Chapter 1: Restoration Of The Diamond Cutters
Emeraldville, this was the location where the Restoration HQ resided and was also destroyed some time ago. Despite this enormous setback, the Restoration lived on and its headquarters was rebuilt in due time. Eventually, Emeraldville, which was once known as a war-torn town had also finally been restored. Today was Cream the Rabbit's birthday, and she was celebrating her birthday here with all her friends, specifically in the common eating area inside the Restoration HQ. She said that she wanted to have her birthday here so that all her friends who always work so hard inside and outside the HQ can finally have a moment to relax and have fun. There was a table done up by her mother Vanilla, which was full of cooked and baked foods, including Cream's birthday cake. Gemerl, her protector, was keeping a sharp eye on everyone to make sure no one hogged too much food for themselves. There was also another table where everyone had put their gifts for her to open later. So many people had managed to make it her party, including people who didn't seem to go to parties very often, a hedgehog from the future, and even a royal princess from another dimension.
"How are you liking your birthday so far Cream?" Blaze says, before taking a sip from her tea.
"It's been wonderful Miss Blaze, I've played so many different games with everyone here, and the best part is that I haven't even eaten my cake or opened my gifts yet!" Cream looks at Amy, and then towards the table full of food, "Me and Cheese are getting kind of hungry though…"
"Well let's not wait any longer and get into this food then, it looks delicious," Amy responds.
"Finally, I've been waiting so long to eat all this food! It all looks so good!" Charmy yells excitingly before grabbing a honey muffin and scoffing down it in one bite. While Gemerl was eyeing the bee down, Vector and Vanilla could be seen standing together close by.
"Well, y-you know Vanilla, Charmy. She's the best at making food and making people h-happy," he replies, trying and failing to be smooth with Vanilla standing next to him and all. Vanilla giggles lightly to herself about Vector's clear nervousness, but she still appreciates his compliment none the less, which eventually puts Vector back at ease. On the other end of the table, Silver and Espio and can be seen together having a quiet but meaningful conversation together.
"Silver, I heard that you're growing an apple orchard now. How is it coming along?"
"Oh it's going great Espio! Blaze has been super helpful with the whole process too, I'm glad she cares about gardening as much as I do."
"Maybe it's less that she cares about the gardening and more that she cares about you?"
"Well, of course she does… well I hope so anyways but I mean, you all seem to care about me and..." Silver begins to panic slightly.
"You're overthinking this, of course we care about you, I care about you... just don't tell Vector or Charmy I said that though, okay," Espio says as he awkwardly looks away. Further away from the table, Tails was talking to Rouge of all people about a recent encounter him and Sonic had with Surge and Kit.
"Yeah, Surge was pretty rough to deal with but Kit, I'm more concerned about him at this point. While Surge was programmed to hate Sonic, Kit seems to have a growing hatred for me all on his own. I don't really know what I did wrong, but I'm getting really worried about him in particular.
"Hey, it's not your fault, he's probably just jealous of your genius. People like to judge me all the time, but I don't let it bother me," Rouge asserts. The fox wasn't confident that was the reason why Kit disliked him but it still made him feel better, at least temporarily. In another isolated corner of the party, Shadow can be seen thinking to himself. Well, he was thinking to himself until Sonic ran over to him.
"I'm surprised you're actually here Shadow, this normally isn't your kind of thing," Sonic lightly elbows Shadows while holding onto a chilli dog.
"It's not, but that doesn't mean you have to make a big deal out of it Sonic, I had to get Cream something for her birthda..." Shadow suddenly stops and realises that he just gave Sonic all sorts of ammo now.
"I understand, you know I'm just playing around here Shadow," Sonic smirks.
"Sometimes people don't like playing games though Sonic," Lanolin butts in tiredly.
