Sonic-ish canon being what it is here's your "version of reality" note... And it's Sonic X more or elss entirely but potched with a certain amount to account a bit better for Knuckles acting like a fool so often!

Knuckles stretched comfortably and rolled over onto a cooler piece of grass. Briefly he considered getting up moving around to the shadier side of the temple, but the heat of the long, sunny day was already starting to fade and he was way too content where he was to move that far.

He opened his eyes a fraction, turning his head so his gaze fell naturally up the steep steps of the shrine to rest on the Master Emerald at the top, secure and glittering in the low evening sun. He watched the play of light on it and from it, the cool colours a contrast with the warm, red-tinged sunlight.

The Island was still. Warm. Empty.

His eyes drifted shut again. Not in sleepiness - he was alert in every sense for any change in the state of the Island or Emerald - but in the utter relaxation that came from knowing in every sense that all was well.

And then it wasn't.

Knuckles was on his feet before his next intake of breath but then froze.

There was nothing to be heard, not even a leaf moved in the silent evening. Nothing to be seen but the Island itself, bathed in the orange colours and long shadows of approaching sunset.

Yet something was wrong.

He stood frozen a split second longer then turned and sprinted to the top of the Emerald altar, taking the steps two and three at a time. The Master Emerald looked as serene as ever, the green-blue glow spilling around the platform, making it easy to forget the sun was almost down.

Knuckles reached out a hand to it, trailed it across the surface and maintained the contact, letting his hand slide behind him as he turned, looking again from this higher vantage point for the threat he had sensed.

Nothing.

Knuckles paced around the Master Emerald, the shadows of the sunward pillars that ringed it casting dark bars across the circular platform. He looked up at them. Seven pillars. Seven Chaos Emeralds had sat atop them once.

Something about that caught at his attention and he was long enough used to listening to instinct to let his attention settle where it would.

Chaos Emeralds.

If there was no danger here then was the danger he had sensed a problem with the Chaos Emeralds?

He turned back to the Master Emerald, stared into it. On rare occasions he had seen images there, perhaps some clearer warning than this vague unease would come.

He'd thought it an improbable hope but the reality was that an image formed so vividly and so suddenly that he stumbled backwards. Lights in the darkness, harsh artificial lights shining on the steel and concrete of harsh industrial buildings and watchtowers. Flashes of light were unmistakeably weapons fire and then more lights, seven lights, seven colours and growing brighter and brighter until he had to close his eyes.

When he opened them the image was gone and the island's course had changed. He let it change, let it move through the sky. He had little doubt that the base he had seen was their destination, and none at all that it was Eggman's.

He considered. An attack had been happening and there was only one person was even remotely likely to attack an Eggman base.

"Sonic," he muttered. And either Sonic, or Eggman, or both was messing about with Chaos Emeralds.

Knuckles scowled, uncertain of his next move and annoyed by the uncertainty.

It had been dark in the image. Was that because he'd been given a glimpse ahead, or because the base was so far eastwards that the sun was already down? He couldn't tell.

Was it his problem what Sonic was up to?

But there were Chaos Emeralds involved. Whatever was happening was dangerous, and Sonic almost certainly didn't know how dangerous. Eggman probably did know but quite possibly didn't care.

But if the danger was the Chaos Emeralds then leaving the Island and Master Emerald might just be the worst possible thing he could do. Frustrated and confused, Knuckles turned away then back to stare at the green glow, brighter still now the sun was all the way down.

No guidance came and after a moment more he sighed and headed to the edge of the Island, running then waiting, facing the direction of travel as the sky darkened.

"If this is your fault, Sonic, I'll knock you into next week," he promised thin air as he went.

When the floodlit tower came into view on the eastern horizon he recognised it at once. It hadn't been so far away after all. Lights flashed erratically, trouble was already in progress and it got closer, it on the edge of hearing were sirens and blasts and the shriek of an engine running well beyond its limits.

Knuckles sighed again, cast about once more for some good reason not to do this, but the sense of growing danger was even greater now than it had been earlier. Chaos Energy skittered through the night air like invisible lightning. Whatever was happening in the base needed to stop.

He launched himself from the Island's edge and his last thought as his feet left familiar ground was a command to send the Island far and safely away. Whatever was going on, he couldn't risk adding the Master Emerald into the mix.

He glided through the dark sky unnoticed by the combatants below, appreciating the few minutes it gave him to form some sort of overview. Tails' biplane was visible, diving and twisting over the perimeter of the base. Further in, a whirl of blue, gold ring-light flashing off spinning spines, ricocheting from wall to robot to fence, could only be Sonic. Knuckles turned in the air looking for the most effective spot to join them.

