Other Paths: The Devil's Bargin

by Alex Warlorn

Made for any and all Sonic fans to read and enjoy! When the unthinkable happens on what's supposed to be their last mission, Sonic and Tails find themselves making a choice that may alter their lives forever and all they love... WHOLE AND WRITTEN OUT!

10. ArrivalDepart: ATTACK On Angel Island!

If I get this chapter up, I say right now, it's only because God helped me write it!!!

To the one who wanted Elias to make another appearance, sorry, there's just no more room.

Shadow Sonic, (before Shadow The Hedgehog even existed in the games) was the guy who came up with this, and never wrote a single word for it. So here I am doing someone else's story.

Fanfiction was just another game back then, thus, I was able to put myself into it fully, since it was a game. When it became real, I couldn't put myself into it anymore. That is irony.

It also stinks I lost all my original notes for this story. Many of them whole scenes!

What a fool I was to leave things to rot as long as I did.

Thanks God.

I looked for them. I found them. My notes! … Dang I was really loose-knit and irrational with some parts!

GODA is in da house! Read the play 'Waiting For Goda' if you want to learn what that means.

Plus, since I threw in so many pop culture references when I first wrote this thing, I've decided to honor that tradition.

Lines parodied by the Goo Goo Dolls. (changed enough to insure no rules are broken) for Knuckles/Mourning Star fight.

The Order Knight designs are ether modified or created by Ri2. Hats off also goes to fellow author Ri2 who edited the previous chapters and this one top to bottom. And I forgive him for being a bit of a religious phobic. And I forgive him for throwing in bits of his own brand of humor into this. You'll know them when you see them. And while I can appreciate that he tried to make Riahta less the 'get ride of them him everything will be fine' or 'everything would have been without him' villain, I felt his methods missed the POINT of a few of the scenes I wrote. He also write several scenes which basically had the gods acting like bums or average petty Joe, which I felt didn't really fit with the story. He also wrote an epilogue set in Anti-Mobius around these and he had some very good ideas around the identities of some of the Anti-s of many of Mobius' heroes and villains (in particular a heroic version of the immortal Mammoth Mongul) but it just didn't fit with what I was aiming for with this story, which I had at the end was revealing the hearts and souls of the characters. I have no idea how badly I failed at that, but hey, what's the point unless you try right?

Hats off to ideas taken from the series Ronin Warriors! Rhapsody A Musical Adventure. Full Metal Alchemist. Spider-Girl, latias' Journey, Dominic Oracle for Hire, Beast Wars, Sword of Truth, Doctor Who, Pokemon Manga, Yuyu Hakisho, Dragonlance Test of the Twins, Dragonlance Love and War, X-Men original animated series, 8-Bit Theater, Pokemon Manga, Books of choice of my grade school of two decades ago, the TSA story "Bait and Switch", Chain of Memories, Red Dwarf, Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek DS9, Lord of the Rings, 'I have no mouth, but I must scream,' Spider-Man, Gargoyles, Yugihoh, YugiohGX, Digimon Tamers fanfiction involve the corrupt version of Guilmon evolution I can't remember the name of right now, Oracle for Hire. And Evangelion. And Key The Metal Idol for their direct inspiration.

The inner reflections of those aboard the Special did not change much as the plane continued to fly through the air towards Angel Island. Hershey kept herself and her mind busy on flying the aircraft. Of course, there was a problem since they were flying over an ocean with few air currents that could trouble the Special so her mind might as well have been on auto-pilot, leaving her time to think more about what she had let Geoff do, what she had let happen. Everything that was happening, everything that would happen, it was all her fault. She deserved whatever she got.

However, her superior officer had given her an order to get them to the floating island, and she would obey it.

The rising sun cared not for wars or who ruled the globe. It only did what it had since the dawn of time as it continued its trek across the sky. Knuckles wondered why he couldn't be that constant. Ugh. Sally said that was his problem: that he was as stiff and rigid as the rest of his race, unable to accept change in any form. From anyone else Knuckles would have just considered this ignorance on Echidna culture, but Knuckles knew Sally had more knowledge on his race's society than most of its own members, something that disturbed the Guardian to no end.

Echidnas seemed to be forgetting their sense of racial identity. It was all about looking out for number one, never your fellow Echidna. And his leaders had the gall to call the other races inferior?

While Knuckles did agree that giving out technology to the 'lower races' was like giving death-rays to children, Knuckles secretly considered his own race not wise enough to use its own gifts correctly. He never said this to Julie's face though. While Julie had left the Legion for its terrible methods, she still believed in 'Dimitri's Vision,' that all technology should be available to all echidnas. If there was one thing about his girlfriend he had learned, it was to stay away, far away, from anything remotely political. Discussing it with her was like tap-dancing with metal spiked heels on a powder cake. Then again, Knuckles couldn't complain, for Sally politics was like throwing a firebomb on a powder cake.

Maybe that was why Sonic was attracted to Sally, the blue hedgehog seemed addicted to danger…almost ridiculously so. Instead of skydiving, he got his kicks by fighting megalomaniacal robotophiles.

After the pink brat had left to get her things to come to his ancestral home Knuckles had managed to use the Mobian's near Stone Age technology to call and contact Remington on Angel Island and warn him of the approach of a decidedly hostile force and to mobilize the police force. Though Knuckles wondered if it would do any good with cops so used to fighting one particular enemy. Except for the incident with Robotnik, the Legion's actions had been the only real major civil disruptions in a century.

The echidnas kept relying on Knuckles to solve their problems with 'outsiders', which got annoying after a while.

Remington was his normal 'yes Guardian', 'no Guardian' 'of course Guardian' self. Knuckles knew he meant well, Knux just wished Remington would get it into his head he didn't want to be called 'Guardian' by a friend. He also didn't want Sally to know this fact in case she would start calling him Guardian all the time just to get on his nerves.

Angel Island appeared at first as nothing more than a speck on the horizon. It was only as the flying machine drew closer that one could appreciate its sheer mass and size.

The island moved lazily through the sky, most of the time moving purely to the whim of the winds. Only when there was a dire need was the power of the Master Emerald called upon to move the island in a direction opposed to the will of nature. (And dire times were definitely up ahead.) Angel Island was large than all of Robotropolis and Knothole put together, and a good chunk of the Great Forest to boot with room left over for the Great Beyond desert.

Those who had never visited thought they'd find a flying city, or a great rock covered over by green growth over its entire surface. They were wrong. Deserts, ice caps, jungle, forest, mushrooms the size of trees, multiple ruins of long abandoned cities, Angel Island was a very diverse small continent. And near the most famous of these ruins, the exquisite Marble Gardens, lay Echidnaopolis, the shinning heart of the Echidna people. Its skyscrapers surpassed even the redwoods of the Great Forest in height, with glass and metal reflecting sunlight so brightly it could be seen from miles away: it was a gem on a green pillow in the sky. It truly didn't show the political turmoil that stirred just below the surface. But in the end, this dark side still didn't take away any of the beauty the city held.

Aside from Robotnik's failed attempt to use the Master Emerald as a battery for his Death Egg project, the echidnas hadn't had a conflict with outsiders since the raising of the island. And Robotnik's betrayal still hadn't been enough to get the echidnas to aid the Acorn Kingdom, was it any wonder most Mobians couldn't stand Echidnas?

Not that any of that truly mattered right now, as much as Knuckles hated to admit it, Sally was right, this wasn't just his race's concern right now.

As the Special came closer to Angel Island, and all aboard steeled themselves for a fight right out of the cargo doors, everyone was surprised to see that there were no giant fires, no toppled buildings, the island looked perfectly fine. There was also absolutely no sign of the Vengeance. They had beaten it here!

That was stupid. That thing had easily been faster than the Special, and yet the heroes hadn't so much as seen it on their way here. Feeling cautious, Sally used the built-in sensors in her palmtop Nicole to scan for anything out of the ordinary: no holographic field, no weapons lock, no nothing.

Knuckles asked how such a tiny piece of junk should be able to do anything, until Sally reminded him that Nicole was a gift from her father, in his saner days, when Sally and her parent had last visited the island before Robotnik's coup. Nicole was echidna technology, the type no one was supposed to have, a parting gift done under the table purely as an act of kindness. By whom Knuckles never found out.

…

Sabre sneezed, nearly knocking the pages out of his old, old, old, old, old, old, old, old, old, old, old, old, ooollld, text-printed copy of 'Gone With The Storm.'

"You okay dad?" Locke asked.

Sabre chuckled and wiped his snout. "Heh, someone must be talking about me."

Locke rolled his eyes. "That's just some cliché myth."

…

"So, Knuckles," Sally asked politely. "Do you sense anything?"

After having seen a golden hedgehog in the sky chasing after a giant red robot stealing the Master Emerald a couple years back, the people of Mobius as a general rule didn't doubt the existence or ability of chaos force, which Knuckles was most decidedly adept in.

Knuckles complied with Sally's request, and wasn't surprised to find that he didn't sense anything unusual coming from Angel Island. For a reason none of them could guess at, they had beaten the Vengeance here.

"'Bout time somethin' good happen' ta us." Bunnie quipped.

"Don't jinx it," Knuckles returned.

In the meantime, Hershey calmly picked up the radio mike next to the controls and spoke through it on a common frequency to the city's control tower. "Echidnaopolis, this is the Freedom Fighter Special, request clearing for landing."

A stern voice replied over the speaker. "Ship calming to be the 'Freedom Fighter Special,' cease your approach or you'll be declared hostile."

This started Hershey. "This is the Freedom Fighter's Special, please repeat Echidnaopolis?"

"Cease your approach or you'll be considered the enemy. The Guardian has warned us of your approach, so-"

Knuckles bolted from his seat and ripped the mike out of Hershey's paws. "These aren't the enemy you moron! Now let us land already!"

The voice at the other end sounded rather annoyed. "Who is this? Whoever you are, don't think some ignorant non-echidna can-"

"This is Knuckles dummy! The Guardian!" In a cartoon Knuckles' would have barked flames into mike that would come out the other end settinng the com-officer's hat on fire.

The clearly brain-dead controller wasn't buying it. "How do we even know you're the Guardian?"

Knuckles grinned fiercely, showing sharp teeth, his voice steady, calm, and frighteningly dangerous. "Ask...that…again."

"Give me that stupid! Guardian!" Remington's familiar voice came through this time. "Welcome home! You and your Mobian escorts are cleared for entering Echidnaopolis!"

"Thanks Remington." Knuckles tossed the mike back to the black cat.

Amy turned to Bunnie. "Are they always this friendly?"

The half-robian shrugged. "Don't ya look at me; this here's mah first time here too."

Not taking her eyes off the island Sally muttered. "Wait till you meet the welcoming committee."

…

The Special entered the city limits without fanfare, slowing to a snail's pace. Amy was given a free view of the peoples and happening of Echidnaopolis.

Amy had to admit, from everything she had figured about echidnas from Knuckles and their lack of actions during the Great War and the war with Robotnik, she figured Echidnaopolis would be a lot more, well, oppressive. She expected a city that was a reflection of Robotropolis, smoke stacks, decay, and a sense of doom over everything. She hadn't expected silver and white high-rises made of polished steel and glass.

She hadn't expected echidnas walking about calmly, businessmen going to board meetings, construction workers carrying blueprints, mothers pulling their kids away from ice cream stands. Kids! This was easily the weirdest thing Amy could have expected to see. She figured echidnas cloned themselves or something. The idea that echidnas started out as cheerful and innocent tykes just like every other person on Mobius was nearly impossible for poor Amy to process. And these kids acted normal! They smiled, they laughed, they whined, they made a scene when they didn't get what they wanted, just like any other child Amy had ever seen.

Bunnie wasn't quite as ignorant as Amy was on the subject of echidna culture, so the southern rabbit wasn't befuddled by the sight of children in the capital city of the people who had been mildly demonized during the last two wars but only because humans and their machine offspring had remained the central point of anger for the Mobian public. The place actually reminded Bunnie of her few precious memories of Mobotroplolis before it had been turned into all factories and ruins. Not so much for the architecture, though there was that too, it was really the sight of people just living opposed to fighting for their lives. Happy. Out in the sun. They weren't afraid of some unearthly unnatural force coming to strip them of everything that made them people and then reduce them to numbers in a computer directory.

Only Knuckles and Sally understood the truth of what went on underneath the surface of this city (and even then, there was a great deal still kept hidden from them). As for Hershey, she concentrated on flying, she didn't let anything distract her she knew how far down the abyss she'd fall if she let herself.

Following the instructions given to her over the radio (the Echidna on the other end making more than one comment about how weird it was not being able to see her face while speaking to her) Hershey guided the Special over the high-rise landing pad and began her slow vertical descent.

As the air craft settled to the top of the elevated surface, Knuckles glared at the pink hedgehog and said. "All right little girl, while here you do what I say, when I say it. If you don't you're going to be in serious hot water and not from me."

Amy put her fists on her hips. "I'm not a 'little girl'."

"Amy." Sally said. "Not right now." Amy's face flushed but she said nothing else.

The Freedom Fighters left the Special, Knuckles in the lead, Sally only slightly behind and to his right, while the others formed up behind them.

Already waiting outside for them was a squad of five echidnas in green and white jackets, all of them holding rifles. The nearest one Knuckles recognized easily as the uniformed echidna stepped forward.

Remington had known Knuckles for years, ever since Knuckles had officially become Guardian. He certainly wasn't a bad person, and Knuckles trusted him completely in a fight. And while Remington was as biased as any Echidna about Legionnaires like Julie, Knuckles gave him credit for treating non-echidnas like equals as opposed to backwater yokels.

While Knuckles liked to consider him a part of the Chaotix, Remington was still a cop, and the other Chaotix weren't sure about rubbing elbows with this echidna that lacked any super-Mobian abilities unlike themselves.

Unlike most Echidnas who sported a bright red coat like Knuckles himself did, Remington's fur was a dark brown, with black head fur. His green and black jacket was much the same as his subordinates save for a cloth patch marking his station and an Australian-style hat (though no one on Mobius knew the reference) of his own preference.

Remington also had a solid and serious expression that only vanished when

Remington was addressing the Guardian, or talking about Remington's wife, who much to Knuckles' embarrassment the young Guardian had never even met and yet he already knew everything about her from her bra size to how she drooled in her sleep.

But if there was one thing that was abrasive about the brown echidna- "Guardian! Thank you for your return! When you departed from us last night with no word we were worried some terrible fate had befallen you! Not that you have to leave us any word of course, but-" It was that mother hen attitude of his!

"Remington, relax, I'm fine, and we have a lot more important things to worry about right now," Knuckles said quickly before Remington could do something as embarrassing as take his temperature in front of everyone. It had happened before.

One of those lot more important things, obviously made to stand at the back, pushed her way past the EST towards Knuckles. Knux knew who it was instantly, he winced and looked at Sally, then back at the newcomer, and only hoped that the blood didn't end up splattering all over the landing pad.

The pink echidna started at Bunnie's body parts but quickly turned her gaze upon the lass far too close to her man than she liked. (Which would preferably be a few dozen feet to the right, just far enough for the other woman to fall off over the edge to the street below).

"So..." She said icily. "You're Sally Acorn huh?"

"Princess Sally." Stone cold. While Sally had told her father what she thought of him, at last, it seemed that her royal bearing was as much a part of her as her soldier's composure. "And that would make you Julie-Su Dimitri?"

