Theme Song: "Catch Me If You Can (Zero Gravity Remix)" by Runblebee
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"They're tailing us!" Wave called.

"Shit," Jet mumbled, grabbing hold of the Chaos Emerald, "Storm! Take the Chaos Emerald and keep going! We're all gonna split at the intersection up ahead!"

Jet threw the jewel behind him and Storm caught it with one hand.

Shadow and Blaze were closing in on them, until they heard Jet shout, "GO!"

The Rogues split; Jet to the right, Wave to the left, and Storm kept straight. The duo stopped to plan.

"Storm has the Emerald, I can feel it in his direction! I'll go after him, stay on Jet since you can keep up with him!" Blaze offered.

Shadow nodded and went off in a sonic boom after Jet. Storm was a bit slower, so Blaze went after him.

Storm swerved left and right, dodging all of the G.U.N. soldiers and vehicles. Just then, two Gargoyle Heartless flew down to attack Storm. Storm leaned away from the first, then the second came, and he backfisted it into an oncoming traffic light. The other stood on him, but this time, Storm caught its torso with his large hand. Distracted, he had just noticed there was a bus flipped over on its side blocking the road.

"This'll hurt you more than it will me!" Storm to Gargoyle.

The defenseless Heartless tried to fly away, but when they were close enough, Storm pulled the being back, and rammed him forward to use as a battering ram against the bus. Storm's raw power tore through the eighteen-ton bus without having to get off his Gear. The Heartless was obliterated and Storm kept riding on.

Unfortunately, the albatross was not ready for the obstacle too close ahead; Blaze had already sent a wave of fire after him. On instinct, Storm tossed the Chaos Emerald sky-high before he was blown off his board. As if on cue, Wave had just swooped in to take the Emerald and glided to the next rooftop.

"Agh! I forgot her board was flight-based!" Blaze hissed.

"And I'm all power!" Storm recovering himself.

A Shadow Heartless had just spawned behind him. Storm swung his fist through it, and when a G.U.N. Trooper from far called out, "GRENADE," he threw a fist through the grenade lobbing his way. The grenade exploded on Storm's fist, without so much as a flinch.

Storm rotated back around again, "See what I- hey!"

Blaze was gone, chasing after Wave. Storm picked up his Type-S and tried to find more convenient routes.

Wave surfed the rooftops, keeping an eye out for Blaze. Her sights trailed to the sky and noticed Sonic and Tails high above.

"There you are." she said.

Wave heard a crackle of a flame when she noticed a fireball heading straight for her.

"Whoa!" Wave just dodging it.

A clan of Wyverns were flying by them, unnoticed. Wave grinned and turned to ride in their direction. Blaze pounced, but just missed when Wave had boosted forward.

Wave soared off the rooftop behind the Wyverns and started to ride the wind current they were blowing behind them, but also keeping a distance to avoid provoking them. Luckily, the Wyverns had reached a high enough building for Wave to glide to Sonic on her own. She dipped right and hopped onto the building, braking to look for Sonic. She found the plane was closer, but lower, and it was still going.

"Oh, come on! All that and now they want to land?!"

Sidetracked, Blaze had tackled Wave off her Gear. The Chaos Emerald flew out of Wave's hand and rolled to the edge of the building. Blaze noticed immediately and sprung to grab it. The Emerald had just rolled off before Blaze landed near it and fell down the thirty-story tower. Insult to injury, the Wyverns from earlier swiped it in midair and disappeared with it.

"Crap Blaze, what's wrong with you?!" Wave dusting herself off.

"Me? What's wrong with you?! You were stealing the Chaos Emeralds!" Blaze exploded.

"Actually honey, we were delivering it to Sonic, but you idiots came and ambushed us!"

"Yeah right, what makes you think I'll believe that?"

"Ladies, enough! There seems to be a misunderstanding..."

Blaze and Wave looked over to Jet, who had just flown in with Shadow on his board behind him.

"Shadow, do you really believe them?" Blaze questioned.

"It's the only other possibility considering they're not fighting back." he said.

Blaze just realized that as well. "Fine...So then, what now?"

