After Sonic and Amy took care of that Badnik attack on a village in the northeastern areas of Northamier, the night had come fast and Sonic didn't feel like speeding to Knuckles's location in the dead of night. So instead, he went back to that basecamp he had talked to his parents just a few minutes before racing off into action to spend the night there once again. After the crack of dawn, and after Sonic had a nice breakfast, the blue Hedgehog sped off in the direction Amy had told him he'd find his good old red friend.

Come time for Sonic to finally set off for his destination, Sonic sped off. He had come to find that, through the use of the Miles-Mini Universal Communicator which also could surf the web, the city Knuckles was at is nestled around a now defunct mine. The city also had a large wall surrounding it and the entrance to the mine, something set up before the war began. It took Sonic about fifteen-ish minutes to reach a hill that looked over the city, but once up there, he could clearly see an Egg Titan fall to the ground outside of the city wall. A second or so after it fell, one of its arms would be ripped off and Sonic could see Knuckles the Echidna holding the mechanical arm over his head before smashing it into the robot's head, destroying it instantly.

Sonic grinned a little as he said to himself "Oh shoot! For once I'm too late."

He began to speed down the hill "Looks like Knuckles hogged all the fun!"

As he approached the Echidna, he was busy ripping the wires out of a crack in the Egg Titan's head. Sonic skid to a halt as Knuckles tossed those ripped out wires to the ground "You, Knux! Save any for me?"

Knuckles turned around and smiled at Sonic "Long time no see you blue pincushion!"

He dusted off his hands and approached the other "What brings you out here?"

Sonic crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged a little "I ran into Amy in a nearby town. She said you were looking into trouble here, I thought I'd lend a hand."

He couldn't help but nudge Knuckles's side with his elbow before saying teasingly "Y'know, you're awfully far away from the HQ Commander Knuckles."

Knuckles sighed "Not Commander anymore, after the ERE was nice and set up I handed that duty over to Amy. I can lead a militia alright, but something meant for rebuilding isn't my thing. Been away from the Master Emerald too long as is."

Sonic raised an eyebrow "Then why aren't you up there right now?"

The Echidna crossed his arms over his chest "Was going to go up there after relinquishing my position, but Amy talked to me and made me realize there's still a little bit more I can do to help you surface dwellers. This is the second to last thing I'm going to do too."

Sonic nodded and looked over to the wall of the city "So, what's going on here anyhow? What brought you here?"

Knuckles also looked over to the wall "Well, this town is a hub for Wispon distribution. Thing is, the shipments suddenly stopped recent. I came to see why."

With that, he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled up to one of the two guard towers that were placed next to the massive doors of the wall "HEY! I'M KNUCKLES, FORMER COMMANDER OF THE RESISTANCE! I TOOK OUT THAT EGG TITAN, LET ME IN!"

The head of an obviously frightened Mobian poked out from the tower's window "S- Sorry sir. But I'm under orders not to open the gates to anyone!"

Knuckles furrowed his brow in frustration "SAYS WHO?!"

The Mobian hesitated "I- I can't say!"

Sonic and Knuckles both looked at each other, before the blue Hedgehog sped forwards and up the wall while Knuckles ran up to it and began to scale it with his spikes. Much to the shock of the Mobian. The two landed on the other side of the wall and stood up, only to see any Mobians who had been out and about before were now rushing inside of their homes or other buildings they could get into. Knuckles was silent a moment before saying "Uh.. The Badnik attacks have been getting more aggressive lately.. Maybe that's what's got them spooked?"

The blue Hedgehog shook his head "I don't think so. Something else is going on.."

Almost on cue, the Mobian from the watch tower climbed down from it and whispered to them "You shouldn't have done that! You shouldn't be here!"

Sonic turned to face the Mobian "Why? Whatever's wrong, we can fix it."

The Mobian was actually trembling in fear as he whispered "No, you can't! They took all the Wisps and Wispons! Without those weapons, or a way to power them, we don't stand a chance! They're unstoppable now!"

Knuckles looked at the Mobian in confusion "'They' who?"

Sonic nodded "Listen, buddy, you just watched my friend here solo an Egg Titan. We can handle ourselves, start from the beginning, what's up?"

The Mobian took in a deep breath and swallowed his fear "True enough... Okay... Just before the war ended, a couple of mercenaries showed up. They were ferocious. They drove back Eggman's forces and saved the town. They said they were going to improve our defenses... But what they really did was take our arsenal and took us prisoner within our own town! Now we have to do everything they say. We have no way to fight back and we can't escape with all the robots stalking outside the wall!"