"Just Julie-Su, the last part's just bad luck."

"I understand." Sally's face remained dead serious.

Remington clearly wasn't prepared for Julie's performance. "Forgive me Miss Acorn, the Legionnaire, I mean, the Guardian's woman, she insisted on being here."

Knuckles barely held back a groan of misery. Why did Sally and Julie look like a couple of wolves ready to tear each other's throats out over a mate? Were he and Sally finished or not?! If they were through then why should Julie bother her at all? Women! Understanding the mind of the Master Emerald was easier! And fewer people had gone stark raving mad trying to figure it out. (It was actually rather easy to do, once you knew how. Which Knuckles did, of course. And didn't plan on telling a soul, part of the Guardian mystique after all.)

Knuckles changed the subject. "Remington, have there been any signs of the alien ship I warned you about?"

Remington shook his head. "No Guardian, no vessel save yours has been spotted since your warning."

"How tha heck did we out run'em?" Bunnie had to ask.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Knuckles said turning only briefly to face her before speaking again to Remington. "Most of my…friends…need medical attention, and did you notify the Chaotix?"

Remington looked anxious. "Your…men…have been notified of the coming threat but please Guardian, they, as well as I, would like to know more of exactly what we are to be facing."

Knuckles nodded. "I'll explain to you on the way, but first my friends."

"As you wish Guardian."

"How come?" Amy said out loud. "You all got treated by Doc Quack before we left."

Knuckles looked at her. "With all due to respect to your witch doctor-"

"Call him that again and I'll-"

"WITH all due respect to your good doctor, we can do a much better job of healing you with our equipment than you can."

The ESTs meanwhile, were looking darkly at Amy for talking back to their Guardian. Amy didn't notice, but she did accept Knuckles' true, if tactless words.

Entering a waiting vehicle (the EST being the few echidnas to actually have them) the group departed, Julie and Sally bumping shoulder to shoulder as they came into the craft together.

…

When arriving at the hospital all it took was the mere sight of Knuckles to get people to make way.

It didn't take long for Amy to realize that everyone was staring at them. What did take a minute for her to realize was why they were staring at her. The fact that non-echidnas were an oddity to the island didn't cross her mind until she remembered that here she was the foreigner. Amy normally liked the idea of being at the center of attention but not like this. Impressively she was able to bite her tongue to keep herself from giving a few dozen choice words at the innocent onlookers.

However, if the others were just being stared at, Bunnie was having invisible knives shot at her. People either took a step away from her in fear or a step forward in anger. Her extra large ears picked up several times the words 'Dark Legion' and 'murderer' whispered among the locals. Bunnie did her best to relax and not tense her body, the last thing she needed was to scare someone into attacking her.

Julie, of course, received much the same welcome as Bunnie, however having a connection to Knuckles did give one some standing. Plus few were dumb enough to bad mouth the lady friend of their precious Guardian. Knuckles of course didn't go out of his way to hunt down and harm people who talked ill of her of course, but given how people revered the Guardian in the first place, their own imaginations were enough to create the knowledge that he did. That, and the fact that Julie-Su's marksmanship was near legendary in the city was enough to keep most fools from trying to insult her from a distance.

Hershey had to admit: the echidna's hospital was a sight to behold. The place had near white everything, a lot of equipment she couldn't identify (but given how Hershey had only the most basic medical knowledge this shouldn't have been a surprise), and a sense of calm and order. True, it was completely missing the homey feeling that Doctor Quack's clinic had, but Hershey couldn't argue with how everything was just so, well, impressive. She had heard how Echidna doctors were miracle workers, but as a one-time mercenary Hershey knew better than to take such stories at face value, she had traveled all over selling her fighting skills to those who could pay them, and she had seen how reality could be seen differently by others, but also that the reality itself remained exactly the same regardless of how others saw it.

Since they were in the company of the Guardian they got the royal treatment instead of being made to wait in line with the people holding their own bleeding wounds closed and were escorted to a private ward with two of the EST outside the building and the other two outside the room while Remington stayed with Knuckles.

A patch was put on Hershey's bruised arm, she was told to take it off in an hour and the blood vessels underneath would be healed and the mess underneath would be cleaned up. They actually asked if she wanted to keep the scars on her wrist. The doctors said that some people preferred to keep scars as reminders and keepsakes. Hershey, though, felt no such desire and said if they could remove them then go right ahead. Hershey watched in amazement while using what they called a 'dermal regenerator' and the scars sticking out on her fur dissolved.

Sally received several of the 'bruise be gone' patches, and her burn scars were banished the same as Hershey's. What was truly amazing was her broken hand. Securing the damaged limb in a circular machine, Sally watched on a monitor as the crushed bones mended perfectly, leaving her with a totally functional hand again in an hour! Cutting off the bandages Sally flexed it a few times; glad to have its use back.

Sally was the only Mobian there that knew the technology used to help them now had won the right to be used only after a tooth and nail fight by the echidna medical board only a year or two ago (no thanks to the Legion's well-meaning efforts).

But while Bunnie's bruises were treated in a flash, there was some clear miscommunication going on.

"Thanks fer tha help, doc." Bunnie said sincerely.

The doctor smiled helpfully taking hold of Bunnie's metal hand. "Certainly, now let's just cut off those fake limbs-"

Bunnie pulled back her robotic arm. "Are you flippin' crazy?!"

The good doctor looked confused. "We're only trying to help my dear."

"These here legs and arm are mine ya twit!" Bunnie barked. "They got roboticized!"

The doctor tilted his head in confusion. "What's robo-tized?"

Bunnie looked at the echidna in shook. How could anyone on Mobius possibly not know what that was? Just how ignorant was the average echidna of the Robian War anyway?

Knuckles knew where this was going to lead. "Just leave them alone Doctor, that's an order."

The doctor bowed. "Yes Guardian. But madam, what is robo-tized?"

Bunnie told him, in crystal clear terms exactly what it was: the middle-aged echidna went pale and needed to go running to the nearest trash can to rid himself of his lunch.

Then the peace was shattered. "You keep away from me, you quacks! There's nothing wrong with me!" Amy was standing on top of her medi-bed swinging her mallet at any of the echidnas that got close to her.

One doctor was trying the all but forgotten sacred art once known as 'diplomacy.' "If you would just take these pills child, then I promise you will feel all better. I have a lollypop."

Wrong thing to say to this teenage girl. Amy flew into a tantrum. Knuckles was soooo tempted to sit back and watch Amy be put on personality-altering drugs, as was Sally on a subconscious level.

"Leave her be, her behavior is perfectly normal for Mobians of her age," Knuckles said.

Giving the ignorance of Mobian culture, this answer was accepted by the doctors and no longer feeling threatened, Amy got back her self-control.

"Would you like us to surgically correct your double-pupil Cyclopean eye deformity then?"

Three, two, one, we have blast off.

After dragging Amy away from the hospital, the lass still shouting vows to hunt down the doctor and his kin seven generations backwards and forwards and bludgeon them to death for daring to insult the beautiful Mobian hedgehog double-pupil eye, the group elected to go to EST HQ to better prepare for what was coming.

The building was a few stories tall and a couple below street level and was decidedly square in every sense of the word. It was more a fortress than a police station. Built for function rather than beauty, the insides were a picture of efficiency.

While normally the idea of foreigners being allowed inside the central security building was madness, Knuckles' say so was more than enough to grant them all free entry. (It was also enough to get them all free ice cream if they wanted, but to everyone's disappointment Knuckles declined.)

Echidnas in uniform walked and ran this way and that. Amy actually moved closer to her team mates least she accidentally get run over. While still not as fast as hedgehogs, echidnas made up for it by being the irresistible force in comparison to the immovable object.

If Bunnie had gotten an unwelcome feeling from the people in general, here she got death glares. Julie got a few too, but shrugged them off, being used to it and knowing it wasn't worth her time to react to them even though she was well aware that she could probably kill them all in the amount of time it took to blink an eye.

At a mass debriefing in the EST communication room, Knuckles and Sally told the EST everything they knew about the Order Knights and what the enemy was capable of. If the cops were scared by what they heard, the ESTs under Remington never showed it.

The depth of Remington's questions made Sally realize just how little they did know about the Order Knights' fighting prowess. However, what they did know was better than nothing, and on the plus side at least the heroes had superior numbers on their side, knew exactly how many of the enemy there were, and that traditional hand to hand combat would be next to useless. (With the exception of course of Bunnie, and Knuckles if he transformed again). Which meant distance fighting was their best option since it had looked like nearly all the Order Knights were designed for melee combat.

One plain EST stood up out of turn and said. "We will protect the people of Angel Island to the bitter end Guardian, as we always have."

"I see the dogs of the guardian remain ready to die at his beck and call," said a deceptively friendly female voice.

On one of the room's many video screens was the face of someone who inspired loathing for everyone who recognized her. The echidna woman was roughly six or seven years older than Julie-Su, however, except for her red fur color, she bore a stunning resemblance to her, even her visible cybernetics were in the same style.

"How did you get on this com-system Legionnaire?" Remington demanded, getting in the face of the screen's vid-camera.

The cyborg on the other end sneered. "It's truly amazing what you can do, with the right technology! (And the knowledge that the password to all your security is your wife's middle name.) Hello sister," the woman greeted Julie-Su. "Still not dead I see, want some help?"

"Lien!" Julie snarled at the vid-com image, pushing Remington curtly out of the way and causing him to accidentally plant his face in a nearby trash can. "What do you want sis, we're busy!"

"Just called to tell you not to worry about any invasion to our homeland, unlike some of us, the Legion is, and always will be, prepared for such inescapable events."

Julie-Su wasn't impressed. "What are you going on about you opportunistic self-serving power broker?"

"The Legion has launched our just-recently completed fleet of hover saucers to confront this menace. We were going to save them for the Guardian and his dogs, but this seemed a tad more pressing. We are directing them along the most logical line of assault the ship is to have taken from its starting point."

Julie beat Remington to the EST chief's next question. "How the h*ll did you even know there was a threat headed for the island at all, Lien-Da?"

The echidna chuckled. "Now come on sister, I can't go and tell you everything. I just wanted you to all know, how the Legion is going to save Angel Island and the people will love us while you were unable to do anything." She blew a raspberry at them.

Everyone looked accusingly at Bunnie, then at Julie of course. "Come off it!" Knuckles finally snarled at them and their gaze was instantly averted.

"And did great gramps Dimitri agree to this?" Julie asked, already knowing the answer.

"I'm sure he'd approve, he's sooo tired most of the time, I don't want to interrupt him with minor concerns." Her loving concern couldn't have been more fake.

Julie felt her blood boil. Dimitri was ironically the only member of her family she remotely respected. "So how many of your opposers did you stick on the front wave to die while keeping your own supporters in the back to return as heroes?" She asked.

Lien-Da started, honestly thinking her strategy wasn't that transparent. "… First thing I'm doing when I'm Legion Master is removing that stupid 'live and let live' order that Dimitri has on you!"

Julie roared and slammed a fist on the console in front of her, denting it. "Bring it on big sister!"

Remington blandly stabbed a finger onto a button next to the com-screen, cutting the signal and the screen went black.

"Hey!" Julie snapped.

"Sorry," he said flatly. "We were getting off topic." He looked at the woman at the radar station. "Why the Aurora didn't we pick up these new toys of theirs?!"

The albino echidna sweated. "Yes, er, sir, we, it was, we picked up their signal, but they weren't headed towards the city, so I didn't think it was an immediate threat and thought it wasn't important to interrupt you, and we pick up air movement of theirs all the time that aren't a threat and-"

"We're to be alerted to anything unnatural that enters Angel Island's airspace! You know that!"

"Yes sir! I'm sorry sir! I wasn't thinking! I apologize!" she stammered.

Remington rubbed his eyebrows. "You're suspended from com-duty until further notice. Report to the second infantry unit at once." He made a mental note that if he survived the day to go through the woman's record with a fine-toothed comb to find even the slightest inconsistency. It wouldn't be the first time the Legion had snuck a member inside the EST. But Remington also knew better than to jump to conclusions. Well, it didn't matter right now.

With the EST up and at arms, and the Legion apparently hoping to come out the heroes in this, to Knuckles' knowledge that left one group to have made ready. The Chaotix.

Originally a bunch of random drifters who had the bad luck of getting caught up in the Red Metal Sonic fiasco, (which was one of the few times Knuckles had encountered Robotnik without Sonic or any of the other Freedom Fighters in tow) they had more or less become friends, and with no where else to go, and figuring sitting tight with a local celebrity would be cool, had become the Chaotix. (They still hadn't forgiven Vector for blabbing that name to the media.) Officially they were supposed to be the Guardian's personal strike team. But while they did fight along side Knuckles regularly, and become the only non-echidnas in history to be recognized as citizens of Angel, Julie-Su had two words for them: "Lousy Freeloaders!"

They shared a single apartment below Knuckles and Julie-Su's rooms, and last night had been one of the precious few they hadn't been blaring music through out the humble building that Knuckles and the rest called home. Knuckles would have preferred to eat and sleep in the jungle, but Julie had refused to become the Jane to Knuckles' Tarzan, she preferred the concrete jungle.

While Knuckles was worried about leaving Sally and the others alone, he had told Remington to see not so much as a hair was harmed on them in Knuckles' absence, and Knux knew that meant Remington would fight to the death to make sure they were safe in the meantime. While there was little sense in them breaking up since they had no idea when the Vengeance would appear, Knuckles had absolutely no intention of letting Sally meet Vector and the others in their natural environment.

And, there was something else Knuckles promised himself he wouldn't dare let Sally face for the world. Something Knuckles had secretly dreaded facing since Knuckles had returned to Angel Island. It frightened him to his core, and only his years of intense training of mind and body kept him from walking, nay, running in the opposite direction and not looking back.

As Knuckles slipped into the apartment building, hoping to delay the confrontation as long as possible, he found the source of his greatest doubts and weaknesses waiting for them right in front of the elevator.

"Knuckles!" His mother!

Knux sweatdropped as his single ally, Julie, took a position behind him (traitor!), leaving him alone to face the onslaught.

The middle-aged echidna woman had fur as red as his with brown spines and head fur. Her locks were wrapped in long pieces of white cloth. Unlike some of the newer generation of female echidnas and mobians, she was fully dressed in a yellow dress robe.

"Hi mom," he squeaked timidly.

"Don't you 'hi mom' me! I was worried sick about you! What was the idea leaving the island without even telling your own mother?!"

"I told Julie," he weakly defended.

"Only because she caught you! Don't you think I worry enough about my son going off to fight an army of insane cyborgs to the death every other week? That every time I wonder if this will be the one? The one you don't come back from? The one where Julie or Remington will come to me and tell me my son is dead?!"

"… Great Grandpa Athair needed me." Not really a lie, after all, that was the ultimate reason he had the dream in the first place.

"Oh… well, then I understand you needing to go in a hurry." Lara-Le, for reasons beyond Knuckles' comprehension, respected and honored her grandfather-in-law fully and tolerated none of Knuckles' ill words towards him. "But that still doesn't excuse you trying to leave without sending a message."

"I forgot, I figured every second counted."

She frowned at him and put a hand to his forehead, causing him to flush in embarrassment. "That isn't like you at all Knuckles, are you eating right? Are you staying up late and waking up early again? Have you been eating nothing but grapes again?" Grapes were to Knuckles as chilidogs were to Sonic, he was hopelessly addicted.

