It was a bright and sunny afternoon, with the skies almost completely clear, the odd cloud dotted about, adding to the pure blue sky. Wildlife was active today, enjoying as much of the day as they could before nightfall. This included a few stray Chao living about, next to some severely crumbled and slightly overgrown stone ruins. One of the Chao, dark blue with a bright green ball on its head, like an antenna, was making it's way up the steep stairs of the ruins, looking for something. When it got up, it immediately ran over to one of the pillars, squeaking up a storm. The sound of a disgruntled and annoying groan came, before bright violet eyes slowly opened to meet that of the Chao, who had emerald green eyes. The Chao looked excited, much to the owner of the violet eyes' annoyance, although with a bit of shuffling the Chao ended up in the hold of two boxer gloves, being placed onto the owners lap, of which was colored completely red. The Chao twitched it's little ears in enjoyment while the other just let out a sigh, looking around a bit before eyes rested upon the ground below. The light reflecting off of the giant emerald nearby was bugging the one, quite a bit really, from a known dislike of bright lights in the eyes, so looking away was the best option for the time being until some nasty neck pain arose from the current position, no thanks to the small Chao. It seemed the other Chao below were a bit riled up, running around with a lot more energy than they normally did. A little pink one, a couple mix-and-match black, purple and yellow ones, and a red one were all dancing around in the open clearing in front of the shrine, all looking like they were letting off pent up energy by playfully tackling each other. It was a nice day, sure, but normally the Chao weren't this excited, no matter the day. Clearly they sensed something, and the one was starting to think maybe they were riled up because they sensed visitors were coming. Visitors, because the Chao wouldn't be so happy if they sensed any ill will. The same gloves gently moved the Chao off and onto the ground before helping boost the owner into a standing position, making way down the stairs as the Chao continued to dance around in excitement, the blue on following behind to the best of it's abilities. It didn't take long after before the sound of footsteps could be heard in the underbrush not too far away, where all of the Chao immediately stopped to rush over, squeaking as they went to go tackle whoever was coming. They seemed successful, as a somewhat high pitched yelp of surprise was let loose, along with the sudden sounds of laughter.
"Heyyy, not funny!" The voice whined, sounding male, yet pretty young, although didn't seem very salty about the predicament.
"Relax Tails, he glad! These Chao are getting a lot more friendly ever since we rescued them from that trafficker," A female voice commented, a few giggles letting lose during the statement as the owner emerged from the forest. She was a pink hedgehog with a red dress, sporting red boots with a white line down the middle, along with ring cuffs. A yellow fox followed after, a black Chao sitting atop of his head while he brushed his yellow fur off, his duo tails swaying behind him as he walked.
"Enough about the Chao, where's our lovely little island guardian?" another voice chimed, sounding a lot deeper than the fox, and although sounding mature, with the way the blue hedgehog strode out of the forest looking as egotistical as ever, he was far from the classification of 'mature'.
"Eyyy there he is! Our favorite knucklehead!" The same voice said, walking up and punching the arm of the Guardian, who's eyes narrowed a bit in mock- irritation.
"I would have at least expected a 'heads up' that you were coming, Sonic. At first it was just Tails n' Amy, but you? Please," He grumbled, trying to his the smirk threatening to creep onto his face, crossing his arms as he tilted his head at the hedgehog with a tired look.
"Awww don't be like that! C'mon, I know you just love the surprise visits to your gloomy little island~" He teased, getting an eyeroll out of everyone standing in the small group.
"I like 'em when they've been announced, otherwise more often than not you show up in the middle of a nap," Sonic reared back in a very dramatic way, putting a hand to his chest as he SEVERELY exaggerated an offended look.
"The guardian of the master emerald, taking a NAP? My my, even I wouldn't slack off as badly as THAT," he teased, being overly dramatic about it as he teased the red one, who just looked deadpanned unamused at this point.
"Can ya tell me why ya came so you can stop botherin' the peace? Or was that your goal the entire time?" He grumbled, getting a bit of a look from Amy, the pink hedgehog.
"We need your assistance, Eggman has been more quiet than usual, and we have a feeling he's going around off radar collecting chaos emeralds for another giant scheme of his... the problem is..." Tails trailed off, looking at his little tablet-device with a fallen expression.
"You don't know for sure because you can't sense the chaos emeralds, so you want me along so you can confirm the suspicion as well as help stop the problem," he finished for Tails, who just nodded.
"Look, Knuckles, we know you don't like leaving the island, but we thought not only would it be a help for us with Eggman, not only do you hate him like we do, but it would be a chance for you to get out off the island again, since it's definitely been a hot minute since then." Amy replied, walking up to the scowling echidna with a pleading expression. He eyed her carefully for a moment, before sighing.
