Chapter 3: The Master and The Guardian

Later that night, when the guards were least active, the unlikely trio packed up the necessary supplies that they would need to get through a long day of traveling. When they had everything that they needed, Sky stuck his head out of the door as he looked around for anyone that would be near their warehouse.

"Well?" Chronic asked, "are we good to go?"

"Coast is clear," Sky replied, stepping outside before Tikal and Chronic followed, "Still, we have to be careful."

"Why is that?" Tikal asked, confused.

"Listen, echidna," Chronic said, though his tone got him a glare from his brother, "I don't know how your tribe does things around night time, but here in the Fire and Ice tribe, the guards do nightly strolls every hour or so."

"Are they really that protective of their home?"

"Tikal," Sky said, stopping any chance his brother had at insulting her, "Protective doesn't even begin to describe just how nuts these guys are."

Tikal nodded at Sky, seeming to understand what the twins had told her. The trio began moving silently down the dark alleys, making sure that they didn't attract any unwanted attention from anyone. Ten minutes went by in complete silence as they continued on towards the exist of the tribe. Finally, the silence was broken by Sky.

"Just whose next?" He asked, Tikal looked at him in confusion of his question.

"Whose next?" She asked.

"You know, of these spirits that we're supposed to look for."

"Oh!" Tikal exclaimed, her confused look vanishing, "Well, I sort of already found him."

The twin hedgehogs looked at her with raised eyebrows. Tikal blushed in embarrassment as she scratched the back of her head.

"Well, you see, before I ran into you two, I already knew the second Chaos Spirit. Ironically, he lives very close to my home tribe."

"Then why didn't you bring him along with you?" Sky asked, not sharing the disinterested look his brother had on.

"Well, you see...he's complicated..." Tikal explained, "He has to stay within a certain spot or something bad happens..."

"Explain it like we're kids," Chronic said, "Sky's a little dense with this kind of stuff."

"I am not! You are such a liar!" Sky retorted, glaring at Chronic.

"Uh, guys?" Tikal intervened, "Remember we are trying to get out of here without anyone noticing us."

The brothers held their little staring contest for a while then they broke it off after Tikal spoke out. The trio continued onward towards the exist, sticking close to the shadows to make sure no one could see them. Finally, after about twenty minutes top, they arrived at the exist with no guards in sight. As quickly as their legs would allow them to, they dashed towards the exist as fast as they could. Glancing behind only a few times to make sure no one was following them. They kept running as they headed up a hill that was not to far from the tribe, Chronic glanced back one last time as they reached the hill top while Sky and Tikal sat down to catch their breath.

They had no idea at the time, but that night was the beginning of their epic adventure together as a team. While tonight might have felt like more of challenge then they would ever know, they would face challenges that would make this seem like child's play.

After a while of catching their breath, the trio continued down the dark road at night, with Tikal's light guiding the way. Chronic seemed unamused as they continued to journey onward, the full moon above them glistering brightly. Sky smiled, he was very excited to see what was out in the world but at the same time he was nervous. How would the other tribes react to seeing him and his brother? It was something that was really eating at him from the inside. Tikal glanced back to the twins and smiled lightly.

"We should be approaching my tribe soon," she said, "just keep in mind that you two will have to be careful when we arrive."

"Pft, please," Chronic said, "They can't be any worse then our tribe. They did try to stone you to death you know."

"Watch it, Chronic." Sky growled, "But really, Tikal, they can't be that bad right?"

"Well..." Tikal hesitated, "No, they're not so bad about it. But they do tend to become suspicious of those who are not part of our tribe."

Before Chronic could make another remark, Sky put his hand over his twin brother's mouth before anything could be said.

"Zip it." He said, knowing fully well what his twin was thinking about saying.

"Anyway," Tikal continued, "when we reach my tribe. I want you two to head north of it while I get some supplies, OK?"

"What's so important that we would have to head North?" Chronic asked, as he pushed Sky's hand away from his mouth.

"There's something you two need to see up there." Tikal said.

"What is it?" Sky asked.

Tikal didn't answer him, the red hedgehog could tell that she was thinking really hard to answer his question. She seemed to drift off as she continued to walk down the road, she still had no answer for him as they walked.

