Speedy's note: Hey everyone. As you've probably figured out, this is the last chapter of this story. I don't call it an epilogue this time... simply because it's a little too long for that.

Alright, let's get to the end-of-the-story-author-note stuff. ;) I was thinking about making a list of people I wanna thank, but it'd get a little too long to be put up here. All of you who reviewed this story, supported me with feedback, put up with my ridiculously long review replies as a result, explained the mysteries of the English language to me... thank you guys. And all of the friends and online buddies that put up with me, you know who you are and you should know you're awesome. Special thanks and greetings go to my sister for having inspired one of this story's funny plot devices.
Lastly, I wanna thank my best friend for being, well, the best.

Okay, you can relax, I'm done. ;) Hope all of you enjoy this last part... and maybe I'll see some of you when I put up my next story.

Unusual Treasure

The wall crumbled under a lot of noise and hundreds of stone pieces followed by a cloud of dust sprayed onto the jungle plants obscuring the cave's exit.

Hopping through the mess, trying his best not to drop the armful of ancient stuff he held for Knuckles, Sonic looked around in his newfound freedom. "Thanks a lot," he said, his tone mockingly polite and he bowed at Knuckles following behind him.

Accepting the joke, the echidna inclined his head with the same exaggerated politeness. "It was my pleasure."

Tails laughed, watching Sonic pass Knuckles his belongings. "Now where are we?"

Throwing a look around, Sonic shrugged. "I think I know. The temple should be over there…" He pointed through the thick undergrowth.

"You sure?" Knuckles quirked an eye ridge.

"No." Shaking his head, Sonic casually started to walk away, looking over his shoulder at his friends. "I always get lost in this weird jungle. Seriously, it looks all the same around here!"

Annoyed, Knuckles muttered a curse under his breath, but Tails stopped Sonic before the hedgehog had a chance to run off and try his luck with randomly taken directions. "I'll just fly up and check which way to go, okay?"

Sonic froze, turned back to the others, and smirked. "Now that sounds like a plan, little bro!" With a rarely seen patience, the hedgehog waited until Tails descended again.

"Okay, the temple we came from is over there," he informed the others, causing Sonic to grin.

"My saying, right?"

Knuckles grimaced. "But that doesn't help us much, does it?"

Sonic slumped. "No. Our plane is still hidden in that forest next to Eggman's base where we left it this morning."

"Your plane? But we crashed with it!" Now the echidna looked genuinely surprised.

"I built a new one," Tails said, as if he did this kind of thing on a daily basis. What was, Sonic considered, kind of the truth.

"In two weeks? You're kidding me, right?" Baffled, Knuckles looked between Tails and Sonic. "You already had a spare plane standing around somewhere and just needed to finish it, didn't you?"

"Don't look at me; I didn't do anything in it." Sonic grinned. "How about this: Tails fills you in on the details while the two of you get this stuff up onto the ruins' highest spot where I can pick you up, and I juice and get our nice new Tornado here in a flash?"

Knuckles nodded, and Tails felt compelled to give the blue hedgehog some advice. "Be gentle on the engines, Sonic, they got a lot more power than our last, but I think they're prone to overspin the propeller if you aren't careful with the blade pitch control. Oh, and the flaps don't work in all modes yet."

Sonic grinned, shutting the fox up with a casual pat on his shoulders. "I'll manage. I've flown my first plane before I even knew you. I promise I won't pin your baby to the first best tree I find…"

"If you do THAT, Sonic, I promise I'll –"

Sonic didn't wait to hear Tails' 'promise' out.

Another confrontation, another miserable outcome. Grinding his teeth in anger and disgust, Robotnik thought back to his latest encounter with that terrible blue hedgehog ever spoiling his plans. How often was he going to have to endure seeing that pesky rodent laugh into his face at the failure of his plans for world domination?

Robotnik's hands fisted. He would show Sonic, one day, he would be the triumphant one… The last laugh… would be his.

Today however seemed like another wasted attempt, another dead end. Powerful creation, heritage to the future… HA! It was a stupid carpet, for crying out loud! What was to come of this?

Dusting himself off as good as was possible, Robotnik entered his underground base, but some of the stains the dust of the cave-in he'd so barely escaped just wouldn't let themselves being brushed off his red suit.

Heavily dropping into his well-cushioned lawnchair, Robotnik just briefly closed his eyes, then let them wander around his room. Numerous screens presented surveillance videos from all over the base and up-to-date information on the production progress for all of his currently running models of robots.

On the bright side, he noticed – counting out the few dozen robot guards the hedgehog and his friends had destroyed upon coming here– that he didn't need to go and rebuild everything entirely anew from a pile of rubbish on like he usually had to when an encounter with that irritating hedgehog didn't went according to plans…

In spite of what some people might think, Robotnik wasn't a complete illusionist. He knew that most likely Sonic and his friends would find a way out of the cave sooner or later, but the fact they would need to search for it first and it would hold them back for at least some time was satisfying enough for now.

