It was two years ago, Sonic and company hadn't find any leads on Dr. Eggman since defeating him on the lost hex. For months, they searched across the nearby continent-looking for any clues, but to no avail. Now they were at a forest park, figuring out where to go now that Dr. Eggman wasn't anywhere to be found.
"ARGH!" Yelled knuckles in frustration, punching a nearby tree clean off its trunk; Poor tree!
"Calm down, you pirate!" Shouts Sonic shaking his fist in the air.
"Sonic, you've been keeping us on a wild goose chase for six long months! We're all tired of this!" rebutted Knuckles, stomping towards Sonic.
"Guys, we shouldn't fight!" Screamed Amy, getting between them, "I know you're tired Knuckles, but that's no way to talk Sonic!"
"Shut up Amy! You're just a delusional girl with hopeless dreams." Lashed Knuckles.
"I want OUT!" he screamed, stomping off in the opposite direction.
"I guess what I'm about to say won't help the situation much either!" shouted Sonic; Knuckles halts, turning around to hear what Sonic has to say.
"What!"
Sonic closes his eyes and sighs, "I think it would be best that we all split up." He suggests; everyone looks stunned by his words.
"What the heck are you saying!?" Exclaimed Cream, stepping forward; the others are surprised by her sudden action.
"Yeah, we've always been together…" adds Tails, also stepping forward; Amy's at a loss for words and Knuckles is cracking his fingers.
"I just think that it would be best if we all go our separate ways. I don't want to burden anyone who doesn't want to follow. You're free to do whatever you want." Sonic turns and walks away, Tails follows him-trying to reason, Cream and Amy stand still-dumbfounded and Knuckles bursts out laughing.
"If I ever see your face, I'm gonna punch it so far in you'll see the back of your skull!" Yelled Knuckles, Stomping away and ranting aloud to himself.
Amy and Cream stand there, Amy welling tears in her eyes. She falls to the ground and begins to sob. Cream tries to comfort her, but it's no use!
"After all this time he wants to split us up!?" shedding tears, "To hell with him! I don't need him anymore!"
Amy throws a hard punch at the ground and gets up, "We'll go on our own adventure, we'll learn new skills that can benefit us in the future! We'll find Eggman before Sonic! That'll show him!"
They all sit silent around the coffee table when they hear a knock at the door. Amy gets up and walks to the door to see, It's Knuckles and the Chaotix. They enter the big mansion, everyone impressed at the magnificent sight.
Knuckle whistles, "Well then Ames, I'm impressed you hid such a place from me!"
Amy looks at him with annoyance-crossing her arms, "Don't call me that, only Sonic can call me that."
"Don't mention that idiot's name!"
Amy turns her attention from Knuckles and greets the other members; she guides them to the living room where Sonic and the others waited. Upon entering, Sonic and Knuckles immediately make eye contact. Knuckles charges at Sonic and picks him up, they both break through the sliding glass door nearby and drop into the deep end of the pool. Knuckles strangled Sonic, giving him no chance to escape; both of them losing air. Amy and the others panicked, they know sonic can't swim. On the Chaotix side, they were surprised to see how fast Knuckles jumped to action instead of running his mouth. Vector jumps in the pool, rescuing them both-Knuckles still has his hands wrapped around Sonic's neck.
"Enough!" yells Amy, prying Knuckles off of Sonic, "Is this any way to treat the owner of this house!?"
Knuckles laughed, "Him? He couldn't possibly!"
"He is, and he's injured!" added Tails pointing to his arm.
Knuckles got up, drenched in water and approached Sonic. He squares up and balls his hand into a fist and delivers an eye bruiser of a punch-Knocking Sonic unconscious.
"I told you guys I'd punch him in the face." Shrugged Knuckles.
Later that day, everyone sat together in the dining room, eating food prepared by Amy and Cream. Everyone exchanges stories with each other about what they've been up to, Knuckles gives a Viking laugh-he was drunk.
"Knuckles, what brings you here?" sighs Sonic, icing the bruises on his face.
"I came here to discuss something with Amy, but now I have the bittersweet pleasure of running into you…" smiling angrily.
"But the business I came to discuss has to deal with Dr. Eggman."
"Dr. Eggman? What happened?" jumped Tails with a basket full of cookies.
Knuckles grabs a cookie, "He trespassed on Angel Island the other day, with his robotic goons and some newbie of his-long story short, they stole the Master Emerald and Angel Island has fallen." He takes a bite of the cookie, and his anger went away, "Good cookie!" giving Tails a thumbs up.
"Wait, so Eggman's back!? And he stole the Master Emerald!?" Sonic asks in disbelief, getting up from his seat.
"That's why I'm here…" he responds, taking another delicious cookie.
"Sonic you remember us?" said Mighty, dragging Ray with him, "We once escaped from Dr. Eggman together!"
Sonic squints his eyes, inspecting them. "Sorry! I don't quite remember you…" he adds while scratching the back of his head, embarrassed; Mighty looks heartbroken, falling into Ray's arms with tears.
Sonic turned back towards Knuckles "Well Knuckles, seems like you have quite the crew."
Knuckles became full of it, "Yes! A great bunch led by me! Praise me more you hedgehog!" Julie-Su walks behind him a give him a painful flick on the head; Knuckles cries in agony.
