G.U.N Ocean Base 8
Coordinates 36'W, 36'N
Landing Strip
10:05 AM

Sonic and Knuckles, still holding up the unconscious fox, looked to one another before turning back to the pangolin who had demanded the Chaos Emerald. There was a long, awkward pause before Sonic answered. "Umm… Who are you guys?"

They would receive no satisfactory answer as the ram stepped forward and thrust his horns at the blue hedgehog. Sonic instinctively let go of Tails and leapt out of the way, barely missing Crack. Luckily, Sonic was holding onto Tails' feet at the time. Once Sonic landed, Crack turned and charged again. The hedgehog was ready this time, and he leapt forward and onto the ram's horns as he passed underneath. The two then became embroiled in a rodeo-style rampage around the landing strip, Crack trying to buck the hedgehog off.

The bizarre scene took the attention of Arra, Glide, and Knuckles, who was the first to turn away. He delivered a punch to the jaw of the flying lizard, causing him to fall backwards. He then turned to his left and found himself staring down the business-end of one of the pangolin's wrist blades.

The echidna froze, his fighting training telling him that he could do nothing in this situation. He was up against a wall, a blade in his face, carrying a fox in his arms. He was totally at the pangolin's mercy. Which, as he was soon to learn, was non-existent. The pangolin reared back and thrust his fist forward at the echidna.

A pink boot to the head knocked Arra off balance, causing his fist to miss Knuckles' head and hit the wall behind him instead. Rouge used the momentum from her kick to leap backwards and land by Knuckles. The relieved and somewhat bewildered echidna looked from the two disabled foes to the jewel thief. "Why did you do that?" It was true that Rouge had in her hands the Chaos Emerald as she watched the two get attacked and that she could have easily left with it.

"You're welcome by the way." She retorted as she turned away. Arra had regained his stance and narrowed his eyes at the new arrival. He lunged forward at the bat and slashed at her with one of the blades attached to his wrists. Rouge gasped and attempted to back up quickly, resulting in her tripping backwards over her own feet and being caught in the arms of the echidna. She looked up at him for a moment before regaining her composure and standing to face Arra.

Knuckles faced the pangolin, brandishing his fists. Normally, he wouldn't hesitate to throw a punch, but there was something terribly unsettling about this pangolin. In the back of the red echidna's mind, he wondered how they had gotten here, how they knew that they had the Chaos Emerald, and just why they wanted it. But he rarely went to that place in his mind during a fight. Instead, what was most unsettling was the fact that the pangolin didn't looks worried at all. He wasn't even in a fighting stance. In fact, he was smiling. He was outnumbered and outmatched.

And he was smiling.

Knuckles was soon to learn exactly why Arra had been smiling. Directly behind the echidna and bat hovered Glide. And he took no hesitation in grabbing Knuckles, obviously the larger threat, and using his own momentum to hurl the surprised foe several feet away and then give chase.

Knuckles skidded across the metal before stopping himself by digging his fists into the deck. He stood, just a little annoyed at being bested, and, when Glide had neared enough, slammed the flying lizard into the iron deck with a fist.

Meanwhile, Rouge had looked away, giving Arra the opportunity to slash at her again with a blade, this time cutting into her left shoulder. The bat, now both shocked and angry, turned to face her opponent. Arra glanced at his two companions and then to Rouge. None of them had the Emerald with them. The Emerald was twenty feet above them. And a prolonged fight wasn't necessary. He was going to finish this.

The pangolin curled up into a ball and then shot upwards at Rouge, slamming her into the wall. On a normal day, Rouge would never had let that happen. But today was shaping up to be anything but normal, as was her opponent. She had seen Shadow and Sonic curl up into balls before, but this was completely different. Whoever she was fighting was seemingly able to move himself in literally any direction while curled up in a ball, including straight up. She was still in shock from the new maneuver when she realized that she was no longer being pinned to the wall. Rouge stepped forward and looked around her for a moment, not finding him. Then she had a thought and looked above her. There, rolling up the wall, was the pangolin. She leapt backwards as the ball detached itself and fell upon her. She managed to avoid the impact, but rather than stopping after a ten-foot fall in ball form, the mysterious foe continued rolling towards her. She backed up, kicking at the ball, causing no damage. It didn't even falter. She knew that, inevitably, she would be slammed up against the wall again if she didn't do something. And so she flapped her wings and flew upwards.

