Knucklehead. We're not beat yet." Sonic said.

"On the mountain you told me you lost everything the way I did, but you two seem so hopeful and free. How did you move forward despite failing again? And again, and again, and again, and…"

Sonic looks annoyed a little while Merlene smiles amusingly.

"I didn't fail that much." Sonic cut his off in defense.

"Yeah, let's not get too critical here." she added.

"But we didn't do this all alone."

"We found a new family, new friends, and you can too."

Sonic holds out a hand for Knuckles.

"You don't have to be alone anymore."

Knuckles stares the two for a moment. Then he and Sonic seal their newfound friendship with a handshake, which crushes Sonic's hand.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow! Are you kidding me with that handshake?!"

Chapter 9: Final Battle

In Green Hills, the forces of G.U.N. are arriving outside and surrounding the cafe with armed personnel and military vehicles. Outside, Walters arrives in a helicopter with Tom and Maddie where the Secretary of Homeland Security comes in.

"Commander."

"Status report." Walters said.

"Robotnik is in there with Stone and a hostage. Possibly local PD and I'm not saying he's dumb, but if he is a local PD. This town is in a lot of trouble."

Tom and Maddie looked at each other, knowingly.

"Wade."

The doors of the coffee cafe opened and smokes comes out and there Robotnik comes before them, floating all dressed up black with emerald green lines, looking all powered up. He observed how several GUN agents pointed their weapons at him.

"Um… okay." Maddie said.

"Rocking that new spring collection, I see." Tom commented.

"Well, if it isn't the Pastry King." Robotnik said.

"It's the Donut Lord. You know, a real genius would remember that name of the guy who helped kicked you butt off this planet and I'll do it again if you mess with Green Hills."

"Congratulations on your oh-so-temporary sense of superiority." Robotnik sassed.

"You're finished, Robotnik. We've taken everything. Your lab, your drones, your funding! Let's see how big of a man you are without your sill little robots." Walters said.

"Would you like to see how… big of a man I can be?"

Robotnik blasts out his new powers and begins to tear apart the G.U.N.'s vehicles and all other forms of technology in the vicinity and pulling it into a tornado, which he began to float into it.

"Welcome to the new norm!"

All the G.U.N. Agents gets off their vehicles as they get torn apart. Tom, Maddie, and Walters watched in shock.

"My god!" Walters gasped.

Stone runs out the coffee cafe and looks up at Robotnik.

"Doctor! Take me with you!"

Robotnik gladly takes him into the tornado as Stone floats in the air. Everyone watches as the tornado gets bigger.

"He's taking everything apart." Tom said.

"He's building something." Maddie said

Meanwhile, Sonic, Merlene, Tails, and Knuckles emerge from a Ring outside of town in the Tornado. As they fly, they spot Robotnik's tornado.

"That can only be one thing." Tails said.

"The fearsome power of the emerald." Knuckles confirmed.

"That doesn't look good." Merlene said.

"If that thing really turns thoughts into power, we are in big trouble. Robotnik has a lot of bad thoughts." Sonic said.

"No kidding." Merlene agreed.

Tails whispers to Sonic and Merlene.

"Hey, Sonic, Merlene. Are you sure it was a good idea bringing you-know-who abroad?"

"Knuckles isn't really a bad guy." Merlene defended.

"He's just a little… mixed up." Sonic added.

Knuckles turns to them, offended.

"I am not mixed up. I have steely focus and I'm complex. And that's a lot for some people."

"Hope you're not still mad I hit you with that car." Tails laughed nervously.

"Pfft! I was completely uninjured, and my revenge will come when you least expect it, fox."

"He's just messing around." Merlene smiled amusingly.

"I'm not."

"You are."

"Not."

"Are."

"Not."

Sonic and Tails watched the two bicker. Merlene stopped herself and smiled to herself before saying it one more time to test his patience.

"You are."

Knuckles growled in frustration. They looked back up ahead as the tornado disappeared to reveal a giant robot called the Death Egg. It begins to dance as Robotnik controls it by moving his arms up side to side while taking a step forward, causing the G.U.N. and everyone in Green Hills to flee.

"Fall back! Fall back!" Walters ordered.

The Tornado flies closer to Death Egg.

"How are we suppose to beat this thing?" Tails asked.

"We need a plan." Merlene said.

"Right. Knuckles, use your strength to…"

Knuckles crossed his arms and placed them on his chest before jumping off the Tornado. Sonic, Merlene, and Tails were surprised as he fall into the forest.

"...jumps off the plane."

"This guy is crazy!" Merlene exclaimed.

"Wow! Okay…? This is what we're going to do. Step one: light taunting. Step two: I have no idea."

"Seriously, bro?!"

"There's nothing on my mind."

"Geez…"

As they fly past by, Tom and Maddie noticed them.

"Sonic! Merlene!" Maddie called, smiling.

Once they're now close to Death Egg, Sonic and Merlene begins to mock Robotnik.

"Nice action figure, Eggman!"

"Does it do anything or just stand there looking ugly?"

"Like a blistering, they keep coming back! They're on the okay to kill list. Shoot the missiles, make the decision."

"Uh… I just need a moment, sir. I'm trying to figure out how to do this!" Stone exclaimed.

"Did you even glance at the manual?"

Robotnik teleports and takes over his spot, shocking Stone with his energies as he operates the control panel.

"I'll do it. Pardon my lightning. You might want to ground yourself."

The missile barrage activates. Tails and Merlene sees this.

"Uh-oh."

Sonic though didn't noticed.

"I'm gonna pop that thing open like a can of chili–Ah!"

He finally noticed the flying missiles coming out of Death Egg.

"Hang on!"

Tails steers the Tornado through the barrage, dodging them all in time. Sonic and Merlene hold on tight onto the Tornado's wings.

"Whoa!"

"Whoo!"

The missiles behind them exploded as the Tornado is looking completely unharmed. They all cheered and sighed in relief.

"Close one!"

Just as Sonic relaxes however, he is knocked away by a missile hitting him, shocking Merlene and Tails.

"Sonic!" they shouted.

Death Egg flap their arms up and down like a chicken, looking victorious. Meanwhile, down on the ground, Knuckles approaches the Death Egg head-on.

"Robotnik! Deceiver!"

"Die, mosquito!"

Robotnik tries to crush him with his robot's hand as the fingers crawls towards him. Ultimately, Knuckles hits the hand with his best attack, creating a big red explosion. Robotnik pulls his hand back with a grin as it does no harm.

"Ohh! I felt that!"

Back in the air, Tails activates the machine gun gadgets equipped to the Tornado.

"Hit it, Tails!" Merlene encouraged.

He then begins shooting the Death Egg Robot. Robotnik growls, trying to swat the Tornado away like a fly, but they dodged that. Suddenly, the Tornado's wings get crushed by the Death Egg's flappable mustache. The Tornado subsequently crashes into the ground. Tails and Merlene screamed as they fall until Tails gets out of it and grabs Merlene by the hands in the last moment as they fly out.

Robotnik was surprised at the new attack.

"What just happened?"

Stone smiled and pulled out a book.

"It's the stache smasher. Right here in the manual."

Back to Sonic, he has managed to take control of the missile he is riding.

"Return to sender!"

He then redirects it into the Death Egg's knee, shaking the machine enough to knock Stone out.

"Stone?" Robotnik asked, only to see him unresponsive. "Oh, great! Next thing you know, there'll be report about a hostile work environment."

Sonic, Merlene, Tails, and Knuckles reconvene on the main street.

"Those are our best attacks, and they did nothing!" Knuckles growled in frustration.

"We can't beat Robotnik as long as he's got that emerald. He's too powerful." Tails frowned.

"We can't give up just yet." Merlene said firmly.

"Look, we aren't strong enough to beat Robotnik on our own. But there's four of us."

Sonic huddles Merlene, Tails, Knuckles together.

"Your strength, your smarts, your bravery, and my speed together. That's how we win!"

"So we make our stand here. On the field of battle!"

"As a team!"

"The four musketeers!"

"This is it."

The four turned to Death Egg and get into their fighting position.

"This is our moment!"

"Time to fight." Robotnik grinned in a yoga position.

He sends his infantry of Badniks after the four. The heroes engage the Badnik as Merlene fought them using her katanas and her own shield Tails made for her. Tails shooting off the Badniks using his gun and other gadgets as they get blasted. Knuckles destroys them using his fists. Sonic using the dance moves as he kicks the Badniks.

"Bad time to say this, but I don't actually have a plan." Sonic said.

"Seriously?! Again?!" Merlene groaned.

"Tails! Any ideas?"

"We have to find his weak spot." Tails said, shooting off Badniks.

"I suggest the groin." Knuckles said.

"What?! No! No!" Sonic and Merlene exclaimed, looking weirded out.

"Professionally, yes. The groin is the weakest spot." Knuckles said, holding the Badnik before punching it.

"And I supposed you've experienced doing that to the enemy by hitting them in the groin?" Merlene sassed, slicing off the Badnik.

"Yes! I did!"

"Stop. Saying. Groin!" Sonic shouted.

"Hedgehogs!" Robotnik called from the Death Egg and fired lasers at them.

"Look out!"

They all got out of the way and speed up to the Death Egg, dodging every attacks.

"I know what his weak spot is. It's me and sis! We're the groin!"

"How?!"

Knuckles throws the ball Sonic as he spin dashes at the Badniks. Sonic get out of the ball and flying Tails grabs him and they begin to spin, destroying every flying Badniks. Merlene throws her katanas up in the air and Knuckles lodges her and tosses her katanas to Merlene. She hurls them at the Badniks. He catches her and the two smile at each other.

"Think about it! We live rent-free in this dude's head. So if I go out there and rile him up…"

Knuckles realizes what he's saying.

"He'll focus on you, leaving himself open to a flanking maneuver from me and the fox! Hedgehog, you are a brave and noble warrior. Go to your certain death with honor."

"We're gonna have to work on your pep talks, pal." Sonic said.

"It's both confusing and honorable at the same time." Merlene said.

"Yeah!" Tails giggled.

"Sis, you go with them. I need to deal with him myself."

"No way! Brother and sister stick together, no matter what."

"Yeah, but I can't have you get hurt again. Please, for me."

"Alright…" Merlene sighed.

"Let's go." Sonic said.

"Good luck, bro."

"You too, sis."

With everyone in agreement, the four splits up, with Sonic running up to the Death Egg.

"Alright, mustache. You want me? Come and get me!"

"You don't tell me about coming and getting, I am on the cutting edge on coming and getting! Coming, getting! Coming, getting! Coming, getting!"

As Robotnik has the Death Egg follow Sonic out of Green Hills. Merlene, Tails, and Knuckles runs up behind the Robot as Merlene jumps up high and lands onto the backside, gripping onto the sides while Tails carries Knuckles as he flies.

"Oh! You're really heavy!" he groaned, trying to hold him.

"That's because I am 1 million percent muscle. Faster, fox!"

Merlene rolls her eyes at that as the boys caught up to her and they start climbing.

At the same time, Tom and Maddie are helping evacuate civilians. They saw a truck and immediately stopped them.

"Tom, what the heck happened here?" Man asked.

Tom and Maddie looked at each other, getting the idea.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Let's go get our kids."

They turned to the man and said in unison.

"We need your truck."

They take the truck and drive out in it.

Out in the forest, Robotnik takes a break to get his breath.

"Coming, getting… Whoo!"

"Hey, you-hoo!"

He sees Sonic hanging on top of the tree.

"So what's the plan here? You gonna build a big robot house, getting yourself a big robot wife?"

"I'm going to enslave humanity and force them to service my machines. First Green Hills, then the universe, then the multiverse, then who knows? Maybe I'll be enough."

Sonic glares angrily.

"Full disclosure? You won't be there."

Robotnik's eyes glows green before he starts to shoot eye lasers at Sonic from the Death Egg, who barely manages to dodge them.

"Eye lasers?! Really?"

As Sonic is about to head over a bridge however, he starts to run out of gas and begins to slow down, allowing the Death Egg to catch up.