Knuckles was even redder than normal, fully aware that Julie was snickering at him behind his back. "Mom!"

"Well, I'll leave you two alone." Julie inched around the pair and backed up into the elevator, tapping onto the control panel for the correct floor.

"Julie!" Knuckles cried desperately, reaching out his hand with hope beyond hope that Julie would save him as the double doors opened. She stepped in, and they closed, leaving Knuckles to fend for himself against his parent fussing over him until her motherly instinct was satisfied.

It had struck Knuckles as odd that Julie wanted to come along, since she normally made it a point to avoid Vector. Julie-Su however did say she had something she'd been saving for a special occasion and figured this was as good a time as any to break it out. She refused to say anything else on the subject. She knew how he'd likely react.

Once on the right floor, Julie steeled herself, she so didn't want to do this. But for the survival of the floating island, she was willing to make the sacrifice. Coming to the correct room number, (she could have found it by sound alone), she knocked on the door, waited a few seconds, then pounded on it until it started to crack!

The door slid open to reveal a Mobian bumblebee roughly one and a half feet tall, with orange colored mammalian features as opposed to insect eyes. He wore a yellow sleeveless jacket with a flight helmet that had holes for his antennas. Charmy Bee. Five years old chronologically, and in insect years just over fifteen, but you couldn't ever tell this from how he acted. Julie remembered one time Charmy had drank an entire can of beer on a dare and had to have his stomach pumped.

The hyperactive bee zipped this way and that, checking Julie out, having her here in their homestead was a rare occurrence indeed. Taking in a deep breath of fresh air Julie stepped inside.

The place was a mess, as always, the ultimate result of multiple males living in the same room! How the flipping heck could there possibly be this much dirty laundry when males wore next to nothing?! Nothing seemed to be straight, and plenty seemed to have not been moved since the four had moved in!

The clearest sign that this was Vector's home was the fact that there were more record players here than there were records! And that rap had to be considered a sin somewhere in the sacred text of any faith! The only thing that seemed to get any regular use was the work-out equipment in the corner. Yep! This was Mighty and Vector's home all right!

Julie was just glad she wouldn't have to see the kitchen while she was here. It would be more than her hardened Legionnaire resolve could handle.

"Julie! It's Julie! Hey guys, its Julie!" Charmy zipped about the room, declaring in his high-pitched voice for anyone who hadn't bothered to look at the front door when it opened.

A rough but sincerely polite voice came from thin air in the middle of the room. "Greeting Miss Su, to what do we owe the honor of your singular visit?" Julie looked as a chameleon that chose to show his scales as purple faded into view (she had no idea if that was his natural color or not). He had his eyes closed and was in a perfect meditative position; he was also sitting on the ceiling in direct contradiction to gravity. He of course wasn't wearing anything, after all, just because a chameleon could make themselves invisible didn't mean they could make everything they were wearing impossible to see too.

Espio The Chameleon. Silent, practical, yet often indifferent, he himself was actually from a long line of ninjas. He was decidedly the member of the Chaotix with the most common sense. He opened his eyes, which were bright yellow. He stood up, er, down, on the ceiling before, 'letting go', flipping through the air, and landing squarely on the filthy carpet.

"We have a dozen or so uninvited guests coming to pay Angel Island a visit. Lien-Da sent about a dozen Legion grunts to try and hog the glory. I don't precisely have faith they're gonna win hands down. Knux brought some buddies from Knothole for the welcome party, and has got Remington and his boys up and at 'em. So that just leaves you yahoos."

"I see," Espio replied calmly, as always.

"That doesn't sound so hard." Vector the Crocodile. A Terran sized green reptile with a yellow belly and brown eyes never caught without his headphones and walkman belt, topped off with a fake gold chain necklace making him look like a bad copy of a rap artist (he insisted it made him look tough). He was known for listening to his music more than his head. Like a couple of beta wolves Julie and Vector regularly fought over which of them was in charge when Knuckles wasn't around to lead the group personally. Why the other Chaotix went along with the idea of him being in charge of the rest of them was anyone's guess. "So you couldn't handle things yourself and you just had to come to us for help."

"You're a necessary evil Vector, Knuckles needs you sorry lot cause we need everyone we can get our hands on since these monsters headed our way are in the big leagues."

"Red Metal Sonic?" Charmy queried, a little scared at the idea.

Julie placed her hand flat against the air and twisted it about a tad. "Meh, a tad below that."

"Well, as long as it's not AS bad as Red Metal Sonic." Charmy smiled and nodded much to the groans of everyone.

"Let me at' em, I'll be sure to try and leave some for the rest of you." Everyone looked at

Mighty The Armadillo as he cracked his knuckles. Following current male Mobian trends he stuck with a pair of gloves and shoes. His near indestructible shell was bright red while his body was a mix of black and yellow. He and Sonic had actually met once when Sonic had found himself on the wrong side of a Robotnik prison cell with a couple other Mobians and staged a breakout, but after that they had gone their separate ways.

Mighty was strong alright, stronger than Vector in spite of the sheer difference in their size ("If you trained more than you listen to your bad rap music." They would tell the croc.), but while hardly the stereotypical muscle head, the only thing greater than his strength was his own opinion of it, much like Sonic and his speed. Once he got started there was no convincing him that there could be anyone stronger than him. Just as Sonic was declared the fastest thing alive, Mighty styled himself the strongest thing alive. Whether this was true or not, it remained that Mighty knee-jerked at anyone who dared to tell him otherwise. So as it was, everyone decided to let Mighty's bravado statement go unchallenged.

"So what's the 411? Knuckles wan' us to play support again or be the

welcome mat?" Did Charmy really have to use the words 'welcome mat?'The thing people stepped on?

"I think you'll be in the mix of things with Knuckles and me, but I have something I want you guys to have for this."

"What is it? What is it?" Charmy asked eagerly.

Julie knew she was going to regret this next part. "It's in my room." All the boys except Espio 'Oooh'ed.

"Don't get any ideas! Normally I wouldn't allow you guys to even set foot in there! So don't touch a thing unless I tell you to! I'd ask you to wash up first but I know that's a hopeless cause so come along already." Espio decided to wisely leave out that he had been in Julie's room (along with everyone else's) undetected repeatedly as part of keeping his ninja skills sharp, having taken one of her forgotten back issues of Play Girl with him in the room.

Charmy of course flew along happily, while Espio followed suit, Mighty had to drag the paranoid Vector along for the ride.

A couple minutes later, and feeling like Gandalf letting the Witch King enter Gondor, Julie unlocked her door and lead the Chaotix inside.

"Thought it would be more pink." Vector blurted.

"Shut it," Julie retorted lowly.

Julie's apartment was Spartan and functional and had a military neatness about it. It was just about as much fun as she was. There were a couple pictures on the dresser of herself and Knuckles on their different outings and a dartboard with her sister's face on it (only because the EST told her she couldn't use her room as her own personal shooting range with Lien-Da's face on the bull's eye). Any plants that had come with the place had died of dehydration and been thrown out long ago. There was also a scale skin purse made from non-sentient reptile skin that she never carried with her but kept as a personal stab at Vector.

Julie drank in the look on Vector's face when he spotted it, much the same as a human seeing a gorilla hand ashtray.

"So what have you got up your sleeve?" Mighty asked.

Julie didn't answer at once; instead she went to her walk-in closet and opened the open folding doors.

The Kingdom of Acorn had a generations-old taboo on guns, one that Sally had with a heavy heart broke she began arming the Freedom Fighters with lasers. But that didn't mean she liked them. She had hoped with Robotnik's end that they could smelt the guns along with his robots. Sadly, the laws of things that are state that those who would abuse a gun are the ones who most often keep one, and those who refuse to touch one are the ones best suited to posses one. And Sally was reminded of this social reality no more than at this time.

Julie-Su of course knew a more basic truth. People would always find another way to kill each other no matter what weapons you stripped them of. So you could either get rid of your own weapons and feel better about yourself and die, or be prepared to protect that which is dear to you.

Julie's closet held enough firepower to overthrow some European countries. There were weapons of every type and for people of all sizes and species. It looked less like a closet and more like a bunker for someone ready to go at it during the end of nations.

Julie leaned up against the guns and rocket launchers, looking totally in her element: weapons on one side, ammo on the other. Everyone just stared.

"Er, nice noisemakers robo-locks," Vector managed to get out.

"I just thought you guys would all like some early Christmas gifts I managed to borrow from some relatives of mine, briefcase breath." 'No family in the Legion,' what a lie that had turned out to be. Who'd have thought she'd be directly related to Dimitri himself, and was the half-sister of Lein-Da. Of course for those with ambition, more relatives meant more competition, plus there was the little fact Lien-Da loathed their father for marrying another woman after the death of Lien-Da's mother, and loathed the memory of Julie's mother even more so. So after their father's death, Lien-Da had placed her little sister with another set of parents. If the day hadn't come when Julie had come to the ruins of her old stomping grounds, and met that old man, Julie today still wouldn't know the truth. Of course, once Dimitri came back into the picture Lien-Da found herself powerless to actively seek harm against her own sister.

However, much to Julie's own surprise, it turned out that she still had family willing to do her favors. They always remained unknown though.

"Achoo!" Dimitri managed to sneeze though his face was nearly all metal plating.

"Feeling well ancestor?" Lien-Da asked, hoping this would be it and he'd finally die.

"Someone must be thinking of me," he was able to moan, sniffing and wiping his snout.

"That's just a cliché myth," Lien-Da retorted, making a mental note that she'd have to steal a sample of the flu virus from the medical bay and see if her ancestor wasn't immune to it.

"So, any of you guys here know anything about firearms?" Julie asked. Vector and Espio raised her hands. 'Figures.'

"Alright, I'll run Mighty through the basics, Vector you teach Charmy everything you know, Espio, you run Vector through the basics."

"But I raised my hand!" Vector protested.

"I'm not blind. And I'm not letting you even touch the ammo until Espio tells me you can hold the thing without accidentally shooting one of us with it."

"Don't ya mean, 'without accidentally shooting yourself'?"

"No," Julie said flatly.

"Heh, you got burned Vector!" Charmy quipped.

"Be quiet, short stuff!" The croc snapped his jaws angrily.

Julie said, "As much as I like watching you get yours Vector, we don't have time to chit-chat. We don't know how long we have before our guests show up so let's get to it!"

"Understood," Espio bowed.

"I don't need any guns!" Mighty protested, folding his arms. "They're a blight upon the world and-"

"Save it," Julie said with no humor in her voice.

It took Knuckles at least an hour to pry his loving mother's hands off him and convince her he wasn't about to die on his feet. He loved her, he really did, but he just wished she'd stop treating him like he was still her baby or something. If Knuckles only knew, that wish was beyond impossible for any loving parent. Knuckles wondered if she ever had a child with that other man if she would shift her motherly attention off of Knux. Knuckles surprised himself when he realized that he wasn't sure he actually wanted her to in spite of what he had just thought.

He kissed and hugged his mom good-bye, promising that things would work out okay.

He picked up Julie and the others at her room and was stunned when he found the Chaotix and Julie's weapon cache. He opened his mouth, shut it, then opened it again, before finally realizing they might not have time to argue with Julie's methods and decided if he had to have a girl mad at him at least it could be his ex opposed to his current. He knew how Sally and her people felt about guns in general; he just hoped Sally was tolerant enough to accept Julie's 'surprise.'

In spite of herself, Amy really wished she could do some sightseeing as long as she was here. While she had little love for the locals, she was still impressed by the city as a whole and wanted to see the sights. However, they had an enemy coming who they didn't even know when it was going to show up!

She still wished she knew how they had gotten past the Vengence, she was struck by the idea of monsters hiding on the underside of the Special but knew that was dumb; they would have attacked by now if that was the case. From what everything everyone had said, these Knights didn't play stealth.

Remington, prone to following the spirit of Knuckles' instructions rather than the lettering, showed her a computer terminal and what he called the 'internet', which she supposed was a crazy fad among teenagers of both genders for echidnas.

Amy checked out some of the 'sites' listed on the main directory page, but found most of the articles too slanted to read. And as for the artwork she found, well, she was curious, (as any girl her age would be) but since they didn't have any foxes or hedgehogs her interest didn't last long. At last she found out what a message board was, found Remington's user account, and ended up getting him banned from several anti-non-echidna web sites. Feeling she had explored the grand total of what the network had to offer, Amy decided to practice with her combat hammer and crossbow.

What truly surprised Amy was that none of the EST officers had any idea what a crossbow was! They looked at her distance weapon as if it was some strange device from another world. Taking off the explosive tips, (knowing she couldn't hope to find replacements here) Amy did several practice shots, retrieving the arrows each time. One of the EST told her that they didn't have a music hall, mistaking Amy's crossbow for an instrument. Seeing his face when her shot hit the targets with her arrows was almost as satisfying as the expression on the woman who told Amy they didn't have a 'kid's shooting range' before seeing Amy's bolts repeatedly hit the Bullseye.

Hershey on the other hand was able to find a practice pistol without too much trouble. While firing off shots and imagining the dummies were the Knights she noticed several of the men there looking at her oddly. Okay, that wasn't so strange giving where she was, what did throw her off was some of them were downright ogling her! It was only later Hershey learned that while female Echidnas were allowed most of the same freestyle rights as males, it was considered taboo for a female echidna to show her chest in public. Hershey didn't know whether to call that sexist or just plain weird.

And while Bunnie's machine limbs kept the males at a distance as always, Hershey learned from the chitter-chatter of a couple of female echidnas that even though Bunnie's purple jumpsuit did cover the right places, since it didn't hide the shape underneath it was just as bad. Ugh! Hershey wished these anteaters would make up their minds.

Sally herself had hoped she could upgrade Nicole's software as long as she was here, only to find that Nicole's programming was easily more advanced than any of the computers there! It was all most of the machines here could do just to keep up with Sally's palmtop. Nicole was ten years old! How could the EST be that behind the times!? Or was Nicole ahead of times? But that just didn't make sense. Then Sally remembered how allergic echidnas were to change.

Still. Why should Nicole be more advanced then? If they got out of this alive Sally would make it a point to ask Knuckles about it.

Bunnie of course had her own troubles. She had to explain what a roboticizer was at least six times. And a couple didn't even believe her. These skeptical officers just thought the Legion was recruiting outsiders now, adding to their perverted nature. But Bunnie hadn't been lying to Sally before; she had learned how to not let people who decided the value of her soul based on her body parts bother her. It wasn't her business if they realized she was telling the truth or not.

When Knuckles (did he look cleaner?) and Julie returned with the Chaotix, Sally honestly gasped at what she saw. Yes she had seen the EST's weapons plain as day, but it was different seeing as those were supposed to be Knuckles inner circle all carrying guns and other killing tools.

Sally told the Chaotix what she thought of their toys. The Chaotix all pointed to Julie, and Julie said what she thought of what Sally thought. Needless to say, this was where Knuckles made himself scarce into one of the conveniently placed employee's lounges.

With Sally and Julie engaged in a fire-breathing contest, a question occurred to Amy. While she hardly trusted him, Knuckles was the only one who could answer it. Leaving the fighting pair behind, Amy asked of the Guardian in the next room. "Should we really have left everyone back in Knotehole? What about Dulcy, Antoine, Quack's saved family, Rotor and all the rest? Couldn't these knights have just doubled back on us and attacked Knothole again?"

