"The key to baking perfect cookies is, surprisingly, a pinch of salt." Amy Rose helped her young friend and baking assistant, Cream, onto a footstool in the kitchen, as the little rabbit was too short to reach the countertop otherwise. Amy motioned to the big purple bowl on the counter, filled with freshly made chocolate cookie dough.
The younger girl wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Salty cookies don't sound very good at all."
"I know it sounds weird, because cookies are supposed to be sweet, right? But it's really the salt that helps accentuate the sweetness more." Amy reached for the saltshaker and carefully distributed a few shakes of salt evenly into the cookie dough. "Okay, you want to stir, Cream?"
Cream eagerly reached for the spoon and was soon hard at work, trying to make all the salt crystals disappear into the thick brown dough.
Amy looked on proudly. Her little friend was becoming such a good baker already - no surprise, since she's learning from the best, she thought to herself. This would be the last batch of cookies to go in the oven today, and as much as she loved baking, having to bake over 100 cookies in one day was a little much. At least it was for a good reason!
Tonight Amy and Cream were going to visit the Chao garden – apparently the Chao were having some sort of ceremony and they were invited to go as friends of Cheese. Amy didn't really understand what the ceremony was about when Cream tried to explain it to her, but it was clearly very important. It would be the first time in months that Cheese was going to see his chao friends, and of course, being the saint that I am, Amy thought a bit sarcastically- she'd offered to throw them a party in celebration. She'd also promised Cream she'd bake cookies for the event, not realizing at the time just how many chao were going to be there...
Luckily, Cream had offered to help, and they'd gotten a lot of work done already, with some setbacks along the way. First, the grocery store near Amy's house had run out of flour, so she'd had to travel all the way to the other side of town to get it, which was inconvenient, to say the least. Second, they had accidentally burned the first few batches of cookies after Cheese - who apparently was unable to read numbers- set the oven to 530 degrees instead of 350... Thankfully, he was now asleep on the couch after he'd gotten tired of "helping".
It had a been a long day and Amy was beyond tired, but she still needed to pick out a dress to wear for the party. Not that there was going to be anyone to impress besides the chao, but there was nothing wrong with making an effort to look cute. She was thinking of going with a green dress, since it would "bring out her eyes", at least, that's what the girl at the makeup counter told her the last time she went to that store downtown-
"Amy!" Cream's voice snapped the pink girl out of her thoughts. "I'm finished, look."
Amy peered into the bowl. "It looks great, Cream. Why don't you roll them into balls and then we can put them in the oven, okay?"
Cream nodded diligently and called Cheese over to come help, while Amy got out a pan from her cupboard, making a mental list of all the things that needed to be done in the few hours before the party started. The kitchen would definitely need to be cleaned first, and then she'd need to pick the dress, and then-
Amy was once again interrupted from her thoughts by the sudden buzzing in her pocket. She sighed and took out her glittery pink cell phone, hoping it wasn't one of those telemarketers trying to sell her a timeshare on West Side Island again… But as soon as she saw who it was, she felt the blood rush to her face and the familiar fluttering of butterflies in her stomach.
"Who is it Amy?" Cream asked, and Amy tilted the phone screen away slightly so the little rabbit wouldn't see how many heart emojis she'd used for his contact name...
"It's Sonic," Amy said, "I better see what he wants." She answered the phone and pressed it to her ear. "Hello!"
"Hey, Amy!"
The butterflies in her stomach intensified. He was just so cute! Even his voice was cute!
"Hi Sonic!" Amy chirped, her voice involuntarily raising an octave higher, and then she immediately wanted to slap herself. Why did I say that, I already said "hello"! Why is this so hard?
Sonic went on, seeming to not notice her blunder. "So, I'm with Tails and Knuckles in the city, Eggman is attacking, he's got his robots, you know the deal." Sonic's tone was casual, but Amy could faintly hear people yelling and the clashing of metal in the background. It sounded like a pretty intense fight, but they had been occurring so often that at this point, it was hard to tell what was serious and what wasn't. Especially with Sonic, who never seemed to take anything too seriously - it was something she admired about him, but at the same time, it frustrated her. Nonetheless, the thrill and promise of adventure that seemed to accompany the blue hero everywhere was almost impossible for her to resist.
