//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: Gems, Elements, and Sinerals 
// by jsk244 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 1


By KidtheBrony




Angel Island was alive with visitors today, as a infamous band of friends and heroes gathered before the ancient shrine in celebration of their latest victory. The sun was bright and the sky clear of clouds - a perfect summers day for them all to party and catch up after the harrowing days only now coming to an end. For Dr. Eggman, mechanical genius and bumbling villain, had once again attempted to gain control of the Chaos Emeralds to power his mighty machines and take over Mobius. Yet as always Sonic the Hedgehog, along with his friends, had risen to the challenge and taken the egghead scientist down a peg - again. This time it had been relatively easy even, since for once the Chaos Emeralds had been gathered ahead of time for the blue hedgehog to use to take down the ultimate robot in Eggman's arsenal. Now, as he no doubt continued to putter away in retreat in his personal Eggmobile, the band of friends had decided to throw a party on Knuckles floating home.

The party was in full swing now, having started after dawn and still going strong at noon. Tails was cooking on the grill with a chef hat on, the main item being hot dogs to whip up Sonic's favorite meal of chili dogs. Knuckles was asleep, or perhaps meditating, against a nearby pillar on the outskirts of the islands shrine, his arms crossed and eyes closed in peace. Amy was dancing happily with Cream the Rabbit, the younger bunny splitting time between her fellow dancer and Cream the Chao, who happily flew around the pair chirping. Even Rouge, the elusive thief/ally was attending, seated at the large table in the center of the clearing and idly eating a salad. Occasionally her focus would shift between the Echidna across from her, or the giant emerald centered atop the shrine's steps, but then she'd flash a knowing smirk and return to her meal. Sadly most of Sonic's other friends couldn't attend, having previous engagements to attend to, but their presence even then was still felt in the balloons and decorations they'd given to the party goers to hang around the clearing.

And as for Sonic himself, the speedy hedgehog was happily napping away the day, laying back on the grass with the sun shining down on him. A large bubble was slowly bobbing on his nose and his arms rested under his head, the perfect picture of serenity and peace for once. Yet even in sleep the music playing on the radio called to him, because one of his legs was perched atop the other and slowly rocking to the beat.

Yes it was another happy day on Mobius for Sonic and co, but as often is the case with them, things don't always stay so peaceful for long.

Soon a new sound could be heard over the music, a long whistle that slowly grew louder. Knuckles almost immediately noticed its approach, and eyes snapping open he shouted, "Watch out!"

Rouge quickly jumped away, flapping her wings to ascend and move to the sides of the clearing. Just before she could clear however a rocket struck and blew the table apart, sending her and shrapnel flying. Amy and Cream screamed, terrified by the sudden attack, before more whistling could be heard and more rockets struck the clearing all around them. Woken from his nap, Sonic quickly sprung into action, dodging the rocket that struck his napping spot seconds afterwards and leaping onto another destined to hit near Tails. With long years of practice he titled the projectile up and into the path of another, before leaping off it and repeating the process again to another pair. During his aerial leap frog, Tails and Knuckles had already gotten the girls to the safety of the surrounding woods and were now doing what they could to stop the missiles from wrecking any more of the clearing. Tails emulated his best friends tactic by flying around the rockets and turning them against each other, while Knuckles took a more direct approach and carefully punched each one into the sky, exploding harmlessly above him. Soon the barrage died off, and the trio gathered before the steps up to the shrine, glaring at the now noticeable shadow in the sky.

"Eggman!" Sonic shouted. "I should've know you wouldn't give up that easily. Come for another round already?"

"Ohohohohoho! Indeed I have Sonic!" Shouted Eggman, floating down further inside his Eggmobile. With him came three floating platforms of similar color and build as his hovercraft, each unmanned but armed to the gills with rockets and lasers. Eggman himself looked a little worse for wear, still singed and wearing cracked goggles from the explosion of his last master robot. But there was no mistaking the devilish grin he had on as he gestured proudly at his guards. "I may be a little low on supplies, but rest assured that these will be more than enough to take care of you! Say hello to my Eggfighters: Mark I!"

"Eggfighters huh?" Sonic smirked. "Nice name I guess, but it looks like you're running out of ideas egghead if that's the best you can do." Eggman fumed at the jab, but then he grinned again, a knowing smile that spoke of something up his sleeve.

