(I do not own Sonic, etc....)

S.O.N.I.C GO!

S.O.N.I.C GO!

GO! GO! GO! GO! LET'S GO!

Echidna Saga

Episode 4: Into the past we go!

As Angel Island soured through the sea of clouds, Knuckles was quickly loosing his patience. Rouge had been here for a week now, and it seemed like she was making no plans to leave soon. In fact, it seemed like she was planning on an extended stay. So far, she had made absolutely no move on the Master Emerald, yet even so Knuckles was sleeping in shorter periods so he was watch over it more closely when she was around.

"Women!" He muttered angrily to himself as he rummaged through the thick forest of vines and moss, searching for fresh fallen fruits from the trees above, so far turning up little was that edible. Which it seemed made him even more aggravated. What was Rouge doing here, besides annoying him half to death? Perhaps the President wanted to keep an eye on the Master Emerald after Metal Sonic used it to transform into Metal Overlord, lest someone else like Eggman decided to get their hands on it. His choice of an agent for the job however seemed to suggest against it. Perhaps she was, as he'd suspected from the beginning, simply here to steal the Emerald for herself. He paused and shook his head. Admittedly, that wasn't very likely. Rouge may be a jewel fanatic, but even she couldn't possibly find any use for a gem the size of the Master Emerald. The fantastic power contained within it would attract too much unwanted attention to. So that said, what was Rouge doing here?

He gave up trying to guess and began concentrating on finding food. Strangely there wasn't much to forage for today, which seemed odd as he could have sworn there was plenty of food the day before. Eventually, after a long period of searching, the Echidna came across a fruit tree that still had some food on it's branches and began picking, only taking what he need for a single meal. He'd learned over the years that he had to watch how much he took, to use what the island could offer sparingly. It wasn't as if he could simply go somewhere else if the island ran out of food. He sat down on a rock that stretched out of the vine covered forest floor and three large fruits, native and common to Mobius, yet on Earth they might be considered alien and strange. As large as a mango, yet shaped like an Egg plant, it's skin a soft pink and yellow colour. He sank his teeth into one and began chewing. The flavour extremely sweet, making the tip of his tongue tingle.

"What took you so long?" Asked a voice as a sleek, streamlined shape dropped down the canopy, landing with effortless grace on the ground. Knuckles looked up, seeing Rouge as she walked over to him. As she sat next to him, he continued eating, ignoring her presence as best he could as she took one of the fruits for herself. "You know how starving I was?" She asked with playful anger. Knuckles could have gotten into another argument with her at that point, and he inclined to, however he knew it completely pointless. Rouge somehow managed to twist anything he said against him, and he still wasn't exactly sure how. "Nice place you got up here." She said after swallowing her first bite. "Yeah I could really learn to like it up here." Knuckles leanly chocking on his meal. "Oh don't be so stuck up. With a personality like that, you can certainly do with some company up here." The Echidna groaned out load.

"But I don't want any company!"

"And that's precisely your problem." She added coyly and before he could do anything to stop her, she kissed him on the cheek. Blushing, making his face turn even more red than it already was, Knuckles shoot to his feet, dropping the extra fruit in the process. He was about to walk forward very fast, making up some story about returning to the Master Emerald when it happened. When he took the first step, he found the ground beneath his feet wasn't solid. The vines were simply covering a hole as he put his whole weight upon it, they snapped as the Echidna went tumbling down through it. "KNUCKLES!" Rouge cried, already on her feet, staring at the hole in disbelief as she heard the Echidna' screaming voice cry out as he hit several hard objects on the way down. Without wasting a second she thrust her head down into the hole, finding only darkness, however her bat eyes were better suited to it, but in the complete pith black conditions all she could make out was a large underground chamber. The single shaft of light that came through the whole highlighting the Echidna's legs as he lay on the chamber floor.

"Owwww…" He managed to groan, pulling himself up, rubbing the back of his head. "Did someone get the number of that…" Before he could finish the pun however, he noticed exactly where he was. "Woah…" Was all he managed to finish his sentence with. Rouge flipped herself over and dropped down into the hidden chamber after him.

