There was light.
Nothing existed outside of the light; all was light.
Except for a little voice that cried, "I am!"
"I am!"
"I AM!"
Slowly, ever so slowly, Knuckles began to separate himself from the light. He was able to see what was "Knuckles" and what was light. Once he made the distinction, the separation was complete.
Myla was still in his arms. He opened his eyes. The light, though still very bright, was beginning to dim. But Myla was taking longer to recover.
Affectionately, and also to draw her back, he caressed her with his hands. She stirred and finally awoke.
"We are here," he said. "The Hidden Palace."
It wasn't the Hidden Palace as Knuckles knew it. The walls were metal, as opposed to the luminous stones he preferred, and machine-parts were all over the room he and Myla were in; but there was no mistaking the presence of the Master, and Knuckles felt that clearly and strongly.
Knuckles' anxiety roared to great levels. How far did the change go? If it went all the way to the Emerald chamber…
"This way!" he said. He felt Myla right behind him as he dashed. The layout was the same as he knew, much to his relief. He led her down a winding corridor, ever closer to the objective that was all but reeling him in.
"Hey! You! Stop!"
Voices behind! Knuckles analyzed it. He was running out of time, and whoever told him to stop was probably contacting more of those police. It wouldn't be worth it to turn and deal with that voice. He plowed onwards, ignoring the shouts.
The corridor took a sharp turn, and almost before Knuckles could react, he was ramming in to two more police!
Almost.
He completed the ramming motion into his echidna. He ducked low and caught the stomach between his shoulder and neck. With the energy of his legs, he lifted the echidna off its feet and planted it against the wall.
To his happy surprise, Myla copied Knuckles' motion. In each case, the police echidnas were completely incapacitated. Knuckles and Myla stepped back, letting the police fall to the floor.
"There is not supposed to be a door here!" said Knuckles.
"There they are!"
More police echidnas, Knuckles knew. Myla turned to him. "You take the police, I'll handle the door!"
Knuckles decided to take her advice. The door was too strong for him to bash through; if she knew a way in, she wouldn't need his help.
As the police rounded the corner, Knuckles ambushed them. Two were down immediately, the texture of Knuckles' shoe imprinted on their faces.
Knuckles was in his element. His body was fluid, gliding about, unstoppable. The police just couldn't react fast enough. A chop to one, it blacked out. He grabbed another's shoulders, spun about, and launched it against the wall. He didn't even stay to see if it landed; he'd backflipped over and behind another police and brought his hands down on its head.
As that body fell, he catapulted into motion again. He struck at a police so hard in the forehead that it went down, despite the fact that it was an open-handed blow. A backhand to a police on his right swung his body that way; he swung back to the left at very high velocity and kicked yet another across the room.
The final police had a clear shot and raised a tube-like weapon. Knuckles reached out to it. As he suspected, it was a heat-and-light weapon, the sort he'd heard called "blasters". He clamped his hand down on the end of it. The police fired; the energy dissipated harmlessly against Knuckles' glove.
He smiled. That was exactly the sort of thing he'd made those gloves for. He ripped the blaster out of the police's hands and delivered a powerful kick to the chin. The kick lifted thee echidna off of its feet. While it was suspended in the air Knuckles hit it with an open-fist blow. So strong was this blow that it blew the echidna down the hall some seven echidna-lengths.
Satisfied, Knuckles jogged back to Myla, daintily stepping over bodies. She said, "What took you? No, just kidding. I think I've got the door—had to access the manual override. Hold on!"
Knuckles had nothing to hold on to, but it proved moot as the door slid open. The two echidnas passed through.
There, on its pedestal, was the largest gem in the world. It radiated some of its unthinkable power in the form of light, bright light. The swirling energies beneath the surface produced a hypnotic effect that, though pleasing, dulled and deluded the mind. Its beauty was great, its power greater.
And its danger greater still.
For this was the Master Emerald.
Knuckles saw that this one room had not changed, but he knew that would be temporary at best. He ran towards the Master.
Quickly stripping his gloves, he pressed his hands against the surface. As always, it was cold to the touch, and shocked Knuckles a moment. Myla pressed her hands against it, as well, before Knuckles could say anything.
