PREZRAK
(Ghost)




The strange darkness made her uneasy.

She wasn't sure how it had happened, but it was much like when her father had disappeared on the plane. Now she, Lara-Su, was now disappeared.

Disappeared into hell.

Shuddering – as it was suddenly much colder in the strange place under the bush – Lara-Su straightened her jacket out and began to walk from the ruins she landed in. It was so strange, how she was in another place, another time…..

Another everything.

Was this what her father had been hiding from her?

"Another planet…." She whispered to herself.

With a quiet sniff, the little echidna began to make her way. She could only hope that anyone she met along the way was not hostile, would not hurt her. Then her father would never forgive her.

-----------------------------

The haze in the sky in the mind of the echidna, laying upon a silent hill.

My eyes……………Infinity Delta…..my ID………

…..where am I………..


Knuckles' eyes were hazy; he wasn't sure exactly where he was, or how he got there. He knew he was drugged; how badly, he couldn't tell. But he knew that, as it had been before, his powers would be severely limited in this place. His mind, too, his ability to understand much, also impaired.

Where.....where am I...

Suddenly, a tingling feeling. On his hand. Someone. Touching?

"Hello....."

The soft, luscious voice crept into his ear, filling him with a strange, drug-induced feeling of joy. He felt woozy, and his insides felt like they would burst at the sound of the voice. He began picturing the person behind the voice, turning to his left to look....

"Hello...." the beautiful, large echidna eyes looked at him, as clear as crystal., from the most beautiful echidna - brown skinned, dark-haired, "Stranger...."

Knuckles' eyes were beginning to clear, and the sight that beheld him was unlike anything he had ever seen.

He was within a waterfall garden oasis of palm trees. But it was no ordinary oasis, just as they were no ordinary palm trees - they were trees with coconuts and milk literally bursting from them. The sky above him, above the bright clouds that hung around him, that was bright blue - he couldn't understand how, but somehow, it was. He looked at the girl, confused.

"Where....where am I?"
"Master...." The girl blinked provocatively. "Where else? Paradise."
"Paradise...."

The scent of what befell from the waterfall's river began to come to him now, and the smell was incredible. Milk and honey. mixed. It was unlike anything he had smelled, and he knew it was a quality he had never deduced to be possible. Around the palm trees were bushes, with so many fruits, so succulent and ripe. Like the girls before him.

There were hundreds.....no, thousands - of women, all naked, or at least scantily clad, looking at him, then bowing at his feet. They were all svelte, their hair and skin brown, dark red, dark purple, midnight blue, it didn't matter. They were all in front of him, he sitting on the softest couch he had ever sat on. Nothing in Crystal Tokyo, Knothole, Red Ceres, anywhere in the universe, compared. It truly was Paradise.........

"...Master...?"
"Chosen one." The girl upon his shoulder softly drew a finger down his arm. "We are the ones who await your command. All that must be done is to ask, and it shall be done."
"This is Paradise..."
"Paradise for those who are willing to sacrifice." The eyes kept on him; they were the most beautiful he had ever seen. "Beauty for those who find it in that which is commanded of them; they, in turn, receive rewards in bountiful amounts."
"You are..."
"I am Fati-Ma. Your first. I am the one who leads you from your oblivion to your promise." The girl whisked her hand towards the other women, who were still bowed. "These are the ones who obey your commands. As a soldier, as one who has been chosen, in Paradise it is stated that you receive honor."
"Honor? But I....I can't be de-"

Knuckles looked down at himself. He patted his hands and knees, then spotted something on his arm.

"See?" Knuckles showed the echidna his arm. "I have injuries. A soul has no injuries on their skin."
"My master." Fati-Ma smiled. "You are not dead yet; but you have been carried up to heaven to be received."
"Received….."

Knuckles felt dizzy still; his thoughts were hard to collect, and he wasn't moving well. And so he could make little resistance as the supple girl slowly began to crawl upon him.

Ugh……is this heaven?

If this is heaven…..

Father………I'd see you…….clearly, thoroughly……


And just as the girl kissed Knuckles, he flickered into view.

-------------------------------

The cell block under the Crystal Palace was rarely used. It was the first time in ten years they had to lock anyone up in it.

"Here, miss Washu."
"Thanks."

Washu gave a nod to Sailor Mars, who was accompanying her to the new prisoner – the so-called "Grandmaster".

