"Chaotix"

Antoine and Bunnie are entering Knothole Village, with Antoine holding up a piece of paper.

"Check, check, and double check," Antoine reads over the paper. "All security perimeters are check, check, and…"

"Double check?" Bunnie asks.

"Huh, well, yeah," Antoine responds to her.

Bunnie notices the sunset in the distance over the trees, "That sunset is really beautiful, don't you think, sugah?"

Bunnie turns to see Antoine is hurrying away, "Better report security check to the Princess."

"Yeah, good idea," Bunnie says, rubbing her roboticized arm with her regular hand.

Antoine is approaching Sally's hut, but stops when he hears a voice.

"This is ridiculous."

"Le Echidna?" Antoine realizes, as he looks into the hut's window, where he sees Knuckles, Sonic, and Sally.

"It's been too long since we found the last Emerald on Dragon Mountain," Knuckles continues his complaint. "We need more of the Secret Scrolls of Maga to be translated."

"Back off, Knux," Sonic gets between Sally and Knuckles.

"NICOLE and I've been working hard to translate more of it," Sally explains. "Besides, even when we translate more, we still won't be able to find the Chaos Emerald hidden in the Breath of Mobius."

Sonic watches as Knuckles starts to turn away, "We'll see." He approaches the hut's exit. "I'll get some fresh air."

Sonic continues to watch him, as he rubs his chin.

Antoine sees Knuckles exiting the hut, with Antoine snapping to attention, "J-Just on guard duty, that's all." Antoine then notices Knuckles is walking away, without noticing him at all. "Mon wonder what his problem?"

Sonic exits the hut, surprising Antoine, who jumps and falls back, "I wonder what's Knux's problem."

Knuckles reaches the edge of a cliff, looking over it, unaware that several feet behind is Sonic watching from behind several brushes.

Next to Sonic is Antoine, sitting and trying to catch his breath.

Sonic glances at Antoine, "Why did you come, Ant?"

"W-Why did you come…?" Antoine asks.

"I know Knuckles is keeping something from us," Sonic explains. "And whatever it is, could prove dangerous."

"Which means la Princess could be in danger," Antoine springs to his feet, with Sonic rolling his eyes. "Mon must protect her."

Knuckles jumps off the cliff, gliding into the distance.

Sonic sighs, "Fine."

"Fine? Fine?"Antoine turns to Sonic, who grabs him and speeds the both of them down a path to the side of the cliff. "FIIIINNNNEE?!"

Knuckles is gliding over a thick forest, with Sonic, holding onto Antoine, speeding after him.

Knuckles glides around some trees, before coming down and landing.

Sonic speeds to a stop, with Antoine falling down, before Sonic grabs Antoine and hurries to behind a large boulder.

Sonic peeks around the boulder, watching Knuckles looking around.

"I know you're here!" Knuckles calls out. "Come out of hiding."

"How he knowing?" Antoine starts to step out from behind the boulder, before Sonic grabs him and covers his mouth.

"Do you hear a buzzing?" Sonic asks, before removing his hand.

"Bzzz?" Antoine asks.

A buzzing noise is becoming louder, until a bee, Charmy, flies out of the trees and hovers in front of Knuckles.

"Wow, Knuckles, I thought I was gonna surprise you this time," Charmy says, before he lands next to Knuckles.

At the same time, Vector, a tall crocodile, walks out from between a couple trees, "I told you you won't."

Knuckles' eyes darted around, "So, where is he?"

"Who are them?" Sonic asks, when he sees Antoine fall down. "They're gonna hear you, klutz."

Antoine pushes himself up, "Mon was kicked."

Suddenly, Sonic is knocked back and passed the boulder. Knuckles, Vector, and Charmy, with the latter starting to hover, turn to their direction.

"Hedgehog?" Knuckles realizes.

"Hey, what hit me?" Sonic rubs the back of his head.

"That was me," appearing from nowhere is a purple chameleon, Espio.

"Wh-Where you came from?" Antoine stumbles back.

"I was camouflage," Espio crosses his arms.

"Camo-flag?" Antoine rubs his head.

