~ Before Prism Shatter ~

In Green Hill, Gwen, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Rouge are fighting the Badniks up on the mountain where the cave is.

"Where's Sonic?" Knuckles questioned, punching the bots away. "How long does it take to collect rings? I thought we were doing this together."

Amy hammers away the bot.

"Sure would be nice if he'd stick to the plan."

She hammers the caterpillar robot, but another knocks her back and crawls toward her. Someone knocks it away and Rouge throws it.

"Tell me about it. No gem is worth me losing my wings."

Rouge kicks away two Badniks. A small device zaps another one and flies in a circle as Tails controls it.

"Don't worry, guys, Sonic will show. I know he will." he said as he zaps more Badniks. "I just hope it's in time."

Gwen roller skates away from the Badniks before jumping off the rock wall and sending a powerful kick using her ruby as they went flying.

"He better be quick. It's unlikely of him to be late. And he should've listened."

On the ground, Sonic spots explosions on top of the mountain where the Gwen and others are fighting.

"Oh, no. My friends. My sister."

Sonic turns to Shadow.

"Look, Shadow, I'm late for—"

Shadow cuts him off by punching him in the face.

"Learn to focus." he said.

Three blue Flickies fly around Sonic's head when he suddenly gasps at something behind Shadow.

"Oh, no! Eggman!"

Shadow turns around.

"Huh?"

But Sonic spins and knocks him into rocks before running off through Green Hill.

"Hate to hit and run, but I gotta split, Shadow."

Sonic picks up some rings on the way to his friends and his sister on the mountain. Rocks and cliffs shake as the rocks that fell on Shadow go flying. His fists tight as Shadow glares ahead before shaking his head with a low growl. He speeds toward the mountain and zooms past Big and Froggy, causing Big to fall on his butt.

"Whoa... uh... Shadow?" Big questioned, looking to where he had gone.

Shadow passes the smoking crater and follows the crack up the mountain. He spins and smashes through rocks on the way as he skates.

"I hope I'm not too late to save Gwen..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now in the Chaos Council, Rusty holds Gwen against the wall as Gwen struggles to get out of her grasp.

"Terminate."

Rusty throws her robot fist, but suddenly stops short on Gwen's face just a few inches away and jerks. Rusty starts glitching as her red eye flickers to yellow then back to red. Behind her, Nine looks relieved and types at her computer screen. An image of her turns green.

"Now paired."

Nine smiles and adjusts a pistol device and aims it at Rusty. A light in one robot eye changes from red to yellow.

"New admin privileges, colon, backslash, backslash, affirmative, now paired."

"A-Amy...? Are you... you?" Gwen asked.

"No, she's still a Chaos Council tool of destruction. Lucky for you, I'm in control of the robot now. You're welcome. Attack!" Nine said.

Rusty lets go of Gwen and turns to see more Eggforcers running in as one flies. Rusty takes them down with her robot arms and flips them among the others and hits them with robot legs. More Eggforcers come up through the floor. Rusty leaps and beats the floor back down and she rises from the flames on the floor hole. With her extending robot legs, she steps back into the lab. Nearby, Sonic ducks from the wild extractor laser.

"Whoa...! Sis! You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Gwen gets up, soothing her neck before turning to the Eggforcers. She brings out her futuristic sword and jumps and swings it at the bots, freezing them before cutting them into pieces as cubes of ice were scattered. The laser keeps swinging and takes down an Eggforcer and cuts across walls. New Eggforcers run in through doors and get hit by the laser.

"Rusty Rose, close that door." Nine ordered.

Rusty stalks through the lab and shoves Eggforcers out of the way. She stretches her arms and pulls the doors closed. Rebel, Knucks, Gwen, and Nine watches Rusty.

"Uh... she's with us now?" Knucks asked.

"Duh!" Nine sassed.

"For now." Gwen said.

Rusty spots a control panel nearby and punches it. She lets go of the doors, which stay closed and turns to Gwen, Nine, Rebel, and Knucks.

"We did it! Bring it in, fam!"

Sonic spins around the team and pulls them into a group hug. But all he received are complaining as they remove themselves from him.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, get off!" Knucks said.

"Sonic! Bro! Read the room!" Gwen scolded, glaring at them.

