(Sonic's P.O.V)

I arrived at Knuckles' place around noon with Amy. Shadow had come by earlier saying we should meet at Angel Island (how he convinced Knuckles is beyond me).

"Sonic, don't be too rough on Tails, okay?" Amy said as we walked to the hut where Knuckles lived.

I laughed, "You should be worried about me, Amy. I might have to take Knuckles on in a fight. You know how eager he would be to take a swing at me."

"Sonic, please..." Amy pleaded with a genuinely concerned voice.

"Right, right. Don't worry about it." I replied.

We were now standing outside Knuckles' place, and noticed Rogue flying in the air with Tails. They seemed to be doing some kind of sparring of sorts.

"Tails, never stay on the defensive side for too long or you'll give your opponent the oppurtunity to deal a critical blow to you." Rouge chided, delivering a swift kick which Tails narrowly avoided.

"R-right, well, here I come then!" Tails said, and flew at Rouge. She grabbed his foot, and spun him around, throwing him to the ground below. Tails got up, a look of dissapointment on his face. Rouge gave a sympathetic smile to the fox and landed.

Walking up to the fox, she put a hand under his chin, "Aw, don't feel down about it, Tails. You just need to practice more. Once you've got aerial combat down, you'll definitely have an advantage. Why, that combined with that mind of yours will definitely help. You'll be able to outsmart the guys, especially Knuckles, all the time." she said with a wink. Tails blushed lightly upon hearing this.

"Hey, I heard that!" came the voice of said echidna.

"Good, hopefully you took it to heart too. You're all about brute strength, and nothing about brains." she replied, giving Tails an affectionate hug upon the last part of her scolding. This earned a frown Knuckles, followed by a 'darn bat-woman' from the red haired powerhouse.

Tails walked over to me, still blushing like mad (can't blame him), and smiled to us. Seconds later he was ensnared in one of Amy's signature power hugs, "Nice...to...see you...too...Amy...ow..." he said with a strangled breath.

After we all got settled, Shadow came out of the hut, "So, how do we go about this?"

"I say we fight only in our normal state. Using Chaos Control right off the bat could be a bit too much." I suggested.

"Yeah, I agree." Knuckles said with a nod.

Shadow looked to Tails, who gave his nod of approval, "Very well. So, how about...me and Tails against you and Knuckles?" Shadow asked, looking to me with a smirk.

Knuckles grinned and turned to me. Then Tails let out an enthusiastic 'All right!' If I didn't know any better, I would think that Tails was hoping to fight alongside Shadow.

We walked over to the stony ruins, away from the Master Emerald's altar, and we stood on opposite sides of the battle ground we designated. Knuckles was punching his fists together; a clear indication that someone was in for a world of hurt.

I turned to the red echidna, "So...Tails and Shadow...what do you think Knux?"

He smirked, "Shadow's fast and strong as an ox...Tails...well, he's smart, and I guess he can be unpredictable at times...we just may have our hands full."

Meanwhile, I noticed Tails and Shadow talking, no doubt about a strategy. Shadow simply nodded while Tails was pointing to the both of us, and after a nod from the black hedgehog, the two tailed fox got into a battle stance.

"Are you ready?" I heard Shadow call out to us.

Knuckles nodded to me, "Whenever you are!" I replied for the both of us.

"Let's go!" Shadow yelled, and we ran at each other. Shadow quickly jumped over us both, while Tails started to back away from us. If he was trying to avoid combat with me, he had another thing coming.

Knuckles wasted no time and threw a punch towards Tails. The fox quickly dodged to the left, and grabbed hold of Knuckles arm and used the echidna's momentum to throw him forward.

However...Knuckles wasn't an amateur.

The next thing I knew, I saw Tails go flying off into some unknown direction while a rather disgruntled echidna lowered his fist, "He learned that move from Rouge..." grumbled Knuckles as he dusted himself off from Tails throw.

