Sonic made his way to Green Forest, the location of the closest emerald the tracker could find. He ran deep into the heart of the forest where the sunlight could only peek through the treetops. Tails and the others lost Sonic once he got deep into the forest, and there was no way to fit the Tornado through the treetops. They had no choice but to land at the entrance of the forest and follow Sonic on foot.
“It’s got to be around here somewhere.” Sonic said, listening to the beeping of the tracker. The faster the beeping was, the closer he was to an emerald.
Meanwhile, the others had just entered the forest and had already run into problems.
“It’s so hot!” Amy complained.
“We’re in Green Forest. It’s like any rainforest, always humid under the canopy.” Knuckles reminded her.
“Do you guys see Sonic anywhere?” Tails asked.
“No, but I think I’ve found something.” Cream said.
Cream found a small trail in the dirt Sonic had left behind when he ran through the area. They decided to follow it, hoping it would lead them to Sonic. There was no way for Tails and Cream to fly up to look around for the blue hedgehog. There were too many tree limbs blocking the higher area. They ran down the trail quickly in an attempt to stop Sonic before he could find the emerald.
The beeping on Sonic’s tracker became faster. He chuckled lightly as he continued deeper into the forest. The tracker’s beeping continued to speed up until it seemed Sonic was practically standing beside an emerald. However, a dark figure stood before him in the heart of the forest. In his hand was a dark blue gem that glittered in the small pool of sunlight that leaked through the treetops. When this creature stepped into the light, Sonic saw he was black and red, wore white gloves and golden rings, and had spikes. Yes, Sonic had encountered Shadow, who happened to be in possession of a Chaos Emerald.
“Who are you?” Sonic demanded of the black hedgehog.
“What do you mean, who am I?” Shadow responded.
“Dr. Eggman never told me about you. You must not be all that important, but how did you get your hands on that Chaos Emerald?” Sonic asked.
“Not important? You’re really trying to get on my nerves today, aren’t you? I’ve had this emerald, and there’s no reason for you to know how I found it.” Shadow retorted.
“Well, important or not, I don’t know who you are, but I’m taking that emerald with me!” Sonic exclaimed.
“I’d like to see you try.” Shadow replied.
The two hedgehogs charged at each other, striking each other with a loud hit. Tails, Amy, Knuckles, and Cream heard the sound.
“Did you guys hear that?” Knuckles asked.
“It sounded almost like a tree fell.” Amy said. The four of them ran even faster down the trail.
Sonic ran toward Shadow again, but Shadow didn’t move. He unleashed the power of his emerald.
“Chaos Control!” Shadow yelled. He vanished into thin air and teleported to where Sonic had started his charge toward him. Shadow then ran toward Sonic while he was caught off guard and punched him with a great force. Sonic flew and crashed into a tree, knocking it over.
“There it was again!” Tails said. The group worried over what was happening as they ran ever closer to Sonic.
“Chaos Control!” Sonic pulled out the emerald in his pocket and used Shadow’s attack. He appeared right in front of Shadow and kicked him into a tree like Shadow had done to him.
“Wait, where did you get that emerald?” Shadow asked.
“Heh, Eggman gave this to me in case I needed some help while looking for the emeralds.” Sonic replied.
“Eggman gave that to you? What are you talking about?” Shadow was confused.
“Don’t you worry about that. Just give me your emerald!” Sonic yelled.
“Not on your life…” Shadow replied.
Shadow recovered and charged a spin dash aiming for Sonic. Sonic, in return, also charged a spin dash. There was a clear path in front of the two hedgehogs, so it was going to be a joust of whose spin dash was the strongest. They both released their charges and dashed at each other with lightning speed. They collided and knocked each other back, both of them crashing into trees. Each tree they hit fell, but their momentum finally stopped. They were both already out of breath.
“That sound is getting louder. We must be getting closer to Sonic!” Tails said, as they continued down the trail.
“Is Sonic destroying the forest?” Cream asked.