Sonic looked over to Knuckles as he said "Well then, I think we need to take our complaints straight to the management. Eh, Knux?"

The Echidna punched his fists together "Absolutly."

The two began to run down the street as Sonic asked over his shoulder "Where can we find these clowns?"

The Mobian pointed to a large building next to the closed off entrance of the mine "Th- They turned the supply depot into a fortress. Just down this road on the right, you can't miss it!"

Sonic nodded "Cool, sit tight, we got this."

They ran over to the building and Knuckles would proceed to climb up the wall and open up a window above them to let them in. As the Echidna glided down to the floor, Sonic jumped through the window and landed next to the pods the Wisps were being held inside of. He whispered over to Knuckles "Yo! I found the Wisps!"

Knuckles next down to one of the pods and put a hand on its glass "Just before he... Went solo back in the war... Tails gave us the cipher for the Wisps' language. We asked for their help in fighting Eggman. They volunteered happily, even choosing to wait in deployment pods like these for when our troops could enter an area. But these guys are being horded.. This is inexcusable."

Then suddenly, a loud laugh could be heard echoing through the building, causing Knuckles to stand up and take a defensive stance. Sonic instead knelt down in front of a pod "Hang tight, just a little longer. We'll free all of you!"

The two walked over to a crate and peaked over it. What they saw was two Skunks, they were sitting at a table surrounded by at least four Mobians. Two seemed to be fanning them with large leaves against their wills, and the other two had been carrying food. One though seemed to have fallen and spilled the food over himself. A Skunk with teal fur was laughing hard but managed to say "Nice one idiot!"

The very much albino colored Skunk slammed his hand down on the table and said "YEah! Now get us another round before we beat some sense into ya!"

Knuckles grit his teeth and looked at the sight with anger in his eyes while Sonic whispered "Wow, they make the Hooligans look like class acts."

The Echidna finally spoke "I'm gonna break them in half!"

Sonic put a hand on Knuckles's shoulder and said "Steady, let's take this one slow. Give the villagers a chance to get out of the line of fire."

Knuckles relaxed a little "Alright. Then I'll break 'em!"

After that, Sonic vaulted over the crate they were hiding behind and Knuckles followed close after him. Upon landing on the ground, Sonic called out "Hey! Tweedle-dumb and tweedle-dumber!"

Everyone else in the room quickly looked over to Sonic and Knuckles in shock as the blue Hedgehog pointed to himself with his thumb "I'm Sonic the Hedgehog, maybe you've heard of me?"

He pointed to Knuckles "This is Knuckles, roughest of them all and all around knuckle head."

After that, he put his hands on his hips and continued "You guys are guilty of theft, extortion, kidnapping, and being grade A jerks. So you can either come along quietly or we're gonna get real loud."

The albion Skunk stood up and so did the teal one. The albino tossed a glass at the ground and it broke on impact while he said "Who said you could come into our town huh?! Who said you could ruin our fun?!"

The teal Skunk nodded "Yeah, we've heard of you hero! But you clearly ain't heard of us!"

They began to approach Sonic and Knuckles as the albino Skunk popped his knuckles. Said Skunk would say "You lookin' to scrap?"

The other Skunk grinned "Then get ready to crumble!"

"Brace yourselves for,"

They quickly struck a pose. The albino Skunk standing upright and holding his arms up while the teal one stood behind him in a crouched position while they both yelled out "ROUGH AND TUMBLE!"

Sonic brought a fist up to his mouth and tried to contain his laughter "Oh no, I was not prepared for this."

Knuckles meanwhile didn't see anything humorous in this situation "Careful Sonic, they're highly coordinated."

That was it, Sonic let out his laughter and put a hand on Knuckles's shoulder as he doubled over "Knuckles... You're the salt of the Earth."

Knuckles shrugged off Sonic's hand and they began to charge towards Rough and Tumble while the Echidna yelled out "Whatever, let's get 'em!"

With that, he charged to tackle the teal one, Rough, but before he could the Skunk jumped over him and dodged the attack. Meanwhile, Sonic was able to send a Spin Attack right into the albino one's, Tumble's, chest knocking him over. Before he could do anything after that, Tumble kicked Sonic off of his body and up into the air. Knuckles punched Rough's jaw and the Skunk staggered backwards before blocking the next punch and sending one of his own right into the side of the Echidna's head. Using his speed to his advantage, Sonic sped around Tumble preventing the larger Skunk from attack him. After a point, Sonic would proceed to come to a stop and spin kick the Skunk right in his ankles which made Tumble almost fall over.