"You want me to come?" Amy said slowly, making eye contact with Cream. Hopefully she won't mind...
"Yeah, bring your hammer. Just don't use it on me, Ames."
The butterflies in her stomach grew into a swarm.
Amy giggled. "I don't know if I can promise that, but sure, I'll be there!"
"Great!" Sonic said. "See ya!" And then he hung up.
Amy stared at the phone for a few seconds, grinning. He had called her! Well, maybe it was only for 30 seconds, but that had to mean something, right?
She turned to notice Cream and Cheese looking at her curiously and her face fell. She felt obligated to help keep the city safe, but simultaneously, she couldn't help feeling guilty for leaving her friend by herself. Especially since she had promised to bake the cookies…"Cream, I'm really sorry but..."
"It's alright Amy, you should go help Mr. Sonic!" Cream said cheerfully. "Cheese and I can watch your house!"
"Chao chao!" Cheese nodded in agreement.
Amy smiled gratefully as she took off her apron and headed out the door. "Thanks guys! I promise I'll be back in time for the party!"
Cream climbed down from her stool and followed her to the doorway. "Don't be long!" she called out.
Amy's heart swelled with anticipation as she ran as fast as she could to the city's center, her tiredness from earlier dissipating. She could already tell this was going to be a great afternoon. Getting the opportunity to use her hammer in battle was always an adrenaline rush, and to top it off, she was going to see Sonic, too. I can't believe he called me!
"I can't believe he called me!" Knuckles grumbled to himself, slamming his fist into an oncoming Egg Pawn. The orange robot fell over on its back, unable to balance itself due to the newly-formed hole in its abdomen. Seconds later, it internally combusted, and Knuckles couldn't help hoping that something very similar would happen to a certain blue hedgehog. As much as he enjoyed a good fight, and as much as he was confident that his fighting skills were superior to Sonic's – this fight was getting in the way of their intended mission, and he had much more important matters to attend to at the moment. Matters that concerned the Master Emerald.
Earlier…
Knuckles didn't like to leave the Master Emerald alone for long periods of time on a normal day, but it hadn't exactly been a normal day so far. He'd woken up this morning to find that the emerald's normally bright green, practically neon glow was almost nonexistent. It looked pale and dull, as if all the energy had been sucked out of it. Wouldn't be the first time that's happened, he'd thought.
Immediately Knuckles wondered if Dr. Eggman must have had something to do with it. But just as strangely, after a few minutes, the Emerald slowly returned to its normal color, and he could once again sense the manifestation of its energy seeping through the island. It was bizarre, and even though it seemed like everything had returned to normal, he had still planned to keep an eye on it for the time being. And he'd done exactly that, placing himself in front of the shrine and looking out for anything that might seem suspicious.
He'd woken up later that afternoon to the sound of his wrist communicator buzzing -wait, I fell asleep? Dammit.
He accepted the call in a daze, not fully preparing himself for the sound of an overly obnoxious, overly loud voice that threatened to damage his hearing.
"Knuckles! Guess what!"
Knuckles groaned and turned the volume down a few notches on his communicator. "Sonic, what."
"I said guess! You gotta guess first."
"Look, Sonic," Knuckles said with some irritation, "I don't have time for your silly games right now. Something's not right with the Master Emerald."
Sonic went silent for a moment. "Oh…?"
"Yeah, I can feel it. Something's off," Knuckles continued, explaining the situation he'd had to deal with that morning.
"Well, maybe someone stole it from under your nose last night and replaced it with a fake," Sonic said, half-joking.
"Shut up!" Knuckles was insulted. Did Sonic really think he was so incompetent to allow one of the most valuable gems in the world to be stolen in such a way? Granted, he had had some… issues keeping the Master Emerald safe (and in one piece) in the past, but he knew the Emerald like the back of his glove. This was, for sure, the real one, unless Eggman had suddenly developed some sort of advanced emerald replication technology. Or worse, that thief, Rouge…
"Hey, don't overestimate yourself too much, Knucklehead. But that actually might be related to what I wanted to talk to you about." Sonic lowered his voice. "You know how Tails and I have a chaos emerald at home? The one that he uses to power some of his machines?"
