In its heyday, Prison Island did not look very much. The majority of it being underground, Prison Island, as a whole, was largely represented on maps and in photo imagery as an off-shore navy base called Metal Harbour. What most people saw were the aircraft carriers and cruisers, and the miles and miles of walk-ways and docks that linked all its various installations, and—of course, the missile towers.

That was, of course, in its heyday.

Then Eggman had come along, and what parts of Prison Island he had not personally destroyed had been vaporized shortly after in the ionizing aftermath of his having left a nuclear bomb on-shore. The damage was catastrophic, and hundreds of underground tunnels and space were either collapsed or rendered inaccessible.

Posthumously, the whole island had been left glowing with radioactivity, and the government had decided to abandon it, with extreme prejudice. Robots had been sent in to dismantle or retrieve any munitions or information accessible via the surface, and the more sensitive, deeper areas of the installation had been liberally laid into with bunker busters.

Prison Island was left in peace after that, with only a few robotic sentries to watch over it, and the remaining structures slowly, gently began to decay.

Metal Harbour was home to a number of ICBMs of uncertain range and payload, for times of unspecific emergency. These stood around the outside of the harbour like bollards around a bank. Towering hundreds of feet into the air, and complete with control towers and launch gantries, they had made quite an imposing sight.

After the bombs went off, the majority of them were too damaged to launch—even a fracture in the armour resulted in rapid water-logging, and so they were dis-armed, mined for solid booster fuel, and left to rot in the water.

They now stood there—noses split open by industrial laser craniotomies, engine housings bored out, filled with seagulls and listing dangerously in the water as the waves gently slipped them off their pilings—and rusted, totally abandoned.

Nearly abandoned.

About half-way up the side of one, a panel had been removed, exposing where once might have been a fuel tank, but which now contained a few steel ribs, and the remains of a rocket engine, a hodgepodge of weaponry and assorted tools, and a chaos emerald. The whole 2nd stage had been nicely converted into a sizeable room and, from the looks of it, it had been well lived in.

Coop the eagle stood in the makeshift door, breathing in the night air. Partly, it was because he was incredibly relaxed and at ease with the situation, and partly because—no matter how long they'd been there, the whole inside of the rocket still smelled like dead things and seaweed.

He turned to the interior of the make-shift missile room, and reflexively grimaced as the stench hit him. He leaned back again, away from the inside, and rested his skull along the inside edge of the opening he was standing in.

"Whoogh," he hollered to the other two occupants of Fort Stank*, as they fiddled with gadgets, cleaned weapons, or just plain-ole got some clean air, "I'll be glad to get out of here."

*Formerly known as Malcolm HY-0141.


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Further off into the mainland there was another intruder on the former GUN base. Someone who would use the forgotten relics for her own personal agenda. Someone who would forgo precaution and cause wonton destruction.

If she could find anyone to cause said destruction with that is.

Even before the sun had risen Ember had been on Prison Island. Digging and shifting through large piles of twisted metals and buildings that shook in the slightest breeze. And yet she had nothing to show for her efforts! Not even a little bit of fancy robot fuel! The only thing of interest was a unexploded bomb she had found lodged into the ground. It was a bust though, even when the bird gave it a swift kick it did nothing. As she made her way towards the beach again she grumbled to herself.

“That man didn’t know a thing about islands. There’s nothing here! And I gave him that piece of cheese for nothing too! Stupid hobos. You think it’ll be easier to find a wise all-knowing one. Jeez-oh hello there!”

Something had gleamed in the light up above. Upon closer inspection it appeared to be the rusted head of a sentry robot. Ember stared at it for a long moment, a thoughtful look upon her face. Then with a mournful sigh, she dropped to one knee upon the wreckage, holding the trashed head high. Her voice became deep and masculine as she spoke, “To be or not to be…that is the question. I choose….be!” With a loud ‘whooping’ noise she jumped up and chunked the piece of metal at the remains of a small building.

It proved too much for the old building though. With the deafening sound of steel scraping against steel it caved in on itself. The sound echoed throughout the island and caused Ember to flinch and cover her ears. When it was over she looked over the damage she has caused. With an expression of pride upon her face she pumped a fist in the air. “Yeah!”, she shouted into the air, “Homerun baby! I’m on fire!”

Coop's head jerked upright, and the massive eagle quickly looked over at the direction the noise had come from.

"Tch!" He said, after a few seconds, smiling a tight, grim smile, "must be another cave-in on shore."

...Then his smile faded, his jaw slackening slightly. He tilted his head.

He looked around at his compatriots, a faintly wary expression creeping up on the edges of his face.

"...did you hear that?"

"This is no good," Coop muttered to the both of them as he silently (for his size) brought up the rear.

"The government has their eye on prison island," he went on, "if she's doing what I think she's doing, a fire this big is going to be like a big signal for GUN to jump right in here, and this close to leaving, that's the least thing we want."

The corners of his mouth pulled slowly into an annoyed grimace.

"Hrmng. Hold on."

His jaw jutting out, his eyes glaring like red-hot rivets in his skull, Coop very carefully removed his bandoliers and rested them over a tree branch.

Then he looked down. His face relaxed, the anger falling off it like someone had pulled off a drop-cloth. He looked up, his face a picture of serene control, and took one, two, three large steps, leaving him out in the open, only partly obscured by low-lying bushes.

"Hey," he called in a hard, but by no means unkind, voice, "What're you doing here?"

"Camping," Coop nodded vaguely at a part of the jungle where there were currently not any heavily armed guerrillas, "We're survivalists."

"Yeah," he went on, conversationally, "this place is full of all kinds of stuff," he went on, "you know it used to be an army base, right?"

"Hm, yeah. You know, they did get rid of a lot, but get this," he walked up out of the jungle, closer to Ember's side, "me and my buddies have been out here a while, and it looks like there was something they missed, closer in to--do you know where White Forest is?"

He hunched down to match her line of sight, and pointed inland, to where the islands generally tropical nature gave way to an ashy-colored forest, higher up on Prison Island's summit.

With the other bird's attention distracted, Coop stood up and, with very little aplomb, slammed the his elbow into the back of her skull.