Sonic Chaos & Knuckles (Season Two)

by sleepfiction

With the threat of Perfect Chaos on the horizon, Sonic and his friends race to retrieve the seven chaos emeralds, and the shards of the Master Emerald, to imprison the god once more. Teaming up with shady organization G.U.N., and an echidna who is way too into his job, Team Sonic will face enemies new and old in order to save the world from a very watery death. (Read Season One!)

12. Overdrive

Today was the day.

Tikal sat in silence, thinking to herself as she was surrounded by chao. She had been staying in the chao garden all night, intent on staying there until Chaos finally turned into his perfect form, where she would go out to try and stop him by any means necessary.

There were a few things eating at her, however. She had a lovely conversation with the most unexpected person a moment earlier, Neo Metal Sonic, who seemed to be having some form of existential crisis in the face of an apocalyptic event happening that afternoon. Tikal wasn't sure of Neo Metal's future, but she did know that he would most likely need her help very soon.

That would require her to leave the chao garden. Right now, she wanted to soak up as much time there as she possibly could. She loved chao… they relaxed her. Perhaps too much.

She felt the positive energy of Chaos lull her into pure tranquility, the echidna spirit going from sitting to lying on her side as she continued to watch the chao play. Tikal felt… tired. It was a very rare occurrence for spirits to sleep, if at all.

Considering what was going to happen that day, however, it was probably a good idea to get some rest for herself before Chaos arrived.

The slumber of a spirit, especially one made of positive energy, is peculiar. Tikal's sleep didn't truly begin or end- perhaps someone could say that the slumber and awakening of a spirit were happening simultaneously, with said spirit choosing to switch over to slumber randomly rather than actively sleeping.

Tikal slipped into the astral plane, allowing herself to become a being of pure energy. As her eyes properly opened, focusing on something ahead of her, she spotted a miniature of the inside of Sonic the Hedgehog's apartment: apartment 734-A, in the complex on 6260 Mega Drive, in Station Square. It was like a dollhouse with how small it was, a roofless construction of the apartment with the walls still intact.

As she looked it over, Tikal's eyes came across where everyone was- Sonic was in the kitchen with Tails, the hedgehog on his phone. Amy was meditating in the living room by herself. Knuckles was in the bathroom, alone, looking at himself in the mirror.

"Knuckles. The last member of the Knuckles Echidna Tribe, a young echidna who has transformed himself into a totem of strength and justice through his companionship with Sonic, Tails and Amy." The echidna spirit spoke softly.

"Companionship?" A raspy voice dragged out the word behind Tikal. If she had a physical body, her quills would stand on their end. The spirit turned to look behind her, met with the visage of her father.

Pachacamac, or at least someone who looked like Tikal's father, walked over slowly, staring down at the people within the diorama of the apartment, eyes blank and irises a pitch black color.

Tikal knew who this was. It was the personification of Chaos' negative energy, taking the form of Pachacamac. It was the aspect of Chaos' spirit that formed his son Mobius, whereas Tikal's soul was fused with the part of the god's spirit that formed Gaia.

"What is this strength and justice without his honor, Tikal?" He asked. "He belongs to the tribe of powerful warriors who annihilate their enemies without question. The interception of Sonny Hedgehog, as well as his little friends, have caused Knuckles to falter and forget what his tribe of echidnas- his family- were all about."

"What would you rather him be, negative spirit? A heartless, uncaring war machine? The kind of being that Chaos believes humanity is? An avatar of Mobius?" Tikal asked. "The kind to ruthlessly destroy those who they deem unworthy? Judge, jury, executioner?"

"Knuckles the Echidna is the last tribesman of his kind." Pachacamac continued. "You know why I am here, Tikal: the darkest hour of this echidna is upon us. He will be faced with a perilous scenario, where he must choose his duty or his new life. The clock will strike, as will Knuckles' fist… in the name of his tribe."

"For the sake of Knuckles' sanity, I pray you are incorrect." The psychic replied.

"Your power of positivity can only reach out so far, positive spirit."

"Ultimately, it is up to Knuckles to choose to fight for what he personally believes in. We can only influence him so much with Chaos on the rise."

"I know…" The negative spirit smiled a crooked grin. "That must eat you up inside."

No other words were spoken between the two. Both spirits, positive and negative, turned to watch the diorama of Sonic's apartment, specifically following where Knuckles was.

The bathroom mirror was wiped of steam. Knuckles saw his reflection, his purple irises cutting into his soul as he came to terms with what he needed to do that day. He had bathed himself before his long day ahead of him, washing off his body paint in the process.

Now, in gym shorts in the bathroom, he stared at his reflection to steel his nerves.

Knuckles turned and picked up the body paint he had purchased with Amy's help. She said it wouldn't flake and come off with just water, so it was perfect for Knuckles to use when going up against a giant being of that element.

Doing the painting himself was lengthy, and he ended up using the entire container of paint, but he eventually finished his markings- the rings on his dreads, the gem shard on his head, the line on his eyebrow, and finally the crescent-shaped marking across his chest. His hands were covered in the paint when he was finished, but that was intentional.

After a minute to dry, Knuckles put on his shirt, covering the white marking on his red chest with the black marking across the white shirt in the same spot.

He took another moment, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes to calm himself. Knuckles wouldn't admit it to anyone else, but to himself he knew that today was going to be terrifying. Either he managed to help Sonic stop Chaos, or the entire world as they knew it would be consumed by an uncontrollable flood.

This is what he had trained for. He sacrificed sleep and personal relationships in order to become the guardian of the Master Emerald, and now he was fulfilling his destiny.

Perhaps fear of what would happen after Chaos was imprisoned scared him. He would still want to guard the Master Emerald, sure, but his duty was to stop Chaos. If Chaos was put away forever… who was Knuckles after the god was finally put away?

A knock at the door interrupted his train of thought.

"Knuckles?" Tails' voice was muffled by the wooden door.

After a moment, and another glance to himself, the echidna opened up the door to properly greet his fox friend. The teenager was there with hands in his pockets, giving off the aura alone that he was incredibly anxious about the day ahead of them himself.

"What's up?" Knuckles asked, using lingo he heard Sonic say, seeing how it felt on his tongue.

"GUN's getting in contact. I think they have updates about what happened this morning."

"Right."

Knuckles shuffled out of the bathroom and past Tails, letting the fox follow him out. They both passed by the den (and Amy still meditating on the couch) to reach the kitchen, where Sonic was still on the phone. The hedgehog saw his friends, holding up a finger to tell them to wait for a second.

"One." The echidna said, nodding sagely.

Sonic looked bewildered, before physically restraining himself to keep from laughing.

"Mm… Y-Yeah, of course. Yes, Commander Tower. We'll meet Rouge and Topaz at the extraction point. Good luck." The hedgehog said, voice wavering from trying not to laugh. After that, he ended the call, slipping his phone into his pocket, glancing at Knuckles. "I was saying I needed one minute to answer the call, Knux."

"Oh. That makes sense." Knuckles replied. "I suppose I'm just on edge about Chaos."

"No worries. That was Tower, if you couldn't tell- that invasion of robots on Angel Island early this morning has been traced back to a fleet of aircrafts headed directly towards Station Square. It's northwest from here, a few cities over."

"Any updates on Angel Island? Is Moss and the others alright?"

"They're fine, Knux. They said the robots were trying to take the Master Emerald shards away from them, but the guardians destroyed them all before they could be taken away."

Knuckles slowly nodded. Tails brought out the Miles Electric, tapping on the tablet.

"From the replication sim I constructed, we only need fifteen shards left, making a grand total of one-hundred-and-thirty shards that made up the Master Emerald." He said, showing Sonic and Knuckles the emulated gem. "Once those are together, then what?"

"They can only be placed together if we get the Chaos Emeralds away from Chaos. In his weakened form, then Tikal should be able to pull Chaos back into the Master Emerald." Knuckles answered. "The Master Emerald should restore itself naturally when the god's spirit has returned to it."

"Well, we still only have about two Chaos Emeralds. Three if Neo Metal manages to find that missing one." Sonic added. "I don't think Ivo has any… the other four are all inside of Chaos. As long as we have our three, I think Chaos-4 shouldn't be too much of a threat for the six of us."

"You're giving Topaz way too much credit."

"She's a high-level government agent, Tails. Plus she kicked butt back when we first faced off against Chaos-1, didn't she? Besides, you're acting like we don't need all the help we can get here."

Tails shrugged a bit at Sonic's reply, putting away his tablet.

"Who does the fleet belong to?" Knuckles asked.

"Ivo."

Amy was up from the couch, grasping her purse strap as she walked over to join the boys in the kitchen. Her meditation was over, and from the looks of it, she didn't find anything useful.

"Good guess, Amy."

"It's not a guess, GUN literally told me." Sonic said to Knuckles. "Ivo's sending a fleet to Station Square to find the remaining Chaos Emeralds. There's a ton of different ships making up his fleet- I guess he's been working on it since I beat him up on the Holy Summit."

"Shouldn't we be focusing on Chaos?"

"If Ivo gets the other Chaos Emeralds, it's game over for all of us." Tails interjected. "Besides, from the looks of it, his main fleet carrier ship is emitting chaos energy too. I think he may have Master Emerald shards of his own in there- maybe the remaining fifteen we need."

"We have to head to the extraction point within the hour. They're set to head out towards the fleet at approximately…" Amy checked her phone. "Seven-hundred hours. That's all I got while I was meditating… no I'm not bitter about it."

"Ugh, why did we have to get up so earlyyyy?" Sonic groaned.

"Ivo sent those robots to Angel Island at like, five in the morning. He's not wasting time, neither are we."

"Yeah, whatever." Sonic sighed, strolling over to the front door. He did a little spin, grabbing the doorknob while his back was to the door. "How do I look? Do you think it would be alright to die in this? Everything looking good?"

"Sonic!"

"Dude, come on!"

Amy and Tails' reactions made Sonic wave his hand flippantly.

"I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. I use humor to cope."

With that, Sonic opened the door to let everyone out, but instead unintentionally opened the door to present the young rabbit that was waiting there, her fist up at the door as if she was getting ready to knock.

"Oh! Hey guys!" Cream said. Cheese peeked out from behind the rabbit's head.

"Cream? Oh, shoot…" Amy ran her hand over her face. "Right, Big couldn't tutor you today because he was going to take Froggy to the vet… ugh. I'm sorry, Cream, we're in the middle of something right about now."

"Oh! Is it an adventure?" The rabbit perked up. "Cool! I knew I brought along my magic flute for a reason!"

"Cream, this is a much more dangerous adventure. It's against Chaos, Ivo, and a whole slew of robots and aircrafts."

"I've fought against Metal Sonic and Chaos with you guys before! C'mon, you haven't left me behind so far! I wanna come along!"

"I just don't know how your mom would feel about it…"

"She'll be fine. Besides, you guys always save the day. What's the worst that could happen?"

"The world becomes flooded and millions of innocent lives drown." Knuckles replied, almost in a deadpan. He gently slid past Cream and walked down the hall to the elevator.

"...You know, I don't really talk to Knuckles much, but he seems really cool." The rabbit spoke.

"She can come, Amy. We should be fine."

"Sonic…"

"We'll be fine! Everything's fine." The hedgehog didn't sound too sure. "You can come, Cream. Like I said, we're going to need all the help we can get here."

"Yay! Let's go!"

Cream skipped away to join Knuckles at the elevator, Cheese following suit. Sonic let Tails and Amy out next, closing the door behind him and locking the door. He paused after doing so, looking up at the "734-A" on the front door longingly, as if trying to lock it in to remember.

He put his keys in his jacket and went to join his friends.

---

The transport helicopter picked up Team Sonic (& Knuckles) at the edge of the city. The inside was big enough to accommodate the five of them, as well as Rouge and Topaz, the pair already in the helicopter when the group was allowed inside.

Approximately two hours away from reaching the fleet, the group had intermingled with one another to pass the time. Rouge seemed much more open to speaking with the others then she was before, even to Amy. Topaz mostly stayed to herself, holding a tablet in her lap.

Amy didn't talk much, receiving a phone call part way through the flight over to the fleet. She answered it, leaning away from the others to speak. The phone call wasn't long, but it was obvious who she was talking to by the end.

"No… No, mom, you don't have to make tarot readings for me and my friends…" The pink hedgehog said. "Yes, I'm wearing the bracelet… is that how you figured out what was going on? Really? Yeah, I didn't know that… I'll call you when it's done, okay? I promise… alright. I love you too, mom. Bye."

She hung up, slipping her cell phone back into her purse before switching her bag to its hammer form, setting it to the side.

"Your mom called you in the middle of a mission?" Rouge asked.

"She's psychic, of course she did. She got a bad vibe about today so she wanted to give me a call and talk for a moment."

"Mmhm. How has she been?"

"Eh, she's been alright. Sonic and I went to one of her shows the other weekend when it came by. It was nice seeing her, even if she can still be a bit anxious about everything going on."

"Right."

"If you're all done with pleasantries, ladies, we still have a briefing to get to." Topaz said. "I'm particularly surprised to see that we're being joined by another teenager and a chao this time around…"

"Hi secret agent Topaz!" Cream said with a little wave. Cheese copied his owner and greeted Topaz with a wave. After a moment, the blonde waved back, face unchanging.

She tapped the tablet in her hands, standing up so she could be seen by the other six in the back of the helicopter without them having to turn too much.

"Behold," Topaz deadpanned, turning the tablet around. "The voice of gods."

Onscreen, through a video call, Commander Tower could be seen. It was obvious the camera was set up at his desk, as his head and upper half could only be seen by the group through the call. Much like Topaz, the Commander's face was set in heavy-browed neutrality. You'd think someone with heterochromia would be more interesting.

"For those of you who don't know me, I am Commander Abraham Tower. I direct and lead the forces of the Guardian Units of Nations." Tower began. "While I would usually have my associate Agent Topaz providing the pre-mission briefing, the threat posed by Dr. Ivo Robotnik takes the priority of high-level operations."

He paused for a moment, his eyes squinting as he looked at something on his screen.

"...is that a rabbit and a chao?"

"Hi!" Cream waved with a smile. Cheese waved as well.

"Commander Tower?"

"Right." Tower nodded, brought back on track by Topaz. "You're approaching what has been identified internally as the 'Robotnik Fleet'. Ivo Robotnik has been secretly constructing a large army of ships to invade Station Square, hoping to force the mayor into handing the city over to him. We believe it follows the same schematics as ships we have uncovered from the bunker of the late Dr. Julian Robotnik decades prior."

The screen changed, showing a blueprint of a few different ships.

"Robotnik has taken the liberty of changing the design of the ships to match a theme, and from the comms we've intercepted, he refers to them as such- the smaller, two-man ships are the Koi. The much larger, cannon-riddled ships are the Makos. The longer blue ships are the Sawfish. Finally, the largest ship is simply referred to as the Flagship- Ivo's personal headquarters that controls the fleet as well as the robots he's made for them."

The blueprints disappeared, Tower's face coming back on screen.

"Sure are a lot of battle ships…" Sonic grumbled.

"Why's he need so many?"

"Maybe he just had a lot of time on his hands." Cream said to Amy.

"He really went overboard." Knuckles grunted, arms crossed.

"So what's the game plan?" The blue hedgehog asked. "You fly us over the Flagship, we beat up Ivo, we get the Master Emerald shards back and call it a day?"

"Unfortunately, Sonic, it's not that simple." Topaz answered. "Ivo spared no expense making the ships, but unfortunately has to cut costs in terms of energy preservation. The Flagship is able to run on solar power, but the other ships were apparently launched with haste." The image on the tablet screen changed to a drawn image of a Sawfish ship connected to a bunch of Mako ships with lines. "The purpose of the Sawfish ships are to act as flying batteries, connected to the Mako ships through electric cables- with the Makos acting as charging stations for the Koi. If we get rid of the Sawfish…"

"Then the entire fleet comes crumbling down."

Topaz tapped her nose to tell Sonic he was correct.

"What about that stingray looking one?" Cream asked.

"The mantas were primarily used for transport. We believe Ivo only made about two of them." Rouge said to the rabbit.

"There are four Sawfish in the fleet, and the six of you are headed out to take care of them." The agent continued. "I'll be waiting on standby just in case you all need some form of extraction."

"What about the Master Emerald shards?" Knuckles asked.

"We detected chaos energy up in the Flagship- Ivo must have the pieces you're looking for. Once you take care of the Sawfish, you can do whatever you want involving Ivo. I have to warn you though, nothing is connected to the Flagship, you'll have to find your own way up there."

