Vilgax Angel Island

"On Angel Island, there's a temple to the Master Emerald." So that was the gem. He sketched out some architecture around it, some sky. Rough work, but clearly drawn from memory. "With seven smaller Chaos Emeralds. As long as I can remember, I guarded this place." He drew in himself, and if it was anywhere near close to scale, the Master Emerald must have been sizeable indeed. "I don't know why I had to do it. I just did, for as long as I can remember. A long time."

"Yeah?" Mordred squatted and leaned in. If this topic could get Knuckles to produce sentences longer than one word, it must have been important. "What happened next?"

He took a big fistful of dirt and slowly dragged it across the floor, uprooting everything he'd just created.

"Vilgax. I never knew there was anything outside of my home before he arrived. We—my people—we wanted to protect the emeralds. Vilgax only wanted control over us. They resisted. He killed us. We surrendered. We negotiated the terms. He learned about the emeralds, and he wanted to take them. I don't know why. He already owned us and everything we had. Maybe when he found out how important they were to us, that's why he didn't want us to have them. They couldn't accept that. They'd rather be dead than give it up. He made that choice for us. I was the last one left to guard the Master Emerald, and I lost. Then he captured me. Wanted to keep me around for the next Battleworld."

- Round 3