Kick the Rock!

A drifter wandered through the streets of Shamar, his face hidden away by a cowboy hat lined with metallic stars. He punched right through the chest of a hulking Dark Gaia Titan, a fragment of Dark Gaia itself. He then used its body to crush a collection of Dark Gaia Rexes before it could disintegrate. He brawled with two Nightmares, the most common soldiers comprising the bulk of Dark Gaia's minions. They tried to counterattack, but he made quick work of one by scraping his sharp knuckles down its entire body. He then punched its buddy right through the sandstone wall of a local bar.

The man stepped through the hole in the wall, greeted by the drunken shrieks of the people in the bar. They were yelling at the Nightmare as it struggled to get onto its feet, like a bug that had been flipped on its back. The man in the cowboy hat stomped his metal cleats onto the Nightmare's head, caving its skull in and having it half-disintegrate upon impact. The Nightmare went limp until it was completely gone.

The cowboy stepped into the oil lantern light, the people at the bar completely astounded. Everybody watched him as he sat at the stool. He draped a blanket over his back and kept his head down. He heard murmurs behind him, but only two pairs. Everybody else was silent.

"The westerner really took that devil out!" One woman said to another.

"Yeah, I can hardly even tell that I would be afraid of it if I saw it while all alone," the other replied. "It went all… KA-SPLAT!"

"No, no… it was more of a WA-THUNK!"

"Ladies, ladies, please," the drifter muttered. The women turned to him on their spinning barstools, wondering if they somehow offended him. "It was more of a 'KER-CRUNCH!'" The two ladies giggled as he looked up at the bartender. A woman in strawberry-colored garb. "Make me… a wine. With grapes."

"Comin' right up, cowboy," the bartender replied jokingly. The drifter stretched. "What made you think it was so appropriate to come here dressed like that?" The bartender asked. "Not every desert is the wild west, y'know."

"Oh, no. I didn't mean anything by it. I just like the hat. I arrived in your land during daytime, it can get hot here," the drifter replied. The bartender giggled. "Y'know, we have pyramids where I come from, too." The bartender gave him his drink. He sniffed it, and looked up at the bartender with his purple eyes. "I respect and admire this culture. However… I get the impression you don't respect mine." He got up and punched the bartender in the face. Everyone else gasped. The drifter threw his blanket to the side, showing off the fact that he was a red anthropomorphic echidna. The bartender got up in a flash and revealed her face. A bat. She kicked at the echidna, barely missing and knocking off his cowboy hat. "Ha! I've found you, bat girl!"

"And I've found you, echidna boy!" The bat girl replied. She stripped down to a black bodysuit with a pink heart covering her chest. She then shot forward at the echidna and slashed away at him with her sharp fingernails. "I trust you're here for your precious emerald, aren't you, Chief Knuckles?" She asked, kicking him relentlessly. Knuckles opened his mouth to answer, only to be booted right in the teeth. "Well too bad! All the world's gems are MINE to keep!"

"You don't get it, do you?" Knuckles asked, grabbing her foot and swinging her around into a table. "The Master Emerald is mine. It's the single most important object to my clan. Without it being in its proper place, my island will eventually fall into the ocean. I can't let that happen!"

"Take a look at the bigger picture!" The bat girl shouted. "That emerald is capable of so many great things! It could power an entire city! Protect innocent lives with its ultimate power! It could even save the entire world!" The bat girl used her wings to fly up to the ceiling, then smashed Knuckles into the floor. She held up her sparkling nails as she sat on him to pin him down. "But instead, it will be a part of my personal jewel collection. Just you wait and see!" Knuckles looked up at her in rage, and kneed her in the groin. She screamed in pain, as she was knocked into the ceiling. She was then whacked by one of the ceiling fans. Knuckles walked out of the way as she landed onto the floor once more, defeated. "Rrgh… cheap shot, barbarian!"

"You left yourself open," Knuckles replied. He looked behind the drinks stand, and found nothing. "Alright, where'd you put it, bat?" Knuckles asked.

"With the tequila," the bat girl grumbled.

"Deceiver! It's not here!" Knuckles called, knocking a tequila bottle onto the ground and having it shatter. He heard a floorboard creak. He looked over to a round man in a black suit and hat with goggles over his eyes. He was trying to make an exit. Knuckles then noticed his mustache. "Hey, aren't you… Robotnik?!"

"Ohohohohoho!!" Eggman laughed, speeding off. "I was in a disguise, too!" Knuckles and the bat girl chased him outside. They followed him to the end of the trail of stealth clothing, where they saw him in his normal clothes flying the Eggmobile off into the night, the Master Emerald in a prize-machine-like claw attached to the flying pod.

"Whaaa?? Thief!" The bat girl pouted.

"Look who's calling who a thief!" Knuckles spat.

"So long, Knucklehead! And… you…" Eggman said, looking down at them. "I'll just be taking this emerald to power my greatest plan yet!"

"Not if I can help it!" Knuckles shouted. He jumped up and punched the Master Emerald, breaking it into a bunch of pieces which went flying into the distance. He fell back to the ground.

"Ha! No matter! I have Badniks scouring every inch of the region. I'll find all the shards of the Master Emerald, sooner or later…" Eggman declared, continuing his flight. Knuckles landed on the ground. The bat girl was staring at him, dumbfounded. She grabbed him by the neck and started to shake him around.

"What was that all about? Look what you did to MY emerald!" She scolded him as he struggled for air. She then shoved him aside.

"I can't let Robotnik fly off with it, you idiot! If it's in pieces, I can restore it," Knuckles explained. "And by the way, that's not your emerald. You got that?"

"Sure… race you to the shards?" The bat girl teased.

"Don't make a game out of it," Knuckles growled.

"Why not? Have some sportsmanship," she laughed.

"'Why not'?" Knuckles replied. "Because then it'll be a game you're going to lose." Knuckles and the bat girl sped off in separate directions to track down the shards.

Knuckles delved into the nearby Wild Canyon, digging and climbing to find the pieces of his gemstone. "Rats…" Knuckles growled as he surfaced from the sand with nothing. He usually had a natural knack for detecting the emerald, like every echidna. But his anxiety and distrust of the place he was in made it hard to tell detection from dread. That's when he saw a strange drone scanning the area. It was making a beeping sound, almost like it was detecting something nearby. "Huh? Are you one of Robotnik's machines?" Knuckles asked, grabbing the robot from the sky and jamming his knuckles into its shell. The beeping grew louder and faster. "Now there, don't complain. You're gonna help me figure out where to find my shards, okay?" Knuckles walked forward, pointing the drone at the ground. All while he examined the strange symbol on the robot's dark blue helmet. "'G'... What does that mean? I wonder…"

"Ugh… Really?" the bat girl groaned, looking at the video feed being delivered to her phone through the drone's camera. She continued to scour Dry Lagoon on the other side of the outskirts of Shamar. She had an entire squad of the same GUN Beetle drones helping her look. Knuckles was finding more shards than her, at a quicker pace. "Heh, well then. I suppose we have some competition. Let's play, echidna boy!" The bat girl inputted some commands on her phone. "All units… get that echidna!" She held up a shard of the Master Emerald, and laughed.