"Wow, way to be a fuzzkill Lanolin, you and Shadow would get along great," Sonic says teasingly to the both of them. He then spotted Knuckles in the distance and immediately dashed over to him. After Sonic's quick exit, Shadow simply nodded to Lanolin as a way of saying thank you, before walking off on his own again, leaving her all alone with just her wisp companion. For a brief moment, there was quiet, but it didn't last long before…
"Lanolin! It's been such a long time since we've last seen you!"
That's Tangle alright. Lanolin was greeted by Tangle and Whisper, the latter who silently acknowledged her. "Yes Tangle, it has been a while, but you know how it is, I'm a busy sheep."
"Me and Tangle want to talk to you about something, is that alright with you?" Whisper says quietly, suddenly changing the topic.
What? Why do Whisper and Tangle want to talk to me of all people? Whats going on here? Lanolin thought to herself for a while.
"Lanolin, Whisper asked a question, are you alright?" Tangle says slightly concerned.
Lanolin realised she was zoning out, "Oh, sorry, I just spaced out for a moment there haha… yes please, go right ahead". Whisper gradually stepped closer to Lanolin, almost until she was uncomfortably close. She didn't have her mask on at the moment but it was still hard to see what she was exactly thinking about most of the time. Whisper then finally speaks.
"Do you want to be the leader of the Diamond Cutters again?"
Did she seriously just ask that? Lanolin was unsure of Whisper's proposition at first. The last time she had worked together with Whisper and Tangle, she had been secretly manipulated by Mimic, she had failed to be a good leader, and she had ultimately become a liability. Since that day, she had worked tirelessly day and night so that she would be seen as more than just an amateur. Throughout it all, there was always this part of her that wanted redemption, to be seen as a real hero by her fellow people, like Sonic. Before she could accept Whisper's proposition though, she had one simple question on her mind.
"Why?"
"Because you and Jewel did such a good job with the Emeraldville rebuilding efforts. We see you how hard you work, and that's what makes you such a great leader!" Tangle beamed.
Whisper chuckled at Tangle's enthusiasm, "Well, you have great potential at least Lanolin."
Lanolin was befuddled, "What about the whole Mimic situation though?"
"Mimic has been taken care of now," The mood shifted, with Whisper looking away from Tangle guiltily while Tangle was holding onto her tail, trying to find some comfort.
"I think I can piece together what happened..." Lanolin then tries to bring the mood back up, "Don't worry about that, while rebuilding Emeraldville was rewarding, I've had a need to be back out in the field where I know I can excel, and the fact that you have both decided to give me another chance of being leader of the Diamond Cutters, I am truly grateful. Consider me in."
After hearing the mini speech, Tangle was instantly put in a good mood again. To be fair, it was hard for her to stay in a bad mood for long. Whisper was smiling too so that must be a good sign.
"Yay! We're so glad to have you back Lanolin, just don't try and get too tired and grumpy again okay?" Tangle teases poking at the sheep's hair.
"Haha, I've been tired for a while, but I'll be okay. We're not accepting any more members though, I don't want to take any chances this time."
"Agreed. Just us," Whisper chimes in.
After a quick group hug (which was initiated by Tangle), Vanilla suddenly makes an announcement.
"Everyone come over, it's time to sing happy birthday for Cream!" Cream was absolutely mesmerised by her multilayered ice-cream cake. As everyone gathered around ready to sing happy birthday for Cream, Knuckles had suddenly gotten a bad sense.
"Sorry to interrupt this moment but I think something bad has happened to the Master Emerald."
Rouge casually rests her arm on Knuckles shoulder, "Don't worry, I'm sure it's nothing, even though now would be a great time to steal it haha."
"Don't even think about it Rouge, but seriously… I can feel that something's wrong," Knuckles said as he started to get concerned about what could have possibly happened to the Master Emerald, and if something did happen to it, who would be behind it, although the answer to that usually ended up either being Rouge or Dr Eggman. Tails had fortunately planned for such as occasion this time after he had an unexpected encounter with Lanolin, who had decided to visit his workshop in Central City a couple of weeks ago to address some concerns, and make some suggestions.
