When Aurora returned from her mission, she was immediately showered with complements by the team.
Sonic noticed how this made her a little anxious, so he swooped in and carried her princess style out of the crowd.
"You okay?" Sonic asked her.
She looked pretty embarrassed, most likely because of the way he was holding her.
Sonic realized this and put her down on her feet.
"S-Sorry," he apologized, "I'm just used to doing that..."
"It's fine!" Aurora squeaked out.
~~~
When Sonic and Aurora left the room, Knuckles, Silver, and Vector decided to have a little meeting.
"Man," exclaimed Vector, "There's somethin' going on with those two..."
"Vector's got a point," said Silver, "Sonic and the rookie have been acting weird since the Arsenal Pyramid!"
"I just don't get it," said Knuckles, "What happened between them?"
"Isn't it obvious, Knuckles?" said Rouge, who was apparently in the corner of the room the entire time, "They're in love with each other!"
"What!?" the three boys exclaimed in unison.
"Sonic? In love!?" Silver exclaimed.
"I never thought that would ever happen!" Knuckles said.
"Haven't you see the way they look at each other?" said Amy, "Besides, Sonic never had that close of a relationship with any girl, not even me!"
"What do you say about this, commander?" Silver asked Knuckles.
"Well, I suppose I'll let it slide for now," Knuckles replied, "But if it ever gets in the way of us winning this war, there'll be hell to pay!"
Soon, the alarm went off.
Rouge checked the computer to see what was going on.
"The system is picking up a couple of strange readings," she said, "They're coming from the laboratory, the one where Sonic fought Infinite."
"It's probably another one of Eggman's robots!" said Silver.
"They're life readings, two of them," she continued, "Definitely not robots!"
"I better go get the rookie..." said Knuckles as he left the room.
~~~
After sliding on water slides and bumping into enemies, Aurora found herself in at the laboratory.
Soon, she found something glowing on the ground.
What is that?
She approached the light to find some sort of red jewl on the ground.
It glowed as she picked it up.
I'll have to take this for safe keeping...
She put it in her bag to conceal it.
Suddenly, she heard something approaching her.
She stood in a battle stance, bracing herself for action, only to see what looked like...
Sonic? No, this couldn't be Sonic!
This Sonic looked younger with a lighter shade of blue. He also had dark brown eyes and tan eyelids, much different from the Sonic she knew.
That's when smaller Sonic signaled something in the air, a yellow fox with 2 tails...
"Tails!?" Aurora exclaimed to the fox.
"Um..." said Tails, "Have we met before?"
"Not really," Aurora said nervously, "But I have heard a lot about you from Sonic!"
"You're friends with Sonic!?" Tails asked, "Can you take us to him?"
"Of course!" said Aurora.