"Snot rocket!"

Robotnik fire a nose beam that destroys the bridge.

"No, no, no, no, no, no!"

The broken bridge sends Sonic plummeting down as he crashes roughly.

"Ha, ha, ha! Giving up already? Not so tough when you're fighting someone 700 times your size, are ya? You can't beat me! I'm all powerful! All knowing!"

He stops to hear something behind them.

"All seeing."

Tails break into the Death Egg's cockpit.

"Looks like your fancy robot is lit."

Tails proceeds to use holographic images of himself to swarm Robotnik.

"What about me?"

"Over here!"

"Down below!"

"Behind you!"

"Too slow!"

Robotnik tries to blast away the holograms, but there's too many of them. He's had enough.

"You can't outsmart me! I'm the outsmarterer!"

With a big flash, he manages to blast away the holograms, leaving Tails at Robotnik's mercy as he fell onto the column, nearly falling into the pit.

"I didn't outsmart you. I'm just the distraction." Tails smirked.

"Robotnik!"

Robotnik notices Knuckles and Merlene on the other side of the cockpit.

"I am also a hologram!"

Merlene blows a raspberry.

"Disloyal." Robotnik sneered.

Knuckles cracks his fists.

"This is how I roll." he recited Robotnik's words.

Knuckles' fists glows electric red as Merlene's feets ready to kick. They nodded to each other before they jumped at Robotnik and literally punches or kicked the Master Emerald out of him as it went flying. Robotnik collapse on his knees, stunned and falls over along with the Death Egg, causing Tails, Merlene, and Knuckles to slid out of the Death Egg with the Master Emerald.

Knuckles holds Merlene close to him and they land outside. All of them ended up crashing into each other, tumbling onto the ground. Merlene groaned in pain and found herself sandwiched between Tails who's on top of her and Knuckles who's beneath her, completely knocked out.

Robotnik wheezed out in pain as he recovers.

"Where's my emerald?"

He looks around to find it gone.

"No, no, no, no, no, no! Computer, accelerate power."

Robotnik uses control glove to activate the Death Egg's auxiliary power, causing the robot to start powering up again.

Meanwhile, an exhausted and injured Sonic comes back to his senses and spots the Master Emerald nearby.

"The emerald. It's right there."

He slowly gets up, tripping himself.

"I have to… reach it."

As Sonic slumps his way towards the Master Emerald, at the same time, Merlene gets up and lightly pushes the boys off and spots her brother. She quickly runs after him.

"Sonic!"

"We… need to… get the emerald."

"Alright. Hold on."

Merlene helps him get through. Robotnik manages to get the Death Egg back on its feet, eyes glowing red and walks towards Sonic and Merlene. Merlene turns over and her eyes widens in horror, beginning to walk faster while holding her brother close.

"Come on. We need to move faster."

"I'm… trying…"

Without Robotnik knowing however, Tom and Maddie are arriving from behind in the truck. While Tom drives, Maddie looks over and sees Sonic and Merlene.

"There they are! Go, go, go!"

Then, just before the Death Egg can step on Sonic and Merlene, the Master Emerald is picked up by Sonic, and in turn they get picked by Maddie as she and Tom drive by in the truck.

"No!" Robotnik shouted.

"We got you, Sonic and Merlene!"

Despite having escape the Death Egg's foot however, Robotnik raised his fist. Tom sees it and warns them.

"Hold on!"

Then he punch the ground behind the truck, causing it to topple and crash. Sonic, Merlene, Tom and Maddie crawl out of the wreck.

"You guys okay?" Maddie asked.

"Yeah." Tom replied.

"Okay."

They lean against the damaged truck and spot the Death Egg approaching. Sonic looks down at the Master Emerald.

"I got the emerald. We can still defeat him. Come on, come on. How does this thing work? What do we do?"

Suddenly, the Master Emerald begins to crack.

"What?" Merlene gasped.

It then crumbles to piece in Sonic's hands, releasing the seven Chaos Emerald from it.

"No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!" Sonic exclaimed.

"No, no, no! Please work! Please work!"

Merlene tries to piece the Master Emerald back together but it was no use. Robotnik comes in close.

"Look at the happy little family."

Robotnik proceeds to use the Death Egg's flamethrower to trap the four inside a ring of fire.

"You have to get away from us."

"We're the ones he wants."

"Hey, we're not going anywhere. We're family." Maddie said firmly, facing the hedgehog siblings.

"Families stick together…"

Tom takes Merlene's hand while Maddie takes Sonic's hand as the siblings hold each other's hand.

"...No matter what."

Robotnik raises his foot to crush them. The Wachowski family huddle close to each other.

"We love you, guys." Sonic and Merlene said sadly.

"We love you too, Sonic and Merlene." Tom said.

Sonic, Merlene and their foster family get ready to accept their fate and die together as the Death Egg brings its foot down upon them. However, in the last moment, the Chaos Emeralds respond to Sonic and Merlene's emotions, who inadvertently absorbs them before they were completely squished by its foot.

"No!" Tails screamed at their death.

"No! Merlene!" Knuckles screamed in agony.

Robotnik cheered in victory.

"I've got them! I've finally them! Ha, ha, ha!"

However, the Death Egg suddenly jerks up.

"What was that?"

Robotnik looks over. At the same time, Tom and Maddie find themselves not dead and look over to see the robot's foot is being lifted by Sonic and Merlene, now transformed into Super Sonic and Super Merlene. Tails and Knuckles were shocked and amazed at the sight of the powerful hedgehogs.

Blasting through the Death Egg's foot, Super Sonic and Super Merlene faces Robotnik as she summons something in her hand to reveal a giant emerald battle sword.

The, the super hedgehog siblings cuts its head off as it fell to the ground, facing the horrified Robotnik.

"It's over, Eggman." Super Sonic declared.

"You're done for." Super Merlene added.

Robotnik looks at them nervously.

"I like the new look. It works for you two. What do say we just let bygones be bygones? I did some things, you did some things. There are good people on both sides."

Super Sonic just glares at him while Super Merlene looks unconvinced, sharpening her sword.

"Surely, three intelligent beings…"

Behind Robotnik, he uses his control glove to have the Death Egg Robot get ready to punch.

"...can work these things out!"

Robotnik goes to punch them when Super Sonic blocks the blow and holds its fist. Robotnik tries to push its fist to crush him, but with much power, it doesn't affect him. Super Sonic blows the robot's arm to pieces. Tom and Maddie rushes over and cheers them on, watching the battle.

"Come on, buddies!"

"Get him, Sonic and Merlene!"

"Yeah, come on."

Robotnik tries to use his other fist to punch Super Merlene when she easily slices the arm off with her big sword, causing it to fall off. Both Super Sonic and Super Merlene begins piercing through the robot several times at super speed. As soon as they were done, Super Sonic and Super Merlene tap their foot on the robot at the same time. Robotnik looks at them in disbelief.

"Oh, it's like that?"

All he receives were glares.

"Okay, we're not friends!"

As the Death Egg begins to topple over, Robotnik says his last words before falling with collapsing robot.

"Later, haters!"

As soon as the Death Egg is down, Super Sonic and Super Merlene comes back down, the Wachowskis comes towards them.

"Sonic! Merlene!"

"Buddies!"

Knuckles stops them.

"Wait! You can't touch them! The hedgehogs holds the power of the emerald. I'm sorry, they are no longer the Sonic and Merlene you once knew."

"What?..." Tom asked in disbelief.

Super Sonic proceeds to summon a thunder storm that focuses into his hand. Everyone watched in fear of what he's going to do while Super Merlene stands there calmly. However, it is then revealed that Sonic only made a chili dog for himself. He takes a whiff of it and bites it.

"Mmm! Oh, you gotta try this!"

With a snap of his fingers, he summons another one for Knuckles, who looks up, only to land in his face.

"Okay, he's exactly the Sonic you once knew." he bluntly remarked.

Knuckles looked over at Merlene, who giggles and summons a napkin to clean his face.

"Same with Merlene."

"Ah-ha." Tom bluntly agreed while Maddie just giggled.

With a smile, Super Sonic and Super Merlene subsequently relinquished their Chaos Emeralds, which disappear to parts unknown, and reverts back to normal. The big sword though is still in Merlene's hand. Looks like she gets to keep it as it looks better then her katanas. She stabs the blade onto the ground.

"Sonic! Merlene!"

Maddie hugs the two as they hug back. Tom comes next with his arms open wide.

"Bring it in, buds!"

This time Sonic hugs Tom along with Merlene. They pulled away after.

"Ah, it's good to be back in blue! The golden God thing was fun, but blue has always been more of my color."

"Neon blue is much better then gold."

"Looks good on you two." Tom agreed.

"Sonic, Merlene, you two are the most powerful heroes in the universe, and you let it go, why?" Tails asked.

"Because we still have some growing up to do. And I kind of liked being a kid."

"Same for me."

"And you're not just any kids, you're our kids." Tom said.

"That's right."

Maddie booped Sonic and Merlene's noses.

"Bring it in!"

Tom and Maddie pulled Sonic, Merlene, and Tails into a hug.

"Yay! Group hugs!"

"It's a good thing we didn't do this before you would have blown up!" Sonic said, making them laugh.

As they celebrate, Knuckles takes the pieces of the Master Emerald and reassembles it.

"Whoa, you fixed it." Sonic awed.

"I've spent my whole life questing for this, Now I have it. What do we do with it? What next?"

Knuckles passes the Master Emerald to Tails.

"There were once two orders of heroes who protected the galaxy from those who would use the emerald for evil."

"But they have all passed on to the great battleground in the sky."

"So we start a new order, the four of us." Merlene said.

"This is no light task. We must make a vow to use our powers to keep the universe safe. To watch out for each other. Our new tribe." Knuckles said.

"Oh, I know. A power bump."

Tails brings out his fist.

"Good idea." Sonic said.

"Now we're talking." Merlene agreed.

The three together bring out their fist. Knuckles raise his eyebrow in confusion.

"It's an Earth's custom, an unbreakable promise." Tails explained.

"Very well. A power bump it is."

Tom and Maddie power bumped each other as the four heroes did the same.

"Power bump!" Sonic and Merlene said in unison.

As soon as they pulled their fists away, Merlene punches Knuckles in the stomach, shocking everyone.

"That's for beating up my brother, trusting Eggman, kidnapping me, and nearly putting everyone in danger."

Knuckles narrows his eyes, holding his stomach in pain.

"What, is it always going to be this way? Cause…"

Merlene pulls Knuckles into a kiss for a while before pulling away.

"Oh!" Maddie gushed, while Tom coughed awkwardly.

"Wha…?" Sonic and Tails gasped in disbelief.

"That's for… everything else." Merlene said, blushing.

Knuckles gazes at her love struck.

"...I could get used to it."

Epilogue

Som time later, Sonic, Merlene, Tails, Knuckles, Tom, Maddie, and Ozzie are at Green Hills' baseball field.

"It's truly a beautiful day for baseball here in Green Hills. An exciting lineup today with the debut appearance of two new players! On the mound, rookie sensation from across the galaxy, Miles Tails Prower!" Sonic announced through the mic.

Tails gives them a shy wave.

"Facing off against the powerhouse, Knuckles the Echidna!"

Knuckles looks at the bat he's holding in confusion.

"Um, I don't understand. Why am I angry ay the enemy ball?"

"You're not angry. You just want to hit it as hard as you can and the run around the bases."

"But if my quest ends where I am standing, why run at all?"

This made Merlene cover her mouth, trying to hold in her laughter. He's so cute when he's confused and still new to this Earth.

"Ugh, I can't with this guy. Why do I even try?" Sonic face palmed.

"Knuckles, you just swing and have fun, okay?" Merlene said, giggling.

"Yeah, just having some fun." Tom agreed.

"Fun, huh." Knuckles said, nearly forgetting at how much fun he had when hew was with Merlene as kids.

Sonic zooms in behind Knuckles in his baseball gear.