"What are you two clowns doing?" Knuckles.

Sonic stands back up, "I knew you had been hiding something ever since the Breath of Mobius." He looks past Knuckles, at the hovering Charmy. "Though I didn't think it was friends."

"They aren't friends, they're associates," Knuckles explains, annoyed.

"Aww," Charmy slowly lowered himself.

"I still want to know what's going on," Sonic says, as Antoine dusts himself off. "And who are your 'friends'?"

"I'm Vector, leader of the Chaotix," Vector starts, before pointing to Charmy, who happily waves. "This young bee is Charmy." He holds out a hand at Espio, who is leaning against the boulder. "And you already met our team's resident ninja, Espio."

"You're a team?" Antoine asks, as he glances at Espio.

"Got that right," Vector answers. "We formed a few years after Robotnik's coup."

"Heh, 'butt-nik made more enemies than SWATbots," Sonic grins, then looks at Knuckles. "Now for what you're up to."

"We're helping Knuckles with finding his father," Charmy excitedly says.

"His father?!" Sonic asks.

"Père?" Antoine adds.

"We aren't looking for my father," Knuckles says to Charmy, who gives an embarrassed smile.

"We should just tell them, Knuckles," Espio walks over to him.

"Do whatever you want," Knuckles says, before he starts to walk away.

Vector hands Sonic a piece of paper, "Here."

Sonic holds up the paper which has an "X" within a circle and the numbers "2,2,94".

"According to Knuckles, the symbol is what his father used to use, as an indicator of sorts," Vector explains. "He asked us to find the location the numbers pointed to."

Sonic looks at the piece of paper for a moment, before he walks over to Knuckles, "You saw this at the Breath of Mobius, did you? Why didn't you tell us?!"

Knuckles turns to Sonic, angrily, "There isn't anything to tell! It's not like my father left a decoder. And after all this time, we still don't know where it could point to."

Charmy hovers down next to Sonic and Knuckles, "But we found it."

Sonic and Knuckles look over at him, surprised.

The Chaotix are leading the others through a dense forest.

"We realized the symbol Knuckles' old man left behind didn't indicate a location on Angel Island, but in this forest near the Devil Crater," Vector pushes a branch out of his way.

"D-D-D-Devil Crater," Antoine says, barely missing the branch.

Charmy tries to hold back his laughter, as he flies, "That's the crater the Angel Island left behind when it went airborne."

"Anyway, I scout out the area and I found this," Espio pushes some brushes to the side, revealing an old lab building, covered in overgrown vegetation.

"A lab?" Sonic realizes, as the group enters the building, with its door barely hanging from a hinge. "Not one of Ro-butt-nik?"

"No, my father's," Knuckles responds, as they see the lab is in disrepair, with vines sticking out of cracks in the ground and walls.

"Mmhm, I didn't know your father was a brain," Sonic jokes, as Knuckles looks around. "Nothing like him, huh?"

Knuckles glances at Sonic, before closing his eyes and holding out a hand, "I sense Chaos energy, like from a Chaos Emerald, but it's very low…" Knuckles opens his eyes and lowers his hand. "There's no Chaos Emerald here."

Espio presses a couple buttons on a computer console, "Looks like all the equipment here is dead." He looks back. "Wonders what your father was doing here. Could he be studying a Chaos Emerald?"

"It doesn't matter," Knuckles closes a fist. "The Chaos Emerald from the Breath of Mobius is no longer here."

"Meaning this had been a colossal waste of time," Sonic says.

Knuckles spins toward Sonic, "Don't test me, hedgehog. I'm in no mood."

"Back off, Knux, cause I'm never in the mood for you," Sonic tells him.

Vector places his hands between Sonic and Knuckles, "Okay, that's enough flexing. Just break up."

Antoine looks around the lab, "Knuckles' père left a clue to this place. Could he leave a clue to where the Emerald could be?"

"Wow, that's actually smart," Charmy says.

Antoine looks proud, before looking at Charmy, annoyed, "Don't believe mon like the way you put that."

Charmy holds back his laughter.

"We should split up and look around," Espio suggests.

