All this time, Sophie had been quietly working in the basement. She could hear the conversation upstairs echoing into the room, and at first just ignored it, but then she had heard her brother. She ran upstairs and slapped him in the face. "OW! What was that for?!" Dezi yelled.

"You're encourgaging his craziness!"

"Craziness?" Silver asked.

"Um, yeah, when I first came here, they kind of thought I was an escaped mental patient."
"WHAT?!" Everybody except Nic, Sophie, and Dezi cried in unision.

"I guess I should've said that earlier."

"Well, it doesn't matter now." Dezi said calmly.

"You're right. What matters is that we get home." Miles replied.

"And that Rouge tells the muesem she stole the Chaos Emerald." Nic added.
"Hey!"

However, the next day, it didn't matter if Rouge told or not. The muesem had gotten a replacement that they considered much more interesting than the former Chaos Emerald-A giant diamond-cut emerald. They were also having trouble with a red-haired teen who was sitting in front of it everyday until they kicked them out, and when they did, he would demand that they return the so-called 'Master Emerald' to him. Nic instantly knew it was Knuckles, so he and Miles went to the muesem. In the jewel wing, the Master Emerald was in a glass display case, and there was Knuckles, sitting in front of it. "Sonic?"

"Hey, Knucklehead! What are you doing?"

"Guarding the Master Emerald. What, should I be doing something else?"

"Uh, not normally, but the muesem doesn't want you doing this all the time." Miles said awkwardly.

"But it's my job."

"Apparently money doesn't float a foot above the ground here, and guarding the Master Emerald doesn't really qualify for a job. You don't earn any money from it, so people here don't really count it as one."

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"I know..."

"Well, what we really need to tell you is that the Chaos Emeralds have been turning into normal emeralds, and if we don't get them all soon, the Master Emerald may go out as well."

"WHAT?" Knuckles sprang up.

"Huh? What's the matter?" Miles asked.

"Well, you know that if the Master Emerald loses power, Angel Island falls into the ocean, right?" Nic and Miles nodded. "Well, if the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald both lose power, the entire universe just falls apart."

"Yikes."

"I know. That's why the Brotherhood of Guardians has to protect the Master Emerald and the Chaos Emeralds."

"Well, it's good to know why you sit around on your butt all day, Knux." Nic joked.
"Don't laugh about it, it's serious buisness. As long as this keeps happening, the universe is a dead duck."

"Dead duck?" Nic asked.
"He means the universe has no hope and is doomed."

"Oh. That's really bad."

"Yeah. But, there is one way to repower the Chaos Emeralds that have gone out already." Knuckles explained his plan to Nic and Miles.

"We've got it. You can count on us." Miles said.