Chapter 10- The Echidna Legacy
A quiet had fallen over Angel Island. The isolated locale had always been secluded and peaceful, but the suffocating noiselessness that hung over it today was anything but peaceful. Even the usual chirping of the local birds was silent, and Knuckles had removed himself from the company of the other two in the hopes of finding solace at his favorite meditation spot.
Nestled within a grove of moss-covered trees was a diminutive waterfall, which discharged its contents into a still, shallow pool that fed into a narrow silent brook. The trees there were knotted and scarred, seemingly ancient, and he often felt as if they were elders watching silently over him, and guiding him. Normally, he felt comforted in their presence, but today it seemed they were staring down condescendingly at him. Even here, his restless spirit could not find peace.
There was much indeed to be distressed about, but as opposed to how hectic life simply always was, recent evens seemed to carry a current of foreboding that he had not felt in a long time. Knuckles felt as if he was poised on the brink of an endless chasm, peering down into obsidian darkness of immeasurable depth, and slowly, gradually slipping irrecoverably in.
In some ways, the Master Emerald was as much a curse as a gift, for it showed him visions of the future from time to time, but he had no control, and it was always exceedingly vague. He'd seen fire rain from the sky like a holy, terrifying, purging rain, and ashes and cinders falling like a grim parody of snowflakes.
He'd witnessed a shroud of impenetrable darkness unfurl over the Earth, as thunder and lightning split the heavens, and the world was submerged in rivers, seas of blood. Terrible, horrifying visions appeared to him, ones of death and destruction on an apocalyptic scale... but he could neither stop them, nor understand them, he was enslaved to the emerald in every respect. It was his burden.
He had always believed, or perhaps dared to hope that if one glimpsed into the future, the vision seen was a mere possibility, and could be affected by one's choices. Why then was he never shown any good futures, any visions of happiness? Was everything he'd been shown inevitable, or was there still hope? If if couldn't be stopped, why bother to show him at all? Would attempting to prevent them in actuality bring about their occurrence? Did he even want to know the answers?
He couldn't say. But one thing he did know, he felt something terrible approaching, a darkness which dwarfed even the mighty Nova, who had taken all seven of them to dispatch.
Almost seeming to mirror his dark reflections, the guardian became aware of a pair of new presences on his island, disturbing his thoughts and lending urgency to his movements. He leapt to his feet in an instant, racing through the dense jungle and towards the energy signatures. Pushing vines out of his way and trampling over a myriad of colored leaves, he quickly came to a clearing where he had left the others.
"Silver, Blaze, hurry!" he gasped, without stopping. "There are intruders on the island!"
Seeing the fiery echidna genuinely distressed was a cause of alarm and concern, so without question or protest, they followed behind the guardian as he dashed away. His breaths were labored, as sprinting wasn't his forte, but the determined spark in his eye revealed that his physical limitations were inarguably under the control of his force of will.
"They're nearby, I can sense them," Knuckles growled as he caught his breath. The heroes scanned their surroundings, diligently searching for any unfamiliar appearances.
"We're like, behind you dudes, for real!" a voice called out suddenly, prompting the three to violently turn and face another pair of anonymous figures in Hisaki robes.
"What are you doing on my island?" Knuckles challenged despite knowing full well their intentions could be nothing good, his fist pointed threateningly at the intruders.
"Don't be so naïve. We're here for the emeralds, for one," the more intellectually acute of the two responded, pointing at the Chaos Emeralds held by Silver and Blaze respectively.
"Well you won't be getting any of the emeralds, especially the Master Emerald!"
"Your obsession with that rock is almost amusing. Nobody is after that tired old thing, especially now that he's come back," the wraith answered with a distinct hauteur.
"Who's come back?" Blaze demanded, igniting her fists in an instant with a burning fire.
"Dude like, the god of destruction-dude, man like for real," the figure's billowing black cloak seemed distinctly less terrifying and impressive when he... spoke. It was hard to take anything he said remotely seriously.
"Razor, will you be silent! It's bad enough there are only two of them here without having to listen to your unending chatter!" his superior responded spitefully, almost seeming to harbor as much scorn for his own subordinate as for the heroes.
"Um... I think your counting skills may be just a little... off... Maybe you didn't notice me, but there are actually three of us," Silver said, amazingly without spite or sarcasm of any kind, as if it were just an honest mistake by an honest person.
Stepping forward menacingly, the senior Hisaki member drew his sword. "You confuse my meaning, boy. It wasn't to the quantity of our opponents that I referred, but rather to the number of Incarnations!"
"I get it! You're after Silver and my hair strands or blood samples so you can light the goblets and unleash the next Titan Beast!" Knuckles yelled in anger. "Well buddy, if you think you can just waltz in here and-"
"There is no time for any further delays, Razor. I'll take this one," without any further warning, the shrouded figured raised one arm, fast as lightning, to release a blindingly fast obsidian blast that cracked and sparked as it struck the unsuspecting and unprepared guardian.
