Pathfinder's Apprentice

It was gone.

The realization cut like a razor's edge through his mind, a painful snap that jolted him back to awareness in the blink of an instant, sharp and cruelly unforgiving.

The uncommon lack of the Emerald's energy field was almost as hard to wrap his mind around as the lingering headache that pounded fiercely behind his forehead. The air tasted different from what was usual, a heavy scent of salt that scratched at the back of his throat.

Memory took another second to kick in, but then Knuckles remembered the assault, the watery monster standing over the heap of Master Emerald shards, his in retrospect rather pathetic attempt at a fight, the monster knocking him down the stairs before disappearing in perfect resemblance of a puddle… and finally, the island falling into the ocean.

Knuckles picked himself up, sore and aching from the fall down the long stairway and the quake that had rocked the whole of Angel Island as it crashed. Of course his first steps took him up the stairs. He needed to see the Emerald, to know the damage done to it.

The damage he'd failed to prevent.

When he made it up to the altar at the very top of the stairway, the echidna's breath caught in his throat at the extent of it. The painful twinge upon his awakening had not been a groggy illusion. It was really, truthfully gone, almost the whole of the mighty Emerald. A few fragments remained, shards of its pointed base that were now stuck in the rock of the shrine. They still glowed faintly, and up here, close to them, Knuckles could pick up their energy, weak, thready and crying for the missing pieces so intensely it was contagious. Maybe it was an illusion after all, but the echidna was sure he could feel the cracks that split the precious gem apart, feel the cruel pull that held apart what belonged together.

He fisted his hands in an attempt to contain the feeling, not minding the sting of his fingernails digging into his palms in spite of the gloves he wore. The fabric was thin, and Knuckles' fists could crush rocks. Right now, he would love crushing a few, but that wasn't an option. He didn't have time for anger and guilt.

After making the uncomfortable decision to leave the few remaining bits of the Emerald where they were, Knuckles made for the edge of the island. It wasn't very far, and the closer he got the stronger the smell of salt stung in his nostrils. Only when he could see the water, the guardian figured it was the wind carrying the smell of the ocean. He sniffed. It was almost funny. He'd looked at the ocean so often from above, marvelled the blue twinkles between the clouds below, and yet, he'd never known what it smelled like from a smaller distance.

Not much later, Knuckles stood on surface ground, and it almost had him disappointed. It felt not really different from Angel Island's ground, it had rocks and grass and a few flowers here and there. If you counted the lack of chaos energy pulsing through it, the surface ground was just like his home's.

Knuckles bit his lip. The discovery would be a lot more interesting if it wasn't reminding him even Angel Island's ground wasn't brimming with chaos energy right now, what in turn reminded him of the fact the island had fallen, and that again reminded him of why it had fallen.

It wasn't that Knuckles would have ever wanted to forget. It was his fault all of this was happening. He had not been able to protect the Master Emerald, and this time it had not only been stolen by a madman to power his crazed installation of doom in outer space. No, this time it had been destroyed by a monster, the sudden release of the energy contained in the powerful gem had flung its pieces to places more afar then Knuckles could probably imagine right now, and all of it was his fault alone.

But he was the guardian, and it was not a job you quit. A guardian was destined to guard, it was his fate, his duty, forever. You couldn't quit when you failed. You couldn't dig a hole and hide in, no matter how much you felt like it. The guardian lived to protect the Master Emerald. Protecting the Master meant protecting the balance and integrity of the system of chaos as a whole, and that again meant protecting the world from spiralling into, well, chaos.

No, he'd screwed up, he'd probably let his guard down, he had not been able to keep all this from happening, but he didn't have time to grieve it. He had a job to do. The Master Emerald needed to be put back together, and to do that, he had to first of all find the shards.

And chaos damn him, this time, he would do his job.