Knuckles didn't like where this was going, but he felt intrigued to know more. If the Master Emerald had been affected, it was more than likely that the Chaos Emeralds had been too. "Go on."
"Well, it's missing. We couldn't find it this morning and Tails' chaos emerald detector can't seem to pick it up. We like, looked everywhere for it! Even the basement, and we NEVER go in the basement because Tails thinks there's ghosts down there."
Knuckles snorted. "Sorry to hear that."
"Thanks for the sympathy. Ghosts are pretty hard to get rid of," Sonic lamented. "But we could really use your help finding it, Knux." Knuckles started to protest, but the hedgehog cut him off before he could get a single word in. "We really don't need the emerald getting into the wrong hands, you know? Plus, maybe its disappearance is related to whatever's going on with the Master Emerald."
"We don't know that for sure. I think it's best if I stay here and do my job," Knuckles said, although he could already feel himself beginning to cave in.
"Being a hero," Sonic said, exaggerating the last word, "is your job. C'mon, it'll be like an adventure!"
An adventure? Knuckles had gone on enough "adventures" with Sonic to know where this was heading, and it was heading for a whole lot of trouble. But it was also heading for a whole lot of excitement, and despite what his common sense told him, a large part of him still itched to leave his mundane life on the island for a little while. "Fine," Knuckles muttered. "But if anything ends up happening to the Master Emerald while I'm gone…"
He could practically feel Sonic's smug expression from miles away. "If anything happens, I guess we'll just have to go on another adventure."
When he met Sonic and Tails half an hour later in Station Square, the duo were sitting on a bench in the hot sun and eating ice cream, evidently taking a break from "looking for the chaos emerald". When they spotted the echidna, they immediately waved him over.
"Hey, Knucklehead, over here!"
"Hi Knuckles!"
Tails moved over on the bench closer to Sonic and patted the spot next to him so Knuckles could sit. Knuckles sat down at the end of the bench and tried not to chuckle at the fact that Tails had chocolate ice cream all around his mouth.
"Hey, so what's the plan?" Knuckles asked. He was slightly worried when Sonic and Tails exchanged a glance.
"Uhh," Tails said, "We don't exactly have a plan. Yet. But I'm working on it," he added quickly.
Knuckles looked up at the sky, even though there was nothing to see up there. "You made me leave Angel Island so I could watch you guys eat ice cream?"
"I mean, if you want you can get ice cream too," Tails said, pointing to the crowded ice cream stand across the street with a line at least twenty people long. "Or not…"
"Yeah, chill out, Knuckles," Sonic chimed in. "Get it? Chill?" When nobody laughed, he tried to explain. "Because it's ICE cream?"
"We got it," Tails said flatly. "Anyway, if you do want to know, I have a theory about what might have happened to the emerald."
"Fire away," Sonic said, shoving what was left of his ice cream cone into his mouth.
Tails cleared his throat. "Since my chaos emerald detector isn't able to sense its energy, I think that whoever took the chaos emerald – that is, if someone took it – altered its frequency in some way, or worse, drained it of its power."
"Like what happened to the Master Emerald?" Knuckles said, and Tails nodded.
"I should go check out the Master Emerald later today to see if it's really back to normal, alright Knuckles?" Tails asked.
"Sure," Knuckles said. If it's still there, he thought bitterly. He didn't particularly enjoy being so pessimistic, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.
Sonic leaned back in his seat with his arms folded behind his head, and closed his eyes as if he was deep in thought. "Now that I think about it, it's possible that the other chaos emeralds have been affected too. If we could find someone who has one, maybe Tails could run some tests on it to make sure."
"That's a good idea!" Tails acknowledged. "But who do we know that: A, has a chaos emerald, and B, is willing to let us borrow it for an undetermined amount of time?"
Sonic suddenly opened his eyes and stared straight ahead. "Eggman."
"Huh?"