"Alright! Give him the heat, Tails!"

"Hope you're ready for my fastball!"

"Your fastball will be dishonored, and so will you, fox." Knuckles said before growling, holding the bat into a position.

"Easy, guys." Maddie warned, calming them down.

"Hey, don't think about it too much. Just keep your elbow up, eye on the ball, and give it a ride." Tom said.

Tails spins the balls and tosses it into the air and catches it with his twin-tails.

"A ride? To where?" Knuckles questioned.

No answer was given as Tails throws the ball hard towards him using his twin-tails. Knuckles eyes the ball for a moment as it comes close.

"Power bump!"

Knuckles hits the ball with a power-bump instead of his bat, sending it flying as Tails ducked from it through the score board.

'Ha! Victory is mone!"

Knuckles jubilantly runs around the baseball field.

"Well, didn't see that one coming!" Merlene laughed.

"Hey! No fair! That shouldn't count!" Taila whined.

"If it makes you feel better, that was a good throw."

"...Thanks, Merlene." he blushed.

"That base is also mine!"

Tom and Maddie eyes at the hole on the score board.

"I think that was our only ball."

"I have conquered the second of the bases!" Knuckles cheered.

"Alright! Who wants ice cream?" Maddie announced.

Sonic, Merlene, and Tails cheered at the sound of that.

"Yeah, ice cream!"

"Ice cream! Yum!"

"Ice cream?! Yeah!"

Knuckles comes back from running around the field.

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I am having the fun! What is ice cream?"

"It's a dessert. If you like fun, you're gonna love it." Sonic explained.

"Oh, yum. Dessert. Does it have grapes in it?"

"No, not usually."

Knuckles a little disappointed in that.

"But don't worry, it's really good. Maybe we might try and make ice cream floored grapes sometimes." Merlene said, making him smile.

Meanwhile, Tom and Maddie are happy on behalf of Sonic and Merlene.

"I'm proud of those little buds."

"I really like their new friends, especially the red one. He cracks me up."

"He can swing too."

"Not to mention how lucky Merlene is to have that red one as her boyfriend."

"Yeah. They're pretty close. Kinda like Rachel and Randall."

"Come on, fox. Our dessert adventure awaits."

Knuckles carried Tails and placed him on his shoulder.

"Good job, guy." Maddie congratulated.

"Yeah." Tom agreed.

Ozzy comes up to them as Maddie pets him.

"You too, Ozzy! Let's go get some ice cream. Come on, come on."

As they head toward the truck, Tom stays behind with Sonic and Merlene for a moment to watch this scene.

"I'm proud for you, pals. Got your wingmen, your boyfriend if I so say so myself, Merlene."

This made Merlene blush in embarrassment while Sonic looks like he's going to puke.

"Perfect friends to grow up with."

"Come on, Knuckles." Tails encouraged, sitting in the back of the truck.

"Ah, my victory chariot!"

Knuckles jumps in, missing it for a bit and fully goes in the back with Tails.

"We've got a lot more that that…"

Sonic and Merlene looks at each other and smiles at Tom.

"...Dad."

This made Tom smile even more to hear them accepting him as their dad.

"Race you to the truck. 1, 2, 4, go!"

Tom runs first. Sonic and Merlene catches up in speed.

"No, no! Go easy on me! You're much too fast!"

Sonic and Merlene wins the race together as they slide from the top of the truck and land in the back with Knuckles and Tails.

"Sonic, Merlene, I had just been told they had sprinkles." Knuckles said, tapping the truck excitedly.

"Ice cream and sprinkles? This is your new destiny."

"Heck, yeah."

Tom starts the engine and truck starts reversing.

"What a perfect meal to celebrate my victory over you in base of ball."

"What?" Tails questioned in disbelief.

"I mean, you barely beat me." Sonic pointed out.

"Ha! You've never been beaten sh hard!"

"Okay, babe! Let's not get too cocky." Merlene giggled.

As the group proceeds to drive away in the truck, they almost leave the Master Emerald behind in the cooler.

"Sonic? Did we forget something?" Merlene asked, remembering something important.

Sonic realizes and comes back for it.

"Oh! Can't forget this."

Sonic grabs the cooler and zooms back to the group.

That night…

Merlene is sitting in the desk of her room, writing a song for herself and her friends to remember all the adventures they have gone through and saving the world from evil like Robotnik. She wonders where he is and gets the feeling they'll see him again. As soon as she was done, she puts out the title "Hero Too". sighting in satisfaction, she glances around to see Sonic and Tails sleeping together in Sonic's bed While Knuckles is sleeping on the other side of her bed. She smiles at them, feeling her life is complete.

Merlene looks out her window, seeing stars in the sky. She silently prays to God to thank him for bringing in wonderful friends her and her brother deserve.

Opening her eyes after praying, she sees something odd in the night sky. There before her is a falling red star. It then crashes into the forest, creating a big red explosion just up ahead. It was far for the others to hear what was all the ruckus.

"What in the world?"

Concerned, she goes outside from the window as quiet as she could without waking anyone up. Merlene runs through the forest, pushing away where the crash have landed.

When the coast is clear, she sees a small meteorite. What she learned from the horror movie is that curiosity killed the cat, but she can't help it. When she gets closer, the meteorite crumbles to piece to release something shiny in the corner of her eye. Merlene grabs it and examines the mysterious object. With the gentle moon light shining down to reveal a ruby necklace. She couldn't help but feel drawn to it as it whispers to her like a siren is alluring men to their death with their song.

"Beautiful…" she muttered, gazing upon the jewelry.

Without thinking, she puts it on and for a brief moment, the ruby necklace glows and her eyes turns rec with electric bolts.

Meanwhile, in a remote research facility, a capsule slips out, inside of which a black hedgehog, Shadow the Hedgehog, awakes. Eyes flashing red as hers as their eye meet.

"Who is that…?"

Merlene's birthday

In the morning, Merlene is sleeping soundly in her bed. What she didn't notice is that Sonic comes in and tiptoed to hos sister's bed and whispered.

"Pssssst! Sis."

Merlene yawned and stretched her arms, but her eyes stayed closed.

"Mm?" she mumbled, still half asleep.

"Happy birthday." Sonic said gently.

"To you…" Merlene sang, automatically finishing the birthday song in her sleep.

Sonic giggled.

"It's your birthday."

Merlene opened her eyes groggily and sat up.

"To me…" she sang again.

Then she feel back onto her pillow.

"It's my birthday."

"Come on, sis." Sonic urged.

Suddenly, her eyes flickered open.

"It's my birthday?!" Merlene exclaimed happily.

"Yep! And it's going to be perfect."

Sonic pulled his sister out of bed and led her towards the closet and opened it reveal a brand-new clothes that Merlene immediately recognized that they're from Hot Topic as she gasped with delight.

"I love it! You know what I liked!" Merlene cried.

"I managed to convince mom to buy that for you."

"Aww. wait, where are the others?"

That is a surprise. Try it on. There's plenty of more for you to see."

Merlene nodded and happily changed her clothes without him peeking as he looked away. Once she's all dressed up, Sonic held up a piece of string that trailed onto the floor. He smiled and handed the end to her.

"Just follow the string!"

"The string?"

Merlene stared then a happy grin grew across her face as she realized that it was part of her birthday fun. She quickly followed the string out of her attic room and into the living room. Sonic laughed, watching Merlene crawl under a small table over the couch. The string kept going! Finally, Merlene stopped at a kitchen table, where the string went right into the box that was wrapped nicely.

Curious, Merlene opened the box and pulled out a beautiful sibling bracelet that says "Brother Sister".

"OMG! Did you get me this? It's beautiful!"

"You are my bestest sister I'd ever have."

Delighted, she placed the bracelet on her wrist as it fit her. Just as Sonic had planned everything. Merlene turned and hugged her brother. Sonic smiled and hugged back before releasing a mischievous smile, he pointed. Merlene turned and realized that there was more string to follow! The birthday treasure hunt wasn't over yet. Merlene's heart raced. The string extended from the kitchen table all the way to the front door that's underneath. She ran to follow the string and slam opened the door to see the string on the road. On cue, a loud rumble was heard and she turned to see Sonic brought out her motorcycle with his helmet on.

"Let's go, sis! Your birthday hunt awaits!"

Merlene happily hopped on for her to drive as he slid behind her and handed her a helmet as she placed it on before driving in medium speed to follow the string without missing it. They drive past the stores and restaurants of Green Hills as they head towards the billboard sign to where the police car was parked as they stopped there. In the opened window where the string was leading revealed Wade inside as he smiled at them.

"Hey! Happy birthday, Merlene! Sweet 16, huh?"

"Yeah! Thanks, Wade!" Merlene smiled.

"Here is your gift!"

Wade handed her a gift bag and she take it and pulled out something she never expected to see. The Lord of The Rings Volumes 1-3.

She always wanted to read these after secretly watching the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. how did they know? She looks at Wade with her nervous laughter as he gave her a wink in a hushed gesture.

"Don't worry. Your secret is safe with us."

"We may or may not have secretly looked into you diary while you are sleeping." Sonic said with a hint of guilt.

"What?!" Merlene exclaimed in shock, gripping her collection close to her as she place it back inside the bag.

"And look into your sketchbook. Boy, you should've seen the look on Knux's face." he added, chuckling nervously.

Her face went pink that they saw her some sketches of Knuckles she would draw and other things.

"I'm going to murder you all after this is over."

"Pah! You won't!"

Merlene was about to drive to follow more string when Wade stopped them.

"Wait! Before you leave, here's your little treat."

He hands her birthday cake donut.

"Ohh! Thanks again, Wade!"

Merlene quickly eats it before driving off as Wade waved her.

"See you, birthday girl!"

The travel went on at full speed down the road as they enjoy the ride with a smile on their faces.

"How long till the string ends?!"

"Can't tell ya! It wouldn't be a surprise! Look over there!"

Sonic points to the woods that's tied up to the tree. Merlene carefully drives into the woods without crashing as they follow the string. As they went there, her eyes widened in recognition. She stopped her motorcycle and parked it. Hopping off, Merlene slowly follows the string towards their old home in the truck of a tree.

"This is…"

"...where we used to live before Tom adopted us. I thought it would be a good memory." Sonic said with a fond smile.

Merlene looks around the empty cave of what used to be their home. She kinda missed living in here, but living in a house is much better. Still it feels like this is where they belong. She stops to see a table full of daisies. Longclaw's favorite flower… She notices the string is inside the daisies and approaches it. Carefully, she reaches in while gently pushing the daisies aside and pulls out a wooden music box with owl on it.

"Play it." Sonic said, reading his sister's mind before she could ask.

Merlene twisted the handle for a second and opened the box to hear a familiar song playing. She immediately recognizes the lullaby Longclaw used to sing to her.

"I found it while I was… making a shrine for the memorial of her. It only shows your name, and I knew she wanted to give this to you."

She looks at the top of the box to see it indeed has her name with a little quote "Grace of melody makes me miss you".

Merlene remembers like it was yesterday.

~ FLASHBACK ~

Back in Longclaw's home, Longclaw is working on something in the box, sitting on a chair next to the candle. On the floor, a young Sonic is sleeping with a blanket covering him with a pillow beneath his head while a young Merlene is doing her tapestry weaving. Longclaw looked at the two kids and smiled to herself as she continued working.

She looked towards the window. It was dark night, a heavy rain pouring outside. Suddenly the window was slammed opened from the harsh wind, blowing the candle light off and scaring Merlene as she begins to have a panic attack. Longclaw flapped her wings to push the window back and close it, locking it. Sonic just groans and turns over to get more comfortable.

"S-Sonic? L-Longclaw? W-Where are you? I-I can't see…!"

Young Merlene tries to search around to fell anything as everything is completely dark. She hates being alone in the dark as they scare her. She couldn't breathe, feeling suffocated. Just then, the feathered hand grabs her gently and cradles her. The candle lit back up to reveal Longclaw as she shushes her. She looked up at her with wide eyes which showed fear and then buried her face in Longclaw's neck. Longclaw sits on the floor with her.

