Knuckles barely knew what had happened at first. Every neuron in his brain screamed that he must protect the Master Emerald at all costs. When Metal Sonic charged, Knuckles shielded Shadow and Maria with his burly body, catching the robot's full weight on his breastbone.
Chaos power washed through him, around him, an unstoppable tide that carried him through space wherever it desired. It was dizzying, electrifying, yet painless.
The lights went out. Knuckles sprawled on his back, coughing and struggling to roll over and get up. Metal Sonic withdrew, red eyes burning like embers in the dimness. Knuckles's coughing awoke echoes in the space around them.
As he pushed himself up, he realized that the floor beneath him was reinforced metal screen. Through it was a terrifying drop several stories into some kind of water wheel churning in a distant river.
Knuckles launched himself to his feet and found a rusty hand railing nearby to cling to.
Maria sat on the flooring, gazing around and breathing hard. Shadow stood over her, trying to look in all directions at once, teeth bared, as if expecting further attack.
Metal Sonic stood several feet away, head turning this way and that in confusion.
They were on an industrial catwalk through vast, chilly space. A few dim green lights burned along the distant walls, and two were near enough to illuminate their landing place. A river flowed endlessly below them, dampening the air and rusting their catwalk. Knuckles tried to grasp it. It was a cave full of machinery. Or ... a factory? Or somewhere on Angel Island? His mind groped for an explanation as fear rose within him like a cobra.
"What is this place?" Knuckles whispered. His voice reverberated off the walls, filling the silence with hissing.
"It looks like ..." Shadow trailed off and moistened his lips. "Like the old complex."
Maria nodded. "I panicked and that was the first thing I thought of. I wanted to go home." She struggled to her feet and leaned on Shadow's shoulder.
Knuckles met the black hedgehog's eyes and saw fear there. It sent a creepy shiver through him. Shadow had been many things through the years, but fearful wasn't one of them.
His own voice raspy with dread, Knuckles said, "This place is bad, isn't it?"
Shadow nodded, his black spines rustling. "It was sealed and abandoned shortly after Maria entered suspension."
Maria frowned at her brother. "Sealed? Why?"
Shadow glanced right and left, then upward. He pointed.
Another catwalk crossed the space ten feet overhead, moss hanging from its supports. Through the mesh flooring they could see a dark thing sitting there, gazing down at them. It was the size of one of Knuckles's fists and had one red eye that glinted in the light as it studied them.
The only one of them who moved was Metal Sonic. He backed away several steps, drawing his elbows against his sides, as if preparing to flee.
Maria noticed him and pointed. "You."
The robot halted.
Maria bent her finger. Metal Sonic inched toward her, sending watchful glances toward the creature above them.
Knuckles and Shadow exchanged an agonized look. They had been trying to protect Maria from the robot a few minutes ago. Now he was obeying her? Should they protect her from him?
As if sensing their thoughts, Maria said, "As I tried to tell you back in the village, he's no threat to me."
"No threat?" Shadow exclaimed. "He was attacking you! Aren't you worried about the wisp?"
Maria extended a hand to Metal Sonic as the robot approached. "The wisp is concerning, yes. But this one ..." She trailed off, staring into the robot's glowing red eyes.
A pulse of Master Emerald energy rolled off her. It blew Knuckles's dreadlocks back from his face and made him wince. It was like standing beside a cannon as it fired-the concussive force without the sound. Shadow grunted and swayed backward.
Metal Sonic remained frozen, one hand outstretched, gazing at Maria. He was like an animated statue-a semblance of life layered into dead, cold metal.
The girl faced him, thin, frail, but with blue eyes that glowed with energy like living light.
She took the metal hand with its razor sharp fingers. Life touched unlife.
The blue robot clasped her hand, gazing at her as Shadow had done in the hospital. Then he bowed his head suddenly, shielding his eyes with his other hand.
"No," Maria said, catching that hand and forcing it away. "Look at me."

Metal Sonic didn't want to look into those blazing, living eyes anymore. They burned him, overloading his sensors, his chips, his memory. They brought with them the unpleasant ghost of a memory of a blow to the face, the crash of glass, the crumpling of metal, the shattering of delicate components. It was brutal, devastating, and he didn't want to remember it.
Still he held her hand. Even when she forced him to meet her eyes, he held her hand. Power flowed from her into him, topping off his battery's charge. It was like touching the Master Emerald, but gentler.
You are Island Crew, she whispered in his internal processor.
I am Metal Sonic, he retorted. I serve Dr. Eggman.
You are Metal Sonic, she agreed slowly, as if pondering the words. You see without being seen. You hear without being heard. You are ... Ghost.
The title shot through his new hardware and into the Ancient chipset that formed the core of his being. A million calculations happened within nanoseconds.
