Angel Island. An island well known for being accesible only by air, holding the powerful Master Emerald and it's guardian, Knuckles the Echidna. Normally, this is a peaceful, quiet, even a bit boring. Not today, as the sky was litered with several invasive ships.

"Move move move move." A squadron of the Bird Battle Armada moved through the mushroom forest.

"Hey losers." Knuckles the echina screamed at them.

The squadron leader snickered softly "You shouldn't have done that." He said as the entire group aimed their guns at him. However, the echidna slided his foot just slightly to the right. A second later the floor under them gave up, them falling into a spiked pit, meeting their end.

"This is making me feel nostalgic." Knuckles commented. He tilted just enough, dodging a laser bolt aimed for his head.

A couple of Mole Mechs continued their barrage toward the red anthro, but it was nothing for his speed, as he blazed through them, dismanteling the machines and quickly dispatching of the pilots.

Knuckles continued to rampage through the earth forces without issue, but suddenly a large shadow appeared above him. The echidna looked up, noticed a massive missile looming above him. He spindashed and ran with all his might, able to get out of his shadow. It's blast radius was another story, as the shockwave managed to make him lose his footing and a second later fire engulfed him. "Guah!" He grunted but got back up and powered through the pain, well aware that several more bombs continue to threaten him.

Each bomb sent massive shockwaves on the entire island. The red guy managed to keep his balance for a while, but soon enough, a shockwave and poor terrain finally cause him to stumble. "Crap!" He exclaimed, knowing that a bomb was about to drop on his head.

Knuckles looked up, knowing that there wasn't much in his power to save him. Luckily, he was not alone anymore, as two blurs flew above him and spun around, creating a tornado. It not only managed to stop the bombs, but send them back to the ship, doing enough damaged for it to fall, away from the island.

Although, this stunt was almost sent Knuckles flying, forcing him to sink his knuckle spikes' into the ground to avoid this. "Those dumbasses!"

Finally, the winds stopped and he was temporarily safe. "Is that they way to speak to your savers?" In front of the Echidna stood both Jet the Hawk, and Storm the Albatross, both riding their extreme gears boards.

"My entire home is getting bombed because of you and I should be thanking you?!?!" Knuckles stood up in the blink of an eye and screamed at them, actually intimidating Jet a bit.

"Don't you dare insult the boss man!" Storm pushed Knuckles, only for the later to return it. It would have continued, had another shockwave not interrupted them.

"Where is the third pain in the ass?!"

"Give her a minute."

Quickly, the Babylon Rogues Blimp emerged from under the island. Despite being a blimp, the vehicle zipped around at incredible speeds, much faster than the balloon like vehicle used to be. Aside from that, it had an emerald green lighting cursing through it. At this new speeds, it managed to quickly take down several of the Armada's airships with ease.

"Working like a charm."

"You didn't break the master Emerald or something, did you?!" Knuckles panicked a bit, with good reason. The track record of his friends taking or damaging the damn thing was horrible, let alone when talking about his enemies/rivals.

"Relax Big guy. The gem is hidden in the cove as you asked. But man, this energy is crazy." She screamed again, too excited to take this seriously.

"If I find a single new crack on the Gem..." But Wave responded to that with a scream, as the blimp was shaken dangerously.

Despite the speed boost, there were two tiny specialized aircraft, too small for the blimp to defend against them, harassing it.They were the Two Grand Battle Kukkus, XV and XVI, wearing their battle armors overwhelming the Swallow piloting the Blimp.

"Dammit." Jet screamed and flew toward her. Storm followed him, but both of them were slowed down and intercepted by several Armada Hover pods, too quick for them to maneuver around. Knuckles also headed for that direction, but he was a bit unsure what he could do to help.

Before long the blimp started to catch fire, and lose some altitude. Wave was doing her damnest to shake them, but couldn't. And her allies were still to far away to intervene.

"Sonic Mini cannon, fire!" A blue energy ball came from out of nowhere, aimed at the Grand Battle Kukku. They saw the shot from a mile and spread out, ready to continue the pressure to the blimp. Except, as if the shot had a mind of his own, adjusting it's direction managed to actually grazed both of them, despite being apart, giving the blimp a chance to escape.

"You alright Wave?" Tails the fox asked her through their shared comms, as his airplane, the X tornado, became more visible.

"Holy Shit!" The woman screamed.

"What?!" The fox was suddenly very concerned for her.