An hour later, Knuckles had been introduced to train rides, and he didn't like them. If he knew about tickets and that you needed to buy them to ride the train, he would have maybe considered himself lucky he hadn't been caught, but as things were, the echidna had reached the main station of a place called Station Square without further incident. The station was a building with huge doors that were a lot more fragile than they looked. Luckily, nobody had yet noticed the crack in the handle.

Having made it past the doors without further incident, Knuckles found himself on what was probably this place's namesake. There were a lot of people, a lot of buildings all around, a lot of vehicles, a lot of noise, and a lot of strange smells that made Knuckles miss the salty aftertaste of the sea winds. There was a beach right across of him, but there were so many other smells it hardly stood out.

"It's up to me to find the missing pieces of the Master Emerald," Knuckles mused. "I better start looking everywhere I can."

He took a few steps away from the station, looking around. "This place is nuts. And I thought Eggman builds all the crazy stuff. Maybe it's a humans thing. Hm. I thought he was the only one…"

Apparently, he was not. This place was crowded with humans, small, tall, round, slim, and even in different colors, and none of them really looked much like Eggman. Maybe he should be glad about this particular fact, but irrationally Knuckles would have like to see something resembling a thing he knew, even if it was his worst enemy. It made no sense, and this place made no sense, and it was huge and confusing, and where was he to start looking for the shards? He knew he could sense them, find them when they were close, but how was he ever going to get close to a shard in this maze of asphalt and pollution?

Too deep in thought, Knuckles had mindlessly walked out onto the road, and only a screech of abused rubber jerked him out of his musings and into the realization he had almost walked into one of the vehicles. The human inside of it gestured wildly, obviously angry with Knuckles, but the echidna just stumbled back in shock and anew confusion, almost tripped over the curb and barely caught himself before he fell right into a round, floating ball of light.

Wait… "What?!"

The shock of the near accident momentarily forgotten, Knuckles stared at the ball of light. It sparkled and glowed in white and orange, and for a second he was sure he'd seen it before, back at home, when the Emerald had broken. Strangely, he wasn't afraid of it, and he didn't think it had anything to do with breaking the gem. He… liked it. It felt familiar, and here in this confusing foreign place, anything familiar was like an old and dearly missed friend.

Knuckles stretched out his hand in curiosity, but he had barely brushed a fingertip along the sparkling ball when he jumped back in shock once again as it lit up brighter, circled him, then started bouncing up and down in the air in front of him.

Oh, and mind his fragile sanity, it spoke. "Knuckles, you should be able to get into City Hall!"

The echidna stared at the sparkle. It took him a remarkable amount of time to close his mouth, then he blinked, once, twice, took a deep breath, and resignedly shook his head. He had seen watery monsters, trains and other vehicles from hell in the past hours, and he knew weirder stuff. Surely he could handle a speaking sparkle… right?

Once more, the echidna shook his head. The sparkle had disappeared rather suddenly, leaving Knuckles to wonder if his overloaded brain wasn't merely playing tricks on him. Then again, he knew what he'd seen, didn't he? Yup, he was sure. Sparkle ball. Speaking sparkle ball. He could deal with that, really… but how in the name of chaos did it know his name? And… what the heck was a city hall?

"City Hall. Fine." He looked around again, running a hand down his dreadlocks. "City Hall," he repeated, in vague hopes that saying the word a few more times would clue him in on what it was. "Hopefully it's something big and important. Big and important should be easy to find… And if no Emerald shard is there, I'm going to make the crazy sparkle regret wasting my time."

Not that he knew if he could do anything to the sparkle, and giving how familiar, and may he say it, friendly it felt, Knuckles didn't know if he actually wanted to make it regret anything. Still, planning revenge, even on a mystical ball of light, gave him a little outlet for his frustrations, and that in return helped clearing his head.

Of course, smashing down the roadblock in his way did a fairly better job at that.

