Act 9 Final Part: The Knuckles doppelgangers

"Knuckles? I think you might be mistaken." said the echidna that looked like Knuckles, "Then who are you?" asked Tails, "Who I am is not of your concern." he said back "Well, we need those chaos emeralds." Sonic said. The echidna just stared at him while he reached for the emeralds. Once Sonic put his hand on the emerald, the echidna tackled Sonic, he almost pushed him off the edge of the floating isle. "Why'd you--" Tails started but Sonic cut him off, "I got this, Tails. What the heck, dude? You almost knocked us off this island." "I am the emerald guardian, you should have known I'd do that." Sonic got back up and wiped dirt off of his pelt and reached for the emerald again. The emerald guardian prepared to lunge at him again, but Sonic only hovered his hand over one of the emeralds. "If you touch it..." he snarled. Sonic smirked, he moved his hand closer to it, "I'm not touching it, I'm not touching it." he kept smirking, moving his hand closer and further from the emerald. "Umm, Sonic, I think you should stop before you make him angrier." Tails said. "Yeah, you're right." Sonic said and snatched three emeralds off their pedestals and ran off, "Oh, shoot." Sonic shouted, almost about to run off the edge of the island. "Aargh! You little erinaceinae!" the emerald guardian swore and charged at him. "Nyaa" Sonic squeaked and sidestepped, the emerald guardian realized that Sonic moved, but didn't stop fast enough and fell off the edge. Tails gasped and ran off the edge, flew down and tried to catch him, but he was too slow. The emerald guardian fell on a rock and broke his spine. Tails flew down to him. "Oh no. Are you OK?" Tails asked "What a foolish thing to say, of course I'm in pain, but it won't matter if I die, another guardian will take my place." "But I won't let you die" Tails said and grabbed the emerald guardian's hand and flew back up to Angel Island. Tails put him down on the ground, "I'm going to go get someone to help you, just hang in there, Sonic will keep you company" Tails said while flying away. Sonic stared at the emerald guardian for a while. After five minutes of them staring at each other, Sonic broke the ice, "So, you got a name?" "It's Zax..." He said with disdain, "Zax, huh. I've heard of that name somewhere before, meh it might just be a feeling. Well my name is Sonic." "I do not care about your name." Zax snarled "You almost killed me" "Yeah, I almost killed you." and they continued to argue for half an hour.

Dr. Eggman took Knuckles's body in to his lab, he took random parts from his old badniks, and started to "rebuild" Knuckles, he replaced his heart with a robotic heart, he removed his already damaged internal organs and hollowed out his body. He added the finishing touches to him by putting not one, but two baby animals in Knuckles's body. Even with the flickies in his body, Knuckles couldn't work, he needed a shock to make his heart beat. Dr. Eggman took the body and put it on the stage he rebuilt Knuckles on. He pushed a button that made the stage rise up, through the ceiling. "Live, live, I tell you. Live!" Dr. Eggman yelled maniacally, expecting Knuckles to be struck with bolts of lightning, but instead the storm started to die down. Eggman lowered the stage angrily, he groaned as he opened up several drawers looking for something to spark Knuckles. He pulled out a stun gun and he tried sparking Knuckles with it, but it didn't work. At last he takes the battery pack from the Mecha Knuckles and replaces the real Knuckles's heart with it. This finally brought Knuckles to life. Knuckles looked around, dazed and confused "Hello" Dr. Eggman said when Knuckles turned to him, "Who am I? Where am I?" Knuckles asked, "You're Knuckles, you were created by me to find seven emeralds that look like these," he shows Knuckles one of the Super emeralds, "and these people stole some from me," Dr. Eggman shows Knuckles a picture of Ray and Bean. "I want you to beat them up and take them back for me." "OK, then, where are they?" Knuckles asked, "I suggest you take this to help you find them" Eggman gave Knuckles an emerald locator and Eggman lead Knuckles out of the lab.

Thus ends act 9...