"Well... you aren't wrong.. I've been itching to kick his butt in for quite a bit now... fine, but I'm hiding the master emerald before we leave," he grumbled. He hadn't let the trick go at all about the fake emerald he'd planted in the shrine, knowing fully he had no reason to sit around and guard it with the real master emerald hidden safely from any and all prying eyes, but no one, not even the friends in front of him knew that the emerald sitting on the shrine was actually fake. He planned on keeping it that way as long as possible, even if it meant guarding a fake emerald that had no actual importance to him other can to act as a decoy. The three of them nodded while he turned back around to collect the 'emerald', the trio staying with the Chao as he went off into the forest to hide it.
When he came back, after some final farewells to the Chao, the group left for the Tornado, giving Knuckles a bit more information along the way.
"So Eggman has been off the radar for how long?"
"According to my assessments, the last time anyone saw him was over 3 weeks ago,"
"Yeah, he was trying to chase me about with some weird new flamethrower robot, but Amy here busted it to pieces before it got far," this got a little sheepish chuckle out of Amy.
"You believe is next scheme has to do with the chaos emeralds then,"
"Yeah, last time he went off radar for an extended time period he was gathering chaos emeralds to make an over powered bot that almost killed Sonic,"
"Why haven't I heard of this? I'd have gone looking for them myself long ago to prevent that!"
"We didn't wanna bother the guardian while he was 'on duty' ya see? Besides, you normally don't care for that kind of info," Sonic shrugged as he spoke, getting a bit of a hidden offended look from Knuckles. Sure, he didn't act like it was his business, not wanting to look soft, but he did care for his friends, no matter how little or how much he felt so, or showed it. It hurt him a bit hearing Sonic say that, but he didn't show it, just scoffing.
"Yeah, well, whatever then, water under the bridge," he grumbled, getting a chuckle out of the hedgehog as he jumped up onto one of the wings of the plane.
"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go easter egg hunting!" Knuckles immediately internally face palmed.
"It's February, not April.."
"It's a joke, c'mon now!" Sonic was smirking the entire time while Amy and Tails took their seats in the Tornado. Knuckles just gave him a disappointed look before taking his spot on the other wing of the Tornado, before Tails started the engine and had them off within seconds.
The first place they visited was Eggmans main base, since Knuckles had picked up on a chaos energy source coming from the general direction. When they got there, it wasn't hard to tell he was up to something, as his security looked a LOT more tight and bulkier than usual, a mass of highly weaponized robots marching about the front like a mini army.
"Jeez, Egghead certainly became Scrooge with how much he doesn't visibly want visitors, you'd think he was planning for the world to invade his base," Sonic commented, although he didn't look at energetic as he sounded, focusing on the mass of robots as Tails landed the Tornado in a hidden spot.
"For the amount of energy I'm sensing? I'd think it's the other way around... he has at least 4," Knuckles grumbled, walking over to a boulder as he kneeled down, peeking out the glare at the marching army. Tails look a bit unsettled at such.
"4 chaos emeralds? Well, our hunch was right then..."
"He only said at LEAST... so four is a minimum..." Amy held her hammer in her grasp firmly as she peered over with Knuckles, assessing the situation closely.
"Yeah... I can sense at least 4 that I can make out, but the chaos energy is unstable, so it's hard to confirm if theres more or if it's just the 4.." Sonic jumped on top of the boulder with a grin.
"Well? So what? Just means we gotta be a bit more careful with our actions, that's all! We'll have them all secured in minutes," he then spin dashed right into the group of robots, taking out a good chunk in second with ease. Tails shook his head before joining in, using his wrench as a weapon to help himself take out the robots, Amy leaping in with her hammer. Knuckles ran in shortly after, eager to get as many punches in as he could before the others had all the fun. The robots weren't too hard to beat, mostly for Sonic with his speed, but Knuckles and Amy were doing very well, using fists and the hammer to knock their components to pieces before they had the chance to strike back, with Tails going around in between knocking bots down grabbing some usable components for his own projects. They made surprisingly quick work of the mob outside, much to everyone's confusion.
"That was too easy, where's the challenge?" Knuckles grumbled, punching his fists together in annoyance. Sure, he'd gotten some good hits in, but everything fell after a single hit, not making it as fun as normal for him, especially with how big the robots had been.
"He's probably going for looks rather than effectiveness," Sonic teased, more so in mockery to Eggman than to pick at Knuckles, although Tails and Amy looked at each other.