"That makes three Chaos Emeralds in Mephiles' arsenal. Sonic has one...So that leaves the whereabouts of the last three unknown, assuming these creatures haven't found any yet."

"We should probably tell Sonic then...Hey, where's Storm?" Wave inquired.

"I told him to go help fight for now. His muscle could be better utilized doing that." Jet noted.

"Now that we're done running around, let's get back to saving this world."

Shadow and Blaze leapt off the buildings to the ground and Jet and Wave followed on their boards.

Meanwhile In Station Square...

"Get. Away! FROM, ME!"

Knuckles was at Station Square fighting off the dark army on his own. With quick jabs and hooks, he fought off the Wight Knights. These Heartless appeared to look like fragile mummies, with wide blue hands and feet with deadly long, harpoon-like claws.

"ENOUGH!"

The remaining seven Heartless leaped forward to claw at Knuckles, but Knuckles back-flipped high in the air over the abandoned tank behind him. With a single blow, Knuckles sent the sixty-two ton, war vehicle hurtling towards the Wight Knights. Suddenly, the ground started to rumble and before the tank landed again, a mammoth-sized, purple, quadrupedal beast gored the entire tank and bellowed a deep and raspy roar at the three-foot echidna.

Knuckles took a chance to quickly observe the Heartless: it had two ivory tusks that pointed upwards, the muscular tonnage of a gorilla, and it must have been over one-hundred times heavier than his eighty-eight pound (thirty-nine kilogram) figure. Knuckles bumped his spiked fists together with a grin, and raised them in front of his face:

"Alright big guy, let's see what you got."

The Behemoth dusted its hoof on the ground, shook its head, and started stampeding its way to Knuckles. Its galloping shook the ground with an escalating intensity as it drew near. Knuckles on the other hand, remained relaxed- but switched his stance; one fist in front of him, one fist under him. The Behemoth roared again, echoing throughout the desolate city.

Fifty meters away, the Behemoth lowered its tusks at Knuckles. Forty meters, it picked up the pace. Thirty, Knuckles bent his knees. Twenty, his smirk flipped and flared gritted teeth. Ten, the beast went to swing its tusks, but when finally close enough, Knuckles leaped to dodge and with a swift welt, he fractured the conical middle black horn on its head. Knuckles stepped off the Behemoth's back and landed safely. The creature slid to a stop, howling in agony.

Knuckles noticed as it came closer that its horn was conveniently shielded by the tusks and was darker in color to hide better. Thus, it must've been a potential weak point. The Behemoth recovered and seemed to aim the stub of its horn at Knuckles. An energy formed and started to intensify- but unexpectedly, it combusted in front of its face, stunning it.

"Ah, so that horn used to do something, huh? Pff, oh well!" Knuckles jested.

While it was dazed, Knuckles took his chance for the offensive; he ran up to the Behemoth and with a bountiful leap, he spun around, cocked back a fist, and upon full velocity, his fist ignited the atoms in way- fist ablaze. The blow struck the Behemoth in the face with an impact that rocked the beast and caused it to stumble over, vanishing like a Heartless would.

"Well, this area's cleared. Now, let's se-"

"Hey Knux!"

Knuckles paused as an aqua light had zipped over him.

When he focused his vision further ahead, he recognized the white hedgehog, "Silver! You're alive! Hey, get back here! Where are-..."

He stopped, sensing the Chaos energy fade as Silver flew away.

"Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. Don't tell me he's going to use that Emerald against Mephiles. Damn! They seem to forget that Mephiles doesn't need to have the Chaos Emeralds in order to use its power, all he needs is good proximity! I've got to stop them!..." Knuckles hesitated, "But what if it's too late?...I can't catch up to Silver."

Knuckles thought for a minute. Then it hit him. He peered at the sky above Station Square. From here, Knuckles could see his home of the floating, Angel Island- where his kept the all-powerful Master Emerald protected.

"Sorry island, you'll have to sink back to ground-level...I need that Master Emerald!"

*Uh-oh. When things couldn't be anymore complicated, huh? 😓
By the way, the attached song is actually Jet's theme song (sometimes even the Rogues as a whole)....Honestly, I like the original better:

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*CHARACTERS INTRODUCED:

Knuckles The Echidna

Wight Knight

Behemoth