"My dear little Merlene. I'm here."

She stroked her front hair softly, comforting her.

"I'll always be right there." Longclaw assured as young Merlene hugged her.

She begins to sing the lullaby "Noble Maiden Fair" to distract young Merlene from the dark. Young Merlene began to sing along with her.

Young Sonic wakes up to hear them singing and walks over tiredly to join in for the cuddles and to listen to that song. Longclaw brings him in close with young Merlene, stroking his quills affectionately. As soon as Longclaw is done singing, she looks down to see thee two young hedgehogs sleeping. She smiles holds them close before blowing off the candle and closing her eyes, falling asleep.

~ FLASHBACK ENDS ~

"I really miss her." Merlene said with a sad smile.

"Me too." Sonic agreed.

She places her music box inside her gift bag and sees the string leading to the outside. They got out of their old home to see it leading up to the mountains.

"Whelp. Our adventure awaits."

"You got that right, sis."

Merlene and Sonic hop back to her motorcycle as they're back on a road to follow the string. Then they drive through the woods once more. They stopped to see the string stopped by the top of the tree hidden deep within the leaves. She looks at her brother oddly, who just gave her a sheepish smile. She parked her motorcycle and began to climb up the tree.

As she did, she peeked in through the leaves and couldn't believe her eyes. Instantly grabbing it, she slid down in front of Sonic to show him something in her hands. There in her arms are the two plushies of Sanemi Shinazugawa and Genya Shinazugawa!

"How did you know I love these?!"

"The brother always knows." Sonic profoundly stated.

Merlene gives him an unamused look, making his smile falter until he eventually admits it.

"Alright, dad and mom knows too. Though it took Knuckles to try not to tear them apart since they're your favorite characters." Sonic said with a snicker.

Merlene giggled and could imagine Knuckles being jealous, but he will always be her favorite. Sonic looks at something ahead and fake gasped.

"Oh! What's that?"

Confused, she turned to see some sort of smoke just up in the mountains full of some trees.

"Let's go! I know a short cut!"

Before they knew it, they're now by the camp area where they can see Tom, Maddie, Ozzy, Tails, and Knuckles by the barbecue as Tom is doing the cooking. When they see her, they immediately smiled at her.

"SURPRISE!"

Merlene's face lit up in amazement.

"Wow!"

"Wow, indeed!" Sonic nodded.

"Happy sweet 16 birthday, Merlene!" Tom smiled.

Merlene looks around the camp.

"What is all of this?"

"We thought you'd like to do some outdoors." Maddie said.

"We ere trying to figure out what to do since your birthday was coming up. And I Sonic told you this, we may have look into your sketchbook and journal. We know how much you like going outside to see the world." Tom explained.

"This is… you guys."

Tails comes up to her and brings her a small wrapped up box. He looks up at her, blushing shyly.

"H-Happy Birthday, Merlene. I hope you like this gift I got for you."

"Aw thanks, Tails."

Merlene unwraps the box then opens it to see a cute version of Tails as a plushie.

"I-I made it myself. I thought you'd need it to keep you… company and feel safe."

Merlene smiles and gives him a kiss on the cheek, causing him to freeze with his twin-tails pointed up.

"It's a great gift."

The fox fainted on the spot with a happy sigh. Knuckles comes up to her, looking away as he brings out a black box.

"I… hope you liked mine… Better than that fox's gift." he said with a smirk at the end.

Tails instinctively gets up with a glare.

"Hey!"

Merlene smiles amusingly and opens the box. She was surprised at what she was seeing. Dark-blue natural rose glazed and trimmed with 24k gold.

The rose matches her fur. Her face turns pink and looks up to see him also pink.

"I've heard that roses… symbolizes what human would call… love… romance… beauty… and courage… like you. It… reminds me of you…"

Smiling, Merlene gives him a peck on the lips.

"Very romantic of you."

Knuckles couldn't utter a word as he just stood there, stunned. Ozzy comes up her and pulls her to head over to the camp.

"Okay, okay, Ozzy." she giggled.

They made it over to the table they set up with Sonic pulling the lovetruck Tails and Knuckles over to join in. her face lit up to see an ice cream cake they managed to make sure it's cooled up with her name and her face on it along with a number 16 candle.

"Make a wish, baby." Maddie smiled.

Merlene closes her eyes for a quick wish before blowing out the candle.

"What did you wish for, sis?" Sonic asked.

"Nope. I ain't telling you that." Merlene smiled teasingly.

"What? Not to your own brother?"

Sonic tried to make a puppy face to make her spill the tea, but she's not falling for that.

"Sorry,bro. A girl gotta have her secret."

"Whatever you wished for, it will come true." Tom said.

"Let's eat." Maddie announced, making everyone excited.

They eat food first, of course before the dessert which is the cake. Everyone had a good time as they chat and laugh. This is life. Then it was now night time as they're near the fire, looking up at the night sky while eating smores they made themselves. Tails loved it as his face was covered in chocolate with some marshmallows smear. Merlene cleaned up his face with a napkin. Knuckles likes it as well, but not as good as grapes.

"Beautiful night, isn't it?" Tom said, laying down next to Maddie with Ozzy on her lap.

Sonic, Tails, Merlene, and Knuckles are lying besides each other in a circle.

"Yeah. Best view." Sonic commented.

"It is." Tails agreed.

"Very calming to watch." Knuckles added.

Merlene begins her poem out loud as she remembers reading one while watching the night sky.

"When you look up at the night sky at night

Even thought it may be dark you see sparkly lights,

During the day the sky is a pretty light blue

Then at night you see something totally new,

The sparkling lights are planet or stars

They seem so close but, yet so far,

It is magic in the sky at night and that I love

I just admire all the stars twinkling above,

You wonder how this all came to be

Every little sparks is just suspended and free,

I hope the night will always have a mystery

Because it is miracles like this that make history".

Everyone stares at her in amazement.

"Wow. That's deep." Sonic awed out.

"It is. When did you learn to speak like that?" Maddie asked.

"Did you learn poem? Or was that some kind of Shakespeare?" Tom asked.

"Nope. That was all from heart. And yes, I learn poem." Merlene chuckled.

"Your words are very wise and… beautiful." Knuckles commented with a smile, making her blush.

"Very nice. If that's what people see in the night sky, they're definitely right." Tails said.

"Yeah."

They all keep watching the hight sky and then one by one, everyone falls asleep, except Merlene as she keeps watching until she sees a shooting star.

"Jackpot."

She silently make a wish again, but with something much different. Her wish on the birthday cake was getting herself a surfboard, the other wish on the shooting star was spending her time with her family for the rest of her life where they can never be apart with every worth second.

Suddenly, she hears a flapping noise and smiles and looks up to see Longclaw flying above her. Merlene notices something in the owl's claws as she drops it. She catches it to see a pink flower with a gem in the middle.

She wonders where did the owl get it as Longclaw bids her a farewell that they'll see each other once more before disappearing from view as she flies off. Closing her eyes, she could feel a slight cold breeze as she takes a deep breath. Merlene looks down to see her old childhood guitar. They must have brought it here. She looks at her sleeping family and decides to do a little song. Merlene picks it up and begins to play the string of her guitar and sings softly without waking anyone up.

As she sings, Knuckles secretly open his eye to see her playing and singing and smiles. He closes it when she finished her song, playing her guitar down. Merlene then brings out the blanket from the bag they packed and lies down next to Knuckles and covers him and herself. She lies her head against his chest and close her eyes, falling asleep before uttering the words.

"Best birthday ever…"

Knuckles wraps his arm around her, pulling her close and kisses her head. He then goes back to sleep, knowing he won't forget this moment as she won't as well.

Moment with Knuckles

In the morning, the sunlight wakes Merlene up as it hit her eyes. She slowly wakes up, yawning. She was about to move when she felt something holding her waist. She turned to see a sleeping Knuckles with his big glove wrapped around her waist as he snuggled into her. She couldn't help but blush at how adorable he is.

Gently stroking his head and dreadlocks, she tries to stealthily get up as to not wake the sleeping echidna. Thought it was a little hard with his arm instinctively pulling her back down. With the amount of struggles, she manages to get out of his grip. Merlene grabs her ruby necklace and places it around her neck then quietly tiptoed out of the attic room, not wanting to wake everyone up. She then went downstairs to eat breakfast early before them. Little did she know, those pair of purple eyes are watching her.

After finishing breakfast and leaving a note to let know she went out, Merlene is back in the forest to where she come from with some stuff she need from her backpack. She would always go there often to do some sketches, discovering, etc. She likes natures and she's proud of that. Merlene stopped by the running lake and jumped over it and landed onto the next land.

She looked through the trees as she listened to the sound of mother nature and inhaled then breathed out. As she walk by, she saw something big and furry. Slowly and cautiously, she approaches and was surprised to see a big wolf. The big furry light grey and white wolf. It looks stuck as it whimpered, trying to get free from the big rock that's trapping it underneath.

Merlene slowly walk over to the wolf, making it flinch and growl.

"It's okay. I mean no harm. I'm here to help you."

The wolf looked at her wearily for a minute and kept growling, baring its fangs. Merlene slowly reaches out and pets its muzzle, stopping the growl.

It stayed still, slowly beginning to calm down. The wolf sees no harm and then shows that it trust her. Merlene smiles and looks at the big rock. Then she begins to try and push the rock with as much strength as possible. But it was impossible and it's so big. It would take a miracle to get off of that poor trapped wolf. As if her prayer was called, she felt the rock slowly moving. She turned and was surprised to see Knuckles as he helped her push the rock using his strength he's goo at. Together, they pushed the rock off of the wolf as it's now free.

The wolf jumped out of the hole it was trapped in and faced the two. Merlene noticed its paw is hurt and frowned. She went through her backpack and took out a first aid box. Knuckles looked at her, thinking what she was doing. Merlene slowly approaches the wolf, who flinches, but she raises her hand to show that she's trying to help. The wolf just stares and softens as she lean down to its level and begins to clean out the blood first for anything that might affect it as she learned from Maddie before wrapping it around its leg.

"There you go. Good as new."

Merlene quickly took a quick pic of the wolf staring at her before it ran off to where the nature takes it.

"What are you doing here?" Knuckles asked, looking at her.

"Going around exploring. How did you find me?"

"I may have spied on you."

Merlene chuckled.

"Well, you caught me. This is where I hang out often."

Just then, she heard a loud roar and ran to the cliff nearby with Knuckles following her. Looking down, she see a lake waterfall. She decided to take a look herself and took off her backpack and placed it down.

"What are you doing?"

"Going in for a swim." she said, taking off her white gloves, royal purple/navy blue/light turquoise boots and pale blue socks along with her Celeste rubber band as her hair went loose.

He looked down to where the waterfall is.

"Down there? Don't you think it's dangerous?"

"Danger? Ha! You're talking to the woman that beat you down real good. I think I can handle it." she laughed.

She does a somersault and dives in. Knuckles smiles and takes his boxing gloves, shoes and socks off, then dives headfirst into the water.

Next, they swim underwater as Merlene leads Knuckles to an underground cave with small ponds. Merlene resurfaced first and was about to move when she felt herself being lifted high and looked down to see Knuckles carrying her. She giggled as he placed her on the ground before coming out of the water. They head towards the hole as Knuckles look down warily when Merlene being mischievous, pushed him. He tries to balance himself and only ended up falling as he expected himself to fall when his were on the water. Realizing he's on the pond, he glares at her, who giggles. Merlene steps into the pond and gestures him to follow her.

"Come on, Knuckles!"

They headed towards the other pond as Merlene places her hand in the water, creating pink ripples that came from her ruby necklace that glows, which she noticed. Knuckles copies her, creating some red ripples powered by his fist.

Staring at her necklace, Merlene raises her hands and makes the water float and creates a big bubble. She bounces it over to Knuckles. He tries to catch it, only to ended up getting soaked as he made contract with the bubble. She laughs again as Knuckles looks unamused.