"I have a feeling those were meant to be easy to take down, to lower our guards for a trap.." Tails stated, Amy nodding.
"He's done this before, and we know how that goes. Horribly wrong, every single time," Amy muttered, getting a dismissive wave from Sonic.
"Ahhh so what if it is? We can handle it knowing it involves chaos emeralds, so we know what to expect! It'll be fiiiine," he then bashed through the main entrance, setting off the alarms as he made his way further into the base, not caring for Tails yelling after him.
"I mean... he has a point, but also... I have an odd feeling about the energy inside..." Knuckles mumbled to himself, although the other two evidently caught what he said as he rushed in. He didn't notice though, too busy tunnel visioning the enemies flooding the halls and bashing through them to keep up with Sonic, determined not to let him get all the fun and steal the glory of defeating Eggman... again. Bashing through the bots opposing him and clogging up the halls, Knuckles could tell where Sonic went by the components lying about the halls from robots destroyed seconds before his arrival. It wasn't long until he spotted the blue blur dashing around a few larger robots before spin dashing through them in rapid succession, stopping to wave at Knuckles before continuing forward. Knuckles didn't bother to look back to see how the other two were doing, knowing they could hold their own against weak bots such as these, and just kept moving forward before he came back to back with Sonic, with the latter jumping behind him to knock back a bot while Knuckles drove his fist into the one in front of him. Although they made banter a lot, and often pushed each others buttons in an attempt to poke fun at the other, they worked really well together in combat, with the strength and speed making them even more formidable together than when they were separated.
They were able to clear a path far enough to a large metallic room, where Knuckles sensed the most chaos energy flowing about the walls of the room. It was completely empty, other than a large robotic arm in the ground sticking upwards with a pedestal in the center palm, containing seven different small spots fitted perfectly for the emeralds. There were four, like Knuckles had original stated, but there was an abnormal amount of chaos energy warping around them, in an odd fashion unnatural to chaos energy when it was visible.
"Odd... some kind of extraction room?" Sonic walked in a bit as he looked around, wondering if there were any traps at all as he approached the pedestal.
"No, the energy is too strong and unstable, where if he was extracting it there wouldn't be this much built and unstable chaos energy stuck in the room," Knuckles replied, marching past Sonic to personally examine the pedestal, trying to figure out what was going on with the emeralds. With each passing moment his unease grew, but he looked the pedestal down before reaching to grab one of the emeralds just as the other two joined them. Tails only had to take a glance at the weird hand-pedestal before calling out.
"Knuckles wait! That's a-" he couldn't finish before Knuckles had his hand on one of the emeralds, where upon contact the hand immediately closed around his arm, trapping his hand, the emeralds, and the unstable energy all within it's palm. He reared back as he immediately swung a punch at the hand, trying to break his trapped arm free, but to no avail.
"Hahahahahah! You dumb Echidna, you fell for it, just like I had planned! I banked on either you or Sonic being gullible enough to try for the emeralds, but I didn't think you'd fall THAT easily!" a familiar voice mocked, Eggman being revealed on a little pedestal that emerged from a part of the wall, laughing up his genius like usual.
"What did you do Egghead?" Sonic yelled, taking a fighting stance, along with Amy. Tails started running over to Knuckles to try and help, but a sudden shockwave from the pent of energy within the robotic hand pushed him back, along with physically shocking Knuckles from the wave that passed through his body.
"Oh-hoh hoh hoh! Would you ever like to know? I just infused the chaos emeralds with a new energy I found to make them unstable, and made them build up enough energy that upon contact would start injecting a mass amount of energy into the one stupid enough to try at them!" Eggman cackled, getting an alarmed look from everyone.
"What is the purpose of that? Why was THAT your plan for the emeralds?" Amy questioned, gripping her hammer with menace while Tails ran back to help Knuckles, who was using everything, even his own feet to try and pry the hand off his arm, starting to feel the unstable energy building up again, and much faster than before the last shockwave.
"It's simple! If my calculations are correct, which they almost always are, it'll completely limit the unfortunate to that of a powerless rodent, where I can then easily remove said from the equation! Of course, the task of freeing your little dumb echidna friend will prove near impossible, as that pedestal was designed specifically, under the most perilous pressure, to keep a firm hold on whatever gets trapped inside. So the emeralds and your friend as completely trapped until I decide to let them go!" This got a nasty glare out of Knuckles.
"I swear to god when I get out you'll be BEGGING me to stop knocking your jaw off your face!" He snarled, clenching his fist at Eggman before delivering another punch to the arm, not even leaving a dent.