"Hey, are you ok?" She asked, helping the echidna to unsteady feet.

"Fine…" Knuckles replied, hardly paying any attention to her at all, his eyes fixed on a point directly in front of him. Rouge followed his gaze directly forward and now that she was down here she could see it, a titanic figure standing directly in front of him, arms spread wide. A pair of goat like horns spiralling out from the sides of it's head.

Tails and Amy screamed as Sonic, closely followed by Metal Sonic pushed their way up through the trap door that lead into Chuck's laboratory. It was already early morning by the time the two of them had arrived back at the Thorndyke Estate, re-tracing their steps several times to make sure any G.U.N agents who learned about Metal Sonic's escape from their truck would be going around in circles. Shadow, who had been sitting on the windowsill with crossed arms simply stared with wide eyes at the robotic hedgehog for a moment before sighing to himself and looking away.

"Woah woah woah guys!" Sonic said quickly as the two of them jumped behind Chuck, who had lost any perspective of the situation at all and was simply sitting in his chair with a confused look on his face. Chris, who had helped them tidy up the laboratory after the G.U.N robots made such a mess, was standing next to his grandfather with an equally puzzled look. "Everything's ok, he's cool guys, it's alright."

"Are you crazy?" Tails asked, poking his head out from behind the chair. "Him? Sonic, don't you remember what he nearly did a few months ago?"

"He's well aware of that." Shadow said simply with an angry sigh. "But you'll note by the various injuries each of them sustained, it's apparent that they worked out their differences." It was then that they all noticed the cuts and bruises on Sonic and the dents and scraps on his metallic copy. "Had a little rumble did you?" The black hedgehog asked with a cruel smile.

"So that's what you were doing all those hours." Amy stated angrily. "You had me worried!" Sonic gained a goofy smile, scratching the back of his head with one hand.

"None of you need concern yourselves about me." Metal Sonic said for himself. "I shall not be your enemy any more." They all stared at him for a silent, tense moment, but none of them moved.

"How the hell do you expect us to ever trust you?!" Tails asked. "You nearly destroyed the entire city." Metal Sonic was silent for a moment. "You're not even capable of remorse."

"Not true." The robot replied rather sharply. "While I hold little value for human life, I feel now my open war on their populace was a mistake."

"See?" Sonic butted in. "He's on the level guys, one of us now." Shadow push himself off the windowsill and walked straight up to Metal and stared him directly in the eye. There was another tense moment of silence ad the glare between them continued. Tails and Amy stared, holding their breath to see what would happen.

"That kick hurt." Shadow stated after a moment.

"Sorry." The robot replied and the black hedgehog gained a wide smile.

"Apology accepted." he replied as he turned back toward the window. "It's ok guys, Metal won't be trying to take over the world anymore." Tails blinked in confusion.

"He won't?"

"Don't see any point in it." Metal replied, placing his hands on his hips. It took several hours more of persuasion, but eventually Tails and Amy came out of hiding and actually managed to sit still without fidgeting in the robots company. Chuck, who decided to remain neutral in this argument busied himself by repairing the armour and limbs Metal Sonic had damaged during the fight. Metal simply sat on the table, letting the scientist work on him while the others, apart from Shadow who seemed reluctant to engage in any conversation whatsoever, talked amongst themselves.

"What happened to Fang?" Amy asked when the subject of the whole chaos in the city came up. Sonic grinned.

"Chaotix went off after him." He replied, leaning back into the chair, Amy had insisted on nearly tying him up in bandages after his cracked ribs and fractured arm had been discovered. Tails and Amy shot each other nervous glances that Sonic noticed. "I miss something?" The Two of them kept quite, preferring to keep the story Vector had told them about Fang and Mighty to themselves.

"I'm beginning to wonder if you'll ever help me resolve my little problem." Shadow began.