Knuckles turns away from Vector and Sonic, "Fine."

Everyone had spread out, looking around the lab.

Antoine picks up a small box, "This is le box Rotor made to hide le Emeralds."

Knuckles takes the box from Antoine, "Obviously my father made this one." He opens the box, which is empty. "There's trace Chaos energy inside."

Espio picks up a large cut-off cable connected to a platform, "And this."

"Same, more trace Chaos energy," Knuckles approaches the platform.

Antoine looks around the room, as it gets dark, "Huh, were we here for hours. It's already getting dark."
"It's still midday," Vector says, with a hand up. "It must be a solar eclipse."

"It's no eclipse," Espio says, as he watches large vines blocking the door and windows. "Vines are covering the lab's exterior."

"No problem, just need some gardening," Sonic says, before he spin dashes through the door, cutting apart some of the vines. He starts to reenter the lab, "See, easy peasy."

Knuckles picks up one of the cut vines, "This… this possessed trace Chaos energy."

Antoine swallows nervously, "Perhaps shouldn't eat mon salad after all."

"Chaos energy isn't natural in vegetation," Espio says.

Suddenly, vines burst in through cracks in the walls, floor, and ceiling, attacking the group. Charmy flies around, avoiding some vines. Vector grabs a vine and starts to struggle with it, as another vine grabs around him. Knuckles jumps back to dodge a vine and then uses his knuckles to cut through it. Sonic speeds across a wall, dodging an attacking vine. Antoine falls down, avoiding a vine, as Espio jumpkicks it.

Antoine covers his head, "S-Should we just run, and, and let le vines have le forest."

"Too risky," Espio turns. "If they spread, they could cover all of Mobius in no time."

Vector throws the vine he's struggling with to the ground, steps on it, and then grabs the vines around his waist and rips it in two.

Sonic comes to a stop, then spin dashes ahead, cutting through two more vines.

Charmy dodges a vine, then uses his stinger to pin a vine to the ground.

Knuckles uses his knuckles to cut a vine, then notices a small part of the ceiling falls down, looking up, "These vines are destroying the lab. We need to do something before we're buried."

Antoine crawls across the floor, "Don't want to get buried, don't want to get buried…" He comes across the small box on the floor, which he picks up. "Père, what's my père would do… what he always said?" He snaps his fingers. "Get to the route of the problem!"

"Route?" Charmy flies up, looking down. "Like a road?"
Sonic slides to a stop, next to Antoine, "I need he meant 'root'."

"That's what mon said," Antoine returns to his feet.

"Ah, that's it!" Sonic realizes, before he turns to Knuckles. "Hey, Knux, use your 'Chaos senses' to find the vines' root."

"Don't call it that," Knuckles says, as he punches away a vine, then he closes his eyes and holds out both hands. After a moment, he opens his eyes, pointing to a spot on the ground several feet away from him. "There!"

"Then it's time to get down and dirty," Sonic says, before he spin dashes into the ground, digging deeply and exposing a large root. "Ah, there's the little troublemaker."

"Now, it's our turn," Vector says.

Vector and Knuckles grabs the large root and pulls it out, then Sonic spin dashes through the root, ripping it apart. Throughout the lab, the large vines shrink and die.

Knuckles drops his half of the root, then looks around, seeing all the lab equipment badly damaged, with the walls and ceiling missing panels.

"The lab's destroyed," Knuckles realizes. "Now any clues to the missing Chaos Emerald that might be here are lost to time."

"Lost to time…" Sonic rubs his chin, as he whispers.

"Hey, Antoine, I have to say, you're not half-bad," Vector says, as he and Charmy are next to Antoine.

"Oh, of course," Antoine crosses one arm across his chest. "Ze is Antoine…"

Antoine takes a step, before he trips and falls down, with Charmy holding back his laughter, as he starts hovering.

Espio approaches, "Knuckles, did you know your father was studying the Chaos Emeralds?"

Knuckles just walks away, passing Sonic and Antoine, as the latter returns to his feet, "C'mon, we should return to Knothole."

Espio watches him, "Thought so."