Act 3-4 Sky Island

The chemical plant kept falling down as the speaker kept counting down.

Speaker: "70... 69...", Sonic was starting to get nervous about Knuckle's determination.

Sonic: "Okay buddy, there's no need for that. You really only think with your fists, don't you? Look, the only way I can get back home is with the power of the emeralds. If we put them in the shrine, can I use them to get back?"

Knuckles: "The shrine will consume the full power of the emeralds to rechage the master emerald. After that, they will probably fly away."

Sonic: "You're not making this decision easy, are you?", Knuckles pressed his fists against one another.

Knuckles: "I don't know how it could be any easier than this.", Sonic knew what he had to do.

Sonic: "Fine, knucklehead, let's go. Tails, do you think you can keep up?", Tails slowly got up from the ground still a little drowsy from having his energy drained, but he gave Sonic a thumbs up either way. "Okay, good. Go warn Tom. Tell him to meet up with us at the shrine."

Sonic and Knuckles grabbed a few emeralds each and headed towards the shrine. By the time they saw some echidnas guarding it against Robotnik's remaining badniks the powerplant was still counting down.

Speaker - "55... 54...", They didn't have much time.

As Sonic was about to reach the temple he saw Knuckles surpassing him and getting there first.

Sonic: "Since when was he this fast?", Sonic wondered noticing some small pink light exuding from Knuckles.

They reached the shrine where they heard the Tornado land nearby. Tails joined and they hurriedly started placing the emeralds on their respective platforms. Knuckles thought out loud:

Knuckles: "Finally, after all the generations my kin spent going after these emeralds, they're now reunited!"

Sonic: "That's really nice, Knuckles, but we should get these in place quickly. You know, the whole island is blowing up."

Knuckles: "You really see no beauty in bringing this island to the sky, Sonic?", Knuckles' fur once again sparkled in pink. He still held two emeralds in his hands. "You never cared about Mobius, did you? You just want to go back to your new home."

Sonic: "What are you talking about? Of course I care. I just don't want to be stuck here."

Knuckles: "Stuck? This is the only place where you can be free.", Sonic sighed.

Sonic: "You believe what you want. Just put the emeralds in their place."

Knuckles: "What?!", Once again the pink shine. Tails seemed worried as he pressed on Sonic's shoulder.

Tails: "Sonic, something weird is happening to the emeralds!"

The five chaos emeralds Knuckles and Sonic placed started floating. They didn't seem to want to stay in place. They slowly flew towards Knuckles and surrounded him, and darkened his mind.

Knuckles: "You never cared about your homeland! It being destroyed or not is the same to you!" He started shining a violent pink.

Sonic: "If you don't place the emeralds down, then the island will blow up. Is that what you want?"

Speaker: "34...33...", Tails was trembling in place.

Tails: "I thought the legend said the emeralds only work on the pure-hearted. How is he... Of course!"

Sonic: "What is it, Tails?"

Tails: "Knuckles always fought to protect his people, even being willing to follow Robotnik's orders just to save his island. He's always been pure-hearted, he just didn't know. I think he is turning to the same thing you did before, Sonic. Except he seems to be going hyper in anger.", The emeralds surrounded the echidna violently, as he began to float.

Knuckles: "My first goal was to kill you, remember? I can no longer remember why I stopped. I'll make sure to do so now!", Hyper Knuckles charged at Sonic at a blistering speed. Sonic was able to grab Tails and dodge in the last moment.

Sonic: "Knuckles! Are you insane?"

Knuckles:"No, I've never been more lucid. I'm going to kill and use your power to awaken the Master Emerald."

Sonic: "You no longer need to do that! Look at yourself."

Knuckles charges once again. He wasn't willing to listen. Sonic ran away as fast and far away as he could, however Knuckles was even faster now. Before Sonic could register it, the echidna was already in front of him. He punched him upwards into the sky, and jumped at him to bring him back down, however Tails caught Sonic while he was middair. Knuckles looked at Tails with a grin.

Knuckles: "I almost forgot. Your sacrifice is also needed!"

With the power of the emeralds, Knuckles flew at Tails. Sonic scratched his chin, still recovering from the punch and said:

Sonic: "Come on, it took me at least a minute until the emerald's will started taking over. How much of a numbskull do you have to be for it to get to you that quickly?"

Speaker: "23...22..."

Tails: "Sonic, we have no time!", Knuckles tried to hit Tails, but he dodged. Thankfully, Knuckles wasn't too used to flying. "We need to get the emeralds into the shrine!"

Sonic: "Then let's lure Knuckles there."

Tom reached the shrine on foot. He looked around:

Tom: "Where is everybody?", And then he looked up. A flash of yellow and pink light, but then it suddenly disappeared. Then somewhere else, several kilometers to the side the same flash appeared. Tom approached the echidnas and asked. "What is going on?"

Echidna: "Our leader is killing the hedgehog. With him we can revive the master emerald."

Tom: "What?! I thought he stopped doing that... No, I'm sure he did. Something is wrong."

Tails and Knuckles flew at speeds too high to keep up with human eyes.

Knuckles went in for another punch, Tails dodged but the echidna stretched his arm grabbing the fox's. Sonic quickly jumped out of Tails' hands and homing dashed at Knuckles with the force to break steel bots, however even that seemed to barely faze him. Fortunately it was enough to make him let go.

Sonic: "Throw me to the ground!", Tails launched Sonic downwards as he landed on his feet.

Knuckles almost immediatelly landed with him, as Sonic grinned.

Knuckles: "What are you smiling about?'