Finally, the trio stopped walking and found a spot to rest for the night. They managed to set up a small fire place that kept them warm for the night as each of them took a turn watching out for any sign of trouble. Finally, the morning came and they resumed traveling for nearly an hour until buildings were plain to see in front of them. While Sky and Tikal smiled at the sight of the buildings, Chronic was more annoyed then happy to see civilization.

"So, this is the Light Tribe?" He asked.

"Yeah," Tikal answered, a bit pink in the face, "It's nothing too special."

The trio walked towards the tribe, the two hedgehogs glanced back and forth as they continued walking past some of the villagers expecting them to attack the moment they saw them. However, most of the echindas just smiled friendly and waved as the trio continued to walk by them. Sky couldn't believe his eyes, the tribe looked and acted so much differently than he imagined. Echidnas were already up and outside their homes, raising their crops and retrieving vegetables that were right for picking. What surprised Sky the most though was that they were very peaceful with each other, despite Tikal warning him that they would often act suspicious of outsiders.

"This place is...amazing..." Sky said, blown away at how peaceful things were compared to his own tribe.

"Well, I'll admit this," Chronic said, "It's nice to see that there's no overprotective guards around here."

"Well, there are some guards here." Tikal explained, "But they're not as high strung as your tribe's guards."

She came to a stop and turned to the twin brothers. She then pointed to the right as the hedgehogs looked on at her in confusion.

"I want you two to head that direction." she instructed, "It's there you'll see two very important things that are related to our quest."

"What about you?" Sky asked.

"Well, I'm going to buy some extra supplies for us." She said. "We can't go on an adventure without the right supplies, right?"

"Point taken." Sky said, glancing at his brother. "You ready to go see what's up there?"

"Do I have a choice?"

The twins headed into the direction that Tikal pointed them towards. Both noticing some of the light tribe members waving at them as they continued walking up the path. They did get one suspicious look from an echidna that was farming ten different crops, but they didn't run into any trouble like they thought they would have. This made Sky feel much easier inside, to know that no one was after you for such little things was a nice feeling. He turned to his brother and smiled happily as they reached the end of the village onto another road.

"This is great," He said, "They haven't even tried to blame us for anything, attack us, or get angry for our appearance!"

"You're easily amused, aren't you?"

"And you're not?!" Sky asked, "Chronic, I haven't felt this happy for a long time! You should be too, they practically saw us as just visitors who don't want trouble!"

"That's the thing though, Sky." Chronic said, "We are visitors."

Sky's smile vanished, he knew what Chronic was going to say. He didn't want to hear it, but the ash blue hedgehog continued.

"They're acting friendly to us because to them, they only see us being around their tribe for only a short time And I mean a really short time. If we were to live anywhere near them or in their village, I can guarantee you that the moment we decide to live among them, the same hate and fear that our tribe had for us will spawn within their hearts. Even if they don't show it with their faces, their reactions will be clear enough to read whenever they see us."

Sky sighed in defeat, Chronic was right again. The red hedgehog knew that even though the light tribe was not the same as their home tribe the odds of them sharing the same feelings towards both of the twins would build up. He glanced at his twin brother, whose expression hadn't changed since they arrived in the tribe.

"You can really kill a mood, you know that?" Sky asked, annoyed at his twin more then ever now.

"Yeah," Chronic replied, "I make being an asshole look like an art."

The twin brothers continued up the path for about five minutes, until they saw five tall pillars ahead of them. They raised their eyebrows in confusion, but ran up towards them quickly. When they arrived at the pillars, they realized they were at a rather large altar that was surrounded by more pillars then they had originally seen. It was a rather quiet and peaceful place, the altar itself seemed to have absolutely no life forms around it though, Sky folded his arms in annoyance.

"Tikal sent us here for just an empty altar? Talk about lame!"

"I don't think it's the altar she sent us here for," Chronic said, glancing up towards the top of the altar, "Look more closely."

Sky reared his head up to see what his brother was looking at. What he saw made his mouth drop in surprise. At the very top of the altar was a very large, very bright, and from what the two brothers could make out of it, very powerful emerald in the center. Sky couldn't believe what he was looking at, the emerald was so huge that it looked impossible to even pick it up. He grinned stupidly, wanting to get a closer look he started up the stairs.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm going to get a closer look!" Sky answered, the excitement in his eyes was back again.

"I'd think you better not go near it," Chronic advised, "You have no idea what's around here."