She runs through the ponds, creating more pink ripples. Knuckles follows her as each step he take makes red ripples. Then, they start chasing each other for fun. As they run towards the big pond, Knuckles falls into it while Merlene keeps running. She stops to see that and laughs when she felt the pair of hands grabs her by the waist and pulls her into the water. Merlene resurfaced and blew out water. Knuckles gave her a triumphant smirk, which she pouted.

Merlene then smiles and leads him to the cave as they swim. Sparkles and lights were everywhere and it's so beautiful as Knuckles and Merlene gaze into the cave in astonishment. He turns to her and she smiles. She takes both of his hands as their hands begins to glow with a mixture of red and pink from their power as they dance around them for a bit before disappearing, turning their hands back to normal color.

Both of them look at each other in surprise, not knowing they can do that. They gaze into each other's eyes as they are full of admiration, attraction, and undying feelings for each other. Their eyes twinkle, their eyes are smiling. Even if they didn't say a word about it, there's this invisible thread connecting them two.

Then, Knuckles leans in first and kisses her, closing his eyes. Merlene closes her eyes and kisses back, wrapping her arms around his neck. And then they pulled away and smiled once more.

After all that swimming and heading out of the underground cave, Merlene and Knuckles are sitting by the edge of the cliff to admire the sun and the town of Green Hills.

"I gotta say, this is an amazing place I have ever seen on Earth. Maybe society isn't as weak and undisciplined as I thought." he said.

"Yeah. This place is where I keep my mind off of anything that disturbs me or whenever I wanted to go somewhere alone that's peaceful and quiet."

Knuckles glances at her before facing the sun.

"You know I never got the chance to ask. What's Longclaw like?"

Merlene looks at him in surprise.

"I know my tribe and the owls were enemies, but… now that we're together, I'd like to know you and your life."

She smiles and looks back at the sun.

"She's kind and gentle, but strict too. She helped train me to learn to defend myself whenever trouble I'm in. whenever mistakes I made, she would always encourage me to keep trying. She taught me everything I need to know and I'm kind of like her favorite child. Don't tell Sonic that." she said with a hint of giggle.

Knuckles chuckled softly at that.

"I haven't told anyone about this and since you're my… my closest friend and boyfriend, I'm… afraid of the dark."

He was surprised to hear that.

"I don't like being in the dark alone by myself without anyone else with me. Longclaw would always comfort me and sing a lullaby to me. Her voice was so beautiful and soothing. I'd always enjoy singing 'cause… it reminds me of how much she means to me… and I miss her. If she were still alive, I would a least hear her song one last time…"

Merlene's eyes breaks as she speaks and begins tearing up, making him concern.

"She really means everything to you and your brother." he said.

"She was more like a mother to me. I'd never knew my real parents. My mother or father. Sometimes I wonder where they are, but I know they're out there watching over us."

Knuckles looks down.

"It's amazing that you know about Longclaw, who's like a mother, mine passed away when I was young. I don't even remember what she looked like really, much less the sound of her voice. I would always ask my father about her, but he didn't have a heart to tell me."

Merlene frowns, feeling bad that he didn't get to know his own mother.

"You know, I've always wondered, can you miss someone you never actually knew?"

"Yeah, I know how you feel."

She pulls him into a hug, causing him to shed a tear along with her as they both missed their loved ones. Knuckles buries his face against her chest.

"Do you… think you can sing me a song?"

"I…I'll try. I have this other lullaby Longclaw used to sing to me whenever I ask her for another song. Either Noble Maiden Fair, Baby mine, You'll Be In My Heart, Remember Me, and my favorite one…"

"What's that?" he asked curiously.

She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and sings.

"You're okay

You're alright

I'll never ever leave your side

I will stay

And I will fight

With you"

What she didn't notice her ruby around her neck begins to glow and releases swarm of pinkish white butterflies. They started surrounding them and danced around as they spiraled around, following the melody from her lips while leaving the trail of sparkles in the air.

Knuckles looks up and his eyes widens. He looks at her and notices the glowing necklace, wondering how she can do that.

Merlene continued to vocalize beautifully, the song fueled by how much she cared and loved him.

Knuckles gaze her face once more, looking shocked and amazed.

"You're okay

You're alright

I'll stay here

Through the darkest night

All the way

I will fight

With you"

He's left speechless. He was more moved by the lyrics. Knuckles looks at the butterflies to see them leaving as they flutter to who knows where, disappearing from view. The ruby necklace stops glowing and Merlene opens her eyes to see him staring at her, but she didn't bother looking away. His purple eyes were just locked with hers.

"That was… amazing." he blushed.

"Thanks." she blushed back.

Knuckles kisses her softly. Merlene kisses back as their kiss was long full of gentleness and caring until they pull away. They look back at the sun, cuddling each other.

"We should get back before our family freaks out at where we are. I have a feeling it's almost lunch time."

"Yeah."

Before Merlene could even get up, Knuckles wrapped his arms under her upper back and knees and lifted her up in bridal style.

"Uh, Knuckles? You know I can walk, right?" she asked.

"I know." he replied with a smile.

Knuckles then carries her straight towards home. Merlene just smiles and snuggles against his chest. Little did they know, one bright butterfly was on the beautiful pink flower that somehow grown on its own before getting off to fly after the other butterflies, sparkles trailing behind it.

Drone Home

In a sunny day, Sonic, Merlene, Tails, and Knuckles are walking down a path in an open nature field.

"The town of Green Hills. A nice quiet place." Sonic said.

Merlene looks around, suspiciously.

"Almost too quiet."

"This isn't the way of the library." Tails said, flying beside them.

"I swore an oath to return the sacred tomes or Maddie will be dishonored with late fees." Knuckles said, showing three books he's holding.

"Well, we better be quick about it." Merlene said.

"This is just a detour."

Sonic turns to the readers.

"Merlene, Knuckles, and Tails didn't know something mysterious was going on at the junkyard."

"Who are you talking to?" Tails asked in confusion.

"Are you seriously breaking the fourth wall?" Merlene asked, unamused.

"I'm narrating. Cool heroes do it in detective movies all the time. And no, sis I'm not breaking the fourth wall."

"What's the fourth wall?" Knuckles asked.

"It's a conceptual barrier between those presenting some kind of a communication and those receiving it. Basically, it's like the imaginary wall at the front of the stage separating the audience from the performers."

"Hm… Well, I wish to narrate, too."

Knuckles starts his narrating.

"Knuckles was very handsome and strong, much stronger than Sonic."

"Tails was just excited to be included." Tails joined in.

"Great… Now Merlene is dealing with idiots, who are clearly breaking the fourth wall…" Merlene groaned.

All the way, the four walks into the Green Hills Junkyard.

"Tails' narration was weak and sad."

Immediately, Merlene smacks Knuckles on the head for being a little mean. Stopping, Sonic shushes them.

"We're on an investigation. Wade told me that there have been weird noises up here at night."

As if on cue, noises are coming from inside the junkyard, Knuckles slowly makes his way forward with Merlene following him while Tails hides behind Sonic. Although a little displeased by this, Sonic nonetheless makes his way forward, with a scared Tails walking behind him. From behind some junk, Sonic, Merlene, Tails, and Knuckles spot an aerial Badnik drone called Unit with a robotic body made of junk.

"Upgrade. Upgrade. Need to upgrade. Unit must upgrade and conquer the world." Unit said, rummaging through the junk for parts to build himself up with.

Sonic gasps in realization, recognizing that robot.

"Oh! It's one of Robotnik's drones."

"That's impossible. I thought we destroyed it." Merlene said, wide eyes.

"It's been upgrading itself." Tails said worriedly.

Standing up, Knuckles scoffs in confidence.

"Ha! No match for me!"

However, Unit notices him.

"Biologicals detected."

It starts to fire lasers at Knuckles, whom they barely miss, but still succeed in blowing Knuckles off his feet. Knuckles then notices to his shock that one of lasers has pierced all of Maddie's books.

"The sacred tomes!"

"There goes Maddie's fees." Merlene sweatdropped.

"Guys, we need a plan." Sonic suggested. "Tails, you take up the flanking positions. Knuckles…"

Knuckles cuts him off and narrates to the readers.

"Knuckles pretended he was listening. Are you ready?"

Knuckles positions himself for a head-start.

"Are you still narrating? Wait!" Sonic questioned in confusion and shock.

"Knuckles, don't!" Merlene exclaimed.

Knuckles charges towards Unit.

"Time for a Knuckles Sandwich!"

Unit begins firing lasers as Knuckles, who blocks it with a stop sign in the junkyard before jumping high in the air and start gliding at Unit to deliver a blow to him. However, Unit manages to catch Knuckles inside an old refrigerator, which he then promptly launches far into midair. As the refrigerator flies through midair, Knuckles gets its open and jumps out of it, only to scream and hit and get stuck in a large town advertisement sign for Green Hills.

"Ouch!" Merlene winced at the sight of her poor boyfriend.

Unit grabs a broken car and throws it at Sonic, Merlene, and Tails.

"Oooooohh! Let's go!"

Sonic grabs Tails and he and Merlene begins running through the junkyard at super speed in order to gauge Unit's speed.

"Let's see how fast you are!"

"Hang on, Tails!" Merlene warned.

"Whoa!" Tails exclaimed.

As Unit fires laser at them. Sonic and Merlene manages to dodge them all until one of them blows them into the air.

"Oh! Up above you!"

While Tails takes flight, Sonic and Merlene curls into a ball and begins launching a series of homing spin attacks into Unit's body.

"Boing! Boing! Over here! Over here! Gotcha!"

As Sonic and Merlene lands their final blow that brings Unit to his knees, Sonic stops up and picks up a part that flew off Unit as Merlene stops besides him.

"I hope this wasn't doing anything important." Sonic noted sarcastically.

"Not yet." Unit retorted back.

Then the component sprays pink spray paint into Sonic's face.

"My eyes!" he exclaimed.

"Sonic!" Merlene gasped.

With Sonic now distracted by trying to clean his eyes, Unit gets back on his feet.

"Uh-oh…" Merlene gulped.

"Don't worry, Sonic and Merlene! Tails to the rescue!"

Tails pulls out a handgun and uses it to fire a bola at Unit. However, Unit deflects it at Sonic's legs, causing Sonic to get tried up and trip, and Tails to realize his mistake.

"Oops!"

Unit starts moving in on Sonic and Merlene.

"Dr. Robotnik program Unit to think for itself."

Unit proceeds to slam his large hand down on Sonic. However, shortly thereafter, Unit sees that Tails is carry Sonic through midair.

"Most interesting. Your speed is no match for this Unit's processing power!"

Unit folds a helicopter rotor and uses it to take flight. As Tails tries to fly away from Unit while Sonic starts to panic.

"Go left! Go left! Go left! Your left! Not my left!"

Unit manages to grab Sonic by his feet and pull both him and Tails down on the ground, slamming them into it.

Though he noticed Merlene isn't with them. Turning around to look for her, only to be hit by a DVD. UNit sees Merlene as she glares at him.

"You're gonna have to go through me first."

"We'll see about that."

Unit grabs a rusted metal chains and starts swinging it towards Merlene. Merlene searches around the junkyard and finds the damaged shield and throws it at the chains, breaking it apart. She charges at the robot in speed and goes to kick him when Unit dodges it. He pulls a big metal pole and does the karate pose.

"Hiyah!"

Merlene grabs the metal staff from the ground and gerd into her fighting stance. Unit lets out a battle cry with his pole raised, charging at her. She quickly blocks it with her staff and tries to swing it back at Unit, who ducks from it. Merlene then activates her ruby around her neck as her eyes glow red. She swiftly gives Unit a powerful kick, making him go flying.

Merlene looks at her necklace in surprise that it can do that. She didn't have time to process what's going on when Unit gets back up and knocks her off her feet and grabs her an sends flying towards Sonic and Tails. Merlene lands roughly next to her brother.

"Unit is victorious!" Unit cheered, raising his metal claws.