During all of this, Sonic and Crack had gotten nowhere fast with their struggle, and so one of them was forced to make a change in their approach. And it wasn't Sonic. Sonic had always done pretty much the same thing, and it had served him well. Run, jump, run, roll, run. But Crack had, very unwillingly, been forced in the past to change his approach, sometimes being very painful and sometimes very unnatural. And so it was the ram who made the first real blow to the other. Rather than bucking around, the ram leapt into the air. Sonic was surprised at how high he could jump, but even more surprised when he was thrown over the ram's horn as Crack descended into a headfirst dive into the metal. Unfortunately for Sonic, even the hedgehog's reflexes were not fast enough to avoid being crushed between the metal and the horns, which were perhaps harder. More than one thing dented as Sonic's body gave up and unconsciousness took over.

On the other end of the base, Glide had barely gotten out of the way of the echidna's massive fist by diving to the right. Despite the circumstances, he smiled to himself. This sort of thing always gave him such a rush. That was part of the reason he had been captured by G.U.N in the first place. Knuckles was faster then he looked, the flying lizard had to give him credit for that. But Glide was able to stay out of his reach, waiting, just as he always did, for his opponent to falter. And falter he did. Knuckles punches had a way of shifting his momentum and carrying him forward, and so every so often, when delivering a sting of punches, he had to regain his balance by throwing and uppercut. It was just his style. Sadly, the Uppercut put too much space between his feet and his fists. And Glide dove for him. The flying lizard grabbed onto the red echidna's legs and then continued forward, causing Knuckles to flip upside down, being held aloft a foot off the ground by Glide. The flying lizard took his opponent's gasp as a sure sign to flap higher with his free arm until they were a good distance up.

And so, for the third time today, Knuckles found himself in an awkward position. He was up in the air. He was in his opponent's element. And even though he himself could glide, he knew that he would be helpless from above while doing so. And so he tried to think of what to do. He did not receive much time, as Glide had grabbed on with both arms and flung Knuckles around in a circle, using his opponent's momentum, as was his style, to throw the echidna to the ground. Knuckles barely had time to notice what was happening before his head struck metal and he was knocked out cold.

Rouge had reached the top of the wall and reached into an indentation for the rock hatch in which the Emerald still lay. She still had a job to do. She felt around for it. She gasped and looked inside. It was gone. She looked up, directly at the box, and the pangolin holding it. She narrowed her eyes. "How did you…?" She never finished that sentence, as Arra delivered a swift kick to the head, knocking her out. It was more or less payback.

A minute later, Arra, and Crack were standing at the far end of the base, looking at the destruction they caused. Three unconscious foes. Not bad. They turned and looked as Glide flapped his way over to them.

Arra turned and said "Did you set the charge?" as he rubbed the side of his head.

"Of course I did…" Glide responded. Then he noticed his companion's pain and laughed. "Get kicked in the head by a girl, eh?"

Arra turned away. "Shut up, Glide."

The three then silently disappeared in a bright white flash.

Three minutes later, G.U.N Ocean Base 8 exploded in a firey inferno.

G.U.N Ocean Base 8
Coordinates 36'W, 36'N
Landing Strip
Three and a half minutes ago

Tails, still tucked away underneath the overhang where Knuckles had put him, opened his eyes as he heard talking.

"Did you set the charge"

"Of course I did… Get kicked in the head by a girl, eh?"

"Shut up, Glide."

Then a flash of light brought the fox to full alertness. What had just happened. Where was the Emerald. He looked around. What he saw disturbed him. Rouge, Knuckles, and Sonic were all unconscious and laying around the deck. Tails was going to rush to help them when something came to his attention. "Charge?" He said to himself. And then it hit him.

Ocean Base 8 had been used by G.U.N as a place for tiny planes to stop and reload, essentially a gas station. This meant that the only thing that was being stored on Ocean Base 8 was fuel. They were on a floating powder keg. And any sort of explosive charge would completely obliterate the base. Tails didn't know this. None of them did. Glide had just set the explosive charge to knock out the power. All Tails knew was that they were in danger. And he had no time to save them. Just another day when you hang around with Sonic. Tails raced over to the Tornado, checked the systems, made sure the charge was not attached to the plane, then raced back over to the others. He dragged Sonic to the edge of the base and hefted his friend into the plane. He proceeded to do the same with Knuckles and Rouge. He climbed into the cockpit and started the ignition. He would normally have gone through pre-flight procedure, but there was an explosion coming. He pulled back on the yoke and piloted the plane across the deck, taking off ten feet before the edge.

And then G.U.N Ocean Base 8 exploded in a firey inferno.

The resulting force shot pieces of shrapnel twice the size of the Tornado in all directions. One such chunk of the landing strip collided with the back of the Tornado, causing the tail to rip off and the rest of it, as well as it's four occupants, to fall into the waters below.