Knuckles lay on the dirt floor strumming his guitar. "I can't believe I lost the Chaos Emerald, where did it go? I can't feel my emerald. I need technology."

Knuckles swiped right on his Huawei P9 5.2" 64GB ROM 4GB RAM Dual SIM Kirin 955 Octa Core Dual 12 MP Camera 4G LTE Smartphone (Haze Gold) - International Version No Warranty to unlock it and opened the application store. "Okay Google. Emerald Finder." After scrolling through pages and pages of marijuana dealer review apps, he gave up. "I can't settle for a simple knock-off, I've gotta get the real thing. From Rouge."

Knuckles dialed the ten digits (area code) and held the phone to his ear with his nasty glovèd hand. He waited as the phone rang. He became a little worried after he heard the beep, but he figured that was just his face pressing against the "7" button so he paid it no mind.

"You've reached the number of Rouge the Bat," Rouge's voice greeted Knuckles specifically.

"Grrovy! I need to talk to you now, right now," Knuckle said.

"I'm not available at the moment-" the voicemail continued.

"But it's an emergency!" said Knuckles angrily into the phone. He became sweaty.

"But if you want to reach me-"

"Yeah?"

"-Leave a message after the tone-"

"Got it."

"And I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

"Get to you as soon as I can? I'm on my way."

"Thanks."

"No, thank you," Knuckles grinned, pointing at nobody in particular. He looked up her address on the dark net and began gliding down the street to her apartment.

He latched onto the side of her building and climbed very loudly to her window. Meanwhile, on the other side of the window, Rouge was debating whether to begin 'bating.

"He's gonna be home in a few minutes," she pondered. "On one hand, if I wait for him, I know exactly what he's gonna do. He's gonna try to woo me over with the same bag of roses he's used for two months, and if I give in it'll be the same old needle-in-a-haystack feeling. He'll finish in like ten seconds and I'll still be as dry as a coconut in October. On the other hand, I have this... but if he walks in before I'm done he'll get really upset and think he's not pleasuring me enough. Which is true, but I don't want to deal with another one of his hissy fits. I can't keep buying him Dunkin Donuts gift cards to make him feel better about himself. He needs to grow up. You know what? I will use this dildo. If he sees me, that's him problem."

Rouge touched the tip of the penis-shaped emerald shard to the ends of her labia majora and labia minora. She hit the play button on her iPad to set the mood with some of Kenny G's Greatest Ska Hits 2001. Right as the first G Sharp blasted out of the saxophone, Knuckles beat on the window at 346 beats per minute. "Agh." Rouge jumped, causing the emerald shard to be sucked up by her vag like a Clydesdale suckin' on a big ol' chunk o' salt.

She could vaguely make out a figure behind the drapes, and the bowling-ball sized hands indicated that it was Knuckles.

"What do you want, you five-pointed commie?" Rouge shouted.

Knuckles voiced his request for the radar, but he was muffled beyond comprehension by the soundproof glass.

Rouge turned around, rushing to her dresser. "Don't come in yet, I need to put on some clothes."

Knuckles screamed at the top of his lungs. "WHAT? DID YOU SAY 'HERE I HAVE THE EMERALD RADAR FOR YOU KNUCKLES'?" He was so ready, and time was so of the essence. Before he knew it, Knuckles put his FOOT through the glass as Rouge had strung her thong halfway up her ass. He tumbled to the floor and said "Here I am where is it."

"Kunckles!" Rouge reacted appropriately. "I told you to wait outside." She fumbled around looking for her bra.

"Ooh! Oh! Ohoo! Is it in heeeere?" Knuckles giggled, throwing each drawer in the room onto the floor one by one without looking in them.

Rouge quickly threw on one of Shadow's old sweatshirts that said 'Let's Dub to Fuckstep.' "Is what in where? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Emerald Radar Shattered Noooooo!" That's what our good friend Knuckles said at this point in the story.

