A/N My first fanfiction! (Not me finally getting off my butt, making a Sonic fanfic, getting an account and figuring out this website, and posting said fanfic AFTER all the hype for Sonic 3 has died down lmao.)

Anyway, this is an AU where the Master Emerald fell to Earth with Team Sonic after the final battle in Sonic 3. Set right after Team Sonic's hug scene.

The truth is your the best teammates a hedgehog could have. And the best brothers," Sonic said, and he meant every word. "Can you ever forgive me?"

Tails beamed at him, more then ready to offer forgiveness. Knuckles, on the other hand, narrowed his eyes. For a second, Sonic was afraid that Knuckles wouldn't forgive him. That he considered Sonic breaking his oath and betraying his family too terrible of an offense to let go. That Knuckles would take the Master Emerald and go away and protect it by himself because he didn't trust Sonic to keep it safe anymore.

But then Knuckles was raising his fist, offering up a power bump "Team Sonic?"

Sonic's eyes lit up and he dove to hug his older brother, "How about just "Team"?" he suggested as he and Knuckles opened their arms to let Tails join the hug, which the kit eagerly accepted.

A few feet away from them, the Master Emerald, which had fallen to Earth with them after Gerald's canon had exploded, began to shake slightly and glow. The brothers, too wrapped up in their much-needed reunion, failed to notice until a beam of bright white chaos energy shot out and hit Knuckles directly in the chest.

Sonic and Tails yelped and fell back as the beam lifted their older brother off the ground. The warrior's eyes turned a glowy white, and his body made jerky movements as sounds not unlike someone having a seizure came from him. Dark clouds came in from no where to accompany the explosion of the eclipse canon in the sky, andharsh winds came at the trio from all directions.

"What's happening?!" Tails screamed, raising his paws to try to cover his eyes, as the glowing white chaos energy was getting impossibly bright.

"The Master Emerald! It's-it's doing something to him!" Sonic shouted over the wind. The blue hedgehog raced to the emerald and tried grabbed it... only to immediately let it go with a yelp of pain as it had become so hot, it had become burning to the touch. The Master Emerald began to shake more violently, and a nauseating scream came from Knuckles. Sonic was terrified. His brother had never made any noise like that before. The echidna had been in pain before, obviously, but he was alwaysable to handle it.

The beam of chaos energy began to shine dangerously bright, and the wind was becoming so loud Sonic couldn't hear whatever Tails was trying to shout to him, and he wasn't sure he could run in any direction without being swept up into the air. With a loss of what else to do, the mobian quickly shoved the kit behind him with one arm and covered his eyes in the other.

After what seemed like forever (was it seconds? Minutes? It felt like hours), the wind died down, the dark clouds disappeared, and the blinding chaos energy evaporated. It was was jarring change, but Sonic, being as fast as he was, recovered in time to see the Master Emerald and Knuckles, which were both at least 10 feet in the air, unceremoniously plop to the ground.

Sonic and Tails quickly checked that the other was alright, then they raced to Knuckles, who was sprawled out on his back, his eyes shut.

"Knuckles!" Tails yelled as they kneeled by their unresponsive brother's sides.

"Are you okay? Come on man, speak to me, please wake up!" and boy was Sonic getting a sickening case of Deja Vu here.

Please, please, please wake up Knux, come on, we need you!

To his relief, the red echidna let out a grunt of pain and forced his eyes open, looking super dazed and unfocused. Sonic and Tails helped their brother sit up.

"Knux? Can you hear me?" Tails asked, gently putting a paw on his shoulder.

Knuckles shook his paw off, which they took as a sign they he was functioning properly.

"You're okay, right?" Sonic asked, because he couldn't handle another person in his family being life threateningly ill. Luckily, Knux was beginning to show some signs of awareness and forced himself to stand up, shoving away help from his brothers. Sonic laughed nervously,"I don't know what theHELLthat was, but we're gonna figure it out, got it? All that matters right now is that you're okay."

Knuckles' gaze fell on the Master Emerald, which was a few feet away from them. His eyes narrowed. Sonic quickly moved to stand in front of it because after...well... whatever that was, the echidna warrior did not need to be focusing on that stupid gem. Knuckles blinked and took a tiny step back, as if he was just registering his brother's appearance. Sonic smiled warmly at him, shaky relief overflowing his heart.

Half a second later, Knuckles punched him in his face.

It was a hard punch, too. It sent him flying through the air and landing in some stalks of corn that were way taller than him, effectively knocking the wind out of him.

He gasped for breath and struggled to sit up. "What... what was that for?!" he yelled, clutching the side of his head that had been hit. He'd already said sorry, and he'd meant it! Knuckles had accepted, and then three of them had had a group hug, just like in those cheesy, feel-good movies Maddie loved!

Through the corn stalks, he could see Knuckles do a warrior- style ninja roll to the Master Emerald and grab it.

"Knuckles!" Tails said, running up to him. "What's gotten into you?!"

Before Sonic could call out a warning, Knuckles elbowed Tails in his face with the arm not protectively clutching the Master Emerald, grabbed one of his tails, and used it to catapult him even farther than he had punched Sonic.