"Huh. Oh, yeah, the whole 'Eggman messed up the universe thing.' Okay."

"You think that's the reason?! Sonic! Come on!" Gwen groaned.

They all casually duck from the laser that keeps moving around.

"Fine." Sonic said, not listening to her again. "Introductions. Hello, I'm Sonic, the high-speed hedgehog hero who's always saving the day."

Sonic zooms to Gwen as she was checking out her new sword.

"This here is my little sister hedgehog, Gwen. She's fast as me, but not born to be fast. She's also smart and a great fighter and a greatest friend you'll ever have with her kindness."

"Nice. But Sonic, they clearly don't know you or each other. We're obviously in a different uni—"

Sonic moves to Nine, who's checking his pistol.

"And this wily little fox is the crusty but benign Tails—"

Nine snaps at him, cutting him off.

"Nine! It's Nine. The emphasis is on the Nine."

He zooms over to Rebel and Knucks and places his hands on their shoulders.

"And these two slightly thuggish party crashes consist of the alluring and kick-butt international bat of mystery, Rouge..."

They duck from the laser again. Rebel removes herself away from Sonic and goes over to Gwen.

"It's Rebel."

"And Knuckles." Sonic finished his sentence.

Knucks crosses his arms, moving away from Sonic.

"It's Knucks. And will someone please stop this laser?"

Sonic zooms over to Rusty.

"And Amy is..."

Rusty cuts him off.

"I am a killing machine created by the Chaos Council to enforce their autocratic rule."

"Well, Amy's the sweetest friend you could ever ask for."

Knucks, Rebel, Gwen, Sonic, and Rusty duck the laser.

"But... no one remembers any of that."

"No shit, Sherlock. Because we are in a different uni—"

Gwen was cut off by Rebel and Knucks hugging her.

"Oh, we're glad to see you alive and okay, Iris!"

"Where have you been? We thought we lost you."

Frowning, Gwen gently pushes herself away from Rebel and Knucks.

"I'm sorry, but the Iris you're talking to is not here."

"What are you talking about? You're obviously right here." Rebel chuckled.

"Yeah, not the time to joke around." Knucks said.

Gwen looks away and grasps her arm, looking uncomfortable.

"No, I'm serious. I am Gwen. Just Gwen. I'm just another girl who's not from around here."

"It's true. I scanned her and with her having powers... she's... sadly not the Iris we know and love." Nine confirmed with a frown.

Rebel and Knucks stares at Gwen, seeing that she doesn't know anything about the name 'Iris'.

"But isn't your full name, Iris Gwen?" Knucks asked, thinking this is still a joke.

"No. I'm Gwen. Gwen the Hedgehog. Let me ask you this, does your Iris have a sibling?"

"...Well, no." Rebel replied.

"But I do." she gestured to Sonic, who's busy thinking.

This made the two realize that she's not Iris as the world crumbles down before Rebel and Knucks.

"Oh..." Rebel frowned.

"I'm sorry..." Gwen said, looking down.

Knucks looks down and clenches his fists. Rusty looks at them and frowns, sensing awkwardness and sadness. Sonic though doesn't notice.

"We're going to fix it because we got the whole band back together."

Everyone turns to the doors that's getting pounded.

"This way, or you're finished."

Nine runs across the lab and types on the keypad. Eggforcers open the doors, but the laser cuts them down. Nine shoots at the council camera that are watching them. The lab doors opened and Sonic walks out smirking. Nine, Knucks, Gwen, and Rusty follows him. Rebel flies just above them. They make their way down the corridor. Suddenly, Eggforcers run in two directions. Sonic speeds ahead down the corridor.

"Baddies this way."

Then off the corridor.

"Baddies that way."

Sonic comes back to the group.

"They're coming from both sides."

Nine opens doors and they go a third way. Eggforcers fly after them and smash into each other. Knucks runs back to the pile of Eggforcers and smacks one. He pulls a weapon off and fires at them. He drops it and runs on.

"Come on, gotta get out of here."

"Wait, stop. We shouldn't be trying to escape." Nine said.

"What are you talking about? There's robots after us."

Nine drops down in front of Knucks.

"We get our hands on their energy crystal, we shut down their entire operation..."

"...and take back our world." Rebel finished his sentence in realization.