"Your balls actually dropped. You sound like a man!"

"...Give me back my concern for this pain in the butt." Tails didn't bother to dignify that comment.

"Knuckles catch!" The airplane shot a pod at his direction. Mid Flight, the pod opened up, revealing the Echidna's red Extreme Gear.

"Oh Yeah!" He said, managing to grab it as it passed by his side. Instead of stopping the vehicle, he let it take him away, rode it and used the momentum to move around, up a mountain and jumped right off it's tip and managed to get enough altitude to jump right into the deck of an Airship.

Meanwhile, the blue bullet finally landed on the island, lifting a large amount of dust. "Long time no see Jet." Sonic the hedgehog emerged from the subsiding clouds, carrying his extreme gear around in suitcase mode.

"You are late!" The green bird screamed.

"Ain't you supposed to be the fastest thing alive!?" Storm chimed, before splitting up from them and do his own damage.

"We were just told to come. Give me a break." Sonic commented. "How long has it being though? 12 years?"

"Six, Hedgehog."

"I could swear it was way longer." He commented lightly. "So, what is going on exactly?" They both ran toward another squadron of soldiers.

"No idea, the Battle Armada has always hated us, but they had never launched an attack this overwhelming." They discussed, as they teared through another ground squadron.

Suddenly, Sonic pushed Jet out of the way, barely managing to avoid getting hit by the number XV. "Speedy's daddy right?" As a reply, XV just raised his arm and shot lightning at him. Nothing that the hedgehog couldn't dodge, but the armored bird read his next movement, appearing right in front of him and launching a punch, that Sonic managed to catch with his own hand. "Heard he has a vendetta against my little bro."

"I don't care." A electric wave then hit the Hedgehog from the fist he stopped. This caused pain on the hedgehog, while also paralizing him on his place. "He is insignificant, just like you." He extended his armored fingers, sharp like knives and slashed.

The only thing he hit was green feathers though, as Jet barely managed to get the hedgehog out of harms way. "The Bastard Bird's Leader." Jet brought out his twin Bashōsen. He knew the winds, no matter how powerful, would have no effect on him. Instead, he charged full speed ahead, and attacked, but XV dodge it with ease. Jet, efficiently, inserted on of his weapons on the floor to U turn and tried again.

"You three could have become so much more and I chose to ignore it when you went after your 'heritage', but then, you went and became a racer! Wasted! Potential!" Jet barraged him with attacks failed to nail him. Through an opening, XV managed to kick Jet off his extreme gear. "Your father would never tell you, but I know he is disappointed in you."

"Yeah... Yeah." Jet could barely speak as he got back up. "I am not what everyone expected. Being told that a million times. I don't care. Plus, I bet you are even more disappointed on that son of yours." For the first time since the fight began, his expression changed from calm to angry, to what Jet returned a satisfied smirk.

Sonic then, threw a kick to the head, to what XV just ducked, and aimed his arm to his attacker and laser blasted him away. This however gave Jet enough time to call his extreme gear, board it and, this time, tried to crash the vehicle against XV head, who was still looking at Sonic. At the literal last second, he still managed to avoid getting by the attack.

Sonic, back in action jumped toward him and threw an axe kick that XV sidestepped yet again. Sonic then did a kick directed toward his leg, that he jump dodge it. Immediately, Sonic did a spin dash, and attacked XV, but he just lifted his arm, ready to catch him

Jet got an idea and using the Bashōsen, sent a powerful gust of wind, increasing Sonic's speed and the team attack finally managed to break the right arm part of the armor.

Grand Battle Kukku XV hated it, but they had actually done some damage to his tools, if only slightly.


"So, how many traps do you have around the island?" Storm asked Knuckles, as he saw another trap activating, crushing another battalion of birds under a large rock. Knuckles replied with a rather sinister chuckle, one that Storm didn't expect at all.

The duo then moved back into attacking another Battleship. This time however, a powerful electricity shock repelled them from getting any closer. "What the...?!"

"Hahahahaha. So, the two idiots of your groups, come and try to get me." They heard someone mock them.

"Dr. Fukurokov!" Storm yelled.

"Who?" Knuckles asked. The mad genius continued his ramblings about how much more brilliant he was than them. They stopped listening to him a while back.

"Their Smarty Pants. Builds stuffs. Meaner than Wave."

"Know anything about this force field?"

"No."

"Well, I got an idea. I need you to go down, pick up and throw the biggest rocks you can find."