What still left the matter of later…

Looking past the humiliation of having been tricked into wasting his time pursuing something of absolutely no value, Robotnik found this time his 'loss' wasn't as humiliating as his former experiences with the pesky rodents. In fact, looking at how Sonic had not been able to spoil his plans at all, but they had been spoiled by default even before they had started to be carried out – by matters he couldn't foresee or influence – today was a good day in Ivo's life. He had been so close. He's had the hedgehog, and he's had his friends. If the treasure chest had contained what he anticipated, he would have won this time.

His moustache twitched when Robotnik chuckled. Yes, this would have been almost a great day for him, and he would celebrate it… Here he was, with an almost unharmed, prospering base, a small army of combat machines, and the experience of a near victory behind him.

Revenge was sweet, and his next plan would come over the hedgehog and his silly friends before they even realized what hit them… Now Robotnik truly und unabashedly laughed.

Although being the fastest thing alive it had taken Sonic hours to reach the place just outside Eggman's base where they'd left the new Tornado. But the long run through various landscapes had lifted the hedgehog's spirit even more than it had been before. Whistling to himself, Sonic bounced into the cockpit of the silvery biplane, just briefly orientating himself on the panels before flicking the numerous switches.

The engine started running smoothly and began turning the propeller. Sonic smirked. Just judging from the almost total lack of vibrations and the greatly reduced noise compared to their old plane Tails had outdone himself.

Five minutes later the hedgehog was fully enjoying the outcome of his little brother's work, though keeping the direction in mind making the way there a rollercoaster ride in the air, a slalom around cloud tops, with loops and spirals. While it was true usually Tails was the one flying their plane – Sonic just had to admit the fox was many times better at this than he was – Sonic was also a skilled pilot and sometimes really enjoyed flying.

Upon reaching the ruins, he circled the top a few times, watching Tails and Knuckles jump to fly respectively glide over to him. Moving up onto the wings, the hedgehog allowed Tails the controls again.

"I must say I love your new plane, little bro," Sonic smiled in greeting.

Tails beamed proudly. "Handles ace, doesn't she?"

"Mondo ace, yeah." Sonic gave the fox a thumbs-up. "Dear passengers, please store your treasure boxes securely, we expect a juicy travel!"

Shaking his head at Sonic's joking notification, Knuckles gently tapped the wooden box that sat on his lap. "It's all here and I got a good hold of it. – That's no excuse for you to turn me upside down all the time, y'know?"

Tails turned around to the echidna. "Nah, I won't shake you."

"Good." Knuckles leaned back into the seat, visibly enjoying the stream of air about his nose.

"See? No worries, Knux." Sonic blinked an eye at the red echidna. "Tails flies a lot better than you…"

Cocking a brow, Knuckles looked up at the hedgehog again. "What?"

"The one time you touched the controls of a flying thing we crashed on Space Colony Ark…" Sonic grinned.

Knuckles grumbled. "Oh, shut it, hedgehog."

The coastside of Mystic Ruins was bathed in sunlight, the ocean below a wide field of twinkling sapphire.

Sonic knelt on the wing until Tails had stopped the plane in front of the hangar. Gracefully somersaulting to the ground of the runway, the blue hedgehog found a pink hedgehog walking towards them.

Amy Rose had not fully reached them when her steps faltered and she stopped, staring wide-eyed at the third member of the trio before her. "You…?

Knuckles shrugged, the treasure box tugged under his left arm and the rest of the relics in his right hand. "I know," he noticed dryly, "I'm not as dead as I look."

Sonic and Tails burst out laughing, and on Amy's face a smile slowly started brushing off the shock.

"That's wonderful!", the pink hedgehog squealed. "But what happened?"

"Umm… how about you clear that one up and I go juice?" Sonic pointed somewhere into the distance.

Knuckles smirked knowingly, Tails shook his head and Amy giggled.

"You can stay," she said, tilting her head at the blue hedgehog. "You don't have to run from me. I stopped; I won't chase you any more. I realized you don't like me that way, and I want to accept this. A girl should do something else in her life but running after a boy, shouldn't she?"

"… Well, I guess." Sonic stared at her dumbfoundedly. Right now he was looking so stupid Tails had to cover his mouth with a flat hand to keep from laughing out and Knuckles was regarding his shoes as if they were a new sight to him just to avoid Sonic noticing his grin and killing him for it once he got out of his shock.

"That's what Cream said, too." Amy just kept talking, either not noticing Sonic's bewilderment or deciding to ignore it. "So, I'm over you, Sonic. I'll start a new life, a life for myself."

