A/N: Renamed the story as 'The Conquest of South Island'.

DISCLAIMER: All properties are owned by SEGA and Sonic Team. I only own Reiko, her parents and the extended lore of the Chaos Emeralds, since it's up for interpretation anyway. Please support the official release.

Arc 01: Green Hill

Chapter 03: Wrecking Ball

"Get back here, Eggman!" Sonic yelled as he and Reiko chased the mad doctor through the hills.

"Not on your life, Sonic!" Eggman yelled back.

The doctor turned slightly, peering over his glasses. Curses! His pursuers were closer than he thought. Eggman looked hurriedly for a way to escape them and headed down a large pit near the lake. He could kill two birds with one stone.

Well...

Three.

Sonic and Reiko arrived at the scaffolding near the pit. The pit, a mineshaft, had several waterfalls that sent water crashing down onto the flooded floor. Large mining drills and conveyors littered the floor, pulling up and crushing dirt which was dispensed, surprisingly, in neat scaffolding was made from wood and totem poles, which angered Reiko.

"How dare that man use the island's heritage for...for scaffolding!" she spluttered in disbelief and anger.

Sonic clenched his fist and leaped down the scaffolding, running along the gangplanks, quickly followed by Reiko. They quietly dashed across the dampening wood, jumping over the broken boards.

"Hey, look at this," Reiko whispered, pointing to a large carving of a gem.

"What is it?" Sonic asked, keeping to the rock wall. "Is that a gem?"

Reiko nodded. "I think there's a Chaos Emerald round here. We should be careful, we don't want Eggman noticing us here."

"Got it," Sonic nodded quietly, looking for the quickest way down.

The hedgehog bounded down the platforms in a ball while Reiko parkoured through, sneaking into the mineshaft.

-*G:S1*-

The mineshaft was dimly lit and the only sound was that of the water dripping from the ceiling.

"We must be right under the lake," Reiko said, her voice echoing through the mine. "There should probably be some kind of marker in here if this where the Chaos Emerald is."

"Like this one?" Sonic asked, running up to a tile with another gem glyph on it.

Reiko joined him, looking at the glyph. "Should we press it?"

Sonic shrugged and slowly pressed his hand against it. The tile pushed in and was swiftly followed by a dull rumbling and quaking as the wall opened up. Inside was a dark room, lit only by the sunlight the filtered through cracks in the walls. The floors and pillars inside were a mix of marble and mosaics that depicted a group of echidnas kneeling in a circle around the room. The whole room seemed ancient, but it was as if time hadn't touched it. In the very centre of the room was pool of sparkling water and, on a pedestal in the middle, was a shining purple gem.

"Is that...?" Reiko gasped.

"I think it is..." Sonic said, carefully walking to the gem.

The entire room seemed to radiate glory and power, yet gave a distinct aura of dread and fear. And strangely enough all that power converged on that single gem. When the pair got close to it the mixture of glory and dread suddenly vanished and with it, the feeling of the world spinning.

"A Chaos Emerald," Reiko whispered.

As soon as the words were spoken the world sped up again as the sound of Eggman's Badnik army rumbled through the mine.

"We gotta get this outta here," Sonic said snatching the Emerald and dashing over a fallen pillar.

"Ah...hey!" Reiko protested, following. "Have some respect for the thing!"

Reiko chased Sonic across the temple, following him across several broken pillars and structures.

"Sonic, there's a way out up there," Reiko said, nodding to a gap in the wall.

"Got it!"

They both dashed further up to the stone artwork on the walls, just as the Badniks found them and unleashed a hail of lasers upon them. Thankfully, their terrible aim opened the gap up so it was wide enough to get the pair to get through.

"Next time you try to capture someone, just make sure your boss gave you a better aiming system," Sonic said cockily as they both escaped.

-*G:S1*-

The pair were running through the hills, having finally lost the Badniks that were after them, when Eggman found them. He swooped down in his Egg Mobile, carefully lowering a large checker wrecking ball from inside.

"I've seen the mess you two have made of my mines," he growled.

"Oh yeah? Watcha gonna do, Eggbutt?" Sonic retorted.

(Fight and Away- KH 1.5 OST)

"Simple. I'm gonna crush you into oblivion!" Eggman laughed, swinging the wrecking ball around.

"...How does he manage to fit that inside?" Reiko asked.

Egg mobile-H

Eggman immediately went on the offensive, powering for the pair of them in hopes of squishing them into animal pancakes. They avoid, causing Eggman to miss, his wrecking ball crashing into the ground causing dusty and checker dirt to fly into the air.