In the end, Knuckles was sure it was dumb luck that had brought him to City Hall, which turned out to be a big building with a bell in the top of a tower. To be honest, Knuckles had climbed it up in hopes for a better view of the city around when he noticed the name of the place on a road sign. Maybe he should take to reading signs.

Clinging to the tip of the tower, he looked around for other potentially helpful signs. Locating one on the wall of a building ahead, he squinted his eyes to read it. He was much more familiar with the symbols of the ancient language than with the letters of the surface people's alphabets.

"Huh. Chao in Space," he finally read aloud. "Coming soon." A frown dug into his brow. He knew chao, of course he did. But who would get the mad idea to put those fragile, docile creatures into space? They needed a garden for their colonies, with fresh water and fruits to eat. Space seemed a really bad place for them. And why was it coming soon? Had the chao not yet been sent to space? If so, someone had to put a stop to this cruel plan.

"Hm. Perhaps Eggman's behind this again," Knuckles mumbled, deciding to find out about this mad scheme later. He couldn't rescue the chao and find the missing pieces at the same time.

Deciding signs weren't so helpful after all, the echidna jumped clear of the tower and glided down to the street again. He figured if he walked through the town, he should get close enough to an Emerald sharp to sense it eventually.

Not much later, the red guardian was already regretting this decision. It took only a few minutes until he had no idea where he was anymore. He couldn't tell which way was north, where he had come from, if he'd been on the street he was on before, how far away from the City Hall he already was, or how he would ever get out of his city again. It was a maze, a mad labyrinth full of confusing distractions. By now, Knuckles deeply longed for the dark tunnels under his island's mountains. Even in Hydrocity or the Sandopolis pyramids, he could always tell where he'd come from and which general direction he would have to take to find the exit.

Until today, Knuckles had thought he had a good sense of orientation.

Right now, he severely doubted it. All it had taken to completely wind him up was a few buildings all around. They towered up to each side, turning the roads into narrow gaps between them. Looking up, you could see not more than a small fragment of sky. Knuckles was even unable to tell what time it was by now. Just sometimes he would catch a glimpse of the sun, in the reflection of a window.

He who has never been actually, genuinely lost underestimates the sheer dread of it. At first, it's mere confusion, but then as you get more and more lost, as you begin to realize you don't know where you are or where you are going, the fear sets in, slowly and creepingly, like any predator patiently lurking its prey from afar before sneaking up on it. And then comes the moment when you truly, consciously notice you're lost and you don't know how to get out of it, and then you're suddenly genuinely scared.

Knuckles had reached that point, although he was stubbornly telling himself he wasn't worried. It was just a weird, mind-blowingly huge city, no Emerald shard was in reach and he didn't know where he was. He was fine, right?

… Right?

Forcefully Knuckles shook his head, willing himself to think something else. His feet already hurt from walking the hard tarmac and he wondered if going somewhere else to look for the Emerald shards was an option, granted he ever got out of the city again, when he spotted the sparkle again. It hovered at the corner ahead, and suddenly it looked like a beacon of hope to Knuckles. A guiding light out of this mess.

The echidna jogged up to it, again touching his hand to it, to alert it of his presence. It bounced gentle on the spot, dancing in the air before him, and it looked so much more energetic and vivid than Knuckles felt that something about the whole thing seemed surreal.

Knuckles had not yet digested the notion when the sparkle stopped bouncing and instead dashed off along the road to the left with an excited shout. "This way!"

Pushing past the moment's confusion, Knuckles ran after it, along the side of a street with speeding cars.

Unfortunately, the sparkle was much faster than him, and soon he had lost track of it. He tried to keep the general direction in mind it had given him, but navigating by directions was so much harder in a city than in a forest or in the mountains of his home. You couldn't see far enough to use landmarks to guide you, the tall buildings all around didn't only block your view but also your way, and it was pretty impossible to go in the direction you wanted without straying somewhere and ending up all the more lost.