"Uh, that's really cool, Amy," Sonic managed to say, still looking at her as if he'd seen a ghost. He'd thought for a moment something was definitively strange about Amy back in the jungle, but he'd forgotten the incident over everything that had happened after that.

Playfully running a hand through her bangs, Amy smiled at him. "You know, you're still utterly cute when you look like that."

"Hey, I thought you said you're 'over me'?" Sonic blinked.

"Well, that doesn't mean you look anything like less good. I just realized I'll never get you and there are most likely a lot of other handsome guys around." The girl giggled again. "We can still be friends, Sonic, okay?"

The blue hedgehog nodded. It was what he'd wished they could be for years. "Yeah, sure. If I don't have to run away from you, I might even be able to hang out with you sometimes." A grin slipped onto his face.

"Then this is all set." Amy grinned too, spinning around a little to face Knuckles again. "You still didn't answer my question…"

The echidna shrugged. "There isn't that much to say. I got captured by Eggman, in the ruins he ordered a few robots to get me to a plane thing, and just when we'd left an accident set of Eggman's stored explosives and the entire place blew up. Eggman and I luckily escaped and he held me prisoner in his base… well, until Sonic and Tails got me out."

"Then Eggman captured all of us again and forced us to help him find a treasure," Tails took over. "We went through some old ruins and-"

"And in the end the treasure turned up to be of no use to Eggman and he ran off to his base moping," Sonic finished, starting to laugh.

After a couple minutes of exchanging jokes on the unlucky scientist and his dreams of world domination that just kept failing, Amy looked at her watch. "I gotta catch the train. I promised to be at Cream's this afternoon; her mum invited me for tea." She looked at the echidna again. "Uh, Knuckles… Would you let me have this small vase you have and this round stone thing with the symbols?"

Knuckles looked down on the collection of items in his hold. "Hmm… Why do you want them?"

"I could do a few friends of mine a big favor if I got them." She smiled. "Pleeeeeeease…"

"Okay, okay, you can have them," the echidna gave in, unable to stand her puppy-dog-eyed look.

"Thank you! I knew you had a big heart in there!" Happily Amy took the vase and plate from Knuckles' hands. "See ya then, guys!"

"Sure, bye Amy." The trio looked after the girl as she started running off, heading for the train station not too far from Tails' workshop.

Sonic looked between the others. "You plan on growing roots here? How about we shift all that stuff inside?"

Knuckles nodded. "Sounds sensible." Following the hedgehog towards the house, the echidna smiled as he watched Sonic bouncing softly with every step, his quills gently bobbing up and down. "Someone's in a great mood, huh?"

Sonic turned around to him, walking backwards, hands folding behind his neck. "Yup! I have reason, don't I? I mean, you turn out to be still among the living, Eggman's plan screwed up on him, Tails built a wonderful new biplane and I can finally live without getting haunted by a lovesick girl. Could there be anything better?"

Tails laughed. "You're right. This must be your lucky day…"

Chuckling a little, too, Knuckles regarded his blue friend. "You should have seen your face, Sonic… But didn't you like it one bit? At least she really admired you…"

"Yeah, probably. But there is a difference between being admired and getting stalked, even though I know she did it just because she liked me a lot." Sonic shrugged a little. "Y'know, I never wanted to hurt her, but I really see her more as a sort of little sister maybe. I'm just not the type for romance I think. I can't imagine to get married to anyone…"

Knuckles looked at him strangely. "No way. If you'd be married to anything, it'd be running around like mad." He blinked. "That… sounded a lot more intelligent than I meant it to sound."

Sonic laughed. "You should become a psychologist, Knux." He stuck out his tongue.

Tails giggled. "But he's right. It'd be either that, or the world's biggest chili dog!"

Now all three of them broke into laughter, Knuckles struggling to keep a hold of all the stuff he carried and Sonic nearly tripping over and landing on his tail.

"Would you like some more tea?", Vanilla asked indicating the tea pot that sat on the small but beautifully decorated table between them.

Amy nodded. "Thank you. The cake is great, too."

"I made it," Cream piped up, beaming happily at the praise.

"That's great, Cream." Amy smiled, reaching for another piece of the cake. She'd so regret this the next time she checked her weight… or maybe she wouldn't. Shrugging to herself, the pink hedgehog was getting ready to ask her hosts if someone else wanted more cake when the door bell rang.

"I'll get it!", Cream announced hopping off her chair and darting for the door.

"Slowly, Creamy!", her mother called after her, softly shaking her head.

She didn't get a response out of her daughter who – as the sounds clearly told - had already opened the door. "Oh, hello Mister Vector and Mister Espio. Hi Charmy."

"Hello Cream," the crocodile greeted. "Is your mother home?"

"Yes, Amy's here, too!", the little rabbit replied. "We're having tea and cake."

"Cake? Where is it?", Charmy blurted out.