"The crystal?" Gwen perked up.

"'Energy crystal'?" Sonic questioned in recognition and zoomed over to Nine and Knucks. "Hold-a-wait-a-what-a-sec. Did you say crystal? Is it a big crystal thingy? Shiny, reflect-y, and prism-y?"

They look at him funny before Nine replied.

"Sure."

"The Paradox Prism!" Gwen said.

"Of course!"

Nine, Sonic, Gwen, and Knucks looks back to see lasers being fired.

"That's how Eggman did all this. The changed city, the messed-up you guys. If me and sis get it, maybe we can change it all back."

"If what my brother said is true..." Gwen started before looking at Rusty. "Rusty, where's the prism?"

"I do not have clearance to the subsectors of the core."

Sonic laughs.

"Subsectors? I can make my own clearance."

Shocks fire and Sonic, Gwen, and Nine spots Eggforcers coming. More smash through bot pile. Sonic, Gwen, and their friends back against the walls.

"In case of emergency, always use the stairs." Sonic said, gesturing to the back of the doors.

Knucks, Rebel, and Nine cross the corridor and go with Sonic, Gwen, and Rusty to a stairwell.

"Come on, team. Together, we're gonna fix the world."

"Let's do this!"

Sonic and Gwen drops down in the middle of the deep stairwell. The team follows. Eggforcers reach the stairs and watch them fall. So does the council. Sonic dives then flips to feet first. A hand grabs Sonic by the throat and shoves him into a wall, causing him to fall to the floor.

"Ow!"

"Prepare to be amazed, then deceased, by the one and only Dr. Deep."

Deep in his robot suit poses with two bots. Sonic ducks a laser that was being shot towards him.

"Okay, actually cool."

In a stairwell, Nine fires a grappling hook and it pulls him up. Gwen brings out her whip and swings it at the Eggforcer and uses it for her to pull herself up before kicking it away and landing besides the Eggforcers. She takes all of their energy as they flow into her before generating electricity and firing it at the Eggforcers as they explodes. Knucks jumps to a landing. Rusty grabs the railing and her robot arms pull her upwards. She slugs a bot on a landing and flips away from the punch and strikes back. Rebel flies to another bot and swings it into more bots. A bot jumps downstairs at Rebel. She kicks, loops around, and kicks it again.

Sonic dodges a flame disc with his spin dash and kicks Deep back. Deep swings at Sonic with two flame discs and knocks him back. A disc gets stuck in the wall after Sonic jumps and spins on top of it and gets away. Nine crawls on the ceiling with his robot tails while he fires at attackers. A bot sends Rusty flying and she jumps back and hits it, slamming it against the wall. A bot flies and pushes Rebel upwards. Knucks comes to rescue and punches it back down.

Gwen saw two bots standing on either side of her, aiming their blasters at her. She dropped down into a split at the last second, and the two bots shot each other down. Gwen brought her legs in as she stood back up. She sees Rebel in trouble and skates forward as she threw her sword at the bot. Rebel looked at her in time. The blade hit the bot in the head, and Rebel hit it to the ground. She nodded at Gwen in thanks before they went back to fighting.

Sonic spins at Deep, but Deep notices and brings out his flaming disc, which caused him to bounce off. The sword just missed Sonic, who runs up the wall to attack. A flame disc knocks Sonic down and two swords cross and trap him.

Gwen jumps down from railing to railing and lands on the two swords front of Deep and kicks him back, releasing Sonic. She lands and glares at Deep, who smirks

"Let's see what you've got, Iris."

Gwen glares harder.

"It's Gwen!!"

She and Deep charges with a battle cry. Before she knew it, she found herself getting pinned down by the railing of the stairs.

"Bet you think you're pretty slick."

Gwen glared at Deep as she twisted the hand that he was holding, and twisted his robot arm. She tripped Deep, spun him around on his robot back, and slammed her foot on his chest as she stood up.

"I have my moments." she said slyly.

Deep growled at her before pushing her off and jumping to his feet. They both withdrew their weapons at the same time, and charged at each other. Deep swung his sword at Gwen, who blocked them with her futuristic sword before taking out her tanto. She kicked Deep in the chest and started swinging her sword at him, and Deep blocked with his two swords. She shoved him away and kicked him, knocking him off down the stairs. He landed on his feet on the ground, still holding his swords tightly. Gwen jumped off and raised her tanto as headed straight for Deep, who stood up, his swords raised as they're about to clash.