“Oh, I hope not, but if he is, we have to stop him!” Amy said.
Shadow ran toward Sonic and attempted to kick him, but Sonic dodged and countered with an uppercut. Shadow went flying into the air, crashing into a few tree branches. As Shadow fell toward the ground, he charged another attack with his emerald.
“Chaos Spear!” Shadow unleashed a powerful beam from the emerald. The attack hit Sonic, creating a big hole in the dirt as it sent Sonic into the ground. Shadow hopped into the hole to finish Sonic off, but Sonic fought back by grabbing Shadow. After pummeling on him, Sonic threw Shadow out of the hole. Shadow landed on his back on the dirt, and Sonic hopped out of the hole. Shadow slowly stood to his feet, but quickly fell on his knee in pain. Sonic, though hurt, was able to stand and walk over to Shadow.
“You shouldn’t have made this hard on yourself. All you have to do is hand over the emerald.” Sonic glared down at Shadow.
“I’m not giving you this emerald. You’ll have to kill me before I do that.” Shadow said.
“With pleasure!” Sonic laughed as he grabbed Shadow and picked him up from the ground.
“Sonic!” Tails screamed, as the group finally caught up to Sonic.
“Sonic, what are you doing?” Knuckles panicked.
“So, you’re here to stop me too, aren’t you?” Sonic said, “I didn’t expect you to follow me all the way here.”
“I don’t understand, what’s going on?” Shadow was still confused about the whole situation.
“Shadow, Sonic’s working for Eggman!” Tails tried to explain quickly.
“What?” Shadow was in disbelief.
Just then, a giant laser blasted through the treetops, creating a crater in the ground. A giant robot flew down to Sonic, Tails, and the others. Inside the robot was an arrogant Dr. Eggman.
“Oh ho ho ho! Sonic, you’ve already found the second emerald! I came here to help you fight these pests!” Eggman said.
“How did you know we were here?” Knuckles asked the doctor.
“I built a radar inside of the Chaos Emerald Tracker so I could see where Sonic was and who was near him. I knew you all were after him, so I prepared this machine in order to help my new apprentice take you all down!” Eggman explained.
“Oh, shut up, Eggman!” Knuckles was tired of listening to the doctor.
“Grr, fine then! Sonic, take care of that black hedgehog. I’ll take care of these four!” Eggman said.
“We’ve got to help Shadow!” Tails said.
As Sonic was about to land more punches on Shadow, Amy quickly came and hit Sonic away with her hammer. He was only knocked to the side about ten feet, but Sonic was not standing up quickly since he was already worn down from his previous fight with Shadow.
“Shadow, are you all right?” Amy asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Now, just let me—“ Shadow said.
“No, don’t worry about Sonic right now! He’s already down for a bit. We’ve got to stop Eggman!” Amy interrupted.
Tails and Knuckles stood before Eggman’s flying machine. It had two large cannon-like guns on the front.
“Tails, do what you can to protect Cream. I’ll take on Eggman first.” Knuckles said.
Knuckles ran to Eggman, but the doctor blasted fire out of the two front cannons. Knuckles quickly leaped out of the way, but the fire hit a tree, setting it ablaze.
“Oh no!” Cream cried.
Eggman laughed as Knuckles tried to attack again. This time, he managed to punch the machine, but it didn’t cause much damage. Eggman then aimed his gunfire toward Tails and Cream. Tails looked up to see an open area that had been created by Eggman’s laser earlier. Tails grabbed Cream as Eggman fired a blast of fire at them and flew up into the air. Eggman was annoyed that his attack missed.
“Oh Tails, thank you!” Cream said.
“It was our only choice, or else we would’ve been killed.” Tails said.