"You have nothing to worry about," Knuckles responded, his arms crossed, not moving his eyes at all. "The Order Knights, or rather, Riahta, weren't interested in Knothole, not really, it was just recess for the Knights, playtime before being told to do their real homework."

"How do you know?" Amy asked, still not quite convinced.

"Soni, er, Lightspeed and Tempest could have finished me off when I was down, they didn't, but only because Riahta made them leave at that moment, recess time was up. No, Angel Island is their real target."

"And what's so special about it that they could want?"

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "If you have to ask that, then you really are a ditz."

"Hey!"

"Guardian!" An EST officer burst into the room. "There's been sensor contact in Angel Island's airspace."

Both looked at him. "Is it the enemy?" Knuckles asked.

"Guardian, we assume so since we only know of two possible-"

'Ugh, oh right.' "Do you know which enemy?"

"No Guardian, Captain Remington only ordered me to inform you once contact was made."

'And I don't believe in false alarms.' Knuckles thought silently to himself, as in not speaking out loud.

Knuckles left without even asking Amy if she wanted to come. He doubted the girl was that oblivious.

A minute later in the com-room with the Chaotix and Freedom Fighters, a replacement console jockey was trying to make sense of what the long-range scanning equipment was telling him. The entire EST was on yellow alert.

"Well, confirmation?" Remington asked.

"One moment sir, cross referencing data, the contact matches the new legion ships."

"How many?"

The com officer was stunned silent for a few moments before breathing, "…One."

"One?"

"Its flight pattern is erratic… looks like it's heavily damaged, sir."

Julie allowed herself a smug look. "Look's like Lien's toys weren't all she made them out to be."

"Did, they do it?" Hershey wondered. Was Lightspeed dead already?

"Either that, or they cut their losses and ran," Knuckles said in his matter-of-fact tone.

"Only one?!" Lien-Da declared in total disbelief. This was not according to plan.

"Yes madam," said the Legion Com-officer, the console plugged directly into his right eye. "Only one of our units detected, and it's heavily damaged."

At least she could hope the pilot was one of her loyalists. Then she could count on a tale being spun to her advantage.

Soon enough the saucer was in visual ranger of the EST's equipment. It was not an impressive sight.

The silver disk was broken, battered, damaged, barely keeping itself in the air, wobbling as it crawled through the sky. The glass bubble on top was cracked; the pilot almost slumped at his control. Through it all though, the saucer still managed to give all the buildings an impressive breath, a testament to the pilot for managing to get this far.

Watching on their monitors as it neared the city's landing pad, Remington ordered his subordinates, "Bring the illegal technology back to base once the ship lands and take the pilot alive for questioning."

"Yes sir!" The EST lieutenants buzzed with activity.

Knuckles had other concerns however. "Any sign of the enemy behind the Dark Legion ship at all?" Knuckles asked, throwing some echidnas off still with the idea of the words 'Dark Legion' and 'enemy' being separate.

"None whatsoever Guardian, the Dark Legion weapon is the only thing airborne on our scopes."

"This doesn't make any sense," Sally said aloud. "Where are they?"

"Better question," Julie-Su said. "Why the Chaos would a Legionnaire, with a trashed ship go the extra mile just to get caught by you lot?"

Everyone's eyes shot open in alarm at Julie's words. (Except Charmy and Amy.)

Remington yelled into a com-mike. "Warning! All units upgrade to orange alert at once!"

"Sir! Multiple unknown target locks on Legion unit!"

"What!" Remington barked. "Who gave the order!"

"They aren't ours sir!"

"Legion?"

"No sir!" On the top of every major building in the city, a hidden anti-air craft unit rose into view, the inside of the cannon barrels glowing before, "Weapon discharge confirmed!"

"Treachery!" Lien-Da accused at the monitor. "What a shameless way to achieve one's goals!"

Even those loyal to her, including her grunt Xenin, rolled their eyes at this statement.

"This was your operation Lien," Dimitri gasped, "Any of our people who are dead are your responsibility."

The surprise anti-air weapons fired again, and again, creating a tune of laser cannon fire. However, they never hit the Legion ship, instead they hit thin air that shook, bled, and burned under the relentless barrage. The Legion ship's image dissolved, replaced by the much larger form of the Vengeance. The monster's shadow was cast over the city streets below, the innocent populace taking this as their signal to run for cover, certain the Legion had created a new super death machine to topple their paradise. But though they were all rightfully afraid, not once did they doubt their Guardian would protect them, as he always did.

A hastily cast protective sphere popped into existence around the dark ship, deflecting the laser cannon attack. However, the damage had been done, and the deadly craft groaned as it began its controlled crash landing, still reaching ever closer to its ultimate and true goal.

…

"An illusion," Knuckles breathed out. "On that scale, incredible."

"Stop the yakkin' and let's get walkin'!" Bunnie yelled.

"Red Alert! Red Alert! All units scramble! Prepare for immediate combat!" Remington grabbed an anti-cyborg assault rifle he kept under the control desk along with an ammo belt.

…

The horror faltered, trying to stay airborne as long as it could, this choice costing it and people dearly as it could not rise above the skyrise pad and smashed through it along with several of the top floors. The Freedom Fighter Special, still on top, tilted, slid, and fell downwards to the street below, smashing into it and fuel exploding, sending concrete flying everywhere.

…

"The Special!" Amy cried, seeing the disaster unfold on the screens.

"There goes our ticket home," Hershey observed surprising everyone who had pretty much forgotten she was there.

Sally looked her. "You were planning on leaving early?"

Hershey narrowed her eyes in a predatory look at the Vengeance. "No…not really."

…

The Vengeance crashed, like the beast shot down it was, the protective barrier that had saved it shattering as it hit the ground, its power reserves spent.

The mysterious anti-air weapons all had a minimum range and couldn't hope to aim at anything at ground level or close up. Now that the Vengeance was no longer airborne, they were unable to aim at it. Their role in this battle had come to its close.

Riahta had dispelled the false image, diverting the power he had been using to maintain the lie to create a protective barrier around the ship, preventing any more damage. However, the injuries to the Vengeance would take a greater amount of time to regenerate than the hole this world's blasted Knuckles had made in its side. Thankfully the ship would only have to heal itself so much, he was so close, this was it, now his plans would come together, and he would have everything he and his masters, wanted.

He shot a look at his Order Knights. "Protect the Vengeance! Protect me! And search this city until you find the island's heart!"

"Yes sir!" They responded together, racing with all possible speed to the outside. The side of the Vengeance opened up like an injury all its own, spilling out the Knights in its wake like parasites.

"Er, that is," Lien-Da sweated, seeing the horrors coming out of the living machine thing thanks to their spy cameras. "I think our part in these events just came to its close. Let us withdraw from the situation for now and see how they work out."

A couple Legionnaires looked at each other disapprovingly. Lien-Da's brash move had cost her the same amount of support she had been hoping to claim. Elderly Dimitri just snorted at her cowardice in disgust.

And so the EST, The Chaotix, and the Freedom Fighters raced to meet the invaders head-on, determined not to allow the evil to get far from the Vengeance's crash site nor let the monsters get a shot at the hapless civilian population.

Sally had to ask, remembering what Quack had said before they left for Angel. "Knuckles, can you fight? After transforming without the emeralds in Knothole?"

"I can fight well enough. Besides, if the Guardian, the symbol of order and safety didn't show his face when Angel Island was being invaded by unnatural horrors, these guys might wonder if they were being sent to die."

"And if the Guardian dies in battle? They lose all hope and wait to die?"

Knuckles waved her off. "Naw. That's where they swear bloody, violent revenge upon my killer or killers, vowing not to rest until the slayers of the Guardian lay dead at their feet, talked it over grapes and tacos with Remington one day."

"Oh…Any chance of you being able to transform again without taking the chaos emeralds from their resting place?"

"I have no more clue how I did that than you do. I vote against counting on it."

"Then stay behind."

"Not here, Sally. Forget it. If I can stand and I can punch then I can fight. And I'm not about to ditch everyone on Angel just cause I was a little winded."

...

Remington gave orders even as he ran through the EST building. "Unit-1 shall engage the enemy directly! Miss Acorn's group and the Chaotix will follow in immediately! The Guardian and myself will fight at our own digression. Unit-2 will lay down cover fire for engaging forces! Unit-3 will concentrate on the evacuation of all non-combat personnel from the area! Remember these aren't the Dark Legion we're fighting! Use anti-cyborg weapons indiscreetly but assume nothing until a target is terminated!"

Knuckles remembered how his great-grandpa had said that Knux couldn't let these things that used to be Sonic and Tails die. Why did he have to start honoring that old man's requests now?

"Remington…" Knuckles said, his voice calm, knowing Remington would hear it without fail.

"Yes, Guardian." Remington gave Knux his undivided attention.

In spite of Sally's hopes, Knuckles knew he had balance it with realism. "Your men are to eliminate the others with full prejudice. But the blue and orange ones are to be disabled and taken alive."

Remington's eyes filled with dismay. "Guardian… you ask the impossible of me."

Remington hadn't even said that when Knux told him to give Julie a second chance. "…Just try, that's all I'll ask."

Remington kept all his civility while speaking but he still spoke as a seasoned solider. "I've never tried Guardian; I have either done, or not done. I do not believe in 'try'."

Knuckles spoke in his best 'Guardian' tone. "You are not to engage them; you'll have plenty to handle with the others."

Remington bowed. Knuckles hated it when he did that. "In spite of everything, I shall do as you command Guardian. My officers will focus on the other enemy operatives."

…

The motley crew of the Chaotix managed to outpace any of the EST officers as they raced towards the crash site. Charmy flying, Espio running on walls, and Mighty and Vector just making forceful headway.

"Fight, fight, fight! We're all gonna fight!" Charmy cheered happily. "We're gonna beat the bad guys and save the day!"

"This should be interesting." Vector cracked his knuckles and beat his thick tail on the ground.

"You guys just try to keep up," Mighty smirked.

Espio thought expressionlessly, 'better thought a fool and be silent then speak and remove all doubt.'

…

Sally had made sure Nicole was still with her before following the massive defense group. She always took the small machine into battle and today would be no different. True, she doubted there would be any mainframes to hack, and this battle was going to be no stealth fight, but she doubted there was any place she could put it here safely at EST HQ.

Spotting Hershey, Sally took hold of the black cat's wrist, getting her attention. She skipped pretending she wanted to ask something else. "Hershey, I need to know that you don't intend to die out there."

Hershey looked right into Sally's eyes; that was an improvement. "Princess, while I doubt I shall ever be able to forgive myself for allowing Geoffrey to do what he did, nor shall I ask for forgiveness. But I shall do my duty as you command me to," This from a 'mercenary.' "And there is something else I've realized that I can fight for."

This was an unexpected turn of events. "Which is?"

Hershey shook her weapon in the air. "Revenge!"

Julie put a hand on Hershey's shoulder before running out, giving a short, "I like you."

Sally sweat dropped. 'Whatever gets you up in the morning, I suppose.'

Hershey in the face of her guilt had fallen into soul crushing despair. Now, for the sake of her own sanity, her mind shifted to the emotions of burning anger, loathsome hatred, and sweet vengeance.

Then it sunk in exactly what Hershey had just said. Sally shouted, "Hershey!"

"Yes?"

Sally forgot herself for a moment and asked, "Please…don't kill them; they have to be in there somewhere. Maurice. Miles."

Despite Sally's submissive tone, or perhaps because of it, Hershey was moved, and didn't snicker at Sonic's ludicrous true name as Knuckles undoubtedly would have if he been there to hear it. "I…I won't try to make you lose yours too." Hershey bowed, and in spite of everything, Sally knew she was sincere.

Now Sally just needed to try and tell everyone else that! She called, "Knuckles!"

He had heard. "Already on it with Remington!"

…

Assuming correctly that they would be taking Remington's transport to greet their unwanted guests, Bunnie easily kept pace with Amy in the large group.

"Amy-girl, 're ya sure ya can handle et out dere?" Bunnie asked, ignoring the looks the EST continued to give her as they realized the rabbot would be fighting alongside them.

The hedgehog shot her a dangerous look. "Don't you dare get started with me! I'm as much a Freedom Fighter as you and don't you forget it!"

Amy thought of what was ahead: the screaming, the shattering, so small. 'Sorry, not this time.' Amy mentally spat at the dark memories. She didn't have time for doubts or to be afraid. Plus, her Miles was out there, trapped in the body of one of those things. She had to save him. And that was enough to have the monsters in her closet sit in the backside where they belonged.

"All right Amy," If you're ready for this then let's find out.

Unlike some, Bunnie had no internal doubts going through her head. She had subdued her inner demons years ago. She was what she was: Half Mobian. Half Robian. She couldn't escape what she had, but how she used it was her own choice. She was going to protect those close to her, and the innocent lives in those monsters' wake. And if push came to shove, beat those traitors into pulp!

…

Julie had no doubts, unlike Sally, that Knuckles could take care of himself. Just as she had no doubt she could take care of herself. She smirked at Sally's little faith. While Julie didn't buy into the chaos mojo as much as the regular population, she had seen Knuckles fight, and that was enough. She herself had only managed to get a square hit on Knuckles once. Not bothering to check her double barrel blaster or her other weapons, Julie joined the other Chaotix outside, Remington's transport waiting for her.

…

'Kragok! You moron!' Julie-Su thought as she ran as fast as she could out of the Legion base as it fell apart in flames. 'Idiot. Idiot.' How had that half-wit managed to become Legion Master in the first place? The paranoid nutcase had actually set the base to self destruct when the Guardian, (his name was Knuckles wasn't it?) had shown up to enforce the archaic technophobic taboo on the populace of echidna culture who just wanted to live differently and yet didn't want to give up their home in the process. The Guardian had gotten through their defenses, and had tackled Kragok one-on-one. Julie didn't know if Kragok was still alive and honestly couldn't bring herself to care.

When Kragok had hit The Big Red Button, everyone had known it was time to run for it. It was every echidna for themselves. Heading in the most direct route possible for the closest exit, Julie saw a flash of red, for a second she thought the fire had reached the exit already. But this was no fire, it was him, the Guardian, the one had done all this!

She saw him make tracks outside just as she was planning to. Split between waiting for him to be gone a safe distance or getting clear of the blast for about a hundredth of a second, Julie went after him.

The grassy landscape didn't give her much to hide behind before the explosion hit, so she settled for laying flat against the ground, hands over her ears and her mouth open.

And just like that, it was gone. Stupid Kragok.

Wondering how she was going to get back to the others, and wondering if she had to hurry, getting back to being treated like dirt by Kragok and Lien-Da. Still, it was her home. That was when she saw him, him! The Guardian! Should she run? Should she go and face him? However, something drew her to him. The way he just stood there. So calm and collected.

She had to get a closer look. He might have killed Kragok, and Julie didn't know whether to kill him or thank him for that. Still, she had to get closer, to get in every detail of him. To look into his eyes, to see into the eyes of the one she knew was her enemy. Closer…closer.

WACK! Block! Yow! This guy might be named Knuckles but he sure could kick!

"What? Some no-faced grunt looking to avenge their mighty leader?"

"As if!" Julie spat.

She ducked the punch that came next, taking her hood off with it. Those fists were as fast as lightning!

