Sonic sprinted after Knuckles, who closed in on the fiery Metal Sonic that stood proudly on top of the Master Emerald. "Chaos Control!" he cried in desperation, as he reached out to grab his friend before it was too late for them.

"CHAOS BLAST!" Metal Sonic roared, as the real Sonic began to glow a bright purple as his body was being pried away from their location. His feet began to vanish, then his legs, and body... to the naked eye, Sonic would be gone all at once, but at the speeds he could perceive, each cubic inch of his body that left the island was another inch closer to being unable to just reach out and touch Knuckles...

The tips of his fingers brushed against Knuckles' arm, and as Sonic was finally whisked away he saw Knuckles' body being ripped through space and time alongside him. Dirt and stone eclipsed the midday sun as the hedgehog and echidna fell from the sky. Directly under Angel Island wasn't exactly the most creative place Sonic could have brought them, but they were out of reach of Metal Sonic's explosion.

It took everything in Sonic's power to not cry out in pain as his body hit the water, but he managed to keep his breath as he tried to pull himself up to the surface. After five years he couldn't have taken a single swimming lesson!? Whenever Sonic ended up underwater it was like his legs just forgot how to work right! Something about trying to kick off against nothing just didn't click for Sonic, and he began panicking, kicking his legs and flailing his arms wildly. He glanced down at the pitch black depths as he sank deeper towards them, helpless to escape the cold abyss.

A pair of arms broke through his thrashing, and jerked him upwards. Sonic froze and looked up to see Knuckles carrying him up to the ocean's surface, and in only a few seconds they were able to breathe once more. Knuckles wasted no time, immediately grabbing onto Sonic's shoulders and shaking him violently. "What the hell were you thinking!? Get us back up there, that tin freak is gonna steal the Emerald!"

"Knuckles, we can't beat him! Going back is suicide!" Sonic yelled back, shoving Knuckles' hands off him.

"Maybe it doesn't mean much to you, but it's my duty to guard the Emerald and that island! It's all that's left of my people and I will not let them be disgraced! So take me-"

The echidna was silenced as the sky flashed red, and the island seemed to roar. Both tried to look up at it, but were forced to cover their eyes to guard themselves from the blinding, fiery light. When the light finally dimmed down, and the only sound they could hear was the ringing in their ears, they removed their hands from their faces and slowly peeled their eyes back open. Angel Island had been eviscerated in the Blast; only chunks of it were left on the very outer reaches of the floating continent that began to descend towards the ocean.

Only by squinting could the shape of Metal Sonic be seen, still beside the Master Emerald. It began to fly towards the docked Egg Carrier, which had drifted a few dozen yards away from the island, probably to not be caught in the explosion. Sonic lifted his Chaos Emerald up to his head and concentrated on it. There was some serious Chaos Energy being emitted from the Egg Carrier, possibly just from Zero's Chaos Emerald, but if those bastards had more... Sonic turned to Knuckles, whose mouth was hung open in a silent scream.

Cautiously, Sonic placed his hand on Knuckles' shoulder and said, "I don't think he's noticed us. We need to go after them."

"Th- The island..." Knuckles finally whispered, still mortified at the sight of his now former home crashing into the ocean around them.

"Knuckles, focus-"

"My h- home... My people's..."

"Knuckles! Listen to me!"

It took Knuckles a second to register that Sonic was still even there, but when he did his hands went right back to the hedgehog. "You bastard! We could have stopped him! Angel Island is destroyed because- because you were afraid of him!"

"Knuckles, get a hold of yourself!" Sonic snapped back, putting his hand over Knuckles' mouth. "They haven't noticed us. Yet. But if you keep screaming like that, they will. You know we couldn't have beaten him, so shut up and don't act like anything other than our bodies being in tact is my fault, okay?" Knuckles growled and slapped Sonic's hand away, but kept quiet. "Now listen, Angel Island is gone, but we can at least get the Master Emerald back, but we gotta act now. If they board that thing and take off, I don't think we can get on it."