The world became a blur for Knuckles as he flew through the air, electric crackles leaping off his body. Carried backwards by the unbelievable momentum the attack had given him, he crashed through tree branches, showering the ground in yet more fiery leaves.
Vertigo and adrenaline coursed through his body, as dizziness birthed nausea, and his stomach churned. The branches he'd sailed through had slowed his flight, but they had not been kind to him, slicing tiny cuts in the guardian's toned form.
Finally he crashed down, smashing into hard, unforgiving stone as his impact sent pebbles and dust into the air. Dazed and confused, he coughed raggedly to clear the dust from his lungs, his senses totally numbed and deadened, as the figure slowly approached.
Stars spun in Knuckles' vision and the world was a blurry and jumbled mess of white hot pain. The guardian had landed far enough away that the others were specks at the very edge of his vision, and behind him lay the cracked and derelict remains of a long-forgotten civilization.
The pyramidal structures towered above him, their graduated steps housing the dust of countless centuries. Their shadows soon melded with another, a moving, undulating darkness that seemed not to touch the Earth as it moved in utter silence.
Chuckling ominously, the wraith suspended itself a few feet in front of Knuckles, the folds of its robe continuing to fluctuate with the force of a light wind. Right then and there, when Knuckles was stunned and defenseless, the malicious presence could have easily dispatched him and taken the DNA strand he was after. But he simply stood there, motionless, waiting and watching.
Rising with grim determination, Knuckles winced as residual pain shot up his leg, but he stood and faced his opponent nonetheless. Even through his infuriation and disorientation, the scarlet echidna felt some strange familiarity with the Hisaki agent, which was peculiar considering that he was still fully robed and masked.
Perhaps it was his enemy's energy signature, but it felt so vaguely similar... Yet he couldn't place his finger on it, as if it was so very instinctual and subconscious that he couldn't logically recall it, like memories of learning to walk as a baby.
Standing and facing each other at the foot of the ancient ruins, the warriors remained motionless, allowing the same foreboding emptiness which enshrouded the island before to rule for awhile.
"Who are you?" Knuckles broke the silence, because the question had been eating away at him since the stranger had appeared on the island, but now even more so since he'd been struck by his attack, and been puzzled by his energy signature.
"I know who I am, which is more than you can claim," a deep, menacing voice replied.
"What are you talking about? I am the last echidna, guardian of the Master Emerald," Knuckles was in no mood to wax philosophical with the invader, and he wouldn't tolerate mind games.
"Pitiful, wrong on both accounts. So it's true then, you have no idea where you came from!" the agent laughed mirthlessly. "Did you ever consider that the simple fact you were here all alone as long as you can remember doesn't mean it was always that way?"
"Well, of course there used to be other echidnas, I had to come from somewhere. But they died when I was very young..." Knuckles was unsure of exactly where the robed figure was going with this, but he wasn't so eager to fight that he'd turn down free information and a chance to fully recuperate from that first nasty blow, even if a few taunts accompanied it.
"Convenient that you, defenseless, practically in infancy, were spared while the rest were killed..." he snickered.
"Wait, you mean that... the death of my family was deliberate?" he paused and contemplated. "How do you know this?"
"Let's just say... I have first-hand experience!"
This was too much, all the anger-management courses in the world could not have prepared Knuckles for the wild, uncontrollable rage he felt. It was as if lava boiled in his veins instead of blood, and tongues of flame leapt off his body in a physical manifestation of this.
He charged forward, roaring like an enraged beast, his eyes devoid of any compassion or restraint. The robed figure leapt back, his sword flashing out of its scabbard and darting towards Knuckles in repeated jabs.
The incredible heat emanating from Knuckles' body was like a miniature sun, and soon the fire leaping off him swirled into more deadly and raging infernos. Mini cyclones of flames seemed to twist and revolve around his body, as a pair of massive, flaming wings sprouted from his back.
"What in the name of-" his question was cut short as he had to jump to the side, as a burning Knuckles swooped at him like some kind of hellish eagle, droplets of fire raining off his body as he passed over the ground. The grotesque wings he had sprouted as a variation of the Phoenix Form flapped in a steady rhythm, suspending him just off the ground.
Growling in irritation, the agent gathered a hissing light in his palm, hurling it at Knuckles with all his might. The orb of energy split into five smaller balls, each crackling and whizzing as they drew nearer to the guardian, their sounds splitting the air.
Launching high into the sky, the guardian surrounded himself in a violently shifting sphere of volcanic matter, which acted as a perfect shield when the Hisaki agent's attacks finally hit. Descending from this vantage point at incredible speed, he took the offensive.