"Sonic! Do something!" Tails exclaimed, worrying for Merlene.

"I would, but somebody tied my legs together!" Sonic pointed out with a scowl.

"You can still talk." Tails nervously stated.

Taking Tails' advice, Sonic gets up on his feet and turns Unit, just as he draws all his weapons.

"How you doing? Before you blow us up, can I ask you a question?"

"No one has ever asked Unit a question before. Most interesting." Unit said, looking puzzled.

"Just curious. Why are you doing this?"

"Unit's programming is to conquer the world."

"That sounds like Robotnik. You said you think for yourself, right?" Merlene asked, slowly getting up with the help of Tails.

"Yeah, what are you really into?" Sonic asked.

Unit looks surprised.

"What does… Unit like?"

"Well, you got a real flare for design. Do you make custom furniture?" Sonic asked, checking out hid junk parts.

Withdrawing his weapons, Unit starts to look shy as he taps his metal claws together.

"Truthfully, Unit's passion is…poetry."

"So why don't you conquer the world with poetry?" Sonic suggested.

"We'd love to hear one of your poems." Tails agreed.

"It wouldn't hurt to hear how you feel." Merlene said with a smile.

Unit looks hesitant for a moment.

"No, I couldn't possibly. It's too personal, but if you insist."

Unit puts on a pair of glasses and pulls out a poem he has written on a piece of paper. Sonic, Merlene, and Tails thus make themselves comfortable as Unit begins reciting his poems.

"Its Unit's ambition to crush all opposition… caliphate shall fall sudden from heaven…"

The sun begins to set as Unit continues his poem.

"...like a weapon cloud poetic phrase number seventy-three…"

Suddenly, Knuckles appears from the side and smashes Unit into junkpile and starts punching him rapidly and repeatedly.

"Wait! Knuckles!" Merlene exclaimed, running towards him.

"Don't hurt him!" Tails exclaimed in worry.

"Knuckles! No! Stop!" Sonic shouted, dodging the falling parts of Unit.

"I can't hear you over the sound of my fighting!"

Merlene wraps her arms around his waist and pulls him back as hard as she could.

"Knuckles! Stop! Not everything is required punching!"

Knuckles finally stops, looking at her.

"But I'm so good at punching." he insisted.

"Well, you can use your punching for later when there's a really big problem to deal with." Merlene said, finally pulling him away from Unit.

A sad Tails then begins rummaging through the junks.

"Poor guy. He wasn't trying to kill us anymore, he was reciting a poem."

He soon after finds Unit's cire module, which is still operational.

"That poem wasn't my best. Thank you fo the destructive criticism." Unit said.

Tails looks happy to see him alive.

"He's okay! Sonic, Merlene, can we keep him?"

"I don't know… What if he attacks us again?" Merlene said, not liking this.

"She's right." Sonic agreed.

"He's not bad anymore." Tails insisted, gesturing to Unit.

Sonic and Merlene think for a moment before they made their decision.

"He'd be your responsibility, Tails. You've got to clean up after him and change his batteries." Sonic said seriously.

"And make sure he's not too destructive." Merlene added.

Sonic then hops away.

"My battery will last one billion years." Unit informed.

"Well, that's surprising." Merlene commented.

"I don't trust this trash bot." Knuckles said, not liking Unit.

"He's an artist now. He's okay." Tails reassured.

Unit gets into the air and flies towards Knuckles, getting into his face.

"Soon, Unit will master the poetic form and the world will cower. You will the first to fall before this Unit's superior prose, red meat thing."

Knuckles growl in anger at the insult Unit gave him.

"Did you hear that? It's still evil! I demand justice for Maddie's books right there!"

"Don't let him get to you, babe. Let's go." Merlene assured, kissing his cheek.

This made Knuckles blush and glance away in embarrassment.

Paying no mind, Sonic lets Tails fly him away while Knuckles and Merlene catches up to them on ground.

"Thus ends one adventure for Team Sonic, but their greatest adventure was just beginning. The quest of picking up some chili dogs on the way home." Sonic narrated to the readers once more.

"Will you stop breaking the fourth wall?!" Merlene shouted in annoyance.

"Make me!"

"Knuckles! Throw me!"

"N-No! Wait!-"

Above them there is a cloud shaped chili dog.

Secret Shadow

Merlene is in her attic room, trying to think of something creative on her empty white canvas. The boys are hanging out with Tom while Maddie had to go to work, so it's Merlene's time alone at least. She was thinking of painting her family to remind her the day they made new friends who are just like her and her brother. Thinking it, Merlene was about to use her brush to do the work when suddenly her ruby starts to glow. Then her eyes flashes red and suddenly, her hand starts to move on its own automatically and does the painting for her. She doesn't know what was happening, but she starts to see some flashes before her eyes as if she's in a memory. All she could only hear is gunshots and screams along with cries. Then she sees three figures running away from several black figures that gives off bad aura. Finally, those words Merlene never expect she would hear.

"Maria!"

Gasping, Merlene was back in her own state and look around to see she's still in the attic room. She turns to her painting and gasps at what the sight. There stood before her is the painting of Shadow the Hedgehog, who looks rather intimidating and very dark.

Merlene drops her painting supplies in shock and didn't remember painting that picture. She recognizes him when she saw him through her ruby magic state. She wondered why it's showing her.

"I need to calm myself down." she mumbled, walking away from her painting.

Merlene starts bringing in some candles as she puts them down around the circle before placing the mat in the middle for her to sit. She then sits down and criss-cross her legs, getting into her meditation position. She slowly breathe in and out as Maddie taught her. Just as she was getting her mind calm, she doesn't notice her ruby glows again and causes the candlelight to turn pink. Then the candles starts floating in the air and circles around Merlene.

Not knowing what's going on, she managed to calm her mind and that's when the candles around her brightens up the room with a flash. Everything went black.

Merlene feels something wasn't right as she slowly opens here eyes. Instantly, her eyes went wide and stand up to find herself no longer in the attic room anymore. There she found herself in a pink room full of clouds, stars, galaxies, and a moon. She's in a dream world as she could tell that this isn't normal. Merlene even notices a beautiful pink flower tree. She looks down to see a reflection of herself and the world.

"Wow… This is… just… wow…" Merlene gasped in awe.

She starts to walk as the floor below her creates ripples with every step she take. There's so much things to explore her without waking up. Suddenly, she heard a sound of running hooves. Turning, she was stunned to see a beautiful spirit deer as it galloped up to her.

"Who are you?" she voiced.

The spirit deer sprouts its magical winds and sits down. Merlene was confused for a moment until she realized it's asking her to hop on. But for what? Not much of a choice, she jumps onto its back to carry her. The deer then leaped off and the pair take off into the skies. Merlene is rallied up with fear and excitement while she clings onto the neck of the spirit deer gently, watching the tree and the pink water room area shrink in distance. She then shouts in excitement as they fly past a flying train and flower fields. The spirit deer dives downwards and flies below the trees of a forest full of rainbows. It then flies upwards and above the trees, when a leaf gets caught up in Merlene's mouth and she pulls it out to see a rainbow leaf full of sparkles. She watches in fascination as they fly past the colorful trees from above.

The spirit deer and Merlene flies towards the bridge where the sparkling river is and Merlene could see a beautiful night sky full of shooting stars passing by.

Oh, she's so gonna paint this and others she saw in her dream once she wakes up somehow. The spirit deer then flies above the clouds and Merlene gazes at the starry sky. The deer picks up the pace and speeds through the clouds. It then does a loop-de-loop and drop-catches Merlene, making her land back on its back. A loud whistle noise was heard and Merlene looked up to see a giant flying whale with a pack of stingray as they soar through the Northern Light. Then she heard splashes and looked down to see they're now running through the water. She could even see an underwater city below her with lights on.

It was breathtaking as Merlene carefully lean down to touch her hands into the water as it did. She could feel the coolness of the water as she let her hand slide through before letting go as the spirit deer then flies towards the horizon of the shining moon. The little land then comes into view in the middle of the ocean.

Little did she know, a certain person was lying down in the tree branch holding a sparkling blue rose as if they're waiting for her.

They eventually landed in the Green Hills after flying and sightseeing for what seemed like hours, as they could see mountains over there with one tree each. However, what caught her attention was the same pink tree. Her eyes were fixed on the spirit deer as it nodded at her.

"Would you like me to visit over there?"

After nodding again, it transformed into a butterfly and flew away. In spite of the fact that it is a little far from the tree, Merlene began to walk. Her nervousness increased as she got closer, as if she sensed someone was watching her. Her attention is immediately drawn to a swing when she is close to the tree. Seeing that no one was using it, she looked around. She thought she was alone in her dream since she was the only one in it. Holding the rope handle, she sits down on the swing. Feeling like a child, Merlene swings herself back and forth.

"A swing in the tree teaches us how to handle life when it swings us. Whenever life swings us, we will be ready." she muttered as she swung.

From above, a deep voice spoke, "That's an interesting observation about swing."

Merlene shouted in terror and clung tightly to the rope to avoid falling. Her eyes scanned the surroundings frantically.

"Wh-Who's there?!"

"Up here."

She looked up and was surprised to see the same black hedgehog she saw through her power vision as he look down at her blankly, twirling the blue rose in his hand casually.

"It's you."

"We meet again…"

"H-How did you get into my dream?"

"I should ask you the same thing."

Merlene looks confused.

"Huh? So you're telling me this isn't my dream? If so, are we in each other's dreams?"

"Maybe. But not my problem." he said. "The name's Shadow. Shadow the Hedgehog."

"Hey, I… I'm Merlene. Merlene the Hedgehog."

"Intriguing name." Shadow commented.

"Uh… thanks. You know… back from what I saw in that vision. How long have you been in that capsule thing?"

"50 years."

Merlene was shocked to hear that.

"Excuse me?"

"It's shocking, really. But I'm used to it. One day, I'll be free for me to finish that promise I'm willing to keep."

"What promise is that?"

Shadow was silent for a moment as he looks at the blue rose fondly.

"It's classified. You'll understand soon."

"I see."

Merlene understood that he doesn't want to talk about it and didn't pry.

"You know… you're different. Not what I expected." he said, looking down at her.

"How exactly?"

Suddenly, the tree branch started moving on its own and slowly raised her up to Shadow, making her yelp and grip onto the swing. He suddenly grips her chin for him to get a closer look as soon as she's up to his level. He stares into her eyes, making her blush.

"You… remind me of someone that I cared for dearly."

Merlene notices his eyes are full of pain, sorrow, anger, and… emptiness. He then pulls himself away from her and looks at the view ahead of him.

"Wanna take a walk?"

She looks at him surprised.

"You mean, go around and explore with you?"

"Yeah. I've been in this dream for a long time as it helps me feel… calm. Since you're here, it's… been a long time since I had some company."

Merlene get what he means since she and her brother had been alone for their entire life ever since they lost Longclaw.

"Sure."

Shadow smiles at him and jumps off from the tree and lands before Merlene lands beside him.

They climbed over a hill and witnessed a sunset in the horizons. They both began to sing "Something Entirely New" as they explore dream together.

Where did we go? What did we do?

I think we made something entirely new

And it wasn't quite me, and it wasn't quite you

I think it was someone entirely new

Merlene walked through a forest when a butterfly landed on her hand. Shadow came over to observe it, but it flew away and got eaten by a frog. Shadow then picked up the frog and punched it to let the butterfly go as it spitted ot, letting the butterfly flew off. Merlene smiles amusingly. Shadow sings first.

Oh, um

Well, I just can't stop thinking

Merlene sings next.

So, um

Did you say I was different?

He glances at her.

And you hadn't before?

She looks back at him.

Of course not

When would I have ever?

Night fell, Shadow and Merlene lay in the grass to gaze at the moon, while talking about the vision and how they see each other through their powers that are similar. Shadow looks apologetic.

I'm sorry

Merlene quickly shook her head.

No, no, don't be

He looks conflicted.

And now you're here forever!

She looks at him questionably.

What about you?

He raises his eyebrow.

What about me?