I am Metal Sonic, yet I am Ghost.
Memories should have been there. He reached for them, searched his database, but they were gone.
I am empty, Great One.
Maria's voice whispered again, "All will be restored in time. For now, let me open once more what has been sealed."
One of his proxies unsealed itself. Metal Sonic sent out a curious ping.
Nearby, Knuckles turned his head.
"Hello, Knuckles," Metal Sonic said to the echidna's mind.

Knuckles had been watching the wisp. It was like a squid-a round head and three tentacles underneath. Had it come out of the river down below? What were wisps, anyway, and why did they make everyone so nervous?
Various scary movies provided easy answers to that question. Knuckles didn't like to take his eyes off it. But he did when Metal Sonic's odd text-to-speech voice spoke inside his head.
"Hey," Knuckles said aloud. "I didn't think you could do that anymore."
Metal Sonic slowly released Maria's hand. The Great One has touched me. She calls me Ghost.
Shadow looked back and forth between them all. "So now the robot can talk to the echidna the way you talk to me. Wonderful. Can we leave now?"
"Yes," Maria said. Leaning on Shadow, she hobbled up the catwalk, toward the indefinite darkness on the other side of the cave. Knuckles followed close behind in case she stumbled. Metal Sonic brought up the rear, casting glances over his shoulder at the wisp.
The catwalk ended at a dark corridor in the rock. As they stepped into it, shuffling in the dust, Metal Sonic told Knuckles, It follows.
Knuckles looked back. The tentacled wisp was crawling through the railings. It dropped to their catwalk, where it floated a couple of inches above the metal. It drifted after them, completely, eerily silent.
"So, guys," Knuckles said, "are these wisps bad or what?"
"No," Maria said.
"Yes," Shadow said at the same time. They exchanged a troubled look.
Knuckles gestured to the dark hallway. "How can we get away, then? I didn't pack a flashlight."
Allow me. Metal Sonic stepped forward and switched the red filter off his eyes. Now they burned clear LED white, casting a beam of light like headlights. He beckoned and stepped into the hall. The others hurried after him, shooting backwards glances at the tiny creature trailing them.

Sonic sprawled on his sofa, eyes closed, breathing heavily. His blue spines were mussed and the athletic tape on his legs hung in tatters. The bandage across his chest was spotted with red.
Tails lay at the other end of the couch, sprawled in a similar attitude, but with a wrench in one hand. He raised it feebly, then dropped it on the floor.
Sticks lay sideways in an armchair across the room, staring at the ceiling with a traumatized expression. When Amy entered with frosty glasses of fruit juice, Sticks said, "It's aliens."
"No, Sticks," Sonic said without opening his eyes. "It was Eggman."
"It was a giant robot dragon!" Sticks exclaimed, the brown stripes around her eyes making her look even more frantic. "Eggman doesn't do dragons!"
Amy passed out juice to everyone. Sonic took his and held the cold glass against the wound on his chest.
Amy frowned at it. "The burn is bleeding now?"
"I moved too much," Sonic said, lifting his head. The pain-shadows beneath his eyes had returned. "Why did the dragon quit fighting? We didn't defeat it."
"It powered down," Tails said, brightening a little. "One minute it was about to kill Sonic, and the next it just lay down and turned itself off. So weird."
"It was not about to kill me," Sonic retorted. "I could have gotten away."
"It had you pinned under a foot, Sonic," Amy said. "It didn't care about the rest of us-it was going to bite you in half."
Sonic sipped his juice, then let his head fall back against the sofa's arm again. "So what happened to Shadow and Maria?"
"They used chaos control," Amy said. She stood still and stared at nothing, remembering the blast of energy. "Knuckles and Metal Sonic went with them by accident. They went deep."
"You keep saying that," Sticks said, sitting up and staring at Amy. "What does that mean?"
"I ... don't know." Amy gazed around at them. "Wherever they went, it was far away. And ... deep, somehow. I don't know how to explain it."
Sonic lifted his head, his eyes bright green. "Knux went with them. Did they go to Angel Island?"
Amy slowly shook her head and shrugged. "I don't know. I only sort of felt it when they left. I know they're not in the jungle."
Sticks jumped out of the chair. "I knew it! The aliens got them. The next time we see them, they'll be infested."
"Hey, Sticks," Sonic said, "you're our seer. Can you see where they went?"
Sticks's eyes unfocused. She stared past them for a moment. "Metal Sonic has returned to his master."
"That means Angel Island," Tails said. "Knuckles, Shadow, Maria, and Metal Sonic are all there now."
Sonic groaned and sank back on the sofa. "Think they'll need a rescue?"