"Alright, where did you friends go off to little-" I looked up at him. "Boy?"

"No, not really!" She landed a punch straight into his jaw. "Just what IS it with guys all thinking all women are made of glass?" The cyborg spat. "I mean seriously, subtract some upper body strength and you think all ladies have Osteogenesis Imperfecta." And she had her chance, but looking at that face, those eyes, she couldn't do it. She had to understand him utterly, to know why he did what he did. She had to.

…

"Julie, you ready?" Knuckles asked her.

Julie's eyes narrowed in a predatory look. "Let's do this."

Knuckles smirked, "That's my Julie."

The EST transports moved in formation towards the city's main street, where the dark ship had crash-landed. The machines were pushed to their limit; their enemy had already disembarked from their ship. There were no EST in the immediate area but plenty of civilians and major businesses, the sooner they got there the less people had to die.

In the transports, moving at their maximum speed, Remington gave his last pre-battle orders. "Arrival at crash site in T-minus one minute and fifty seconds. Range of enemy weapons unknown so all units remain alert for immediate preemptive fire from enemy! Units will commence with operation immediately after drop off. And good skill and good luck to you all!" He slapped a fist to his heart. "For the Island!"

"For the Island!" the EST grunts and Knuckles shouted in unison, the latter slightly out of sync due to his lack of military training.

"If you want to stay inside and play Tetris on your palmtop, then go right ahead." Julie 'offered' to the good princess.

"I can fight as well as you, and just because I hate weapons doesn't mean I don't know how to use them," Sally said coldly.

Julie smirked and kept up her condescending tone. "Heh, if you say so."

"Less bark, more lock and load!" Remington snapped at them.

Julie was perfectly calm, this was her element, this was where she belonged, and she wouldn't be pushed aside by some royal brat. Julie's understandable jealousy was a mix of having to face this 'old flame' of her other half and worry that because this girl had just lost her boyfriend Sally might try to rekindle her old relationship as a result. While it's the common belief that males are territorial, women could be just as possessive, if not more.

"Start the show! Here we go!" Charmy cheered.

"Will you be serious." Said a black furred echidna curtly.

"You're wasting time Mr." Mighty said.

"My NAME is Jacobson." The EST spat.

"Orders Understood," Hershey said to Remington darkly, an odd contrast to her self-destructive attitude earlier that day.

…

The crash site looked less like a bomb crater and more like a set of claws had been raked across the city's backside, ending with the Vengeance lying prone on the city street, having smashed through the Great Avenue into a large public square.

The Knights were already out and already sweeping the area of any trouble, following with a detailed but classic search pattern.

This isn't to say the Knights were mindlessly attacking anything that moved. Nor where they blowing up everything in sight simply because it was there. After all, when you have resources you can't regenerate, you can't waste them on collateral damage. However, it was also incorrect to say that the Knights were going out of their way to not harm non-combatants or any precious work of public art that happened to be in their way.

Whatever they wanted, the EST wasn't about to let them have it.

…

It was late morning when Special arrived at Angel Island. The Mobian's hospital stay had ended around one PM. Breakfast and lunch had been water and power bars all around. (Knuckles didn't believe in culinary showcasing). It was two PM when Knuckles had 'encountered' his mother.

Now it was three thirty five and forty seven seconds. It was Monday, and as many people would tell you this was the worst day of the week. For the EST though, it was just another day on the job.

The first Echidna (brown fur) of Squad One came running out of the transport screaming a battle cry. An arm-length needle went into his skull between the eyes and stuck out the other side, killing him at once.

His name had been Jamie, Son of James: he had loved jazz. Now he was the first EST casualty.

The next two echidnas (both reds), Eric Son of Edward, and Rita-Fae, instead of going in a straight line towards the enemy split to both sides, leaving a trail of near misses from laser and projectile in their wake before they both rolled onto the ground, finding what cover they could behind trash cans and sculptures. Other members of their team were pinned down inside the ship by the purple female machine firing the spikes.

Remington promised that if he survived this day he would have the fool who had his or her transport open, facing an enemy of unknown firepower, lined up and shot!

Remington's transport, on the other hand, opened facing the opposite side of the enemy and he, the Guardian, the Freedom Fighters, and the Chaotix, fanned out, just as group two got into position and began to lay down cover fire, taking the attention for the moment off group one's transport.

To the Knights, the EST's heavy-duty anti-cyborg rounds and high end lasers felt rather like bee stings. Lots of bee stings. Stinging repeatedly in the same spots. But how? Their armor was infinitely stronger than the armor Robotnik had worn in his final death match with Sonic! How could it penetrated by mere bullets?! Bullets existed just to get bounced off their armor followed by the shooters futilely throwing their guns at them, just like in most monster movies!

The Knights would show them what happened to those who dared not to do as they were supposed to in this story.

Switching on the comm. link in his helmet, Remington split off from the group, keeping low to the ground and heading towards one of the local businesses whose front had been shattered from the Vengeance's impact. The sounds of explosions and projectile fire from both his troops in groups one and two and return fire from the Knights covered his motions.

Not going into battle screaming cries for revenge, and taking only one look at him and the rest of the group, Hershey did the same in the opposite direction without a word to her teammates.

To deal with the constant fire and grenades from group two, Riahta mentally commanded Tempest to fly over the first line of enemies and have one of his two uber knights slaughter the second line of echidnas. Tempest obeyed, and in a blur flew over the heroes and the first line.

Amy balked as she saw the metal fox speed overhead. "Miles?" She blinked for a few helpless seconds before screaming, "Miles!" She ran in the opposite direction of the Vengeance, towards where the Knight had flown.

"Amy!" Sally called, but this time the hedgehog dodged her grab and kept on running.

Mighty asked. "Old playmate of hers?"

"If she's that eager to throw her life away let her!" Julie spat.

Sally swore angrily. "You cold-hearted-"

Knuckles snapped them back to reality. "We don't have time for this! Chaotix behind me, Sally, you rabbit-"

"Ma name is-"

"Whatever! The two of you stay close; you're used to stealth war not grand battles. Now let's go before the first line is slaughtered!"

"Vector, take this," Espio said, handing the crocodile his gun. "I won't be needing it. Excuse me as I get to work." The chameleon vanished into thin air.

Vector cursed in frustration. "Lousy 'lone chameleon' fighter!"

"Hey more for me," Mighty just had to say brazenly.

"Ugh!" Knuckles groaned. "Anyone else think of going solo and I'll drag you back to the group myself! Now let's go already!"

"Yeah!" Charmy cheered, zipping a few feet ahead of Knuckles as the heroes made their way to the distracted Knights, zigzagging through lines of fire towards the enemy.

While the cooler heroes kept the monsters distracted, the heroic members of group three focused as best they could to evacuate, help, and save the people who didn't care for kings or wars, who just wanted to live their lives in peace. Their equipment wasn't meant to take life, but to save it.

The outer edge of the Knights' entry zone was dotted with people who had attracted the ire or annoyance of the Knights or had just been too scared to risk running.

Not all of them were dead.

Dominic Son of Drake, spotted a magenta echidna, his gut impaled through the back into the ground with a long spike fired from Havoc. The spike actually kept blood from pouring out, saving his life in a bizarre twist. The echidna was in agony, but he kept reaching for a briefcase with the logo of one of the city's only major business firm, demonstrating how even when they were dying some people in the world had their priorities majorly screwed up.

Thankfully, the spikes didn't have a barb on the end and they pulled the echidna off it without any damage. Dominic was quick to apply the bandages before the bleeding began in earnest (it would have been impossible to move him and the spike since half of it was in the ground).

The magenta echidna still reached for the stupid briefcase even as he was getting patched up, showing how even when they were being treated and saved from death some people still had their priorities majorly screwed up.

"Forget it," Dominic said gruffly. "You're alive for another day, if that's not enough for you then too bad!" They moved the rather helpless echidna away from his precious contracts. The invalid was already thinking angrily of how he'd sue the EST for leaving them behind, demonstrating how some people in the world were extremely ungrateful half the time even when their lives were being saved. Dominic wouldn't have cared; the time for the briefcase could be spent saving a life. All the while Dominic just hoped that those who always got the spotlight could keep the monsters off his group long enough for him to do his job.

The next two echidnas were caught under a tree blasted out of its roots by one of Hiroshima's bombs. One was much smaller than the other.

"Forget about me, help my son!" The older male echidna spat out.

And then there were those, who saw their priorities with crystal clarity.

…

The heavily armored Terratus marched forward, the shots and shock grenades from the EST bouncing harmlessly off his indestructible shell. It was futile. Havoc had stopped her attack to focus on the gnats that made it out of the transport, leaving the job of disposing of the rest inside to Terratus, and behind him safe from enemy fire, Ferrus. But while it was true Ferrus was perfectly safe from the echidnas firing their shots inside the transport…

"HI-YAH!" A flying dragon-kick from a cyborg rabbit out of left field was another matter altogether.

Lynx and rabbot tumbled over each other, skidding on concrete and dirt and not feeling much of anything as they were too focused on beating the crap out of each other. Ferrus snarled and gripped at her with his claws, cutting open her sides as he tried to rip her face off, his jaws kept at bay only by the formidable strength of Bunnie's robot arm while her significantly weaker flesh arm pounded the monster lynx repeatedly in the face, trying to get the slavering monster the hell off of her.

Terratus heard another battle cry and turned his attention in time to see the flaming fist coming right at him. He snorted in amusement at this attack. The fools, his shell was unbreakable, when would they see that?

Terratus pulled his head inside his shell, along with his arms and legs.

However, the giant horns on his helmet prevented him from retracting his head all the way in, so the upper part of his face was still exposed. The fire-covered punch struck him right in the forehead, shattering the red gem there. The force of the impact was enough to knock him on his back, hitting the ground hard enough to send a ripple through the pavement. Well, that was easily fixed, his armor could protect the rest of him from any attack anyway.

There was just one problem. The yellow and black spikes on his back, so frightening to look at, now stuck him right in the ground, and his arms just weren't built for going in that direction, leaving him rather pathetically immobilized. This was the distraction the first group of EST officers needed, and out they came from their ship, not risking a formation but sticking to dashing from cover to cover and avoiding going in a straight line, shooting whenever they were in motion.

This caused Riahta to redirect nearly all of his Knights who weren't openly fighting yet to stop their search and deal with the immediate threat…including his quickest searcher, Lightspeed.

…

Shade vanished and moved towards the unsuspecting heroes, katana drawn to decapitate them from behind, only to get a solid kick in the gut from thin air, which sent him crashing out of the street and into a nearby dance studio whose mirrors had all been shattered from the Vengeance's impact.

Shade lost his concentration long enough for the other invisible fighter to examine his enemy. Espio quickly analyzed his disadvantages in this fight, unlike a true chameleon; this thing could make its equipment invisible to the eye as well. This was going to make things a lot more dangerous, and tricky since he wanted to live to see tomorrow.

"I am the ninja in the family now, cousin," the blue living machine said, guessing at once who it was.

Espio started long enough for him to flicker into visibility. He saw the shurikens coming, and fell on his back and vanished again, the diving kick from Shade smashing the floor where he used to be.

Epsio got control of his emotions back, knowing better than to speak and give away his location, not trusting the echoes of the place to keep him hidden. It mattered little to him if this monstrosity had once been his cousin, now they were enemies.

The other chameleon vanished from the visible spectrum as well. It was a game of Marco Polo now.

The blue chameleon didn't want to play though, and unleashed a star burst of throwing stars in every direction. However, they became visible as soon as they left his body, giving Espio the perfect view of his enemy's location. Espio of course was unarmed, if a ninja could ever be truly considered unarmed.

Espio landed a solid kick right at the top of where his enemy's head should be, taking where he had seen the stars come from as well as where he himself would have moved to were he Shade into account as he calculated his strike. This caused the blue ninja to shift back into visibility again for a few precious moments, but did not prevent him in the least from attacking, making his own calculations on Espio's movements to make his attack. Espio saw the tail whip coming, he twisted to avoid it but felt the spike slice through his back: the chameleon refused to shout out in pain and instead stuck by his plan of attack. The blue thing started to fade from view again, leaving the dance room seemingly empty to anyone whose eyesight was limited to the visual spectrum. However, one of the invisible chameleons was now more visible than the other.

Espio knew his cloak was severely limited now; the open wound on his back compromised the ever changing color of his scales and was a dead giveaway to his location. Backpedaling for a few moments, Espio reached behind his back and dug into his own wound, giving him a fresh dose of pain but ignored it. He twisted on one toe, splattering the blood around him.

One of the drops struck an object that didn't appear to be there, telling Espio where his foe was just in time for his former cousin to charge at him with a kunai, which Espio was able to sidestep by bare molecules, although it left a thin cut along his stomach, leaving him with another telltale sign that could be used to spot him.

Espio covered both the wound on his stomach and his back with his hands to maintain his invisibility and took in the pain as he hopped back and landed on a wall, his sticky feet keeping him there as he slowed his heartbeat and focused his senses, waiting for his foe to make the next move. Thus was the way of the ninja.

…

"Half…breed." The animal managed to say.

"Lex." Bunnie recognized what was left of the lynx. Bunnie remembered this guy, he had been one of many Mobians who hated everything even remotely Terran. He even believed that after the war ended they should go back to the ways of their noble ancestors and do away with the thing called 'civilization' and the evil machines it had spawned. Of course that meant creatures like Bunnie Rabbot had to go. But that was the price of embracing the way nature had intended for them. As far as Bunnie could tell, this Knight now had his wish; he was more animal than , Bunnie conceded, he had a been a brave solider, detested political and military ambition, and couldn't stand how St. John refused to move on after Sally rejected him when a perfectly good woman who was willing to spend the rest of her life with him was standing right next to the skunk day in and day out.

Bunnie managed to pull her metal legs up to her chest and kick out into the creature's chest, shoving the creature off her and nearly tearing off her top in the process. Ferrus hit the ground, rolled, and leaped into the air jaws open wide to tear out her throat.

Bunnie sidestepped the lunge, and brought up her arm to block, the beast brought its fangs down hard on her metal limb.

Ferrus blinked in momentary confusion as the poisonous oily concoction meant to melt living flesh on contact only gave Bunnie's arm a nice shining.

"Wrong arm sugah," Bunnie smiled dangerously. "And here da right leg!"

The solid metal leg smashed right into Ferrus' solar plexus, denting the carapace and indirectly striking the soft internal organs, causing bright red blood to leak from the cracks. Her kick tore him off her arm, causing him to deeply scar it with his teeth and undo the polish his saliva had done. Oh well, she could always buff it up later.

This wouldn't be the first time Bunnie would be forced to put a teammate out of their misery who had been turned into a weapon of the enemy. 'Well,' she thought grimly, 'I'm ah weapon too.' Ferrus came at her again, this time with his metal claws drawn out. Bunnie back stepped, bringing her machine arm to the front again.

Bunnie didn't once curse her remaining flesh and blood arm for being of little use in this fight.

…

The echidnas fought bravely. Little pockets of happiness, this was what they fought for. Those little bits of happiness that their people could have, even if it was just for a moment, even if it was just within a small space, if they could live their lives in peace for just a little bit, then these Echidna Security Team members would be satisfied.

