Disclaimer: I do not own any Sega character that may appear in this fic. There is only one thing that I own in this chapter, and that's the story itself.
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Knuckles Quest
Saga 1: The Beginning
Chapter 1: The Start of a Brand New Day
Angel Island is a magical paradise. Its majestic mountains, lush tropical jungle, and many historic ruins have made it a place of legend, but the one thing that makes it so magical is the fact that it is suspended in the air by a gem of infinite power known as the Master Emerald.
For well over 2 millennia, the Master Emerald has been kept safe by The Guardians, a race of echidnas who have devoted their lives to guarding the gem from all who would use its power for evil. Day in and day out, these brave echidnas protected it through rain, hail, snow, and even drought.
However, as the years went on, there numbers have dwindled; they are all but gone now. Only one is believed to be left, Knuckles the Echidna. He is the last Guardian, but he has wondered, lately, is he truly the last of his kind?
Our story begins in Angel Island's vast jungle. It is 10 in the morning, and Knuckles is trying to find a decent meal. So far all he has found is rotten fruit.
"Damn it," he said, "not even the berries are ripe today, which is strange because the Master Emeralds energy should keep at least some of the fruit ripe." Knuckles looked at the barely edible fruits he had found so far; one slightly damaged pineapple, a handful of green berries (very distasteful) and a half of a banana bunch that looked like it was about to rot.
Knuckles took a berry and was just about to choke it down when something caught his eye. He looked up in the trees when he saw the most delicious looking coconut he had ever seen.
"Finally, something edible!" he said as he grabbed the nearest rock he could find.
Knuckles drew back and threw the rock as hard as he could at the coconut, but he missed. He then decided that the best way to get at it would be to climb up to get it. Not wasting any time, mainly because he didn't want to eat rotten fruit, he climbed up the tree and knocked the coconut down.
"Yes!" Knuckles exclaimed as he jumped down from the tree. "Now to partake of it's savory milk and delicious meat...GOD that sounded wrong."
After shaking the disgusting images from his mind, Knuckles picked up a nearby stone, sat down on a large rock that was nearby, and proceeded to chip a hole in the coconut so that he could have a decent breakfast. However, as he wailed on the coconut, he couldn't help but feel as though his body was sinking lower to the ground. He stood up and turned to look at the rock he had been sitting on, which was not a rock at all, but a rather large, slightly rusted switch.
"This is new," he said to no one in paticular, "I wonder what this does?"
Knuckles put his foot on the switch and pressed it down all the way. Nothing happened, at first, but soon the ground began to shake, rattle, and roll under his feet. He thought that the ground was going to split under his feet, but just as suddenly as the shaking started, it stopped.
Knuckles was stumped, he had no idea what just happened. Just as he was about to shrug it off and go back to opening his coconut, he heard another rumbling sound, one that sounded like a large stone door slowly rising. He took a quick scan of the area, to see where the rumbling noise came from, when he saw it.
A large stone gate, previously hidden by ivy, had started to rise. It continued going further and further up until it finally stopped at the very top, revealing a large cavern. Knuckles slowly approached the newly revealed hole with caution. He knew of the ancient traps that his ancestors had created, and he was afraid that this may be one of them.
Just as Knuckles reached the entrance, something happened to him. He felt a sharp pain in the back of his head. Many fuzzy images began to painfully flood his mind. The pain was so immense that it caused him to drop to his knees and his vision to blur. He tried to stay consious, but he was fading fast. Just before he passed out, three words, of which he had not seen or heard of for years, entered his mind, and these words would send Knuckles on a quest like none before.
"Hidden Palace Zone"
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Twinkle park is usually a great place to go when you are in the mood for fun, exitement, and love. And if you were a part of a cute couple, you could get in free. However, now was not the time for people to have fun or to get romantic, as millions of Eggman robots, many of which were outdated Genesis-era Badniks, were attacking the park. And wherever their are Badniks and Eggman robots, Sonic wasn't to far behind with his can of whoop-ass.