"... That's so stupid." Storm was sure that was even dumber than anything he could think of.

"DO IT!" Knuckles screamed and scared the crap out of Storm, enough to make him just do it.

"... And the Armada will forever flourish because of our technological superiority!" Fukurokov repeated, before noticing that a giant rock was thrown by them, passing through the electric forcefield. But it was nothing that the cannons on the airship couldn't just blast off, stopping the momentum and breaking it into smaller pieces. "Are you serious!? You plan stopping my intellectual superiority with rocks?!?!"

Storm just, took another rock, 6 times his height and 3 his width, spun around on his place to gain speed and threw it. Then he noticed that Knuckles was just sitting there on his stationary extreme gear. "This is your idea! Help with it!" Knuckles didn't reply, concentrating as hard as he could.

Another series of rocks flew and were blasted yet again. "These two just don't learn." The scientist disappointment just grew.

"Sir, the smaller rocks... they are not falling."

"Huh?" They finally noticed that hundreds of smaller rocks were now surrounding the airship. Then, Knuckles joined his hands together in almost like an applause gesture. Suddenly, all the rocks flew toward the Airship, damaging it, breaking it's weaponry, bending and eventually breaking through it's exteriors. "No no no no no."

'Warning. Force Field Generator Damaged.' An alarm roared. "Shiiiiiit! Do you think they will realize?" The Doctor asked.

"Well, you never turned off the megaphone!" One of his soldiers replied, annoyed.

After a Silence, the doctor screamed some more.

"Huh. That was kinda awesome." Storm admitted.

"I bet I can find the doc before you." Knuckles told him.

"Deaaaaaaaaal" Storm hadn't even finished the word when he blasted away at full speed.

"Cheater!" Knux screamed before blasting off like him.

The Albatrosses, due to their size and strength, used to be called the wrecking balls of the army and Storm lived up to the status, destroying metal wall after metal wall, until finally, the Doctor stumbled on his feet, before getting back up and running toward the other direction. Too bad for him, the wall behind him was also broken, this time by the echidna, who know was wearing a pair of claw gauntlets.


"Little Hero wants to play." Speedy said.

Despite the initial attack being concentrated towards the Babylon Blimp, now all his efforts were directed towards the fox. It was already tricky to take down, normal ships at high speeds, but a normal person size person wearing a flight armor? Tails couldn't shake him off and time and time again, he continued to chip at the X Tornado.

"You know, I am kinda glad that you darkened the glass. When I finally get to break it, I will enjoy taking the life out of your body." Speedy threatened.

It was almost as if the Swallow wasn't there, with her significantly bigger blimp than their flight means. However, that's what they were counting on.

Tails managed to lead Speedy inside a giant hollow tree trunk like a tunnel. At the end of it, the blimp stood there, charging green energy to it's tip. The fox hit the gas and managed to make it out, just in the nick of time as the second he was safe, Wave fire a massive laser at Speedy, big enough that the tunnel was destroyed.

"Oh Sh..." Speedy couldn't even finish the sentence as he was blasted.

"Wasn't that kinda overkill?" Tails asked. Once the smoke dispersed, they realized that XVI was still flying, covering his head with his arms, though his flight armor was completely trashed.

"Seems it wasn't kill enough." Wave commented lightly. The armor finally stopped working, grounding the enemy bird.

"Speedy, it's over. Give yourself up before this escalates even more." Tails said. Speedy didn't reply, instead, he just raised both his hands. "Phew. Ok, maybe he..." The fox stopped, as he noticed that his ship was moving slightly upwards.

That was odd, he was sure his ship should be stationary. But then, he felt a sensation, as if gravity had just being turned off. He looked again at Speedy. The metal armor pieces were floating around him and they finally realized that, on his left arm, he was wearing an Arc of the Cosmos.

Tails and Wave started blasting, but it was too late, as the shift in gravity pushed them and made both of them miss, as well as shooting Speedy up in to the sky, right between them and away of them. "Dammit." Wave screamed. The duo had regained control, turned around their ships and hit the gas.

At this moment, a group of roughly 20 BBA soldiers descended, all of them wearing the bracelet. All of them exerted the power on the fox and the Swallow. Wave's Blimp was slowed down significantly, but still flew out of the gravity range. Tails wasn't that lucky, his airship completely halted by them.

