The dog and wolf were staring into the darkness confused when the hawk was suddenly thrown across the room, through a window and into a metal wall. They both then heard a roar and the silhouette of Knuckles stood up. They both started running for their lives. The troops all moved to where the dog and wolf were running towards. They saw them and the wolf was suddenly dragged back into the dark screaming. Zavok stared fascinated at the sight as he let the dog run past. One of the troops used his night vision and saw a metal tank damaged by something "We've got a bogey of some kind. Please advise" "That is the target! Use every tranq you've got! Do it now!" Luger ordered. The troops began searching the factory and two of them saw a barely visible Knuckles walking away. They shot him in the back, but it did nothing. Knuckles turned around to face them and ran towards them "Go live! Go live! Move!". Lugar watched on the cameras and saw two of the soldiers getting grabbed by Knuckles. Zavok switched to live ammunition and saw the two troops getting thrown into a machine.
Zavok ran up to a higher path while the other three chased after Knuckles. They fired and one of them threw a grenade in front of Knuckles as he tried to run away. The explosion allowed the soldiers to see a silhouette of Knuckles for a second before they were again in darkness. The soldiers all reloaded their weapons when they heard a faint voice "Leave me alone". They stared into the darkness when a large metal tank was suddenly pushed out towards them at high speed. Two of them were crushed immediately, a hedgehog tried to run but it was catching up. Zavok saw this from the higher grate and fired down trying to hit what was pushing the tank. The hedgehog tried to jump out of the way, but the tank hit his leg and dragged him across with the tanker as it hit the wall and exploded. The soda all splashed out covering Zavok up on the higher railing. Zavok watched and saw Knuckles walking through the factory. He followed him and when he was out in the open, he fired down on him. Knuckles covered his face and turned to look at Zavok. He ran out of ammo and quickly reloaded getting ready to fire. Knuckles stepped out of the darkness, he looked normal, but his face now looked feral, and he growled at Zavok. The zeti stared down curiously at the echidna. Knuckles then picked up a forklift like it was nothing and threw it directly at Zavok. He ran out of the way as the railing collapsed. He held onto what was left of it and saw Knuckles punch through the wall and ran out of the factory "No! No!" Luger yelled over the radio.
Zavok who was still sweating from the fight was back in Knuckles' flat with Luger. He placed the bag on the table "I knew something was different before I got the shot off. He had this on him when he bolted". Clove opened the bag and Zavok took out the picture of Julie-Su "Is that a girlfriend? She helps him, maybe?". Luger stared at the photo for a moment "She's no longer a factor. We closed that door to him a long time ago. He's alone. He wants to be alone. But see if he's been talking to anybody". He walked away but Zavok didn't move "Forgive me, sir? Doesn't anybody want to talk about what went down in there? Cause… We had him. He was running away terrified and then suddenly he hit us. My bullets bounced off his back and he threw a damn forklift like it was a softball! It was the most powerful thing I've ever seen" "Well he's gone now". Zavok sighed "You have to explain what's going on" "I don't. You've done a good job. Pack up and get our men on a plane. We're going home".
They were back on the plane heading to the UF. The other troops that were with Zavok were lying in body bags on the floor. Lugar was reading a file while Clove was checking the computer "He's tight, this one. He tapped into different wireless networks every time he went online. A different name every time as well. We can't even tell where the emails went or where they came from". Luger then read something on the file which angered him "He wants to get rid of it" "Get rid of what?" "It. Whatever is powering him. He's trying to neutralize it. Now we're on a time limit. He's already on the move".
The next morning Knuckles woke up lying on a rock right next to a waterfall. He weakly stood up feeling drained and freezing. He erratically looked around at where he was, a forest of some kind. He slowly made his way through the forest until he saw a road with a truck coming. He ran out in front of it and waved his hands "Wait. Wait!". The truck thankfully stopped, and he spoke to the ocelot driver "Pode me ajudar?". The driver spoke in Spanish "Yo no hablo portugues". It took Knuckles a second to realise he was speaking Spanish which confused him. He knew very little Spanish "Where am I? Wait, um, Dónde estoy" "Bosque verde". Knuckles didn't say anything, he somehow made it all the way to Green Forest. The driver could tell how cold Knuckles was "Me voy a la siguiente ciudad" "Me ayudarás?". The ocelot nodded and opened the door. Knuckles got it and the ocelot kindly gave him a blanket which he wrapped around himself "Gracias" "A dónde vas" "Casa".
Zavok was walking through a corridor with Luger "I've run into bad situations on shit missions before. I've seen good men go down purely because someone didn't let us know what we were walking into. I've moved on to the next one because that's what we do, right? I mean, that's the job. But this". He stopped forcing Luger to face him "This is a whole new level of weird. And I don't feel inclined to step away from it. So, if you're taking another crack at him, I want in. And, with respect, you should be looking for a team that's prepped and ready to fight, because if that thing shows up again, you're gonna have a lot of professional tough guys pissing themselves. Sir".
Knuckles was lying against a wall, he was very skinny, he had his head on his knees with his hands out. He sat their miserable when he felt something fall into his hand. He looked up and saw that a very kind rabbit child had given him a handful of rings. He happily used it to get some food to keep him going. He tried to get some sleep that night but every time he closed his eyes, he saw the soldiers shooting at him. He decided to keep moving. Knuckles thought back to the last time he had an incident. He was at Holoska, he thought he'd be far away from anyone else. He was at the top of a mountain. It was his first year with his condition. He felt like just giving up. He remembered taking out a gun and putting it in in his mouth. He didn't remember much after that; he woke up about 100 miles west after it. When he made it back to a populated settlement, he saw on the news that he apparently destroyed the mountain.