Rusty jumps from an attack and punches two Eggforcers, but another bot knocks her back. Rebel grabs the bot and drops it down the stairwell. Knucks punches two bots. Nine shoots three more bots and flies upwards. Behind Deep and Gwen, a bot grabs Nine. When Deep turns to them, Gwen nods to Sonic and he knocks Deep over. With a flying punch, Sonic smacks a bot away from Nine. Sonic spins back at Deep, who holds up a flame disc. Sonic gets past it and smacks Deep. He bounces off walls and knocks Deep into his bots.

"Thanks for the save. High five."

Sonic grabs Nine's hand and high fives him and runs. Nine looks at his hand with a small smile.

"'High... five'?"

Suddenly, the Eggforcers stand with spark and red bolts glowing as if they're charged up with high level before charging at the team. One knocks back at Sonic. A bot hits Nine. A bot pummels down Gwen before she could shoot electricity at them. Another hits Rebel. An Eggforcer punches Knucks. Another kicks Rusty. The bots land more blows as the team let out pained groans along the way. The bots keep hitting and Rebel falls on the floor. Rusty hits the wall so does Nine. Knucks and Gwen hits the floor. Sonic lands safely.

"We're done for. They're too powerful, too fast." Knucks said.

Sonic and Gwen looks at him funny.

"'Too fast'? You need to learn to spin-dash, my friend." Sonic said with a grin.

"Spin-dash?"

"Watch and learn." Gwen smirked before she and Sonic spins and bounces off four bots.

They knocks one's head off and hits others. Sonic and Gwen lands in front of Knucks.

"You're up! You see that bad guy over there?" Sonic asked, pointing to the coming Eggforcers.

"Uh, yeah."

Gwen grabs Knucks, not noticing him blushing.

"Now... spin!!"

She throws Knucks, who spins in a red streak, at several bots. Sonic grabs Nine and throws him.

"You too."

In a yellow streak, Nine and breaks the bots apart. Blue, light blue, red, and yellow streaks cross over the stairwell. Knucks lands on a bot. Rebel punches an Eggforcer down. Rusty opens her robot hands and leaps down a stairwell onto an Eggforcer. Another one lunges at Sonic, who dodges. Sonic spins and knocks it onto the railing. He jumps onto the Eggforcer and rides it down the stairwell. Gwen slide under the bot, slicing her futuristic sword by its ankle. She stood up behind it and kicked it to the ground. She spots Sonic and rides down the stairwell with her new wheels. Sonic and Gwen jumps off and lands on a pile of bots.

"What kind of budget are these guys working with?" Sonic asked.

"We're at the sub level. Where's the exit?" Nine asked.

Knucks digs into the pile and hits the door, catching their attention.

"Found it!"

They all got out and made it to the corridor.

"That was awesome!" Sonic exclaimed.

"Good work, you guys. Let's go." Gwen smiled.

Nine watches Sonic's shoes and Gwen's hair bangs.

"Your shoes, your hair. Stop, it's that way."

Sonic and Gwen stops and runs over to Nine.

"Well, how do you know?" Knucks asked suspiciously.

"They're connected to the prism energy, and thanks to my handiwork, Sonic's shoes are picking up on the energy's signature. I'm not sure about Gwen's hair, though."

"He's right. It's like they're calling out to it." Sonic said.

Gwen touches her bangs, feeling it glowing.

"I didn't notice."

"Look." Sonic said, running back and forth. "Hot, cold. Hotter, colder, blazing hot."

A loud bangs catches their attention.

"Uh..." Nine said, turning to see Deep and the Eggforcers.

"I'm going to origami those two hedgehogs! Find them!" Deep shouted.

"Come on, let's go."

Nine, Sonic, and Gwen lead the way down another corridor. Bots run and fly past it. Deep runs with them, but stops.

"Huh?"

He steps back and looks down the corridor.

"They're headed for the core. They're headed for the core! Guys, guys, guys!"

