2.

"Missed me!"

Soil scraped around Sonic's heels. He jumped off the rooftop and clasped Cream's hands in midair. "One more time!"

She flew toward the mech during its barrage of mocking taunts, challenging them to try it, land a hit. Whirling around, she gained more velocity upon each orbit, the polluted air stinging them as it slapped their bodies. At the height of their spin, she released him with a grunt. "Go!"

Sonic tore through nothing once more, his landing rough as he rolled belly-first across the eave. No matter how much speed he poured into it, the Phantom faded out of existence at the critical moment. It was like nocking arrows at an invisible target. All of them bound to miss.

As the mech wavered back in, it advanced on its victims, creeping, until a rock temporarily halted its path, puffing debris in its face.

"Eggman!" erupted an infuriated shout from the street below. "You and me, right here, right now!"

Thankfully, the distraction lured the doc's attention. Reaching up with a finger, he wiped away the rubble from the Phantom's cornea as if a wistful tear had accrued there. "Well, well, if it isn't our good pal Knuckles come out to play! Aren't you cute when you can barely form sentences?"

Another rock puffed its hull. "Try me, Eggman!"

"How can I deny such charm?" Wheeling around to face the echidna, the Phantom aimed its fist, which rotated ninety degrees counterlockwise and locked within its socket.

Sonic scrambled over the rooftop edge. "Knuckles," he called as Cream and Cheese floated down, holding onto each of his arms to keep him from falling. Dust whirled around them, ruffling their fur. "You don't have to do this!"

"Stay out of my way, Sonic! Or else you're gonna get—"

They were interrupted by a short-lived flame that blew forth and launched the fist at him. Pillars of silt sprang from impact, tiding high on either side of him.

"That all ya got?" Knuckles grunted. He pushed forth, perspiration snaking his brow while he muscled against its sheer force. His heels dug into the ground as he was forced backward, carving ruts into the stone he refused to budge from. After a few moments of struggle, he pummeled a hole through a rivet, damaging the mech's forefinger and snapping it against the joint. "Come on! I've smashed toys that were stronger than this!"

"Oh, dear. I'd hate for you to be bored!" The doctor's tone was gleeful. "Why don't we crank things up a notch?"

"Wha—" Its remaining metal fingers pried open and clamped around his body. "Let go of me!" He began squirming and beating against his prison.

"Knuckles!" Sonic and Cream cried in tandem, but it was too late. An electric beam shot out of the Phantom's empty joint, deploying a large magnet that reattached its fist with a metallic clang. With an overhand heave the mech swung it wildly around, as if its fist with Knuckles encased inside was little more than a yo-yo on a string.

Despite the limping of its broken finger, the Phantom drew back its sparking beam. Bare volts snaked across its cables. "Now," demanded its pilot, "someone had better cough up an Emerald, or I walk the dog!"

Before anyone could even reply, however, Eggman snapped the beam like a whip; it arched sharply and its aftershock trembled the air so forcefully that for a moment, the dust lifted from the ground. The building it smashed into vomited rubble, revealing dilapidated, sparking insides. Electricity thrashed the air and shattered bricks rained down, enough to make Cream grab Cheese and huddle behind Sonic for protection.

"Round and round he goes, where he stops, nobody knows!" Revolving the mech's torso like some demented carousel operator, Eggman pitched Knuckles into a building. A distant boom marked his landing.

A soft, quivering murmur briefly drew Sonic's attention. Cream was rocking Cheese as he shook his head with his eyes scrimped shut. "You two okay?"

She nodded, and climbed silently onto his back. He thought he heard a hint of a sniffle as he took off: though they knew Knuckles wouldn't go down that easily, neither one of them could bear to watch him suffer.

Dodging swings that crashed down, Sonic hopped up a series of windowsills until he reached the damaged floor where Knuckles had landed. He formed a foothold with his hands outside the sill and helped Cream through the open window. Inside she proceeded to scan the area.

"Cheese says he's under there," she said. He jogged over to the spot she pointed to and shoved aside the massive rocks, revealing a battered Knuckles who emerged coughing.

"You all right?"

"Peachy," he said, and groaned when he saw Cream. "Aw, jeez, you had to drag the kid into this, too?"

"She found me. And besides, I wasn't the one chuckin' rocks at Egghead like a maniac."

Knuckles worked his legs out of the rubble and refused to take the helping hand Sonic offered. "For good reason. I didn't exactly see you winning that fight out there."

