AN: Second chapter:) One thing; I forgot to mention in the last chapter that I wrote this story with my sisters Pyrassion and Little Hobbit. :) Yay!

Chapter 2

The next morning, Sonic went for a run.

"There's nothing like a run in the early morning." He said to himself.

When he paused by Angel Island, he thought he'd say hi to Knuckles. He ran to the altar to the Master Emerald, but didn't see Knuckles there.

"Hm." Sonic said. He shrugged, then continued his run.

Barely two seconds later, he tripped on something.

"Oomf!" He said when his face hit the ground.

Sonic got up and turned around to see what he tripped on, and saw poor Knuckles sprawled on the ground.

"Knuckles!!" Sonic gasped. He knelt down to his fallen friend to see if he was still alive.

'Please be OK," Sonic crossed his fingers and checked to see if Knuckles was still breathing. Fortunately, he was.

"Hang in there Knux," Sonic said out loud. "I'll go get help."

He ran off.

---

Sumowa the Seedrian heard her phone ring. She picked it up.

"Hello?" She said.

"Hi Sumowa." She heard Sonic pant.

"Hi Sonic. Are you OK?"

"Yeah, but I need to tell you something about Knuckles."

"What about him?" Sumowa asked worriedly.

Ever since she and her little sister Laya had joined up with Sonic to defeat the Metarex nine months ago, she had developed a huge crush on Knuckles.

"He's in the hospital." Sonic replied awkwardly.

"Be right there." Sumowa said. She hung up and ran as fast as she could to the hospital.

She charged through the doors and up to Sonic, who was in Knuckles' room.

"What happened to him?!" She asked when she saw the bandages around Knuckles' middle.

"He was shot in the back." Sonic answered. "I called Chaotix right before I called you, so they should be here any second now."

Then, right that second, the Chaotix came through the door.

"Hi Sumowa. I'm really sorry but I'm gonna have to ask you to leave so I can ask Sonic some questions." Vector said.

"OK." Sumowa said reluctantly, then left.

Vector took out a notebook and pen. "OK Sonic, let's start. Where did you find Knuckles?"

"On Angel Island, a shortish distance away from the Master Emerald." Sonic answered.

"When did you find him?"

"About an hour and a half ago."

"How did you find him?"

"I was out on one of my runs and I tripped over him. I got up to see what I tripped on and saw him lying there, and that he was shot in the back." Sonic explained.

"Jeez, our killer guy is getting pretty nasty." Charmy said. "By the way, I just noticed that Knuckles hasn't woken up yet. Is he in a coma like Amy?"

"Nah." Sonic said. "He's just unconscious, but the doctor said that he'll wake up soon."

"Good!" They heard Sumowa say from outside the door.

"Well, we'd better go investigate now." Espio said.

Sonic said bye as they left, and as soon as they were gone Sumowa came back in. She ran over to Knuckles and sat on a chair beside him.

Knuckles started to squirm a bit.

"Hey! I think he's waking up! Yay!" Sumowa yelled.

His eyes opened and Sumowa threw herself on him, hugging him very tightly.

"MY BACK!" He squeaked.

Sumowa immediately let him go. "I'm sorry!" She cried. She did a puppy dog face.

"Don't be sad," Knuckles grumbled.

"I can't believe this happened!" Sumowa wailed. "Who did this to you? I'll kill them myself!"

He laughed.

"Knuckles," Sumowa said, staring. "You're…laughing!"

"Maybe he thinks you're cute." Sonic grinned.

Knuckles tried to get mad, but eventually gave up. "I'm too tired to get angry." He whined.

"I think you need more sleep." Sumowa advised.

"Yeah," Knuckles said. "Other than being unconscious for the last few hours, I didn't get any sleep at all."

A few seconds later he was sound asleep.

"He's so cute." Sumowa said.

---

Omega walked down an empty street. He needed a quiet place to think about what had happened to Dr. Eggman. It was so strange; his creator, the one that brought him to the world, yet the one he despised and wanted revenge against-dead.

Omega couldn't believe it. He wondered who this killer could be.

'And such a random pattern.' He thought. He had also heard about Amy and Knuckles, and wondered why the culprit would be attacking them in that order.

'I wonder who's next?'

He tried to calculate the pattern in his head with what little data he had. Nothing seemed to make sense. Suddenly, he thought of something. He thought about it, then realized he may have figured out the killer's method.

A few seconds later he heard somebody running towards him. Before Omega could turn around, he felt them jump on his back. Now he couldn't possibly see who it was.

Omega began swinging around, trying to shake off whoever was clinging to him, but they were holding on tight.

He felt the compartment on his back to his main circuits open up.

'Of course,' Omega realized. 'I'm next.'

He felt the killer rip out some wires. Omega now had mere seconds to come up with a plan before he shut down. He needed to let everybody know that he and the killer were there. Out of instinct, he raised his arms and shot two large energy beams into the sky and hoped someone would see them.

Then, he fell backwards.

---

Shadow was walking down a random street when he saw two beams shoot up into the sky. His mind began to form a list of those he knew who had energy cannons with them. There was only one name on the list.

"Omega!" Shadow yelled, and started to run.

'Why would Omega just shoot his energy cannons?' Shadow knew Omega; he would never waste ammo like that unless absolutely necessary.

Shadow arrived at the place where he saw the beams come from. He saw Omega lying on his back, unmoving.

Shadow ran over to him and checked to see if his eyes were bright and red. He saw that they were gray and blank.

Shadow frowned. He flipped Omega over and saw that apparently this killer person had opened up the compartment on Omega's back and tore three wires out of his main circuit. At least he could be fixed.

"This guy must really mean business if he had the guts to take down Omega." Shadow looked up and saw a figure disappear into the shadows.

"Hey! You!" Shadow jumped up and ran after the silhouette. "Get back here!" He demanded.

The culprit turned a corner and vanished.

Shadow turned the corner too, but he couldn't see him anywhere.

Shadow vowed he would catch this guy. Omega was one of the few friends Shadow had, and he didn't want to lose them all.

---

"This is getting ridiculous!" Vector exclaimed, overtired and exasperated. "We have two more crime scenes to process! And who's to say one of us won't be next?"

"Oh no!" Charmy buzzed overhead.

"Calm down." Espio said. "What we need to do right now is focus and find the evidence that leads us to the killer before anyone else gets hurt."

"Including us." Charmy cried, holding his head.

"Start looking Charmy." Espio ordered.

The three stood at the scene of Knuckles' attack.

"Well, I got the bullet casing." Vector said, bagging it.

"And once we get the bullet from the hospital, we can determine what gun was used." Espio said.

Vector turned to Charmy. "You find any footprints?"

"Nope." Charmy replied, inspecting the path. "Just Knuckles'. The rest are scuffles."

"This guy knows what he's doing." Espio said.

"Come on." Vector sighed. "Let's go check out the other crime scene."

---

"This is really weird." Charmy hovered nervously over the lifeless Omega. "He looks like he could get up and blast me to bits any second."

"Not without these he won't." Vector said, picking up the three wires that had been torn from the robot.

"Ewww." Charmy made a face. "Robot guts."

"Can't you be professional?" Vector rolled his eyes.

"You find any prints Vector?" Espio asked.

"No, I got nothing." Vector scratched his head. "This guy's really starting to tick me off."

"Well, we have a few pieces of evidence. Let's work with that." Espio said.