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Angel Island (formerly called and also known as the Floating Island) is a fictional island floating high in the air in the world of the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series. It was first introduced in the video game Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

The island is the home of the Master Emerald, a large, powerful green gem that keeps the island suspended in the sky. The emerald is protected by Knuckles the Echidna, an inhabitant of the Island, and only surviving member of an old society that once inhabited the island. The Master Emerald is able to control and neutralize the Chaos Emeralds, which are an important plot device in many Sonic the Hedgehog stories and games. In some continuities, there is a selection of Chaos Emeralds on the island itself.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles 1.2 Sonic Adventure 1.3 Sonic Adventure 2 1.4 Others 2 In other media 2.1 Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) 2.2 Sonic the Comic 2.3 Sonic X 3 References

Several thousand years prior to the games, Angel Island was part of the Echidna city now known as Mystic Ruins. It was the location of the shrine containing the Master Emerald and Chaos Emeralds, but when their chief, Pachacamac, tried to steal the Chaos Emeralds, Chaos appeared, used the Emeralds to transform into Perfect Chaos, and destroyed most of the Echidnas. The peaceful Echidna Tikal managed to seal Chaos inside the Master Emerald,^[1] but not without a price: the Echindas were wiped out and the island separated from the mainland. It remained that way until a "sky god" came to the island, revived part of the Echidna civilization and threw the Master Emerald into the air; causing the island to float, and taking the surviving Echidnas with it.^[2] The Echidnas then tried to rebuild their shattered civization on the island, but at the time of the games, Knuckles the Echidna is the only surviving inhabitant of the island.

In Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog and Miles "Tails" Prower destroyed Dr. Robotnik's large space station, the Death Egg. After entering the atmosphere, the Death Egg crashed onto Angel Island, pressing it down into the ocean. While repairing it, Eggman met Knuckles, and managed to trick him into thinking that Sonic was coming to steal the Master Emerald.

In Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic and Tails travel to the crater, where they discover the Hidden Palace and battle Knuckles. After Knuckles is defeated, the three hear some ruckus further away in the palace, and they run off. Sonic and Tails discover the Master Emerald, and Knuckles discovers that Eggman is stealing it. Knuckles tries to stop him, but he gets electrocuted. Sonic and Tails try to help, but Eggman gets away with the Master Emerald, and the Death Egg is relaunched with added power boost from the Master Emerald. Knuckles, after regaining consciousness, takes Sonic and Tails to a special room with a teleportation device that sends them to an ancient floating city. There, the trio try to go together, but Knuckles is too tired from his fight with Sonic & Tails and from being electrocuted by Eggman. So he stays behind, while Sonic & Tails infiltrate and destroy the Death Egg. Once the Death Egg is destroyed, they return the Master Emerald to Knuckles, and fly away as the island goes airborne again.

In Knuckles' story of the game, the Master Emerald is stolen again by an EggRobo, and the floating island starts wobbling. Knuckles goes through the island and eventually clashes with an Emerald-powered Mecha Sonic (who just accidentally destroyed the EggRobo). After defeating him, the area they were on begins to crumble, but Knuckles and the Master Emerald are saved by Sonic. Knuckles manages to return the Master Emerald to Angel Island, and the island goes airborne again.

In Sonic Adventure, Knuckles story begins with him lamenting his destiny next to the Master Emerald, when it is suddenly shattered, revealing Chaos. Knuckles attacks Chaos, but is swiftly defeated, and Chaos melts away. Due to the pieces of the Master Emerald flying away everywhere, the island crashes. Knuckles goes on a quest to find the all the pieces, which he eventually does.

In Sonic Adventure 2, Rouge the Bat steals the Master Emerald, which is shattered by Knuckles himself (due to Eggman trying to steal it while Knuckles and Rouge were arguing) as only he can put it back together. It is unknown if the desert area that the Master Emerald is seen in during the first cutscene is located on the Angel Island, or if Rouge had taken the Master Emerald with her, and that Knuckles had chased her to the current location.