"I mean, he's here, right now." Almost as if on cue, the ground began to rumble threateningly, and a great shadow loomed over the street as a giant mech stormed its way through the city, headed directly towards Sonic, followed by a horde of robots of various sizes. Seated in the center of the mech was none other than the mad doctor himself, stroking his mustache menacingly. He smiled, but it wasn't a friendly smile.
"OH SONICCC!" Dr. Eggman screeched over the sounds of the panicked civilians. "LONG TIME NO SEE!"
Sonic got up from the bench and rolled his eyes. "It's only been a few days, Eggy, you miss me already?"
"I miss pulverizing you into oblivion!" Dr. Eggman snapped back. "Robots, ATTACK!"
Sonic looked back at Tails and Knuckles incredulously. "Pulverizing me? When has that ever happened?" Tails shrugged, and Sonic eagerly dashed towards the oncoming stampede of robots, leaving behind a streak of blue in his place. Tails was about to run after him, but Knuckles grabbed his arm.
"Tails, wait," Knuckles said, and he mimed wiping his own mouth with the back of his free hand.
Tails looked confused, but he reached up to wipe his mouth with the back of his glove. It left behind a huge, sticky brown streak of melted ice cream. "Gross…"
Knuckles chuckled.
Now…
It had been almost 20 minutes since the fight had begun, – or maybe even an hour, it was hard to keep track of the time in situations like this- and the air was thick and heavy with smoke from the damaged robots. Knuckles could faintly make out the figures of his two teammates, hard at work destroying the countless metallic enemies. There seemed to be no end to them, and Knuckles was becoming even more concerned. Impromptu battles with Eggman never usually took this long… He threw himself at another Egg Pawn and tried not to think about all the disasters waiting to happen. After this is over I can finally go home and check on the Master Emerald. He made a silent prayer to his ancestors that the Emerald would still be there when he returned.
Meanwhile, the egg-shaped scientist, now perched above the scene in his Egg Mobile after his mech had been demolished (courtesy of Sonic), was laughing maniacally. "There's more where that came from, rodents!"
"You know," Tails commented under his breath, "he really should pick up an encyclopedia one of these days." He picked up a disembodied arm from one of the fallen robots and slammed it into another robot, successfully preventing it from firing a laser. "How does a guy with an IQ of 300 not understand the fundamental principles of mammal classification?"
"Great, now we know what to get him for his birthday, Tails," Sonic said, amused. "Hey Eggface," he shouted out, "Don't you have anything better to do? This is getting kinda tiresome. I mean, not that I ever get tired or anything, but it probably is for my pal Knuckles here." He looked over at Knuckles and smirked before colliding head on with yet another robot, effortlessly slicing through its metal spine with his sharp quills.
Knuckles growled. The nerve of that hedgehog! What a show-off! He always had to act like he was better than everyone else just because he got a video game named after him or something like that. So what if he was famous, and popular, and respected, and girls liked him… That didn't mean anything! He still doesn't have HALF the strength I have. Well, I'll show him, Knuckles thought as he prepared to throw a fist into an approaching robot-
-but he never felt his fist make contact with the metal. Instead he felt the weight of something solid slamming into his back, knocking him over so hard that he couldn't breathe. Knuckles lay on the dusty ground, winded and gasping for breath. "What…?" he choked out.
"Oh jeez, Knuckles," squealed a high-pitched, feminine voice from behind him, "I'm so sorry! I just got here to help you guys out and it's really hard to see and I accidentally thought you were a robot and…" Knuckles raised his head to look behind him with some effort, only to see a delicate pink face with big green eyes looking down at him worriedly, clasping the offending weapon behind her back. "Are you okay?"
Knuckles groaned and lay back down in the dirt as everything went black. This day just couldn't get any worse.
wow! if you made it this far, i'm really proud of you.
i always wanted to write a story focusing on knuck knuck and ames! we don't get to see that much of their interaction in the games but if you fill in the blanks they have a pretty interesting dynamic.
(i have no idea if cheese is a boy or girl. so lemme know if i'm wrong about that.)
edit 4/9/18: i mistakenly referred to the egg mobile as the "egg carrier", so if anyone was confused about that in chapter 2, it's been changed now! maybe eggman needs to come up with some more creative names.