"We'll figure something out." Sonic said, nodding a bit.

"Topaz, we're approaching the fleet." The pilot up front said, looking over her shoulder.

"Right. Thanks, Molly." Topaz nodded.

"Agent Alba will pass out your communication earbuds- keep them in just in case something goes awry." Tower's head appeared one more time. "Bring down the fleet. GUN will handle the recovery of the fleet ships before they possibly do any harm to anyone nearby, even though the area below you is nothing but fields. Keep in mind, everyone in the United Federation is counting on you."

After he was done, Tower ended the call. Topaz tossed the tablet aside to look out the windshield. Rouge came by with a small EVA case that had ten earbuds in it, her five companions taking one each. Cheese tried to take one, but Cream gently put it back while shaking her head.

Once Rouge put her own earbud in, she placed the case aside to watch the rapidly approaching fleet alongside Topaz. The others sat in silence, more or less just waiting to be told they can leave.

"So who's going with who?" Cream asked.

"Right… Right. Hm." Sonic hummed. "Uh… Guys and girls. Amy, Cream and Cheese, you're with Rouge. Tails, Knuckles and I will head through the fleet, take out two of the Sawfish, and make our way back to the Flagship in the back… somehow."

"I got an idea for that." Tails replied. With a gesture of his hand, his Vulcan Cannon appeared on his arm.

"You're sure we'll be able to get the Master Emerald shards back?" Knuckles asked Sonic.

"Of course, Knux! We'll head straight there after the second Sawfish is taken care of. Don't worry about it, I know how much that emerald means to you."

"...thanks, Sonic."

"Hey man, what're best friends for?"

Knuckles smiled a bit at that, arms crossing again as he waited for them to reach the fleet.

"Where's your emeralds at?" Rouge asked, looking back at the team.

"One's still in the Tornado II, which is currently at Angel Island being guarded by the guardians." Tails answered. "The other one, the gray one, is in Amy's purse!"

"Her purse? You brought it with you?" Topaz interjected.

"It's in safe hands, girlfriend, don't worry about it." Rouge answered, to the surprise of the group. "The only time that doctor would get near the Chaos Emerald in there is when she knocks some sense into Robotnik."

The blonde huffed a bit in reply, but didn't question it any longer. Rouge's eyes met Amy's for a moment, before the bat turned around to continue looking out the front windshield.

"Now approaching the front end of the fleet." The pilot, Molly, said. "I can head right to the first… Sawfish… oh no."

"Molly?"

"Agent Topaz, the helicopter won't move. I think someone's controlling it."

The radio at the front started sizzling with static, the radio automatically changing to a different frequency at the furthest end, before a voice slowly became audible through the white noise.

"You fools must all have a death wish?"

Ivo. The others stood up at the sound of the doctor's voice.

"I hate to keep you all waiting, then. Witness these invincible battleships, built by the hands of a genius! It's power… unmatched throughout the universe!"

Hovering still over a Mako ship, the cannons set up on top of the ship all turned towards the transport helicopter. A single one loaded a missile in it, as only one was necessary to take out a small vessel like that one.

"Molly?"

"I'm trying, Topaz." The pilot said, jiggling the yoke.

"Alright people, c'mon, let's get out there!" Rouge yelled, walking away. She directed the boys to the other end of the helicopter as she pulled Amy and Cream to stand at the doors facing the cannon that was getting ready to fire.

Sonic and Amy looked back at one another, nodding. Sonic grinned a bit after and gave her a two-finger salute.

"Catch you on the flip side."

Amy's stomach dropped.

The doors on either side of the helicopter opened, and the two teams dropped from it towards the Mako ship below. As they did, the cannon launched the missile inside of it, headed to the transport helicopter with Topaz still inside of it.

Rouge faced herself towards the cannon, the back of her throat glowing purple before she unleashed a sonic shriek, shockwaves of purple energy hitting the missile and the cannon. The missile froze, only halfway out of the cannon, before exploding and destroying it.

Up above, after another minute, the pilot finally got control of the helicopter. It turned back and retreated, leaving the two teams on their mission. Cream grabbed Amy, who grabbed Rouge's arm, allowing the rabbit to float them down. Cheese helped out a bit too, holding onto Cream's scarf for extra aerial assistance.

With the wind spirits assisting him, Knuckles felt the air between his dreads slow his descent. He looked towards Sonic and Tails in the air, offering his fists to the pair. In similar positions, Sonic touched Knuckles' hand- the fox came in last, touching his cannon to Knuckles' hand and the other hand against Sonic.

The wind spirits passed through Sonic's quills and Tails' fur, the three connected through their triangle dive that allowed them all to slow down. Once they were a few feet above the top of the Mako ship, Tails grabbed Sonic's wrist, spinning his tails to pull the others around and properly land on their feet.

Sonic landed on his feet ahead of the other two, dusting his jacket sleeves off.

"Alright 'Eggman'," He said. "Let's get this party started."

Team Sonic (& Knuckles) ran forwards. As they did, Sonic spotted the ladies further away- Cream led them to one of the large gray-and-yellow cables connecting the Sawfish to the other ships. Cream let go, letting both her and the others grind along the cables like they were railing on their feet.

Sonic felt a tad jealous he didn't think of that initially.

"Team Sonic and Rose, come in."

"It's Team Sonic & Knuckles, actually." The echidna interjected.

Topaz sighed loudly through the comms.

"Team Sonic & Knuckles and Team Rose, come in."

"We're both here, Topaz." Rouge replied. "Did you get away?"

"We're down below you, out of range from anything Robotnik can throw at us. Take out the Sawfish and tell us once you're finished so we can pick you all up."

Sonic boosted forwards, the force of his speed making one of Ivo's robots- a rotund red-orange android, called a "Pawn"- fly backwards. As the blue hedgehog made it to the back half of the Mako ship, the flying robot smashed into the back wall, getting blown to bits.

It gained the attention of more of Ivo's pawns, a quartet of them making up the back of the Mako ship. Sonic slid in, sweeping the legs under the pawn at the front to make it slam onto its face. The hedgehog pushed up off the ground, using the momentum to get back to his feet. Face-to-face with the pawn at the back of the group, Sonic kicked the android's side, knocking it around.

The pawn swiped at Sonic, making him duck. Looking past his leg, he spotted the pawn behind him getting back up after being knocked down. With super-fast thinking, Sonic launched forwards, homing in on the pawn in front of him and bouncing off, flipping through the air to reposition himself. Mentally locking onto the pawn behind him, Sonic boosted forwards in a homing attack, crashing through the android in a spin dash that tore the robot apart.

One of the cannons to the side of that area began turning, taking aim towards Sonic to fire a missile to him. The cannon's aim was interrupted by a sight that caused it to falter- the cannon directly across from it, on the other side of Sonic and the robots, began to lift upwards. Knuckles became seen by the aiming cannon as he picked up the one on his side- it didn't matter anyway, as the echidna threw the giant cannon in his hands at the other one, causing both to explode in a blaze of glory.

When a pawn attempted to swipe at Knuckles, he merely grabbed the arm before it could hit him. Knuckles swung the pawn over his shoulder like he was discarding a soda can, throwing the android over the edge of the ship to its doom.

One more pawn- the last in the quartet- began to head Sonic's way. A dummy ring hit the side of its head, knocking it away from its target.

Tails activated the ring tether from his hand cannon, whipping the dummy ring around and smacking it into the pawn's midsection, leaving a fair sized dent in it. The fox swung the tether again and again, smashing the ring end into it like the end of a flail, beating the android back and away from his companion.

"Tails!"

From nearby, Sonic was calling to Tails for assistance- the other pawn had grabbed Sonic from behind, locking him in a bear hug that kept him from touching the ground. Tails flung the ring tether at Sonic, allowing the hedgehog to grab onto the dummy ring at the end.

The fox swung Sonic around, bringing the pawn connected to him along too, smashing the bot into the pawn that Tails had beat the brakes off of. Tails' robot flew off the edge, the fox swinging his friend and the robot back around and deactivating the tether once they were over solid ground again.

The pawn let go of Sonic, bouncing across the ground along with the hedgehog. As it started to get up, Tails charged up an energy shot, and fired a golden ball of energy into the robot that made it explode instantly.

Knuckles was nearby, getting Sonic to his feet. Joined by Tails soon after, the three looked up at the various cables connecting the Mako ship to the Sawfish. There was a section in the middle of each cable that had a large platform, connected to two giant turbines keeping it afloat in the air.

"How do we get to the main ship?" Knuckles asked.

"The same way the girls got to theirs! Let's grind, people!"

Sonic's excitement was hard to find annoying. He rushed forwards, followed closely by Tails and Knuckles, reaching the spot where the cable met the back of the ship. The three bolted off the side, each landing on the cable and sliding across it with the hard plastic on their special, Soap-brand shoes.

They slid down the dip in the cable, gaining enough momentum to head up the slope of the other side of the cable. Because of this, they were flung upwards into the air in front of the floating platform- however, they neglected to notice a cannon that was set up on the platform for this very reason.

"Uh oh." Sonic said. "I don't think I have enough energy to hit it from here!"

"Don't look at me! The Vulcan Cannon can't do anything from here!" Tails said to Sonic.

The cannon loaded a round to fire at the heroes, still in the air. Knuckles got an idea, looking at Sonic.

"Sonic, I need to hit you as a ball."

"What?"

"It'll work, trust me! Just go into a spindash."

As they began their descent, Sonic did as asked. Knuckles smacked Sonic out of the air like he was spiking a volleyball, sending the hedgehog rocketing towards the cannon at powerful speeds. He crashed into the cannon right through the opening, tearing through it and destroying it instantly.

Tails grabbed onto Knuckles' arms and continued their flight towards the cannon. Sonic burst through the top with a boost upwards, flipping through the air before being grabbed by Knuckles. They reached the other side of the platform together.

"Nice thinking, Knuckles! What gave you that idea?" Tails asked.

"I remembered that thundershoot thing you two do. I thought I'd do something similar."

"That was definitely not a thundershoot thing, dude. You just dunked me like a freakin' basketball into that cannon!" Sonic said, his voice bubbling with adrenaline-laced laughter. "That was awesome! Let's do that again sometime!"

"Hey, if he gets to do it, I want to do it too!" Tails added in, amused as well.

Knuckles just smiled and nodded, clearly happy with the way this had played out. They all looked up at the cable, connected to the side of one of the Sawfish ships. The top half was made of glass, colored blue to match with the blue metal of the ship.

"...you think if we got up to that glass, you could dunk me into that glass and break it?"

After thinking for a moment, the echidna grinned at Sonic and nodded at him.

"How are we gonna get up there, Sonic?"

"Ring tether." The hedgehog fired a finger gun at Tails.

"I don't know if you could make enough momentum from the tether for us to share."

"Maybe not me, but we luckily have a super-strong echidna here who could probably be flung into the cable and pull us all along for the ride!"

"Hmmm…"

"There's no harm in trying." Knuckles added. "We could literally die if we don't get moving. It's the best chance we've got."

"Well… alright, yeah. Might as well."

Handing Knuckles a connected dummy ring, the echidna walked back and pulled on the tether- not as strong as he could, but certainly stronger than Sonic. Speaking of, the hedgehog held onto Tails to keep the fox from getting flung somewhere else, using their combined strength to tug against Knuckles' power.

"Hold!" Tails said.

"I am!"

"I'm saying it's a strong tether! You can go when you want, Knuckles!"

The echidna looked at the cable, and how steep the curve of the railing was. This was stuff he's never done before, and he wouldn't be caught dead doing this kind of stuff just a few months ago. It was so bizarre to be in this spot.

In the distance, he could barely hear a voice- a whisper, a murmur, of two spirits speaking.

"Look at him. Placing himself in dangerous situations for a scenario that never should've happened. Where is the last warrior of the Knuckles Tribe?"

"He is here." Tikal whispered back. "His friends and family have evolved him past that. If not for them, he would never be here, and would never be able to carry out his duty. The change you criticize has made him a more efficient warrior."

Enough of the small talk in his ears. Knuckles took a deep breath, only having taken a second to hear what those spirits have said, before lifting up his feet and allowing himself to be flung forwards and over the edge.

Not letting go of the ring, Sonic and Tails were brought along with him as Knuckles landed on the cable, sliding along it on his sneakers and making up the curve with ease from the momentum. As the cable curved off and into the ship, Knuckles continued upwards into the air, pulling Sonic and Tails up with him.

Sonic boosted upwards, curling into a ball and rising up in front of Knuckles. It was lined up nearly perfectly, looking into the tinted glass to a platform that led right back into the engines of the ship.

Bringing his free hand back, Knuckles smacked Sonic downwards again. The hedgehog shattered the glass and slammed down into the platform, bouncing off and crashing into a pawn that was standing guard. The other pawn nearby immediately took notice.

Knuckles became acutely aware he was beginning to fall. Tails flew upwards, using the ring tether to pull the echidna along the air and into the Sawfish. The fox whipped his arm around, tossing Knuckles towards the other pawn in the area.

Letting go of the tether, Knuckles fell into the pawn, crushing it under his body without having to form any kind of attack. Sonic picked up Knuckles this time, helping him to his feet as Tails joined them.

The engine room was just ahead.

"How are we gonna do this?"

"I think if we just smash the main console, the entire engine will malfunction." Sonic said to Knuckles. "That's how it works for a lot of Ivo's inventions. They explode very easily."

"Right… Should I smack you into it again?"

"I got it this time."

Sonic charged up a spin dash, launching forwards and into the engine room, crashing into the main console and destroying it. Tails and Knuckles caught up with him soon after, entering the engine room in time to experience a full-on meltdown.

The entire top half of the Sawfish exploded from the force of the energy systems in the bottom decks being destroyed. The force of the explosion spared the boys, but instead launched them through the air and away from the Sawfish, leading them further backwards and closer to the flagship.

There was nothing below them for a solid minute or two, before they came across another system of cables connecting Mako ships to their Sawfish. The three landed on the cable one after the other, grinding it down towards a Mako ship.

"One down!" Sonic yelled, as his team headed towards another set to destroy.

---

On the top deck of another Sawfish across the sky, a few pawns were defending the engine room, alongside one or two drones that had been set up to keep watch. Ivo didn't have a lot of robots and drones to spare, so he had to spread them out across the Fleet… by the time he got to the front of it he barely had any good ones to use.

They all stood around and waited for any signs of trouble- however, the group they were informed about was on the other side of the Fleet. They really didn't have anything to worry about unless that helicopter showed up again.

A pawn scanned the area directly ahead of him for any signs of possible life that would put a hamper on Robotnik's plans. It found nothing.

Across the air, a drone buzzed around that pawn, before moving away to circle around the other pawns- there were three more in the area, in total four. Guarding the engine room was a serious job, and it felt that the entire gaggle of robots had it under control at that moment.

Two fingers tapped the pawn's arm. The rotund robot turned around slowly to meet whoever was trying to get its attention.

Rouge wiggled her fingers with a smile.

"Hey sailor." She said.

Before the pawn could properly reply, the bat straight kicked directly into the body of the robot, forcing out the battery core through the pawn's back, letting it clang and bounce against the floor. Rouge slipped her leg out and let the robot fall to its back, taken down with ease.

None of the robots could notice, but there were dents and holes leading up the side of the platform in front of the engine room, then up the side of the area, a path that ended abruptly as Rouge had used her legs to climb up the wall, and glided over behind the pawn to execute her stealth attack.

Two of the pawns turned their heads- both were holding rocket launchers in one hand. As they aimed towards Rouge, they neglected to notice the figure rising behind them. Amy was dropped by the still flying Cream, swinging her hammer and knocking one pawn into the other. The rocket launchers bounced across the ground, away from their owners.

Both of the drones turned to face the attackers. One was rammed into by Cheese, who punched directly into the goggles-like interface that held cameras in it. The brave chao kept beating on the flying drone as hard as he could, making it fly randomly and crash into the ground.

Nearby, Cream stopped flying to drop on top of the other drone, letting it fly wildly to get her off, to no avail. The rabbit wrapped her hand in her scarf to bust the glass on top of the drone, immediately reaching in to fiddle with wires inside.

"The red wire connected to the… blue wire. The green wire connected to the… gray wire." Cream mumbled as she messed with the drone, singing to the tune about an old diddy about bones.

As one of the knocked over pawns attempted to get up, Rouge stepped down on its arm to keep it on the ground, before punting the body of the robot, sending it tumbling away without one of its appendages.