"Sailor Mars, you seem incredibly upset."
"….Yes. I guess I am."
"I guess you were a friend of Locke's?"
"You….could say that."

A deep, sad look was in her eyes; Washu sensed that the soldier had envisioned him as more in her thoughts. But, knowing where to draw a line of privacy, she pursued it no further.

"Where's this 'Grandmaster' who claims to be of the echidnas' Dark Legion?"
"The Da…" Mars' eyes widened. "You know of it?"
"I know of a great deal of things." After seeing Mars' suspicious glance. "at least…that which I know from inferred whispers."
"I'm quite sure of that."
"This is the cell?"
"This."
"Let us enter then!"

And so, the two opened the heavy metal door; they came upon a rather ugly, pitiful sight.

"Who's there?"

The 'Grandmaster' was no echidna; he was a squirrel. His hair was in dreadlocks, but they were messy and unkempt. He had one good blue eye, and eye that seemed to stare out towards the two but at the same time see through them; the other was covered by a patch. His face, also, once kind, but now covered with scratches and scars.
He was thin, terribly thin under his cloak, from lack of food. But Washu could see the crazed look in his eye, and knew that one motion could set him off like a tiger.

"You."
"Me." Washu paused for a moment. "Oh. Great Grandmaster of-"
"Fools." The voice cut into Washu's parley. "You cannot keep me, the leader of my echidna kindred, in here forever! I have the strength of the legions I command on my side! They tell me this is not my world; then I shall conquer this world as I have Deowainsta, faithful planet that adheres to the doctrine of the great Kommissar!"

Mars dared to venture closer; something about this strange, confused creature was familiar. The eye, it had been upon another…

"What are you?"
"An echidna."
"You aren't."
"I am. See my hair, and my robes. I am."
"The great Kommissar…..do you-"
"The great Kommissar. My slain master." The Grandmaster looked up at Mars as if she were a child. "She who carried the Tskintsu upon her back, and I, one of her disiples, who helped her from the teeth of the Kinmoku beast. I was appointed her successor, the one to conquer the unknown!"

The face, too…..but it had not been on a man that Mars had seen it on before…

"What do you want?" The squirrel squinted his good eye. "Restore me to my troops and I will spare you when I come to this world after the defeat of my mortal enemy."
"…..1Enemy, eh…."

Washu said nothing as she left. Mars could only stare as she did likewise.

"He's not the murderer…." Washu shook her head. "Our murderer was one of Knuckles' own."

Mars shook her head. She placed the face on a woman. A princess.

"Maybe, deep down, he is…."

--------------------------------

The father was there.

"Dad…"
"Hmm…?"
"He…"

Fati-Ma looked over to the side. There was no one there.

"Silly, hero," she whispered into his ear.

But he was still there, still looking at him, his blue eyes looking at him, pleadingly.

Don't fall for her….

Knuckles' head snapped. There was something in Fati-Ma's hair, and she was taking it out.

"Fati-"

The girls disappeared. The paradise disappeared. It was all in Knuckles' imagination that this was happening. He felt his hand react to Fati-Ma, and it grabbed the hidden object before the echidna siren could react.
"Huaah…………!!" She sputtered with a gasp.

The entire scene was blurry, and became blurrier when Knuckles felt the warm red liquid on his body. The girl shuddered for a few sconds, her eyes wide with shock. Anger that her plan failed.

She slid off, landing on the ground, the knife planted firmly into her esophagus.

"Dad…?!"

Run…

The spirit flickered as the girls began to crowd around the body, and the guardian.

run now

Even in the drug-enduced haze, Knuckles grabbed a strand of vine and swung over the girls, just as they began to shout towards the sky.

The ceiling.

Knuckles' feet hit the wall, and he went crashing through, landing back first. With a gasp, he struggled back upwards, and began to run. Run as far as he could from this strange, sudden nightmare….

------------------------------

"….Hmph."

The woman shrugged, even as her prey escaped. She turned to Resin, her smile unfaltering.

"Go to Tokyo. Try again."
"…..Yes, madam."

The echidna left, his face cast to the ground. With an unrelenting smile, the woman looked up, smiling. On a screen above her chair, Knuckles running.

"So such an insect should run," she mused. "Injected with death, they shall stop. I suppose that is what is called for."