Rouge untensed her body. "Oh, that old thing? I haven't used that since the accident. It's right here." She clacked her heels three times and spun around. She took off her shoe. She called 911. She scoured the glands. She impromptly fired her employees. She slammed the door. And she landed the job. "Here it is in this nightstand."

Knuckles bowed inappropriately. "Thanks Roog," Knuckles said, patting her on the back like a good friend should. "Let's boot this baby up and see what this baby can do."

"That is the attitude!" said Rouge the Bat.

Knuckles turned the crank for a solid 15 minutes. It had one of those dynamo batteries that took about six times longer to charge than it could actually put out in power. "That should give me enough time to maybe get a little bit closer to one shard if I'm lucky," Knuckles said.

Rouge was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the presence of the "jolly green giant" in her birth canal. "Maybe you should activate it right right right now, now now," she suggested, grimacing in pain only she understood.

Knuckles, a red man, flipped the switch and pulled the switch, thus setting off a chemical reaction, and a single deafening tone emanated from the radar. "Hokey smokes!" said he. "There's a lost piece of the Master Emerald in here." He slowly looked up from the machine and began scuttling around the room to find the prize.

"Rogue!" Knuckled exclaimed when he saw the red exclamation point pop up on the screen right over her batgina. Knuckles clenched his right fist, and then he clenched his left fist. "ExCUSE me, I would like to inform you of this."

Rouge was desperately trying to aim the tip of the shard so that her cervix would remain intact. "It seems I am detecting." He didn't even need to say. They both knew. Knuckles gave her a reassuring pat on the head. "This will be over in some time at some point. Do you have any condoms I could put over my gloves? I'll give them right back, I don't want to get my gloves grubby from your girl grease."

"I have more condoms than I know what to do with," Rouge laughed, dumping out her wallet which was filled with only condoms. "Way to go, Knuckles!" said Knuckles. Rouge helped him put on the protection like any good friend would, could, and should.

Shadow dragged his sack of groceries up the stairs. This had been such a... stupid day. He unplugged his headphones from his zune, which was deep in the annals of his My Chemical Romance pandora playlist. He sighed dramatically. "At least I can go cruisin' for the puss," Shadow said out loud to himself.

He left the groceries lying on the stairs and zoomed up the railing on his rocket shoes. When he stopped at the door, what happened was this: "God fucking what the fuck is the right key," he hollered while hitting every key he had on the doorknob. Giving up, he took out his Tech Deck and picked the lock with it - entering his apartment just in time to see Knuckles plunging both fists into Rouge's gas snatch.

Shadow did a double take. He hadn't noticed yet. "Wait. I'm not cool enough. I want Rouge to lactate upon witnessing my cool. I can't go in looking like..." he looked down at his nudity. "This." He went back down the stairs and went back up he stairs, now with sunglasses and a leather briefcase full of more sunglasses. "Now that's what I call ready to see my girlfriend." He looked at himself in the mirror. "Looking shap, cunt-slayer."

Shadow knocked three times on the door he had already opened. "Rouge, I'm home and I'm hard." He could hear the familiar echo of his winged roommate(?) saying "Hold on, Shadow, just give me oooooone minute here."

Shadow chuckled to himself. "You don't need to get ready for me. I think you're amazing just the way you are." But Rouge didn't have the pleasure of hearing Shadow's Bruno Mars cover. She was way too focused on squeezing out the rock that she was beginning to feel maternal towards.

Knuckles looked up. "Alright. All you need to do is push."

Rouge was frantic. "I don't think I can do this!"

"You've got to! For you! For me! For the emerald! For Sonic!"

"For Sonic!" Rouge nodded, tears in her eyes.

Shadow sped into the bedroom. "Who said what about that damn fake hedgeho..."