The remaining untouched pawn swung a lance down towards Rouge- that was its respective weapon. Before it could hit the bat, Amy blocked the hit with her hammer, letting the lance smack the pole of Amy's weapon. The hedgehog kicked the pawn away, eyeing Rouge afterwards- the agent nodded her thanks.

The pawn that was knocked over swiped at Rouge, forcing her to duck. She was on her own this time, as Amy was dealing with the lance pawn behind the bat. Rouge swung her patagium at the robot, forcing it backwards to daze it for a moment.

Rouge opened her mouth and shrieked, the soundwaves tearing the robot apart in the air and landing in pieces yards back from its original position. When she was done, the bat touched her neck, winded from using her powers in excess during this mission- using it too much made her feel like she had the wind knocked from her lungs.

Amy shoved her pawn back with a jab from the top of her hammer. It was hard to swing it effectively when there was a robot only an inch or two away. The pawn attempted to thrust its lance towards her, but it was rerouted as the pink hedgehog swung her hammer down, knocking the weapon away, but not hitting it out of her adversary's hand.

The hammer was low to the ground, one end facing Rouge as the bat turned to see what her companion was doing now. Making a decision in the moment, Rouge kicked the end of Amy's hammer, sending it swiftly swinging upwards and into the rotund body of the lance pawn, interrupting another attempt at an attack.

After regaining herself from her hammer moving without her help, Amy looked at Rouge when the bat stepped up beside her. Rouge gave Amy a shrug, silently saying she was trying to help, and didn't really know what else to do at that moment.

Rouge noticed that the lance pawn took that second where the girls were distracted to lunge forwards with his lance. The bat shoved Amy away, reaching her foot out and letting it hook underneath Amy's hammer's head, both ladies leaning backwards and only staying upright because of the bat's foot holding onto the hammer. The pawn's lance obviously had missed, having thrust it forward perfectly between the women as they leaned away.

Now stuck on one foot, Rouge couldn't do much. Amy, on both feet, pulled her hammer back and around, bringing the bat along with it. Amy swung the hammer towards the pawn after a full spin, allowing Rouge to use the momentum to kick the robot away.

With a bat-free hammer, Amy twisted the handle, expanding the hammerhead and making the pole longer. One of the things she had discovered when experimenting with this "long hammer" mode her mother had shown her is that the hammer's head became incredibly springy when in this form.

Amy ran forwards and slammed the hammer onto the ground, letting the force of the hit and the expanded hammerhead send her flipping upwards. She had done stuff like this before, but it was nothing compared to doing it with her hammer in this mode.

Falling downwards towards the pawn, Amy let momentum carry her hammer down and crush the robot with a single swing down. The floor practically shook with the force of Amy's slam, and once the dust had settled, she twisted her handle again to bring her hammer back to normal.

The final pawn, even with one arm, managed to grab onto one of the fallen rocket launchers. It aimed it towards Amy while the hedgehog was distracted from her fight- before it could fire, however, a different rocket was fired towards the robot, making it explode.

That got Amy and Rouge's attention. They followed the trail of smoke back to Cream, the young rabbit sitting atop a docile drone hovering idly in the air, with Cheese peeking out from behind her arm. Cream looked down at the rocket launcher in her hands, and promptly tossed it away after.

"Only one rocket in it. Mr. Dr. Robotnik really didn't spare any expense." She said, sounding fairly disappointed. With a tap on her robot's head and a point, Cream directed the drone over towards the other ladies, with Cheese following closely behind.

"Cream, how did you…?"

"My mom showed me how to direct computer systems with artificial intelligence into only working at half capacity, so they just follow directions." Cream replied to Amy. "It's how she got a lot of the Omochao she built to follow her instructions, instead of just constantly spouting repetitive advice."

"Ivo uses the same computer programming as Vanilla?"

"He did start stealing her stuff." Amy said to Rouge. "Besides, I'm sure towards the end, he cared less about quality and more about quantity. I mean, look at all the ships in the fleet."

"Right, right." The bat nodded slowly. "How are we getting rid of the Sawfish?"

"It's Ivo. Blow up the main console and everything else is set to blow up too."

"I can make my drone do that!" Cream pat the flying robot's head. "...does that mean I have to fly you all to the next ship again?"

"Maybe."

"Aw man… I hope there are more cables to grind on. That was fun!"

Cream hopped off of the drone, patting its side before pointing over towards the opening leading right to the central console of the engine room. The drone reacted accordingly, slowly turning and flying away to attack the engine room.

The ladies watched as the drone crashed into the console again, and again, smashing everything on it.

"…makes you feel kinda bad for it." Rouge stated.

"Nah, they run on simple processing systems." Cream replied. "It's not like they have a conscience. They just have a single command- to destroy any intruder."

"I keep forgetting your mom is an engineer."

"It's easy to forget, I'm not really obsessed with technology and inventing like Tails is." The young rabbit waved her hand. "I still like helping check his blueprints for errors though."

The drone continued to slam into the console- eventually, after smashing itself to near-destruction, it ended with one last slam into the console, laying there in the nook it created right in the center of it. A high-pitched whine came out from the back of the drone, directly from the malfunctioning engine.

After a second, the robot exploded, destroying the main console, creating a chain reaction of explosions across the entire engine room, which quickly spread fire to the battery stations and thrusters on the underbelly of the Swordfish.

As the ground rumbled below them, the sound of rotors could just barely be heard by the ladies. On the outside of the glass, a trio of pawns raised up into the air to hover beside the floating Sawfish. They all had spinning propellers sticking upwards above their body, extending upwards from their back to keep them in the air like living helicopters.

"Uuuh… guys?" Cream looked at the others. Cheese grabbed onto her dress to stay close to his owner, wiggling as the floor continued to rock.

"Cream, now would be a good time to get ready to fly."

"Fly and dodge those guys?! Amy, are you—"

The Sawfish exploded, the blast forcing the ladies upwards and into the air. As the glass shattered and metal bent, a large shard of glass flew towards one of the heli-pawns, impaling it and knocking out its power system immediately. One of the beams supporting the glass twisted backwards, snapping part of the top off and flinging it towards the other pawns.

One of the heli-pawns got out of the way, but the other was knocked out, the propeller detaching and flying away as the pawn was sent hurtling towards the planet, pinned down by the metal beam from the Sawfish.

Because the remaining heli-pawn was able to get out of the way, it flew right in the path of the women being flung through the air. Cream slammed into the robot, grabbing onto its arms to stay against it, her chao latching onto her scarf again.

Amy was right behind her, slamming into the robot's side. The hedgehog grabbed onto the heli-pawn's leg as she fell down for support, rocked only by Rouge slamming into the pawn next. The bat tumbled down after her collision, and Amy stuck out her hammer to catch her.

The bat caught her foot on the hammer, much like she did onboard the Sawfish, hanging downwards like… well, a bat.

With the propellers still spinning quickly, the heli-pawn started flying off as it thrashed to make the group let go of her. It flew further and further away from the Sawfish, through the fleet and different cables connecting all the ships together.

As the robot thrashed, swinging the Mobians through the air, Cream struggled to keep her grip on the arms of the pawn. Cheese kept his grip on her scarf, though, flapping around in the wind wildly.

"Cream!" Amy yelled. "Can you rewire this robot?"

"I'm a tad preoccupied at the moment!"

At the mercy of the rampaging flying robot, the three didn't notice the look of determination hit Cheese's face. The chao crawled up the scarf of his owner, holding on as best as he could, eventually reaching her dress and starting to climb down there.

Passing by a Mako ship, the cannons on the end detected the Mobians nearby. They all turned around to aim at the heli-pawn and the three hanging onto it, taking aim and firing at them. The rounds luckily missed all of them, though Rouge did cover herself with her patagium to block off anything that could hit her, only furthering her appropriate bat-like appearance.

Cheese got down to the robot's side, crawling down towards where Amy was. The pink hedgehog had gloves on (still needed as her psychic powers were so volatile) so Cheese had to grab onto her hand in order to get down further.

"Cheese?" Amy spoke when she noticed the chao.

The chao raised his arm and slammed the end of it down onto Amy's bare arm, pressing down on her quills. Almost immediately, Cheese's arm shifted to a rosy color, spreading down his body and making him change color all over. His head shifted, with spines extending out the back of his head, as well as a few protruding over his eyes, mimicking the design of the pink hedgehog's quills.

Anticipating that the pawn was going to carry the three women in front of them, the cannons of another Mako ship turned around and took aim directly towards Cream, who was still struggling against the robot.

Though she was covered by her wings, Rouge caught sight of the cannons taking aim. She hooked her other foot on the hammer and spread her wings out above her head, before flapping downwards as hard as she could.

Since she was still upside-down, the powerful flap of her wings pulled the robot downwards, bringing the other Mobians clinging onto him along with them. The rounds fired by the cannon whizzed past the pawn's propellers, and by the time they re-aligned to aim at the flying group, the ladies were out of their sight.

However, due to the sudden pull downwards, the weak grip that Cheese already had on the robot was immediately broken. The Amy-ified chao, though staying still in midair, was suddenly near Cream as the robot was pulled downwards.

Seeing her chao in danger, Cream immediately let go of one of the robot's arms to grab onto the Amy'd Cheese, catching him before they got seperated. With an arm free, the pawn brought it back to swipe at Cream.

Cream brought Cheese back around in time to block the punch- borrowing Amy's strength, the chao caught the punch with both of his nubs, and tore the robot's arm off with a swift yank, tossing it away.

Due to the force of the yank, the rabbit scrambled forwards to get a better grip on the robot with her other hand, still holding Cheese. Letting go of the robot's other arm, the pawn reacted accordingly, grabbing Cream by the back of her neck and starting to pull her off.

Amy spotted the altercation above. She gave a glance downwards at Rouge, the bat meeting her eyes and nodding firmly, getting a vibe at what was going to happen next.

With a swing back for momentum, Amy swung her hammer upwards with all the might she could muster in one arm. The bat spread her wings out and pushed herself forwards with a powerful flap of her patagium, lifting herself upwards. Pulling her feet away from the hammer, Rouge kicked one of her legs upwards with the momentum she was gaining.

Her leg sliced half of the robot's arm off, saving Cream from being tossed away. Disconnected from anything anchoring her to the robot, Rouge felt herself fall before she was narrowly saved by something grabbing onto her arm- it was Cheese. Cream had managed to swing her arm around and let her chao grab onto the agent's wrist.

With a sharp pull, Cream pulled Rouge up next to her on the robot, letting them continue their ride on the flying pawn. The android started beeping loudly, clearly in distress from losing both of its arms in the matter of minutes.

"Cream?"

"I'm thinking…" The rabbit said to Amy. She spotted the hole left behind from when Cheese tore off the pawn's arm, getting an idea from that. "Cheese, copy me and switch its wiring!"

"Chao?"

"It's fine, Cheese. It's like being back with that giant robot before we met Blaze!"

"This is your second time doing this? Ivo really needs a new schtick." Rouge commented.

Cheese moved forwards to give Cream a hug, his body changing to the caramel color of the rabbit's fur within a matter of moments, copying the intelligence and abilities of the young rabbit. Cream passed the chao over to Rouge, who brought the chao over to the arm hole.

They were stuck clinging to the robot, a bit awkwardly, for a few moments as Cheese crawled inside and started fiddling with the wires inside. The three weren't sure about how long it would take, especially since they didn't know how long Cheese could keep up his copy ability.

After a few moments, there was the sound of sizzling, the propellers slowing for only an instance as it seemed that the robot was booting up again. The beeping stopped completely, and the heli-pawn stopped right in its tracks, hovering idly in midair.

Cheese squeezed his head out of the arm opening again, his body turning back to its old turquoise color slowly as he did. Rouge pulled out the chao from the robot body, passing him to Cream.

After putting Cheese on her scarf to hang on, it was just in time for two Koi ships to rocket past on either side of the pawn.

The rabbit slapped the face of the pawn before pointing over to a slowly approaching Sawfish.

"Head towards the big ship!"

Rewired to follow instruction, the heli-pawn tilted over to fly towards the front end of the Sawfish ship. Behind them, the two Koi ships that had soared past them were both turning around, starting to fire at the pawn and the Mobians attached to it.

They were soaring towards the end of the Sawfish almost like a falling meteor, the Koi ships getting closer, but far enough away so that they could only shoot missiles at them.

"We probably don't have much longer until one of those things hits us!" Rouge said.

"You think we should jump?"

"We don't really have a choice." Amy said to Cream. "Go!"

All at once, the three ditched their ride, letting it soar through the air for a moment before it was grazed by one of the missiles, knocking the robot completely off course and sending it twirling away, still carried by its propeller.

With one hand holding her hammer, Amy's other hand was grabbed by Cream, who flapped her ears quickly to fly them the rest of the way towards the Sawfish. Rouge could handle herself, spreading her wings out and gliding close behind.

Though landing hard, they managed to land on the Sawfish regardless. When his owner was on her feet, Cheese let go of her scarf, his emotion ball turning into a swirl to indicate how dizzy he was.

"I know, Cheese. I'm all dizzy too." The rabbit said.

With a loud whoosh above them, the Koi ships soared past the Sawfish ship. They didn't turn around, so it seemed that they had better things to do or something.

Their eyes trailed away from the sky, looking at the heli-pawn that they discarded. Still knocked off course by the missile, the robot spun through the air like a not-so-graceful ballerina with a propeller, narrowly missing a passing Koi but reaching another Sawfish ship- the only other remaining one in the area- and crashing into the spot where the cable connected it to the Makos around it.

The yellow and gray cable was disconnected, slowly falling downwards and severing the path from the Mako ships on that side to its leader.

"Oh boy." Rouge commented.

From where they stood on the Sawfish ship, just out of sight of the cannons, the girls could see that the cable was connected to another one of the floating battery stations- unfortunately for them, the boys were on that station, and witnessed the cable falling in the middle of a fight.

"Oh crap." Amy grumbled. "Should we do something?"

"We're like, three miles away with a deadly drop between us. What can we do?"

"Oh! I can do something!" Cream said, raising her hand.

She reached into the pocket of her dress, right in front of her stomach, and pulled out that special wooden flute that Blaze gave her, holding it in the air with a giant smile.

Rouge nudged Amy and gestured towards the rabbit. The pink hedgehog waved her off, as if telling her to give it a chance.

Cream put the flute up to her lips, focusing directly on the area where the cable used to be, in front of the boys across the way. She gently blew into the flute, causing it to start to glow white with the Power of the Stars. She moved her fingers to play the three notes that were transcribed on the back of it: E-B-G.

Her ears and scarf flapped from the energy that rippled from the flute, as she focused on transporting something in from another dimension. It was really a coin toss if she got what she wanted or not, but she was getting better at willing the flute into doing what she wants. It felt that the Power of the Stars connected to her on a biological level, influencing what was transported in depending on what she was thinking… sometimes.

In front of their eyes, rings appeared in the same spot the cable was, even following the curve upwards towards the edge of the Sawfish, towards the glass covering the area where the engine room would be.

After she finished, Cream brought the flute down, dimming it down until it was no longer glowing. She slipped it into her dress pocket again.

"Cream, that was great!" Amy said.

"Not really. I was trying to make a set of stairs."

"Oh! Well, you win some, you lose some. C'mon, let's take out this last ship."

---

"Woo! Let's blast through with sonic speed!"

Holding onto Tails and Knuckles' arms, Sonic zipped from ring to ring at light speed, flung upwards into the air from the momentum of his dash. The rings came out of nowhere- well, so did the robot that destroyed the cable they were planning to grind on.

The team flew high into the air, above the glass covering their next area. Tails took the opportunity to grab Sonic's arms, getting above him to control their descent with his tails spinning behind him.

Knuckles grabbed onto Sonic's legs, brought down with them as Tails carried them downwards towards the top of the glass.

"How are we gonna break through?"

"We could always use thundershoot."

"Knuckles is still attached to me, buddy."

"I can glide!" The echidna spoke up. "Unless you want to do it to me!"

"I don't know if I can do it from here, Knux." Tails replied.

"Awww…"

"If you all are sure, I won't complain. I love thundershoot." Sonic grinned.

Tails looked down at Knuckles, the pair nodding at each other. Knuckles let go of Sonic, feeling the wind catch on his dreads and push him along through the air with ease. Tails put both feet on Sonic's back, pushing off of them with full strength, flipping but catching himself when he was right-side up again.

Sonic was launched downwards like a meteor, spin dashing in a ball of blue, covered in yellow electricity. He crashed into the glass, slowing himself enough to land on his feet on the platform directly in front of the engine room.

Knuckles glided by Tails, the fox grabbing onto him to carry him downwards next.