There were a large number of self-satisfied cynics who'd love at that moment to poke and probe all the weak points and failings of every Echidna Security member there. These echidnas wouldn't have cared. They didn't waste their precious living moments thinking on the so-called abstract nature of good and evil, nor which side in their endless social debates was truly the right side, if any. All that mattered was there were those present that sought to harm the people these echidnas had sworn to protect, and these echidnas would live or die to protect those people, doing the which of those two their duty commanded them to do first.

So with grim determination, the echidnas fought on against this impossible enemy: being the living shield between this menace and the innocent bystanders of Angel.

How much longer that shield would last was in question.

"Ha!" Lightspeed laughed. Speed-dashing one way, beheading in one dash Rita and Eric on the other. It seemed Eric wouldn't have his chance to ask Rita if he could be with her now that Jamie was dead. "Stupid mass-generated, one hit dice, level one cannon fodder!"

"You nameless, nondescript NPCs aren't worth our time!" Havoc added, flinging her spikes everywhere.

Plutus laughed as he summoned a giant gold weight and crushed a hapless soldier beneath it. "The best you faceless nobodies can do is off yourselves to save time!"

Some died screaming, some didn't get a chance to scream. Some just made noise, others called Knuckles' name, or the names of their mother, mate, or child.

However, much to the Knights' confusion, and in direct contradiction to the cosmic laws of epic battles, there were a number of EST echidnas that weren't instantly dying, actually dodging the knights attacks and managing to get shots in.

If there was wave after wave of them, the Knights could accept this, however the EST were not being given constant reinforcements to add to quickly vanishing numbers, they were simply there, stubbornly refusing to retreat or surrender. If they just up and died like they were supposed to, the Knights wouldn't have minded, but these morons weren't following the script!

And where did these stupid shots from nowhere keep coming from? They were so distracting, and these holes in their armor were getting so unsightly!

…

While some might have marked Remington's strategy as self-preserving, the commander was in fact the EST's best sniper and thus the most logical one to carry out the maneuver. Having climbed to the top of the business he had entered (an insurance company bound to go bankrupt after this) he took his position and aimed his weapon over the rooftop's edge. He took his shot, and quickly made tracks to another sniping spot so he couldn't be tracked and eliminated by the enemy.

On the opposite side of the city square, in a multi-story female clothing store that made her wonder why echidna females felt such a need to hide themselves, Hershey followed the same tactic. Aim, shoot, and relocate. She couldn't risk staying in one spot for long lest she gained unwanted attention.

And their potshots were working wonders, distracting the relatively small number of enemies from creating a unified strategy.

…

An echidna officer threw a grenade at Plutus which exploded against his black belly, which was followed by several magazines worth of bullets.

Plutus felt dazed for a few moments, long enough for Mighty and Vector to both grab one arm, and for Charmy to sting the black pig in the face, sending him thudding to the ground. The armadillo and crocodile unloaded a clip of bullets each into the pig's face, then the officer ran up, stuffed a grenade into the pig's mouth, and all of them quickly retreated as it exploded.

"My –name- is Jeremy!" It had been the transport pilot, the one whose mistakes had cost Jamie his life. He had abandoned his nice little safe post, for the sake of trying to atone himself.

Plutus stumbled to his feet, coughing up smoke. "Ugh…I hate the taste of explosives at this time of day," he grumbled, hocking up a wad of toxic spit which melted off the face of the hapless echidna who had given him that unpalatable meal. Or rather intended to if Charmy hadn't taken that moment to jump on the Knight's snout and made several faces at him, resulting in the bad breath melting the Knight's metal teeth.

"Ha! You're no match for the strongest thing alive! All Knuckles is kinda good at is punching! I'm you're real threat! None of my friends are gonna fall while I'm here!" Mighty boasted.

Charmy, seeing this as a game, gleefully joined in the shooting, giggling madly as he jerked in the air firing bullets in every direction due to his difficulty in aiming and firing while airborne.

'And Julie thought I was dangerous with the gun?' Vector thought to himself as he kept shooting at Plutus, who was now spitting out his canines in a vain attempt to hit the insect who took little notice of the attempts on his life. 'Really! How rude!' Vector grinned.

…

Knuckles didn't bother to ask if Sally and Julie could keep from killing each other in a life or death battle. Neither of them were that stupid. While Knuckles wasn't bursting into flames, his fists still could, as always he could shatter boulders without adding chaos flame to his fists, and he was going to remind Sonic how much damage they could do with them!

In spite of his new name, Sonic never wore armor for a reason: it slowed him down, and now that his body was armor, Knuckles was about to prove how bad a move that way!

Havoc sent a spike Knuckles' way as he tried to hit Sonic, Knux punched it off course, he was named Knuckles for a reason!

The fight wasn't at all like the one at Knothole, which logic dictated that Lightspeed should now be dominating. But Julie and Sally's weapons were providing the perfect distraction, and Knuckles knew Julie was enough of a crack shot to not worry about getting shot by friendly fire. Knuckles backed up against Lightspeed's claws, dug his fists into the ground, and rammed both feet into Lightspeed's gut hard, resulting in Lightspeed being knocked back.

"Maurice, stop this!" Sally demanded.

"You know how I hate that name!" Sally's dodge of the claws was so close that she saw a few strands of her red hair float in front of her eyes.

"So you are still in there!" Sally cried.

"Shut up!"

"No way! No how! Dream on! I'm in your face and I'm not leaving until you wake up!" Sally promised. Just like he had done for her, long ago…

"Now Sally, you stay right here! Auntie Julayla is going to come right back! She's just going to go get some things! Then we can hurry to the special place I told you about and we can meet all your friends there. Rosie is already waiting for us, I'm sure of it, so we don't need to worry." Julayla told Sally again before setting the little princess down, looking back at the besieged city and running back the way they had come.

And Sally waited, and waited. She had been out in the woods before with her caretakers, but never alone. Why had all the robots gone crazy? Where were her papa and mama? Why weren't they here with her? The 'war' was over she was told, where the tall monsters hurt everybody. But then why was this happening? The little princess was cold, tired and hungry. Things she was not used to in the extreme.

She heard noises and didn't know what they were. She saw shapes and had no idea what they could be as they moved just out of her range of vision. She sat there, wondering how long it would take Julayla to come back. Of course Julayla would come back. Why wouldn't Julayla come back? So what if it was getting a little darker? It was just getting a little colder, that's all.

The hybrid curled into a ball. The stars were out. Julayla would be back soon. She wouldn't have left Sally out here all alone forever, would she? She'd never do that. Julayla had always been there for Sally. She wouldn't leave her.

Sally cried. Papa always told her not to cry in public, but since no one was around, Sally was sure it was okay.

She dreamed the hollow tree she was in became alive and ate her. She dreamed the entire forest turned into monsters and tried to eat her. She saw Julayla, she smiled at her and reached out to help her, and turned to smoke the moment before Sally touched her.

Then a huge spiny monster grabbed her and began calling her name.

"Sal', Sal wake up! Is it really you? Are you okay?" The monster asked.

Sally screamed and backed up as far as she could in her little hiding place, which wasn't very much at all.

"Sal' it's me." Sally finally woke up and saw that it was Sonic, that blue hedgehog she had met a while ago at the castle. What was he doing here? And… who was this orange fox with him? The one with two tails? Was she still dreaming?

"Sonic?" She asked, not so sure she was awake.

The blue hedgehog nodded. "Yeah, it's me. Are you okay?"

"S-Sonic what's going on?!" she cried, desperate for information. "The robots! The shouting! Everything!"

Sadly, Sonic had even fewer answers than Sally. He wondered about telling her about seeing the people turned into robots, he didn't want to think about that in the least.

"I don't know." Sonic said.

The fox moved past Sonic and looked at Sally curiously. "Who are you?" The fox asked innocently.

Sally was shocked enough to come out of her hiding place and addressed the fox in her most formal tone. "I am Princess Sally Acorn!"

The fox politely returned, "I'm Tails Prower! Nice to meet you Princess."

"Just call'er Sally." Sonic said.

"Her middle name?"

"It's her first name."

"When isn't it in front?" asked the confused Tails.

"Just call me Sally," she decided to concede. Her dress was a mess anyway, it wouldn't do to be called a princess looking like this.

"Okay Sally," the fox said again politely. "It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too…you're friends with Sonic?"

"We're best friends!" Tails declared proudly.

"I kinda ran into him yesterday," Sonic said shrugging. "Seemed nice enough, so I kept him."

Sally glanced at the pair of tails on the fox again and blinked as the sight truly registered in her mind for the first time. "You're a…kitsune?"

"What's that?" Tails asked innocently.

She blinked. "That's, that's what I think you are."

"Oh okay." Tails nodded cluelessly. Sally hid a smile. Could the fox possibly be any cuter?

"I can't wait to show you to Julayla, she'll love you. We just need to wait for Julayla. She said she'd be right back yesterday, I know she's coming," Sally said firmly.

The hedgehog frowned. "Sal', I don't think we can stay here forever," Sonic said, not liking the idea of staying so close to the city.

"You can go if you want, I'm staying right here!" Sally folded her arms and sat down on the ground, closed her eyes and pointed her nose upwards.

Sonic closed his firsts and pressed his face so close to her she could smell chilidogs on his breath.

"No way! No how! Dream on! I'm in your face and I'm not leaving until you wake up!"

"I'm wide awake! Julayla wouldn't leave me!"

"Sal', Julayla's gone."

Sally started. That was impossible. "No she isn't!"

Sonic had been forced to do a little growing up in the last couple of days, and Sally was sentenced to the same fate. "She would be back by now!"

This was inconceivable in the princess's mind. Things had always gone Sally's way until yesterday, why should things ever change? "She's just a little late!"

"She's not coming back!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!" Tails covered his ears and turned the other way, recognizing this as an 'adult' conversation much as the ones his parents had occasionally had.

This, needless to say, went on for a while, until an internal force broke the stalemate.

"I'm hungry," Tails said out of the blue his stomach growled as loudly as a wild beast. He hadn't eaten since yesterday, and he had missed dinner and breakfast. Just like everyone else there.

"Sal'," Sonic asked. "Did Julayla say where her special place was?"

"Yes…" Sally replied uncertainly.

"I bet there's food there."

"I'm not leaving."

"We're not, we'll come back, but Julayla wouldn't want you starve right?"

Sally's own empty stomach convinced her of Sonic's argument. "O..kay…but we have to come right back!"

The hedgehog smirked. "Don't worry, I'm the fastest thing alive! We'll be there and back here before you know it, I promise." He crossed his fingers behind his back, of course, but Sally was too hungry to care.

Repeating Julayla's directions as best she could, Sally took hold of Sonic's arm, while Tails took hold of the other arm. Sonic's legs became a blur as he sped up in place, and a moment later the forest was a blur to her.

Tempest opened his palms, showing off the red eye gems. They glowed along with the one on his forehead and chest. Red lightning arced from one gem to another, forming an electric triangle. Tempest looked darkly at his targets below, preparing to obliterate them.

"Tails! Miles! What are you doing?!" Cried a desperate and mortified voice. Why was it so familiar? Tempest turned to face the enemy, only to find a pink hedgehog in a red dress.

The EST soldier Kira-Ru looked at the confused monster and knew now was a perfect time to put it down before it got its act together. However, these thoughts were put to the side as from both sides two of the other monsters, the brown and red platypus and the bronze bear beast burst from behind a pile of rubble, drawing the fire of Kira-Ru's group away from the one in the sky.

The two monsters in turn were so distracted by the laser shots of Kira's officers that they didn't notice the pink hedgehog that seemed at the moment to be purely a non-threat.

There had been no programming on how Tempest was to react to Amy. There had been no frustrations he had with her hyper-stimulated by Riahta, no virtues clouded over.

So, with nothing to dictate his body's actions, Tails' fogged mind struggled to make sense of this girl before him as incomplete programming struggled to come up with a solution.

And to make things more confusing, Amy didn't attack! Then he would know she was an enemy. She just stood there. What was that look in her eyes?

Amy looked into the eyes of the orange and white living weapon. She saw the heartless malice. And that was just it. There was no heart in it.

All that anger, all that hatred on his face, it just looked, so, so, utterly and completely fake.

Tails always had heart in anything he did. She had known that from the very start…

There was a knock at the door. Amy didn't react.

The door opened. Amy didn't react.

"Hello?" She heard a voice say. She didn't react. She still didn't react when she felt the bed bounce a little, signaling that someone had just sat next to her. "Hi. My name's Tails, you're Amy right?"

Tails? Sonic's sidekick? This was just enough motivation that she was able to turn her head to look at him. She thought he'd be taller, and she thought his tails were supposed to be larger than him too.

Then Tails touched her. He put his little gloved hand on her shoulders. "It's okay if you don't want to say it, I know you're Amy."

Why was he here? What did he want?

"I heard about what happened, I'm sorry things had to happen that way."

Sympathy? Why? What was it to him?

"I can't blame you for liking him, I mean; Sonic is so brave, cool-looking, and that smile of his. When you see him, you never want him to leave, because he makes you complete, you feel whole when he's around."

"You love him too." Amy whispered, a rarity for her.

"Huh?" Tails blushed bright red. "Eh? Wha? I mean…I guess I do, yeah, but, but not that way! I do love him, but there's more than one way to love someone."

"Then why do you sound almost exactly like me?" Again in a low voice.

"Because you're right, I do love him, but I'm not in love with him."

"How is that different?" Amy said in a slightly louder voice, feeling confused.

"Sally is in love with Sonic." He saw Amy's eyes harden slightly, okay, bad move. "That's to say, to be in love with someone, you have to love more than just things about them. I love everything about Sonic, and I guess that way you and I are alike. He's my role model; he's the me I want to be." Amy openly started at this. "When I first met him, he wasn't scared, even though I was. He was able to smile, though I was terrified. I can picture being with Sonic a lifetime from now, but it's not all I want out of life. Amy, did you ever think about what you were going to do with yourself after you won Sonic?"

"…" Amy wanted to answer quite proudly that she had. She hadn't. "I figured we'd live happily ever after."

"Happily ever after is something you have to work for Amy, it's not something you get right after you're with someone."

"Why are you here?" Amy tried to change the subject.

He shrugged. "I heard you were down, I wanted to help pick you back up."

"Why? I'm a stranger to you, you don't even know me."

"I know you're a friend of Sonic's. I know you look up to him the way I do. I know you lost your world and Sonic was the only one there to help pull you out of the nowhere and help you find a somewhere."

Amy looked away sullenly. "People talk about me a lot?"

Tails shook his head. "No. Because it's exactly what happened to me."

Amy looked at him, now startled. "You?"

He nodded. "Same ship, welcome aboard crew mate."

Amy laughed before she realized she was. She still didn't get what he meant by 'loved opposed to in love' but maybe he could help take the weight off her shoulders after all.

What was Tempest supposed to do? This girl hadn't wronged him. She was pleading with him, not attacking him. There was no reason to harm her.

What was this confusion? Maybe he was supposed to attack her but couldn't? That was absurd! Of course he could attack her if he was supposed to! What was this?!

"Miles! I know you well enough to know you'd never do anything like this! I don't know what Sally saw but I know you couldn't have done any of it!"

Why wasn't she attacking him?! Error! Why wasn't he attacking her? Error! She was his friend, wasn't he supposed to help her? But then…why hadn't he gone to see her… before now?

…

"Agh!" Havoc swore, she looked around, seeing no one who could have shot her. "Where?!"