The experience was unparalleled. The poor empathy Knuckles had been capable of before has a passing contact compared to this.
His mind and Myla's touched directly. He fell into her thoughts and memories, and felt her do the same.
He had no time for this!
It took all of his control to cease reveling in the sensations and drag himself back to the task at hand.
"Myla," he thought, "we must do our duty!"
"Yes," she thought back, mastering the technique in an instant. "Master, what happened when the echidnas last touched your power?"
They hurled themselves into another dimension.
The voice in Knuckles' mind was overwhelmingly powerful; it reminded him of another reason why he called it the Master.
"What kept them there?" Myla asked tentatively.
The Chaos Energy they unleashed.
"Why did they start coming back?"
When the Children of Chaos were removed, the connection to the dimensional barrier broke. The barrier began to come down. This process ends today.
"Of course!" thought Knuckles. "Recently there was an incursion unlike any I have known. A metallic army and its human leader arrived here. For a brief time they stole the Master."
"Without the Master to maintain the barrier, it broke!" Myla thought. "Master, is it possible to return the echidnas to that other dimension?"
Yes. To do so would take time.
"How much time?"
Half of one standard day.
"We don't have that time!" Knuckles' thoughts were shrill, but he hardly noticed.
"Master, is it possible to stop the return process?"
No, but it can be slowed to a high degree. It would require all of an echidna's concentration to do so.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Since our minds are as one, yes. And no, I do not like it."
"Why not? It's the only way out."
Knuckles tried to think carefully, but Myla stole the words right out of his head. "Because it would be painful?"
"Extremely." Might as well be straightforward now, he thought, forgetting she could hear him. "To gain the kind of control with these powers you need to do this, the Emerald would first have to make you a guardian. Otherwise, you cannot control the Master, and its power is simply released—killing you and destroying much.
"The only way to avoid this is to become a guardian. It will limit your access to the Master, but increase your control. However, to do this, the Master will have to re-forge your mind and body, bind you to itself, and ensure a certain purity. All this will hurt you greatly—and if you were to pull away, or try to stop it… you would die."
"And you don't want me to die."
"No. You matter too much to me."
"Knuckles, it's very touching. It's the best anyone's ever thought about me. But taking this risk is the only way to stop the return. We can't love one another very well if we're dead, can we?"
Before Knuckles could answer, the room around began to glow. Instantly Knuckles reached deep into the Emerald, digging deep, scraping up as much power as he could. Then he lashed out with it all, searching for the barrier. His normal senses were useless, but he could follow the lines of the Emerald's power. There! The barrier to the other world was collapsing, but Knuckles threw his concentration into its maintenance.
The mental exhaustion came upon him immediately. He'd used the Emerald often recently, and this was the most extreme use of it in a very long time. The combination fatigued him almost instantly.
He was about to release when he remembered what it was he was doing—that to release it would be to destroy everything.
It was quite a motivator.
Even as he struggled, he felt a powerful backlash of pain. It wasn't his pain, though its intensity almost deceived him. Her pain! Myla!
She was allowing the Emerald to remake her!
No! he thought, helplessly.
"Knuckles." The voice in his head was hers. "It's the only way. It's what I wanted."
Pain! Knuckles felt like his body was melting. His control over the barrier was threatening to fall—his concentration was diverted.
She would die! And there was nothing Knuckles could do about it!
"Help me, Knuckles."
How?! he thought, struggling through the pain and fatigue. His body was shaking, but he didn't notice at all; his body might as well have not existed. How can I help you?
"Don't regret."
He stalled for a moment, surprised. Then he gave himself in. He embraced Myla's mind with his own. His concentration remained upon maintaining the barrier, but he was with Myla.
Myla was no longer at risk of dying from releasing the Emerald. Knuckles was with the Emerald, and she was bound to Knuckles. And Knuckles was no longer at risk of losing his control over the barrier. To lose that, he would have had to withdraw his consciousness, and his was bound to Myla's. They held tight, refusing to release each other.
They shared the pain and fatigue as his mind wore down and her body burned.
And they did not regret.