Tails' communicator crackled and burst into life. Tails heard the pounding of running feet as Knuckles yelled his name.

"H-hello? Knux?" He replied. His voice sounded horse and cracked.

"Tails! I've just spoken to Sonic. He said he used 'chaos control'!" For a moment, silence. Then Tails replied:

"He's alive?" Knuckles heard a squealing in the background, the communicator crackled loudly.

"AMY! Stop it!" Tails fumed, grabbing back his communicator. He flew out of her reach.

"Tails?" said Knuckles.

"I'm here...Amy grabbed it," the kitsune told him.

"Right...Sonic wasn't far from where the shuttle crashed when I found him. I think he broke his ankle...and he didn't look too good. He told me what to do to stop the cannon."

"Where do you think you're going?" Tails heard Shadow ask Knuckles.

"I've got company. Find Sonic!" Knuckles told Tails, grimly. Tails wanted to ask 'But what about you', but Knuckles had turned his communicator off.

"Who was that and what did they say?" Amy shrilly demanded.

"It was Knux. He said Sonic's alive, but he's hurt. We've got to find Sonic...Knux is going to stop the cannon."

"So...is he gonna be okay?" Amy asked. Tails knew she didn't mean Knuckles.

"We'll find out. C'm on," he declared, landing in the cockpit of the walker and moving it towards the door. Tails was still worried. He wanted to help Sonic, but he also wanted to help Knuckles. He didn't like to send Amy to find Sonic on her own. Though he could trust her to protect Sonic with her life, he could not trust her not to be captured by Eggman again on the way. He had no idea where the villain was, nor if he had any weaponry other than the Eggwalker. He would have to accompany her first, and hope they found Sonic quickly.

"I'm heading down a runway that leads straight past the Eclipse Cannon... Where do you think I'm going?" Knuckles told Shadow sarcastically. He swiped out with a spiked fist, thumping the black hedgehog as he pushed past. This did little more than enrage him.

"I see. And where's that blue hedgehog?" Shadow said, catching up with Knuckles and running alongside him.

"What makes you think I even know him?" Knuckles replied.

"That fake chaos emerald you're carrying," Shadow answered. Tired of the verbal battle, Knuckles struck Shadow as hard as he could with his free fist. Shadow was unprepared for the echidna's strength; he lost his footing and fell over the edge of the runway.

"Chaos Control!" Knuckles heard him yell. That meant he had a chaos emerald too, didn't it? So why was he so interested in getting this one? He saw a familiar flash of light up ahead. Shadow did not take as long to arrive as Sonic had, and attacked again instantly.

"Chaos Spear!" he yelled, holding a blue chaos emerald aloft. The gem glowed brightly.

Several sharp spikes flew towards Knuckles. He leapt; desperately trying to avoid them, but the ground shook when they struck it. Part of the runway in front of Knuckles cracked and broke away. Knuckles leapt... and just barely managed to grab the edge of the runway above, where the section he had been standing on had snapped off. He clung on with one hand, trying to pull himself back up, still grasping the fake emerald firmly with one hand. Shadow's face appeared above, when he looked over to see what had happened to the echidna. Knuckles struck him over the muzzle with the fake chaos emerald. Shadow winced, then grabbed hold of Knuckles' wrist, trying to take the emerald. Knuckles made use of the extra leverage, and finally managed to pull himself back onto the runway. With his free hand, he punched Shadow's paw, digging the spiked knuckles in deep. The hedgehog pulled free then raised his emerald for another attack.

Laser fire struck the runway. Tails had arrived, flying above in the Cyclone.

"Tails? CATCH!" Knuckles yelled, throwing the fake chaos emerald up towards him. The kitsune gasped, flipping off the Cyclone's booster jet and swerving violently, reaching out for the emerald. His outstretched paws missed, but the emerald was caught in the Cyclone's oversized feet. Tails gingerly reached down, seized the emerald then fired his jets again, dodging Shadow's attack.

"Throw it into the Cannon's barrel!" Knuckles yelled. 'Well, of course,' Tails thought, making towards the Cannon. Something grabbed Knuckles from behind.

"So you do have a real emerald after all," Shadow exclaimed. He grabbed the shrunken Master Emerald from Knuckle's backpack and tore away, back down the runway. Enraged, Knuckles charged after him, one fist pulled back prepared to deal a possibly killing punch.

"Chaos Spear!" Shadow yelled. To Knuckles' horror, he held up the shrunken Master Emerald instead of his blue one.

A streak of green lightening ripped through the surrounding space making a loud fizzing sound. Knuckles began to run. The crack, suspended in space gradually split apart, revealing a hole filled with a dazzling bright emerald green light. It was hot...Knuckles could fell it beginning to burn his shoulder blades even though he was now a considerable distance away. Of Tails, he'd lost sight.

The heat intensified as the crack blazed still wider. It had grown so large that it hung in the space between Shadow and Knuckles like a star gone supernova. When Shadow teleported away, holding his blue chaos emerald aloft he saw three immense 'chaos spears' erupting from the green sun, glowing white-hot.

Knuckles had reached the relative safety of the space station where the runway began. Daring to turn for a moment, he saw that the crack had shrunken back down to a mere line of light before it winked out completely. The source of power had been severed after Shadow's teleport, so the destruction had been cut short. The three 'chaos spears' had destroyed most of the runway, and what small fragments remained at the far end had drifted off into the endless gulf of space. Apparently, Shadow had disrupted whatever passed for gravity out there, though inside the space station, Knuckles' feet were still in firm contact with the ground. Alarms were wailing everywhere. The echidna jumped backwards when the door he had been peering out of snapped shut and sealed. Obviously some sort of safety mechanism, activated if something went wrong with the gravity outside.

Knuckles expression was grim as he headed further into the building. Placed several dozen meters above the runway, the Eclipse Cannon had avoided any damage, so far as he'd seen. He'd have to tell Sonic and Amy that he'd lost the fake chaos emerald, and if Shadow had survived, then he now had that extra chaos emerald he'd been searching for. He'd lost the Master Emerald...But worst of all, he'd lost Tails.