In order for Sonic and Tails to chase Eggman/Robontik, they have to use the Tornado. Tails gets the Tornado ready to go, and he and Sonic then take off to the skies to try and get on board the Egg Carrier; their plans get foiled when the Egg Carrier shoots them down.
When Tails lands back down in the Mystic Ruins, he has a dreaming flashback of when and how he and Sonic met each other (according to this game's plot). After Tails wakes up from his memorable dream, he realizes that the Tornado isn't powerful enough to take on the Egg Carrier; if his prototype gets finished and has a Chaos Emerald for power, he might stand a fighting chance against Eggman/Robontik.
Tails heads off into the jungle to find any source of a Chaos Emerald; he finds the red one, but a familiar-looking frog jumps on top of it before Tails can claim it, and he takes it away into a sandy tunnel. Tails follows the frog, and he finds himself snowboarding in the desert trying to get a hold of the Emerald. Tails gets a hold of the frog, but an orange-colored orb takes him away to the ancient times of the Mystic Ruins (the time before the race of people and/or creatures almost died out completely). Tails finds the Rhythm Badge; this allows him to do continuous tail attacks when he finds it necessary in a combat situation.
Before Tails gets taken back to 1998 A.D., he meets a fourteen year-old tribal girl named Tikal. Tails hears her reciting a mythical phrase that she says her grandmother taught her; for some reason, unfortunately, she doesn't quite understand what it means...yet. Just as Tails is about to introduce himself to her, he's taken back to the Mystic Ruins in his day and age in the middle of the night. Apparently, the frog that had taken the red Chaos Emerald from Tails was Big the Cat's pet frog Froggy.
