"Sonic…Angel island is under attack!"

Sonic's eyes widened at this news. Robotnik had found their base? How? Quickly getting serious, he told Knuckles over the com-link,

"I'll be right there as soon as I can Knuckles! Count on it!"

Sonic then bursted into high gear and quickly arrived at the teleporter. Inputting the coordinates for Angel Island, he quickly stepped in and let himself be teleported away. Once he exited the green portal, the scene he came out of horrified him beyond belief. Angel Island was being bombarded by countless blue medium sized spherical badniks, setting the forests on fire.

In addition, the Resistence were being attacked by a huge number of Badniks, which were being led by…Robotnik?! Sonic was shocked, yelling,

"How the hell is he here?! It's only been a few minutes since I saw him run!!!"

However, Sonic couldn't focus on this and he knew it. Quickly taking off, he destroyed the badniks that were attacking his fellow resistance members while he was running before eventually coming across Knuckles smashing one in. he greeted Knuckles, and the echidna asked in an annoyed tone,

"Where the hell have you been?"

Sonic smirked and shrugged, replying,

"Long story."

However, he then turned serious again and asked,

"How long have you been fighting these guys?"

"About 30 minutes. I was trying to contact you, but you wouldn't pick up."

"Yeah, I was busy."

The 2 were then surrounded by a huge hoard of Badniks, who began to close in from all sides. Smirking upon seeing this, Sonic and Knuckles got back to back. Knuckles then asked Sonic,

"You remember our training sessions?"

"Yeah. Let's see who can break more badniks. If I win, I'll take you to get chilli dogs."

"I don't know what those are, but you're on."

Sonic then curled up into a ball and unleashed his supersonic triple spin on a row of badniks, dashing into them and smashing about 5 to pieces. It was then that he finally realized what the perfect name for this attack was. Meanwhile, Knuckles's fist collided with a badnik, smashing it to pieces while sparing the mobuni inside.

He then began laying into the other badniks with a ruthless series of blows that shattered each of them upon impact. Finally, he leaped into the air and punched the ground with enough force to send the badniks around him flying. Sonic then ran up behind him, kicking away a badnik that was attempting to attack him from behind. Smirking, he whistled and told his friend,

"Not bad, Knucks. Man, things have sure changed since the days of you spinning your arms really fast and running at me blindly. Where'd you learn moves like that, anyhow?"

Knuckles dusted off his gloves and replied by telling the hedgehog,

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that part about my moves. If you wanna know, i've been working on some new moves in secret. Now look sharp!"

Turning back to face the badnik hoards, Sonic and Knuckles went back to destroying them. Sonic kicked and punched them at super speed before getting on the ground and breakdancing so fast that he created shockwaves that cut the badniks in half, but thankfully the mobuni managed to survive.

Meanwhile, Knuckles continued smashing the Badniks with his titanic fists, leaving scores of scrap metal and mobuni in his wave. He even began curling into a ball and destroying them by jumping on them like Sonic did. The hedgehog noticed this and smirked, saying,

"Not bad, Knuckles. But let me show you how it's done!"

Sonic then leaped backwards and flipped over a mantis badnik's scythe hands, which he had heard it fling at him. Once it was directly under him, he quickly curled into a ball and dashed down, landing directly on the badnik before rolling forward and taking out a few more. He skidded to a stop and uncurled in front of Knuckles, who seemed quite unamused.

Sonic then told him,

"Try to beat that!"

Knuckles replied with,

"Oh, I'll do more than that. LET'S GO!"

The 2 mobians then resumed destroying the badniks. However, no matter how many badniks the two smashed, more and more just seemed to keep coming. In addition, Sonic kept noticing Resistance fighters struggling to hold off the Badniks and rushing off to help them, leaving him open to sneak attacks.

Eventually, he and Knuckles were left panting in exhaustion, facing down yet another hoard of Badniks. It was at this moment that Sonic also took the time to wonder where Sleet and Dingo were. Surely Robotnik's number one henchmen would be leading this assault. Speaking of which, the Doctor himself then flew down in a white, spherical single person pod with no seat or back frame. The dictator smirked at the two exhausted mobians and told Sonic,

"Ah, Sonic. Long time no see. Did you miss me?"

Sonic blinked in confusion at this and told the doctor,

"What are you talking about? We saw each other just an hour ago!"

Robotnik merely chuckled at Sonic's confusion, telling the mobian hedgehog,

"Oh, there's so much you don't know. But I will tell you one thing: Time is not on your side!"

Robotnik then pointed to the sky, and Sonic and Knuckles looked up to see what exactly he was looking at. However, what they saw terrified them to the core. It was a massive, heavily armored battleship with a red, yellow, dark gray and yellow colored hull. That wasn't even the most terrifying part: That would be the massive cannon at the bottom of the ship pointing down right at them.

The ship flew right on top of them, blotting out the sun, and Knuckles then pulled out his communicator and yelled to the Resistance members that were still alive,

"RETREAT! RETREAT!"

He and Sonic then began running as Robotnik fired the cannon at the surface of Angel Island. However, instead of destroying the island immediately, the blast caused a massive explosion which caused everything to begin to tremble. Sonic asked what was going on, and Robotnik told him,

"Well, all of you dying immediately wouldn't be satisfying. No, I want you to have false hope before it's ripped away. I'd say you have about…15 minutes at most. Ta-ta, fools!"

Robotnik then flew away in his flying pod, and Sonic and Knuckles quickly grabbed the Mobuni, carrying them to the other members of the resistance, who would take them to the teleporter while the 2 leaders focused on saving everyone they could. However, As Sonic and Knuckles ran to find more Resistance members and Mobuni, Knuckles suddenly remembered something, stopping and yelling,

"Wait! The chaos emeralds! My great-grandfather!"

