Chapter 5

Two days after Sonic felt weird with that darkness, he was feeling more like himself.

Early in the morning, Sonic had his back against the workshop roof, staring at the sky and breathing the dew-filled air. He wanted to go somewhere and do something today, and he wasn't sure what to do.

Then he realized that he hadn't visited his favorite hot-headed echidna in recent memory, and he felt it was time to pay him a visit to Angel Island.

"Hey, Tails!" Sonic yelled, jumping to the ground from the roof, "I'm going to visit Knuckles this morning!"

"Okay!" Tails replied back, "And could you please tell him I said hi?!"

"Of course, bud!" At that, Sonic started to jog away from the workshop before breaking into a full-on run towards the Island.

Knuckles didn't like having visitors come to Angel Island. The Island was where the Master Emerald was and where Knuckles guarded it what seemed like all day and night. He preferred to live in solitude and just sit around in case anything was to bring harm to the Emerald. He was fine with Sonic's visits, as long as they were for a short time and didn't happen too often.

For security reasons, there was a bridge that was attached to the Island for easy access-both when the Island was in the air and on the ground. Sonic made his way to the Mystic Ruins and crossed the higher wooden bridge suspended to the Island, since it was up in the air for the time being.

After another minute, Sonic was walking on the side of the small island, on the dirt path in front of the altar. He saw the green glow of the Master Emerald from the curve of the ruins, and a few moments later the red fur of a particular echidna.

"Here for a visit, Sonic?" He asked, opening his eyes to see it was him.

"Hey," Sonic said, holding his hands up, "have to keep up with appearances, you know!" He kept his gaze on Knuckles while walking on the path that led to the steps of the altar.

"What brings you here today?" Knuckles asked him, leaning down from the top of the stairs to the side, grabbing a cloth bag.

Sonic walked up the steps, sitting a few steps below him. "No particular reason. Just felt like swinging by and checking up on how you've been doing."

Knuckles opened his bag and pulled out a grape, throwing it into his mouth a moment later. "Is that your breakfast?" Sonic asked, pointing to the bag.

The echidna nodded before swallowing and looking at him. "Yeah, I like to keep my meals minimal, so I eat grapes in the morning."

Sonic leaned back onto the ruins before asking him what he does during all that sitting around.

"Just keeping guard of the Emerald. Somebody has to do it even if it isn't the most exciting job." Knuckles confessed.

Sonic smirked a little at that. "There must be something exciting that happens every once in a while." Sonic gazed up at the clouds.

Knuckles was quiet for a few moments. With the silence, Sonic could feel that there was something on his mind. Turning to look at him, Sonic asked, "Did something interesting happen recently?"

The echidna was quiet for a couple of seconds before clearing his throat. "That...that bat came to visit me earlier thismorning."

"Rouge?" Sonic asked even though there was no reason to clarify. Rouge was the only bat that everyone knew, especially if Knuckles referred to her as 'that bat'.

"Yeah," Knuckles continued, grabbing another grape from his bag. "She told me she was getting ready to leave for a treasure hunting trip and found her way to me before leaving."

"Why did she come to you?" Sonic asked, curiosity spiking in his blood.

"She was with Shadow the other night. Before they left Casinopolis, Shadow claimed that Black Doom tried to take control of him."

Sonic's interest rose as his pulse did. "Black Doom?" he asked out loud, confused by that. "But, Shadow killed him when he came to Earth. How could he have felt him try to control him?"

Knuckles sighed. "I don't know. Rouge says that the story is that Shadow was exhausted and as a result imagined Black Doom. But she didn't have a good feeling about it. She told me to keep my guard up for a little while in case it turns out to be something."

Sonic pushed himself up into a sitting position. "That's pretty strange. Why would she go and tell you about this then?"

Knuckles didn't say anything as he tied his bag of grapes up and set it to the side of the ruins. "I don't know, but you know how she loves to be a little dramatic. But in case this is something more than what we think, best to keep ourselves on alert."

Sonic nodded in agreement, but he felt a little detached from the moment, lost in the possibility that Black Doom could come back.

"It's probably just a hoax," Sonic said, standing up and stretching. "It was probably situational. You know how Casinopolis gets the better of people's minds sometimes."

"You're right." Knuckles agreed. "Shadow most likely imagined it."

Once Sonic was done stretching, he told Knuckles he better be on his way, and began to head down the stairs.

"Oh, by the way!" Sonic called to Knuckles when he reached the bottom of the steps. "Tails said hi!"

He could feel the echidna smile. "Tell him I said hi back!"