Lightspeed looked around for anything that could be the cause. That was when he noticed Charmy buzzing this way and that, firing his pistol joyfully at any Knight he saw. Lightspeed falsely assumed Charmy was the sniper. "It's that stupid bee! It has to be! Kill him!"

"Understood," Havoc replied. She unleashed a full wave of spikes at the annoying bee.

Charmy buzzed around in a completely illogical pattern, making it impossible to tell where he would be next. "Can't hit me! Can't hit me! You can never hit me! Nananananana! Haha!" The spikes zipped past him, none ever hoping to find their mark.

That was when Shine came down from above out of nowhere, and cleaved the youth in two down the middle.

Charmy didn't even have time to think an apology to Saffron for running away, because he was too scared to become king, not because he didn't love her and never had the courage to come back and tell her that. Now he never would.

"Charmy!" Vector screamed.

"No, not him! It's just not possible!" Mighty ranted. Charmy always came out unharmed while the rest of them were in bandages for weeks. He always drove them crazy, often being their arms and legs in those periods and getting his orders for lunch mixed up. He couldn't be dead!

'Dammit! No!' Plutus took advantage of the distraction and charged over, using his enormous body mass to pin them to the ground.

Plutus smashed their helpless skulls in, or meant to when a white female echidna holding a rocket launcher of all things got his attention instead in a very direct manner, namely shooting a missile into his head.

"Why!" The Knight shouted in annoyance as his ears rang. "Why! You're all just here to die to show everyone how mighty we are! How can any of you worthless red shirts still be standing!" He mindlessly charged at the albino but was forced to cover his front with his arms as an echidna fired at him with an Uzi from behind some rubble.

"Maybe just because there isn't time right now to know much about us, doesn't mean we don't have lives. I have a father I'm going to have a shouting contest over which BuzzBall team is better this year when I get home!" Jeremy Son of Jackie spat covering Jessica-Yu as she retreated with the empty weapon.

Plutus pushed him, and Jeremy went flying across the concrete, losing his jacket and some of his skin in the process. "You're just extras in this story. Nothing you do or say can have any effect what so ever on the outcome of this tale. For instance: This equally meaningless statue." The statue in question was of a naked marble pregnant Echidna looking lovingly at her belly. It was entitled, "Just before Time's Dawn," and it was regarded as the perfect symbolism of how things were just before Aurora had created this universe. However, right after it's unveiling; there were pharisees who demanded its removal and/or destruction, calling it improper for public viewing in light of children and married men. The artists' society had bled dearly to keep it where it was, and the EST had once even needed to protect it from a bomber. There were many echidnas that saw it as proof that their culture could evolve without losing its identity.

Plutus and Terra struck hard against the statue's back. It fell and shattered into a million pieces on the ground. "There, no one cares where it came from, no one cares about it. Just like no one is going to ever think of you once you're all dead."

"You're dead bastard."

…

Riahta was rather confused when the knocked-over statue did not reveal a hidden passage. He was running out of places it could be hidden here, as it clearly had been since it wasn't in public view at all. It was rational to assume that the Emerald therefore was under the statue's entire base rather than just the statue itself.

Terra had spent her entire time since the battle began digging like a mole from one part of the block to another, looking intensely for something though she didn't have the slightest idea what. Now she was redirected by Riahta to dig underneath the toppled statue, and again didn't find the important thing she was looking for. The frustration of looking for something and not knowing what it was driving her batty.

This was too much for Riahta. "Where is it? Where is it?!" They were in the right area, one of his Knights should have been able to eyeball it by now.

"Where is what Master Riahta?" Lightspeed asked his master, mentally responding to the evil echidna.

"The Master Emerald, you fool! What else?! It isn't in the heart of the city like it's supposed to be!"

Lightspeed felt perplexed. "Master Riahta, it's never been in the center of Echidnaopolis."

"That's absurd!"

Lightspeed shrugged. "As you say Master Riahta." He returned to his task.

The echidna smacked his face angrily. Oh right, the 'Riahta is never wrong' sub-clause. "Wait! Agh! …Very well, weapon, where is the Master Emerald according to your memory?"

"Hidden Palace, Master Riahta."

He looked confused. "Hidden what? … Damn it, what a waste." Riahta dove into Lightspeed's mind and pulled out the location of Hidden Palace. Underground? … Hmph!

No more games! Riahta would just teleport the lot of them all there there and …and… what was this? How could he not teleport where Lightspeed was visualizing? It should have been impossible not to!

He couldn't have, this couldn't have been, had this entire battle been a giant waste of his time?!

Riahta quickly dumped more of his resources into repairing the locomotion of the Vengeance, resources he hadn't believed he would need again until this moment!

Riahta, thinking they wouldn't need to leave the city, hadn't ordered the Knights to attack any of the anti-air weapons. Now frantically Riahta shifted the target in his Knights minds, confusing many EST officers on the verge of meeting the Creator when the Knights suddenly seemed to forget the EST existed and instead started to attack the helpless anti-air cannons. Of course, that didn't mean the EST had forgotten about them!

"Shoot to kill and don't let up!" Kira-Ru barked at her men, taking aim and firing with the eye that wasn't now a bloody mess. The EST second group now focused their shots totally at Anark and Monkshood, the bronze beast now reduced to a shield for its brown and red partner.

…

"No problem!" Hiroshima said. "I'll blow 'em up! I'll blow 'em all up!"

A powerful sniper shell from Remington hit Hiroshima hard in the side, forcing him to take a full step to the side from the impact. He had about a second to turn and look at where the shot had come from before one of the little bombs on his body exploded, having been cracked ever so slightly from the shot, setting off a chain reaction and detonating his entire cache.

The resulting mushroom cloud knocked the other Knights near him off their feet. When they looked to see the remains, they found a featherless, nearly skinless duck pathetically twitching his body. His entire body was black with burned flesh and red with blood. His beak was gone, rather than having been blown to the back or top of his head as a cartoon duck in a similar situation would have done.

…

The stalemate in the dancing school hadn't ended. Espio still sat on the wall, motionless, while Shade remained out of sight, running through options in his mind and trying to find a course of action.

And then he found one.

Espio's sharp eyes noticed at once a shuriken flinging out of nowhere, and instantly pounced…

Except the shuriken wasn't aimed at him, but at a red box on the wall labeled FIRE ALARM.

The moment the throwing star hit the box, an alarm went off, and the sprinkler system in the ceiling, switched on, showering the room with water. The water ran down the sides of the ninja chameleons, the void they created in the rain revealing their respective locations. Simultaneously, they both dropped their cloaks, knowing there was no point in maintaining them now.

For a moment, they stared at each other, ninja at ninja. And then…

They acted.

Shade dashed forward, katana stabbing forward right at Espio's torso. The purple chameleon was already moving at the first sign of the blade, and had jumped into the air, landing on top of the blade only long enough to jump off again, kicking Shade in the back of the head as he did so. The dark ninja spun around, slashing his sword in an attempt to sever Espio's ankles, but the chameleon had tucked into a ball and bounced off the sword again. He rolled towards a wall, ran up it, and kicked off the ceiling, diving down at his enemy with a slicer kick.

Shade hopped back out of the way, flinging shuriken at Espio as he did so. The purple chameleon shifted his body this way and that to avoid the blades, then leaped up in the air as Shade slashed at him with the katana again. Espio had jumped high enough to touch the ceiling, and he stuck there for a moment, using his body's natural adhesiveness to somersault across the ceiling and behind Shade, grabbing him by the tail and yanking on it in an effort to knock the fake ninja off his feet.

Shade responded by flicking his tail upwards, flinging a startled Espio over his head. The shuriken flashed, and Espio cried out as his yellow horn was cut off, leaving only a blunt stump. He fumbled and hit the ground, and barely dove to the side as Shade's katana buried itself in the floor, cutting open a gash on Espio's legs. He dove underneath Shade's legs, sliding across the wet ground and grabbing his severed horn as he did so. He flipped back into the air, horn in hand, as Shade's spiked tail slammed down into the floor where his head had just been, and did an air dodge to avoid the shuriken flung at him.

He landed on the ground for only a moment, using his finely-tuned leg muscles to spring back into the air and aim a kick at Shade's head. The dark ninja blocked with his blade, but that was what Espio had wanted, and just as his feet touched the flat edge of the sword, he drove his broken horn into Shade's chest.

The horn only left a dent in the durable living metal that covered the mutant chameleon's skin. Espio's moment of surprise was all the opening Shade needed to kick Espio in the chest, slash him across the face with a kunai, and pin him to the ground with his foot on the purple chameleon's chest.

Shade glared down into his opponent's eyes. "Valdez…" Espio hissed weakly.

Shade raised his sword, preparing for the finishing blow. "Goodbye, cousin."

The blade came down, Espio caught it, using the natural adhersion in his hands to his advantage to make the impossible possible, twisted it around, breaking the blade via leverage alone and slicing open Valdez's throat causing the faux ninja to stumble backwards, the former chameleon covered his throat. Espio picked up the broken pieces of glass off the floor and threw them at Valdez like throwing stars who blocked them with his other arm as Epsio in stuck the unguarded limb with several pressure point strikes, turning it useless for the moment. Espio shot his tongue at the ceiling, stuck to his and did a kick into Valdez's gut sending the faux ninja tumbling over. "The best of tools do NOT make up for experience neophyte!" Raihta called, and Valdez retreated with post haste. Espio threw Valdez's own sword at him, which missed his head which Espio had been aiming for and instead impaled him in the shoulder. Letting go of his tongue Espio swore, "Run back to hell coward."

…

Lightspeed's line of sight spotted the black cat with the sniper rifle hiding in a high pillbox. "I'll get that cowardly-"

"You will forget her! You will focus on destroying the anti-air weapons only! Retrieve Hiroshima afterwards!"

Normally Riahta would have left his pawn to its fate, and failing that, just teleport the thing back to him. But now that he knew this was not to be the final claim for the prize, he couldn't yet discard his weapons, and he couldn't waste the energy recalling it on his own.

So the insect hadn't been the sniper after all, oh well, no big loss, and easy to correct.

Riahta through Shine's eyes saw the black cat holding the anti-cyborg rifle. Why was she so familiar? Oh yes. It was the skunk's woman. He had wondered why she wasn't floating in the ocean along with the rest of the crop.

He telepathically commanded his pawns, showing them Hershey's locations in their minds. ~We were supposed to have that one. Correct that.~

Riahta's command broke through Tempest's confusion and he sped off, flying in low to avoid becoming a target for the anti-aircraft weapons. Amy called out his name again, but Tempest ignored it, the best he could at least.

Lightspeed, did the same, forsaking his fight with Knuckle Head and Sal' to systematically destroy the anti-aircraft guns that would destroy the Vengeance if it attempted to leave.

Shine boomed up right in front of the black cat, who wasn't half as scared as she should have been. "You belong to Riahta and the Great Walkers now!" Hershey gave him his answer right away.

Most kept a bullet for themselves, Hershey kept a grenade, and that was for the person who came in for the killing blow.

Shine blocked with his shoulders sending the bomb back at the foolish black cat, only to remember he no longer had shoulders since his arms just floated around his body.

The impact sensitive grenade exploded right in Shine's face, the Knight screamed in pain, holding his face in both hands where his blank faceplate used to be.

"That was for Jeffery you rat bastards!" The cat hissed. She saw the bloody face underneath. "Still the pizza faced little boy eh Stu?"

Shine drew his broken giant sword and his living scarf clawed at the air venomously.

The combat knife flew through the air and stuck into Shine's eye socket. It didn't go as deep as Hershey would have liked. It didn't even penetrate the brain case. Now Shine was in even worse pain and blind in one eye to boot. "And that was for always being a coward Stu!"

Hershey took this as her signal to take her leave, and dumping the heavy rifle she shot her grapping pistol into the floor before jumping off the floor she was on, rappelling down several stories before landing perfectly on her feet; she was a cat after all. That was when she shot at the ammo above her, still in her pillbox where Stu was still trying to get the knife out of his eye socket. The blast knocked Shine out of the pillbox and smashed him into the ground, but he was still alive. Too bad.

Hershey was tempted to finish him off, but then noticed a bloody and dirty Bunnie Rabbot sucking wind with an equally tired but determined Lynx monster. If this had been medieval Europe, Hershey might have had a problem doing what she did next, interfering in another warrior's fight. As it was, Hershey just did her job. She took aim with her anti-cyborg pistol and shot the former Freedom Fighter through the back of the head. The once-living corpse fell to the ground, dead.

Bunnie look at her with horror, finally noticing her. "You killed him!"

Hershey rolled her eyes. "Hello! Life or death battle here!"

…

The wicked echidna gasped as he felt a psychic backlash from the impact of Hershey's bullet through Ferrus' head. NO! One of his pawns was dead! He couldn't animate corpses! It would take all of his remaining power to be able to pull that off, and he didn't care to waste it! They had to end this now! This could ruin his entire plans!

Riahta couldn't believe Shine had failed to capture one non-mutant, non-magically powered, non-power armored emotionally warped female! He was about to order Shine to try again when through the eyes of his pawns he finally took notice of one pink-furred cyborg with a very familiar face as she sent several Order Knights wailing for their mothers as she single-handedly held them off with a very large gun and very cruel and well-aimed insults. Was it her? Was it possible? If he couldn't vent his wrath on his great-grandson then maybe his woman would do!

He actually preferred the company of that whinny goody two shoes half-sister of hers always trying to topple the oppression of the Guardians and their empire. Stupid Da-Lien! Stupid White Legion! But she and her band of bleeding hearts were just an annoyance (much as Robotnik had thought of the Freedom Fighters). That arrogant, slut of a scant, who hung onto his great grandson like an extra arm, that angered Riahta, the way she always stuck her tongue out at him when no one was looking, the way she openly mocked his masters behind the protection of the Slave Emerald and the Guardians. Oh, how he had dreamed about the thing he would do to her once the power was his all his! And now, perhaps he would get the chance…or a preview of said chance, anyway. Rubbing his hands with glee, he sent a command to one of his Knights not directly in the line of combat.

…

The ground beneath Julie opened up as a red armored female armadillo burst from the pavement, grabbed her in a bear hug so hard as to crack ribs, before diving back into the earth before she could even holler in surprise.

"Julie!" Knuckles screamed his heart in his mouth.

Knuckles leaped after her but Lightspeed at that moment knocked him back with a surprise return and a kick to Knuckles' iron gut.

Lightspeed sneered. "I took yer last girl friend Knux, I think I'll have this one too!"

"**** YOU!" Knuckles swore, determined to kill Lightspeed at that very moment.

That was when Knuckles was knocked off course again, this time by Tempest. Knux sailed through the air until he hit the concrete, anyone one else would have had their bones shattered. Knuckles was just left with the taste of blood in his mouth, and utterly disoriented.

…

With evidence that his target was not here, and a consolation prize in tow, Riahta gave up the fight and teleported his eleven remaining knights back into the interior of the Vengeance, the last of the anti-aircraft weapons destroyed. The shadow of fear of his masters for this debactle was fully on him. The death machine began to rise into the air, actually bleeding some sort of organic fuel as it retreated into the sky, going at all possible speed away from the city toward where its target actually was.

Inside the Vengeance, Riahta looked at the pink echidna at his feet, her face enough to cause his blood, mere dust, to boil. He would enjoy this so very much indeed.