Not content to simply await his doom, the robed figure unleashed blast after blast, his eyes narrowing as the echidna twisted and darted in the air, avoiding countless spheres of deadly light. As he drew closer to the fiendish figure, Knuckle's lips twisted into an uncharacteristically dark sneer, as the blaze surrounding him grew even hotter with the force of his fury.
'Guardian, regain control of yourself. You are abusing my power by harnessing your anger, and it will set back your progress in synchronizing yourself with me,' the Phoenix gently chided, her voice as soothing as ever even amidst the gravity of the circumstance.
Knuckles seemed not to take heed, slamming into the Earth in front of his enemy at fully force, walls of fire cascading out from his body. The agent deftly leapt over one barrier of flame, but was buffeted by the next, sending him sailing to the ground.
The grass that sparsely grew over the stone flooring and the vines that covered the ancient ruins had been lit aflame, giving the long dead ruins the appearance of being on fire themselves, and depositing piles of new ash and dust on top of the piles of old ash and dust.
Knuckles gathered all the fire into himself, and is it was devoured into his dark aura, it swirled around like water going down a drain, forcing the villainous figure to duck as it twisted overhead.
Knowing that Knuckles had not in fact tapped into the Phoenix Form, but rather that he was using some corrupted, incomplete variation of it, the agent quickly assessed that he would burn his energy quickly and heedlessly, so it would serve his interests to stay onto the defensive until Knuckles had exhausted himself.
But the guardian's newest offensive was terrifying to say the least. Having gathered all of the stray flames and plumes of fire that had previously been writhing about the clearing into himself, he was now preparing to rain them down from the sky in deluges of searing heat.
He looked like a demon straight from hell, twisted wings flapping to keep him suspended in the sky, and pillars of flame barreling down on the ground with voracious intensity. The agent was at a loss to keep from being incinerated, but he could feel his enemy's energy levels dropping unbelievably quickly.
He just needed to hold out against this fearsome Dark Phoenix Form Zero Stage awhile longer. Knuckles grew tired of his impressive, but nonetheless ineffective flaming rain, and instead took a more direct approach, hurling flaming orbs and energy attacks at his assailant from a close distance.
The robed figure could feel the immense heat of Knuckle's aura, and it made sweat break out all over his body.
"You've grown powerful. More powerful than I ever imagined," he admitted, a strange nostalgia present in his voice. "But it still won't be enough."
Detecting a minuscule hole in the seemingly invincible flaming echidna's shield, the agent created a tiny, dark sized energy sphere on the tip of his finger, firing it directly through the hole with deadly and uncanny accuracy.
Striking Knuckles directly in the chest, the attack packed a surprisingly potent punch for it's comparably minuscule size, leaving a scorching burn on the echidna's chest, and greatly disrupting his focus, while contributing to his anger.
'You must snap out of it. Let go of your anger. Use the pure form of my powers, and you can defeat him!' the Phoenix warned, hoping perhaps this time Knuckles would heed her.
He did not.
His lack of concentration caused more weaknesses to manifest in his fire shield, putting his body under stress as he expended even more energy fruitlessly hurling attacks at the robed menace. Finally, out of pure luck, one managed to strike him, directly in the chest.
Knuckles sported a satisfied smirk, but as the robed figure rose to his feet, instantly, the fires went out. His eyes doubled in size as the guardian's pupils shrank to the size of pin-pricks. His mouth hung numbly open, and his mind raced, so occupied that his Dark Phoenix Form had been totally lost at a moment's notice.
The robed figure stood there, a massive hole burnt in the front of his robe. The flesh was seared underneath, but still had easily recognizable distinguishing features. Slate grey fur sported a white crescent moon birthmark, identical to the one on Knuckles himself.
"Time to turn in, Knuckles," the mysterious stranger growled, as he unleashed a swarm of tiny energy bursts in the blink of an eye.
These all flew at the still stunned Knuckles as fast as bullets, striking him repeatedly, and leaving him laying in a smoking crater.
The agent silently approached, his torn cloak fluttering wildly. He gazed down at Knuckle's bashed and bloodied form, knowing full well he would live. Growling slightly, he bent down retrieved a white cloth from the folds of his robe, using it to soak up some of Knuckles' blood.
"So much for an easy grab and dash," he muttered, as he stalked away from the scene of Knuckles' defeat to regroup with Razor.
Author's Notes: this was shorted than the last couple chapters, but that's because I spoiled you guys with an extra juicy 4k+ word Metal Sonic chapter. For future reference, chapters will always exceed 2.5k, and I'll aim for 3k, but please don't complain because some chapters end up long, and some end up shorter. It's not because I give less attention to those chapters, it's simply because the events that I slotted into that specific chapter in my storyboard planning took less description.
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