Sonic jumped over a Crabmeat robot and kicked it in the behind, causing it to blow up and release a baby bear. He then dodged a bomb and destroyed the Kiki that threw it, releasing another small animal. An Egg Pawn then came up behind Sonic and tried to stab him with it's lance, but Sonic saw it comming and jumped out of the way. He then used his homming attack to take it out and took the power core so he could power-up. Several Buzz Bombers then swooped in from the sky and fired at Sonic, but he was too fast and took them all out with the pwnage that was his Sonic Wind attack, releasing the Flicky birds that were inside of them. He then ran further into the park, taking out any Badnik or Egg Pawn that got in his way, untill a Crawl, an crab-like robot with a spring shield, steped in his way, blocking Sonic's path, and bounced him back with it's shield.
"That hurt." said a very annoied Sonic. He charged at the Crawl with a Spin Dash, but it used it's shield to bounce him back again. Sonic then tried to get behind it, but the Crawl was dangerously too close to the fish pond, so that was out of the question. Sonic then got an idea; he jumped in the air and started moving in a circle really fast. The speed that he was going summoned up a small tornado that sucked the Crawl right to it. Try as it might, the poor robot just couldn't get a firm hold and got sucked into the tornado and flung upwards. Sonic then stopped and landed in front of where the tornado was and watched as it disappeared and dropped the Crawl onto the ground with a clang. The robot sustained some damage, and was unable to move or defend itself as Sonic leaped into the air and smashed it into peices, freeing a small piglet from the metal prison.
"Thank you Mr. Sonic." said the piglet.
"No problem little piggy dude," replied Sonic, "but before you scurry on home, could you tell me where the Control Tank is?"
"You mean the big shiny thing that's makin' all the robots? It's over near the entrance to the Mirror Castle."
"Thanks, now try to get out of here in one piece. There are still a lot of Badniks around."
Sonic ran off and used the bumper spring to get up to the roof of the castle and ran around, trying to find the quickest way to the entrance. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't expecting what was waiting for him. Hundreds upon thousands of Badniks surrounded the Control Tank, guarding it from any attack. Sonic almost shit himself at the site, for he had never seen THAT many robots in one place before, even during the time that he attacked Final Fortress with Knuckles and Tails.
"Whats the matter, Sonic?" asked a voice from within his mind, "Afraid of a few panzy Badniks?"
All of a sudden, Sonic's Shoulder Devil appeared and hovered near his right shoulder. Shoulder Devil Sonic's fur & quills were red, and were a bit longer than Sonic's, his ears curved in the shape of horns, his tail was long and pointy, and he wore fingerless biker gloves and black steel-toed boots.
"The Sonic I always knew never gave up on his goals until he accomplished them! So what if you've never taken on so many Badnik's at once before, challenges like this always make you stronger."
"That may be true," said another voice from within his mind, "but jumping head-first into a problem without a plan can prove fatal."
Sonic's Shoulder Angel then appeared and hovered near his left shoulder. Shoulder Angel Sonic looked just like Sonic, but wore a white robe, brown sandals, no gloves, had baby blue eyes, had a halo over his head, had wings where his back spines were supposed to be, and held onto a golden harp.
"You need a plan before you jump headfirst into trouble, look before you leap."
"That's sissy talk," said S.D.S., "This is Sonic the Hedgehog we're talking about here, there isn't anything he can't do!"
"That may be true," replied S.A.S., "but even a great hero, such as Sonic, isn't capable of taking on so many robots at once. I suggest that he use the remainder of his chaos energy to preform a Light Speed Attack."
"Peh, fine by me, but don't blame me when he runs out of energy in the middle of the attack. At least by attacking head on he has a chance to pick up any power cores or chaos drives that could restore his energy."
"True as that may seem, there are more Badniks down there than there are E-Series bots. If he headed in and just started destroying robots at random, there would be very little time to stop and pick up Chaos Drives or power cores because of the continuous fire."
"Why don't we let Sonic decide for himself," suggested the Devil, "After all, we are just personifications of Sonic's inner conflict between whether to do the smart thing or the stupid and crazy thing created by the author to show Sonic's current thoughts. Besides, it's not like Sonic can hear us right now anyway."
S.A.S. looked at Sonic and saw that, in fact, he hadn't even heard them once.
"Agreed." said S.A.S. The two of them then reared back and then dashed into Sonic's head.