She smiles at him

Well you're here too

We're here together

Merlene placed a reassuring hand on Shadow's hand and then led him into a forest. She began humming her song, to which Shadow then joined in too, forming a reprise of "Stronger Than You" and "Strong in the Real Way". Shadow placed a blue rose in her hair. They reach for each other's hand for a moment until they stop. Hesitating a bit, Merlene placed a hand on his shoulder while Shadow wrapped his arm around her waist before they grab each other's hand. They spins her for a bit, surprising her. She then smiles as he smiles back. Their dance was slow and almost romantic the he holds her up in the air and spins her around, making her laugh.

The mixture of orange and pink combined as their bodies glow, creating a peach fire that start surrounding them. They stopped dancing to see it happening, looking surprised. The peach fire then form into a figure of a flower as it dance gracefully above them before slowly disappearing.

"Wow…"

That was the only word Merlene could say before she felt something odd. She looked down to see her hand glowing and they begin to fade away. She's not the only one as Shadow's hand is also to fade.

"Looks like it's time to wake up." he said.

Merlene was saddened that their meeting had to end.

"Will I… see you again?"

Shadow gives her a small smile.

"Maybe. It depends how destiny brings us."

She wondered what he mean by that, but instead just smile before the entire dream world turn white.

Opening her eyes, Merlene finds herself back in the attic room as she lies there on the mat and slowly sits up. She notices the candles around her had died down. She sighed, thinking it must be a dream when she felt something in her hair. Merlene reaches in and pulls it out to see the same blue rose as it sparkles. Her eyes widened in shock.

"How did it get here?"

The sound of the door opening snapped her out of her trance.

"Merlene! Sweetie! We're home!" Maddie called.

"We've got you your favorite lunch!" Tom added.

"Come down, sis! Let's eat!" Sonic said.

Looking back at the rose, she smiles and gets up and places it in the vase not before pouring water inside and went downstairs to join her family. She looks forward to meeting Shadow again in her dream and maybe hopefully in person someday.

AU Turn of Events

At the bright sunny day, Merlene and Knuckles are cuddling underneath the tree they're lying down on as they listen to the sound of nature full of quietness and peace.

"Hey, Knuckles?"

"Hm?"

"Have you ever like wonder that maybe somewhere in the universe, like how our meeting will be different?"

"Like what?"

"Like… we did lose everything. But we somehow found each other after and maybe went through all the adventures together."

Knuckles put out a thoughtful look for a moment before facing her.

"Never thought of that. Our adventure would sound amazing and full of honor."

Merlene smiled and snuggled herself against his chest.

"I figured you'd say that. I was thinking the same thing. It would be great without us being enemies and fighting each other."

"And yet here we are. Together."

"Yeah, together."

The couples went back to cuddling as they then took a nap, which causes them to be in a dream they won't forget.

Years earlier…

Young Sonic pulls out a sunflower and a peony he picked from the outside, which makes Longclaw and Young Merlene happy. Longclaw notices a tribe of echidnas in the tress, aiming their weapons at the trio. She then shuts the door and grabs young Sonic and young Merlene to protect them.

"Get down!"

The echidnas fire their arrows from their bows and they hit almost every corner of Longclaw's house, with one arrow breaking the window, barely missing Longclaw, and passing through Sonic's flowers, pinning them to the wood floor.

The echidnas climb through the windows and prepare to attack, but Longclaw, Merlene, and Sonic escape through the back window as the echidnas continue firing arrows at them. Eventually, the leader of the tribe, Pachacmas, fires his arrow and it strikes Longclaw, knocking her, Merlene, and Sonic out of the sky and sending them plummeting to the ground. A wounded Longclaw gets up and puts a very concerned Sonic and Merlene on their feet and they look at her.

"Sonic, Merlene, you have to keep on running. They'll never stop until they find you two."

Longclaw gasps as she hears the echidna tribe getting closer, then she looks back down at Sonic and Merlene. She gently pushes them forward.

"Longclaw!" Sonic called worriedly.

"Go, Sonic, Merlene! I'll stop them!" Longclaw ordered, getting ready to fight the tribe.

"We're not leaving you!" Young Merlene pleaded.

"Run! Now!"

The two hedgehog siblings hesitates. Longclaw looks at them softly.

"Go! I promise I'll look for you two!"

They eventually nodded and young Sonic grabs his sister's hand and runs off in speed. Longclaw faces the echidna tribe and closes her eyes griefly.

"I'm sorry, my children…"

Later, young Sonic and Merlene are walking alone in the forest nervously as soon as they're far away from the fight.

"Do you think Longclaw will win? Young Sonic asked worriedly.

"I… hope so." young Merlene replied, looking unsure. "Let's just keep going and find some shelter and wait for Longclaw to come back."

He nodded as the two kept walking, gripping each other's hand.

Meanwhile, a certain young echidna was sitting in the stone stairs of his home, holding a spear. He looks anxious and worried, waiting for his father to come back. He still remembers those words that kept repeating in his mind like it was his last words.

"Your moment to honor our tribe will come, but it wasn't this moment."

"How much longer can it take? Not much… I guess. They must be… tired, and that's why they're taking so long. No, no! They're not late, they just… take their time." young Knuckles thought.

PRANG!

That sound caught his attention as he turned to the direction.

"Something triggered a trap." he said.

Young Knuckles got up and cautiously approaches it through the bushes as he puts his mask on, holding the spear up. As soon as he got close, he jumps out of the bushes and points his spear threateningly.

"Still!"

But what he didn't expect to see is a small young blue hedgehog Sonic in the cage, who cowers and screams. Confused, young Knuckles pulls his mask up to his head.

"You are a kid?"

He kneels down and starts poking the cage curiously, which made young Sonic scared.

"D-Don't hurt me! Get away!"

"Oh, shut it! I won't hurt you!" young Knuckles shouted in annoyance.

Young Sonic went silent for a moment until young Knuckles' eyes widen in recognition as he got a good look at him.

"Wait… I know who you are! You are that creature! The blue blur that led them to Longclaw! What are you doing here?"

Young Knuckles looks around cautiously with his spear up.

"Is she with you?! Where is she?!"

Young Sonic tries to pull the cage as he shakes them.

"Let me go!"

Young Knuckles glances at him unamused.

"Pfft, how weak you are, you can't lift that?"

He looked around again only to find no one in the opening.

"She's not here. Then everyone is still in battle…"

"Why do they want to hurt her?!" cried Young Sonic.

"That's none of your business, pipsqueak."

"They won't win! She will beat them all and come for me and my sister!"

"Ha! Longclaw doesn't stand a chance, my father and the tribe will finish her off."

"No, they won't!"

"And when dad comes back, he will be proud that I caught you."

Young Knuckles turns around and starts to walk away.

"HEY!" Young Sonic called.

Young Knuckles turns back around and sits down with his arms and legs crossed.

"I'll keep my eye on you until my tribe returns."

They had a stare off for a while as hours comes by when young Knuckles notices something.

"Hey, did you say you have a sister?"

Young Sonic smiled as he finally noticed.

"Yeah! And when she finds out I'm captured, she'll take you down."

Young Knuckles gets up with wide eyes.

"Could it be her name is…?"

"KNUCKLES!"

"Oh, great…"

CRASH!

Young Knuckles finds himself on the ground with young Merlene on top of him with her pink emerald blade pointing at his neck.

"I almost forgot about you…"

"Release my brother! Now!"

"Never!"

Young Knuckles pushes her off of him and brings out his spear as young Merlene lands gracefully.

"Kick his butt for me, sis!" Young Sonic cheered.

Young Knuckles raises his spear to strike her down only for her to block it with her blade. She struggle to hold it up since he's strong only for the spear to cut out her headband she was wearing as it gets cut in half. It then falls off from her head, much to her dismay. Young Knuckles smirks.

"Haha! Oh, you're gonna weep now? Shall I pause until you mourn your headband?"

With a glare, young Merlene raises her blade and points it straight at where his head is. He quickly dodges it only to hear it cut something. Young Knuckles glances to the side to see his mask with a cut mark on the side the feathers that are once attached to his mask is now torn into pieces as little feathers falls off.

Young Merlene smirks back at him. Young Knuckles slowly turns and glares at her.

"You've done it now."

He rips off the mask from his head and drops it on the ground next to the cage. The two glare at each other for a moment before charging.

Young Sonic watched as the two battle it out with young Merlene bouncing back after every move while dodging.

"Man, how fast are you?!"

"I've got a great teacher!"

Just as young Knuckles goes to swing his spear at her, young Merlene jumped up high and raised her pink emerald blade with a battle cry. He quickly blocked it with his spear as their blades clashed and young Merlene bounced back with slight shock.

"My tremendous horse-cut technique should've destroyed your spear!"

"Ha! You only the blade and not my handle! All of your fancy moves will get you nowhere. Now, quit jumping around and get to fighting!"

The two battle once again as young Sonic watched anxiously and the fight lasted the whole day as it turned into night. By then, young Merlene and young Knuckles were exhausted as they're on their knees, panting while young Sonic looks sleepy the entire time.

"Prepare to meet your doom, little blueberry…"

Young Knuckles then tried lifting his spear to strike her, but his arms are shaking with tiredness and he dropped them back to his side.

"I'll give you one more chance to give up." he said, breathing deeply.

"I am not defeated, and I shall hold my ground." Young Merlene said, looking tired and sweaty.

"H-Hold your ground? You can barely hold your blade."

"Then come get me."

This shocked young Knuckles and Sonic at her words.

"S-Sis…"

Young Knuckles struggled with his words as he doesn't know what to say until he groaned in frustration.

"You're lucky that I'm a sportsman. I'll give you a moment to recuperate."

"...Thanks."

Young Merlene and young Knuckles eventually collapsed on the ground with an exhausted sigh before snoozing as they let the tiredness take over their bodies as they sleep. Young Sonic eventually falls asleep in his cage, tired of watching this whole fight.

AU Turn of Events Pt.2

The next morning, young Sonic, young Merlene, and young Knuckles wakes up and instead of fighting it out they just sat there, waiting for anyone to show up. But then minutes turns to hours as 35 hours has passed since the tribe left and no one has returned. Sitting next to them was three empty bowls as they have eaten their breakfast. Young Knuckles didn't want to since they're his enemies, but with young Merlene's pleas and convince he had no choice.

Young Knuckles gets up and heads into his empty home, not without giving young Merlene an eye gesture to not make any funny move, which earned an eye roll. As he head towards his house, his mind starts to wonder about his echidna tribe.

"They can't take that long to get back… maybe they need help."

Young Knuckles starts rummaging through this things as he tosses them away.

"There has to be a map or a name, something to show me where they went…"

He stops as he came to a conclusion, which made him wince what he's going to do.

"Or someone…"

Young Sonic and young Merlene sat next to each other, looking bored. A loud ruffle sound was made and young Merlene gets on guard only to relax to see young Knuckles coming out of the bushes.

"Isn't she here to rescue you two yet?"

"Isn't the tribe here yet?" young Merlene retorted.

"Mph." young Knuckles huffed in annoyance.

"Leave us alone." young Sonic demanded.

Young Knuckles places his fists on his hips.

"Listen, hedgehogs. You know Longclaw's location, right?"

"So what if we do? Why do you want to know?" young Merlene asked suspiciously.

"I know you do. And I want to offer you a deal."

She stares at him for a moment, thinking what he's up to."

"What's the catch?"

"If you show me how to get there, I'll release your brother and let you two go."

"Ha! As if!" laughed young Merlene.

"Yeah! We're not showing you anything, you just want to get there to hurt her. Like the others…" young Sonic said, glaring at him through the cage.

Young Knuckles frowned.

"I just want to get there 'cause my dad isn't back… and he might need some help."

Now this made young Merlene feel bad for him. She had met his father as far as she knew when they're playing in secret, but after seeing her friend worry for him, now she wanted to help him. Young Sonic though was thinking something else.

"...Wait. If no one's back… that means…"

His eyes widened in realization and his face lit up with hope.