Sonic quickly told his friend,

"I'll grab the blue emerald from the base! You focus on getting the green one and saving your great-gramps!"

Knuckles nodded at Sonic, and the two then split off to get the respective chaos emeralds. As Knuckles was rushing to the hidden cave entrance to the waterfall that led to the chaos emerald, he saw the various dead bodies and destroyed Badniks strewn across the fields of Angel Island. Deep down, part of him began to regret ever letting outsiders on the island. This much destruction hadn't been worth it.

However, the carnage he had a;ready seen was nothing compared to the emotional gut punch he was about to receive. As Knuckles neared the cave entrance, he saw the colossal corpse of a red quadruped Mobosaur (Mobian Dinosaur) with orange spots on its body and blood all over it and the floor. Surrounding it were dozens of destroyed Badniks.

Knuckles immediately knew who this was and nearly fell to his knees in despair. Chomps, the only being he had ever truly known on the island besides his great-grandfather, a being who he considered his first friend…was dead. Yes, there were the few surviving mobian stragglers who still lived on the island even after the Echidnas had mostly died out, but he had barely interacted with them, watching over them from afar.

Mournfully, he walked up to Chomps's body and placed a hand on his muzzle, telling him,

"Your sacrifice will not be in vain my friend. May you find eternal glory in the great battleground in the sky."

With a heavy heart, Knuckles then ran off, heading towards the cave containing the chaos emerald. He sadly had no time to give Chomps a proper burial. He was on a timer here, after all. The cave had been blocked off by collapsing rocks, but that was no problem for Knuckles, who punched the blockade so hard it not only destroyed the rock he punched, but all the rest were sent flying by the sheer force alone.

He then ran into the cave, which had already begun collapsing thanks to the effects of Robotnik's laser. Scanning for any falling rocks that may impede his path, Knuckles then made a mad dash for the lake that led to the chaos emerald, leaping in and beginning to swim as fast as he could. Luckily, he had been swimming to and from the emerald since he was a kid, so this was easy.

Eventually, he managed to reach where the emerald was being kept. However, he was greatly surprised to also see his great-grandfather Athair right in front of it. Knuckles quickly got out of the water, and between exhausted breaths he asked his great-grandfather,

"G-Great….grandfather…? Why….are you….here…?"

Athair looked grimly at Knuckles and told him,

"I have foreseen current events. Robotnik has grown more powerful than we could have ever imagined. The floating island is lost."

Knuckles kneeled and closed his eyes in shame, telling his great-grandfather,

"I'm so sorry. I've failed in my duties as guardian of the island."

However, he then opened his eyes and exclaimed,

"But we need to save the chaos emerald! Let's grab it and get out of here!"

Knuckles was confused when Athair didn't respond, and was even more shocked when he put his hand on his shoulder and told him,

"Yes, Knuckles. You must save the island's chaos emerald. If either of the emeralds fall into Robotnik's hands, then the war is truly lost. But…you must leave me here."

Knuckles was shocked and horrified at this suggestion, stammering,

"Wh-What?! Why?!"

"I have lived a long, fulfilling life on this island, and I can see that I am no longer needed. You already have the skills to lead your troops to victory. I will stay here and die with our home."

Knuckles shook his head and begged Athair to come with him,

"You're the only one of my kind left besides me! I don't wanna be alone!"

Athair chuckled at this statement and replied,

"But you aren't alone, Knuckles. You have a friend in the form of Aleena's eldest, not to mention all your other comrades waiting for you. You're a young man now. You are ready for the trials that face ahead for you."

Athair then grabbed the chaos emerald and gave it to Knuckles, then telling him,

"Now go!"

"But-!"

"GO!"

With a heavy heart, Knuckles then concentrated, with the chaos emerald in his hands beginning to glow green. It then began shrinking rapidly, getting smaller and smaller until it was big enough to fit in Knuckles's palm. This was a technique taught to Knuckles by Athair shortly after the battle against the chaos emerald empowered Dingo for the sake of being able to carry the emerald around easier.

The young echidna then began running off, still holding the emerald. As he swam away, the last he saw of his great-gransdfather was him smiling at him. Once Knuckles surfaced, at the end of the lake, he began dashing for it. His job was now infinitely harder due to not only the cave collapsing, but the very island itself was falling down to Mobius rapidly.

Knuckles quickly punched through the boulders blocking the entrance and made his way to the teleporter. Once he arrived, he saw Sonic standing there, leading his lion friend Cyrus into the portal. He then threw the blue chaos emerald he was holding into the portal and then quickly turned to Knuckles, telling him,

"Alright, that's the last of them. Hey, where're the old man and the chaos emerald?"

Knuckles showed Sonic the shrunken chaos emerald in his hand and explained,

"My great-grandfather…he chose to stay behind and die on the island."

"Well we don't have time to worry about that! Let's go!"

Knuckles gritted his teeth in annoyance at this remark, but quickly realized that Sonic was right. They couldn't waste time moping around when the island was about to explode. Sonic then ran through the portal, with Knuckles quickly following after him. However, as he did, he couldn't help but take one last look at his island before stepping into the portal.

Once he did so, the portal closed for the last time. The next second, Angel Island exploded, taking Athair with it. Robotnik watched the explosion from his flying pod, smirking and saying,

"One step closer. I know your survived this hedgehog. But now doubt your morale will be shattered. I expect a request for surrender in 2 hours…"