It wasn't that long before they had made it to a open green field, flowers blossomed everywhere streaking the green field with color. The sky started to turn grey though, but it didn't make a difference really. It was a cool day and there was only a soft breeze. Amy had let go of Tails a few minutes after they had left, he had protested they he could walk by himself. Cream and Cheese just sort of followed behind them. They found a nice place to set up their picnic. Cream started to get everything set up, Amy and Tails offered to help the young rabbit but she told them that she had everything covered.

"Wow I hope it doesn't decided to rain" said Amy as she looked up to the grey sky. "It was just beautiful out not that long ago"

Tails was about to say something until Cream interjected. "Alright you two, its all set up" she said with excitement.

A red and white checkered blanket was laid out on the soft green grass, on top of it was the picnic basket. Four plates where laid out and various utensils were placed with each plate. Cream knelt next to the basket while Cheese took its spot next to the rabbit. Tails and Amy sat across from each other, which the last two plates were located at. Cream handed out the food, which were already made sandwiches and various fruits. She also brought some other finger food as well, of which she didn't even know what they were. After they all had some food on their plate, they started to eat.

"Wow this is tasty Cream" said Tails as he just finished tasting one of the various finger food.

"Thanks Mr. Tails , mama helped me make most of it" replied Cream with a smile.

"Cream, I think you two have the best cooking on all of Mobius" added Amy.

About fifteen minutes later rain drop fell onto Tail's head, he glanced up to the sky. Another rain drop fell this time it landed on his face. The twin tailed fox glanced over to the two girls and the chao "Did anyone else feel a rain drop?"

"I felt something" answered Cream.

"Maybe we should start packing up, I really don't feel like being stuck out in the rain" suggested Amy.

Soon they all had everything packed back into the basket, it didn't take them more then probably ten minutes to repack everything. The sparse rain drops soon started to become much more together and it started to pour rain from the sky. The three mobians and the chao ran off towards homeward so that they could get out of the rain, hopefully it wouldn't take them as lang as it did to get there.

It was raining heavily and was pretty dark out as Knuckles ran through the forest of his homeland, Angel Island, with team Chaotix behind him. The echidna ran though slow enough for them to keep up .

"Why are we here" asked Vector "I mean yes the mission is over but..."

"The Master Emerald is in trouble, didn't you hear me the first time" snapped Knuckles "I already told you three that you are more than welcome to go home. You know where your extreme gear are"

"And let you have all the fun? No way!" responded the crocodile, he turned to his two partners "Right guys"

"Right!" said Espio and Charmy in unison.

"Well then shut up" growled the echidna.

The rain did not seem to phase the echidna. He was determined to get to the Master Emerald shrine nothing was going to slow him down, not even the rain. The ground was a bit on the slippery side and he ran through a few puddles, which splashed Team Chaotix a few times in the face. Knuckles knew where he was going, they did not so they had to follow behind him. It wasn't long before they reached the shrine.

"Wow this place is cool" exclaimed Charmy as he looked at the shrine.

The Master Emerald sat in its usual spot in the middle of the shrine, it didn't even looked like it was disturbed. "Are you sure that something is up with the Master Emerald" asked Espio.

Knuckles waked towards the Master Emerald shrine while Team Chaotix stayed behind, they didn't know what to make out of it. They though stood ready so incase something happened that they could help. Although they knew Knuckles quite well, he usually didn't need back up.

"Oh look the guardian decided to show up" laughed a voice, although they could not see who the voice belonged to they knew it was a female. It caused the echidna to stop dead in his tracks just short of the shrine. "It doesn't matter really, I'll still be taking that emerald with me"

"Rouge, you're not getting the Master Emerald!" shouted Knuckles almost instantly, he wasn't sure who it was but Rouge seemed to fit.

"Rouge? Stupid guardian my name is not Rouge" mocked the voice. After a few moments she spoke again. "Are you going to make this difficult?"

"Whoever you are you can forget about taking this emerald" snapped the echidna.

"Difficult it is then" sighed the female "Take care of him my pet"

Knuckles was a bit taken off, who did she just talk to. Out of nowhere it seemed something came out and managed to kick the echidna, it had enough force to move him but he stayed on his feet. Knuckles looked to see what had just attacked him, the echidna spotted a cloaked figured not that far from him. It stood between him and the shrine.

"Knuckles are you okay, what just attacked you" asked Vector.

"You three stay back, I don't need help" snapped the echidna as he glared at the figure.

The figured launched itself at Knuckles, he had no time to thing so he raised his hands to blocked it. He didn't take any damage as he deflected the figure. Knuckles ran at the intruder but missed, the figured had moved away quickly to avoid the attack. The echidna hit the ground instead of the figure. It then turned around and kicked Knuckles in the back, he went face first into the muddied ground. The echidna pulled his face up and rubbed the mud away from his eyes, his sharp teeth were bared. Knuckles was beyond annoyed with whoever the figure was, he had a hard time getting a good hit or any hit in. The fact that it was dark out and raining didn't help his case much. He though had to protect the Master Emerald, no matter what.

Knuckles got back up onto his feet, just like before the figure went right after him. The echidna though jumped out of the way before the figure had a chance to attack and then turned around, he hit the figure with his fist. It launched the figured quite a few feet and even father when it slid across the wet ground. The figured smack a truck of a tree back first.