"She made it! Longclaw won! She must be looking for me and sis right now!"

This made young Merlene unsure about it while young Knuckles gets mad as he shouted at him.

"NO! THAT's NOT TRUE! SURELY LONGCLAW DOESN'T WANT TO REVEAL WHAT THEY NEED AND THAT'S WHY THEY HAVEN'T COME BACK! O-OR MAYBE THEY GOT LOST!"

"If you say so…" young Sonic smirked.

This made young Merlene snicker, but at the same time she hope her brother is right about Longclaw being alive and looking for them. Young Knuckles' loud angry shout made the hedgehog siblings cover their ears while smiling amusingly.

"OF COURSE I SAY SO! NOW TAKE ME THERE OR I'LL THROW YOU INTO THE WATER!"

"Fine…" she sighed.

"We'll take you. But don't blame us if out of nowhere a giant owl shows up and teaches you a lesson for keeping me locked up like what my sister did to you, but worse." young Sonic said.

Young Knuckles scoffs and looks away in embarrassment while young Merlene smirks at him.

"...Fine. Deal…"

Young Merlene and young Knuckles watches as young Sonic struggles to push through the gasp of the cage until he finally manages to get his tiny hand out and holds it out to the young echidna. He stares at young Sonic suspiciously.

"Something tells me that's a bad idea…"

This made young Sonic falters and lets his hand down. Young Merlene looks at young Knuckles funny.

"Uh, it's a handshake. You and I have done that when we made a pact."

Ho looks at her for a moment.

"Well, to you, yes. But your brother is an exception."

Young Sonic looks on between them.

"Do you two know each other?"

This made young Merlene nervous as she tries to find an excuse, but finds none.

"Well…"

Birthday Specials

~ No Family to Care For Me ~

That night in the attic room, Knuckles could be seen twitching as he appears to have a hard time sleeping. His face turns into a grimace and worry like he's having a bad dream. In his dream, he finds himself in a white room.

"Where am I? What is this place?" he questioned, eyebrows raised.

The room changes to a village, Mystic Ruins. His eyes widened in recognition as his body freezes.

"This is… my home…"

He begins tearing up just looking at them.

"No… no… it's-it's… just a nightmare…"

"PLEASE COME BACK!"

He looks to see a younger version of himself standing by the very same house as he watches his father and the tribe walk away.

"I NEED YOU HERE! YOU DON'T NEED TO GO HUNT DOWN LONGCLAW…" young Knuckles cried out, looking down. "What… about… me?"

For a moment of silence, he drops his spear and starts sobbing.

"WHAT ABOUT ME?! FATHER, PLEASE COME HOME!"

Back in the attic room, KNuckles instantly he gets up with a gasp, looking all sweaty. He pants heavily and looks around to see Sonic and Tails sleeping then he turns to his side to see Merlene sleeping by his cheek. He sighs in relief and strokes her cheek.

"Oh, good. They're… they're still asleep."

He recalls his nightmare as he remembers himself screaming for his father to come back home and starts tearing more, holding his knees up. He breathes shakily as he tries not to cry. But this didn't go unnoticed as Merlene opens her eyes after hearing him getting up. She turns to see him crying and frowns, getting up.

"Knuckles?"

Knuckles gasps to see her awake and quickly wipes his tears away.

"Merlene… I… didn't mean to wake you up."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"You're crying, aren't you? It doesn't seem that you're fine to me."

"No, m-my nose is runny, that's all. D-Don't worry about it."

Merlene doesn't like that answer and scoots closer to him, placing a hand on his.

"Knuckles, you can talk to me. Be honest. It's okay. I know we've been through a lot but…. you can trust me. I'm always here to listen."

He grips her hand back.

"It's okay, Merlene. It's… nothing. I-I'm fine. You're better off going back to sleep." he said, glancing away.

Merlene sighs, knowing she can't push him further, seeing how sad he is.

"You know… I miss her."

Knuckles turns to her.

"You mean, Longclaw?"

Merlene nods.

"I know I told you this before, but you know, before me and Sonic escaped here to safety. We miss her every day, sometimes I dream about me and Sonic being back in Green Hills, I miss training with her, exploring around Green Hills, where I feel free without any worries. I even wish that if me and Sonic still stay in Green Hills, I would've still play with you like the good old days and help reunite your tribe and mine to come together as equals where there will be no more war, no more hunting… But now all I do is worry."

"...You see, Merlene, that's the problem with growing up." Knuckles said.

Merlene looks at him in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"Growing up means you gain more responsibilities. I had the responsibility of finding the Master Emerald my whole life." he said, staring at his boxing glove. "And now, you, me, Sonic, and Tails share that responsibility."

He closed ot into a fist.

"And now we also share the responsibility of protects this house. The Master Emerald, and stopping Robotnik in case he comes back."

"So you mean since I've gotten older, I have more worries since I have so many responsibilities?" she asked.

"Exactly. But you don't have to carry those on your own. You've got your family."

"You still won't tell me what's wrong? I won't tell anyone about it. Heck, I'll even make sure my brother doesn't hear about it since he loves to tease you."

Knuckles smiles in amusement and sighs, knowing he can't keep a secret from her since she's his girlfriend, his love of his life.

"Alright. Since you won't let me in peace of my hour of sorrow."

"Oh, I make sure of it. I just don't want to see you suffer."

"...You've not the only one who misses your home planet."

"You mean with all the other echidnas?"

He looks down.

"Yes, I miss my father. I wish I could've gone with him when the tribe went to go hunt down the last of the owl warriors. But I also wonder if I'd here right now. I had a nightmare where I rewatched my father walk away with the rest of my tribe. I know that I am brave and strong..but … Every time I think of him… I-I just feel… like that the n-nightmare will keep on going."

She notices his voice started shaking the more he talks.

"I'll just break down crying like it will never end…"

He begins to cry as he lets his tears fall onto his boxing gloves. Merlene hugs him, resting her face on his shoulder.

"Hey, it's okay. Just because you need to let out your emotions and cry, doesn't change the fact that you're brave and strong." she said, pulling herself away for her to face him. "You are a warrior that could break through anything that comes in your way with your knuckles. Heck, I'm jealous that you have the ability to do that. I would even use that to help me escape through anything."

Her words made him chuckle.

"And the strength you have to continue on, is so much more powerful tan your physical strengths. We all suffer with memories that haunt us. But it's how handle them and move on from them that makes you even stronger. You may remember your moments with your father, but you can't keep focusing on the past with your tribe and finding the Master Emerald."

Knuckles stares at her, smiling.

"Your quest has ended. You found the Master Emerald and you found a new place to call home. We're all here for you, Knuckles. I'm here for you and I always care about you." she said.

In tears, he kisses her and cups her cheeks, which she kisses back and wraps her arms around his neck. They pull away after, staring at each other's eyes.

"Thank you, Merlene."

"No problem, Knuckles." she said before kissing him again.

~ Turn of Events AU: Waterfall ~

Ever since Sonic, Merlene, and Knuckles discovers the loss of their loved ones, they have traveled around the world together to find a perfect home together while having some great adventures as they grow up. As they grow, their friendship grows as well, especially the spark between Merlene and Knuckles as they grew very close than her relationship with her brother. Right now, they're by the waterfall.

"Alright! I've always wanted to swim." Merlene said excitedly, placing her weapons down.

"You guys sure this is safe?" Sonic asked unsurely, looking down at the water.

"You scared, hedgehog?" teased Knuckles.

"N-No! No! Pfft! I can handle water!"

"Whelp, if you think you can, then let's go!"

Merlene lets out a cheer as she jumps down first as Knuckles comes next and Sonic with some hesitation comes down last. Merlene and Knuckles cheers as they head straight into the water while Sonic screams. As they fall, Merlene and Knuckles stares into each other's eyes with a hint of pink sparkles. Before they knew it, they landed into the water with a big splash. Merlene and Knuckles swims up the surface with glee.

"WOW! THAT WAS AMAZING!"

"HECK, YEAH!"

What they didn't notice Sonic didn't resurface after landing into the water as the water ripples stops moving.

"I kinda wanna do it again!" Knuckles said.

"Yes, let's do it to it! Right, Sonic?" Merlene said, turning to her side.

They stopped smiling as they noticed Sonic isn't here.

"...Sonic?"

"...hedgehog?"

In a matter of second, they realize Sonic couldn't swim and isn't coming out of the water.

"HOLY SH- HEDGEHOG?!"

"SONIC?! OH MY, GOSH!"

Merlene dives down and pulls Sonic up to the surface and swims him towards the land with the help of Knuckles as they place him down.

"What were you thinking, Sonic?! Why didn't you tell us?! Merlene shouted with worry.

"Yeah! Who the hell jumps into the water without learning how to swim?" Knuckles shouted, glaring sternly at him.

"Hehe… Sorry. I forgot." Sonic laughed nervously.

"Don't scare me like that ever again. I thought I lost you." Merlene sighed before hugging him.

Sonic hugs back.

"Don't worry. I promise."

Knuckles smiles at the scene while gazing at Merlene.

~ Making a Move ~

"Are you guys serious?" Knuckles deadpanned.

"Yeah! The bet's bet!" Sonic grinned.

"You can't turn back on this one." Tails added.

Knuckles is standing outside, seeing Merlene sitting by the tree reading her book. Long story short, Sonic and the boys making a bet to see if one of them can do it or not. Let's just say, Sonic make a bet on Knuckles that he can't make a move on his sister while Knuckles betted him back that if he lost a bet , Sonic has to steal Tom's secret donuts stash without being spotted. And then it comes to now as Knuckles takes a deep breath and starts approaching Merlene. Sonic and Tails are hiding behind the bushes to watch this scene.

"He's so gonna blow it." Sonic snickered.

"I hope so." Tails giggled.

Knuckles clears his throat, catching Merlene's attention as she looks up from her book.

"Oh, hey Knuckles. What's up?" she asked, closing her book.

He glances away, looking nervous as he twiddles his thumbs.

"Uh…hey, Merlene. Um… Can you… do me a favor? It's kinda important."

Merlene tilts her head as his sudden nervousness, which makes him look away more trying not to squeal at how cute she is.

"Sure, why not? Is everything alright?"

She gets up and looks at him with concern.

"Everything is fine. Just… trust me."

"Alright. I trust you."

Knuckles knew that there's no turning back as Tails said.

"Uh… close your hands like this." he said, clasping his gloves.

"Okay."

Merlene clasps her hands as her fingers are intertwined. He gulps and speaks the last words he surely will regret.

"Now, one side of the fingers up."

She then holds one of her one side of her fingers up.

"Like this?"

Knuckles takes off one of his boxing gloves and does something that Merlene never expects nor see it coming. He grabs her fingers that are holding up as he intertwines his with hers and holds both of her arms up and pins her against the bark of the tree. With his free hand, he wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her close.

"Whoa! K-Knuckles?!" She yelled in shock, blushing bright pink.

"He actually did it?!" Sonic whispered out, just as shock as her.

"I can do that, too…" Tails grumbled in jealousy.

Knuckles also blushes as his cheeks are brighter than his red fur.

"S-Sorry. It was a bet that Sonic made me. I just… wanted to prove him wrong that I can make a move on the woman I love."

Merlene feels speechless and in awe that he did this for her. She smiles and kisses his nose, surprising him.

"Oh, Knuckles. That's so sweet of you. But you don't have to prove him that you can do it when I know you can. You just need some time that's all."

He stares at her for a moment before sighting, leaning his forehead against hers.

"How did I get so lucky to have you?"

"Since we were kids."

"Yeah…"

They stayed like this for a moment, apart from Sonic looking unhappy that he lost the bet while Tails looks ready to blast Knuckles into bits.

"...You can let go of me now. You've won the bet." Merlene suggested, feeling embarrassed at this position.

Knuckles thinks for a moment and smirks.

"Nah, I think I like this. It makes you look cute."

"S-Stop that…" she stuttered, looking away.

Knuckles smiles amusingly and kisses her cheek.