"Tails!" Sonic shouted, zipping over to his little brother's side. Tails was stumbling and he had to help him up. An anger lit in Sonic's chest, not at Knuckles, but at the Master Emerald, and whatever it had done to Knuckles.

"Knuckles!" Sonic yelled as his big brother charged at him, red chaos energy crackling at his fists. "Stop! We're your brothers, you don't want to hurt us!"

"You think I will fall for your pathetic attempts to decieve me? Ha!" Knuckles said, narrowly dodging a punch from Sonic. "What kind of fool do you take me for? You have come after the Master Emerald for the last time, Hedgehog!"

"We don't care about the Master Emerald, Knux!" Tails shouted, clutching his injured tail while rooting for his backpack, trying to find something that could be of use. "We care about you!"

"More lies!" Knuckles scoffed. His fist slammed into Sonic's jaw, sending a jolt through his body. Sonic stumbled back, his hand flying to the pain. He was already totally worn out after going Super and his fight with Shadow and Gerald and he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep up with the echidna. To be fair, Knuckles looked just as totally worn out after whatever the Master Emerald did to him. His punches were hard, but definitely not as hard as they could be, and his defensive moves were slower than usual. Plus, one arm was compeletely occupied with protecting the Master Emerald.

Sonic finally saw an opening and used a technique Knuckles himself had taught him (when he was in his right mind); he ducked low, hooking his leg behind the echidna's ankle and using his forward momentum to send his brother tumbling over him. Knuckles' landed with a thud, and Sonic thought he had an opening. However, years of training and experience caused Knuckles to instinctively roll over, dodging Sonic's stomping foot. Meanwhile, Tails had finally found what he had been looking for in his backpack: Tom's tranquilizer gun. But it didn't tranquilize with darts anymore; he had modified it to use specific waves of energy to activate the unconsciousness in one's mind. Taking a deep breath, he pointed the advanced tranquilizer gun at Knuckles and pulled the trigger multiple times. Waves of energy fired at Knuckles, but the red echidna managed to kick Sonic away and dodge the waves of energy from the tranquilizer gun in a series of advanced flips and rolls, somehow still clutching the Master Emerald through it all. He landed right in front of Tails and wasted no time punching him at least ten yards away, his fists crackling with red energy.

"Tails!" Sonic screamed. He tried to run to him but Knuckles stopped him by giving him a swift kicking to the ribs, leaving him gasping for breath. "Look, Knuckles!" he blocked an elbow to the face and delivered a kick to his brother's chest, which got the echidna off balanced. "I'm not going to hurt you! But I am also not going to let you hurt my little brother!" He tried to do another technique Knuckles had taught him, but Knuckles must have recognized it because he wrapped his arm around Sonic's throat before he could even finish and slammed him into the ground.

"You have tried to abscond with the Master Emerald for the last time, Hedgehog!" the red mobian growled. "You are unworthy to even be in its presence!"

Sonic would have retorted, but Knuckles' fist (the one that wasn't still clutching that damn emerald) tightened around his throat. He tried in vain to pry his hand off, to kick him away, anything, but it was to no avail. And, for the first time in almost a year, he was genuinely scared of his brother.

"Knuckles..." he choked out, weakly hitting the fist holding him down. "P-please. It's... it's me man."

To his horror, his brother's eyes only narrowed with more anger, no ounce of recognition. He squeezed his throat harder... and harder... and then, just when Sonic was about to black out, something changed in the echidna's gaze. A small bit of hesitancy had creeped into his eyes in juxtaposition with the hand still clamped around his throat. A few seconds later, he slowly released Sonic's throat from his grip, not a second to soon.

Sonic gasped for breath, hand weakly coming to his throat, but he didn't get a chance for genuine reprieve, because Knuckles fixed him with a murderous look that would have made even the most dangerous warrior shrink back. "If you or the fox attempt to take the Master Emerald again, I will skin you alive," he vowed, and he looked like he met it. Before Sonic could even blink, his brother had dashed off into the corn stalks, leaving him struggling to get up.

"Sonic!"

He looked and saw Tails coming toward him, clutching his tails, his face screwed with pain.

"Tails!" he tried to rush to his brothers side, but he stumbled and fell. "Are you okay?" he managed as Tails all but collapsed next to him.

"I... he... when he threw me, he damaged my tails. I don't think I can fly."

"Oh buddy-"

"Are you okay, Sonic?" the kit looked heartbreakingly scared, and Sonic was given a painful reminder that Tails was only nine.

He couldn't force a smile, so he nodded adamantly. "I'll- I'll manage, buddy-" he said as Tails helped him up.

He looked at the corn stalks, in the direction that Knuckles had disappeared in. "Tails... what- what was that? Did the Master Emerald just...possess Knuckles?" Sonic asked. He felt like he was about to puke.

Tails, clutching his namesakes and looking like he was about to burst into tears, stuttered. "I-I think it...molded him into its perfect guardian".

Oh. Well... that was a problem.

A/N Well! There's the first chapter! The second chapter (which I will post on Friday or Saturday) will be Knuckles' POV, and trust me, there is a lot of crazy stuff going on in our favorite echidna's head. See you all then!