Knuckles recoiled at the idea. "So we can't take them one on one so you want to go surround ourselves by them!?"

"What other choice do we have? This might be the only chance we get to stop them. If we teleport up there just as the Master Emerald boards, they might not notice us enter too."

Knuckles considered this plan for a moment, before glancing back up at the space his home, with the entirety of his people's history and culture on it had previously occupied. "It's crazy, but you're right. I can't let them just... They took everything from me. And they're not gonna get away with it."

"Okay, good. Get ready, I'm gonna time this as close as I can..." Sonic grabbed onto Knuckles once more and raised his Emerald. "Chaos... Control!"

The two were falling once again, this time far closer to solid ground as they landed on board the Egg Carrier. Seems no one had detected their entrance, thank Chaos. The duo darted against the towering engine nearby and took cover as they examined the craft's deck. "Knuckles, you're gonna be okay with your leg, right?" Sonic hissed, trying to spy Metal from across the enormous ship.

"I hate to say it but I don't think I can fight." Knuckles said, clutching his wounded leg. "We'll have to go slow, and stealthily."

"Ugh, slowly? You're killin' me, man."

"And my leg is killing me." Knuckles shot back, standing up and peering out from behind the engine. "Do you see him?"

"Yeah. Metal's boarding from the left side of the ship-"

"Port."

"What?"

"Left side of the ship is called the port."

Sonic turned around to face Knuckles. There was no glimmer of amusement in his expression as he stared the echidna down. "Thanks, captain, I'll keep that in mind. Metal Sonic is boarding on the port side, he's bringing the Master Emerald to the port of the ship, we should get to the port if we wanna stop him. That better?"

Knuckles shook his head and sighed. "You're such a fucking baby. And no, remember the leg, dipshit? Let's see where he takes the Emerald and follow him there."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Sonic mumbled, squinting to see what the speck that was Metal Sonic was up to. A plate on the deck began to separate, some kind of loading bay, and Metal Sonic descended into the hold. "Well there's no way we're getting in how he did. We need to find some kind of... Other passage."

Knuckles laughed and went down on all fours. "Come on Sonic, my leg is injured, I'm not dead! Now be quiet, I wanna make sure it's safe to do this here..."

"Huh?" was all Sonic said before he sealed his lips. Knuckles placed his ear to the floor and scrunched up his face as he shut his eyes.

"Hmm... This should work..." he whispered, before sitting up and driving his fist into the floor, then the other, and after a flurry of punches he began to pull up on the torn apart floor so the two could pass through the damaged deck. "Still got it!" Knuckles cheered.

"Damn, forgot about your digging! Wait, how come we couldn't dig to the Master Emerald shrine?" Sonic asked, jumping down into the ship's hull.

"What do I look like, Bugs Bunny? Trust me, with the way I dig, the tunnel would close up and we'd suffocate. But when it's a thin layer like this, there's no problem digging through things." Knuckles dove in after Sonic, and the two observed the room they'd entered. It appeared to be a storage

"Well, looks like you were right, it's empty. Outside of... a lot of spare parts." Sonic commented, lifting up the shell of a Motobug.

"Yeah, after we kick whoever's bringing Badniks back's ass, Angel Island is gonna be pretty nice and fortified, huh?" Knuckles said, examining a Swatbot head.

"Hey buddy, let's not forget how they brainwashed your precious Badniks, huh?" Sonic snapped back, spinning around.

"Yeah, nearly impervious Badniks survived long enough to hypnotize them, I'm real scared of that happening again."

"Psh, nearly impervious, at least they can kill each..."

Knuckles turned back when Sonic fell silent and stared at him. "What?" he asked, in a demanding tone.

"They can kill each other. Their weapons are strong enough to pierce their armor. Remember, the Egg-Robos?"

"Yeah... Yeah! So if we can get our hands on their weaponry-"

"- we can stand a chance against them!"

Digging through the waste proved uneventful after a few minutes, there was plenty of spare Badnik body fragments, but no serious weapons. At the very least they could pelt a Swatbot with the severed limbs of its friends?