Sonic blinked and looked around, as if he had just came out of a trance. "Woah!" he said, shaking his head, "what just happened? I feel like I just zoned-out for a minute there. Maybe it was the shock of seeing so many robots in one place." He turned his attention back to the robots. "Now how am I going to get down there to break that tank? There are way to many badniks and Eggman robots to just rush in, so my best bet is to use a Light Speed Attack. The problem is I'm severely low on chaos energy, so I don't know if I can charge up enough energy to preform it."
Sonic thought for a few seconds, but unfortunately it wasn't fast enough as one of the Egg Pawns noticed him.
"ALERT! ALERT!" it exclaimed, "INTRUDER DETECTED WITHIN BASE CAMP!"
Well, thought Sonic, so much for not being caught.
Sonic jumped in the air and dashed out right into the middle of the robots. The robots didn't move an inch as Sonic stood where he landed, ready for anything they would throw at him.
"SCANNING AND CLASSIFYING INTRUDER DATA" announced the robot. As if on cue, the eyes of every robot started to glow, scanning the data of Sonic so they could take the proper steps in removing sed intruder from the base camp. "ALERT! ALERT! SUBJECT IDENTIFIED AS SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, PRIORITY 3 TARGET! DESTROY AT ALL COSTS!"
"Priority 3?" asked a slightly disapointed Sonic after he finished charging his Light Speed Attack. "I'm hurt. After all these years of kicking Eggman's robots to the curb he only lables me as his third most important target? Well, at least theres a bunch of his robots that I can take out to make me feel better."
Sonic released the energy and started flying through the air at light speed, taking out enemies as he flew around in a frenzy. Each robot fell one by one as they couldn't move fast enough to stop him. One of the robots took out a small walkie talkie and spoke into it.
"ALERT," it chimed into the walkie talkie, "PRIORITY 3 TARGET HAS INFILTRATED TWINKLE PARK BASE! SUBJECT IS TOO POWERFUL TO DESTROY, REQUESTING BACKUP!" but before the robot could get it's answer, it was destroyed and it's power core was absorbed.
Sonic finally stopped his attack and looked upon the carnage of destroyed robotic components scattered all over. the baby animals within the Badniks had fled, and all of the power cores from the Egg Pawns have been absorbed by Sonic. A couple of remaining robots fearfully watched the hedgehog as he stood, keeping his head down. Very slowly, and very cautiously, moved twoards the hedgehog, weapons at the ready, to see if he had run out of energy.
To make a long story short: Sonic shot them a death glare, the robots did the mecha equivalent of pissing themselves out of fear, and they ran like there was no tomorow.
Sonic wiped his brow, let out a big sigh, and fell flat on his back. He was tired, even with the power cores he picked up he was wiped after that attack.
"MAN I'm pooped," exclaimed the tired hero with a yawn, "I guess that's what happenes when you fight badniks for several hours." Sonic looked at his wristwatch. "10:30 in the morning, I've been up all night. All I've got to do is release the baby animals in the tank, then I can go home and sleep."
Sonic forced himself to his feet and stood up. He limped over to the tank, and took a look at it. The design was the same old Control Tank that he had become familiar with, but something was different. He took a good look at the production logo, and saw that it was different, too.
Instead of the normal production logo of the Eggman Empire, it was a twisted and corrupted version of it. It was so ugly looking that Sonic just wanted to hurl at the sight of it. Either something snapped in Eggman's head, or there was someone else behind the attack.
Sonic, pushing the urge to spew down, climbed up to the top of the tank and hit the switch that would destroy the outer shell and release the small animals. He jumped down and waited... and waited... and waited, but nothing seemed to happen. He went closer to investigate, but jumped back when the tank released steam. Several ramps started to come out of it, and a couple of doors appeared on the sides.
This took Sonic by surprise, but it didn't surprise him as much as what he saw come out of it...
"Oh. My. God"
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Matt: OOH!!! TEH CLIFFHANGER!!!!! What happened to Knuckles? What did Sonic see comming out of the capsule? Only I, the Author known as 'Matt' knows! And you all have to wait untill next chapter to find out.
But seriously, expect the next chapter soon. I will do my best on it. Later days!