The area Sonic was in was very… empty. There weren't any pawns around him.

The blue hedgehog took a step or two, carefully gauging the area for any hidden pawns or traps that may be waiting to strike. He heard Tails' tails whirring above him as the teenager continued to carry Knuckles down to join him.

As if to answer Sonic's suspicions, a pink-colored laser blasted from the floor, creating a decent sized hole in it that made the hedgehog stumble back in shock. A red-and-gold hand rose up from the hole, pulling the rest of the android with it. It was a floating android, one with a shield that matched its color scheme on its left arm. It aimed it's free hand at Sonic, starting up another pink colored laser.

Sonic zipped away, dodging it and rushing the android. The hedgehog boosted towards the robot, attempting to ram into it, but only rammed into the robot's shield. As he pressed against the shield, Sonic could see "E-2000" written on it. Clearly that was its name, but Sonic had to wonder: why did inventors always put a something-thousand at the end of inventions to sound smarter?

With a swing of the shield, the robot flung Sonic away from him. The hedgehog landed on his feet, but the momentum was enough to make him fall down to his back, sliding away slightly.

Before the E-2000 could aim another laser towards Sonic, the sound of yelling suddenly came from above. Covered in yellow electricity from a thundershoot, Knuckles came crashing down fist-first into E-2000. The robot somehow survived, only knocked to the ground and laying still as the yellow electricity continued to sizzle across it.

Knuckles picked himself off the ground, punching one of his fists into his other hand as if to warm himself up again, before he rushed the E-2000. The robot got over the electricity fast, transforming itself into a more compact, flying version of itself. It rocketed out of the way of Knuckles punching downwards, creating a dent in the metal platform.

A ring tether hung down in front of Sonic as the hedgehog watched the scene unfold nearby. Sonic gladly took it, pulled to his feet by Tails, the fox hovering down next to him soon after. They both watched the E-2000 unfold itself into its human form again, in time to block another punch from Knuckles. It was enough to dent the shield slightly- and it seemed that the echidna wasn't even trying.

"I have to hand it to him, Ivo really outdid himself this time."

"Don't give him too much credit." Sonic replied to the fox. "He essentially just recreated Iron Man. I'm surprised he wasn't slapped with a cease and desist before this fleet hit the skies."

There was a loud yell, turning Sonic and Tails' attention away to find where it was coming from- they looked in time to see Knuckles flung away from the robot, the red echidna crashing into both of them and knocking the trio down to the ground.

With some groans from the sudden collapse, the three got up to their feet- Knuckles was up first, pulling his friends up to their feet by their collars.

"I nearly had him! Just caught me off balance…" The echidna grumbled.

"I don't think we're gonna be able to beat him one-on-one."

Sonic trailed over to stand between Tails and Knuckles, the three still watching the robot, letting it float idly and stare down the team where they stood.

"We should probably think more tactically about this." Tails continued. "That shield seems to be immune to most of our attacks. If we get it out of the way, we can harm the robot underneath."

"What about the laser?" Sonic asked.

"Just dodge it? You're fast, we're fast, it shouldn't be too hard."

"I can pry that shield out of the way." Knuckles said. "I just need a good grip on it…"

"Just focus on trying to get it out of the way, not tearing it off." Sonic replied. "He doesn't have any more blunt weapons except that- if we force him to attack with it, we'll have an opening."

"Any ideas, Sonic?"

"Both of you fling me at the robot head-on. After I get a blow on him, you two start attacking on either side. We'll figure something out from there."

"That thundershoot seemed to short-circuit him too." Tails added. "We could always try that out again if things get tricky."

"Right." Sonic paused. "...it's a bit weird how it's just staring at us right now."

"It's one of Ivo's robots. You know how brooding he's become now, I'd be surprised if it didn't stare us down." The fox waved his hand.

As if the robot could hear them, the E-2000 aimed its cannon arm at the trio and readied a laser. Sonic, still holding onto the ring tether, tugged on it gently to signal Tails. The hedgehog moved back, letting Tails be his anchor as he made the tether tense. Knuckles grabbed onto Tails' arm to keep him steady, letting Sonic use the full extent of his strength.

The tether soon whipped around, sending Sonic flying through the air at high speeds, the hedgehog curling into a ball. E-2000 canceled the laser fire, swinging his shield around to block Sonic's attack. He knocked Sonic away with the shield, leaving his midsection open to attack.

Without having to be told what to do, Knuckles rushed forwards and leapt upwards, spiking Sonic down like he did much earlier, sending the hedgehog back into the robot to slam into the exposed part of E-2000. The robot fell backwards, Sonic bouncing away from the force of the hit.

E-2000's body flipped backwards, transforming into its drone form to escape from any follow up attack. Tails was hot on its trail, ending the tether and firing a barrage of energy balls at the drone. A few hit the drone, causing the E-2000 to falter but attempt to fire back.

Underneath the drone, Knuckles flew upwards from the force of an uppercut, slamming into the underside of the E-2000. The robot quickly turned back into his normal form, firing his charged up laser towards Knuckles, who just barely managed to dodge it by falling backwards.

Still in the air, Tails fired out a dummy ring from his Vulcan Cannon, letting it hit the E-2000 in the face. Knuckles sat up in time to grab the ring while it bounced towards him, looking at it in amazement that he managed to catch it on the rebound.

The E-2000 lifted his shield to smash onto Knuckles- Tails activated the ring tether in time to pull Knuckles away, dragging the echidna across the ground and next to the fox. Tails pulled the tether up, helping Knuckles to get to his feet.

"Whoa… cool."

"You're surprisingly light for someone who hits like a freight train!" Tails replied.

"I'd kill to get one of those… though I don't know anyone who would use it with me."

Their attention was pulled by another laser finishing its charging. Knuckles looked at Tails.

"Can I swing you around this time?" He asked.

"Uh… okay."

Tails let out a sound of surprise at Knuckles suddenly whipping him around with the ring tether. The echidna guardian swung the tether over his head once, like a cowboy swinging his lasso (the look would be complete if he hadn't left his hat at home) before whipping it forwards to direct Tails towards the E-2000.

Using a split second to regain himself in time to see where he was headed, Tails brought his legs up during the swing towards the cannon, and used both feet to kick it away. Electricity sizzled across the robot from the spot Tails kicked him, and though the laser was fired, it wasn't anywhere near Knuckles or Tails.

Knuckles caught Tails when he came back with a hand, grabbing the back of his jacket's collar to hold him up. The teenager was woozy from the sudden swinging, putting his free hand to his head.

"You alright, buddy?" Knuckles asked.

"Whoaaa, my head's spinning…" Tails shook his head. "Wait, have I said that before?"

"Why are you asking me?"

As the E-2000 fired his laser, the robot spun and started blasting the wall and floor, unable to stop his spin or laser from continuing to fire. From the engine room, Sonic slid under the laser beam to evade it, finally back into the fray.

He paused for a moment, before turning back to look at the engine room behind him. An idea came to his head, making him physically perk up as he thought about it.

Sonic whistled loudly at the robot. The E-2000 was dazed, but turned to look at Sonic regardless, another laser charging up without him even bringing attention to it.

The blue hedgehog straightened his jacket, smoothing out the front after.

"C'mon, step it up!" He yelled. "I'm getting bored here!"

He got down in a runner's stance for only a moment, rushing forwards at superspeeds towards the robot. It was enough to goad the E-2000 into firing his laser directly towards Sonic- the hedgehog was fast enough to drop down and slide under the beam, headed between the E-2000's legs and getting behind him.

The laser, as predicted by Sonic, hit the wide-open engine room. The central console exploded, causing a rumbling below them as the entire Sawfish ship started exploding beneath them.

Knuckles came in quickly, grabbing E-2000's shield and pulling it. The robot's other arm was grabbed on by the ring tether, both Knuckles and Tails pulling in either direction and restraining the E-2000, his arms staying outstretched.

"Sonic!" Tails shouted.

It was easy to guess what was next. Sonic charged up a spindash, grinding against the metal floor as he spun in a small ball at increasing speeds. With a boost forwards, he was launched into the air like a cannonball, slamming into the E-2000's back.

Knuckles and Tails let go in time for the robot to be launched forwards and into the engine room. A massive explosion came from there, destroying the adversary and jumpstarting the destruction of the warship, with more powerful rumbling coming from below.

"I think that's the last of our half! Now we just gotta get to Ivo's flagship." The hedgehog said, clapping the dust from his hands.

"That's what I wanted to bring up." Knuckles replied. "His flagship is a really long flight away from here. Are we going to hold hands and glide over there like we did getting here?"

"Uh… wow, that's a good question. Tails, can you fly us over there?"

"No. But I got us a ride." Tails was tapping on his Miles Electric.

"Casual, but cryptic! I love when you do that."

Beneath them, the rumbling grew stronger before everything began to explode. Like before, the boys were launched into the air, through the shattering glass and away from the crumbling warship- however, this time, they weren't headed towards anything but the world thousands of feet below them.

Tails tucked his tablet back into his backpack as they fell, finished with what he was doing. There was the roar of an engine, before a plane zipped by under them, catching all three heroes before they could fall further to the ground.

Sonic and Knuckles were latching onto the wings of the Tornado II, as Tails climbed over and sat down in the pilot's seat. He pulled his goggles down over his eyes, letting them smack against his face as he did.

"Holy crap!" Sonic said. "I hope you know what you're doing!"

"You bet! Watch this!" Tails pressed a button on the console. "Transforming, now!"

From the sides of the Tornado II, two robotic limbs with claws on them extended out and grabbed onto Sonic and Knuckles, picking them both up and holding them away from the plane.

The Tornado II transformed, the second seat disappearing completely as it became more compact. The wings separated to make an X-formation, getting rid of any spot for Sonic and Knuckles to hang onto.

After finishing its transformation, Sonic and Knuckles were set back down onto the back of the plane. Sonic stayed on the spot right behind Tails' seat, while Knuckles moved down, grabbing onto the landing gear that was extended out- apparently it wasn't retractable.

"Maybe I should rethink my membership into this team." Knuckles stated.

"What? Really?"

"Yeah. I mean, if this is what it's like to be your best friend, I dunno if I want this to happen all the time. I can only be freaked out so much."

Sonic scoffed and rolled his eyes at that.

"Best friends." The negative spirit of Chaos rumbled in Knuckles' ear. "Distractions from a greater goal. Foregoing interpersonal relationships is the key to becoming the superior warrior."

"Remain steadfast, Knuckles." Tikal spoke in his other ear. "The negative side of Chaos is only trying to compel you into darkness. Choose with your heart, and you'll never be wrong."

"Stop talking to me. There's already too much going on." Knuckles grumbled.

"What?" Tails asked.

"Nothing."

They flew towards the flagship, which was facing directly at them. Two Koi ships passed them overhead, roaring past the Tornado II from above but making it clear that they were about to turn back.

Both ships started firing at the Tornado II, rounds of energy raining down on the plane, making Sonic duck slightly and cover his head with a hand. Knuckles pressed himself closer to the side of the landing gear in order to avoid getting hit as well.

Tails pressed a button in the cockpit, making what appeared to be a joystick flip up from the arm of the seat. At the front, two small cannons came down from the bottom, extruding out enough so they could fire without hitting the propeller at the front.

The purple emerald at the front of the ship shimmered, the plane gathering excess energy to fuel the cannons. They fired purple energy in return, lasers locking onto the Koi ships that directed the energy rounds where to go. The purple rounds shot out, but followed the Koi ships as they passed overhead.

After a moment, they heard the small explosion of the ships being destroyed from the rounds.

Far ahead of them, the front mast of the flagship started opening up. Two panels from the front separated, shaped in a way that almost made an eye that peered out from the front of the Fleet Carrier.

"Oh boy. Keep a grip on the plane!" Tails said.

The center of the "eye" glowed brightly with blue energy, creating a swirling formation as it seemed to gather energy or air from the space in front of it. More Koi ships passed overhead, firing down on the team as they continued to fly.

From the sound of the eye's charging, Tails could tell when whatever it was charging up to would be released. He jerked the plane's yoke to the side, leaning the plane to the side and getting out of the direction of the flagship.

With a loud warping noise, a giant blue laser fired from the front of the flagship, narrowly missing the Tornado II but hitting the two Koi ships head-on. The two ships were obliterated instantly, as Tails directed the plane down to soar underneath the Carrier.

Everyone regained their grip on the plane as they flew beneath the flagship, planning on heading around back to park the plane up on top. They passed through an upside-down valley created by the design of the warship, flying in shadows.

Above them, things started glowing softly. They were little extensions, mounds of metal that were clearly add-ons for anyone who goes underneath the ship.

"Are those barnacles?" Knuckles asked.

"Probably not." Sonic replied grimly.

From the "barnacles" up above, projectiles fired downwards upon the Tornado II, flaming balls with steel spikes coming out from them. Tails had to take evasive maneuvers to get out of the way of the incoming ammunition, forcing the other two to hold onto the plane again.

"Spiked balls?!" The hedgehog yelled, incredulously.

Tails redirected the cannons with the joystick at his side, aiming at multiple targets with the sound of beeping filling the small cockpit. The cannons fired back at the barnacles, taking a few shots to cause them to explode, but taking a few out.

With all the rocking and turbulence that was going on, Sonic couldn't have picked a worse spot to stand while Tails maneuvered the plane through the sky. He held onto the back of Tails' seat as tightly as possible, trying to keep his feet very close together on the fairly small space he had on the back of the Tornado II.

"Can't you drive this thing a little smoother?" Sonic complained.

The fox reached into a small glovebox-like compartment underneath the console. He took out a thick book and handed it to Sonic without looking at him.

"You're free to look at this 'flying for dummies' manual and do it yourself, Sonic."

"...you had it in there this whole time to do that, didn't you?"

"I like being dramatic. Hold on!"

Tails jerked the controls with one hand- he put the manual away during so- turning the plane upwards and making it corkscrew in the air. The fox's warning wasn't soon enough for Sonic to properly react, causing him to lose his footing and grip on the cockpit.

Before the teenage pilot could say anything, Knuckles reached out and grabbed Sonic by the leg, swinging him over to help him get a grip on the landing gear. The hedgehog grabbed on quickly, now hanging besides the echidna.

"Thanks, Knux…" Sonic said, breathing heavily from the perilous situation.

Knuckles gave him a thumbs up.

As they came out on the top deck of the Flagship, two giant cannons flipped out from the sides of the deck, both aimed directly at the Tornado II. Sonic and Knuckles held on tightly, while Tails readjusted his grip on the yoke of the plane. His own weapons would be ineffective against those cannons, he had to find something bigger.

Both cannons fired. One grazed under the plane, while the other connected with one of the wings, damaging one of the top wings in the plane's X-form.

The plane faltered, rocking from the hit. Tails looked between the cannons, seeing that they were going to fire again- it definitely seemed that, like the other robots, they were just going to keep firing steadily until one of their shots hit the plane dead on.

Tails made the plane dip, avoiding two shots that fired directly above them. Both the hedgehog and echidna below raised upwards from the sudden dip- Knuckles let go of the landing gear, grabbing the back of Sonic's jacket and pressing him against the gear to keep him anchored with his enhanced strength.

From the looks of it, the cannons took approximately five seconds to charge and only a second to fire their rounds. They were energy blasts, not actual rounds of ammunition, so they had to charge up their shots before attempting to fire upon anyone.

He turned the plane around, throwing the thrusters into overdrive as he started flying down the deck of the Flagship again. Tails pressed the thrusters harder, further, faster, forcing his plane to push to its limits in order to fly better than it ever had before. Below, the engine that was imbibing energy from the Chaos Emerald up front began to sputter.

"You are my plane. I made you from scratch." Tails growled. "You will not stall, you will not slow down. Not even a little bit!"

Down below, Knuckles gave Sonic a glance. The hedgehog shrugged a bit.

Miles "Tails" Prower was one of the most intelligent beings in Station Square- possibly even the world. His intelligence was only rivaled by one Dr. Ivo Robotnik. However, Tails, though small and furry and however many years Ivo's junior, had something that Ivo could never possibly obtain for himself: the cleverness of a fox.

The Tornado II, built from the engine of the Tornado I before it, was hurtling itself at intensely high speeds across the top deck of the Fleet Carrier. Sure, he wasn't exactly breaking the sound barrier, but he was rocketing faster than anything he'd ever been able to reach before.

Three… two… one. In his head, Tails had counted down from five when he saw the cannons charging up to fire their next rounds. He had the mulligan of a second left, which was more than enough to place the Tornado II right between the cannons.

