Sonic Prime: Chapter 3

"Should I open the hatch?" Tails asked as he warily eyed the soldiers outside the window. Then Sonic walked up and started talking to the soldiers. "Sonic?" Tails looked over and saw the hatch had been opened and both Sonic and Knuckles had left.
Sonic walked up to the group of soldiers. They were green-skinned, four-armed humanoids with blue undershirts and white armor. They were twice as tall as Sonic.
Sonic opened his arms in greeting. "A welcoming committee! What's up?" The soldiers were slightly bewildered at Sonic casual greeting, considering the fact that he had ten energy weapons pointed at him.

Their commanding officer stepped forward and peered down at Sonic with a scowl. The officer looked just like the soldiers, except he was wearing a white suit with all kinds of medals on it.

Knuckles was leaning against one of the landing gear, the soldiers hadn't noticed him yet.

"Take them to the detention center until I can interrogate them."

The soldiers began to surround Sonic when one of them noticed Knuckles under the ship.

"There's another one!"

"And another!" A soldier exclaimed as Tails exited the craft. Sonic looked at the soldiers boastfully, appearing eager to fight.

"So, still think you can take us on?" The soldiers stared at the trio for a moment, then began to chuckle.

"I would suggest taking us a bit more seriously than that." Knuckles said as he stepped out from under the ship. The officer's face became flustered from anger.

"If you won't come quietly, then we'll have to force you to submission."

"Fine by me!" Sonic exclaimed, which made the officer even more angry.

"Set to stun! Open fire!"

The soldiers all fired at Sonic at once, something no ordinary person could dodge. It took them all a second to realize Sonic wasn't there anymore. In fact, all three had disappeared.

They heard a small whirring sound and looked up to see Tails flying, which startled them greatly. While they tried to shoot Tails down, Knuckles jumped from on top of the ship and landed behind the soldiers. He punched one in the back, sending him flying across the room.

Upon seeing this, two of the soldiers screamed and fled. The rest spread out and found some sort of cover behind various cargo crates and parked shuttles.

Then Sonic appeared, leaping off of a beam near the ceiling and landing next to two soldiers crouched behind a stack of crates. He jumped above the soldiers and came down with a kick, knocking one of them out. The other one screamed, "Get away!" and began shooting wildly, hitting another soldier and stunning him.

Sonic ducked under his line of fire and slipped behind him, then whipped into a jump dash and came out of it with another kick to the soldier's side, which sent him flying into a wall.

Tails flew over and grabbed the soldier's weapon and within seconds had figured out how to use it. Knuckles and Sonic got under their ship and chuckled as Tails flew around shooting soldiers from his position in the air. He finally hit the last one, knocking it out, then landed next to their ship.

The officer had gone from being red with anger to white with fear. Sonic covered Tails' ears as the officer squeaked out a few choice words, then ran.

"Why couldn't I hear what he was saying?" Tails complained.

"Tell ya another time, bro." Sonic's response only made Tails even more curious, but he resisted asking more questions.

"So how are we getting off this thing?" Knuckles inquired, to which Sonic responded with a grin that made Knuckles groan.

"Simple. We hitch a ride on a ship, or escape pod, or something. Even better, we'll make it a race! First one to get to the planet below wins-GO!" And with that, Sonic was gone.

Knuckles sighed and said, "Or we could just disable the tractor beam. Come on Tails, let's see if we can get that beam down." No response. Knuckles looked around and noticed that Tails was gone too. "Well, great."

Just then, a large explosion shook the ship and nearly knocked Knuckles off his feet. An alarm began to sound.

"All personnel to the escape pods! Major hull breach detected in Engine Bay 9. Atmosphere generator will fail within one hour, engines shutting down. Repeat, abandon ship!" Knuckles responded by dashing out of the hangar.

Sonic was running through every hallway, every possible area that the escape pods could be in until he decided to ask a crew member. He stopped right in front of a running soldier, who apparently was headed to the escape pods.

"Hi!"

The soldier screamed in terror and fell down.

"You wouldn't happen to know where the escape pods are, would you?"

"Who-what?"

"Should I just follow you instead?"

"No, no." The soldier stared at Sonic with fear, but also curiosity. "They're back the way you came from, but take a right onto the hallway with the view window.

"Thanks man." Sonic sped away, leaving the soldier wondering what had just happened.

Knuckles was sprinting down a hall, following a group of soldiers that he guessed were running towards the escape pods. They reached a door marked in a weird language, with a officer in front shouting "Get in the escape pods! Only a few are left!"

Knuckles ran towards the door and entered without the officer noticing. There were only two pods left. Knuckles saw a pod with one spot left, and got in it with five other soldiers.
"What are you?" asked a soldier.

"Get him out of here!" A soldier stood up and attempted to force Knuckles out, to which Knuckles responded by grabbing the poor guy's neck and throwing him out.

"Anyone got a problem with me being in here?"

All of the soldiers shook their heads in response, and one of them pushed the release button. The escape pod blasted towards the planet below. Knuckles looked back at the ship out of the window on the door, and witnessed an energy blast from another ship impact the escape pod bay, incinerating a large portion of that area.

Sonic finally reached the same doorway Knuckles had reached earlier. There was no one there, so he hit the button to open the door. The moment the door opened, a giant explosion tore through the opening and knocked Sonic back into the hallway.

"Not good!" Sonic got to his feet and began running as hard as he could away from the breach, but the vacuum of space began to pull him backwards. Running as fast as possible, he reached the end of the hallway. Just as he reached for the corner to the next hallway, and safety, another explosion rocked the ship. Sonic lost his footing and he was pulled out into space. While tumbling through space, he was able to get one last look at the ship-as it exploded. The shock-wave knocked Sonic unconscious and sent him on a crash course towards the planet below.

Knuckles woke up and realized the escape pod crash had knocked him out. When he came to he saw all but one of the soldiers were dead. The remaining soldier was trying to get the pod's door open.

"It . . . won't budge! We're stuck!" He gave up, panting for breath.

"Get out of the way." Knuckles got up and smashed the door with his fist, knocking it clear off the pod and sending it into a sand dune twenty feet way.

"How did you do that?" asked the amazed soldier.

Knuckles ignored the soldier and stepped outside to the sight of sand dunes. Some smouldering debris was scattered across the dunes from the battle overhead. A small plume of smoke was rising from something a couple of miles away, and it didn't appear to be from debris.

"There. It's either a downed ship or a town. That is our best bet for survival."

"Right," said the soldier as he grabbed an extra gun. "Here's a plasma gun." the soldier held out a handgun for Knuckles to take.

"I don't need that."

"Huh?" The soldiers looked back at the door Knuckles had blown off the pod, and then discarded the weapon.

They began walking towards the smoke, amid the wreckage of an entire fleet.