Speedy's note: As the summery already says, this is a kind of crossover between the original game canon and the STC comics… I guess you could call it a transition, starting from a Fleetway background, and ending in my regular game-based universe thing.
Making this crossover work without making a huge mess out of it turned out much more complicated than it may look on first sight. Even the source material itself (game canon and comic series alike) is full of plotholes and contradictions in terms. So, I couldn't avoid putting up some basic principles for this story's universe to work with:
1) The Chaos Emeralds were once halved and later fused together; while separated the halves are much less powerful.
2) Each Chaos Emerald holds a special power; all together they are the most powerful.
3) The Master Emerald is the object to control and stabilize the Chaos Emeralds, and can only be used by its guardian.
4) The Chaos Emeralds only interact with especially gifted individuals, like Sonic or Shadow (although the latter is still frozen in stasis at the time the story is set). Characters like Robotnik, Tails, or Amy cannot use them directly.

Knowledge of both series might be helpful, but shouldn't be necessary.

Like in my last story, the 'Chaos Emeralds having each a special power' concept is an idea of JudasFm's and used with permission. Thanks, Jude! :)

Set a few months after the Chaos creature was defeated in the official Fleetway series(aka after the end of the Fleetway adaption of Sonic Adventure 1).

The Wind In The Abyss

Prologue: Sleepless

Tongues of fire licked on the meadow all around him, black smoke rising up to darken the sky to an opaque blackness. Black as the unbearable powers that had consumed his mind, his consciousness, without any chance of resistance.

The wreckage surrounding him was the only thing left to tell him what the powers had done to him. Done with him. Made him do. While he had known nothing about it, he had killed his friends. The ones that were always standing behind him, securing his back, securing him. But in the end, he had been too weak to protect them from the demon within. Would he always be a danger to the ones close to him? Was it really like that?

Sonic took a breath of the heavy air, fully aware to breathe the smoke that came from the Tornado, to be breathing death. The blue hedgehog fell to his knees, tears running down his cheeks, and a cry rose from his throat, filled with the agony of desperation, loss and fear. He was alone now. All alone. Alone with himself and the thing within, the powers he couldn't contain and couldn't get out as he wanted, and with the knowledge that they could make him do this again.

Anytime. Anywhere.

Suddenly Sonic wanted nothing more than to run. He needed away from here. He couldn't stand the smell of death any more, neither the images of what had to have happened his mind automatically produced even though he didn't remember. The false memory, born of terrified imagination, was colourful enough as it was...

When he tried to run away, just away, he found his limbs caught and restrained. Sonic kicked out, struggled against it and –

Shot upwards to a seating position. Green eyes snapped open to see a dark room and he found himself knotted into his bed sheets. Drawing a deep gasp of much needed air he slowly realized he had been dreaming. His heart beat so hard against his ribcage it hurt and he was drenched in cold sweat.

The blue hedgehog freed himself from the covers and sat on the edge of his bed. "Damn freaking nightmares," he mumbled groggily as he wiped the wet film off his face. He looked over to the alarm clock on the bedside table, vision blurred by tiredness. Two in the morning. "Oh great…"

No way he could go back to sleep now. He knew if he tried to relax and drop off again, the pictures would be coming flooding back and keep him awake anyway. It was not the first time he'd been rudely wakened up by that dream. Although it was more than a year ago now. Although something like it had not happened for a long time, not since they had defeated the Chaos creature and maybe also Super Sonic. But Sonic would only believe it if he knew for certain... and that would maybe be never.

The past months had been pretty calm compared with his usual life. After Porker had found a way to raise the sunken Floating Island, they had heard little from Knuckles. The red echidna seemed happy to have his home back to himself.

Robotnik had not attacked anything in the past half a year. It was already getting boring, although Sonic and the other freedom fighters were sure he was just out of sight as long as he plotted a new plan…But still, life was about to return to a calm way on Mobius while he didn't.

The blue hedgehog sighed. He had very much relaxed in the past months. In six weeks, he would turn fifteen and maybe it would be the first birthday in years without any interference from rampaging badniks and crazed human scientists. And here he was, wide awake in the middle of a perfectly calm night, haunted by things that had never been in his powers to avoid.

Sonic was no-one to care much about the past. It was the past, so you couldn't change anything about it. His look was forwards, not back, but those damned, stupid nightmares seemed very eager to make him do something that was not even in his nature.

Slowly starting to get fully awake, Sonic leaned down to the floor to take on his socks and runners, then he reached for the bedside table to put on his gloves. If he couldn't sleep anyway, there was no point staying here. It was better he found himself something to do.