The blast of fire that missed hit another tree, however, causing it to burn down. The fire was starting to spread in the area. Most of the surrounding area was now on fire. Eggman charged his laser at Knuckles in hopes of finishing him off, but a beam of energy struck Eggman’s machine. Shadow had fired another Chaos Spear attack and landed a direct hit on the main laser gun. Sonic, who had suffered a hit from Amy’s hammer, finally recovered and stood to his feet. He charged a spin dash straight toward Shadow, but Shadow merely sidestepped the attack. Sonic ended up crashing into Eggman’s machine, destroying one of the fire cannons.
“Watch what you’re doing, you stupid hedgehog!” Eggman shouted.
“Me? Watch what I’m doing? You’re the one who needs to stay out of my way!” Sonic yelled back.
“Quick, while they’re distracted, let’s finish this!” Tails shouted.
“Tails, throw me at Eggman!” Cream had an idea.
Tails launched Cream downward toward Eggman’s cockpit. With a mighty force, she stomped on the glass of the cockpit, nearly shattering it. Eggman was surprised by this unexpected attack.
“That’s it! I’ve had it!” Eggman yelled.
He started shooting fire from his remaining working cannon in all directions. He barely scorched Sonic, Knuckles, and Shadow, but Amy found an opening in his rampage. She leaped into the air and smashed the cannon with her hammer, completely destroying it. Eggman now had no way of attacking. The fire was causing considerable damage to the forest. Thick smoke started forming all around the group, lessening their vision of the area.
“Now’s my chance…” Sonic said to himself. He ran to Shadow in the thick fog and stole the emerald out of his hand. He made his way back to Eggman.
“I’ve got it, now get us out of here!” Sonic said.
“Good work, Sonic. Let’s go after the next one!” Eggman smiled.
Sonic grabbed onto Eggman’s machine and the doctor flew out of what was left of the forest. There were many big holes in the treetops due to the fire that had burned the trees down.
“We have to get out of here as well!” Amy said.
“Quick, grab onto us and hold on!” Tails said.
Knuckles and Shadow grabbed onto Tails while Amy grabbed onto Cream. They both flew out of the forest as Eggman had. They landed at the edge of the forest where the Tornado was.
“Just look at Green Forest…” Cream said, saddened by the destruction that had taken place.
“This is unbelievable. We can’t let anything like this happen again.” Knuckles said.
“We need to follow Eggman and Sonic to the next emerald.” Tails said.
“No, what we need to do is go after an emerald that they’re not looking for at the moment.” Shadow explained. “If we follow Sonic, we won’t be able to catch him before he gets the emeralds. We need to search for the ones that are farthest away from us, since we know Sonic will be searching for the ones that his tracker shows are closest.”
“That makes sense. Good idea.” Knuckles said.
“By the way, I never found out why Sonic is helping Eggman, and why we are fighting him for the emeralds…” Shadow said.
“It’s a long story. Basically, Eggman brainwashed Sonic and turned him into someone who fights for evil. Now he’s working under Eggman as his accomplice.” Tails explained.
“I don’t see how Eggman could think of such a plan, but it seems it’s working in his favor, so far.”
“Don’t worry. All we need to do is collect the rest of the emeralds, defeat Eggman, and figure out how to change Sonic back to normal.”
“Ah, yes. The normal Sonic who always annoys me…”
“Shadow, just please put all of that aside and help us!” Amy pleaded.
“Sure, I’ll help you just because I don’t want to see Eggman with all of the emeralds.” Shadow agreed.
Now that Shadow had agreed to help the other four, they climbed aboard the Tornado and flew off in another direction than Sonic and Eggman had went.
“Shadow, you can feel where the emeralds are, right? Can you tell us where to go?” Knuckles said.
“I can only tell you the area in which an emerald is, but I can’t give you it’s exact location.” Shadow said. “I do know, though, that there is an emerald somewhere near Emerald Beach.”
“Oh, we get to go to the beach, and I forgot my swimsuit!” Amy said.
“Amy, we don’t have time to goof off!” Knuckles said.
Tails flew the Tornado toward Emerald Beach, hoping that they would be able to quickly find the next emerald and stop Sonic from collecting them all.