Sonic shook his head. "Y'know, Chuckles, sometimes I just don't know about you."

"Oh, get off your high horse, Sonic," Knuckles said, stabbing a thumb toward himself. "Least I tried to do something instead of running in circles like a big blue chicken."

"Sticks and stones? Really?"

"Yeah, really! Why don't I get some and break your—"

Cream thrust her hands out, halting them just as they lunged for each other. "Stop it, you two," she commanded in a voice that was oddly reminiscent of her mother's. Cheese flew in their faces, Chao-ing sharp reprimands. "Fighting like this will only help Dr. Eggman. Now, Mr. Knuckles, your stitches—"

He shut his mouth, looking away. "I'm fine, kid." He coughed. "We're fine. We're just bein' dumb."

"Yeah," Sonic said, rubbing his own arm, "our bad." Narrowing his eyes, he asked: "What'd he do?"

Knuckles remained reticent, his gaze fixed to the stones on the floor. Eventually he upturned his fist, revealing a dark blue Emerald.

"Was lucky I could find even this," he said. "I couldn't find Shade or the Master Emerald, and when I tried to look, I saw a hunk of land I didn't recognize. Apparently I didn't recognize it for a reason." His jaw knotted, and his hand clenched around the Emerald. "He took everything, Sonic. Even the altar's gone."

"We can't let him get away with this," Cream cried, startling the other two. "If he took the Master Emerald, there's no telling what else he might do. We've got to act before any more harm can be done!"

They stiffened at taunts from outside. The sound of Eggman's voice turned Knuckles' expression sour. "He sure loves to hear himself talk, doesn't he?"

Cream brightened. "Mr. Sonic says he didn't come with a mute button."

"Yeah, no kidding," Knuckles said, turning with a heavy sigh. "Well, Sonic, what do you say? Truce?"

He took Red's fist and pumped it as hard as he could. "Just follow my lead."

"Sonic!" The mech stabbed its broken finger at the building. "I know you're in there!" Air swished when it wheeled its other wrist, swinging its heavy magnet in taut circles. "Don't make me drag you out by your knobby blue ankles!"

"All right, all right! Yeesh!"

A dusty crimson shoe slapped itself onto a weakened sill. The wobbling of said knobby blue ankle followed to test its integrity. He gripped the scaffold and heaved himself out the window before the wooden plank crumbled off entirely, and climbed up several rungs when a sonorous boom detonated, blossoming white throughout his vision.

An imperceptible sidestep helped him avoid the Phantom's magnet heartbeats before it smashed through the scaffold.

More dirty tricks: for Eggman, business as usual. He rubbed the vision back into one watering eye until the residue from the latest flashbang dissolved behind his fist. His ears swam, and not in the good way he savored after being whipped around by the wind. If he'd known he was going to freefall like this, he should have just packed the darn parachute like he'd told Amy.

Out the window we go, Sonic ol' buddy boy. Gee-ronimo.

Still, a familiar grin curved his lips as he squatted on the mech's collar, close enough to knock on the glass of one of the pupils. Muffled echoes of the old man cursing him out emanated just beyond the thick material.

Sucking his breath 'til his lungs were full to burst, he cupped a hand around his mouth. "Yo, Eggman!" he shouted at the cockpit, slapping the glass. "Nice strobes, but I betcha couldn't hit the broad side of a barn in this thing! How many eye tests you gotta fail to drive it?"

Something bounced off the dark glass within the cockpit, confirming his suspicions; a wicked little phenomenon Tails would have called the Larsen effect. Typically Eggman made his mechs soundproof from within the cockpit. This one clearly wasn't; otherwise his run-of-the-mill speakers would have been rendered silent from flashbangs due to overexertion issues. He couldn't rant and launch missiles at the same time, after all.

Hearing him rant made Sonic think the eyes pulled double-duty, not just to protect the cockpit, but to amplify the signal coming from the microphone. Hollering a friendly challenge into it would refract that feedback and give the doc the grandest earache of his life. And if it did that—

"Oh, Dr. EGG-MAAAAAAN!"

—a rabbit squeal pitched at full-blast would hurt.

His grin turned the slightest bit sour as ugly feedback shrieked out. From within, the doc clapped both hands over his ears, stamping his boot against the floor to drown out the shock.

Cream hovered behind the mech, her flapping ears carrying her body. She giggled and gave Knuckles a thumbs-up.

