𝚖𝚘𝚟𝚒𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚒𝚌 𝚡 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝟸

ℂℍ𝔸ℙ𝕋𝔼ℝ 𝕋ℍ𝕀ℝ𝕋𝔼𝔼ℕ

❝ 𝚒𝚝'𝚜 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚙𝚎𝚘𝚙𝚕𝚎 ❞

🌴

Robotnik's voice glitched as the temple collapsed. Before he vanished into the air choking on the dust from the crumbling stone, the emerald firmly and forever proudly in his hands, his eyes flickered the same green. He could feel the electrical energy circulating through his veins, like a tiny touch to the gem sent a shock through his whole body already pumped tight with malicious blood.

The doctor was gone in seconds, and the labyrinth was about to face the same gruesome fate. Floods of salted waters rubbed away at the ancient rock, decaying it with every rough scratch and bursting through every angle. Waves pummelled through, slicing a crack anywhere that wasn't already torn to shreds from previous damage. The emerald's shrine was in ruins, and what seemed like all of the world's oceans crashed over it and washed the flakes into the shattering walls.

"Let's get out of here!" Sonic cried.

(Y/n) felt the air chill, and a shiver crawl down her spine. The comforting warmth this undiscovered paradise had held before was frozen by the breeze breaking through the crevices carved into the walls. Cold oceans sliced through, and the entire temple would be flooded in the space of a few seconds - she knew that for sure. She kept her body pinned to Sonic's, and allowed her anxious soul to just follow whatever escape route he had planned.

That's when she remembered something.

"Wait, what about Knuckles?"

Her words completely paused Sonic. He sighed, the staircase of rubble he had been following as a method to elude approaching a recommended stopping point. A gap not quite flooded was avaliable and glowing with safety up above, but (Y/n)'s comment caused the hedgehog whose quills almost matched the shade of the water to think twice before making a run for it.

He halted on a shelf of rock high above where the water had reached, but considering the fountains pouring through the walls and up from the crushed ground, they didn't have long to decide. Sonic hastily scanned the scenery, nothing but encroaching sea pounding the pillars of the shrine. One tumbled over, and sent a rough tsunami towards the pile of stone Sonic had claimed a safe spot.

"There he is!" (Y/n) screamed over the racket, and guidance from her fingers escorted Sonic's panicked eyes to underneath the pillar that had snapped and collapsed like a deforested tree.

It hadn't quite made it to the drowned ground, something below channelling all its strength to keep it afloat. Sonic squinted, two little pairs of pristine white spikes jammed into the cracked stone. He could see a flustered face in the shallows, the pointed muzzle and flash of crimson fur above the widened amethyst eyes instantly familiar.

"KNUCKLES!!!" He screamed, his hands cupped to his mouth and the assistance of (Y/n)'s voice increasing the volume.

Silence, other than the ocean still raiding the temple with great aggression. Poor Knuckles could barely breathe, the pillar of atavistic rock slammed into his chest. (Y/n) could see his eyes widening until they might pop, even from such a far distance, and before she could speak a word about rescuing him the sea had engulfed his terrified face entirely.

"We have to help him!"

Sonic rolled his eyes at the hideous waves seeming strong enough to drag him down to his certain demise the second he would dare to step into them, the sea rising at such a pace almost the whole of the pillar that had squashed Knuckles to a rather unexpected standstill was underneath it. He knew he didn't have long to decide.