"If they're not back by tonight, yes," Amy said. "Can you imagine what Eggman might do to Maria? A human-Mobian experiment who uses chaos control?"
They all shuddered.
"I can fly over there in the Tornado," Tails offered. "Scout around, see what Eggman's up to."
"Good idea," Sonic said. "He may not have noticed them yet, especially if Knux pulverized Metal Sonic again." He grinned a little. "I'd pay money to see Shadow face off with Eggman."

"Signal lost, sir," Orbot said. "Looks like Metal Sonic's hardware is off."
Eggman sat in the control room of Angel Island. The corners of the room were stacked with boxes of parts. The wall of monitors had been repaired and now showed views of eight different areas on Angel Island. Robots were busy in every screen, repairing and replacing the island's machinery.
Eggman himself had set up a table to one side, where he was rebuilding one of the hydrogen engines from a robot dragon. A grease-smeared blueprint was pinned to the wall behind it, which he paused often to study. Now he straightened with a frown. "Signal lost? Did that brute of an echidna smash him again?"
"No idea," Orbot replied. "Look at the log."
A video played that showed Metal Sonic's view as he struggled to reach Maria. Then there was a flash of light and the signal cut out.
"I swear," Eggman said, "if I have to rebuild him again, it'll be the last time."
Cubot was working at a different spot, watching a different screen. "That's weird, because the dragon he was controlling didn't shut down until fifteen minutes later." He showed spy-drone footage of Sonic, Tails, Amy and Sticks battling the dragon. "It was winning, too."
Eggman watched the battle several times, relishing the sight of Sonic being beaten down. Finally he waved to Cubot to shut it off. "Orbot, play Metal Sonic's footage again."
Eggman watched it several times in slow motion, playing it frame by frame. The robot had blasted through the village like a bullet, straight to Amy's hut. His tracking sensors indicated a tremendous concentration of chaos energy there. He burst in upon Shadow and the girl. Shadow sprang up to protect the girl, who sat there, watching with a look of serene unconcern.
"Look at her," Eggman said, pausing the video and staring at her. "She's not afraid at all. Who is she?"
Orbot and Cubot exchanged shrugs. "A famous pop singer from your childhood?"
"This is why I don't expect an actual answer from either of you." Eggman screen capped the image, then fed it into the remote database in his fortress. "I've got to know why she was plugged into the Master Emerald. That chamber of hers had a direct optical feed into the base of the Emerald."
"She must have been an experiment," Orbot offered.
Eggman steepled his fingers and tapped them against his lips. "Yes. But what kind?"
He sat back in his chair for a long moment, gazing at the screens without seeing them. Suddenly he straightened and bashed a fist into the arm rest. "Blast it all, I need Metal Sonic back!" He resumed studying the recorded footage, especially the flash of light at the end.
"The girl did something," Eggman decided, pointing at her blurry figure in the last frame. "She worked a teleport like she did on that dratted shark. Metal Sonic's not offline - he's out of range. That's why it took the dragon so long to shut down."
"Out of range?" Cubot said. "I thought he had full island coverage."
"Coverage is patchy in the Bygone interior," Eggman admitted grudgingly. "They probably took him out in the jungle to reprogram him again. Orbot! Send a search command to my stealth wasps. Tell them to comb Bygone's jungle until they find Metal Sonic. And that girl." Under his breath, he muttered, "And if you try to stop me, Shadow, I'll treat you the same way Lyric did."

Shadow combed his fingers through his red and black spines, trying to smooth away the sweat that beaded against his skin. He couldn't allow the wisps to smell how afraid he was.
They walked down a dark stone hallway, Metal Sonic leading, his eyes shining like headlights. They illuminated junk on the floor. Fallen ceiling lights with glass scattered across the floor. Broken chairs. Shattered floor tiles. Maria stepped around them carefully, keeping one hand always on Shadow's shoulder. The symbiosis that connected them was restoring her every second she remained in contact with him. Already her steps were more sure, her breathing easier. Her grip on his shoulder was a little stronger.
In return, her chaos power flowed into him like the constant warmth of the sun. It made his red chaos-stripes glow a dull maroon in the darkness.
The burly, dim-witted echidna spoke from Maria's other side, where he often steadied her. "Should we be worried about what trashed this place?"
"Yes," Maria said. "It was fine when I last saw it. What happened, Shadow?"
He had dreaded answering that question. The answer had been sealed in his head for fifty years-bricked away, never remembered, buried like the nightmare it was.
"The wisps," he whispered.
Maria turned her softly-glowing blue eyes on him. "The wisps did this? Honestly?"
Shadow shook his head. The wall in his head weakened, a few bricks shaking loose. From the space behind, he heard again the screams, the roars, the crashing of endless water.
"It was the reaction. They started it."