Sonic hadn't found a way in yet, so ideally he'd intercept the hedgehog near the tower itself which seemed to be the hedgehog's target. Perhaps fists and force would provide an entrance where speed had not.

Before he'd made up his mind for certain and altered his glide, a bang from below made him twist in the air to look. Tails' plane was trailing smoke, losing height. Knuckles glanced back at Sonic's position. Tails was good at forced landings, as well he should be after the number he'd had. He'd be fine.

But when Knuckles looked down again the aircraft was heading straight for the biggest obstacle in sight, an outcrop of rock, rising from the flat ground like a watchtower itself. From Knuckles' vantage point Tails didn't even seem to be trying to manoeuvre to avoid it. Or couldn't.

Abandoning the idea of catching up with Sonic, Knuckles plunged for it. With enough momentum he could perhaps knock the aircraft aside - still risky but better than a head on collision. In the last seconds he got a proper look at the rock itself, weathered sandstone, and just maybe frangible enough at this speed.

He reached out for the Master Emerald, still close, pulled the energy tightly around him, hoping it would be enough to avoid turning himself into a smear against the stone if it was harder than he'd guessed and hurtled into it fists first and a split second ahead of the aircraft.

The outcrop shattered instantly, so easily in fact that his momentum carried him tumbling past the aircraft and rolling twice on the ground before regaining his feet at the bottom of a small rise.

"Knuckles!" Tails cried. Knuckles couldn't work out if that cry was more happy or shocked to see him and only grunted in reply. Amy was with Tails as well but they'd be no further use with a smashed aircraft and he himself had missed his chance to catch up with Sonic. He climbed the rise and looked back at the tower, the base of it now surrounded by smoke. Sonic was now out of sight so had presumably found a way in. But if it had taken all this, then the odds of getting in after him seemed slim, even if they made up the distance.

As he watched another explosion split the air. Sonic causing havoc by smashing equipment or Eggman firing on his own constructions in an attempt to stop him? Either seemed equally possible. Knuckles shook his head.

"Overkill," he said aloud, unsure even in his own mind whether he meant Sonic or Eggman. "Just like always."

Tail and Amy had made it out of the aircraft and scrambled up the rise on hands and knees to stare at the destruction occurring on the other side of the broad valley base. He ignored them, focussed on what was happening inside because something was. Something more dangerous than explosions or robots or laser weapons.

He stood rigid, arms crossed across his chest, frowning in concentration and frustrated unease.

Before he'd worked it out it was already too late. He felt it before he saw it, that bright fierce energy lighting the sky.

"What is that?" Amy sounded awed.

"It used to be chaos control," Knuckles said. Shock and frustration made him sarcastic and he couldn't keep it from his voice even in the face of Amy's worry, because now it was just chaos.

Sonic must have disrupted whatever Eggman was doing because this was in no way a controlled reaction. Perhaps the hedgehog had got his hands some of the Emeralds but if that was so he clearly had no idea what he was doing with them and this was the result.

The light spread like an oncoming wave. It would certainly do the job of wiping out the base and Sonic seemed to have sufficient affinity for the energy that he'd probably even walk away, as Knuckles himself was confident of doing, but even so, it was too much.

Knuckles realised too late that he should have told Amy and Tails to run and as the energy reached them, they both started forward instead of away, presumably intending to look for Sonic in the midst of it all. Knuckles grabbed Amy's wrist and pulled her back because going further in there now was madness, but Tails had shot upwards as well as forward and he missed him.

But something was wrong. Knuckles had never lived outside the influence of the Master Emerald, he lived and breathed chaos energy and this reaction beat against his senses like a runaway pulse, like panic. It was even more out of control than he'd thought, still growing, still building, the power cresting and cresting and still not quite breaking.

Was it possible the hedgehog or Eggman really had all seven? Could it be deliberate? Surely no one would be that stupid?

But someone had and it was happening.

If he'd realised a moment or two sooner perhaps he could have stopped it. If he'd been beside the Master Emerald, had hands on it, guiding, calling, instead of being here on this hillside perhaps he could have still. He reached for it anyway, and it was a calm eye in the maelstrom of energy but there was no mastering this. The energy spiked and thrashed, whiplashing back and forth along the bonds between the Chaos Emeralds, the Master Emerald, the world, him.

He'd lost sight of Tails, Amy was crying out names in a panic, Sonic's, Tails', his own, but he couldn't make a sound in answer, transfixed, he was being shaken to death in the teeth of the gale, shattered into pieces by the fearful resonance of the energy. It was too much. Too much, and something would break, something would give.

Something did. And it was sky itself. Torn open to the void and the world was replaced by pain and light and the howling, shrieking Emeralds.