All Shadow could see from his point of view was Rouge's legs spread wide, and Knuckles. He fell to his knees. "No. No. No." Tears formed instantaneously in his eyes, and he turned his head to the side, not wanting this. "Was I not good enough? What does he have that I don't? Four more penis heads? Quality over quantity, man."

Rouge responded, "AAAAAAAAAAAAA"

"Well, I guess I had to find out sometime, somehow," Shadow lamented, flicking his bangs off of his eyes.

Knuckles saw the shape of a hedgehog. "Sonic, you're here! Quick, come over here, we need your help! There's blood everywhere."

"I CAN'T SEE ANYMORE" Rouge informed.

Shadow turned around 125 degrees, not saying a word.

"Oh." Knuckles grunted, realizing he had made the mistake. "Never mind."

"Nobody even knows my name," Shadow decreed, staring down at his FOOT. "I guess I really..." he choked back tears, "am a nobody." As he heely'd down the railing, he uttered the mantra: "This is who I am."

Rouge finally delivered the emerald shard in full. "Iiiiiii found 'em!" Knuckles said, punching twice and twirling once. Having destroyed that relationship, Knuckles phoned his Uber driver. "I need you to pick me up."

"Later." He got out of the car.

Sonic needed to get clean. Both of his mild booze benders, and just in general. He was covered head to toe in mud and debris. "This is no good." Sonic put down the pocket mirror, which he always kept with him for admiring himself, on the bar and asked the bartender for another pint of jack.

"Sonic," the beerman poured. "You've consumed more alcohol in the past hour than I have in the past hour. This is worrying, because I can't stop peeing and my right leg is broken.

Sonic put down his credit card in response. "I'm a hedgehog, I'm not paying you to talk."

"You haven't paid me at all."

Sonic put down another credit card.

"We only take cash here."

Sonic put down his student ID.

"This expired six years ago and isn't money."

Sonic put his FOOT down.

"Sonic, I can't legally give you more alcohol than this. I seriously think you have a problem. Here." He reached under the counter and pulled out a business card. "Look at this business card. It's a spa. It's a resort. It will help."

Sonic was not impressed.

"They give happy endings."

Sonic was impressed. "But hold on. I can't just cheat on my Girlfriend Amy the Hedgehog like this. I just love how much money she's dumping into my college loans."

Beerman stroked his beard. "It's not cheating if... it's not cheating." This was all the evidence Sonic needed that this was a good decision. Sonic stumbled out of the bar and went into the spa next door. This was not the same spa. This spa had rats and hookers.

Sonic knocked on the door. The door was open. Sonic knocked on the door. "Sonic's the name and that's it."

The receptionist filed her nails clean off. "Hello what are you here for how much do you need how long do you need it and when do you want it and how may I help you get it."

"Isn't it obvious?" Sonic sneered. "I'm Sonic the Hedgehog!"

"Let me check what we have open in out 3:30 slot." She scratched her plevis and flipped through the clipboards. "Let's see here. We've got Barely-Legal Yoga with Fat Helga the Destroyer. There's one-on-one Ass Pinball with Olga the Orca. And finally, Public Bathing is open 24/7 and is our most popular resort because we give out free samples."

"Of what?" Sonic sped.

"Our employees."

Sonic was in the bath as quick as the lion's roar. When his sense of vision finally caught up to him, he looked around at the several very bored-looking employees consisting of two hedgehog women and fifteen big beefy bison bros. They all had very moist t-shirts with the company's logo of an unaltered still image of a colonoscopy in progress. Sonic nudged one of the burly buffalo. "What do I do?" he said.

The animal reached out and put his hand on Sonic's shoulder. "You see that guy flailing around in the water?" he whispered, pointing at the hot tub in the center of the room. "That guy has some sort of device and we're not really sure if it's a bomb or not. We don't know what to do." Some of the other bison and one hedgehog woman nodded solemnly in agreement. This was indeed the situation.