With a powerful (though fairly cracking, as a young man with a still developing voice) war cry from the fox in the pilot seat, he managed to break through the spot between the cannons just as they fired their rounds. The Tornado II was out of the way, but the stationary cannons were not. The energy blasts hit the cannons, causing them to explode instantly.

They were clear to land on the deck of the Flagship… if they could slow down, that is.

"Coming in hot! Brace for impact!" Tails yelled loudly, his voice fairly horse from the screaming.

Sonic and Knuckles grabbed onto the plane, staying away from the wheels as they touched the deck, immediately starting to spin and smoking as the pilot attempted to stop the plane.

The Tornado II wasn't slowing down. The Flagship was big, but they probably didn't have a lot of time to slow down before they were sent hurtling off of the edge of the deck again.

"Tails!" Sonic yelled.

"I'm trying! The brakes are barely helping!"

Knuckles looked down at the smoking wheels, then into the distance at the edge of the sky deck, which was coming dangerously closer to them with each second that went by. The smell of burning rubber was filling his nose, making him wince slightly from the putrid stench. He reached up and took off the sunglasses from the top of his head, handing them to Sonic.

"Hold these for me."

"What? Knuckles—"

It was too late, as the red echidna had climbed atop the plane. He crawled over and got to the spot in front of the opening for the cockpit, right behind the rapidly spinning propellers. He barely heard Tails shouting behind him.

With a small crouch to wind himself up, Knuckles leapt over the plane propellers and pushed himself a few yards in front of the still-moving plane.

He rolled across the ground and turned, putting his hands out in time for the plane to crash into him, his hands grabbing onto the violet Chaos Emerald that was placed in the center of the propellers. Knuckles grunted loudly from the impact, soon finding himself being pushed along the surface of the sky deck.

The echidna's specially made sneakers managed to withstand being dragged across the top deck of the Flagship, their owners exerting all of his strength to slow the entire plane down somehow.

"Shift… rock… yeah…" Knuckles growled his mantra through teeth, gritting them as he slowly started to make the plane come to a stop. "Gaia, grant me strength!"

With his tribe's mantra, the refocused chaos energy in his body fueled his muscles, assisting him in his herculean task. The power in his body, the fire in his stomach, reached a maximum heat- with his hands on the Chaos Emerald, purple energy started surrounding him, soon granting him a red aura that covered his body.

Sonic's own focusing of his energy allowed him to become an unstoppable object. With Knuckles' own variation, he was finally an immovable object… or something akin to it.

The aura of energy spared his sneakers from any more damage. Now, his feet dug into the metal and slowly started creating an imprint. Soon, his feet broke through the top of the deck, his body tearing through it and dropping into the ship below. He dragged the plane with him, though it couldn't fit through the hole.

After Knuckles disappeared through the hole he created in the deck, the plane immediately tilted downwards, threatening to flip over. Sonic felt energy crackle across his quills, moving at speeds that forced the world to slow down around him. He rushed around the plane and grabbed Tails, pulling him from the cockpit and jumping off of the Tornado II.

The hedgehog landed on the deck of the Flagship with Tails in his arms, sliding to a stop and slowly letting time get back to normal. He turned around, both him and the fox watching the plane continue to turn downwards, before coming to a standstill while standing perfectly vertical.

Sonic let Tails down on his feet, the fox pulling his goggles back to the top of his head. They both ran to the giant tear in the top of the deck, looking down into the darkness below.

"Knuckles?" Sonic yelled into it.

There was no response. Sonic and Tails looked at each other, then at the handstanding plane, then back at one another.

"...we need to get in there anyways." The fox said.

Sonic slowly nodded, agreeing. On either side of the giant tear, the pair jumped into the darkness below, quickly enveloped in shadows.

Both of their sneakers made soft thuds as they hit the floor below. It was pitch black around them, the only real light coming in a beam down from the gash they created in the deck.

Tails turned on his Vulcan Cannon, before a small click echoed around them, a beam of light like a flashlight shining out from the inside of the hand cannon. Sonic grabbed Tails' coat sleeve to stay close to him while they navigated in the darkness.

They stepped across the metal floor. Er, maybe plastic. It seemed to change with each step as they traversed further and further from the beam of light, headed down a hallway with Tails' hand light being their only guide.

As they continued to walk through the corridor, they spotted a left turn up ahead, the only other way to go. As Tails shined the light on the wall, something similar came within their view when they came closer to the turn. It was a green hexagon, with a familiar symbol in the center- the symbol for HEXAeco.

Slowly, the beam of light traveled over the wall and down to the floor, showing the mismatch of materials that made up the entire area. It was metal, plastic, various other materials that seemed to just be welded together. Part of it looked familiar- it was pieces of a roller coaster that had to be remade at Carnival Island.

Sonic and Tails glanced at each other, able to see one another from the residual light coming out of the hand cannon. Something told them this wasn't a part of the Flagship they were meant to see.

"RAAAH!"

The yell of a familiar red echidna broke the stare the duo was sharing. It sounded like a cry of effort, and it was coming from around the corner in the hallway.

Rushing forwards, they took the left to look at what they were dealing with, Tails shining the light over towards the source. There were already some bits of light in the area, only more illuminated by the flashlight.

Water sparkled, beings made of liquid standing in the hall. The only non-liquid part of them were the metal helmets at the top of their heads. As the beings turned around to see where the light was coming from, Sonic and Tails could see that three of the water beasts had tendrils wrapped around Knuckles, holding him there.

Their helmets came over their faces, with lenses colored green and shaped like Chaos' eyes. They extended out, creating the fins that were also on Chaos-0, the helmets extending to an artificial metal spine inside the beasts to keep them up. Besides that, on the front center of the metal helmet, a capsule with a green gem shard was inside, clearly providing energy to the beings.

"Knuckles!"

"Chaos?" Tails asked after Sonic's exclamation.

"It's not Chaos!" Knuckles yelled. "They're influenced by the Master Emerald shards!"

The flock of Artificial Chaos all turned to look at Sonic and Tails, the three who were holding onto Knuckles using their tendrils to fling him into one of the HEXAeco brand metal walls. The echidna crashed to the ground as the group started to focus on the duo ahead.

With a click, Tails' flashlight turned off. The green light of the Master Emerald shards in the helmets of the watery beasts were the only illumination for the heroes as a bunch of the Artificial Chaos all attacked at once.

As a bunch of them thrusted pairs of water tendrils at the duo, Sonic shoved Tails out of the way, rushing up the wall and scrambling over the group, getting a look at them. There were a lot more than anticipated, an entire brigade of Artificial Chaos making up the hallway.

They were all staring at him. Their heads turned in time to watch him, even as he was going much faster than they could keep up with.

Sonic looked down towards the ground, spotting the area where Knuckles was flung to. He boosted off of the wall, flipping around and smashing into one of the Artificial Chaos that was surrounding the echidna. The others moved backwards, giving Sonic space to get Knuckles to his feet.

The hedgehog placed the sunglasses in Knuckles' hand.

"These are yours."

"Thanks." Knuckles put them back on his head. "I followed a trail of chaos energy here in the darkness. They're harnessing the shattered soul of Chaos and extending his presence through other small bodies of water. This is bad."

"You're not the one supposed to stop a god's rampage."

From behind the group of watery creatures, Tails fired a barrage of energy balls upon a small bunch of them, disrupting them for a moment before their helmets turned around to greet their small attacker.

Tails jumped into the air to evade two of the tendrils from one of the Artificial Chaos, flying along the hallway and continuing to fire at the ones following him. The light of his energy balls partially illuminated the hallway, giving the fox an idea of just how many of these creatures were ganging up on the trio.

He stopped his tails in time to drop below two curving tendrils headed towards him. Tails dropped to the ground, aiming his cannon and firing a dummy ring from it that hit one of the Artificial Chaos' helmets, bouncing off with a cling and ricocheting further back into the hallway.

When the ring hit their helmets, the two Artificial Chaos both became disfigured for a moment, as if trying to fight to keep their forms, only regaining after a moment of visible fighting. Tails tilted his head curiously, taking note of it.

That moment of thought was enough for one of the watery beasts to grab onto Tails, picking him up and wrapping him in watery appendages, forcing his arms at his sides. The fox kicked to try and get out, watching the Artificial Chaos lurch over him, staring at him with soulless (at least partially) green eyes.

It was just water, but it was still being controlled. Tails used all his strength to force out his cannon arm, pointing it down the hallway, turning on the tether. As the dummy ring from before slid over and flew towards the Vulcan Cannon, Tails turned it off, letting the ring land in his hand.

Tails lifted the ring upwards and slammed as hard as he could onto the helmet of the Artificial Chaos, enough to crack it in half, the drive tube holding the shard of the Master Emerald cracking open. The beast dropped Tails to the ground, where the fox landed on his back, allowing him to watch the being struggle to maintain itself.

After a moment, the helmet made a small electrical explosion as it split into pieces, the body of the Artificial Chaos falling into a large puddle on the floor. The Master Emerald shard landed on the ground in the center of the puddle, rattling before coming to a stop.

Waiting a second just in case, Tails reached over and picked up the shard, noticing small strands of water trying to follow it- or perhaps pull it back to the water. The fox looked it over before slipping it into his backpack.

"The helmets! That's their weakness!"

"Way ahead of you!"

Knuckles had shouted back after already breaking apart three of the Artificial Chaos, holding the shards in one of his hands as he continued to punch his way through his adversaries. He punched out part of one of the creature's body, forcing it downwards.

The echidna put the pieces of the Master Emerald in his shorts pocket, grabbing onto the helmet of the Artificial Chaos before jumping up and grabbing the helmet of another. He brought the two helmets together, slamming them against one another and making both explode, destroying the watery beasts. Between his clasped hands were two more shards of the Master Emerald.

Before he could celebrate, a laser was shot into his back, making Knuckles fall forwards onto his hands and knees with a yell in pain. He looked behind him, seeing the quintet of Artificial Chaos looking over him with glowing green eyes.

Sonic ran in, dipping downwards and spinning across the ground with a professional-breakdancer-level hand spin, spinning on his back fast enough to create a whirlwind in the direction of the five Artificial Chaos.

They were all caught in it, mixed up and dissipated, their helmets flying to the walls and ground to smash to bits. Sonic gathered the five emerald shards quickly, handing them to Knuckles with a smile.

"We're clearing these things like they're nothing, man!"

"Right." The echidna took the shards, looking them over. "Ivo Robotnik created these things. He extended Chaos' grasp and made personal minions… are you sure your assessment that he's still good holds true?"

"I think he needs to be stopped, sure. I don't know what he's trying to prove by this, but… At this point he just needs to be stopped." Sonic replied. "I still don't think he should be- DUCK!"

Sonic and Knuckles ducked in time for a helmet to whizz over them after a hit from Tails, shattering on the wall. Knuckles picked up the emerald shard afterwards.

"...I still don't think he should be killed. From what I've once been told by my mom… he's kind of just doing whatever his dad says. He doesn't deserve to die for that."

"Like you're kinda doing what your mother told you?"

"And like how you're doing what the old members of the Knuckles Tribe told you."

The echidna's eyebrows furrowed at that. He never appeared to compare his situation with Ivo's before, thinking to himself as he stared at the emerald shards in his hand.

"Whoa! Look out!"

Sonic zipped past Knuckles, leaving the guardian to think to himself. Though Ivo Robotnik was actively trying to destroy everything, it was simply because his father had ingrained the idea inside of him. Though he deserved to be stopped and punished, his actions of evil were caused by a guiding force manipulating him…

"Don't listen to that misguided hedgehog." The negative spirit of Chaos growled in his ear. "Your duty does not concern the emotions and backstories of another. You're simply here for one thing- to assert the will of the Guardians of Chaos."

"I was once hesitant about Ivo Robotnik as well." Tikal whispered. "I have seen strife and torment inside of him… I simply believe you must allow your friends to take care of the scientist. To allow karma to find its mark, simply than bringing justice yourself. Your duty is to Chaos."

A small splash pulled Knuckles out of his trance, making him turn his head to catch one of the Artificial Chaos building up behind him. Knuckles put the shards in his pocket, before tightening a fist and uppercutting into the water monster.

Down the hall, Sonic sent a homing attack into one of the remaining Artificial Chaos- the beast was smart enough to tuck its helmet into its own body, allowing its watery form to rebound the curled up hedgehog away from it.

Sonic landed on his feet, sliding slightly but holding his ground.

While its head was inside of its body, the Artificial Chaos slowly lifted off of the ground, becoming a big ball of water floating in the air, some spare water dripping to the floor. The helmet reappeared on top, staring back down at Sonic from the air.

"...that's new." The hedgehog grumbled.

A sizzle of green electricity crackled through the watery body of the Floating Chaos, before a large drop of water broke off from its body, dropping to the ground. Sonic watched with wide eyes as the drop of water sustained itself, rippling with green energy before slowly rolling towards the hedgehog. More drops came down from the floating Artificial Chaos, forming a herd that were all coming towards Sonic.

As one of them rolled up to Sonic, he looked down at it curiously, before bringing his foot back and kicking it into the air.

Almost immediately after the kick, the blob exploded in the air in a burst of mist, with enough force to make Sonic cover his face from the blast.

When he looked again, the blobs started moving faster towards him. Energy continued to zip across the metal spine built for the Artificial Chaos, almost acting like an antenna to send out commands to the blobs on the floor.

Sonic rushed forwards, stepping off of one of the blobs quickly, letting the explosion propel him forwards, setting his sights on the floating helmet that was controlling the army of water blobs on the ground.

Some of the droplets on the ground started to leap towards Sonic in an effort to hit him as he soared through the air. Able to comprehend within a second, the hedgehog instead boosted towards the blob, homing in and bouncing off of it- each of the droplets that came into the air were smashed into by a furled hedgehog blasting into it, propelled faster towards the Artificial Chaos in the air.

With one final homing attack, Sonic crashed through the floating Artificial Chaos, blasting it to bits and grabbing the Master Emerald shard from the air as soon as it appeared in the air.

He soared down the hallway, realizing very quickly that he was flipping down a set of stairs before landing on his feet. It wasn't pretty, as Sonic immediately springboarded off his feet and fell flat on his face with a loud grunt.

Picking himself up, Sonic reached out and felt a smooth metal wall in front of him. He got to his feet, using the glowing Master Emerald shard to illuminate the strangely metal wall- it was a door, split right down the middle. Drawn on the door in sloppy wet paint was the familiar ideogram of Ivo's symbol: his smiling, mustached face.

Back down the hall, Tails corkscrewed in the air to evade the ocular laser from the remaining Artificial Chaos. The Vulcan Cannon disappeared from his hand as he flipped his body around, using both feet to kick the watery beast in its helmet. From the force of the kick, the Artificial Chaos literally bent backwards, his head flying back until his water body became an arch in the hallway.

When his head was all the way back, the Artificial Chaos got an upside-down view of Knuckles behind him. Fresh from destroying the penultimate monster, the echidna came in just in time to smash a fist down into the helmet of the bending Artificial Chaos, smashing it instantly. Knuckles picked up the leftover shard as Tails, still spinning out of control, hit the wall and fell to the ground.

The echidna picked his friend up by his arm, getting him to his feet.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah… Don't think I'll be trying that again anytime soon…" Tails grumbled, rubbing his back as he felt pain there.

He spotted the Master Emerald shards in the pockets of Knuckles' gym shorts, pulling his backpack around and opening it.

"Put them in here!"

The guardian was hesitant, but did slip his shards into the backpack with the others. He squinted at the light trails made by the shards from his view, putting on his sunglasses to ease the intensity of the shine.

"Twelve, thirteen, fourteen… fourteen!" The fox exclaimed. "That's nearly it! We just need one more and we'll have all the Master Emerald shards back!"

"Over here."

Sonic's voice echoed away. Knuckles and Tails turned to look down the hallway, just barely spotting the stairs that led downwards at the end of the corridor. The pair walked along the hall together, both keeping a hand on either wall of the stairway so they wouldn't fall. They got to the bottom, spotting Sonic standing there with the final Master Emerald shard.

Knuckles took it, before cautiously slipping it into Tails' backpack.

"Fifteen." He said.

Tails zipped up his backpack, slinging it back over his shoulders. His Vulcan Cannon came back over his hand, shining a light on the door with the Robotnik sigil on it.

"What's this lead to, Sonic?"

"I think Ivo's behind this door." The hedgehog replied, fingerless gloves running over the seal that kept the door closed. "I just don't know how we're gonna open it."

"Could it be this?"

