Several days passed.

Knuckles finally woke up. His body was wrapped in bandages, making it difficult to move and uncomfortable. He immediately tried to sit up but was stopped by Sonic. Sonic gestured for Knuckles to look down at the bed. The hot-headed one looked down and saw Tails sitting with his face down on his bed, asleep.

After a while, Tails woke up. He was extremely happy, even teary-eyed. Tails rubbed his eyes and then looked up with a bright smile:

- Good morning, Knuckles, Sonic!

Sonic recounted the not-so-good situation to Knuckles. Knuckles was still Knuckles. He was angry, grabbing Sonic by the neck and loudly scolding him.

- Sonic! You had plenty of chances to attack her! Why didn't you?

- Haria was being controlled by Dr. Eggman! I couldn't attack her!

- Excuses, excuses!! Now... now the Master Emerald is in the hands of that damn Eggman!

In his anger, Knuckles thought of punching the wall next to him but hesitated. Instead, he punched his own chest a few times, also blaming himself.

- If at that time... I had thrown her off the island...

- Knuckles, it's not your fault.

- Not my fault? I'm the guardian of Angel Island, aren't I...?

- You're our friend! I can't afford to lose you...!

Sonic said sternly.

Knuckles and Tails could never have imagined Sonic speaking to them with such severity.

To ease the tension, Tails reassured Knuckles that Angel Island had not yet fallen from the sky because Eggman was turning the island into his base and using the energy of the Master Emerald for his robot minions.

- That's not good news, Tails – Knuckles shook his head

- But... what I mean is... at least the island hasn't fallen...

- The most important thing right now is we need to find out about Haria first – Sonic said – How strong she is to cause all this trouble.

Both Knuckles and Tails nodded in agreement.

They needed to start with the basics.

- Hey Sonic, do you know where Halestial is?

- Hmm, I don't know. I don't even know if it exists. I even thought it might be part of a parallel Mobius!

- Halestial...Halestial...hmm. If I remember correctly, I've read about this place before.

Tails ran to his bookshelf, checking each book one by one.

- Ah! Here it is! It's in this fairy tale book here!

- What? A fairy tale? – Knuckles squinted, turning to look at Sonic – I'm starting to think she's been brainwashed by the doctor.

Sonic quickly went over to Tails to carry the little guy to a chair next to Knuckles' bed.

- Ahem. Halestial, the Night Crow Prince.

Once upon a time, there existed a terrifying sea monster known as the Twilight Leviathan, which harbored the power of destruction. It could summon rain and storms, create tempests and earthquakes enough to obliterate everything. At that time, the people of Mobius lived in fear, always having to offer precious and strange goods to the sea monster so that it would temporarily spare them. Until one day, the Night Crow Prince with the Skylight sword appeared. He sacrificed himself, successfully subdued and sealed the Twilight Leviathan deep beneath the sea forever. After his passing, the Skylight sword shattered into many pieces, becoming the Bluelight lanterns that illuminated and protected the fishermen at sea. The Bluelight lanterns are the legacy left by the Night Crow Prince, helping to seal the Twilight Leviathan, preventing it from rising again.

- Heh, according to the fairy tale...maybe Haria is a descendant of the Night Crow Prince? – Sonic grinned mischievously, eyes darting to Knuckles - Looks like Knuckles here has had the honor of matching strength with the last descendant of Halestial, huh? Sounds oddly familiar, doesn't it?

- If this fairy tale is true...then why didn't Haria refer to Halestial as the Night Crow Prince but spoke of it as if it were a kingdom?

- I'm not sure either – Knuckles replied – But anyway, if I get the chance, I'll turn her into the last punching bag for good!

Knuckles angrily clenched his fists.

Next, the three discussed plans to defeat Haria.

Knuckles remembered how she attacked him sneakily and how her body emitted light whenever she used her powers. The hot-headed one also recalled that sometimes the light was purple, sometimes it had no color. Sonic remembered Haria emitting yellow light followed by red. Tails fell into deep thought. The young fox closed his eyes, pondering for a while. Tails remembered detecting exactly eight different energy wavelengths during a sudden surge in Chaos energy, excluding the Master Emerald, whose wavelength was completely different.

- I have a hypothesis – Tails spoke carefully – Haria...She might be able to borrow power from the Chaos Emeralds without touching them.

Before Sonic and Knuckles could exclaim in unison, "What?", Tails quickly pushed his blackboard over. He used white chalk to draw the shape of Haria and the colors that Sonic and Knuckles had seen.

- Based on what Knuckles and Sonic have witnessed, I propose that this girl Haria is indeed borrowing Chaos energy using some device.

Sonic was certain that it was the large round gem on Haria's chest, while Knuckles thought it was the red gem attached to her head.

- Think carefully, when she attacked you, which item glowed first?

- Hmm....I remember...

Sonic and Knuckles paused. Right after that, both of them exclaimed in unison.

- The gloves? – They both answered.

- I think so too. To test this theory for sure, we need to gather all the Chaos Emeralds so that—

Before Tails could finish his sentence, Sonic dashed out of the door at lightning speed and returned to the room in half a second.

- You mean these Emeralds, right? – Sonic opened a moss-covered box containing all 7 Chaos Emeralds.

- Wait...Wait a minute, how did you manage to—

- Well, let's see...4 at Eggman's base, I just stormed in and grabbed them and then used your tracker to find the other three. All done.

Sonic sneezed.

- Ah, he must be starting to curse right about now.

Meanwhile, on Angel Island.

Dr. Eggman was not at all surprised to learn that the 4 Emeralds at his base had been stolen. On the contrary, he clapped his hands in self-congratulation:

- Ha ha ha, so Sonic has finally learned to be cautious? That's not like you at all, you troublesome blue hedgehog!

Haria sat next to the Master Emerald, looking at the pebbles shaped like various animals lined up in rows. In the fight with Sonic, she felt something change within her. It was extremely uncomfortable, what was this feeling? Why, when she could have taken the life of the blue hedgehog, did she instead throw him towards the red plane?