"That's it!" The Phantom blindly smashed a fist into the ground. The sapphire Emerald flashed as it soared from Knuckles' grasp. Eggman seized it without hesitation, swatting Cream away before she could scramble for it.

"Cream!" Sonic shouted. He and Knuckles saw her fly toward the ground at the same time, screaming. Enraged, the echidna threw retaliatory punches into the mech's shin while he ran to catch her.

The screaming stopped.

His heart pounding against his throat, Sonic forced himself to look up.

Curled into a fetal position, she protected Cheese's body with her own. But that wasn't the true oddity, nor the thing that made chills erupt on his arms. That lay in the fact that a luminescent aura cushioned her, covering her from head to toe.

That wasn't to say she'd stopped moving. In fact, if he didn't know better, he'd say she was still hurtling toward the ground, but her pace had slowed to a crawl, like a single drop of water whose frames had paused just short of the crucial burst by a high-speed camera.

He felt shaken, as though something powerful had just interceded, and if he didn't stop gawking now that clemency would be wasted. Her ears drooped while he jogged over to catch her, and as the mysterious glow faded, let it ease her into his arms.

She squeezed her eyes open, blinking hard.

"Cream." His voice cracked. "Cheese. Are you hurt?"

"The Emerald… " she murmured, producing it from her pocket and staring at it in amazement. "The Emerald protected us."

Sonic nodded solemnly. The Emeralds were capable of amazing feats; it was even said they performed miracles when all seven were united, though for him those very miracles were standard fare that came with playing hero. Nothing they'd done before had struck him as this eerie, this coincidental.

Come to think of it, Knuckles should have suffered a lot more damage than he had, being thrown through a window. Had his Emerald helped him in a similar manner?

Cream squirmed as Knuckles evaded various strikes. "He's still fighting that awful doctor by himself? We've got to help him!"

Mortal fear flashed across her face, and he set her down. "Listen, Cream. If we keep this up, Eggman might never stop."

"Isn't that more reason for us to stay?" she implored. He winced his eyes shut as she and Cheese appealed to him with clasped hands. "It's far too dangerous for any one of us to take him on alone. I know we can get through it if we stick together, I just know it. Please, won't you let us help?"

Taking a quivering breath, he shook his head. "It's—" he began. "Not—"

"Mr. Sonic?"

He pressed his fist against his temple, his teeth grinding tight enough to burn. There it was again, that pain, blurring his focus. When he withdrew his fist, the old bandage Cream had applied now stuck to his glove. He'd have hated to think what would have happened if she hadn't had that Emerald on her…

"I'm sorry." Tails' slumbering face drifted into his mind, a mental image he kept sealed away for another time. The thought of them being alone in this place twisted knots in his stomach, but— "Knuckles was right, I shouldn't have dragged you into this. But there is one more thing you can do."

"What is it?"

Kneeling down, he placed the Emerald back in her hand, securing her other hand over it to cement her new role in her mind.

Cream looked back up, awe and curiosity shimmering in her large eyes. "Where do we go?"

"As far away from here as you can get."

He could handle trepidation, could grin off pain. He wasn't prepared for her reaction, blinking as she enveloped him in a soft hug. "Thank you for doing what you could, Mr. Sonic. We know you're trying your best."

His eyes widened. Those words spoken aloud tightened a lump in his throat. Her courage, not allowing fear to claim her but to fight in spite of it, lifted his spirits, and he wished he could do more to return the favor.

He squeezed back, giving Cheese a thumbs-up. "Thanks, Cream. And Cheese, you help her kick some major butt out there, okay?"

They took off in branching directions. Sonic purposefully kicked up more dust in his tread than was necessary to cloak Cream's departure and to minimize the risk of Eggman calling their bluff. "Knuckles," he called. "Come on! Let's finish this!"

The echidna recoiled, showing a dent in the plating he'd so far failed to turn into a hole. "What do you think I've been trying to do? Punching this thing's harder than cutting diamonds with your teeth!"

"Don't get discouraged! You took out one gun, maybe we can put down the re—"

"Not a half-bad plan!" Eggman piped in. "But is that the very best you can come up with?" He deprived Sonic of the chance to finish his thought by pointing thumbs-down; a flashbang splashed between the two and hurtled up chunks of curb.

Sonic reeled to the image of Knuckles flailing his fists about, pouring inaudible blows into the same odd shield that had saved Cream. The energy formed a cocoon of woven tendrils, sealing him inside their interlaced roots. When he blinked again, nothing was there.