Shadow ran at us and elbowed me in the stomach, much to my displeasure. I quickly recovered and snap-kicked him in the face, and he flew back a few feet. Shadow ran up to his side and looked to the hedgehog in black. Shadow nodded.

"Okay, let's do this Shadow!" Tails said, and jumped up into the air and begun to propel himself with his tails. After he was flying a good eighty feet or so in the air, Shadow jumped up, and was caught by Tails. Shadow quickly pulled back a hand, and summoned energy.

"Not good..." I heard Knuckles grumble again.

"Chaos Spear!!!" shouted Shadow as Knuckles and I avoided an air raid of yellow bolts of Chaos energy.

"Knuckles, give me a boost!"

"Right!" the echidna ran up to me, and spun me by one arm and leg a few time. After about half a minute, he flung me toward Tails. I rolled into a ball and did a spin dash.

WHACK!!!!

I saw Tails fall to the ground with Shadow close behind. Tails managed to stop his descent and softly landed by propelling his tails. Shadow landed next to him, and nodded to Tails, "Not bad Tails."

"Really? Thanks, Shadow!"

Knuckles ended up taking on Shadow as I squared off a rather hesitant Tails. I heard a crash to see a large chunk of stone column fly towards Shadow, who managed to jump away in time.

"Hey, if this is about me having that last orange for breakfast this morning, then I'm sorry!" came a half-apologetic voice of Shadow.

"I wanted that orange!!!" came the reply of Knuckles, followed by another flying stone ruin.

I turned back to Tails, "Okay, bud, whenever you're ready."

Tails wasted no time, and did a quick zig-zag sprint towards me, leaving behind a trail of dust that I couldn't help but be proud of. Tails was learning the thrill of true speed...but he still had alot to learn.

I caught a fist, and smirked, "Not fast enough..." I said, and tripped him up with my feet and flung him through the air.

Tails quickly rebounded off a wall, and jumped back at me with a flying kick, which almost hit. Tails skidded a few times, but quickly spun around and began a series of high-speed punches and kicks. I never remember him being much of a fighter...

I did a spin dash, and threw him back. As he flew through the air, and smacked into him. I could have hit him again, but decided to let him recover. After a similar procedure four minutes later, Tails got up from the ground, battered and weary, but with a determined look in his eyes.

"Now you asked for it! Here I come!" he yelled, bursting at suprising speed towards me for the second time.

A minute later, Tails was on the ground, out cold. He had alot to learn, but all the time to learn it to. Shadow ended up finishing Knuckles with a haymaker to the jaw, and that's when we decided to end it. If Shadow and I went at it, we'd be here for another six hours, and still not finished fighting.

Later on, Shadow and I were sitting on a log outside of Knuckles' place. Amy was currently attending a rather embarassed Tails' injuries while Rouge was doing the same for Knuckles.

"Sonic, why did you hold back?"

I turned to Shadow, "Hold back? What do you mean?" I asked.

The ebony hedgehog groaned, "Why did you hold back against Tails?" he clarified.

"Oh...well, I didn't want-"

"Didn't want to seriously injure him?" Shadow finished.

"Yeah, that's why." I replied.

"How do you suppose he'll ever reach his potential if you don't give him your all? That's kind of an insult to him if you think about it." Shadow said with frown.

"Hey, lay off, will you? It was his first day, I wanted to see how he is. I'm not going to be easy on him once he gets the hang of things!" I snapped.

Shadow laughed a little, "Sorry...it's just that I predicted this would happen. You're too soft on the kid, and that's what I thought would happen today."

I sighed, he was right, "Yeah...but he's like a little brother to me. I don't want to beat the snot out of him in just some little spar of ours."

"You know...I talked to Tails about this a few minutes ago...he couldn't tell that you were holding back a whole lot, but he said, and I quote, 'I wish Sonic would have beat me into next week back there so I could know where I stand against you guys.' so, he'll catch on eventually..." Shadow got up and looked off to the horizon, "You know, I sensed something inside Tails when he used Chaos Control the other day...you felt it, didn't you?"