Almost immediately afterwards, Sonic would move to the front of Tumble and attempt to Spin Attack right into him again, only for the Skunk to react fast enough and grab Sonic's Spin Ball. WIth him in hand, Tumble would dribble Sonic like a basketball before throwing him at a wall, only for Sonic to ricochet himself off of the wall and right into Tumble's face, knocking him over. Meanwhile, Tumble jumped over another one of Knuckles's attacks before jumping up to a wall and jumping off of that. While he began to approach the floor, Rough yelled out "STINK BOMBER!"

Then, when he hit the floor, a cloud of horrible smelling gas exploded from Rough. Sadly for him, that only made Knuckles's eyes water, as after the cloud appeared Knuckles would lunge forwards and punch Rough in the middle of his chest and send him flying across the room and into a wall. When Rough fell to the floor everyone could see that a large hole had been made from the force of the hit. Tumble ran over to Rough and began to pick him up "C'mon bro, we ain't done yet..."

Sonic pinched his nose and tried to wave away the gas "Whugh... You okay dude?"

Knuckles coughed "I'm fuhne."

Tumble punched a hand through a crate and pulled out an Electric Wispon while Rough grabbed a Fire Wispon. As he did, Tumble said "No more messin' around!"

Rough grinned wide "Say your prayers chumps!"

Sonic took a ready stance as he said "Okay, that might be a problem."

Knuckles wiped away his tears as he took the same ready stance "I'll distract them. You grab a Wispon of your own and-"

The blue Hedgehog looked over to Knuckles as he cut him off "No, I can do one better."

He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled out with a smile "Wisps! It's me, your old buddy Sonic! I saved your planet from DR. Eggman! Remember?"

Rough and Tumble looked at each other in confusion as Sonic continued "A bunch of you chose to stick around on this world! You helped me on the Lost Hex! You helped the Resistance fight the Eggman Empire!"

Sonic spread his arms out "I know fighting isn't your thing, but you've proven you're all powerful and brave! Don't let these jerks boss you around! They need you to bully everyone, but you don't need them!"

Knuckles put his hands on his hips and smirked as Sonic spoke. After he finished, the Wisps in Rough and Tumble's Wispons flew out and the other Wisps in the room did the same. They all surrounded the Skunks and Sonic and Knuckles fist bumped each other while Tumble panicked and Rough tried to bark orders at some Wisps "One of you get in this right now!"

Sonic and Knuckles began to approach the Skunks with the Wispons following behind them. Knuckles punched his fists together as he said "The tables have turned."

The blue Hedgehog raised his hands over his head "They've certainly bumbled."

In unison, Sonic and Knuckles said "It's butt-kick time for Rough and Tumble!"

Tumble threw his Wispon down onto the ground as he yelled "No! NO! NO!"

Rough also threw his Wispon down as he yelled "That's our thing! You can't do our thing!"

But then, Sonic leaped forwards and kicked Rough in the face while Knuckles punched Tumble right on the bottom of his chin. The two flew backwards and they quickly scrambled up to their feet and began to run out of the building. Rough looked over to his brother as he said "Bishop's not gonna like this!"

Tumble looked over to Rough "Who cares?! We gotta save our hides!"

But when they got outside, Rough and Tumble was met by a large crowd of Mobians who were all ready to take on a now weakened and tired Skunk duo. They had no choice but to just stop and stand there as Sonic and Knuckles walked out behind them, the crowd cheering for them as they did. The Mobian from the guard tower ran up to Sonic as he said "You did it! How can we ever repay you?"

Sonic smiled at him "Serve up some chili-dogs and we'll call it even."

Then, suddenly, a Drill Wisp came out of nowhere and spoke his gibberish which caused the Mobian to look at it confused "Er... What's it saying?"

Sonic shrugged "No idea. I don't have Tails's translator handy."

But then, the Wisp flew into the Drill Wispon the Mobian was wearing, much to his shock. Sonic then said "I get it now, it's saying the Wisps plan to stick around and help you guys defend the town."

The Mobian looked at his Wispon foundly "Thank you! Thank you so much!"

Meanwhile, two Mobians pointed there now fully powered Wispons at Rough and Tumble. One said "Hope you enjoyed it while it lasted."

The other said "You two are going to be locked up for a longtime."