"What… " He patted the ground where Knuckles had stood, warm dust trickling between his fingers. Wisps trembled on the breeze of incoming footsteps. "What'd you… "

"Oh, don't get sappy. He's been teleported, you flat-footed cretin." The Phantom lashed its chain behind itself. "Now it's just you and me, no more annoyances,no more distractions. And I need to repay you for giving me hearing damage."

A gust of wind flew up in front of the mech, strong enough to make it wobble on its heels for a moment. Eggman only chuckled as he corrected its stance, while on the outside a frantic blue hornet's nest whirled around him, seeking any weak point at all with grave intent. One would never show.

"How disappointing: seems you haven't learned any new tricks. Unfortunately for you, I have!"

Sonic leapt for the cockpit but was intercepted. Two massive robotic hands flashed together and smashed him inside, searing pain through his body.

With speed he'd never have attributed to a machine that size, Eggman followed up with a right hook to punt him into a nearby wall. His impact sloughed off a fine layer of dust caked to the mortar, shock echoing throughout his every fiber.

Could honestly say he'd been through worse, but heck if he remembered it through the sloshing in his head. This cat-and-mouse was nothing new to him, but it had also begun to wear down on him.

He lay stunned, warm blood churning in his ears while the mech pinched him by the heel of his sneaker and dangled him upside-down.

Eggman flicked him like a sheaf of paper. "What to do, hedgehog, what to do? I can't have you running amok, after all, and we certainly can't play hide and seek… "

"Like you did with Knuckles?" His lips curled through a cough. "How about you hide and I count to ten billion?"

"Ha!" The hand shook him, rattling his teeth. "You wish you had that much time to waste."

He knew he'd regret asking, but he hoped curiosity wouldn't kill the hedgehog after all. "What do you mean?"

"Dearie me, has no one broken the good news yet? It's been seven years since we last chatted." Seven? "In fact, you could say I've been getting an 'itch' to squash some impertinent hedgehog!"

With that he dropped Sonic on the ground and stomped the curb full-force.

Of course, the doctor didn't expect his foe to relinquish the fight so easily to that salvo; no, this was merely the beginning, the opening note, the first line of something much grander.

Hydraulic thrusters inside the Phantom's sole hissed as he removed it from the crater. Nothing remained there but crumbled pieces of limestone.

And, of course, Sonic.

Sonic knelt beside the wreckage, his stare as rigid as his jaw. "You telling the truth?"

The mech threw its arms wide. "Do you see my nose growing?"

His gaze darted toward the finger Knuckles had damaged, especially since it now limped at a heavier angle and seemed close to falling off altogether. If he could just sever it, burrow inside its circuitry a little more…

"Tell you the truth, doc, I don't think it ever stopped." Slipping one thumb under his glove cuff, he snapped it taut, slaking grime from the material. "'sides, your track record ain't exactly been squeaky-clean in that department."

Butting heads forces you to know your nemesis more thoroughly than you'd like. He'd fought Eggman for long enough to know that one of his more peculiar habits—and there were many—was managing to turn every criticism into a compliment where none were intended; even if seven years had passed, this one trait remained ingrained within the man's ego.

"Why, Sonic, I'm insulted you'd even suggest such a thing. And to think after all this time apart, you'd have been happy to see me for the novelty, if nothing else! It's always good to change things up a bit, isn't it?"

He leapt again, only to wisp through hot air. The Phantom reappeared behind him and shot out a devastating backhand, pummeling his body into the cement and forcing grit to bite painfully through the crevices in his teeth.

Rolling over, he growled and spun aside just as the doc crushed oversized soles into the ground.

"Those Marauders may have been good, but did they ever keep you on your toes? Or didn't they put enough heart into it?"

All this meant he wanted to drag out the big guns, which he did with a flourish. The mech tapped two fingers to its mouth as if to kiss them, then pointed.

Their metal caps popped open. Auto fire exploded out, forcing Sonic to dodge his way across the street. Heat flared against his skin with every step he smacked against the concrete.

"That's right!" the doc squealed over the din. "With love from me to you, you little rat! Now dance like you mean it!"

Sonic tried to recalibrate himself. Losing cool is just what he wants you to do, stay calm, just focus; the ground's markings rushed past much more quickly than he anticipated. One particular bullet ricocheted so close to his ankle that he swore it shaved off some follicles.