"Well shit, I guess that plan's a bust," Sonic sighed, throwing a Caterkiller body away.

"Not necessarily," Knuckled said, brushing off an Egg Pawn's arm. "All the junk in this room is pretty dusty... If this is just the scraps, I doubt the weapons would end up here. Maybe there's another room with more weapons? After all, they're more likely to put one of those into action than a random body part, right?"

"Yeah! Of course, we'd need to find another room for that..."

"Well." Knuckles hopped over the torso of an Egg Robo and pressed his ear against the door. "We should be okay to exit the room," he whispered, waving Sonic over. The echidna slid the door open and the duo poked their heads out. Purple and green eyes swept the corridor, confirming the privacy of the two invaders. "Alright, we gotta try and find the weapons room..."

Both tiptoed cautiously through the red and yellow hallway, approaching a shutter door with an E-01 C printed on it in black, blocky letters. "Heh, nothing changes with these guys," Sonic remarked, as the door split through the center to let them through.

"What do you mean?" Knuckles asked as they passed through into the next hallway.

"Well, I just mean they marked the Egg Carrier with the same naming convention before. Further proof that Eggman is behind this, might I add!"

"That again?" Knuckles sighed, and shook his head. "Hell, at this point, maybe you're right. I don't know, man."

"How would they have built a new Egg Carrier with the same layout as the last one if it wasn't him?"

"I don't know Sonic! Maybe they found the plans to it!"

The hedgehog froze and turned back to Knuckles. "Wait, if this has the same layout..."

"What? Do you remember something?"

"I think I might know where the weapons room is.

"Seriously? That's great! How do we get there?"

Sonic's brow furrowed as he began to rub his chin. "Now I, I only think I can. I at least know the general direction one is in. One of them should be two floors down? Sector C? I just remember trashing it with Tails, when did we fight Chaos, eight, nine years ago? If we go down there I should be able to remember."

"What do you say, dig our way down?" Knuckles asked, raising a spiked fist.

"Hell yeah! But maybe not in the hallway, yeah?"

"Right," Knuckles said, pressing his ear to another door. "In here," he said, waving to Sonic. "Lotta rooms full of spare parts around here, huh?" Knuckles asked, picking up a large, metal sheet.

"Well when there's only one living being in the ship..."

"What is this stuff? None of these seem like Badnik parts?"

"Yeah, it's all too big... Maybe it's pieces to the Carrier?" Sonic suggested, flipping over a piece of large, reinforced steel.

"Pieces? Why would they have spare pieces of a ship, in a ship?"

"Well... What about for repairs on the go?"

"Possible..." Knuckles pulled a damaged piece from a pile of metal. "Or old pieces removed from the ship?"

"Old? Come on, if this thing had been airborne for long someone would have noticed."

"Well... What if it had been active a long time ago? Say, eight or nine years ago?"

"You mean... This is the original Egg Carrier?" Sonic asked, looking around the room.

"One of the two, or maybe a Frankenstein's monster of them. Both took some decent damage, but think, so did Zero and Metal Sonic, and they're back and better than ever. Here's my theory: some wackjob finds the remains of the Egg Carrier, it's got Zero and Metal Sonic's bodies in it, right? They fix up those two, the Carrier, and any Badnik on board then bulk it all up. Maybe they ransacked a few spare Eggman bases too, I dunno, but now they've got a robot army at their disposal."

"Not a bad theory, but Zero and Metal Sonic couldn't use Chaos Emeralds before. At least not that model of Metal. I don't think some random nut would be able to program in Chaos Control to those things."

"Tsk, maybe not, but it's a lot more probable."

"Whatever. Let's just head down so we can get the Master Emerald back, yeah?"

"Yeah. Luckily the Carrier seems to be nearly empty down here. Hopefully all the Badniks are guarding the deck."