Bots smack into Deep and fly down the corridor. More smack at him as they follow. They chase the team, firing. Nine points ahead at the pair of doors with red signs.

"That's gotta be it."

"Close all corridors!" Mr. Doctor Eggman's voice ordered.

"They're shutting the doors! Hurry!" Nine urged.

Rusty jumps between two closing doors and holds them open. Sonic, Rebel, Gwen, and Knucks get through. Knucks throws a canister that wedges the next doors open. Gwen moves her arms in a circular motion, generating electricity then fires the bolt at another doors, blowing a huge hole in it. The team gets through, but the bots don't as Gwen blocks it with the canister using her whip to catch it and throw it at the hole.

"Open the doors! Open the doors!" Deep demanded.

The doors open and the chase continues with bots firing. Ahead, the team duck to the sides out from the line of fire.

"I guess dreams don't come true." Knucks said.

"Aw, come on. You don't believe that, do you?" Sonic asked.

"Well, prove me wrong."

"I think my sis can handle this one." Sonic smiled.

They turned to see Gwen summoning her pink bubble around herself before charging at the Eggforcers as beams bounces off of the bubble. Knucks throws another canister and it blocks one of the flaming beams the bots shoot. Gwen watches then keeps skating through the beams with the bubble protecting her. She then unbubbles herself and dodges all the beams like she's dancing and jumps up the flying canister as her wheels land on it. She uses the canister as another shield against the beams, flying against them.

From the side, Rebel watches so does Knucks. Rusty watches too while Sonic watches with a smile on his face. Flaming beams strike the canister harmlessly as it flies with Gwen behind it. Nine clings to a wall, watching. Bot keeps running and firing. Gwen flies closer to them and scowls. With electricity sparking around her, all full speed, Gwen spins and drives all the bots back. Deep looks up and screams as the bots slam into him. Gwen pushes them off the lab through a wall of council headquarters. Residents watch them fall as one points at Gwen.

"That's her—Iris!"

Gwen looks down from the hole in the wall and jumps from a pile of bots and skates back up the corridor. Ahead, Babble's bot stands in the way with the baby in the cockpit. Babble gibber angrily. Gwen stops and groans.

"Great..."

Other bots heads for Rusty, Nine, Sonic, Knucks, and Rebel at the doors to the core.

"Nine, how we doing over there?" Gwen asked.

Nine types quickly on the panel.

"I need more time."

Before Gwen could act, Sonic speeds through and grabs Gwen and moves her to Knucks and others before coming in view of Babble.

"Hey, it's me you want. Come and get me."

"Sonic!" Gwen called worriedly.

"Don't worry, sis! I got this! You go help our friends!"

Gwen hesitates before nodding. Sonic leads Babble and some of the bots away. At the doors, Rusty defends Nine from the bot attacks with Gwen helping as she takes away their energy before firing electricity at them. Gwen straightened up as she raised her giant fist whip and threw it out, hitting several bots. Then she felt something grab her ankle, and she looked down to see a fallen bot grabbing her. Knucks punches the bot in the head, freeing Gwen. Another bot came up to Gwen, but she stabbed its chest with her sword. She lifted her other hand and grabbed the line of her giant fist whip when it came back to her. She made her whip disappear.

"I never knew you're a master of two weapons. You're more interesting than I thought." Rebel said in amazement.

"Um... thanks."

Gwen caught the movement out the corner of her eye, and she quickly threw her fan out. It hit its target and hit the bot in the head and it crumbled to the ground in a heap.

"Wow." Knucks said.

"I'm almost impressed by your skill." Rusty commented as Gwen snatched the fan out of the bot.

Nine keeps working and then finally sparks fly out from the panel.

"I got it, we're in."

Gwen, Rusty, Rebel, and Knucks turn to the doors as they slowly open. Nine and Gwen spots Sonic coming.

"Sonic, we didn't think you'd make it back." Nine said.

Gwen notices Sonic's expression.

"Are you okay, bro?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Sonic replied, not looking at her.

"Come on, let's go." Nine said.

"Yeah, I thought you'd be flatter than a snake's belly." Knucks said.

Just then, a giant bot hand grabs Rusty, Rebel, and Knucks.

"Need a job done right, do it yourself. Step away from the core, or your friends are toast." Mr. Doctor Eggman said through his giant bot.