The other hedgehog walked up to Sonic fully naked. In an Egyptian accent thicker than she was, she cooed to our dear hero. "I have seen you in movies, in radio, in my dreams. I know what you can do. Both with your tongue and otherwise. I know your strength and I fully trust in you that you can do this. If you can pull it off, my body is yours." She turned around and rubbed her ass on his leg.

Sonic pushed her aside. "Fuck you I have a girlfriend and a plan." Sonic did some quick squats and aimed a homing attack at what he thought was a bomb. "I have rings I'll be fine. No one else will but I'll be fine."

He jumped. Instead of finding himself narrowly avoiding an explosion, he found instead, his face buried in the chest fur of what used to be his best friend. "Kruckles! Where have you been, man? I've been smoking so much. I'm Sonic the Hedgehog. I missed you."

Knuckles looked up in amazement. "Are YOU the chaos emerald?" Rouge's detection machine was blaring an alarm sound and flashing the word "DAMAGE" on the screen. It was not IP-67 certified to protect against dust and light splashes. Knuckles was frantic. "Sonic, you don't understand. I NEED this emerald. Now. I must protect the emeralds I do it for my face."

Sonic looked incredulous. "Is this some kinda prank? You're not very fucky, Knunnles."

The fight began. Sonic grasped Knuckles' third penis head - the weakest of the bunch - and tossed him to the stone floor. Knuckles poked and poked and poked and poked at Sonic's sides. Sonic waggled his middle finger with a snarkiness that could cut steel. Knuckles ran full speed in a zigzag pattern. Knuckles tried to jump under Sonic but Sonic did a huge split and tore his ligament. Knuckles took this opportunity to give Sonic the Triple Decker Underpunch Cranberry Stunner. "Got you now, bitch," Knuckles said, saying the word bitch.

"Where would I even be hiding the Emerald if I had the Emerald?" Sonic giggled.

Knuckled pulled a bandsaw out of his bag of tricks. "We'll have to find out, isn't he?"

Just at that then, Amy slammed through the walls. "Sooooooonnnnnnnnic," she bellowed. "Where. The. Been. Fuck. You. This. Morning. Have." Amy paused and took a sip of water from the hot tub - fully hydrated, she was able to again speak in sentences. "Sonic, I've been looking for you for all day, and this is how you repay me?"

"Hah! You just kind of said your name." Sonic said.

"Cool joke, Sonic!" Knuckles chuckles. "Gimme a fist-bump."

"Yeahhhhh," Sonic did.

Amy fumed. "I didn't spend the last eleven hours running around town searching for you just to find you in a gay bathhouse with your new man lover."

One of the bison coughed into his hand. "We accommodate all sexualities here." He gave a thumbs up. Amy grabbed his hand and twisted it the wrong way, breaking his wrist so he would give a thumbs down.

Amy turned two and a half rotations to the left. "I never expected to see you with that sex toy and that sex man."

"This is a power tool, Amy," Knuckles explained.

"YOU'RE the tool here, Sonic," Amy said to Knud.

Knuckles got up off of Sonic. "I know this might look weird to you right now, Amy, but I can assure you that this has nothing to do with you."

Amy was sure in a bad mood. "Oh, yeah, of course it doesn't have to do with me. You don't want anything to do with me anymore, do you, Sonic? I can see it in your eyes. I can hear it on the phone. I can taste it while I'm eating your ass. I taste Knuckles."

"How would you know what Knuckles tastes like?" Sonic shrugged. He turned to his redfriend. "What the FUCK have you been doing with my Amy?"

Knuckles was running out of time. "Angel Island is falling, guys! I reeeeeally need those emeralds."

Amy looked Sonic dead in the eyes. "If you don't tell me the truth right now, I'm gonna shatter your jewels." She grabbed his testicles.

Sonic knew what he had to do. He looked his pink love in the eyes, and told her the one truth he'd never told her before.

"Hi, Gonna shatter your jewels, I'm Sonic."