"Chronic, there's no one else here but us. Besides, Tikal said she wanted us to see two things, right? So the first one has gotta be this altar and the second has to be that giant emer-"

Before Sky could finish his sentence, a navy blue blur dashed out from the side of the altar and slammed a fist right into Sky's left cheek. The red hedgehog was sent flying back down the stairs from the hit, slamming into the ground with a loud thud.

"Sky!" Chronic yelled, his attention now on his brother's well being.

"Ugh," Sky moaned, rubbing his cheek in pain, "Talk about a sucker punch...what the hell just hit me?"

The two brothers looked back to the staircase. Their eyes shrunk as the being that punched Sky stood tall, it was an echidna. However, both of them could tell that this echidna was completely different from the ones back in the light tribe, there was no question about it.

He wasn't just big, he was HUGE. This confused the twins, they both knew that at average height, echidna males grew up to four feet tall. However this echidna was just MASSIVE. He was completely dark navy blue, with black gloves that protruded two spikes on his fists, light green shoes, a large black scar on his chest. But the thing that was the most intimidating was his how both of his eyes were completely green from the pupil to the iris. One would think he was blind when first seeing him, but based on how fast he hit Sky, there was no doubt that the echidna could see very well. He continued to look at them, his eyes burning with a ferocious power at them both for approaching the altar.

"What in the world..." Sky gaped, stunned at just how large this echidna was.

"I think you pissed him off."

"No shit?"

The large echidna continued to look down at the two brothers. For a while, he possessed the same furious rage in his eyes. Although the twins didn't couldn't tell it from their view point, his eyes went from furious rage to a surprised shock. He opened his mouth as if to say something but no words escaped from his lips. He didn't stop though, he continued to try to speak out for some time now appearing desperate to say something. But not a single sound escaped his lips.

Sky's eyes narrowed as he stood up from the spot he was punched towards. He began spinning his arms around to warm them up as he began walking towards the staircase once more.

"You wanna play rough?" he asked, the pain in his cheek slowly disappearing. "Well you got it pal!"

Sky began running up the stairs once more towards the large echidna. He reached his opponent and threw a powerful punch towards the echidna's forehead. There was a moment of silence after Sky's fist hit the echidna's forehead, which resulted in the large echidna responding to Sky's attack with his own punch. Sky however was not going to allow himself to be hit as he dodged it, landing to the side of the echidna quickly.

"You might be strong," He said, "but let's see you try to keep up with someone who has speed."

With that the red hedgehog began running around the echidna in a circle, a red blur was all Chronic could see as his brother kept his speed up. The large echidna however just stood there, as if he wasn't even paying attention to Sky. Then without warning, the echidna threw a punch straight forward, a loud crack was heard as his fist made contact with Sky's other cheek.

The red hedgehog tumbled back down the stairs once more, that was twice that he had been hit from the large echidna. As he reached the bottom of the stairs once more, he got up, rubbing the cheek that was now searing with the same pain as before. He glanced back at his twin brother, who just stood there with his arms folded.

"Are you even going to help me or not?" He asked, his cheek feeling like it was going to explode from pain.

"I might," Chronic answered, "but right now it's too much fun watching your ass getting handed to you."

"God you're an ass."

Sky turned back to the large echidna, this time he wasn't going to be knocked down so easily. His eyes flashed a bit as his two hands were soon completely covered in fire. The large echidna's eyes narrowed, as if he knew that Sky would resort to using his fire powers against such a powerful opponent. Sky smirked as he threw a barrage of fire balls towards the echidna, each one smacking him all in the same spot each time. The fireballs didn't seem to do much damage, but they were enough to barely push back the echidna some as they hit him each time. Sky gathered some more fire energy into the palm of his hand and threw a larger ball of fire at the echidna, this time when the fireball slammed into the echidna there was a small explosion of fire.

Sky's smirk was even wider this time, if anything no one who had no powers what so ever wouldn't be able to survive a force of fire like that. The smoke slowly began to clear up and standing still proud and tall was the echidna. There was barely any scorch marks on his body, which seemed to heal up quickly as he continued to look down at Sky with the same look at before. Neither of the twin brothers could believe it, after taking so many fireballs to the chest and the final fireball Sky threw, he was still standing tall.

"This guy is unreal," Sky said, his fist trembling a bit, "I hit him with enough fire power to burn a small village."

