Speedy's note: This is a Triple Threat story. You can think of it being set some undefined time after Heroes and the first Sonic Riders game, timeline-wise.

Dr Namgge once said to me that the environments in my stories are the worst threats for the characters. Here's some more evidence.;-)

Fire and Smoke

Chapter One

"Sonic, come ooooon!" Tails already sat in the Tornado's pilot seat, eager to be on his way.

"I'm ready, I'm coming, chill out!" Sonic didn't even bother with the stairs; he just jumped down from the upper level where the living quarters were down to the workshop.

Tails' impatience was actually pretty adorable, and this was nothing like a life or death situation that would actually require them to hurry.

Then again, the situation was a first of sorts and Tails had apparently appointed himself to the task of ensuring it wouldn't stay the last time. Knuckles had – sort of – invited them to stay a few days on his island for some Extreme Gear racing.

Yes, something extremely fascinating had happened, something Sonic had been about to let go and consider impossible. Their hot-tempered island guardian friend had taken a liking to a sport.

Sure, he claimed he'd been into the races for the Emeralds, and although he'd been suspiciously quick to agree when Sonic and Tails suggested having a fun race on his island, he'd said something about practice and important skills and how it had helped them stop Eggman in the past.

But Sonic wasn't stupid; he knew a lame excuse when he heard one. He just didn't necessarily need to call Knuckles out on it.

Tails obviously agreed with him; they'd shared a grin and a wink behind Knuckles' back and agreed to the "training".

Sonic bounded up onto the wings and smiled down at Tails in the cockpit. "See, I'm good to go."

"Was about time; I was getting ready to go without you." Tails' grin put immediate lie to his words.

"Aw, you wouldn't. What would you tell Knuckles?"

The fox's grin broadened. "That you were being annoying and I decided to dump you into the ocean on the way up."

Sonic laughed. "Yeah, he'd believe that."

"He'd understand that!" Tails was laughing as well while he reached for the ignition to start the engine.

Next thing Sonic knew was there was a weird scratchy noise, a spark, the wail of an alarm siren and a bang and his reflexes had taken him off the wings, snatched Tails along and they were all the way across the hangar before his brain had caught up with his feet.

"What was that?!" He sat a dazed looking Tails onto his feet.

The fox blinked, reconciling his sudden change of location and the events of the last few seconds, but he had practice. He took a slow breath. "That, if I'm not mistaken, was the death cry of the ring energy buffering capacitor."

"Oh." Sonic stared. "Is that bad?"

"Let me have a look, okay. If that's the only thing that went boom, I have a spare and we're good."

Sonic stood uselessly behind Tails while he opened a thankfully not actually damaged-looking engine compartment. The blackened thing Tails pulled from in there after a moment was smaller than his hand. "Here's the culprit."

"It's tiny for having made such a boom," Sonic noticed.

"It's also shielded." Tails' blue eyes went from the device to Sonic. "You might have overreacted a bit. We'd have been fine."

The hedgehog folded his arms. "It went boom! I have good reflexes! Boom is usually bad!"

"Yes, I know." Tails smiled. "Thanks for grabbing me, after all it could've been something really bad."

Sonic smiled back, nodding towards the charred piece. "So, nothing else broken?"

Tails shook his head. "I'll need to install the spare and run a couple of tests, we don't want anything frying on us while we're in the air later, but I think it'll be okay." He frowned. "But we'll be late. I'll need a few hours."

"Don't worry about it. You do what you have to do; we want a safe ride, after all."

"Will you give Knuckles a call, tell him we're not gonna make it right away?"

"Sure." Sonic smiled, although he doubted he'd actually reach their friend, but he dutifully made his way over to the main computer terminal of Tails' and its video call screen.

Surprisingly, Knuckles did answer his communicator, and not even with the usual air of annoyance. On the screen, he looked kinda smug and amused, actually. "What's it, Sonic? I'm waiting. Got lost already?"

"I don't get lost," the hedgehog insisted.

"Could've fooled me." At least he seemed in a good mood today; Knuckles' eyes were twinkling with mirth. Mostly at Sonic's expense, but whatever works, the blue hedgehog figured.

"Uh-huh." He traded Knuckles the glare that was customary for this type of exchange, before finally getting to the point. "No, we didn't even make it off the ground. Something fried in the Tornado. There were sparks and alarms but no power."

"Oh. Tails okay?"

"Yeah, he's already trying to fix it. Apparently he knows what is broken and has a spare. He's more upset that we're going to be late." Sonic shot Knuckles a grin. "Oh, and thanks a lot for asking if I'm alright, too."

Knuckles raised a mocking brow. "You look fine enough, and you run headlong into buildings for fun."

"Do not!"

"Do too." The echidna was grinning now, too. "So I take it you're not gonna make it today?"

"Tails thinks we still might, just later, afternoon or so. We might not have enough time left to build much, or actually race."