• In Sonic R, the track "Regal Ruin" is a desert pyramid-style course, featuring many Sphinxes, but with echidna heads, showing that this track is part of Angel Island.
• In Sonic Advance, Angel Island is simply a stage in itself. It is filled with ancient ruins and some sand, and the boss is a robotic Knuckles.
• In Sonic Pinball Party, there is an Angel Island board based on the stage from Sonic Advance. Tikal the Echidna makes a cameo there as a stone carving.
• In Sonic Rivals, the island the story takes place on is called Onyx Island, which Eggman Nega reveals to be Angel Island from the future. Several of the maps in game resemble areas of Angel Island.
• Sonic Rush Adventure, has a stage taking place in a parallel world's version of Angel Island - which fell out of the sky and sunk below the waves, becoming a base for the pirate antagonists of the game.

The Sonic the Hedgehog comics have a more developed storyline on Angel Island. According to history, the Island was once a part of the continent of Downunda, and home to the Echidna city of Echidnaopolis. However, a massive body known as the White Comet came towards the area on a collision course. (This differentiates it from the Black Comet, but the Black Comet is much smaller, and its velocity is much lower; it wouldn't have been a threat, as it can't pierce a planet's atmosphere under its own power.) In order to save themselves, the Echidnas used 12 Chaos Emeralds to raise their city and a portion of the surrounding area into the sky, thus creating the Floating Island and the Great Crater. The Island was renamed Angel Island after the Echidna Angel-La, mother of Edmund the first guardian. According to a map in the first Knuckles mini-series, there is also a place called Angel Island within the island itself, which was meant to explain an apparent naming discrepancy between the names "Angel Island" in Sonic 3 and "Floating Island" in the comic at the time. However, the discrepancy in the number of emeralds (one in the comic compared to the seven in the video games) was not addressed for much longer, in issue 56 where the "Master Emerald" was introduced into the continuity.

Angel Island serves as the battleground between the Brotherhood of Guardians and its allies against the Dark Legion. The battle has raged for centuries, beginning after Dark Legion leader Dimitri absorbed the energies of eleven of the Island's original emeralds and became the first Enerjak. After Enerjak's defeat, Dimitri's son Menniker founded the Dark Legion in opposition to technology bans, resulting in the Legion becoming a sort of technocratic cult. The battles have had many catastrophic effects, and the island was rendered uninhabitable for a time in response to a nuclear attack by the Dark Legion. In order to protect the citizens, the Guardian of that period transported the city of Echidnaopolis into another zone.

The Island is also home to the Dingoes, a race who by and large despise their Echidna neighbors. This has led to them being minor antagonists in the series. (This is a nod to the relationship between real-world dingoes and echidnas, in which dingoes are efficient echidna hunters.) Eventually, this led to the Dingoes siding with Dr. Robotnik, taking over Angel Island before being defeated by the joint efforts of the Chaotix and the Dark Legion. The Dingoes continued to menace the island, but eventually found themselves facing a new adversary in the form of the Destructix. Because of their efforts, the group of escaped criminals earned their leader, Dr. Finitevus, the position as Angel Island's caretaker from Locke. After Finitevus managed to resurrect Enerjak, the Island began moving towards New Mobotropolis, obviously directed by Enerjak in his quest to conquer all of Mobius.

In the Fleetway-published Sonic the Comic continuity, Angel Island is mostly based on the Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles games. Many of the Zones have appeared in the comic: Ice Cap was introduced in #41-2, Sandopolis in #47-8, Marble Garden in #33 & named as such in a Poster Mag, and so on. It has only ever been referred to as the Floating Island. As well as the regular Zones, it possesses the ruins of Megapolis City, the capital of the ancient Echidnas. It also has many relics from the Echidnas' time, including several portals to the Special Zone (first seen in #53 and again in #120), and a small force of ancient Guardian robots.

When Robotnik's Death Egg II crash landed on Angel Island, he built a Launch Base Zone to facilitate its repair. He also briefly tricked Knuckles into becoming his bodyguard by claiming that Sonic and his Freedom Fighters sought to steal the Chaos Emeralds. When Knuckles realised Robotnik's true nature, he systematically destroyed every trace of the dictator's influence as shown in #37 (though Robotnik came back to Ice Cap Zone in #41-2).

In issue #39-45, Robotnik's cronies the Marxio Bros. set up the Carnival Night Zone on one end of the island. Though wary of the area's garishness, Knuckles agreed to let them stay when it was pointed out the tourism revenue could be used to renovate parts of the island. Once he discovered that Robotnik was their employer and this was a front operation, he smashed the entire Zone off the island by punching a faultline, causing it to fall to Mobius (right in front of a young boy who wished the Carnival Night Zone was nearer)^[3].