"I'm Julie-Su, Fiancee of Knuckles and the brains of the Chaotix." Shaking Sonic's hand, "I apologize for Knuckle's behavior, the truth is he hasn't stopped talking about you from the time I met him. All he's talked about is reuniting with you and taking Eggman down like the 'old times'."
"Oh? Is that so?" taunting Knuckles, who had an irritated look on his face-gritting his teeth and growling.
"Anyway, as you just heard, Dr. Eggman has possession of the master Emerald. We need a way to retrieve it before he launches any big plans."
"I have an Idea!" says Tails, "Follow me."
Tails leads them all to a high tech room all the way in the back of the mansion. The high tech room was filled with super computers, fancy interior and a giant TV screen on the wall. Tails approaches the big screen and begins typing.
"While you were away I upgraded one the rooms to my liking, sorry!"
Sonic's impressed, giving Tails a high five, "No need to apologize, this look incredible!"
Julie-Su wasn't very impressed, "What exactly does this have to do with Dr. Eggman?" taking a closer look at the computers.
"Well, if he has the Master Emerald, our objective should be to gather the 7 Chaos Emeralds before he nullifies their power. After we've gathered them, we attack head-on, lead by Super Sonic and Knuckles."
Everyone seems on board with the plan-except for Julie-Su, who still didn't seem convinced. She walks up to Tails and observes to massive keyboard before them and then looks up at the giant screen.
"How exactly are you going to locate them? We can't just go on some random adventure looking for these rocks." Pestered Julie-Su, throwing her hands up in the air with annoyance.
Sonic whispered to Vector, "That's what we did…"
"Don't worry." Reassures Tails, "We already have a total of 7 locations that could possibly be the Chaos Emerald's spot, but if Dr. Eggman is anything as I remember, he'll be at some of these sites looking for them as well."
"He wouldn't want us to a have a single percent chance of stopping him." Adds Sonic, heading out the room.
"Wait…how? How do you have the locations?" stands a surprised Julie-Su.
"During our research in Spagonia, I built a device that can track the Chaos Emerald's location based on its level of chaos energy. I found all the locations with ease, but since Eggman never resurfaced, I thought I didn't need a real reason to ever look for them again."
Knuckles gets excited, "So it's decided then, we should split up to look for the emeralds, there's a sure chance that one of us will run into him."-Cracking his fingers and moving around-"Tell us our locations, we can leave immediately!"
"Hold on!" begs Tails, "We can't rush into this, I'll need the rest of today to analyze everyone's skills and then pick out the best groups based on those same skills and the location. I'll also need time to create some communication devices for everyone, so that we stay in touch."
"Vector and I will assist you." Proposed Julie-Su, grabbing Vector's hand and raising it before he had any say.
Tails clears everyone out and leads Vector and Julie-Su to his room, where he builds everything. Sonic goes to his room to relax, Amy and Cream make acquaintance with the rest of the Chaotix. Sonic invites the Chaotix to stay over for the time being, cooking food for them and even playing some traditional board games with Charmy, Ray and Saffron.
The next morning, Tails storms down the stairs holding a bunch of head phones in his hands, with Vector and Julie-Su following behind him. He calls them to the tech room to discuss the plan.
"As you guys know, I have the 7 locations of the Chaos Emeralds. The locations are Apotos, Station Square, Red Eye Desert, South Island, Chun-Nan, Arcadia and Holoska."
"Quite the selection of terrain there." Said Mighty, looking around the room.
Tails picks up a piece of paper from his desk and grabs a pen, "Before we depart, I must build some small aircrafts for you guys. The aircraft will have the map of the chaos Emerald built in to the system; it's up to you guys what you want to do from here on out."
Julie-Su signals Knuckles and Espio; they approach Tails. Knuckles carries a black rock to him, holding it ever so carefully. Tails marvels at the Black rock, taking it from Knuckles and inspecting it closer.
"What's this? It doesn't look like anything found on earth!?Where did you find this? It's like a new kind of element! It's texture…" Tails continues inspecting it-feeling the smoothness of the strange rock.
"We found it after we fought an intruder; he could manipulate the earth." Answered Espio, wanting to forget his defeat.
"He was the one who attacked us and aided in stealing the Master Emerald." Added Knuckles, punching his fists together-exhaling out his nose with extra force.
"So Egghead's got a new goon?" asks Sonic chiming in on the conversation.
Knuckles puts his hand on Sonic's face, trying to push him back. Tails continues looking at it, this time resting it on the nearby table and turning on the lamp.
"Whoever you fought is bad news, if they have the ability to manipulate the earth around them and even create a new element from scratch, we'll be in a tough one."
Sonic does a spin move around Knuckles, "Leave him to me! Since he's some earth guy, I'll take the Red desert; more than likely I might run into him there."
"Hey! I want my rematch with him!" argued Knuckles, getting in Sonic's face.
A pair of veins pop from Julie-Su's forehead as she makes a face of displeasure, She grabs both Sonic and Knuckle's and beats them up in a Big Ball of Violence, "Shut up you losers!" she yells with irritation.
Tails notifies everyone to spend the rest of the day making preparations for the mission; He walks out the room, heading to his own to further examine the Carbon rock. Mighty gathers everyone in the room, and huge grin covers his face.
"Let's all go out and eat tonight! We won't get a chance tomorrow!"
Amy and Cream give him an uninterested look and exit, Julie-Su forcibly breaks away from him and Saffron simply follows. Ray and Vector laugh at his blunder, Sonic and Espio show him sympathy and Knuckles simply makes a break for the Kitchen.