In the freedom fighters' main computer room a small pig sat in midst of several screens. Since the Kintobor computer had gone down half a year ago he worked here almost all the time, trying to repair what was still repairable. Porker Lewis was talented when it came to computers, over years he'd worked with many on the surface, and then during the months he'd spend on Angel Island after leaving the freedom fighters temporarily after his capture by the Brotherhood of Metallixes he'd got to know the very different kind of technology on the Floating Island.

But even Porker could so far only guess that the measures Robotnik and his aid Grimer had taken some time ago to take over the gangs Kintobor computer and turn it against them had left some damage in the circuits. Maybe it had even been a virus. All Kintobor data was gone, as well as most of their other things wiped clear off the databanks. It had taken months to build a truly working powerful computer system. It would of course never replace the old one. All of the freedom fighters still secretly hoped to find a way repairing Kintobor. So far it didn't look like it though, but you could never know.

Interestedly Porker Lewis' eyes scanned the texts and the grids full of numbers that filled his screen. He'd never noticed this object before, but it was of a remarkable size and certainly worth some research… and if he –

The pig stiffened in alarm and span around on his chair at the sudden sound of footsteps in the silent house, then relaxed when he caught sight of the blue hedgehog poking his head through the door. Porker sagged with relief. No killer robots or something. "Hi Sonic."

"You're still up?", Sonic asked as he fully stepped into the room.

Porker looked the hedgehog up and down while he slowly strolled over to him. Sonic had grown considerably during the past year. Growing had also included his quills getting somewhat longer, and generally given the hedgehog a more lean physique. He still wasn't the tallest, but very likely wouldn't become it anyway as the way he had grown to mostly adult hedgehog proportions implied he wouldn't get that much taller.

And it had not changed his attitude at all. He was still the same reckless, running-addicted and often cocky hedgehog Porker knew for years. And would likely stay it.

"Hello? Have you fallen asleep?" Sonic grinned.

"No... I was just realizing how much you've grown recently and stuff." Porker shrugged.

The hedgehog's grin broadened. "Yeah, haven't I?" He looked himself down briefly. "A little more size was in order, don't you think?"

When Sonic's gaze returned to his friend, Porker noticed the bloodshed tiredness in the green eyes that so little matched his leisure tone, but he did his best to pretend he hadn't. "I guess so." Porker shrugged again. "How late is it?"

"Ahem, two in the morning?" Sonic hopped to sit on a table, dangling his legs. "You don't know?"

"I got kinda stuck here, I guess." The pig pointed at the screens. "How comes YOU are still up?"

"I couldn't sleep." Sonic's features darkened for just a second and Porker refrained from asking any further.

"Are you hungry?", he asked instead.

His blue late-night companion grinned. "This hedgehog is always hungry. I'm Sonic."

"I kinda figured."

The smoke rising from the Island's center volcano slightly blurred the starry sky. Knuckles let a last glance travel over the crater and turned around, slowly wandering down the slope into the shrubbery surrounding the edges of lava reef.

Looking around it was almost impossible to see that just a few months ago, everything around had been a couple kilometres below the surface of the ocean. Knuckles allowed a small smile of content and pride to slip on his face. Sure, it had taken the assistance of his allies from the surface to get Angel Island back up, but most of the rest was his work alone. The guardian couldn't help a sense of certainty that the very island itself had helped restoring what had been before. When he'd left shortly after raising the island to recollect the Chaos Emeralds to make sure the powerful gems stayed at a safe place, everything had still been a mess. Yet by the time he'd returned home, new plants had been growing everywhere.

Now, seeing a prospering Floating Island its guardian found it hard to believe what he knew had happened not far ago, but Knuckles had decided that was a good thing.

He walked a few minutes until the smell of sulphur had completely faded into the soft scent of night's dew and the plants had changed to a light forest. Stepping out onto a tiny clearing, the island's guardian slipped down onto the moss, stretching out on his back to end this day and get some rest until the next would begin.

Eyelids just starting to grow heavy, Knuckles' gaze aimlessly wandered over the sky, trailing from one star to another. He blinked, about to allow his eyes to get lost in the maze of twinkles and then slide shut, when he tracked a small reddish light. It was almost invisible in front of the countless stars, but even Knuckles' already sleepy senses immediately knew that it was not supposed to be there.

The echidna forced his eyes to fully open again, now really looking at the small dot of red. It was pulsing in a quick frequency and while he watched, it slowly moved to the right.

Knuckles narrowed his amethyst eyes. Something was up there. Or somebody... And he didn't like at all they were crossing over his island.

Speedy's note#2: The ones familiar with STC will already have found out what Sonic's nightmare in the beginning refers to, all others I'll just point at issues 80-82 (Running Wild!), or you could just read Forgotten Muse's adaptation of it, or ask me - I don't bite.