"Reaction?" Knuckles said. "What, was there a reactor down here that blew up?"
Shadow couldn't answer. Speaking the words might bring it to pass again. Terror froze his tongue. He was in these halls again-the halls where it had happened. The water marks still stained the walls, but nobody had noticed them yet. The debris had settled in drifts where the water had deposited it, but nobody noticed that, either. One hand crept to the emerald-shaped patch of white fur on his chest. That was where-
"This way," Maria said, halting. She pointed up a staircase. "This was where I lived."
Shadow shook his head violently and refused to move.
Inside his head, Maria's sweet, calm voice said, "Shadow, dear, why are you so afraid?"
He gazed into the blue eyes he loved so much, and words failed him. There was no describing the horrors he had witnessed, the things he had fled, the screams of the injured people he had rescued and how they begged for death afterward.
Maria nudged his shoulder with her palm. "There's nothing here any longer, dear. Let's pay my old quarters a visit."
Metal Sonic started up the stairs, testing each step before he applied his full weight. Knuckles took Maria's other hand. "Come on, Shadow, we'll both help her."
As they began the climb, Shadow received a new shock that jarred him out of his terrified stupor. The flow of energy between him and Maria had a secondary swirl in it. Was she drawing energy from Knuckles, too?
He looked around Maria at the echidna. Knuckles gave no indication that he sensed anything. He watched Maria's feet and helped boost her up each step. How could this echidna have any connection with Maria? He had no idea she existed until a week ago. Shadow had watched him - the echidna was slow and ignorant and good at smashing things. That was all. He should have no link to Maria.
When they reached the top of the stairs, Shadow snarled, "Get away from her."
Knuckles blinked at him. "Why? She needs help."
Maria's grip on Shadow's shoulder tightened. In his mind, she whispered, "Shadow, dear, don't."
But the terror that had been eating at Shadow had combined with jealousy to form an explosive mixture. He stepped toward Knuckles, spines bristling, red stripes glowing crimson. "Nobody gives her power but me. Take your filthy energy somewhere else."
Knuckles released Maria's elbow, but stood his ground. His eyes narrowed. "You think I'm giving her energy?"
"I can feel it, cretin." Shadow's hands doubled into fists. The destructive chaos power rose inside him, flickering like lightning. "You have no ties to her. Don't touch her again."
Knuckles looked at Maria. "Am I hurting you somehow? Is that why he's mad?"
"You have a link with the Master Emerald," Maria replied. "Therefore a link to me." She touched the red stripe on Shadow's head. Red lightning crackled around her fingertips as his power grounded into her. The rage oozed out of Shadow, leaving him tired and ashamed. Maria drew a sharp breath, as if it hurt, and closed her eyes. When she opened them, red lightning danced across her blue irises. Then it vanished and she sighed. "Shadow, dear, don't do that again." Telepathically, she added, The fear is consuming you. Why are you so afraid?
He gazed at her. "If we stay here, you'll find out."
"Yeah," Knuckles added. "When can we go home? Can't you guys just chaos control out of here?"
"Not yet," Maria murmured, gazing at the walls and ceiling. "There is something I must do. I'm just uncertain what it is."
"Well, that wisp is still following us," Knuckles said. "Just so you know." He pointed back down the dark stairwell. A third of the way up, the wisp's single eye reflected the light like a cat's.
A shudder clawed through Shadow's body. The urge to run stirred his feet.
Maria extended a hand toward it. "They're harmless. Come along, little fellow."
Shadow shrank back a step, hating himself. He should slap her hand down, shield her, protect her from the creature. Instead, he cowered behind her, mutely begging her to save him. He clutched the white spot on his chest.
The one-eyed wisp with the three tentacles floated up to them and bounced up to hover above Maria's hand. Knuckles and Metal Sonic approached to study it. In the increased light from the robot's eyes, the wisp appeared light blue. Its red eye blinked at them innocently. If it had a mouth, it was closed seamlessly.
"Are these things experiments or something?" Knuckles asked.
Maria smiled at the wisp. "They are a rare form of life discovered by my grandfather. He believed them to be extra-terrestrial in origin. He collected as many as he could and brought them here for study." To the wisp, she added, "How is your mother, little one?"
The wisp made a series of trills and clicks, like a dolphin. Shadow stood stock still, like a mouse watching an advancing cat.
Maria nodded as if she understood every word. "I'm pleased to hear that. I must attend to a few things down here. You may accompany us."
The wisp made a cheerful sound and turned a backflip in midair. It flew off Maria's hand and floated a few feet to their right.
Sensing Shadow's apprehension, Maria whispered in his mind, It's all right, dear. He said his mother has been asleep for many years.
He caught her hand and pressed it. "Thanks," he whispered. That was one worry down, among a host of others.