The doors slam shut and Sonic and Gwen struggles to pull them open. Nine steps in front of them.

"Sonic, Gwen, we have to get to the core!"

"No! We've got to help our friends." Sonic said.

"They need our help!" Gwen said.

Rusty gets them free by hitting the bot in the face. Eggman's bot grabs her hand and smacks Rebel against the doors. Rebel looks at the doors.

"Sonic, Gwen, go. You have to get to the Paradox Prism, or it'll all be for nothing."

She then flies away to fight off Eggman's bot.

"You heard her. Come on."

Nine runs toward the pink light. Sonic and Gwen frowns, looking back at the doors for a moment.

"Come on!" Nine urged them.

Sonic and Gwen eventually walks away from the doors and looks ahead.

"Wait. Is that...?"

They run with Nine to the core. A red crystal floats in it.

"That's... not the Paradox Prism..." Gwen voiced out.

"It's way too tiny. The Prism was... was..."

Sonic flashes back to the cave and the prism with different color crystals.

"We don't know what the prism is capable of. Be careful." Tails' voice warned.

Sonic spins straight into prism with Gwen grabbing onto him.

"I remember now."

"You do?" Gwen asked, not liking where this is going.

"SONIC!" Tails called.

"I was too focused on winning. I didn't listen. I... You and others tried to warn me." Sonic said, looking at Gwen.

Sonic flashes back to Amy, Knuckles, Rouge, Tails, including Gwen.

"All of you."

His ears drop down.

"All this time, I thought Eggman figured out how to harness the prism energy, and that's why everything's so whacked. But it's not that. Eggman didn't create this world..."

Sonic flashes back to shattering the Paradox Prism and him and Gwen floating into the void. Sonic floats among many shards and crystals. One of them was the red crystal.

"You did." Gwen concluded in realization and horror.

The crystal glows bright in the core. Sonic looks down sadly and shakes his head a little. He looks up while Gwen was in shock. She knew they're in different universe, but not what caused all of this. The doors behind them started shaking.

"I shatter the Paradox Prism while sis tried to stop me. I broke... everything." Sonic said softly, looking at Nine and Gwen.

"So, this is just one small shard of a bigger energy source? There's... more?" Nine asked in shock.

A heavy thud could be heard as the doors shake. Mr. Doctor Eggman's giant bot starts to open them.

"You guys get the shard now. I'll deal with him." Gwen said.

She was about to charge when Sonic grabs her by the arm. She turns to see him looking at her with regret and sadness.

"I'm sorry for not listening to you, sis. You are right. I should've kept my promise."

Gwen looks at him for a moment before smiling and hugging him.

"It's okay. I forgive you."

In split seconds, Gwen generates electricity and fire the bolt at Mr. Doctor Eggman's bot, sending him flying. Gwen jumps out from the doors before they closes. She glares at Deep and Don't, who quickly hides. Deep pulls out his sword, ready to fight only for Gwen to generate electricity again and fires it at him straight in the chest. The resulting explosion causes Deep to slam into the back wall. Don't was about to turn on the panel, but Gwen launches electricity blast in front of him before he can reach it. She shoots another electricity which he dodges and flies away in his floating chair. Gwen shoots another lightning bolt at the Eggforcers that are guarding Rusty, Knucks, and Rebel, which causes them to explode. She sees Eggman's bot about to get up and begins charging another electricity attack. She shoots at him, which he quickly dodges by jumping away to the side.

She brings out two of her whips, a regular and giant fist. She starts spinning around Eggman's bot, making him feel dizzy.

"What's going on?!"

In speed of her new wheels, she starts tying her whips around him and before he knew it, Gwen stands besides her shocked friends and pulls both of her whips down, causing the bot to fall to the ground with a loud thud. Gwen turns to Rusty, Knucks, and Rebel.

"You guys alright?"

"Y-Yeah. We're fine." Knucks said.

Rebel looks at her for a moment.

"Hey... you may not be our Iris, but we're happy to see you again."

Gwen smiles back.

"To be honest, I'm happy to see you guys again. When I got here, I thought me and my brother are... alone. But after seeing you guys, it made me realize that you guys are always there even if you're from a different universe."