…

And like a magic spell, poof, it was over. No more shouting, no more firing, the survivors not believing it could have ended just like that for seemingly no reason at all.

There was silence, nothing but silence. The enemy had withdrawn. The battle was over. Did they win? Hard to tell. Jamie, Eric, Rita, and Charmy were gone, not to mention everyone else who now lay dead. And Julie-Su had been captured as well.

Espio finally reappeared, stumbling out of the wrecked dance studio, his eyes haunted by just how close death had been. His yellow horn was completely gone, he was breathing haggardly, and his body was covered in gashes. He look took one look at Charmy, and for the first time that any who knew him could recall, Espio actually showed emotion, his face a picture of despair as a single solitary tear slid down his cheek.

"Where were you!" Mighty demanded.

"We could have used you!" Vector snapped, looking ready to eat Espio then and there.

Espio bowed his head in shame. "I offer no excuses. I only did what was within the limits of my skills and abilities. I apologize."

"That's not good enough." Mighty actually threw a punch at Espio, which the ninja caught, and threw the armadillo into the ground. "I could ask you where you were, but I don't, because I know you'd never let a team mate die. I only ask you give me the same benefit of the doubt."

…

"Julie…" Knuckles moaned, the third EST group rushing to their Guardian's side in turn to help him to his feet.

"Guardian! Guardian! Are you alright?" Remington asked worriedly.

"Believe it or not he'll be fine sir," Dominic said. "These Guardians sure are made of sterner stern stuff."

"They always have been."

"Julie!" Knuckles moaned, much louder this time.

"Knuckles…" Sally whispered.

…

"How could ya do that?!" Bunnie demanded.

Hershey shrugged nonchalantly. "Easy shoot, only a few yards."

"That ain't wha' ah meant ya know et!"

"That fight could have gone either way, I wasn't about to have a teammate's death on my head…again."

"He was a team mate!"

Hershey glared at her. "You should have told him that! Are you telling me you weren't thinking the same thing?"

Bunnie started. She had been thinking the exact same thing, but to see it done by someone else, somehow magically placed it into an entirely different context. But she wasn't about to say that. "He was that way because of you!" Bunnie said and instantly wished she could take back her words.

Hershey shrugged. "Then I corrected a mistake. Don't like it, then too bad! Wake up Rabbot! Would you prefer if you were dead and other people were dead because Lex was still alive?"

"No…but that's a what if-"

"Are you going to demand I be punished for killing a hostile person in a combat situation or are we going to help the others?"

Bunnie sighed, her shoulders sagging as she caved in. "You win…Let's just go."

Hearshy didn't move. "Wait."

Bunnie didn't want to hear more. "Now what?"

"Look." Hearshy pointed.

Ferrus' body seemed to be melting, the metal mass covering his body becoming a reflective puddle on the dirt and concrete before evaporating completely, leaving behind a furless, skinless body, and its hip and shoulder bones completely out of place. Now Hershey wished she hadn't pointed it out. Bunnie felt sick, while Hershey covered Bunnie's eyes out of time-honored reaction. Bunnie was used to fighting robots. Hershey had seen real war before Robotnik's take over (amazing what you can see when you lie about your age).

"What's it mean?" Bunnie had to ask.

Hershey shook her head. "Don't ask me… looks like we have another teammate's body to take back home with us."

"I wasn't able to kill him." Jeremy berated himself. "I promised he was dead and he got away. Filthy pig." He sat in front of the statue's remains.

"Everyone gets theirs." Jessica tried to comfort him. "Don't worry, sooner or later."

"I just hope you're right."

"Something's hope is all you've got." Jessica said as she hugged him.

…

Amy Rose glared up into the sky, at where the Vengeance had disappeared. "Miles IS in there," she swore. "He has to be. I saw him I know I did."

No one was really paying attention to her, and for once in her life, Amy didn't care. She just knew he was in that flying death ship, and she was going after it, and the Creator protect anything that stood in her way.

Echidnaopolis' news groups were finally allowed near the disaster area. Seriously, they would have preferred to have been nearby while the battle was happening, to be there afterwards just felt meaningless. Stupid military, getting in the way of a good story.

The EST naturally rolled their eyes at such sentiment, but field reporters saw it as their duty to risk life and limb to bring information to the public at large just as it was the EST's duty to protect those same people.

However the information the EST were able to give was sketchy at best, the Guardian they were told was in no mood to be spoken to, and few newsechidnas barely even thought to ask the foreigners what had been going on, after all, what they knew and had seen couldn't have been that important.

The couple that did bother to ask off-handedly for some minor details from the aliens asked nearly all the wrong questions, skipping over the major details their interviewees could have provided vast insight into. Amazingly they did stumble on some intense information while Bunnie talked about the difference in feeling fighting a former comrade who was still in any sense of the world 'alive.' After wasting most of their time trying to get her to say the Dark Legion had a secret alliance with foreigners, they were left stunned and bewildered by Bunnie again having to explain how she had not lost her arm and legs and the truth of their violation. The media echidnas had no idea what to do with this information that had just fallen into their lap. They merely stumbled away from her, feeling like they had just tripped into the Twilight Zone, their puny media minds reeling as they attempted to process the information.

Sally on the other hand answered questions with restraint and maturity. One of the reporters managed to recognize her beyond all reason as Princess Acorn. Given how she was right next to Knuckles at the time and the concerned look on her face, said news echidna made it a point to poke and probe about questions she truly had no desire to answer. They never once asked the state of affairs with the Acorn Kingdom, nor about the war with Robotnik, that Sally wondered if they even knew had ended.

The one echidna that bothered to ask Hershey anything got short and to the point answers, plus he was turned off by her dark mood, and he had better things to do anyway.

Amy was kind of hard to predict. There was the part of her that wanted to snarl at the media predators to leave her alone. Then there was the part of her that lived to eat up moments like this in the eyes of the public at last. Then there was the part of her that just wanted to be left alone and hoped that the echidna would just go away.

Finally, Amy said she hadn't seen one bit of the Guardian's battle, and had been more interested in waking up her Miles from the nightmare he was obviously trapped in. The echidnas of course had no idea who 'Miles' was, which frustrated Amy and caused her to launch into a full biography of the little fox, from which the echidnas inched away when she started describing how 'kuwai' he looked when the setting sun glossed off his fur or how her heart sped up when his tails were twitching in unison.

The dead and critically injured were solemnly removed from the battlefield the central square had become. Vector burst into tears when they took Charmy's remains away and Mighty had to drag the blubbering crocodile away by the tail to keep Vector from crushing the corpse in his embrace while the croc screamed out sounds of regret and remorse.

Espio silently said a prayer while Mighty, not used to failure or loss, kicked, punched, and headbutted any piece of rubble he saw until it was pebbles, screaming oaths to the point where Bunnie actually covered Amy's ears. Everyone decided to let Mighty be.

After being absolutely sure the Guardian would be all right, Remington attended to the fates of his own officers. They had fought, they had died, and for what? The enemy wasn't destroyed, if anything it just withdrew. Now for the first time since its creation one of the Chaotix too was dead. Not to mention Jamie who'd never be able to share his jazz collection with anyone again. Would it have been better if they hadn't shown up at all? Just let the enemy look around, and leave empty-handed? Remington looked at the civilian echidnas that would be dead right now if not for their sacrifice. No, Remington decided, it hadn't been a waste.

…

The various heroes regrouped to plan their next move in the field of death. Lex's body was placed under echidna care until it could be brought back to Knothole. When Sally saw it she said, "So they're still alive after all. They're not just a mass of breathing steel now."

"Knights in armor," Hershey added plainly.

"Is this karma's way of paying me back for all those things I've punched into dust over the years?" Knuckles wondered. The Guardian had gotten his wits back, though personally he wished he wasn't. His Julie was gone, taken by those freaks and that insane version of the old man! He'd get her back if it was the last thing he did! Though he knew it was really not Lex's fault for what he did while here, Knuckles only knew this Mobian as an enemy, and thus couldn't bring himself to feel pity, he was too busy feeling pity for his own people who trusted him with their lives and died for him.

"I knew my Miles was in there," Amy repeated.

An EST who was missing part of her face but could still walk and thus insisted she was still fit for duty that had been looking at the dog tags of dead teammates to tell their families spotted the pink alien with the Guardian. Kira-Ru looked at Amy with her still working eye. "I remember you! You were that ground-bound that just stood around talking to that orange monster when the rest of us were fighting for our lives! What was the deal anyway? That thing your boyfriend?"

"Yes. He is," Amy said calmly looking the woman in the eye.

"You have very bad taste in males you little creature!" Kira-Ru spat back. If the brat had actually helped maybe Kira would be seeing through both eyes right now.

"You!" Knuckles' spikes fists were around Amy's throat. Hadn't Knuckles been on the ground a moment before?

Knuckles might have been beaten and tired, but he still had more than enough strength to squeeze the life out of one teenager girl with an inferiority complex.

Amy's crossbow was useless, and as she tried to pull her hammer to crack Knuckles' skull in self-defense, a few good EST units kept her hammer arm at bay even as they futilely tried to pull her out of Knuckles' vice grip. Knuckles' voice held a ruthlessness Sally had never once categorized with him even in his darkest moments. "If you had just taken out that flying sushi machine Julie would still be here with me! Instead she's in the hands of that flipped out god-complex version of my great-grandpa! I should keep closing my fists tighter around you until all the bones in your neck break, one by one!"

"Guardian!" Remington cried in dismay. He pulled at Knuckles' arm fruitlessly, trying to keep the Guardian from making a serious error.

"Knuckles, stop this!" Sally ordered, Bunnie already working at getting Knuckles' arms off the lass.

"Julie's gone! And it's because of her! I'd have saved her if it wasn't for that thing that used to be Tails!"

"What about your great-grandpa's precious prophecy! He said you couldn't kill Miles or Sonic! Just stop it!"

"Julie!" Knuckles howled, making it rather clear that all rationality had fled him. Sally chopped at Knuckles' wrist, forcing him to let go.

Amy coughed repeatedly before getting to her feet, glaring dangerously at Knuckles. "If you want a piece of me Knucklehead then bring it on!"

Every other echidna there gasped at Amy's gall, Knuckles just got ready. Sally knew where this was going to go and saw she would have to intervene quickly lest Knuckles got his head smashed in and Amy got pummeled to death.

Sally got in front of Knuckles, not spreading her arms out like a shield, but looking ready to take on the Guardian in hand to hand combat. Bunnie quickly joined her. "Our enemy is Riahta! Not his slaves! And definitely not each other! Now how about we focus on finding out where they're going?!"

The idea of going through Sally was a lot less pleasant than putting the pink brat in her place, and Knuckles stood down. He saw that all of the echidnas were looking at him, most likely to jump to his aid in a heartbeat's notice. But he slowly noticed some had a look of dismay on their faces, yes the girl was an alien, but still, the idea of their Guardian trying to strangle someone was unthinkable.

Knuckles' couldn't believe their looks, he actually felt ashamed. Sally and her band were one thing, but his own people? Had he crossed a line? Knuckles was no good at speeches, and even worse at trying to reason with people. So his mind came up with the best he could think of: "Carry on." And so they did as the Guardian commanded.

Sally's one desire at that moment was to move on from the near-disaster, she could whack Knuckles upside the head later. "Now let's find out what Angel's radar system can tell us about where that monster went."

Remington said, "Allow me Miss Acorn." The officer took out his radio and requested the information. The Vengeance hadn't left the island's landmass, and was moving at what could be compared to a turtle's pace. But its course put nothing but wilderness in its path, not even the Legion had anything of value in the direction it was going.

Knuckles however, once again, after hearing the news, put two and two together.

"I know where they're headed; it's the only place they could be headed. We should have gone there first! We're just lucky they made the same mistake we did, thinking what they wanted was in Echidnaopolis!" He groaned. "I am such an idiot. I was so caught up in the idea they wanted the island after the fight in Knothole that I forgot there's only one reason anyone comes to Angel in the first place! Agh! Stupid! Can all of you ladies still walk? Yes? Good! There's no breathing period this time!"

"Hold on! What are they after?" Amy had to ask.

He grabbed Amy close, surprising the girl who reached for her weapons again but Knuckles just whispered in her ear. "The Master Emerald."

"The-" Knuckles placed a hand over her mouth, and gave as many 'don't say it' signs as he could think of. Amy caught wind of the message.

"Let's go." Knuckles said.

"Yes, Guardian." Remington stood at attention.

Knuckles shook his head. "No Remington, where I'm going you and your men can't follow, you stay here and keep the sanity."

Kira-Ru barked. "And these foreigners –can-?!"

"Officer!" Remington ordered. Kira-Ru quickly closed her mouth.

"Right!" Vector said, the tearstains still on his face, looking ready to march to death and glory.

Knuckles looked the gator straight in the eyes, stabbing his finger at the ground. "You're all staying here."

"No way!" Vector snapped his jaws. "They killed Charmy!"

"You're staying here in case the Legion decides to be an opportunist."

"That's a 'what if!' Those monsters are a 'certain'!" That complex an idea didn't belong in Vector's head.

"And now both them and their ship are seriously hurting. We'll be all right."

"That's stupid!"

Knuckles sighed in exasperation. "Look. We've lost Charmy, you've all taken your share of hits, you've done enough. Besides, I need someone super strong and super tough to hold things together here."

"You got it Knuckles!" Mighty responded instantly. Now that Knuckles had said that, the rest of the Chaotix would have to stay behind just to make sure Mighty didn't try to take on the whole Dark Legion by himself. Vector cursed Knuckles for playing dirty while Espio admired such sly tactics: Espio was shinobi after all.

While the echidnas were apprehensive of their Guardian going solo yet again, Knuckles insisted that it was private and that was enough. So now with the evening coming, and this time without any rest stops in between, the heroes, with zero fanfare, marched on paw beyond Edchidnaopolis and into the wilds beyond. Before that however, there was one last event to play out.

Marching alongside the laser focused Knuckles, Sally stopped when a blank wall got her attention.

"Princess," Said a voice from nowhere that turned out to be the purple chameleon, what was his name again?

"Espio?"

The ninja bowed his head from his sitting spot on the vertical surface. "I have a favor to ask of you."

This was more than a little out of place. "What is it?"

The ninja's voice and expression didn't waver in the slightest. "One of the things we fought, I recognized it, and it was a cousin of mine."

Sally's eyes softened. "I'm sorry."

"You have done nothing wrong to be sorry for. My request is simple."

"Yes?"

Espio's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, his voice held no malice. "Kill him."

"There might be hope for him."

"He's not your family, I'm making it easier for you, focus on saving those you love."

"So you're going to give up on him just like that?"

"If Valdez insists on pretending to be Shinobi, he should realize that your life becomes forfeit as soon as it conflicts with the mission objective. We ninja are weapons: when we die, we die. Do not hesitate to kill him. Since Knuckles has insisted that I don't follow, and I have promised to obey his orders, please carry out the task in my place Princess."

'Have I really been a princess since that horrible day of Robotnik's betrayal? Or am I just another soldier?' Sally wondered. "I won't hesitate, but I won't go out of my way."

"I'd expect nothing less." Again Espio vanished into thin air. Sally was quick to catch up with the others.

Amy asked. "What was that about?"

Bunnie answered before Sally could, those ears of hers could hear just about everything. "It was about family."

"Oh," said Amy, instantly understanding.

One part down, four to go.