With a smile on his face, Sonic took off running back to the workshop.

---

"That was fun! Can we do that again?" Charmy asked, the rush of teleporting giving him an adrenaline rush.

"Not until we have that data extracted!" Vector yelled, walking off the teleportation platform.

The Chaotixs were in one of the many rooms of the Space Colony ARK, hundreds of thousands of miles away from Earth. Espio realized they were in the same room where the team helped Shadow from falling under Black Doom's mind control. Albeit, they didn't know about that until later, but it still brought pride to the team.

"You need to hurry then, Espio!" Charmy whined to the chameleon because he was the one who was going to be on the computer.

"You need to bring your patience, it could take several hours before I find that file. Eggman didn't bother to mention where the file he suspected was before we left, so I need to scour through everything on that computer."

"Uggghhhh!!!" Charmy pouted, obviously annoyed that he wouldn't be riding the teleporter anytime soon.

"And because computers are not my specialty, it could take a little longer than it would with someone skilled." Espio dripped in sass, heading for the door on the other side of the room.

Charmy continued to whine about how long it was going to take before Vector yelled at him in annoyance.

"Stop ya whining! It will only take longer to find those files if you continue this! Come on, guys!" He began to walk to the door, Charmy sour behind him. "We need to get to work and find the computer room!"

Espio stopped him before he could leave the room. "I know where it is. I believe it would be incredibly boring if you two stayed with me. I'd prefer to work in silence as I try to find those files." Before Vector could protest, Espio left the room.

---

He wasn't sure how long he was working, but he guessed it was several hours until he finally found what he was looking for.

In a file about the family history of the Robotniks, there was a Miscellaneous icon in the middle of countless files. When he double-clicked on it, it opened up with a password box.

"Of course this has to be more difficult than it seems. At least we know that Eggman wasn't lying." Espio mumbled as his mind was going through possible passwords that could be used.

All Espio could think of were the obvious ones, even though he had a gut feeling that none of them could open the folder.

Espio typed MARIA, remembering that it was the password Eggman used to access the file about the Ultimate Lifeform.

It didn't let him in.

Espio typed SHADOW, knowing the importance he was to Gerald's works.

It didn't let him in.

Espio typed ROBOTNIK, as a last resort.

It didn't let him in.

However, a new message popped up. It told him that he had two more attempts to enter the password before the file would be permanently deleted.

"Damnit!" Espio yelled his frustrations out loud. He told himself to relax since anger wouldn't do anything to help the situation. He took in a couple of deep breaths, calming his pulse back to a steady pace. "At least I found the file. I guess I'm going to have to visit Eggman with an update on my progress. Maybe he'll have an idea of what the password could be." At that, he turned around and headed out of the computer room, back to the main room where Vector and Charmy were.

But when he was close to the room, he found the two wandering the halls.

"What are you guys doing here?" Espio asked when he approached them, assuming that they got bored waiting for him to finish the job.

"We tried to find the computer room because you were taking so long!" Vector yelled his explanation for why they were looking for Espio.

"Well, I'm done in there and we need to head back to Earth." Espio pushed past the crocodile.

A couple of seconds later, he heard Vector's footsteps behind him and the buzzing of Charmy. "Didya find that file?! Because if we were waiting around all this-"

"I did, so Eggman wasn't lying to us." Espio didn't make eye contact as he continued his way, finding the door to the room they came from.

"That's fantastic! But why are you still being stoic?" Vector poked him in the arms in a teasing gesture.

Espio glanced for a moment, before closing his eyes and sighing. "It's password-protected and I only have two more guesses before that file is deleted. I'm going to ask Eggman tomorrow if he has any guesses what those passwords could be before I make another attempt."

Vector was uncharacteristically silent, as it was Charmy that broke the moment.

"We managed to save some potato chips for you!" The bee exclaimed, holding the bag out for Espio.

Espio eyed the bag, pretending to give it some thought because he already knew he would say no. He only resorted to junk food for the pizzas Vector ordered every other day. "I appreciate it, but no thank you." He held his hand up from the bag.

"Suit yourself!" Charmy said before digging into the leftover chips.

Espio turned back to Vector, who was still in thought. "What's going on, Vector? You're rarely this quiet."

Vector shook his head, as if waking up from a daydream. "Sorry, I guess I was just expecting we would be done with this mission after everything we've went through. Let's go home, boys."

Charmy, with chips in his mouth, exclaimed his excitement about teleporting as Team Chaotix headed to the machine and set for GUN headquarters.