The thing Knuckles was referencing was some kind of keypad, right beside the door. It had six hexagon buttons, glowing blue, in a V formation on the wall. There were letters in each one, spelling out "EGGMAN" on it.

"...Eggman, eh? Ivo must've leaned into that nickname."

"Or he knew we were gonna be the ones to see this." Tails added to Sonic's statement.

With a furrowed brow, Knuckles pressed the "E" button, turning it to a red color. He pressed the first "G," which turned that one red, but turned the first one back to blue. The echidna pressed the first button again, then the second "G," which then turned the first two off, and turned on the second "G," the "M" and the "A."

Knuckles slowly pressed the "N," which turned that one on, but turned off the "A." Sonic and Tails continued to watch him press different buttons, getting different combinations of red as he attempted again and again to get the correct combination.

"Of course Ivo would put a puzzle here," Tails grumbled. "Knuckles, I think the secret to it is—"

Either Knuckles wasn't listening in the first place, or simply got overwhelmed with everything going on. He fit his large hand over the keypad and forced all six buttons down with a loud snap- all six buttons turned red, and the doors split open, revealing the next room.

"...or that works!" The teenager said, giving Knuckles a thumbs up.

The next room was large, with a giant walkway that led to the very front hull of the ship. The bow end of the ship was all window, viewing the smoking, beaten fleet that was far ahead of the Flagship.

In front of the glass, the silhouette of Ivo stood, watching the destruction. The only light that came from the room was from the windows.

Tails and Knuckles both looked at Sonic, who kept staring ahead.

Slowly- uncharacteristic for Sonic- the hedgehog strolled through the front hull, closely followed by his friends. He reached Ivo, who was still facing away, but had to know they were there because of the footsteps echoing off the walls.

"Ivo." Sonic said to him. "Ivo, look at what's happening. You're losing."

Ivo didn't reply.

"You need to stop this, now."

Ivo didn't reply.

"Ivo, this isn't a game! Ivo? Ivo!"

Sonic reached forwards and grabbed onto Ivo's arm, pulling him to spin him around. The Ivo spun around, but instead of standing on his own two feet, flopped around and landed on his back in a horrifying death drop, collapsing onto his back. From what the group could see, this Ivo's face was made of plastic- the glasses were even built into the face and couldn't be removed.

The plastic Ivo's stomach opened up, and from it, on a spring, came another one of Ivo's plastic heads- much smaller, with no mouth, but bouncing around due to the spring it was attached to.

"Muahaha… Muahaha…" Ivo's voice came from the bounding head, mocking the trio.

"It's a fake!" Tails exclaimed.

"Oh, thank Chaos. I thought Sonic had a death touch." Knuckles sighed.

Suddenly, above them, multiple bright lights came on all at once. All three of them winced and covered their faces from the sudden brightness, with Knuckles even putting his sunglasses on to block it out.

A shadow came over them. Sonic looked over his shoulder.

The figure was massive, with a bulbous midsection that made up most of his size. His shoulders were spherical as well, with massive spikes that came off of them remnant of Ivo's old Big Arms nanite contraption back on the Holy Summit.

The legs were thin, stretching out to spherical feet, and the arms were the same- each digit on the orb hand opened like a barrel at the end of a gun. His head was red, with a silver mouth guard, only showing the red eyes piercing through the darkness. Two metal spikes made a sort of mohawk on this figure's head. A black cloak hung behind him.

It looked almost like a Metal Ivo Robotnik.

"You're right, Sonic." Ivo's voice came from the Metal Robotnik, sounding akin to coming through a radio. "This isn't a game."

Knuckles and Tails turned around in time for Metal Robotnik to swing his arm back, delivering a powerful backhand to each of Team Sonic (& Knuckles) that sent them backwards, into the glass of the Flagships front hull.

"I've spent the last three years of my life perfecting my father's work. It will not be undone by some kind of group of ragtag heroes led by an… an overly compassionate blue porcupine!"

With the blatant speciesism of overgeneralization between quilled mammals, Sonic had instantly regained his bearings. He pushed off of the glass of the hull, rolling into a homing attack towards Metal Robotnik with his razor-sharp quills.

The Ivo-driven robot simply outstretched his hand, catching the spinning hedgehog like a baseball player catching a ball, the force of Sonic's hit keeping him against the palm of Metal Robotnik and causing the cape behind the android to flap from the sudden blast of air that came with the stopped homing attack.

"You can't break through this polymer alloy!" Ivo said. He grabbed onto the furled hedgehog, before swinging his arm and throwing Sonic into a HEXAeco labeled wall.

"Polymer alloy? So you have to steal from HEXAeco to build a fleet, but you can afford a super-durable metallic material to make a mech suit with?" Tails inquired incredulously.

"I may resort to theft to craft a glass cannon air fleet, but splurging with my family's money to craft a mech suit of ultimate power… truly worth it."

The ball-like right hand of Metal Robotnik spun, four of the fingers coming together to form a quadruple barrel, the fifth digit being a handle for the other hand to hang onto. Bullets rapidly fired from the barrels, causing Tails and Knuckles to scatter as the bullets riddled the glass with holes- the altitude gently sucked air from the room.

Knuckles scattered on all fours for a moment before swinging a punch at Metal Robotnik. Ivo was able to turn the robot's body in time for the punch to soar by, using a hand to grab onto Knuckles' head by his face and toss him backwards, slamming the echidna into the wall.

Metal Robotnik reached behind him, grabbing onto his cloak and pulling half of it off- it was really made up of nanites, meaning it was endlessly moldable. The mech threw the nanite cloth in Knuckles' face, which instantly constricted around it, blocking his view though still allowing him to breathe between the nanites.

"Lights out, anteater."

With a powerful swing of his arm, Ivo knocked Knuckles back down the room, towards the door.

A barrage of energy balls hit Metal Robotnik in the back, making him step forwards to brace himself after the hit. Ivo's head turned around to find its target- the double-tailed fox that was aiming his cannon directly at the mech.

"Buzz off, fox boy."

Slots on the sides of Metal Robotnik's torso slid outwards, revealing a collection of missiles underneath. Four of them fired out, tracking Tails specifically. The fox quickly flew away, followed closely by the missiles as he started zipping across the room to try and evade them.

The sound of a charged up spindash made Ivo turn Metal Robotnik around. Sonic launched himself upwards, aiming another homing attack on the robot from the ground.

Those missile slots were still open, the remaining two missiles (one on each side) both firing and hitting Sonic while he was in the air. The explosion interrupted the homing attack, the loud ringing of rings leaving his body echoing out underneath the sound of the missiles blowing up in his face. He landed on one of the rings, collecting it involuntarily, but giving him strength again to try and get up.

With the index finger of his left hand, Metal Robotnik fired some substance down at Sonic's hand- it was an adhesive, which stuck it against the floor. Sonic was unable to get up, trying to pull it off his hand.

"Not this time."

Metal Robotnik grabbed the other half of his cape, using the nanites as a whip that wrapped around Sonic's ankle. The strength of the mech was enough to pull the adhesive apart, Ivo swinging Sonic around and into the wall behind him. Before the hedgehog could fall, Ivo slammed his hand into Sonic's chest, pinning him there. The nanites of the cape constricted around him and attached him to the wall.

Sonic looked into the piercing red eyes of the robot, spotting Tails still running from those four missiles in the background. Knuckles, on his back, continued to try and pull the nanite cloth from his face to see again.

"You and your friends are finished." Ivo spoke through his mech. "With the recordings I've created through that idiot Sleet's recording device, I've become able to predict each of your next steps, and your major weakness to get rid of you."

"You got that from Sleet?"

"He won't miss it. I hear he doesn't even get television time in those Tralius supermax prisons."

"You've got old info there, egghead. You don't know what we're capable of."

"Oh really? I'd like to see you surprise me."

From where he was pinned on the wall, Sonic continued to watch Tails struggle to get the missiles away from his body. He looked back into the red eyes of Metal Robotnik, feeling his hands ball into his fists under the nanites.

Sonic's body began to vibrate quickly, his spines scratching against the wall rapidly as he shook his body at extreme speeds. Blue energy flickered off his quills, charging energy inside of his body that sent a shock of adrenaline through him.

He remembered what Moss had told him- there's chaos energy in everything, he just had to make it a circuit he could travel through.

Ready?

Ivo continued to stare at him through the eyes of his mech, but Sonic could feel that the scientist was very confused at what he was seeing. The nanites started to part as the energy in Sonic's body grew more and more powerful.

Go!

The force at which Sonic pushed off the wall was enough to knock the hand holding him backwards. The hedgehog spun forwards, bouncing off of the face of Metal Robotnik, cracking the lens of the mech's digital eyes.

Attracted to somewhere else, Sonic focused specifically on the missiles that were following Tails. He reached the first one, bouncing off of it and reaching the second one before the first missile could even begin to detonate. The hedgehog bounced off of each missile at light speed, unfurling on the last missile and pushing off with both feet, tackling Tails in midair.

Everything around him continued back in normal time as Sonic and Tails landed on the ground, the hedgehog covering his buddy with his body as four explosions happened above them at once. They were clear of the blast, luckily, but Sonic had to be sure.

After the blasts ended, Sonic and Tails looked at one another, before their attention was pulled to the struggling echidna on the ground.

"Knuckles! Knuckles, hold still! Let go of your face!"

At Tails' command, Knuckles slowly let go of the nanite fabric obscuring his vision. Tails aimed the Vulcan Cannon at Knuckles, firing a single energy ball that knocked the nanites from his face, making them scatter on the ground and away from the echidna.

Knuckles touched his face to make sure it was clear, before sighing with relief.

The nanites crawled back to Metal Robotnik, reforming the cape on the robot's back. Ivo made the mech touch its crack face lens, breathing heavily through the speakers of the robot.

Metal Robotnik's right hand spun into the four-barrelled gun again, aiming towards the trio and beginning to fire upon them. Quickly, Knuckles punched into the ground, bending the floor material upwards as a blockade to cover the group from the bullets being fired at them.

Team Sonic (& Knuckles) huddled together to evade the assault.

"What're we gonna do, Sonic?" Tails asked.

"Ivo said his mech used video recordings of us to anticipate our every move. He's using the visor to guess every move we make and account for it. He's wiping the floor with us!"

"Recordings?"

"Yeah, he's seen everything we can do."

"No. Not all of us. Not us united." Knuckles said. "He may be able to anticipate one of us, but he's never fought all three of us together."

"I think Knuckles is right! His anticipation software probably only accounts for one of us at a time, that's why he got Knuckles and I out of the picture." Tails added. "If all three of us fight him together, at once, and help each other, he can't anticipate any of our attacks!"

"We fight as one." The echidna nodded in agreement.

Sonic looked between them for a moment, before grinning widely. He cracked his knuckles.

"Alright guys, let's show him just what we're made of!" He said. "Let's blast through with sonic speed!"

The bullets died down behind them. Knuckles presented his fist to the others. Sonic and Tails both pressed their palms to the fist, almost like a team huddle being broken up between a sports team.

Sonic leapt over the barricade with Tails and Knuckles, not speeding ahead for once, charging upon Metal Robotnik in a line formation.

---

GUN Agents were crawling around the Sawfish and Mako ships on the outside of the Flagship. On one of the Mako ships, two leftover Pawns were shot by a laser rifle- Agent Topaz blew the smoking end of the weapon to cool it off after the shots.

Amy, Rouge and Cream were standing around together at the edge of one of the Mako ships, watching as fighter jets belonging to GUN started to shoot down the remaining Koi fleet ships attempting to evade their attacks.

The pink hedgehog stared out towards the Fleet Carrier, clearly worried but keeping it internalized.

"You have that face going on."

She turned, looking at Rouge, the bat stepping up beside her. Amy looked back towards the Flagship longingly- from their altitude, Amy's quills and Rouge's patagium were gently floating in the air while the ship continued to idly soar in the sky.

"What face?" Amy asked, not looking at her.

"You always made a face when Sonic went running outside the compound, when we were kids." The bat replied. "Your eyebrows furrowed a little, and you'd bite your cheek a bit. You'd sit on the edge of the porch and wait for Sonic and Tails to get back."

"...things really haven't changed, have they?"

"Maybe. Maybe not…"

Rouge stood with Amy and watched the Flagship together, standing in silence for a moment. The pit in Rouge's stomach was twisting into a knot- what she had to say next could go in any direction, and she was scared about where it would go.

"Rouge is sorry for bullying you as a kid."

Cream was beside Amy, making both of the other women look at the rabbit with surprise.

"Did you just use telepathy on me?!" Rouge exclaimed.

"Uh, telempathy. Have you ever gone on superpower encyclopedia websites?"

"You want to… apologize." Amy turned to look at Rouge. "Really? That's not a trick?"

"It's not. I hate that I have to clarify that…" The bat grumbled. "Look, you've given me a lot to think about over the last few weeks. All of you, really. I guess being separated from you all for three years was easy for me because… well, I convinced myself being away from you was better for me. But really I was just running from responsibility."

"I do admit, I was kinda peeved you just dropped back into our lives like nothing happened."

"It was easier for me to pretend nothing happened than to face my mistakes. But you were right… We all have to grow up sometime. So, I'm sorry." Rouge said. "I know it doesn't mean we're besties or something, and I don't expect you to braid my hair or whatever anytime soon, but… for right now, truce?"

Rouge held her hand out for a handshake. Amy looked at the hand, then back at Rouge, before smiling and stepping towards her, ignoring the hand and giving her a hug. The bat tensed for a second before just accepting it, hugging the hedgehog back.

As soon as Rouge's hands touched the opening in Amy's halter top, the pink hedgehog felt a chill go over her. She inhaled sharply, feeling her vision darken almost immediately from the sudden contact. Her psychic powers, constantly on max power, used the skin-to-skin (er, fur-to-quill?) contact to commence a psychometric vision.

Before Amy's very eyes, she watched from afar as Angel Island dropped from the sky, before landing in the center of the very flooded Station Square.

She got a vision of herself, Cream, Rouge and Knuckles kneeling next to a bruised, beaten and unconscious Sonic, laying in the center of a green circle. Slowly, the green circle lifted Sonic into the air with green electricity crackling into his body. Sonic opened his eyes, which were completely gold.

Suddenly, darkness. Amy looked at her surroundings, trying to find anything in the vast void- an object, a symbol, any signs of life.

She soon came across somebody, facing away from her. The figure was built like Sonic, had quills like Sonic, and was blue like Sonic.

Except… maybe not. Something told Amy that the figure was shorter than Sonic, even by a bit. This person had much more quills than Sonic did to each spike, and they were incredibly unkempt- almost like the figure just rolled out of bed. Speaking of which, the quills were a much deeper shade of blue. That could've been explained by the pitch black void though.

Amy threw caution to the wind, stepping towards the figure quickly, only slowing down once she was a few feet away. She cautiously reached forwards, touching one of the figure's arms.

"Sonic?"

At the sound of her voice, the figure turned his head sharply to look at her over his shoulder. It wasn't Sonic- the quilless parts of his face were much paler, the quills were still navy blue. Most notably, however, one of his irises were red, and the other was cloudy, most likely due to the semi-faded scar that was noticeably traveling over it.

Amy broke free of her vision, pushing away from Rouge and collapsing onto her back on the deck, a cold sweat breaking on her head. She was breathing heavily from the vision, not only from it taking a lot out of her, but from the sheer intensity of it. Cream crouched down beside her, touching her arm. Cheese hid behind his owner, clearly freaked out.

"Rouge, what did you do to her? She's freaking out!"

"I don't know! I just hugged her! I know I haven't hugged anyone in a while, but jeez!"

The pink hedgehog looked back at the Flagship with wide eyes, sensing Sonic and the others were in there with Ivo, her psychic abilities still intensely heightened from the sudden vision.

She looked down at her hammer bag, spinning it around so the body of the purse was on her lap. She zipped it open, looking down into the bag to see the dimly shimmering gray emerald still inside, up against her cell phone.

Her ear flicked as she began to hear someone whisper in her ear, almost like someone was murmuring right out of earshot. They were saying her name, over and over again, and it seemed to come directly from the Chaos Emerald in her purse.

Amy zipped up the purse and flipped it into hammer mode.

"I have to… I have to help Sonic. I have to help Tails, and Knuckles, I…" She got to her feet. "I have to go. I have to go!"

"Amy?"

Cream's call went unheard as the hedgehog ran off. Her and Rouge watched Amy run across the Mako ship, full-on sprinting with the hammer in her hands towards the direction of the Flagship.

With a powerful swing downwards, Amy propelled herself into the air with her hammer, flipping through the air and towards the edge of the ship. Cream and Rouge ran forwards to try and catch her if she fell off- there was no need.