"May we come in?", Espio asked politely, ignoring the bee.

"Yes, of course." Just a moment later little Cream walked into the living room again, proudly guiding the three detectives. "Mum, we got some more guests!"

"I see, Dear." Vanilla smiled. "Hello. Would you like some cake?"

"First, we'll have to get to business, M'am," Vector started, gesturing at Espio.

The cameleon opened a bag he'd held tucked under his arm, revealing the two lost items to the rabbit family.

Carefully Vanilla took the things from Espio's hands, placing them on the table. "Oh, you really got them back… Thank you."

"This is our job, M'am," Vector said blushing.

Amy put a hand over her mouth to conceal her giggles.

"Can I have some cake now?", Charmy threw in bluntly, earning himself a frowning look from Espio, but Vanilla smiled.

"Of course you can. All of you are invited."

Espio and Vector protested half-heartedly, but Charmy had already taken a seat next to Cream and was loading a plate for himself with a pile of cake. A moment later the two others were seated between the little bee and Amy.

"How did you get it back anyway?", Vanilla asked after everyone had gotten some tea and food.

"Oh, it was detective work, M'am," Vector said and tried a piece of the cake. "Hmm, this is really good."

Cream beamed.

"You know," Espio took over, "We can't get into details. It's a secret within the agency."

"Just the agency?", Amy asked, smiling at the chameleon next to her.

He tilted his head. "Plus some talented allies that helped out."

Amy blinked an eye at him. "Thought so."

Espio cupped his chin in his hand, smiling against his nature. But who could blame him today? They had done their job, after they already thought they'd fail it, throughout the recent adventure they had gained friends and allies they couldn't expect to find, and as Amy had told him even the believed to be dead Knuckles was fine. A perfect day for Espio if he even remembered one.

He looked at Amy. "I just wonder if that ally would like to join us again in the future if we need help. Perhaps she's got other important things to do…"

Amy shrugged, smiling again. "Well, I'm sure we'll find out one day…" She pointed at the tea pot. "Would you like some more?"

Knuckles sat on the small stairway leading up to the entrance to Tails' house and workshop and watched the sun starting to set over the ocean. A soft breeze from the sea the echidna hadn't been aware he'd missed gently brushed through his long spines and a small smile lit on his face.

Actually, he might quite well be the only one having gotten anything out of this whole thing, and he wondered if anything the people involved had endured was worth the outcome. To him, personally, the 'treasure' they'd found did bear a lot of meaning; objectively Eggman had a point saying it was close to worthless.

Knuckles' gaze slowly got lost within the bright twinkles on the deep blue sea he looked upon. For him, what he'd found today would always have its place among the most valuable things in his life, directly after the Master Emerald, his home Angel Island… and the looks on Sonic's and Tails' faces earlier that day.

Resting his hands behind his neck, the echidna leaned back on the stairs, Sonic's words to Eggman coming back to him. 'It's never about what you get, it's how much of a blast you have getting it.' Knuckles smirked. Though you could question the blue hedgehog's choice of words, it might very well be the most intelligent thing he'd voiced in a while, if not ever… But still, it was a Sonic statement. For Knuckles, a satisfactory outcome did belong into the mix of factors to classify something as 'good'. At least, that was what he'd been used to think...

The echidna's musing was interrupted when he heard the door opening followed by the soft thuds of nearing footsteps behind him and he looked up to find Sonic casually strolling out of the house. Lightly bouncing down the stairs the blue hedgehog stepped past the echidna and turned to face him standing at the bottom of the treads.

"You cool sitting here?"

Knuckles gave him a small nod. "Yeah. I was thinking."

Sonic smiled. "Didn't mean to disturb you; I just need to get past… to run, y'know." The smile grew to a trademark grin.

"I see." Knuckles smirked.

"Don't think I'll miss dinner though…" The hedgehog blinked an eye at him, still grinning.

Knuckles shook his head. "I would have never expected you to."

Sonic's grin broadened another bit. "Not that much of a Knucklehead anyway it seems."

In faked anger Knuckles lifted a spiked fist at him. "You better see that you get outta here, hedgehog."

"Yup, I never planned on camping here," the hedgehog gave back and stuck out his tongue. "See ya later, Knux."

The echidna tilted his head at his friend when he started turning away. "Where're you running?"

Sonic shrugged, clearly not having contemplated the matter. "I'll see when I get there I guess." A smile wiping the second of thoughtfulness off his features, the blue hedgehog shot Knuckles a short wave that swiftly morphed into a running start.

Shaking his head to himself, Knuckles' eyes followed the blue streak disappearing between the hills, feeling another smile tug on his lips. "Why did I ask?"

The End

...

'Is it really the treasure of gold, or the dance on the rainbow itself?'

... If you asked me, I'd always pick the rainbow.