Tails turned off his engine, allowing himself to be completely pushed by the gravity shift. This made the X Tornado shift upwards and the second he did that he went full speed. The combination of forces made it so that the airplane moved more in a loop shape, out of their range. The army had foreseen this, and another squadron once again stopped him death on his tracks.

This time, a third group surrounded the fox, like a ring, all of them applying gravity against the fox ship from several different directions. Suddenly, the metal airplane started whinning loudly and his blood went cold, as the walls on his cockpit were moving closer and closer to him. He started jabbing the eject button, maybe his only hope to avoid being crushed.

Wave noticed and desperately tried to shoot... anything really, trying to break their concentration, but the large battleships had now recovered and joined. It was either keep moving farther from them, or get blasted. Finally, the airplane was turned into something resembling more of a oval made of metal than anything else.


Before they knew it, the power of the gravity from several Arc of the Cosmo had thrown both Storm and Knuckles off the interior and back on the deck of it. Then, the gravity on top of them increased. This made it so that the entire battleship was tipping forward. Knuckles sank his claws into the metal and managed to avoid falling, and so did Storm who grabbed on to Knuckles feet.

"Let me go you overgrown..." Then, a shadow covered both of them. It was then that they noticed that another Aircraft was nosediving directly toward them. Both of them screamed as both vehicles crashed, crumbled and exploded against one another.

"No no no no." Dr. Fukurokov didn't take his eyes from a tablet he had, in a state of panic.

"What's the matter sir? We are turning this around."

"Everyone, on the Comms. Retreat. I repeat, retreat from Angel Island immediately."

"What is happening, why are you issuing a retreat? Ufff!" XV asked, opening himself to an attack on the stomach by Sonic.

"Wave, get the heck out the island!" On his side, Jet was barking orders on his comms. "That's an order! You know the most about this!"

"Why is everyone panicking?" Sonic, still out of the loop, then felt strong gust of winds, almost dragging him. It was then that he saw a black sphere, growing and growing, sucking everything. It felt quiet, but in a 'Calm before the storm kind of situation'. At this point, all three of them moved away from the sphere.

"Seriously, what's with their fear?" Speedy said outloud. In front of him, was the piece of junk that once was the X Tornado. He managed to open up and pick up a battered Tails the fox by his chest fur. Though he had to check him out twice before.

"This is the fox? He looks way too old to be him. Though he also has those freakish twin tails..." At this moment, he realized that the orange fox was terrified, but his gaze wasn't looking at Speedy, but past him. It was then that Speedy actually noticed the giant black hope growing. "Oh."

Suddenly, a massive roar broke, followed by a sort of silence flooded everything. As if a low 'Whiiiiiiir' noise was the only thing you could hear, drowing the destruction and the screams.

From the center of the island the destruction spread, the earth crumbling upward and spreading at alarming speeds. The remaining BBA Battleships were dragged and, once close enough, started breaking apart, drained by the black hole.

Speedy was trying to fly away, but the gravity had taken a hold of him, stuck on his place despite pushing his machine to the limit. Tails was just able to grab himself to the ground for a while, before a rock flew and hit him square on his face, knocking him out. He would have flown out, had Sonic not caught him mid flight by his leg. To fight the gravity, Sonic was moving at his maximum speeds, though now that he had his 'brother', he couldn't beat the force of gravity.

Lord XV then reached Speedy. When he got his kid's attention, he gestured and the younger one understood the message. XV gestured one, then two, finally three with his fingers and, synchonized, they pushed their machineries engines up to the maximum, finally able to escape the area of effect.

Sonic, still carrying the fox, looked behind him and saw how the earth crumbling behind him was finally catching up to him. Always running, he pulled out his extreme gear, opened it, and placed Tails on top of it. He then went and adjusted it's engine, put it at 200% capacity and fired it. With the vehicle they actually managed to make it farther, but it wasn't going to be enough, fast enough, specially because the extreme gear wasn't going to survive for long at past his max capacity.

Sonic made up his mind, and let go of the extreme gear, the instant he did he was dragged away into the black hole, but the plan worked, as the knocked out fox made it out of the area. To that, he just smiled, before it was fully engulfed in darkness.


The consciousness was slowly returning, along side a nasty headache, the other thing was something running along his shoulders and a giggle. He slowly opened his eyes and a certain white bat was too close to him. He gasped in a bit of panic, which scared her a bit. The sudden movement sent a big jolt of pain all over his body, informing him to stop. He looked around for a second, he was inside Rouge's personal aircraft, going on auto pilot, so Rouge could focus on him.