Rebel and Knucks then did something unexpected that surprises Rusty Rose. They each kissed Gwen on the lips!! Gwen immediately pulls herself away from them face all pink.

"W-What was that?!"

Rebel and Knucks smiles, slightly blushing.

"Forgot to mention that we're Iris' girlfriend and boyfriend." Rebel giggled.

"It was... nice." Knucks said shyly.

Gwen was speechless, feeling herself about to faint when the lights go out and turn back on.

"Backup systems engaged."

Mr. Doctor Eggman's bot gets up.

"They have the energy crystal!" he yelled in horror.

"We gotta go now!" urged Gwen.

Don't manages to sneak his way to the panel while she was distracted with checking on her friends and gets the doors open.

"Got it."

Gwen was about to fight the Chaos Council only for Eggman, Don't, and Deep to run past them, paying no mind to them as they're more worried about the shard than the enemies as they go inside the room. Gwen waits for Nine and Sonic to get out, only to see Nine sneaking out, crawling on ceilings and walls, holding the prism shard with his twin tails.

"Nine! Where's Sonic?" Gwen asked, zapping the Eggforcers away that kept coming.

Nine looks down at them, mostly at Gwen. He hesitates for a moment when he heard Eggman's voice.

"Find them. They can't be far."

Nine looks back and frowns at Gwen, who looks confused and worried.

"Nine?"

"Sorry, Gwen."

Nine puts away his pistol and crawls past the coming Eggforcers and jumps down and runs away with the shard. Gwen, Rebel, Knucks, and Rusty watches in disbelief and betrayed.

"NINE!!" Gwen yelled then started growl, getting angry. "I TRUSTED YOU!!!"

She let out an electric explosion with a yell that causes all the Eggforcers to shut down. Gwen then skates after Nine with Rebel, Knucks, and Rusty following her. She manages to spot Nine about to go through the hole of the headquarters wall she made.

"MILES TAILS PROWER!!"

Nine froze at the sudden full name he was called and slowly turned to see her very angry as she stalks towards him.

"You better come back here right now with that shard! Where is my brother?!"

"H-He disappeared right after he touches this sh-shard." he stuttered, feeling small from Gwen's wrath.

"Then we'll find a way to get him back if you hand it to me! We need that to bring back their home, too."

"No. This world is nothing but darkness and full of heartlessness. I can fix it."

"How?! By ditching us?!" Gwen shouted as Rebel, Knucks, and Rusty stood besides her.

"I'm sorry, but if what Sonic said is true about there being more than one shard, I can use it to build a brand new home."

"By fixing your home, right?" Gwen gestured to this place.

"No. Away from this world."

She couldn't believe what she's hearing.

"You're going away from your home?!"

"That's why you're ditching us?!" Knucks shouted in anger.

"This isn't my home anymore! Think about it! With this, there wouldn't be anymore suffering." Nine said. "You get it, right, Gwen?"

"No. Not like this. You're not learning from your past, aren't you? You're running away from it!!"

Nine flinches at her harsh words as Gwen was now close to him.

"Give.me.the.shard. You have no idea what it's capable of."

She grabs his tails and tries to take the shard only for him to pull it back.

"No! I need it!" he exclaimed.

"No! We need it! To fix the world and get my brother back!!"

The two struggle to take the shard back as they tug on back and forth. Rusty looks back to see the Eggforcers coming.

"We need to move."

But Gwen and Nine aren't paying attention to that.

"Give me, Nine!"

"No!"

At the moment, Gwen touches the shard and the red strand of her hair started glowing brighter than ever as sparks jumps into her hand.

"W-What's happening?!" Gwen questioned.

Nine, Rebel, Knucks, and Rusty watches in shock. The red shard starts losing its color as it drains down leaving half of the shard grey and at the same time it starts to suck Gwen in. Gwen struggles to pulls it back, but it kept pulling her close. She turned to her friends with fear.

"GUYS!!"

Before Nine, Rebel, Knucks, and Rusty could grab a hold of her, Gwen sucks fully into the shard and disappears.

"GWEN!/IRIS!!" they shouted in unison.

Knucks turns to Nine angrily.

"What did you do?!"

Nine looks at the shard to see it halfway red, leaving him to wonder what was going on and where did she go now along with Sonic.