Stopping at another corner, Knuckles leaned on his knees and took a moment to catch his breath and try regaining his bearings. With the deeper breaths of exertion, the smell of the city seemed even more persistent to him and he was painfully reminded how much he missed the crisp air of the high altitude and the cool, fresh taste of it. It was something he'd taken almost for granted, but now it was gone and the loss stung surprisingly much. It didn't feel like he'd lost a magic gemstone and gone away from his home. It felt like he'd lost a part of himself along with them, and he was beginning to worry if he'd ever find it back.

When he looked up ahead again, the sparkle was there, levitating softly above the strip of greenery between the lanes of the road. Trying to ignore the cars, Knuckles quickly moved to catch the sparkle before it could fly off again.

He wasn't very successful. He'd barely touched the sparkle again when it screamed another way too enthusiastic "This way!" and rushed off again, but not along the road this time. Instead, it crossed the street and dashed up into the air, aiming vaguely for the distant roof of the nearest building.

Not knowing anything else to do and hating himself for being so helpless that he needed to rely on a magical speaking light to find the object of his duty, Knuckles moved to go after the sparkle again.

Well, at least it seemed to be on his side. Nothing else was. Even the cars seemed to hate him. He was sure some of them actually aimed to hit him…

Knuckles was glad when he reached the other side of the road and could start climbing up the wall. It felt much more natural than walking the crowded roads. Climbing up the side of the building was almost like climbing up a wall of rock at home and it made Knuckles feel more secure about what he was doing.

"Well," he trailed, "at least I got someone to help me. And it seems to know the way through this mad city."

It. Now that he had a moment to think about everything, 'it' seemed way too impersonal a word to use for his only friend in this place. It had a female voice, so perhaps he should call it 'she'? Yes, he should.

She was waiting for him when he reached the top of the roof, and she was not the only one. The sensation was so weak he could pick it up only with the peak of the energy's pulsation, but it was an Emerald shard, Knuckles was sure. For the first time in what had to be hours, the red echidna smiled a little.

The sparkle bounced a few times in front of him again before shooting off to the side. Knuckles didn't hesitate in following it. He ran across the flat roof, crossed the gap between two buildings in a glide, climbed up another, higher building and kept scrambling across its roof. He didn't need the sparkle's aid from here on anymore.

The energy was there, the ting of it so loud in his mind he could almost physically hear it. He was near, so very near, and he needed to find the shard. In a frantic rush, Knuckles glided another bit, scaled another wall, the feeling of the familiar, dearly missed energy so nearby, the screams of it to be found so intense that it almost made him dizzy.

He couldn't contain a broad grin when he finally spotted it, sitting on a small balcony below the roof he was on. He dropped down right next to it, reaching out with needy hands to hold it. Touching the shard sent a rush of energy from his fingertips right into his head and down his spine from there. It wasn't near as strong as the Master Emerald as a whole, but it was a part of it, and it felt like home.

When Knuckles could finally tear his gaze away from the mesmerizing green of the shard's glow, he spotted the sparkle almost next to him. She bounced happily when he looked at her, then rushed by him to dance around him one time.

Knuckles smiled. "Thank you," he whispered.

The sparkle jumped again, then she rushed off into the maze of the city.

Knuckles didn't mind. He'd found one shard. He would find the others and do his job. After all, he was the guardian, the last descendent of a long tradition. Protecting the Master Emerald was in his nature, and he would start off by mending it back together.

He could do it, he knew now. One hand clutched tightly around the first shard he'd relocated, its warm energy seeping through his glove, he even didn't feel so very lost anymore.

Speedy's note: This was written for the Kelviniana Summer's Up Challenge. The topic was loss or being lost. This idea came up immediately, mainly because it's something I always wanted to have a shot at. Will it win? Most likely not, but it was fun to write, and that's what I write for. It might not be the most original idea and surely stories have been written based on Knuckles' SA1 story before, but I wanted to write it and so I decided not to care about being not the only one. Hope it was fun to read for you. :-)