After a short of moment, Tails broke the silence "Were you touching me just a moment ago?"

"Well, I you hadn't gone and turn yourself into a stud..." Rouge complained, thinking this would have the fox act bashful around her, but the fox interrupted her tricks.

"PERVERT!!! SHAME ON YOU!!!" He screamed. Which caused Rouge to panic a bit.

"I am not..."

"Just wait until Knuckles hears about this!!!" Tails knew very well this would make her be ashamed, worry even about how Knuckles would take this new information. He, however, didn't expect the way Rouge depressed about it. "Umm. I mean."

"Tails..." The fox was not used to Rouge sounding this small and vulnerable. She was either sexy seductive spy or hot headed blockhead, not unlike the red Echidna. "Knuckles... Did he..." She was practically begging him for an answer.

"He is fine, just like the rest, thanks for asking." Tails knew the sass was unnecessary, but he couldn't care at the moment. Not with the piercing pain him head.

"Do you think you are funny?!" Rouge sounded so offended at that answer.

"The last time this happened, the black hole, while it destroyed machinery and construction, it didn't do anything to sentient beings. It worked more like a portal to another dimension." "Although, now that I think about it, our extreme gears were left intact. They are machines. But the rings... could they have some mind of their own and let them slide because they are similar to the magical carpets? Make a mental note to check this out later." Thought to himself, then looked at Rouge, who seemed as if a massive weight was lifted of her shoulders.

"How can I help? How can we get them out of there?"

Tails gave it some thought. "Last time... There was an... avatar of sort, a monster with full control of the gravity in the pocket dimension. We had to destroy it to escape. Except... Last time, there were less than 10 bracelets involve in it's creation. I think I saw around 50 of them, and they had more attacking the others... It's going to be much stronger and trickier to defeat. Ok. I am going to need to get back to my workshop on Mystic Ruins and..."

"About that..." Rouge interrupted him, before playing a video for him. It was his workshop, getting bombed by a BBA Airship. "And this." This time, it was a video recording of Speedy.

"Listen to me all of you. I know that stupid fox it's out there. Reveal yourself before..." Suddenly, he was pushed away by the Grand Battle Kukku XV.

Rouge then stopped the recording. "What did you do exactly to XVI? I have never seen such hatred of anyone really."

"Hit him right in his insecurities." Tails joked. "But it doesn't matter, I need to..."

"Tails... GUN has decided that no vigilantes go and take on the BBA."

"What?!"

"They literally made a black hole that ate up all of Angel Island and continues to grow. They want to avoid another of these. And it seems Speedy is ready to do something the second he spots anything related to you."

"...Right. The Black Hole. What is happening with that?" Last time, they only got a glimpse before jumping right in. How did it look from the outside?

"It's slowed down, however, it is still absorbing everything on it's range, and expanding. A no flight, no land, no life zone."

"Wait, how did I made it out of there then?" To that, Rouge just pointed to his side. It was about half of a board, but it was the Shooting Star, Sonic's board. "He saved me again." This only made him want to go out there and help. Still, another thought overpowered this one.

"An... Vanilla? Cream? Amy, The Chaotix?"

"GUN is moving them and trying to keep them hidden."

"What if the BBA attacks?"

"They won't, kinda. XV seems to be hesitant to do this again. We suspect that it's because this little stunt did more damage to their numbers than they expected. Speedy however, doesn't. If he sees you he is going to drag you and not care if it drags everyone else."

"Then we need to act now."

"And GUN is. Me and Shadow are going to stealthily infiltrate them and take it from there."

"Shadow is about as stealthy as a Nuclear Bomb!"

"Tails!" Rouge scream kinda put a stop to the discussion. "Please. Let us handle this. Just this once. We won't fail you. You aren't the only one who lost someone just now. Heck, look at yourself. You are a mess. Give yourself some time to heal." She was using her puppy eyes on him.

"...Fine. But I need you to take me somewhere."


"So, the Lost Worlds... Why though?"

Tails was very specific about the spot on the grassy lands, one that he began to dig and not long after, found a ring with a purple and red gem attached to it.

The fox closed his eyes and a purple ring run from his head to his feet, changing his fur to red and removing one of his Tails. Rouge went and tried to grab what she thought would be his invisible tail, but she couldn't find anything, almost as if he was actually a fox with a single one.

"So, what is the next step?"