Tumble spat at one of them before saying "Their little cells won't hold us for long! We'll be out and then we're coming for you!"

Rough nodded "You've made lifelong enemies of,"

They both yelled out in unison "ROUGH AND TUMBLE!"

Knuckles waved his fist at them while Sonic laughed. As the Skunks were dragged off though, Knuckles let out a sigh of relief before saying "Thanks for the help. Not that I needed it."

They fisted bumped once again as Sonic said "Nah, but you didn't share the Badniks outside. You owed me this."

Knuckles then reached up and began to pet the head of one of the Hover Wisps "Hopefully this is the start of things settling down. I really do miss home."

Sonic pet the "chin" of a Spike Wisp as he said "I wouldn't mind a vacation myself. First we've got to figure out who's controlling Eggman's left over Badniks."

He then stood up right and held his hands up into the air "But before that, we party!"

The crowd around them all cheered and Knuckles just sighed and smiled.

Meanwhile, far up into the air and out of sight, an Egg Flapper watched over them. Its visor like eyes relaying a live feed of the sight it was looking over to the King. He tapped his fingers against one of the arm rests of his chair as he said "So... Knuckles is still playing hero on the surface."

Orbot and Cubot began to approach the chair as the King continued "That means Angel Island is unguarded.. The Master Emerald is prone... That will acelerate my plans.. Considerably."

Once the two robots reached the chair, Orbot said "As per your request, the rest of the Remnants have arrived."

The King began to stand up from his chair as he said "I asked for them to come last night, not today. That was not my request."

Cubot just shrugged "They all said that they were busy with other stuff, couldn't come when you asked."

He just ignored the robot and entered into the next room where an oval shaped table was sat in the center of it with chairs around it. Sitting at those chairs were the rest of the Remnants. The King sat down on the lead chair and looked around the others sitting at the table as well. In front of him was the Queen, to his left was the Rook, to his right was the Bishop, and next to the Bishop was the Pawn. The King tapped his fingers against the table a moment before saying "I asked you all to come last night."

The Queen kept herself stoic as she said "We have lives outside of this little project. We have facades to keep up. Jobs and promises to keep, unlike you."

The King clenched the hand that had been tapping its fingers against the table into a fist as he replied with "When you joined the Remnants, when you all joined the Remnants, you agreed to doing as I order when I order it."

The Rook quickly but in "Now, I'm always willing to watch this little back and forth you two have, this isn't the time."

The Pawn nodded "Yeah, you two can continue this in a private room."

The Bishop just looked at the Pawn with complete bewilderment "...What?"

He shrugged "We've all been thinking it. The two would make a great power cou-"

The Kink slammed his hand against the table "Shut up, all of you!"

That did indeed silence everyone, allowing him to say "What I had called you all here for last night was to discuss how Sonic was able to interfere with my plans. He has changed the course of everything, and we have to change course.. If you all had arrived when I asked, then we wouldn't have to change things this drastically."

The Queen spoke up once more "So, how much do we need to change it?"

He was silent a moment before answering "We will need to force certain subjects in other directions and accelerate aspects of the plan."

He looked over to the Bishop "I am going to need you to draw Sonic away from his current trajectory somehow. I don't care how, I don't care where, just keep him away from Ground Zero."

The Bishop nodded as the King looked over to the Pawn "Now's the time to make yourself known, you've dweled in the background for to long. When Bishop comes up with a way to lure Sonic, you will relay the information."

The Pawn nodded as the King said "Rook, Queen, you two must double your efforts. Subject Alpha must be found."

The Queen looked over to the Rook "Things would go much simpler if he let me use my own men."

The Rook looked her dead in the eyes "If we did, you would be outed quickly. No one knows the truth of the Badniks. We continue to use them, we will remain safe."

She just rolled her eyes before the King said "Now, I will be heading to Ground Zero with the Egg Fleet."

The rest looked at him, rather surprised. The Pawn asked "Why now?"

The King brought his hands up and laced his fingers together "Seems as though fate as acted on our side... I need not explain anything more to you, just know, I will be away from the head quarters from some time. But that does not mean I do not have the ability to enact punishment upon any of you if needed."

With that, the holographic projections of the members of the Remnants all disappeared leaving the King as the last one in the room. He stood up and began to walk out, once back in the room his chair was, Orbot and Cubot began to follow him. The red robot asked "So, what now?"

The King looked down at him "You two will remain here.. Make sure no evidence is left behind, but stay in contact with me."

They nodded, and with that, a sliding door opened for the King and he left the room.