Using her powers, Amy was able to guess where one of the remaining Koi ships were going to fly by. As she reached her peak in the air, her hammer caught on one of the wings of a passing Koi ship, pulling her along through the air.

The hedgehog managed to climb up the side of the ship with all the strength in her body, getting to the glass cover of the cockpit. She grabbed the end of it and pulled it open, revealing the single Pawn inside a two-person flight deck.

Amy grabbed the robot's arm and flung him out of the ship, letting him fall to the Earth below. She jumped into the pilot's seat, pressing the button that closed the cockpit before tossing her hammer into the passenger seat.

Pushing down on the accelerator, Amy flew towards the Flagship at full speed, still hearing the soft whispers of the Chaos Emerald speaking to her through her hammer.

---

Sonic slid between the legs of Metal Robotnik to evade a downwards swing that smashed into the floor of the hull room. He had goaded Ivo into commencing the attack, wanting him distracted for just a moment to get the drop on him.

A dummy ring landed on one of the mech's head spikes as Tails finally won a ring toss game. With the ring tether on, Tails yanked downwards, forcing Ivo to lean down further in time for Knuckles to uppercut directly into his face, making him lean back again.

From behind, Sonic leapt up and springboarded off of the mech's back, forcing Metal Robotnik to lean forwards for another punch from Knuckles, shattering the lenses and getting rid of the eyes. However, the cameras behind the dark lenses were still there- just without the normal flair they once had.

Sonic and Knuckles parted in time for Tails to whip around the ring tether like a flail, smashing it against Ivo and driving him back and away with two hits. The fox swung the tether over his head before whipping it forwards, ending the tether so the ring slammed against the lens, cracking one of the cameras.

Ivo audibly growled inside the mech before aiming his gun hand at the group. Sonic sped forwards, kicking the arm out of the way before any bullets could be fired. Knuckles was right there after, punching directly into the mech's gullet hard enough to actually dent the "unbreakable" polymer.

After a second to collect himself, Ivo pointed the gun arm at the group again, but when he tried to fire, a bunch of clicking echoed through the room instead.

"Out of bullets? You're lucky, aren't you? But not lucky enough!"

While Ivo was talking, Knuckles grabbed Sonic by the collar of his jacket and the back of his pants' waistband, swinging the hedgehog around and throwing him at full strength towards the robot. Sonic curled into a spindash, the momentum helping him slam into the mech and rebounding him back across the room.

He unfolded himself in time to catch another dummy ring shot directly at him. Tails activated the ring tether, swinging Sonic down and around before launching him back at Metal Robotnik again, much faster this time, the hedgehog once again tightly curling into a ball.

Ivo put one of his robot's arms up to protect itself, but it was no use. The speed of the hedgehog was enough to cause the razor-sharp quills to shred through the polymer, cutting off the mech's right hand with a flair of sparks. Sonic's spindash slammed against Metal Robotnik, bouncing him back again.

As soon as he was on his feet, Sonic did not let up. He rushed forwards and rushed the robot, grabbing onto the handless limb as the hedgehog and mech clashed against one another.

Tails and Knuckles soon joined in as well, Ivo having to use both of the mech's arms in front of him to try and hold off the attack. The feet under him slowly started sliding across the ground as Team Sonic (& Knuckles) went into overdrive, pushing as hard as they could to try and get the mech off its feet.

Inside the mech, Ivo didn't need the prediction software to come up with the next few steps. His remaining hand was right next to Tails, and Sonic was right in front of his face.

"ENOUGH!"

With the yell of an angry scientist, Ivo slammed the head of his mech into Sonic's face in a headbutt, interrupting the rush and knocking the hedgehog back. Metal Robotnik swung both of his arms to push the others back, reaching over and grabbing Tails by the arm. Ivo tossed Tails into the ceiling, firing the adhesive above to trap the fox against the ceiling, covering his arms to secure him.

Ivo grabbed onto Knuckles' head, picking him up and throwing him into the floor onto his stomach, before slamming his foot down into the echidna's back, pinning him there.

Once Sonic regained his bearings, Ivo fired the adhesive onto his feet, trapping the blue hedgehog in that direct spot.

"You might have the fastest feet in the world, but now… you're just a normal hedgehog." The scientist said through the mech. He reached forwards and grabbed Sonic by the throat, keeping him there. "You can't beat the greatest scientific mind in the world, and you can't stop Chaos! It seems you've run out of friends, Sonic the Hedgehog!"

There was the roar of the engine outside. Sonic and Ivo both turned their heads to look through the glass of the hull, spotting the Koi ship flying full speed ahead towards the Flagship, and only half a mile away.

Amy yelled at the top of her lungs, making sure the ship was going as fast as it could as she directed the ship directly towards where she sensed Ivo was holding Sonic.

"...oh."

Ivo's quiet word was the last thing spoken before the ship shattered through the Flagship's glass, the front of the ship directly hitting the mech and running it over. Sonic was pulled from the floor, the wings of the Koi ship creating destruction enough to cause the roof to collapse, making Tails fall onto one of the wings.

From the force of the collision, Amy slammed against the console and was knocked out, slumped over the controls. This caused the ship to turn slightly, dragging across the floor and causing a cave-in for the entire room behind where the ship actually stopped. After the ship stopped, the wing facing the bow of the ship collapsed, blocking the view of the cockpit.

Due to being face-down on the floor, Knuckles miraculously found himself unscathed, with the entire ship soaring over his head. The echidna picked himself up, looking at the crash scene with wind blowing through his dreads. The hull was opened, with the room now a glorified balcony showing the outside of the Flagship.

"Sonic? Tails? Amy?" Knuckles yelled.

There was a muffled coughing somewhere.

"Knuckles?" Sonic called back.

"Sonic! Sonic, are you all okay?"

"Yeah, I'm… ugh…" Sonic coughed some more. "That did a number on me. I'm up against the glass of the cockpit. I can see Amy and her hammer, but… I'm pinned against the ship from debris."

"Where's Tails?"

"Here! I'm right here!" Tails' voice came next. "I'm stuck against the rubble of the ceiling! I can't move! I need help!"

"Hang on! I'll… I'll…"

Knuckles trailed off as he spotted the remnants of the Metal Robotnik mech. All the limbs, except the handless arm, were torn off. The center of the mech's midsection hissed, a circular hatch opened up to let the pilot out.

With a flop forwards, Ivo fell out of the mech, coughing as well from the smoke. He took off his glasses, tossing them away and letting them fall out of the hull room.

"Stupid… Hedgehogs…" The doctor growled. He stumbled up to his feet, falling again at one point but getting up while leaning against the mech.

Soon, he spotted Knuckles, his eyes narrowing.

"You." Ivo hissed. "Of course you would live through this…"

"You need to stop."

"Why? This is my family's legacy. You know something about legacy, considering you still carry on your tribe's little motto. That's right, I've read the file on Angel Island, I know all about your little clan of echidnas. But the difference between you and I, Knuckles…" Ivo turned and yanked the remaining limb off of the mech. "Is that I'm destined to get what I want."

Charging forwards, Ivo swung the limb towards Knuckles as hard as he could. The echidna simply caught the weapon in the air, using his free hand to smash against Ivo's, making him let go of the limb. Throwing the weapon away, Knuckles grabbed Ivo by his collar, holding him into the air.

"There's also a massive difference in strength." The echidna replied simply.

"Knuckles!"

Sonic and Tails' voices made Knuckles look back at the wreckage, before looking at Ivo again. It would be so easy to get rid of him, if he was truly destined to unleash Chaos upon the world. Knuckles was trained his entire life to put Chaos back in his Master Emerald, and made himself wait every day for the vessel to finally accept the soul of the god inside of him.

Now he was here, and he had the catalyst right in his hands. But his hands were the only things that could save the people he called his friends.

He felt a cold hand touch his shoulder. In his ear, a voice spoke to him.

"He is bested." Tikal said. "Allow your devotion to your personal values temper your anger."

A colder hand touched his shoulder. Knuckles could feel a cold breath on his cheek.

"This man attacked your home. He perverted the will of Chaos for his own personal need." The voice of Pachacamac spoke for the negative spirit. "Become the echidna you were always meant to be- the Fist of Chaos. Accept your heritage and strike him down… in the name of the Knuckles Tribe."

Ivo tried prying the hands from his collar desperately, kicking at the unflinching echidna.

"If you allow Ivo Robotnik to live, you will damn the world to destruction…" The negative spirit whispered. "If this man lives, you will disgrace your tribe… forever."

Knuckles had a lot to think about. He stared down Ivo for a moment or two, watching the crash from his peripherals. He heard the voices of Sonic and Tails in the back of his mind again, asking the echidna for help.

"My tribe was disgraced when Pachacamac betrayed his daughter's love." Knuckles said simply. He tossed Ivo away, letting him slam against the remains of Metal Robotnik. "I carry the Knuckles Tribe within me, for me to choose who fights beside me- and a true warrior never leaves his friends to die."

The chill left his body as both spirits of Chaos disappeared. Knuckles turned away from Ivo and walked to the wrecked ship, pulling the collapsed wing away immediately. The echidna pulled the ship away from Sonic, freeing him from being pinned against it. The hedgehog immediately opened the hatch to the Koi, pulling Amy out of the cockpit and carrying the unconscious psychic in his arms.

Knuckles pulled the adhesive off of the nearby Tails, freeing him from his restraints. The fox made sure to pull his tails apart to get the adhesive off of there, shaking his body afterwards.

"You moron… you had me down for the count!" Ivo snarled. "Are you dense?"

"Maybe so. Maybe I'm just some dumb echidna." Knuckles replied. "But I know that no matter what your next move is, you're no match for Team Sonic. Especially not us, together."

Ivo was breathing heavily, glaring as he reached into his jumpsuit and pulled out another one of his shaded glasses to put on his face- this one was the classic blue color, as it seemed he ran out of red glasses to wear.

Before the doctor could open his mouth to speak, a high-pitched whine suddenly came from behind the Mobians. Team Sonic (& Knuckles) turned around, seeing that the Koi ship was now on fire.

Slowly, while the others were distracted, Ivo climbed back into the Metal Robotnik mech.

"That's not good, I'm guessing." Knuckles said.

"Tails, what does that mean?" Sonic asked.

"It means we need to RUN!" Tails yelled.

The group all rushed to the end of the hull, stopping at the edge, looking at the world below them. There was nowhere else to go, and all the other aircrafts were too far away for them to call for help from there.

"The Tornado II!" The teenager reached for his backpack. "I can—"

Kaboom.

The world went black for Sonic for a minute or two, sent into pitch-black darkness. He felt wind on his face and ears when he slowly started coming to, immediately feeling worn out and tired as he was waking up.

His eyes creaked open, with only the color of the sky filling his sight.

With a shot of adrenaline shooting through his body, he woke up with a loud gasp as he realized what was going on. He was pushed out of the ship by the explosion, now hurtling towards the ground at intense speeds- he'd be excited about that if he wasn't going to die soon.

He looked down- they were over a forest and a large field, nobody would get hurt. Except maybe him and his friends. There was debris all around him, and as he looked around, he could see why- the explosion caused half of the Flagship to collapse, sending debris from it towards the Earth like the Mobians were.

Up above him, a couple miles away, he could see the Tornado II flipping through the air, headed downwards like them. He was pretty close- he just needed to get upwards somehow.

Sonic unleashed a boost downwards, launching himself up towards the falling plane. He reached a large piece of HEXAEco platforming- Sonic stepped onto it, using his super-fast steps to run up the side of the debris to make himself go further upwards.

He pushed off with both feet, grabbing onto another piece of debris and kicking off of that to reach the plane. He soon got to the Tornado II, grabbing onto the wing. While still falling, Sonic crawled over to the cockpit, slipping into the driver's seat.

Down further below, Tails was waking up from being knocked out too, thrashing slightly as he realized he was falling. He immediately spun his tails to fly, ignoring any fatigue for now as he scanned down below for any of his friends falling.

"Tails!" TAILS!"

"Huh?"

The fox turned around in time to see the Tornado II headed directly towards him. Tails only had enough time to put his arms up before the plane hit him, the fox hit by one of the wings and hanging onto that as they were going down.

"Sonic, help!"

Sonic knew that it would be harder for Tails to get over to the cockpit. He pressed a button on the console to try and help, but only deactivated the X-form of the plane, putting it back to normal. Tails was still holding on.

With the plane still headed downwards, Sonic began to panic a little as he tried to figure out what his next course of action was. He suddenly got an idea, and reached under the console to the little storage compartment there, pulling out the "flying for dummies" manual that the fox was keeping there.

While the hedgehog was fast on his feet, he was also incredibly fast at comprehending things as well. Sonic flipped through the pages of the book quickly, reading each page within a millisecond, with no time to lose.

A large piece of debris flipped into the way of the plane, making Tails scream in fear. Soon after, Sonic tossed the book over his shoulder after he finished, reaching over and starting up the plane. He forced the propellers to spin manually, the engine sputtering to life.

Sonic managed to pull the Tornado II out of the way of the large piece of debris. After that, he leaned over and pulled Tails into the plane, getting up to put him in the pilot's seat. Tails shakily put his goggles back over his face.

"Follow me. I'll break any debris in your way." The hedgehog said. "We need to get Knuckles and Amy back… probably her hammer."

Tails stopped the hedgehog. He reached down, retrieving a backpack that looked similar to his own- but Sonic could get that it was a parachute. Sonic put it on his back, though didn't intend to use it for himself anytime soon.

"I'll follow you down!" Tails gave him a thumbs up. Sonic nodded.

Pushing off the top of the plane, Sonic boosted downwards in a ball, breaking apart a long piece of debris to clear the way for Tails to follow him.

Heading downwards was ten times easier than going up. Sonic ran along pieces of debris, keeping in an area with little to no chance of messing up Tails' plane as he searched for his friends in the area.

A small ways away, Sonic spotted Knuckles in the air… sitting cross-legged. It was out of the way of the cleared zone where Tails could fly his plane, so Sonic had to go out of his way to get him. He made sure to point out the echidna before leaving the area, so Tails could keep an eye on him while he was over there.

He boosted away, using different pieces of debris as stepping stones as he got to Knuckles, having to grab onto him to stay close.

"Knuckles! What are you doing?"

"Concentrating." Knuckles replied calmly. "Moss has taught me that if you are calm, and collected, you can find the easiest solution to the issue at hand- like falling towards the Earth at breakneck speeds."

"I have your solution! You can glide to it from here!" Sonic made Knuckles turn his head and spot Tails in the Tornado II.

"Oh! I guess Moss was right…"

"Have you seen Amy?"

Knuckles looked down, before pointing somewhere. Sonic followed the finger, finding the pink hedgehog- still unconscious- falling freely through the air without her hammer.

"Amy…" Sonic grumbled. "Knux, can you throw me?"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! C'mon, let's get to it!"

"Just… don't die, alright?"

"Definitely won't. That's a best friend's promise."

Knuckles picked up Sonic, who started spinning in a ball quickly. The echidna spiked the hedgehog downwards, letting him break through multiple pieces of debris before he uncurled himself.

Headed downwards even faster, Sonic ran along different pieces of the destroyed Flagship to reach Amy as quickly as possible.

After jumping off a larger piece of debris, Sonic tackled Amy in midair, flipping with her. He soon got them both steady, still holding onto the other hedgehog to keep them stable.

"Amy? Amy!"

"Hmm… Sonic…" Amy stirred, waking up. "Ugh…"

"Are you okay?"

"Mmhm… I'm sorry I flew a ship into you, I… I had a vision and it made me panic…"

"It's okay, I promise. You'll have to do more than that to get rid of me, Aims."

That made the pink hedgehog smile a bit, chuckling.

"Where's your hammer?"

Amy slowly turned her head, sensing where the hammer was automatically. Sonic followed her line of sight, peering downwards and seeing the weapon flipping through the air amongst the debris.

"Ugh, more running? How could this possibly get any worse?"

There was a loud hiss above them. Sonic and Amy looked up, spotting the egg-shaped torso of Metal Robotnik flipping downwards towards them. The hissing came from the sides and front of the torso, as plates separated themselves to open up.

Ivo kicked the sides of the torso off, like a baby hatching itself from an egg, truly earning him the title of Eggman. The cape of the mech was still on him, however, and he swung his arms outwards in a silent command, making the nanite cape split into two and transform into two large bat-like wings.

A pack he had on lit up with thrusters to help him go downwards, using the wings to control the steering of his descent as he started heading towards the hammer.