"Finally" growled Knuckles as he walked over to the figure. When he made it over to the figure, he spotted that the hood of the cloak had fallen down. The echidna saw who the figure truly was, when he realized who it was he wore a blank expression. "It can't be" he muttered under his breath.

"Must I do everything" growled a voice, this one was different than the female's voice. This one was a male's voice but it sort of had a demonic feel to it.

"Whatever floats your boat" sighed the female.

Another figure showed itself, this one though had a familiar shape to it. Although it was too dark out to make sure, there was no doubt that the figure at least shared the same shape as Shadow the hedgehog.

"Is that Shadow?" asked Charmy as he looked to Vector and Espio

"Well he sure looks like it" answered Espio.

All of a sudden something grabbed Knuckles and lifted him into the air, it was as if darkness wrapped around the echidna. It then started to thrash Knuckles into various things, it varied from the ground to surrounding trees. The cloaked figured put the hood back on and got back onto its feet while the echidna was being occupied.

"Don't worry about the echidna anymore he has that one covered, how about you play with his friends" suggested the female voice, she was the only one out of three to not have at least shown her silhouette.

"She means us, right?" wondered Charmy

"Yeah" said Espio simply

"Shoot" sighed Vector "Can we at least get some light or something". Everyone was pretty far from the Master Emerald, so that couldn't even use its light really to see.

Knuckles took a heavy beating from whatever had grabbed him, it had made sure of that, but he tried to stay strong. He felt that he was seriously losing the fight...and he couldn't get the image of the figure out of his head. The echidna knew he could not let the Master Emerald fall into their hands, Mobius only knows what they wanted it for. He started to feel himself slip away into slumber, his body was becoming weak from the constant thrashing. He could take quite a lot but even he had his limit. A lighting bolt streaked across the raining night sky. It lightened the entire sky, the flash caused the thing to drop Knuckles onto the ground.

"Hey guys did ya see that!" exclaimed Charmy, the figure saw no interest in the bee at the moment so he just sort of hanged out at the moment. The figure seemed to have a perked interest on the two older members of Team Chaotix.

"Sort of busy here" muttered Espio as he got kick and skidded across the wet ground.

"But guys" whined the hyper bee.

"What, what is so important" snapped Vector as he kept a look out for the figure.

"Well it looks like the dark stuff doesn't the lighting" said Charmy.

"How is that freaking important right now" growled the crocodile, he then was hit by a sideways kick to the head and rammed into a near by tree.

The echidna glanced over to the shrine, he was barely awake at the moment. He had no choice, he had to do it. "Chaos" shouted Knuckles, "Chaos if you can hear me...I want you to shatter the Master Emerald"

"Chaos?" muttered the female voice.

The Master Emerald started to glow brightly, much more brightly than usual. A inhuman noise came from within the powerful gem. The light became blinding for a few seconds, everyone stopped dead even the figure that was attacking the Chaotix. 'Shadow' covered his eyes and hissed when the light became brighter, it was like it caused him pain to look at it. When the light subsided the Master Emerald floated in midair but it was now in several pieces, which then almost instantly shot out into all different directions. After the Master Emerald pieces went into different directions, Knuckles passed out on the ground. 'Shadow' growled in frustration when he realized what the echidna just did.

"Wow didn't see that coming" said the female voice in amazement.

Something all of a sudden caught Cream's eye, she stopped running to see what it was. "Ms. Amy, Mr. Tails you must have a look at this" she said as she grabbed Cheese to hold.

Amy and Tails glanced up to the sky, light streaks went into random directions. It was easy to see the light in the sky since it was dark out thanks to the grey storm clouds. It wasn't long before the lights dimmed away and they were left in the dark cold rain once more.

"Wow what do you think that was" asked Amy

"It wasn't lighting" muttered Tails, if it had been lighting then he would have known it like the streak of lighting from before. The lights they just saw didn't make a noise at all. The twin tails fox thought for a moment and then a thought occurred to him, wasn't Angel Island in that direction. "I think something happened on Angel Island"

"Thats right, you don't care much for lighting" added Amy

"What do you mean Mr Tails?" wondered Cream

"I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure that Angel Island is in that direction. Right were the lights came from" said Tails, he sounded as if he was thinking about something. A streak of lighting suddenly streaked across the sky and a loud thunder followed behind it. The sudden lighting strike caused the twin tailed fox to jump and yelp. He sighed afterwards. I really need to stop being so scared of lighting, its just burst of energy that clouds make when they rub together. Nothing to fear... thought Tails to himself.

"Oh Mr. Tails, are you okay?" asked Cream

"I'm alright" said Tails as he took a deep breath in and out to calm himself down.

"Well what ever it was we still need to get out of the rain" sighed Amy "Can we check it out when the rain stops?"

Amy actually had a point, Tails would have to take the Tornado to check out Angel Island and going right now wasn't smart due to the weather. The last thing he need was to be struck by lighting while on the Tornado. "I guess waiting until the weather lightens up wouldn't hurt" replied the twin tailed fox.

"My home is the closest, we can go there for right now" suggested Cream

"Its settled then, we'll go to Cream's house and then after the weather calms down a bit we can go check out it out" said Amy

Tails wanted to protest Amy and Cream coming along when he headed over to Angel Island, but honestly he could use the company for the trip there. "Alright, sounds good" said the twin tailed fox simply.

A/N: And there you have it, chapter four :D

It took me a long time to update, sorry about that for those I've kept waiting. I do hope it was worth the wait though. With that said, until next time see ya!