Author note: This story now available as an audiobook on Youtube. Search for NetRaptor and Knuckles Boom Fanfiction Audiobook (this site doesn't allow links).

The storm that had lashed Bygone Island for three days was finally dying down. The racing clouds showed blue sky between them, but the ocean continued to pummel the beaches.

Knuckles had led the villagers in sandbagging the village and their homes, and had spent most of the storm out in the wind and rain, checking for leaks, and adding more bags to protect endangered areas. Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Sticks had worked hard, too. Now that the storm was over, everyone had retreated to their huts to dry out.

Knuckles had awakened early, with the pressure of responsibility weighing heavily on his broad shoulders. He pulled on his shoes and a jacket, which had yet to properly dry from the rain it had absorbed, and stepped outdoors. The wind blew his red dreadlocks around his shoulders. All of his fur was red, except for the white crescent on his chest, which marked him of the ancient echidna race.

The sea had receded far down the beach, where before it had wet his doorstep. All the village's houses were built on stilts, to let the floods race beneath. Knuckles checked for damage, but his sandbag walls had held through the last night.

"How's that for smarts?" he muttered, throwing a grin toward Sonic's hut, where the shutters were still closed.

He set off at a jog along the beach, breathing deeply and working his stiff muscles. The beach was cluttered with flotsam cast up by the ocean-piles of seaweed, dead fish, strange shells, driftwood, odd rusted things. The beachcombers would have a field day. Heck, Knuckles might come out here himself and poke around.

Bygone Island's beach curved along the south and west sides, but the north and east ends were broken into jagged rocky cliffs. Knuckles jogged an easy two miles, until the beach ended in a towering cliff wall, eaten away in caves underneath by the ocean's ceaseless pounding. The tide was still going out, and the caves were open, their rock walls dripping sea water, crusted in barnacles, mussels and sea anemones. More debris had been washed inside. Knuckles stooped and peered in.

A glint of green caught his eye. A flashlight with a green lens? He ducked into the low-ceilinged cavern and picked his way around a pile of sea trash. The green thing lay at the back, half buried in silty sand. If it was a flashlight, how had it survived a wetting with the batteries intact? He pawed the cold sand aside.

It was a green gem the size of his fist. An emerald. Knuckles picked it up and wiped the sand off its smooth facets. A glow radiated from its center, as if a spark of fire had somehow been fossilized in the stone. "Definitely chaos crystal," he muttered. That crazy snake Lyric had been after a bunch of the stuff, all different colors, too. But none of the crystal had been cut to this degree of skill.

Knuckles blinked.

Cold water lapped around his ankles. He was no longer in the cave-he was out at the foot of the cliffs with the tide soaking his shoes, in the dangerous areas where the water could catch you unexpectedly and slam you into the rocks. How had he got here? The chaos crystal-or emerald-was in his outstretched hand, facing the rising sun.

Knuckles jammed the emerald into his coat pocket. Chaos crystal did weird things, and this one was weirder than usual. Had it teleported him? Or had it taken him over and made him walk out here?

He glanced at the sand. His own footprints led out of the cave, now partially washed away by the surf. Not a teleport, then. Mind control, the way Lyric had controlled his robots.

With a shudder, Knuckles jumped the rocks and headed back to his hut. He'd hide this emerald away. If Eggman got his hands on a mind-controlling crystal, there was no telling what sort of havoc he'd cause.

As the sun rose, the villagers emerged and began clearing away the sandbags and sea rubbish from the storm. Roofs needed repairs, windows had been cracked, clothing needed drying. The supply freighter from the mainland finally arrived, and the shop had groceries again.

Amy Rose, pink hedgehog and resident creative personality, cleared the mess around her barbecue pit, and started a pit roast going. "Everyone needs some cheering up after the storm," she told Sticks the badger, who was helping.

Sticks was a short, skinny bundle of brown and white fur, and a ragged green jumpsuit that passed as clothes. She never seemed to change it, and Amy was afraid to ask if Sticks ever considered doing laundry.

Sticks heaved a bundle of driftwood into a pile near the fire. "The government sent that storm with their weather control devices."

Amy shook her head. "No, Sticks, bad weather is part of nature."

"I can prove it!" Sticks exclaimed. She lowered her voice, her eyes darting back and forth, as if expecting spies to be listening in. "All the food in the store has gone up in price by twenty percent. I did the math. Who benefits from the increased tax rate? The government!"

Amy folded her arms. "So, the government sent a storm so they could raise food prices?"

Sticks nodded violently.

Amy sighed and resumed building up the barbecue fire. "It wouldn't have anything to do with the boat being late, and the law of supply and demand?"

"Don't confuse me with economics!" Sticks snapped. "I know I'm right."

And that was that. There was no arguing with Sticks's paranoia.

Knuckles walked up, glanced at the pit without a word, then sat at the picnic table. The sun had dried it, and Amy gave an inner sigh of exasperation. "I hadn't put the table cloth on yet, Knuckles."