Sonic took the chance to dent the machine with a Spin Jump before leaping off as Eggman freed the ball. The mad scientist growled and swung round, making the ball swing in a large arc around it. Sonic dashed out of the way while Reiko ducked under it, running under the Eggmobile and punched it.

"Ahhhh!" she hissed shaking her hand in pain.

"Reiko, dodge!" Sonic shouted.

Reiko looked up, seeing the wrecking ball come close to her face. "Oh, crap!" The chinchilla ducked as the ball grazed her head before kicking it all the way up letting it slam into the machine.

"Oh, you'll regret that," Eggman growled, electrifying the ball and spinning it in a vertical circle wildly.

Sonic rushed to Reiko and grabbed her from underneath. Eggman chuckled and pressed a button on his machine. A loud buzzer went off and out of the undergrowth came several Motobugs.

"Seriously?" Sonic laughed. "You have, what, a hundred Badnik models and you send out these guys?"

Eggman blinked slightly in realization of his slight stupidity. "I-it's all part of my master plan, you horrid hedgehog!" He shouted, flustered.

"Oh, really?" the hedgehog replied as he booted a Motobug in the face. "What plan is that?"

"Like I'd tell yooof!" Eggman yelled as Reiko managed to propel herself of another Motobug and on to the control panel. "Why you...get off my Egg Mobile!"

The doctor tried to frantically push Reiko off but received a kick in the face for his trouble. "You'll have to do better than that, Doc," Reiko laughed as she jumped off, smashing a Motobug down in the process.

The remaining Motobugs turned their attention from Sonic to Reiko after that and all powered towards her, surrounding her and attacking her with their flimsy pincers. Eggman growled and headed for the chinchilla, wrecking ball mercilessly swinging underneath and smacking her in the head. Reiko flew to the side, unable to stop the Motobugs from attacking now.

"Reiko!" Sonic yelled, dashing over to her and destroying the Badniks that were attacking. "Reiko, are you alright."

"Hehehe, Sonic...there's three of you..." she giggled in the dizziness. "Oh my word, Eggman just got fatter! Oh...wait it's just the wrecking ball."

Sonic looked behind him and saw the ball power towards him. Eggman laughed. "This time I've got you!"

Sonic looked around and rushed Reiko to a small ledge, narrowly avoiding the ball as it came crashing into the checker wall. Eggman swerved round and headed for Sonic again. The hedgehog grinned and jumped over the Egg Mobile, bouncing off one of the few Motobugs that were there and propelled himself to a wall, pushing himself off it and headed for Eggman, smashing his foot into the control panel.

"No!" Eggman shouted as the Egg Mobile began to smoke. Sonic laughed as Eggman managed to regain control of the vehicle.

On the ledge Reiko managed to regain her senses and took a look at the Egg Mobile. "One more hit should do it, Sonic!" she shouted.

Sonic grinned, already having a plan in mind. While Eggman was still distracted Sonic rushed round him, making sure Eggman saw him. "You...I'll get you this time!" Again he swerved the wrecking ball around him. Sonic deliberately stayed within an inch of the ball, running up the wall and leading Eggman along. Finally, when the ball was high enough Sonic leaped off the wall and over the ball as it followed him. However the weight of the ball took over and the ball came crashing down onto the front of the Egg Mobile.

(End Fight and Away)

The machine began to explode, dropping the wrecking ball on the ground. Eggman glared at Sonic before fleeing. Sonic began to chase after him but was stopped by Reiko.

"We can get him later," she said quietly, beckoning him to follow. "Follow me."

Sonic followed into a clearing where they were met with a large silver capsule. Inside were around a hundred small animals, cramped together like sardines in a can.

"I spotted it while you were finishing off Eggman."

"It's a prison capsule," Sonic said sadly. "If it's still here then Eggman will come back for it."

He jumped up and landed on the button on top, pressing it down and forcing the lock open. The top of the capsule broke open and the Flicky birds and rabbits all flew and climbed out before scampering off to the forest.

Before long they arrived at the edge of the hills around late afternoon, the path leading to more forest and some ruins.

"Eggman went off this way," Sonic noted, thinking back to the fight.

"I hope you've got a liking for lava," Reiko said dryly.

Bestiary:-

Egg Mobile-H: Eggman's most famous 'boss' machine. The wrecking ball machine is one of the most recognizable icons of Sonic history and it, along with Green Hill, has gone down as one of the most famous first levels in gaming history, so much so that the Egg Mobile-H has been used several more times of the series' 20 year history.

A/N: And that's the first arc done and dusted. Due to the game being just over 40 minutes long, this story is about 19 chapters if you count the prologue and the epilogue.