I nodded, "Yep. It was faint, but I felt a great surge of some greater power in him...not like us during Chaos Control, but much deeper...it was brief though..."

Shadow closed his eyes and sighed, "He's...not like you, Knuckles, or myself when he's in his Super form. He's calm...and collected. While you tend to be serious and Knuckles becomes flat out cocky, I get short tempered. However, Tails acted like he seemed to have a natural talent at it, even on his first try."

"I know what you mean. He blasted that boulder into dust without so much as blinking." I agreed.

"Well, one way or another, he'll get stronger. I imagine he'll even come up with techniques and powers that you and I could only dream of, given his intelligence."

I looked at Shadow, "Don't tell me that Tails scares you." I smirked.

Shadow returned the smirk, "Don't tell me he doesn't scare you. He's the youngest out of the four of us who can use the Chaos emeralds, and he may very well be the most powerful..."

I got up, "Regardless, he wants to train, so we'll do that with him. Tomorrow I'm going to go through the Spin Dash with him."

Shadow smirked, "You mean that poor-excuse of an attack of yours. He would be better off learning it from me."

I quirked an eyebrow, "Heh, just for that, Tails, Knuckles, and I get to take you on at once in the next fight."

"I look forward to it then." Shadow replied, heading back to the hut.

That night we decided to stay at Angel Island. Knuckles was rather leery about it at first, but after some 'persuasion' from Rouge, he gave in.

I was taking a late night stroll when I saw Tails and Knuckles by the Master Emerald. Tails was looking through a telescope while Knuckles watched him while leaning against a column on the altar. Suddenly, I saw Tails smile, and call over to Knuckles.

"Found it?" Knuckles asked, about what though, I'm not sure.

Tails continued looking through the telescope, "Yep, I'm positive that this is it." I heard a hint of sadness in his response.

Knuckles took a look through the lens, and nodded, "Well, what do you know. You found it."

"Hey you two, what's up?" I called over to the duo.

Knuckles looked up at me, and then to Tails, then at me again, "We're...looking at the spot where we last fought the Metarex...you can still faintly see the light that was left when Shadow froze time and space in that spot..."

I frowned, "Oh..."

Tails gave me a smile, "It's okay, Sonic, I don't mind talking about it. I spent the last month looking all over that section of the galaxy to find that spot...it wasn't easy..."

After we spent sometime doing some further stargazing, we headed back. While walking, I noticed that Tails had suddenly stopped, and was facing a particular direction in the starry sky. He whispered something that sounded like, 'there's that feeling again...'.

"What's wrong, bud?" I asked him.

Tails shook his head, snapping him out of his trance, "Huh? Oh, I'm not...really sure...I've been feeling something wierd for the last couple of days. I don't know why, but I feel like something's been watching us from," he pointed up to the sky, " out there..."

I looked up to the sky, only to see the starts above us shining, "Really? I don't sense anything..."

Tails laughed nervously, "Heh, probably just my imagination or something..." he said dismissively as he turned around to continue walking.

I looked to Tails, and frowned. He was hiding something from me, either that or faking his unconcerned attitude towards whatever was bothering him.

I turned one last time towards the stars, and wondered. Maybe Tails had some kind of sixth sense? I let it go for now, but kept it int the back of my mind to tell to Shadow later on. After the incident that Shadow told me about involving Tails and the Dark Super form of his...I was starting to wonder just how deep Tails' powers went.

"Man, if only I was smart enough to dwell on this stuff without getting a headache..." I said, shrugging my shoulders as I continued back towards Knuckles' place.

end of chap. 15- Hey, I'm back everyone, and I want to apologize to everyone who was thinking I abandoned this story. I managed to find my papers with the story, and managed to motivate myself to get back at the story. I don't know when I'll update next, but I'm back nevertheless!