He sat took his elbows off the table. "My bad." But he stared out to sea, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. Amy threw the tablecloth on-cheerful yellow and white checkers-and added a centerpiece of fresh bananas and mangos, for color. Knuckles didn't notice, but then, he never did. Amy didn't mind-she did it for the aesthetics.

Sonic dashed up, his blue spines wind blown, the athletic tape on his hands and feet still a fresh white. By the end of every day, the tape was always massively dirty from the hedgehog's high speed stunts. "Hey Amy! What's cooking? Oooh, deep pit barbecue!"

"It won't be ready until tonight," said Amy, shooing him away from the pit.

Sonic swung by the picnic table and snagged a banana. "Hey Knux."

Knuckles raised a hand in vague greeting.

Sonic peeled the banana and took a bite. "I'd ask what you're thinking about, but that'd be a waste of time." Knuckles swung at him, but Sonic dodged and ran to a safe distance, laughing.

Tails sat beside Knuckles at the table. He had a tiny bundle of metal and wires in his hands, and pulled a tiny pair of pliers from his tool belt to tinker with it. "The storm opened a new cavern on the east side of the island, and the salvage rats had this on sale this morning." It didn't matter that Knuckles was the least tech-savvy of their group-Tails explained his mechanical projects at length to anyone who would listen.

Knuckles eyed the alien object. "Will it explode?"

"I don't think so. It's a communicator relay for robots, but it has similar properties to Lyric's armor. I might be able to use it to take over Eggman's robots the way Lyric did."

Sonic leaned over Tails's shoulder. "You could do that? Think of Eggman's face when his robots switch sides!"

Tails grinned. "If I can get it working, and if that's what it does."

Knuckles traced the checkerboard pattern on the tablecloth, frowning. "Tails, do you remember those crystals Lyric was after?"

"The chaos crystals?" Tails turned wide blue eyes on the echidna. "What about them?"

Sonic swooped in. "Whoa, Knux is asking an intelligent question? Didn't know you had it in you, bro!"

Knuckles jumped up, fists clenched. "You don't know when to lay off, do you?" He snorted and stalked away toward his hut.

Tails gave Sonic a mild look. "That was rude."

Sonic absently smoothed his blue spines, gazing after the echidna. "What's eating him? He's never this sensitive."

Amy spoke up. "Knuckles just spent three days hauling sandbags, Sonic. He's tired. Give him a break."

Sonic plopped down at the table, spines drooping. "Way to make me feel like a heel, guys." When everyone gave him disgusted looks, he added, "I'll apologize next time I see him. Okay?"

"Okay." Tails held up his gizmo. "Anyway, as I was telling Knuckles ..." He launched into an extended explanation of the object's properties. Sonic's eyes began to glaze.

Knuckles stomped into his hut and slammed the door, then threw himself into his old brown easy chair. His hut was arranged like a gym, with a weightlifting bench, a treadmill, and assorted barbells on racks. A full length mirror occupied one wall.

But rather than any of that, Knuckles gazed at a strong box in the corner, where he had stashed the chaos emerald. His fingers itched to hold it again, and the green glow in its center hovered in his mind's eye all the time.

Was this normal for chaos crystals? He had handled them before, as had the rest of his friends. Nobody had ever had problems with them like this. Nobody had ever obsessed over them, or had their minds taken over.

Tails might be able to help him. He was the smartest one of the gang, and after Lyric had been defeated, Tails had spent time in the ruins and taken pages and pages of notes. Sonic's barbs stung, but Sonic was always a bit of a jerk. Knuckles brushed it off. Just one more obstacle to work around.

He rose from his seat and opened the strong box. Inside, atop a stack of boring but necessary paperwork-passports and the like-sat a black nylon bag that had once held a bowling ball. It now held the glowing emerald. He picked it up and carried it back to his chair.

The emerald slid into his hand with a clink, smooth, heavy, and beautiful. It cast flecks of light around the room, and its glow burned steadily, like a candle on a still night. It soothed the anxiety that had been building in him since that morning. It wasn't dangerous. Just a chaos crystal, glowing with power and-

Knuckles blinked.

He stood somewhere in the jungle, surrounded by trees and low-growing brush. His legs were scratched from walking straight through a grove of date palms without avoiding the fronds. His right arm was outstretched, gripping the emerald, and again he was facing east. And there was a fading sense in his brain ... He'd been hurrying somewhere, to do something urgent.

"It happened again!" he exclaimed. He threw the crystal down, then immediately picked it up again. Stupid-he couldn't leave chaos crystal out where anyone might find it. But where was he, anyway?

As he spun around, something moved out of sight behind a tree. His heart leaped into his mouth, and he ducked beneath the short palms around him. Then he crawled westward as quickly as possible. He'd only had a glimpse, but there was only one creature out here with shiny blue metal and glowing red eyes.

Eggman had repaired Metal Sonic. And worse, Metal Sonic had seen Knuckles in his trance state, carrying a chaos emerald.