In issue #43, Robotnik returned to his Launch Base Zone and supervised the repair of the Death Egg. Sonic traveled to the Floating Island and teamed up with Knuckles in order to destroy the Death Egg, which was currently situated on top of a Lava Reef Zone volcano^[4]. Knuckles realised that Robotnik was planning to steal the Master Emerald and use it to power his warship, but were too late to stop it being sent to Robotnik by Metallix the Metal Sonic. The Death Egg was launched, its very presence destroying the Sky Sanctuary Zone in the process ^[5]. To combat it, Knuckles revealed the true power of the island: the ancient echidnas had created technology that allowed them to use the island as a mobile dreadnought, able to move on its own power, create a forcefield, and fire energy weapons. The Floating Island would go on to shoot down the Death Egg in #52.

From #53, the inhabitants of the Emerald Hill Zone were evacuated to the Island and set up a secret refuge in the Mushroom Hill Zone, with the Island's defensive systems preventing any hostile incursion; Robotnik had declared an intention to make the Emerald Hill folk suffer for the loss of the Egg, and Knuckles owed Sonic a favour for retrieving the Master Emerald. The refugees would occasionally be caught up in some of Knuckles' stories but mainly kept to themselves, turning the giant mushrooms into houses. However, while Knuckles was away from the Island and its shields were offline, Robotnik found out about the refugees and invaded, making them parts of a machine that would use their brain-power to fuel Robotnik's computers. This plan was quashed by the Super Sonic electromagnetic pulse. This also deposed Robotnik; in #101, the refugees decided to return home and did so in #104.

During the last arc of the comic, the Chaos creature attacked the Emerald Chamber and managed to absorb the blue Chaos Emerald. To stop the creature, Knuckles had no choice but to scatter the gems to the four corners of Mobius, thus removing the island's levitation powers. The island crashed into the ocean and sank.

In Sonic the Comic Online, the Floating Island was brought up to the surface and in #238 finally became airborne again. #229 also introduced the Haunted Hill Zone, the comic's version of Sonic Adventure 2's Pumpkin Hill.

In Sonic X, a Sonic anime series, Angel Island mostly mirrors its role in the games, with some differences. The island is originally part of Sonic's home planet, but is transported to Earth via Chaos Control later in the series. The island and its Master Emerald then play a role in the anime when it mirrors the stories from Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2, before being sent back to its original planet.

In the second series, Angel Island is revealed to be the location of the Planet Egg, which is the planet's life source. The egg is stolen, and as a result, the planet starts to wither.

Sonic the Hedgehog/Knuckles the Echidna Comics

1. ^ Chaos Emerald Tradition 2, Sonic Adventure Japanese Strategy Guide (English Translation). Retrieved on 2007-09-01.
2. ^ Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Japanese Manual (English translation). Retrieved on 2007-09-01.
3. ^ Sonic the Comic #45, Knuckles: Carnival Night Conspiracy Part 6
4. ^ #49, Countdown To Disaster Part 1
5. ^ #51, Disaster Part One

v • d • e Sonic the Hedgehog features
Emerald/Ring	Chaos Emeralds · Master Emerald · Rings · Minor power objects · Special Stage (Blue Sphere) · Chaos Control · Super transformation (other media)
Locations	Angel Island (Hidden Palace)  · Station Square · Prison Island · Mobius  · Space Colony ARK · Tiny Chao Garden · Central City · Soleanna  · Arabian Nights  · Minor locations
Vehicles	Death Egg · Dr. Eggman's vehicles (flying fortresses)
Other	Eggman's robots (E-Series) · Mobians (Echidnas) · Eggman Empire · Roboticizer (Roboticization) · Minor technology · Sonic Team · Voice Actors · Evolution of the Sonic Universe
Spin offs	Manga · Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (episodes) (Sonic Christmas Blast) · Sonic the Comic · Sonic the Hedgehog (TV series) (episodes) · Sonic the Hedgehog (comic series) (Knuckles) · Movie · Sonic Underground (episodes)  · Sonic X (episodes) (comic) (card game) · List of printed media