Knuckles stretched his back before dropping down to all fours. "Alright, keep behind me a bit, unless you wanna get a face full of metal!" He then drove his fist into the ground and began tearing it apart. They dropped into the next floor, and after Knuckles tried listening for any commotion below, he tore down into the third level of the holds. Once more the coast was checked before the two exited the room and found themselves in another hallway.

"Okay, Sector C, uh... this turn looks... I think we go down this way," Sonic said, pointing ahead and marching down the hallway. "Or... No Sector B is this way. I think it was a letter later in the alphabet."

"You sure you know where you're going?" Knuckles asked, arms crossed, as Sonic doubled back.

"You wanna take the lead, 'treasure hunter'?" Sonic snapped, refusing to look back at his ally. He led Knuckles to Sector D, then F, then L, no, back to F, to G, split up between H and I, it should be somewhere in there...

"Sonic, admit it, we're lost," Knuckles growled, grabbing Sonic before he could march into Sector J.

"Knux, I'm telling you, I know where I'm going. This hallway is familiar, it's right down here!"

"Ok, but if it's not, I'm digging through each wall here 'til we find it."

"Chill, man, it's right here. I told you I could find it," Sonic gloated, opening a double wide door.

Lining the two floor tall shelving units in the room were guns upon sabers upon rocket launchers upon some kind of weird chicken looking gun. With wide eyes and wider smiles, the two dove into the aisles of firepower, greedily examining each weapon at their disposal. Sonic grabbed one of the laser cannons and began to look down the barrel when Knuckles slapped his back and laughed. "Who are you, Shadow? Put that thing down."

"Hey fuck you, buddy, I can use a gun!" Sonic retorted, shoving Knuckles away from him.

"Prove it. Hit that bazooka over there," Knuckles ordered, pointing at a line of large rocket launchers.

"Damn, Knux, wanna give me a challenge? Those things are huge!" Sonic extended his arm and fired a laser, which careened off to the side to strike the front left pole of the shelving unit. The shelf fell, and each rocket launcher was flung to the ground.

"Pfft, nice one Sonic! You managed to hit all of them!" Knuckles roared, wiping away the tears from his eyes. "Give me the damn gun." Sonic let him snatch the laser pistol away from him and twirl it in his finger.

"Well what the hell should I grab then?" Sonic asked.

"Take one of the EggPawn lances," Knuckles suggested, lifting up a bandolier. As he put it on and tucked the laser gun into it, Sonic jogged to the other side of the room to retrieve one of the long, sharp weapons.

"It's a little medieval, but if it can deal with a new Badnik, hey, I don't mind."

"Yeah, you'll do a great job with that!" Knuckles encouraged sarcastically, sliding a few more guns into his bandolier. "You see any ammo here?"

"Nah, nothing. Hey, those Egg-Robos, the guns were connected right to them... You don't think...?"

"That the Badniks might be charging their firearms? It's possible. If that's the case though," Knuckles grabbed two more guns and stashed them away. "Better to have more than you need, right?"

"How hillbilly of you," Sonic remarked, dropping into the splits to stretch his legs. "Now come on slowpoke, let's get movin'! Between you and my Chaos Emerald we shouldn't have a hard time tracking their stash down. I figure if we don't stop we can dig straight there!"

Knuckles pushed one of his guns out of the way and began looking around the room. "Yeah... I think it's coming from this way," he mumbled, crouching down by the edge of the back wall.

Purple light washed over Knuckles as Sonic held his Emerald out in the direction the echidna was investigating. "Seems like you're right. Ready to get digging?"

With a sigh, Knuckles looked back at the hedgehog. "I should have brought my shovel gloves, made you dig through some of this shit," he growled, before starting to tear through the floor. They descended one floor into another empty hallway, followed by another floor, and another. Metal pieces flew past the two descending heroes as they ventured deeper into the aircraft. Still no Badniks anywhere... How odd.

The two tore through another floor, and dove into the pitch black chamber before they realized how deep it went. "Shit!" Sonic cried, as the wind whipped past him. Knuckles grabbed onto the flailing hedgehog and slowed their descent with his gliding, circling the room until they found a suspended walkway. "Great, now I owe you two!" Sonic said, as the echidna set him down.