"I can check the security footage from all the cameras I installed on Angel Island last week to make sure everything is okay," Tail's suggested.
"What!?" Was all Knuckles could say in shock, which resulted in an awkward silence from everyone. Blaze had stopped sipping her tea, Charmy was confused about what was going on and Rouge, well she looked a little too happy to be honest. After some time, Tails finally realised what he said was actually kind of weird and started to get red in the cheeks. Finally, Sonic broke the tension that was brewing.
"Alright, we'll worry about Knuckles privacy concerns later. Right now, I wanna know if Egghead or anybody else is up to no good or not."
"Oh uh yes of course Sonic," Tails says nervously while getting out his Miles Electric device. As he started to go through all of the recent footage, sure enough, through one of the cameras facing away from the island, himself, Sonic, and Knuckles could visibly see that the island was sinking down, and more importantly, who was responsible for it.
"Of course it's Eggman, that is unmistakably his air fleet," Sonic groans.
"Well, this is our chance to catch him before he does anything with the Master Emerald and makes things worse for us," Knuckles stated.
"What about Cream's birthday party though?" Vector uttered.
"It's okay Mr Vector, you can stay if you want, but bad people always need to be stopped," Cream said looking up at him.
"Alright, who wants to join us in stopping old Eggman once again?" Sonic asked.
"You know I can't possibly say no to an offer like that Sonic," Tangle was exhilarated to go on another action-filled adventure, "Whisper, are you in too?"
Whisper looked at Tangle and softly smiled, "I'm in."
"Me too, whoever is staying here, immediately let Jewel know what's going on," Lanolin ordered.
"We can do that, right Blaze?" Silver says while looking at her. Blaze, without saying a word, yanks his arm and rushes towards Jewels' office.
"Cool, guess that's settled then, Amy, I'm assuming you're staying here as well?" Sonic asserts.
"Nope, I'm coming with you Sonic, I think you're going to need my help," Amy smirks at him, catching the blue blur off guard, "oh, and Shadow has already dipped, unsurprisingly."
"It's for the best, his presence brings back bad memories for me," Whisper murmured to Tangle. The lemur nodded in understanding.
"Alright, let's waste no more time and get out of here!" Knuckles proclaims.
As they started to leave, Vanilla was understandably disappointed but knew something like this could happen. At least the Chaotix were still here to still celebrate Cream's birthday, and most importantly of all, Cream was still just as happy as she was before. How she wished she could have her child's optimism sometimes.
"Hey Jewel, we have something urgent to tell you!" Silver shouted as him and Blaze rushed into Jewel's office, unintentionally making her jump out of her chair in fright.
"Oh my goodness, please, knock next time," Jewel gasped. Silver apologises to her quietly.
"Jewel, we're here to tell you that Sonic, Amy, Tails, Knuckles, Whisper, Tangle, and Lanolin are currently seeking out Dr Eggman who has very recently stolen the Master Emerald," she informs.
"Wait, I need to let them all know about the remote bombs!" Jewel shuddered.
"Bombs?" Silver repeated.
"Yes, bombs, in some of Eggman's bases. We don't know who's been putting them there nor do we know when or how these bombs detonate, but they're becoming a trend recently, and a highly concerning trend at that," Jewel clarified.
"Well, surely, you have a way of contacting them right?" Blaze questioned.
"Yeah, of course, I'll do that now, you and Silver can go back to Cream's party, if you are needed for an emergency, I'll let you know as soon as possible." Jewel immediately turned on the radio device on her desk, determined to send the message forward to Sonic and rest of the gang as soon as possible, however, there was something she hadn't told Blaze or Silver. The beetle had some suspicions on who was responsible for these remote bombs, and if she was right on her suspicions, the complexities of this situation will be revealed in due time. For now though, she decided it was best not to say too much to too many people.