"Mock them as you will hedgehog, but I'll be the one laughing once they defeat you! Now Go!" He ordered. The three hover bots shot toward the Mobians at a surprising speed, but nothing could outpace Sonic, and his friends were no slouches either. Together they charged the bots and engaged them in battle; running, punching, and flying around every attack the bots could throw at them. Tails had pulled out a giant wrench from somewhere and had taken to swinging it like a club, doing little damage due to his lack of strength but also slowly undoing the bolts holding the frame and weapons together. Knuckles was faring the worst, being a close range fighter, but even he was scoring solid hits by deflecting his opponents rockets back at it, slowly wearing it down. As for Sonic, he was literally running circles around his Eggfighter, disorienting its sensors and causing error messages in its system. Soon it began firing wildly in an attempt to score a lucky hit, but all it managed to do was blow up one of its comrades and make Eggman scream like a girl as he ducked a rocket.

"Careful you fool, you almost hit me!" He screamed. The bot paid him no attention, still spinning wildly and beeping with smoke coming out of its joints. Several of its rockets blasted its final partner to pieces, while others forced Eggman to pull back lest he be blasted himself. Sonic wasn't even running around anymore; Standing below Eggman with his arms crossed and a cocky smirk on his face, he looked up at the human doctor.

"Looks like you'll have to make a Mark II to stand a chance against me Eggman. Maybe you should go back to the drawing board?"

But Sonic's taunt seemed to hit fate instead of his mustached enemy this time, as finally one of the rockets from the last Eggfighter flew toward a target spot on, but not anyone had expected. Watching it fly off, everyone in and around the clearing could see it clearly fly over Tails and Knuckles head, up the stairs of the shrine, and detonate directly on top of the Master Emerald. To make it worse, it was at that very moment that Sonic remembered that he and his friends had placed the Chaos Emeralds around the base of the giant emerald for safe keeping during the party, a fact that became very, very important as the dust began to clear.

"Uh...whoopsie." Sonic muttered, knowing he'd be blamed for this somehow.

"THE MASTER EMERALD!" Knuckles screamed in shock.

"Uh oh..." Tails whimpered.

"Dohohohoho! How do you like that?" Eggman taunted back, once again confident.

As the last of the dust cleared, the extent of the damage could be seen. The Master Emerald was shattered, its pieces laying strewn across the top of the ancient temple with a black spot marking where it had stood previously. That in itself was odd though, as Sonic and his friends knew from past events that the Master Emerald didn't simply shatter - It blew apart, flinging it's pieces to the far corners of the world. Fearing something was amiss, Sonic raised a hand and began to step forward, but it was too late. From the blast zone the Chaos Emeralds, whole and unmarked, began to glow and float up into the sky. They pulsed with the great energy stored within them, and to everyone's shock, so too did the Master Emerald. Soon the shards of the great gem began to float, forming two circles that overlapped around the Chaos Emeralds and began slowly rotating faster and faster. A hum of energy grew louder in everyone's ears, until it was deafening and left them all clutching their ears in pain.

"What's going on Knuckles!" Tails shouted over the din.

"I don't know! The Master Emerald's never reacted like this before!" Knuckles replied, barely audible even though they were side by side.

"Amy, my ears hurt." Cream whimpered from the treeline. Knowing she wouldn't be heard, Amy carefully gathered the young bunny and Chao into her arms, the little critter whimpering pitifully as it squirmed in pain. On the other side Rouge, having barely recovered from the explosion, bared the pain even worse than the young girl. Her sensitive hearing was now turned against her and brought her to her knees, with blood slowly seeping from her ears.

"This...this can't be! Is this a higher form of Chaos Control?!" Eggman shouted, eyes wide in wonder and thoughts of escape gone.

"I've got a bad feeling about this..." Sonic gritted his teeth, knowing instinctively that something bad was about to happen. "HANG ON EVERYONE!"

Then, in a flash of blinding light, the Emeralds unleashed their mighty power. A dome of energy swept across the shrine and expanded until it encompassed the entire clearing. From there it stretched across the whole island, consuming everything in sight, until nothing could be seen of the land behind an orb of pure power. It remained a second longer, its intensity almost outshining the sun, and then...

It was gone, along with Angel Island and everyone on it.