"The Chaos Control makes up for the drowning," Knuckles said, peering over the railing. "But you do owe me for that one," he added, climbing onto the thin rail. "Come on, it's in this room, see it?" He extended his finger in the direction of the greatest light source in the room. While there were small beams of light outlining some of the walkways, the greatest amount of illumination came from the glow of the giant, green gem in the center of the room. Around it were a series of seven pedestals, with only one of them filled by a deep, oceanic blue gem.

"How many emeralds does that make?" Sonic whispered, going on his tip toes to make sure he could see the Egg Carrier's shrine.

"Zero has the red one, that was Shadow's, the blue one is here..."

"... And Metal took the green one from the museum. That's at least three Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald."

Knuckles wrapped his arm around Sonic's waist and the duo leapt off the catwalk. "Well, at the very least we have the purple one. Hopefully the others can keep them from getting the rest," he pondered, as he glided them down to a walkway that led to the shrine.

"You've forgotten the gold Emerald, which too is in our possession," a deep, gravelly voice called from around them. The two jumped nearly a foot in the air from the booming noise as they tried to find its source.

"Who is that!?" Knuckles roared, bringing his fists up in defense.

Not waiting for an answer, Sonic took off for the shrine. He leapt towards the blue Emerald, but was repelled once he came within a few yards of it. It was like he was punted to the side, sent flying off the catwalk. Sonic was just barely able to grab onto a catwalk below the level of Knuckles and the shrine.

"Not only that, but Sonic has just delivered us the fifth Chaos Emerald," it said, ignoring Knuckles' question. With our forces converging on the final two Emeralds, we'll have them all in no time. It's ironic Sonic, both you and Shadow have organized the Emeralds so neatly for us."

Knuckles turned to the direction Sonic had flew off in and saw him climbing over the railing onto the walkway. "Hey! You okay?" Knuckles called. As Sonic looked up to reply, Knuckles heard a clamor from above him.

"Yeah, I'm okay!" Sonic called back, before hearing a similar noise behind him. He spun around, and saw a dark shape pass through a beam of light. "Maybe not for long though," he added, raising his lance.

"It's impossible to stop us now. Submit or be killed," the voice whispered, as Sonic saw a pair of red eyes cut through the pitch black void above them.

"Sonic, can you see how many there are?" Knuckles called, as a shadow crossed over him.

"Nope. But I have a feeling as though there's a lot more than what was on Angel Island. Don't worry though, if you need somewhere to hide you can always-"

Cutting him off midway through his joke, a volley of Buzz Bomber lasers came raining down on the hedgehog. "Sonic!" Knuckles roared, drawing his gun and firing in the direction of where the lasers came from. As he fired, he felt a sudden, sharp pain in the back of his shoulder as a Caterkiller latched onto him with its teeth. The spikes lining its body then dug into his back before he could aim back to shoot it off.

Sonic took off along the walkway, hoping he could move fast enough that he could dodge any shots fired at him. As he ran, he held the purple Chaos Emerald close as he needed it to illuminate his path. Crabmeats and Motobugs charged him down, but his Lance was able to impale the majority of the Badniks in his path.

Using the momentum he'd built up, he jumped up to plant his hands and feet on the wall of the expansive chamber and launch himself back at the Emerald shrine. Curling into a ball, he tried to break through whatever forcefield was repelling him from getting his hands on the Emerald, but it was futile as he was flung back once more.

Knuckles was faring just as well. He could keep Badniks fended off if they were in front of him, but they just kept coming from all directions. By the time he'd turn around, an army had assembled on the three sides he couldn't face. Four guns left... Would there be enough ammunition in these things to take out all of the Badniks there?

Sonic pulled himself back to his feet, but was promptly knocked back down as a Crabmeat trapped his leg in a vicelike grip. Its claw dug into him and jerked back, pulling him to the ground. He put his other hand on the Lance and drove it into the Badnik, thrusting it like a pool cue into the robot assaulting him.

