Sonic the hedgehog

Dark Era

The characters are property of SEGA

"You know? Call it instinct, but I think something's not right on Angel Island" Sonic said loudly to make himself heard over the noise the plane the Tornado made.

"It's because the Master Emerald is now purple and has a dark aura and the whole area is infested with..." Tails squinted his eyes to try to see clearly "Black and bright purple Badniks?

Sonic looked back at Tails with a sideways grin.

"Yep, that's totally why, it already looked to me like something wasn't going the way it should" Sonic replied "Well, first things first, we load up these weird badniks, and then off to check out the Master Emerald."

Tails descended with the plane and Sonic jumped down as soon as he could, Tails landed the plane behind him and stood next to the hedgehog.

"Sonic do you think this will have anything to do with Knuckles disappearing?" Tails asked.

"I don't know, what I do know..." Sonic pointed to the strange badniks in front of him "...Is that Eggman has something to do with all of this."

"They certainly look like his badniks, but there's something odd about them, aside from the sudden change in color palette of course" Tails said

A Badnik fired at Sonic, who dodged the shot with ease and narrowly missed the Tornado.

"Well, they don't seem to have good intentions" Said the blue hedgehog.

Sonic did a Spin dash against the group of badniks in front of him, running them over in the process, and used that speed to keep moving forward, Tails followed close behind him flying with his two tails, the fox balled up and destroyed several Buzz Bomber badniks falling one at a time on top of them. Sonic wrapped himself in blue lightning, thereby increasing his speed considerably, the Moto bug badniks in front of him were no obstacle for the hedgehog.

"You know, maybe they are Eggman's work after all, because they still have his big signature, you know, in that they are too easy to defeat" Sonic smiled looking at Tails who laughed.

Before long they arrived at where the Master Emerald was, the jewel that once gave off a soothing green hue now emitted a disturbing hue that mixed purple and black. Tails pulled out his PAD and began scanning the Emerald while Sonic looked around the pedestal for Knuckles.

"Knucks! Are you around?" shouted Sonic waiting for an answer "Hmm... I guess asking on the air and expecting a random answer isn't the best way to find someone, besides if Knuckles was here he would have taken out those badniks by now!"

"Sonic this is really interesting! come on!" shouted Tails.

"What's up buddy?" asked Sonic, arriving instantly "Any news on Master Emerald's sudden change of look?"

"I don't know if it has anything to do with it, but it seems that this change hasn't come about because of Master Emerald herself" Tails turned around as he took a few steps still looking at the PAD and Sonic looked over the little fox's shoulder "But rather it's been some sort of chain reaction caused by the presence of Red Mountain's energy, the one I told you about earlier"

"Wow! So the key is in Red Mountain huh?" Sonic waved his hand slightly and turned around 'But until we know what happened to Knucks we can't leave here' then Sonic saw something almost hidden in some bushes growing among the rocky ground "Wait a minute! Is that Amy's hammer?" Sonic walked over and picked it up, Tails approached him.

"How strange! Amy would never leave it lying around..." Tails then had an idea "Sonic! What if Amy was here with Knuckles and then something happened? Something to do with the Master Emerald Sure!"

Sonic looked at the Master Emerald with distrust.

"You're right" the hedgehog wrapped himself in blue lightning 'What mystery are you hiding?' and put both hands on the Master Emerald tightly.

"Sonic No!" Tails said

But it was too late, the Emerald reacted by shining even stronger and rising about five meters above the ground, giving off purple rays that hit whatever was near it, luckily not against our heroes.

"Sonic! I thought that after so many adventures you would have a minimum of common sense" Tails reprimanded him "Look at the mess you've made!"

"Umm... I didn't think it would end up in this the truth, and besides, you know common sense isn't my strong suit" Sonic replied watching the Master Emerald carefully.

The Emerald launched a strong beam of energy a few meters away from Sonic, from it emerged a strange entity, it had the body and head of Knuckles and black in color, except for the chest part which was purple, but certainly those spikes and that purple hammer it had were Amy's.

"What, Amy!? or... Knuckles!? or... both of them!?" Tails asked puzzled.

"What or who are you!" Sonic questioned "Don't impersonate my friends, or... both of us at the same time in one being Neither of the two options!" Sonic jumped into a ball and attacked using a Homing attack, but for entity it didn't pose any risk, with incredible reflexes he used his hammer as a bat and hit Sonic sending him several meters backward"

"Sonic!" Tails jumped, grabbed his friend and flew, staying a few meters above the air 'Wow, that thing has good reflexes'.

"You're telling me..." Sonic said "I think we'd better use our secret combat tactic buddy."

As they spoke the entity jumped towards them charging the hammer, but Tails let go of Sonic and the fox ascended thus dodging the blow completely, Sonic jumped as soon as he hit the ground and used a Homing attack again, the entity readied the hammer to repeat the scene, but this time Tails fell behind it, it quickly balled up and charged a Spin dash, the entity heard the fox and turned its head but then Sonic unloaded his attack against the unsuspecting guy's head at the same time as Tails hit the body. The entity spun around in the air before falling, got up and made a spinning attack with the hammer, which hit Tails but Sonic managed to dodge by a few inches.

"Wow, he's tough like Knuckles" Sonic admitted.

"Yeah... Whew... and he has Amy's hammer mastery" Said Tails quickly getting up.

The entity charged at them.

"Here comes Tails!" Sonic said determined to defeat it. But just then, totally unexpectedly Gamma fell from the sky followed by Rouge, Gamma parried the entity's hammer blow with one hand and Rogue kicked him down, then Gamma pounced on him and started hitting him hard until the entity disappeared like the badniks from before, vanishing like smoke.

Gamma slowly got up and Rouge landed gracefully next to him, crossing his arms.

"How was the entrance? Pretty dramatic, don't you think?"Rouge said with a smirk.

"Gamma! Rouge! What are you guys doing here?" asked Tails puzzled.

"First of all, we're just as surprised by the situation as you are" Rouge said "but Gamma has gotten more information"

"Okay, but... What are you guys doing here?" Sonic asked cocking his head slightly.

"ALL IN HIS TIME, THE INFORMATION I HAVE GOTTEN PREVIOUSLY HAS TO DO WITH THE DISAPPEARANCE OF YOUR TWO FRIENDS" Gamma replied.

Sonic and Tails looked at each other in surprise.

"Where are they!?" They asked in unison

Gamma pointed to the Master Emerald, and they both looked confused.

"Wow, I thought their recent fight would have given them a clue..."Rouge said putting a hand on her hip.