Focus. No matter his mental commands, the blurriness in his head grew worse, making his usually keen eyesight unreliable, so amputating that thing's bunk finger with one good clean shot was out of the question. If he couldn't hit it outright, he'd have to force Eggman to lie in the bed he'd made.

He pushed himself till sweat rained off him. He'd rarely let himself get this worked up, but this time there could be no holding back; he whipped around the block in taut circles to conjure a tornado from the nearby pollution. It was sluggish at its start, but once the gale gained traction it hefted up a jumble of rock, brick and piping, plucking detritus off just about every corner; bits of scrap metal twirled and slashed through the wind; even the greasy smoke that clung in thick tufts to the ground began to mold itself to prevailing gusts that edged around the mech. Soon that air funneled down into a vortex. Roaring like an awakened beast. Faster and faster.

Chunks of an ancient oil rig sailed apart with a definite crack; the Phantom's fist snapped it in half before it could deal even a lick of damage.

"Well, that was hardly entertaining," Eggman said. "At least throw a pie or something!"

That remark dropped the match onto his simmering temper. Sonic blazed up the rig's broken spine and soared into the air while the tornado swirled dozens of yards below him, bricks and metal hurling past at potentially lethal speeds. His ears pricked to the shuddering hiss of the turrets completing their charge. In mere heartbeats they were going to lash out, and who knew what sick kinda game of double Dutch he'd have to play then?

"Honestly now, the greater part of a decade and you still think I fell off the turnip truck? What kind of doddering old man do you take me for?" Eggman asked. "With this ground-penetrating radar I can pick up on your every thought, including the one to send the brat away. Brilliant idea, may I add; out of the frying pan with her!" He laughed. "But even then I would have known. You're far less irritating without your fans cheering you on.

"Sometimes you've got to lose a little to get ahead, Sonic," he continued. "Emeralds call each other, and I like to think I've gained a bit more patience for their shenanigans since the last time you stole them from me. Besides, why would I go to all this trouble of pestering you just for one measly Emerald when I can bide my time and multiply my dividends?"

He curled up and slammed into one rotary engine, feeling his spines practically tear back material as he struggled to burrow against it.

"Couldn't tell ya!" he shouted over the pealing of metal. His tongue seeped a bitter taste that he couldn't name. "Having a go for old times' sake?"

"To send you a message; this is my house you've stepped in, and if you act like a rat while you're inside it, you're going to get treated like one: smashed, mangled, and exterminated!"

He felt the control sapped from him and was knocked back once more, splashing through the gale to end up on its other turbulent side. Sonic flipped onto his stomach to catch a glint of dangerous light surfacing through the blackened tide, and ran.

His only consolation was that Cream and Knuckles weren't here to be caught in the crossfire. He wasn't sure what he would do if Eggman kept blocking the gates, so what other choice did he have but to fight? His pride stupidly advised him to wait it out, to keep him occupied until a better plan occurred, to call some bluff or cry foul on some miscalculation that never showed, hoping that the doc was just blowing smoke here, because Eggman revels in all the attention he can get even if it's blowing crap up in his face.

Adrenaline kept him going, raw speed tightened his calves. Bullets gnawed the concrete at his heels, pelting dust and deafness in his ears. His heart pulsed in time with his fragmented thoughts.

He knew there was a slim chance this all could have just been an act. Maybe everything wasn't as it seemed.

Maybe. Maybe. That massive doubt told him otherwise, because suddenly the doc was no longer ranting, raving, taunting or yanking his chain. Not even trying to boil his blood. There was nothing in this huge metallic dystopia to retort or deflect, none of that verbal ping-pong both opponents had grown to enjoy almost as much as the battle itself. There was just the flash, echo and bang of mortars being evaded. Turrets wheezed out discharge, resculpting the decrepit landscape, and with nothing left to say he knew he had to

(move)

A blazing thrill stabbed him in the guts as he narrowly vaulted more bullets erupted from the fore.

In an empty square there stood a pole, jaggedly sticking from the ground where an old PA system used to reside. Sonic grabbed it and circled around its fulcrum, 'til the metal whined in its socket and the friction threatened to singe his gloves.

Bowing to his speed, sparks ground against the speakers. He spun until the world around him lost form and shape and the air became the hot wind that drove him on.

With a rusty groan the metal bent at a steep angle and at last broke free, slingshotting him toward the man who claimed the world and brandished it like a stolen toy.

Eggman wanted him to play the game?

Just watch.