"No... Where ring?" the boss of the Sand Kingdom muttered. He heard something shard like hit one of the ice patches around.
"Hmm?" He floated over to what dropped down from the sky. It was a green emerald shard.
"If ring... not here... this... be replacement... For now." With a floating hand, he picked up the shard. An unknown energy flowed through him.
"Powerful... like old ring." He floated over to a large golden ring and grabbed it. On the ring was an empty space for some sort of gem. Carefully, he placed the emerald shard into the hole in the ring.
"I have... ring back."
Beep. Beep.
He looked around, hearing the beeping. "Who there?"
Beep. Beep. Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep.
A creature landed on the ground in front of him.
"You take... old ring?" He asked. The red creature looked at him. It seemed to be interested in the ring the he had.
"Hey! Give me back the Emerald shard!" the red creature yelled. The floating creature floated over to something and place in the ring. He turned back to the red creature, a purple barrier coming up.
"Where... ring... go? YOU take ring?!" the floating creature yelled. All the sudden a blue hedgehog slammed into the barrier while ice spikes where falling down.
"Yo, Knuckles! You found the shard yet!" the hedgehog yelled after recovering.
"I found it, but this thing won't let me have it!" Knuckles replied. "Sorry for me asking Sonic, but can you see if there's any way to get to the emerald shard on the other side of here?" Knuckles then dodged a dropping ice spike. The blue hedgehog looked around and saw nothing.
"There's nothing here but that platform, Knuckles!" Sonic answered. "Looks like we h- well... I just slammed into whatever that purple thing was, so looks like your on your own for now."
"For the sake of Chaos..." Knuckles muttered before getting out of the way of one of the hands trying to smash him. All the sudden Mario appeared nearby.
"Sonic? Knuckles? Why you here?" Mario asked, walking up to the hedgehog. His hat then turned into some sort of hat ghost thing.
"Knuckles found an emerald shard around here but that floating thing won't let him have it," Sonic answered.
"You mean Knucklotec?" Mario asked.
"Knucklotec? Seriously?" Sonic replied, unimpressed.
"It's true," the hat ghost replied.
"It's basically a combination of Knuckles' name and what Tails does," Sonic comments.
"I'm sorry, but who is Knuckles and Tails?" the hat ghost asks.
"Cappy!" Mario growled.
"What?" Cappy, the hat ghost thing, asked.
"I know very well who Knuckles and Tails are you just had to break that?!" Mario exclaimed.
"Hey, red head! Is there any way to defeat this thing whatever it's name is?" Knuckles called, dodging another hand.
"Punch him in the face!" Mario called back. "Should be obvious! Also, the thing's name is Knucklotec!"
"Knucklotec? That's uncreative," Knuckles muttered.
"When I faced him, it only took th-"
"Three hits. Typical Mario game," Sonic broke, cutting Mario off.
"Uh...? Typical Mario game? What?" Cappy asked.
"Nothing you would understand, that's for sure," Mario quickly replied. All the sudden, Knucklotec was hit powerfully. Knucklotec then slammed his hands to the ground before backing away from Knuckles.
...
...
The fight had truly begun.