Speaker: "16...15...foooooooo.....", Time seemed to stop.

Sonic: "Want to see true speed?", Blue lightning surrounded Sonic, mightier than the one he blacked out Green Hills with. Knuckles could still keep up, still he barely lifted his hand before Sonic's foot hit his face. "What is it, slowpoke? Too fast for you?", Knuckles grunted and the chase began. The air created small tornadoes from whenever Sonic ran, small crackles of lighting happened from the pressure of his speed against the environment. Even Knuckles, with the power of the emeralds could barely follow him. Sonic even wondered if he had gotten faster. Maybe turning Super made him stronger. But he couldn't enjoy the run, he had to bring the echidna to reason.

Sonic: "You have to stop, Knuckles. You will destroy the one thing you built all these years if you continue."

Knuckles: "I need to kill you to bring the island afloat. It's what I was told."

Sonic: "Told? Wait, so it wasn't your idea? You're just following orders. Than what do YOU want to do? I thought you wanted to save your land?"

Knuckles: "Yes, of course. But bring it afloat, why... I have to. Yes, even if I don't want to."

Sonic: "You don't want to save your friends?"

Knuckles: "Friends? I... I...", Knuckles charged once again, this time taking down the top of the emerald shrine, leaving only the stands. The echidnas on the side all gasped in surprise.

Echidna 1: "What are you doing, Master Knuckles? You're destroying it!"

Knuckles: "Shut up! I don't care about it, just like you never cared about me!", The echidnas were shocked, and Sonic began to understand better.

Sonic: "You feel lonely, don't you?", The pink light began to dim down.

Knuckles: "I'm sick of being a leader, of following blind traditons from dead echidna. I never had friends, only people who used me for their needs. Always have.", Tails, who was now next to Tom, explained.

Tails: "The emeralds must augment one's inner feelings. That's why when I felt it I was crushed by fear, and why Sonic seemed angry enough to kill Robotnik.", Tom knew what to do.

Tom: "Are you sure Knuckles? They seem to trust you.They follow every order of yours the same way you follow their advice. You've never been forced to do what they tell you. Plus, I'm a little sad you don't at least consider me a friend, after you were at my house. But there's someone else who probably feels worse.", Knuckles looked the other side at Sonic.

Sonic: "Well, I suppose I never did make it clear, so let me introduce myself. I'm Sonic, Knuckle's first friend.", The pink light dimmed even more, the emeralds were regaining their colour.

Knuckles: "But I just tried to kill you."

Sonic: "Not the first time. But I already know you didn't do it because you wanted to.", The emerald's power left Knuckles as he returned to normal.

He noticed the situation he was in, and embarassingly turned around and crossed his arms.

Knuckles: "Let's forget this happened."

Sonic: "Sure buddy.", The ground trembled.

Speaker: "3...2..."

Sonic: "We need to place the emeralds. Quick!"

Sonic, Knuckles and Tails hurriedly placed the emeralds in their stands. As the last emerald was placed they heard.

Speaker: "1...0... Self destruct.", An enormous explosion broke the ground apart. Knuckles jumped atop the master emerald syphoning the energy into it. The sky island split apart from the rest of Mobius, and began floating up and everyone held on to it tightly.

The fire and chemicals from the plant were shot all over the still grounded Mobius, destroying everything in its path with a deafening blast.

The sky island eventually stopped going up, and everyone was able to get up again. The master emerald was once again green, and the 7 chaos emeralds all flew up in the air, shooting off in different and random directions and dimensions. Everyone could now let out a sigh of relief. Sonic remarked:

Sonic: "Well, looks like we did it. Now I just got to find a way to get back home."

Knuckles: "About that.", Knuckles grabbed the mechanical ring from inside his glove and threw it at Sonic. "You can have this."

Sonic: "Wait, did you have this the whole time?"

Knuckles: "Yeah."

Sonic: "You idiot. How dare you?", Sonic got mad, but quickly calmed and started laughing. Everyone laughed as well, and Sonic laid down. "Why waste energy being mad when you can do it laughing? Right, Knuckles?", The echidna let out a chuckle.

Knuckles: "You're not wrong.", Knuckles looked at Sonic noticing he was already knocked out. Tails as well.

Tom went to grab the mechanical ring, and picked up Sonic.

Tom: "After all that battling, he's definitely exhausted."

Knuckles: "Yeah, you should probably leave too."

Tom: "You sure?", Tom looked around seeing some echidnas get up and look at him with some disdain.

Knuckles: "Yeah, it's for the best. You wouldn't be safe here."

Tom: "Fine, but make sure you visit. We'll try to visit you too.", Knuckles smiled.

Tom placed the sleeping Sonic and Tails on the Tornado, and got on himself, throwing the ring while saying "Green Hillls". He looked back at Knuckles:

Tom: "They are not all blind followers, Knuckles. They actually respect. You can form friendships with that, and you can even ask for help to them. Don't act unnecessarily tough when it isn't needed, okay?" As Tom finished his goodbyes to Knuckles he returned to his house in Green Hills.

END

________________

There, it's finished. I could still write a bit more of them at home, but it wouldn't add much to it, and it would basically just mimic the first movie. I might still write a couple After credits scenes to hint a third movie, but I definitely won't write a third movie plot.

Sorry it took so damn long. I've been having exams , and it has been hard to find motivation to end it. I'd like to thank Blue_ 3160, who has been regularly giving power stones, he was probably the one who wanted this most. Most of all, thanks for reading. And check out my original story, Cadent Star. You may like it.