"Don't worry about it. We can do all that tomorrow or the day after." Knuckles shrugged, violet eyes flicking away from the screen to trail across the sky. "I think it's going to rain tonight anyway."

"Aw dang, really?" Sonic pouted. He hated getting wet, and unfortunately Knuckles was usually right when it came to that sort of prediction. Both Sonic and Tails as pilots and frequent travelers could make an educated guess, but Knuckles, who lived between the clouds, was never wrong.

But on the video image the echidna was still looking amused rather than bothered. "Relax. I don't think it's going to still be around tomorrow. Just a summer rain. You're not gonna melt."

Sonic grumbled. "Yeah, right." He sighed. "Anyway, I'll see if I can help Tails with anything. He seemed confident we'd still make it later today, but maybe he could use a hand."

"Try not to make it worse." Knuckles grinned.

"Shut up."

"It was you who called in the first place," the red echidna noticed.

"Yes, to inform you that we're going to be late. That's the polite thing to do." Sonic tried to feign annoyance.

Knuckles raised a brow at him. "Because it's so much like you to do the polite things?"

It could've been an insult, but Sonic found himself laughing anyway. "Well, it was Tails' suggestion," he admitted.

"Thought so." Also Knuckles was laughing. "Tell him thanks for the thought, and good luck fixing his plane."

"I doubt he'll need luck."

The guardian shrugged. "I figured it's the polite thing to say."

Sonic laughed again. "Touché. Are you gonna be bored?"

Now Knuckles looked like Sonic had said something entirely ridiculous. "I don't get bored," he insisted. "Impatient hedgehogs get bored."

Sonic stuck out his tongue at him. "Yeah, right."

Knuckles grinned. "No, I'll just go up ahead, decide on the exact track and mark it somehow, see where we can put ramps and such."

"That's a good idea."

"I trust you'll find the spot?"

Sonic nodded. "Sure. You showed us last time we were up. Piece of cake."

"Good. Then see that you get your backsides up here before I'm done building everything myself."

"I'll see what I can do to help Tails then." The hedgehog grinned. "See you later."

Knuckles just nodded at him and ended the connection.

The sky above was near overcast with high, thin clouds, still far above the island. The first heralds of the rain front he'd mentioned to Sonic, still many hours away. Right now, the light was still rather bright and the day was warm even up here where the forests thinned out with altitude, exposing wide fields of flowers and the dark rocks that spoke of the relative proximity to Lava Reef further uphill.

Knuckles hopped off his hover board halfway down the slope they'd decided would make a good racetrack. It was steep, a wide valley surrounded by even steeper rock to the sides. The open fields of grass were interrupted by patches of the pine forests common at this altitude. Knuckles leaned his Gear against one of those pines and set off on foot across the alpine meadow, towards an outcrop of rock in the middle of it. It had a sharp cut-off towards the downhill side and a more gentle curve up towards the mountain, possibly they could make this a ramp to jump off.

The echidna stopped near the rock's base. Something was weird. An inexplicable sense of unease gnawed at him. He'd checked and re-checked the Master Emerald's field, but it was not a presence on the island, no intruder, no threat to the precious gem. He was alone, and later today Sonic and Tails would be over, and he'd actually looked forward to their visit, he'd been in a really good mood this morning when Sonic had called, but now he felt ill at ease and he didn't know what to blame it on.

He looked out over the field of flowers, bright and colourful even without direct sunlight. The wind whispered softly though the pines around, but aside of that, it was silent.

Not a bird was singing.

Knuckles looked around, straining his ears. That wasn't good. Where were the birds, or the bumble bees going from flower to flower, or –

A growl rattled the rocks under his feet.

There was a deep, low rumble in the ground, and then an explosive bang like a thunderclap that split the ground before it split the air. A flame shot out of the flank of the mountain above his position, bright as sunlight and sky high. Just a heartbeat later, it was devoured by the black cloud that exploded from where also the flame had come from, and then the black cloud was rushing, rolling down the slope towards him.

For just a dumb, slow second, Knuckles stood and stared. Out of nowhere, an unbidden thought flashed through his head. Good chaos, what if this was what had happened to the other echidnas? What if he'd never found a trace of whoever had raised him because they'd been buried in ash and smoke and molten rock?

Survival instinct put a stop to this useless train of thought. There was nowhere to run. Maybe Sonic would be fast enough, but Knuckles wasn't faster than sound, or faster than plumes of hot gas and whatnot.

He reached for the Master Emerald's field in a panicked rush, drew in what power from it he could without direct touch to its surface, far away on the altar, hopefully safe and secure. The energy wound around him like a cape, a sizzling, unsettled coat of chaos.

He dived for cover behind a larger rock, buried into the earth at its feet as good and fast as he could in the moment that was left, until the fires of hell fell in all around him and the world burst into flames.