He stood up again and clutched his leg wound, great, now both him and Knuckles were fucked when it came to getting anywhere fast. And the Badniks weren't slowing down. Sidestepping another Crabmeat's lunge, he used the lance like a baseball bat to knock it off of the catwalk. Then he impaled the next Motobug, then a Slicer mantis, and a reptilian Newtron.

Of course, the three Swatbots advancing on him were a bit too sturdy to penetrate with his simple Egg Lance. "Knuckles!" he called, taking a limping step back to get some distance between himself and the advancing robotic forces. "I need some help here!"

"I could say the same thing!" Knuckles called back, down to his final gun. They were in front of him, behind him, above him, everywhere, leaping at him the second he turned his back on one of them. He could shake most of them off, but when three fish Choppers soared through the air to grab his back, he fell flat on his face, The Badniks began dogpiling him, and in a matter of seconds Sonic lost sight of him underneath the metal swarm.

"Knuckles!" Sonic cried, squeezing his wounded leg. He'd just have to live with the pain. He spun around and sprinted away from the Swatbots. If he could just get to Knux, he could get those bastards away from him! He leapt past a series of laser blasts, slid between the legs of an Egg Pawn, but nearly tripped when he heard a ringing sound. His cellphone still worked, even after falling in the ocean? Tails must have upgraded it or something. Tails...

He flipped the phone open and saw Amy's name and face from five years ago. Hitting answer, he held it up to his head and spewed out the words, "AmyIcan'ttalkKnuxandI-"

"Sonic!" she screamed over him. "Please, you have to help us! Shadow and Rouge are down, I- I don't know what happened to them!"

"What!?" Sonic yelled back, almost skidding to a halt, now that she'd captured his attention.

"Omega! He- he came and, he has the Chaos Emeralds! I can't stop them, please! You have to get here, I-"

Sonic was unable to hear the rest of her sentence on account of his phone falling out of his hands as a giant, robotic hand grabbed him and flew him across the room. His attempts at removing the rocket propelled fist squeezing him were futile. The hand slammed him against the far wall, and the momentum sent his head back after the rest of his body. Chaos, for once in his life momentum worked against Sonic!

Still trying to pry the fingers open, Sonic failed to notice Zero, the source of the hand, and Metal Sonic advancing on him. His metal counterpart soared by him and snatched the purple Emerald from his grip and took it back to the shrine.

"Hey! Give that back you son of a bitch!" Sonic screamed, letting go of the giant fingers squeezing him to reach out after Metal.

As Metal placed the purple Emerald in the shrine, it withdrew the green Emerald from its chest and placed it into another slot. Zero was close behind him, placing the red Emerald into the fourth slot.

"In a matter of moments, Omega will be here to deliver the final three. And with the strongest of you pathetic heroes defeated, our new world will be unopposed," the voice gloated, coming back a bit more excited, almost more unhinged than before.

"Who... Are you!?" Sonic growled, feeling Zero's hand squeeze tighter around him.

The voice laughed at his question, and said, "Very well. For bringing me the purple Emerald and aiding me in the conquest of your world, although inadvertently, I will reward you with my identity."

The voice went quiet, and remained silent for a few moments. "Well? Are you gonna tell me!?" Sonic roared, slamming his fist on Zero's hand. He knew there was no removing it, but he wouldn't give up yet damn it!

More silence. A moment went by, with Metal and Zero perched inside the Master Emerald shrine. Finally, the lights turned on, revealing the remaining, intersecting catwalks to be covered in Badniks with their eyes and guns trained on Sonic, waiting for him to escape Zero's clutches. Far above the shrine was a four sided monitor, visible from all angles of the room. It flickered on, and through the static, Sonic could just barely make out the shape of the voice's origin.

o o o

Who do you think is behind the Badnik revival? What will be the fates of the new Team Dark? I'd love to see your theories in the reviews!