"Ugh… classic Robotnik theatrics." Amy grumbled.

Sonic pulled off the parachute pack, putting it around Amy's body and making sure it was on tightly. He put his feet on Amy's chest, grabbing onto the chute string, and pushed off of the pink hedgehog when her back was to the sky, pulling the cord with him. Amy was pulled upwards by the parachute as Sonic continued his rapid descent.

Above him, Ivo was headed downwards at incredible speeds, but Sonic had the advantage of being closer to the hammer than the doctor was. The hedgehog boosted down, running quickly across the debris to head to the hammer.

He got there in no time, leaping down towards the hammer and grabbing onto its pole. Sonic actually landed on a giant part of debris, enough for him to relax for a moment- but only a moment.

Hearing a roar behind him, Sonic turned in time to see a furious Ivo only a few feet away. They crashed against one another, tumbling across the massive piece of debris and back into the air. Ivo's back thruster kept them rocketing towards the ground, the pair spinning together and holding onto the hammer to try and pry it from the other.

"Give… me… that… Chaos Emerald!" Ivo yelled.

"Fat chance!" Sonic shouted back.

As retaliation from before, Sonic headbutted Ivo in the forehead. However, it was much harder when you didn't have a mech suit protecting you, so both the hedgehog and doctor were left dazed and groaning in pain.

They both started to struggle again, pulling the hammer back and forth like they were playing tug-o-war while falling towards the Earth.

Sonic noticed they were getting dangerously close down to the ground, with the amount of trees becoming noticeable from where they were in the air. Sonic flipped himself and Ivo around, before putting his feet on the doctor's stomach.

"What are you doing?!" Ivo yelled.

With a yank upwards, Sonic pulled the hammer up, forcing Ivo to lean downwards. His wings changed the direction of their flight, redirecting the momentum they were building so they were now soaring quickly across the plains beside the forest.

Ivo let go of the hammer with one hand, pulling his fist back.

"Very late payback punch!" He yelled, before punching Sonic directly between the eyes.

The hedgehog flew off of the doctor, letting go of the hammer, landing harshly on the ground as Ivo spun out of control. Sonic was rolling across the ground and slowing down as Ivo crashed, both of them coming to a stop at around the same time.

After the crash, the area was silent for a moment or two. The field led to a nearby cliff right beside the ocean, looking out to the sea, letting anyone there to see the gentle ripples glide across the water.

Sonic's arms were shaky from the adrenaline. He did love the rush that he had, being able to drop from a fleet with no parachute, but calming down was not fun. Not fun at all.

There was a sharp pain in his leg that kept him from getting up. His leg must've been broken… it would take a while for this to get back to proper condition. Right now, Sonic wasn't able to get up to his feet.

He heard footsteps, and the sound of heavy breathing. Sonic flipped to his backside, spotting Ivo walking up to him, face red. He was holding Amy's hammer in his hands, gripping onto it tightly as he looked upon the downed hedgehog.

"Ivo… Ivo, please." Sonic held a hand out to stop him. "You don't want to do this."

"You don't know me."

"I know enough. I know you were wrongfully blamed by your father for everything. I know all you wanted was to be accepted by him for who you are- your interests, your feelings, everything. I know he just wanted to make you a miniature version of him. Ivo, if you let Chaos go, you'll do that."

"This is my family's legacy. You're saying it like releasing Chaos is a bad thing."

"It is!"

"I CAN CONTROL HIM!" Ivo yelled back, his voice shaking. "He'll listen to me because I hold so much disdain for humanity, like him. I can help him."

"I can help you. Stop this, Ivo. You're only hurting yourself, and you're putting the world in the balance." Sonic replied. "Ask not what others can do—"

"SHUT UP!"

It was silent for a moment after Ivo yelled, the birds in the nearby trees actually flying away in fright from the volume of the shout.

"That's the difference between you and I, Sonny." The doctor continued. "You were always your mother's child, just like her. You could make her proud because you could never do anything wrong. Me… everything I ever did was wrong."

Ivo lifted the hammer above his head.

"I was never good enough for my father. So now… I just won't be good at all."

Before he could swing downwards, Ivo was tackled by a red echidna. Knuckles had glided downwards and slammed into Ivo at full speeds, making the doctor slam into the ground and drop the hammer.

Up above, Amy steered her parachute downwards towards the clearing. She cut the cord to it early, only a few yards above the ground, landing beside her hammer and grabbing it immediately. She ran to Sonic after.

"Sonic! Are you okay?"

"Everything but my pride…" Sonic said wryly, rubbing his leg. "My leg is broken. I can't move."

"It's alright, it's alright. You'll be okay."

The Tornado II landed nearby, with Tails hopping out the moment it came to a stop. A GUN helicopter landed nearby- Rouge, Cream and Topaz piled out of it. All of them, including Knuckles, came together to join Amy.

Ivo wiped his face and tried to get up, but found himself looking down the barrel of a laser rifle. Topaz made sure to reload, staring at him down the sights.

"Dr. Ivo Julian Robotnik, you're under arrest by order of the Guardian Units of Nations."

The doctor grunted, a deep frown on his face.

Cream quickly hugged Amy.

"I'm so happy you're safe! From the danger—" She punched Amy's arm. "You put yourself in!"

"Ow!" Amy rubbed her arm.

"I gotta agree with Cream here." Rouge added. "Flying a ship into that Fleet Carrier wasn't the best idea… sure made for an awesome spectacle though."

The bat turned her attention to Sonic, taking a step or two to stand over him.

"You alright?"

"Leg's broken. Other than that… I think so."

Rouge nodded but smiled. After a moment she presented her hand to Sonic, allowing herself to get a low-five from the blue hedgehog.

"Are you alright, Rouge?" Knuckles asked.

"Well, Knucky, I appreciate the sentiment. I'm perfectly fine. Good form on the tackle."

"So what happens now?" Cream asked.

"We have the rest of the Master Emerald shards!" Tails replied. "We just need to get them back to Angel Island. After that, we just have to find Neo Metal and get the Chaos Emerald he retrieved. Then, we'll have three, and he'll only have four. We'll plan from there."

At the mention of Neo Metal Sonic having a Chaos Emerald, Ivo perked up, but tried to act natural when Topaz started aiming at him once again.

Amy opened her mouth to say something, but paused. She heard the voices whispering her name again, this time much louder than before. She looked at the head of her hammer, and suddenly discovered that it was glowing gray, from the inside. The cracks between the hard paneling of the hammerhead had light pouring out of it.

The others noticed immediately. Tails looked over towards the Tornado II, and saw the emerald in the front of the propellers glowing purple brightly.

"Oh no. Last time this happened…"

With a loud slam, the ground shook from under them. Everyone turned and looked at the edge of the nearby cliff- as expected, the watery hand of Chaos-4 was gripping onto the ground, pulling the rest of the fish-like water god up onto land.

The team on the land all made various, but similar, noises of surprise and shock. In the moment where Topaz was focusing on a bigger threat, Ivo quickly crawled away while everyone was distracted.

"Defend Sonic and the emeralds!" Knuckles said. "Amy, stay back with Sonic."

Holding the hammer tightly in her hands, Amy stood in front of Sonic, keeping herself between the hedgehog and the god of water.

Sensing already that the group was going to be an obstacle, Chaos-4's body rippled immediately, before ice spikes extended out from his body like he was… well, a hedgehog. Chaos-4 copied his mortal enemy, performing a spin dash and rolling directly towards the group.

Tails and Cream flew out of the way, as Rouge quickly grabbed onto Topaz and hustled her away from the path of the spinning god. Knuckles stood his ground, catching Chaos-4 and slowing him to a halt along his path.

Once Rouge got Topaz a safe distance from Chaos, the bat rushed back towards the fight. She kicked into Chaos-4, the strength of her legs knocking the god away from Knuckles and towards the side.

As Chaos-4 tumbled over to his feet, he was hit from all sides by a steady barrage of energy balls. Tails soared in the air, circling Chaos-4 and firing energy balls rapidly from his cannon. It was enough to shatter some of the ice spikes on the god's back, making Chaos-4 roar at the flying fox.

With another ripple, maybe even a shiver, some of the spikes on his back shot out towards Tails. The teenager flew through the air, dodging the ice spikes headed towards him, but didn't evade one of the spikes tearing through a strap of his backpack.

Tails fell to the ground, feeling the tear on his backpack strap. It wasn't anything major, so his backpack would survive until he could mend it back to normal.

Chaos-4 directed himself to Tails, bounding quickly towards the downed hero.

Cream dropped down in front of Tails, Cheese holding onto her dress to keep close, the rabbit retrieving her mystic flute from her dress' pocket. She quickly played the three notes she knew, making the wooden flute glow a bright white.

A trampoline, set up vertically, appeared right in front of Cream and Tails before Chaos-4 could get to them. Chaos-4 ran right into the trampoline, being sent back where he came from.

Once he was back to his feet, Topaz began firing upon the spiky beast with the laser rifle, moving in slowly to keep the assault tight and steady. Rouge came up to her right, unleashing a sonic shriek towards Chaos-4 that started shattering the ice on the god's body.

Tails was back up and rapidly firing at the god from the other side of Topaz. Knuckles didn't have projectiles of his own, so he settled on picking up rocks and throwing them at Chaos-4. Not wanting to be left out, Cream stood beside him, picking up more rocks and helping him with the all-around assault on Chaos-4.

The attack was going steady, until thrusters could be heard somewhere nearby. Topaz turned, spotting Ivo rising into the air with the hastily repaired wings of Metal Robotnik. He stared at the group, before quickly flying off into the distance.

"No!" The agent yelled.

That was enough to stop Rouge and Tails, who both looked to see what that was about.

With only rocks hitting him now, Chaos-4 lifted the front half of his body into the air and slammed down both of his arms, sending a seismic shockwave of bright blue energy in all directions. All of his attackers were sent flying backwards, taken out of the fray.

Sensing the Chaos Emerald nearby, Chaos-4 turned his head to look at Amy and Sonic. With the emerald in her hammer, Amy turned it back into a bag, swinging it around and holding it behind her back.

Chaos-4 tilted his head, before his eyes went to look at Sonic on the ground. The blue hedgehog was still down, his wound barely healed in the short time since he landed.

Amy saw that Chaos-4 was looking at Sonic, looking at the hedgehog too- by the time Amy looked back at Chaos-4, the god fired a large spike of ice towards the downed blue hedgehog.

There was a split second of decision time, and Amy was bad at making decisions. She closed her eyes, flipping her bag back into its hammer form and swinging, smacking the ice spike from the air before it could get to Sonic.

It became clear very quickly that's what Chaos wanted. Instantly, the ice turned to water, covering the hammerhead and pulling the hammer towards Chaos-4. Amy held onto the hammer as tightly as she could, standing her ground in front of Sonic.

Holding on with all her might, she could feel the water begin to seep inside of the shell of the hammer in order to get to the Chaos Emerald. Amy wasn't going to let go of this hammer, even if she had to go against the literal primordial god of water to do so.

She felt her arms tighten as she gripped onto the hammer tighter than she ever had before. Chaos-4's blank green eyes stared at Amy, no longer caring for the other enemies slowly getting up around him.

Just a little longer. I just need to hang on a little—

Amy didn't get to finish her thought. Chaos-4 successfully pulled hard enough to pull the hammerhead apart. The end of Amy's hammer exploded, leaving only the pole and remnants of the head, with Amy's phone, wallet, and the Amy doll that Bud loved falling on the ground.

The emerald was last to fall. Amy fell on her back, still holding the pole of her broken hammer.

Chaos immediately grabbed the gray emerald. Rainbow electricity crackled across the water skin of Chaos-4, now Chaos-5, with more ice growing through his body until he had two more legs, three eyes, and an extra arm on top of his body.

As Chaos-5 finished his transformation, his eyes came across the Amy doll that was laying on the ground. The being paused, staring down at the doll for a moment, as if longingly. The light in the head of Chaos-5 blinked a few times, like Bud did when he felt happy sometimes.

Suddenly, Chaos-5 shook his head, roaring loudly in defiance of the feeling. He shot out his ice-spiked tongue towards the Amy doll as if to destroy it- however, it froze in air right before it could hit it. Chaos-5 tried firing his tongue at the doll again, but it was stopping itself from harming the doll.

Chaos-5's tongue returned to his mouth, before he slowly looked up at Amy.

Amy dropped the pole of her destroyed hammer, getting up and scooping Sonic into her arms. She scattered back a bit to keep Sonic away from Chaos-5, staring at the god with almost a sense of sadness on her brow.

The being rippled again, as if steeling his nerves, before trying to jump forwards to attack. It paused in the air, before falling flat on its face on the ground.

Behind it, Knuckles and Cheese were grabbing onto Chaos-5's tail. Cheese wasn't as strong as the echidna normally, but the chao had touched the guardian's arm and mimicked his abilities- as well as the shade of red of his quills, and the dreads on his head.

Together, both Knuckles swung Chaos-5 around and away from Sonic, closer to the edge of the cliff. The rest of Sonic's friends stood with him, keeping themselves between the god and the hedgehog like Amy had done.

Chaos-5 roared angrily at the team. He looked over at the Tornado II, specifically the violet emerald in its engine, but paused. He slowly turned his head towards the distance, somewhere north, as if seeing another shine of a Chaos Emerald somewhere else.

With the choice of fighting these troublesome Mobians, or exploring other options, Chaos-5 took the latter. It scrambled backwards and slipped off the cliff, headed down into the water to locate its next target.

Once they were sure Chaos-5 was gone, everyone immediately relaxed, breathing heavily from the exercise they just did.

"Where did he go?" Cream asked.

"...Neo Metal. It must be tracking the other remaining Chaos Emerald." Rouge said. "Where is he? Did he say where he's at right now?"

"The boys told me he stopped responding to calls from GUN barely an hour into his mission." Topaz replied. "We have to track him down."

"What about Ivo?" Sonic asked from Amy's arms.

"We'll find him. GUN will." Topaz replied. "You guys focus on finding Neo Metal, we'll find Robotnik and bring him to justice."

Sonic nodded. He gently touched Amy's arm to silently tell her to let him down. Hesitantly, the psychic did so. Sonic got down on a wobbly leg, still a little tender from the wound, but definitely able to walk.

He looked down at the remains of Amy's hammer. Glancing at her, Amy was looking at the Amy doll on the ground, clearly thinking about Bud.

The blue hedgehog took one more glance at the horizon as Topaz and Rouge hurriedly called in everyone they could at GUN to track down Ivo and Neo Metal. Unknowingly, to him, the world just began a silent countdown that was quickly getting close to zero.

Two spirits, one positive and one negative, watched the scene on the cliff as if looking down at a diorama. Tikal and the negative spirit were calm, quietly studying everyone's next move.

"In the end, ultimately, Knuckles chose to uphold the true nature of his tribe- to guarantee the safety of, and support, those he finds to be his closest companions. Not a tribe of violent malevolence, but a tribe of brotherhood and guardianship." Tikal spoke softly.

"And now the world is doomed." The negative spirit, as Pachacamac, replied. "As he has not struck down the catalyst of Chaos, everything is set in motion for the arrival of his perfect form. Your guidance has doomed those you claim to love so much."

"Everything is not guaranteed, negative spirit. Fate has twisted itself in humanity's favor before, and I'm sure it will do it once again."

She held her hand out, waving it to change the scene of the diorama to focus on someone else.

"For example… though the destiny of this being is set, he will need a guiding hand in order to achieve the best possible outcome for the arrival of Chaos."

"Whatever you say, Tikal. But just know, and always remember, that when Chaos floods that city and hundreds or thousands of people are left to die… you defied my request to rid ourselves of the one thing that caused it."

The negative spirit disappeared, with Tikal saying goodbye to the visage of her father once again. She turned back to the scene ahead of her, watching intently at the android down below.

---

Aleena's old compound had seen better days.

It could be worse, to be honest. There could be hundreds of insect nests infesting the walls of the home, or termites that torn down the house that was so lovingly built, or ants that were crawling all over the building.

The strawberry fields were overgrown, practically covering the entire field beside the house, some of the vines crawling up the fence of the old compound.

It was a bright and sunny day.

Thrusters died down as metallic feet touched the front porch of the compound's house.

Neo Metal stepped up to the front door of the home, reaching up and gently feeling the wooden front door of the building. It felt… so familiar, but also… so unknown to him.

His robotic eyes scanned the door for anything he could relate it to in his head. A simple word came across his processors, a word that he spoke aloud, even if nobody was around to hear him say it.

"Home."

UP NEXT: New Genesis!