"Stop toying around then," Chronic told him, "if anything he shouldn't be alive afterward."

"And destroy this altar? Are you nuts? Tikal would be crushed if I did that!"

The large echidna snarled, this time the ground below him and the hedgehogs began to tremble violently as a dark aura covered his large body. Soon the ground stopped trembling as the echidna roared loudly; nearly piercing the ear drums of the twin brothers. Sky bit his lip, the force of the energy was so incredible that it was almost unreal. Chronic, who was doing nothing but being a specter at this point in the fight finally got into a battle stance as the echidna walked towards them.

"This is it..." Sky said, his palms sweaty as they watch the echidna approach slowly.

"Don't do anything stupid." Chronic said.

The twins continued to watch the echidna walk towards them, his dark aura pulsing each time he took a step. Finally, with a loud roar of power he rushed towards the two with speed that neither of them expected. Just as it began to look like it was about to turn into a nasty all out brawl, there was a flash of light that stopped the large echidna. Standing between him and the twins was Tikal, who held her arms out to the side.

"Stop it!" She said, "They're not our enemies!"

"Tikal! Run!" Sky yelled, "This guy is insanely strong!"

"Leave this to me, Sky!" she told him, staring down the large echidna despite being smaller than he was.

The echidna's snarl slowly began to retreat as he continued to stare at Tikal's eyes. His dark aura that was so threatening once began to disappear as well. Tikal smiled, allowing her arms to drop back down to her sides as the large echidna's rage began to disappear. Sky and Chronic however, stood in confusion as they watched this strange ordeal go out.

"That's right," she said gently, her warm smile reassuring the large fighter, "they're not our enemies. They're one of, Neo."

"Neo?" Sky asked, "that's his name?"

Neo, as Tikal called him, observed the twin brothers once more. He sighed deeply and began to climb back up the stair case to the large emerald that the altar held. Tikal sighed in relief and turned to her companions, who had very confused looks on their faces.

"How the hell did you calm him?" Chronic asked, "the monster was about to tear us apart."

"First off, he's not a monster." Tikal answered, "Second off, I was able to calm him down because I've known him for a long time."

"So like he's one of us?" Sky asked, "Or you boyfriend or something?"

Tikal blushed a bit, embarrassed by the question asked.

"Well, no. He's not my b-boyfriend." She answered, "At least he's probably about forty four years old."

"Oh!" Sky exclaimed, "I'm sorry if that seemed intruding!"

"D-Don't worry about it." Tikal said, "And to answer your other question, yes he's one of us. The one who holds the emerald of shadows, the purple Chaos Emerald."

Sky and Chronic turned their heads back up to Neo, who was now sitting on top of the large emerald.

"So how come he's staying by that emerald there?" Sky asked, "Shouldn't he come with us if he's a spirit?"

"Well, you see, Neo doesn't ever leave here." Tikal told him, "The only time I've seen him leave the altar of the Master Emerald is when he went on a rampage to find those who stole it from him."

Tikal seemed to tremble a bit in fear, this was an indication that Neo held much more power then he let on.

"He's...different when he's not near the Master Emerald." She continued, "It's like something just turns him into a powerful being that won't stop...but that was a long time ago."

"Ok," Chronic said, "don't take the giant Emerald away from him or hell breaks looks, got it. Can we get going now?"

"Hang on, Chronic!" Sky growled, "Let her finish before saying something."

Chronic snarled and glanced away from Sky. The red hedgehog sighed and turned back to Tikal, whose smile seemed to finally return to her face.

"So, what's the plan then if we can't get him to come with us?"

"We find the other spirits," Tikal instructed, "And we bring them here. Then if we can all get along together in peace here, the tribes might stop their bickering with one another and put aside their petty differences."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Sky said, smiling a bit, "So, where to next?"
"We head west from here," Tikal said, pointing to the right, "There we should find the next tribe and hopefully the next spirit."

"Let's get going then." Chronic said, glancing back at Neo, "The further away we are from him, the safer we are."

"Chronic!"

As the trio began traveling west, Neo watched carefully as they walked further and further away from the altar. He knew in the back of his mind that they would return, but he tried not to think of it. However, the twin hedgehogs, though they were still young, irked him. No matter what he tried to think of, they just kept coming back to his mind as they slowly began to disappear from his sight. Neo had a feeling deep down about these two, for some reason they were oddly...

Familiar...