"Good luck with that!" he sneered back, before he pressed a button, a swarm of robots flooding the room within seconds. Tails was too busy focusing on attempting to free Knuckles to notice, and yelped in surprise when a bot grabbed one of his Tails and swing him away.
"Tails!" Sonic yelled, speeding over to catch him before he collided with the wall, while Amy barreled her way through to try and deliver a hardy blow to the pedestal with her hammer. The bots, however, were MUCH sturdier than the ones along the way, taking her hammer blows with ease whilst attempting to throw her about. Sonic and Tails were also trying to reach Knuckles, but it seemed the robots were modeled specifically to be able to take the hits from all three of them. Knuckles swing at the few robots he could reach, and it seemed that, although they were built to endure his punches, there were a few weak spots where if he landed it correctly, the robot would crumple to the ground in a scrapheap. Tails noticed this, and called to the other two.
"Bring the robots to Knuckles! He found a weak spot that'll speed things up!" Amy and Sonic nodded at this before slipping and sliding around the robots to direct them to Knuckles. He tried to focus on helping his friends with the robots, but couldn't take his mind off the agonizing tingling that had staryed in his trapped arm, as well as the energy starting to crackle around the pedestal, raising his dreadlocks slightly with the amount of built up power within the contained space with the emeralds. Eggman looked ecstatic by this display, up until the crackling energy around the pedestal started to rapidly grow. Everyone else noticed too, especially Knuckles as he started to pale from the amount of violent tingling in his body, forgetting about the robots to rapidly pummel the hand in a desperate attempt to get away. The ground around them starting to shake as the energy got stronger and stronger, to the point the robotic arm was glowing a bit red, causing Eggman to check his devices.
"W-what? It's never reached this amount of energy before! It's too unstable?!" Sonic looked at Eggman before turning to Knuckles, realizing the energy was about to explode from tension, with Knuckles right in the middle of it. He dashed over to start desperately trying to pry the fingers off of Knuckles while the latter kept punching the hand, but by the time Sonic got his fingers in enough to try and lift, a sudden wave of red assaulted everyone's vision, Sonic instinctively leaping back to try and avoid taking the blunt of the wave, temporarily forgetting Knuckles couldn't escape period. The entire surrounding area was engulfed in pure red, everyone feeling like they'd been punched right in the gut, before the red faded off to a completely different scenery. Everyone immediately collapsed onto the ground, which instead of metal was now soft grass, all trying to regain their bearings. Eggman wasn't there, probably escaping in the nick of time, but it didn't take long for Sonic to realize they were in a completely different place, like a massive Chaos Control had teleported them out. Tails, Amy and Sonic all exchanged a look before hearing a groan from behind them, turning around to notice Knuckles, stomach to the ground as he lay on the ground. His arm was free, but his entire body was crackling with the unstable red energy from the chaos emeralds, which concerned the entire group. As he started to slowly push himself upwards, Tails knelt down with his scanner as the other two helped him sit up.
"Hey, are you ok?" Sonic asked, looking at the echidna in worry.
"Urgh... Been worse... but been better.." he mumbled, shaking his head weakly as he flexed his arm, trying to get the tingling out of it.
"At most I just feel sick... and somewhat painfully numb..? I don't know how to explain without sounding delusional.." he then looked around, confusion blooming on his face.
"Where in chaos are we?"
"We seem to be off the normal map, judging by our indicators," Tails stated, giving Sonic his little tablet device so he could see.
"Knuckles, you seem to have absorbed all four chaos emeralds during the blast, as well as the energy they were letting off, which I have a feeling will start to collect pent up energy within your body... So how you feel now will most likely start to get worse overtime.." Tails murmured, violet eyes narrowing while olive green eyes softened in worry.
"As long as we can get out of here and back to your lab you can extract and un-fuse the emeralds from him, right?" Amy asked worriedly.
"Oh most definitely, it's just the matter of getting out of here in the first place... wherever this is.." Tails replied, Knuckles slowly standing to his feet with a bit of a wobble, wincing at the red electric-like currents of energy crackling from his body every so often.
"Well then, let's get the hell outta here before... I dunno, this energy makes me explode or something," he grumbled, trying and failing miserably to add some humor to the situation. He was never good at humor in tense situations unless someone else threw it about first.
"I don't think we should joke about that, because you exploding is actually a possibility if the energy builds up for long enough," Tails muttered, getting a sigh from Knuckles.
"Why don't we stop standing around and dwelling on it, and instead get home to FIX it, how about that?" He grumbled, irritation dripping from his tone. He didn't let them respond before storming off into the forest, evidently on his last nerves from the energy assaulting his body. The other followed after him, but not before exchanging worried looks with each other before so.