Eventually, Tails found Sonic, but seeing that he wouldn't respond, the little fox got closer to him only to encounter Sonic.EXE. As he was running around Green Hill Zone, he found a frightening sight: sunflowers and palmtrees were looking decrepit, and Flickies were found brutally murdered, which scared little Tails who kept going forward in an attempt to find Sonic, only for everything to look worse. Tails was riding his Tornado, wondering what had gotten into Sonic and believing Eggman had something to do with all of this, and chose to go find Sonic on foot. Tails is left with more questions than answers, and decides to go find Sonic in Green Hill Zone. Sonic and Tails obviously don't trust Eggman, but they soon get no response from Sonic, leaving the doctor pale as he ran off. Sure enough, Sonic finds the capsule, but the doctor barges inside Tails' workshop begging the hedgehog to run while he still can.
Unfortunately, Tails gave the hedgehog the wrong instructions, and caused Sonic to eject the capsule to Green Hill Zone.
He then confronts the Doctor inside a reconstructed version of Scrap Brain and foils his plans, and finds the capsule containing Respiro. Sonic is seen at Launch Base Zone after having received word that Doctor Eggman was reactivating the Death Egg using a new power supply, and decided to explore the zone and investigate.