"Sorry dude, guess we left you hanging." Sonic replied. "So, go on, tell us the whole story." Shadow sighed angrily again before he related the story of how he was tailed by G.U.N vehicles for sometime, then attack by ghoulish cloaked figures.

"They claimed to be the financial backers of the Shadow project." Shadow added as Chuck look up from his repairs on Metal Sonic.

"They must have been lying to you Shadow, the backers of Pr. Gerald's research was the multi-million dollar corporation known as the Foundation. They're the ones current funding the Chao habitation and research program." Tails looked up.

"They were funders of project Shadow?"

"Sure, they've been around for that long. According to the business world when they first started out they were a military based company helping the army to create super-powerful weapons. It could be Project. Shadow was one of those."

"It wasn't meant to be." Shadow added sharply. Everyone, including Metal Sonic, looked his way. "Gerald had no intent of creating a monster for the use of war." He hesitated before continuing. "Maria was terminally ill with little to no hope of her living past her sixtieth birthday. Her grandfather wanted to create a creature that would have the power to heal her…… me." He looked down, unable to meet their gaze. "I never got the chance. Before I could be perfected, the military found up what Gerald was really up to and then…well we all know." There was a few minutes of silence, no one able to think of exactly what to say. Even Metal kept extremely quiet.

"I guess your memory came back then." Sonic eventually said, Shadow simply gave off an amused sigh, nodding his head once.

"Hey Tails." Sonic began as the fox turned to look at him. "I'm sorry." Tails blinked.

"For what?" The blue hedgehog sighed.

"It was me those bounty hunters were after, not you. They kidnapped you to get to me, if it hadn't been for me you wouldn't have been put through that nightmare." Tails smiled at him.

"It's ok Sonic. It wasn't your fault or nothing."

"I still feel pretty bad, ya know?"

Metal Sonic watched Chuck as he worked on him, remaining completely silent for the most part. Chuck was presently hidden behind a pair of thick, black goggles as he worked.

"You are Pr. Charles Thorndyke, the scientist that repaired me?" He asked. Chuck pause, pushing his goggle up over his eyes and onto his forehead.

"Yes." The scientist replied cautiously. The robot seemed to hesitate before turning away. Then he said something Chuck never expected to hear him say.

"Thank you." Before Chuck could reply, there was a loud beeping sound and everyone turned to look at Chuck's computer. The blinking light on the panels told them that there was an incoming message. Chris pressed a button on the panel, switching on the loud speaker com system.

"Thorndyke residents." He managed to say before someone cut him off.

"Is Sonic there? I need to speak with him." Shadow's eyes widened as he recognized the voice at once.

"Rouge?" He asked in surprise. There was stunned moment before the female voice replied.

"Shadow? What the heck are you doing there? Oh never mind, is Sonic there?" Sonic looked up.

"Yeah I'm here. That's the big deal?"

"Just get yourself and that Scientist friend of yours, Chuck, up to Angel Island on the double. I explain more once you get here." Without another word the line went dead.

"Well that was certainly weird." Amy stated as Sonic pushed himself to his feet.

Knuckles had never approved of visitors, for whatever reason, before. So finding him ready to meet them on the shores of the flying Angel Island was in itself a phenomenal event. Chris and Chuck had never been to Angel Island before and so were, for a few moments at least, caught off guard by it. Sonic had told them of the legendary flying Island of the Echidna people, kept floating by the power contained within the Master Emerald, yet little could have prepared them to actually see the actually landmass of the sky itself up close.

As the X-Tornado touched down on the edge of the island, Knuckles nearly had a heart-attack when he saw Metal Sonic sitting on the nose of the plane alongside his organic counterpart. It took twice as long as it did to convince him that Metal Sonic wasn't a bad guy any more than it had Tails and Amy.

As Shadow back flipped from the top of the tornado, landing squally on his feet, he found himself standing directly knew to the female bat herself. Who was staring at him with a very coy look.

"Do you know how much of a cow the President had when I didn't come back with you?" Shadow narrowed an eye.

"Too bad, I've no intention of going back."

"I wasn't asking you to." There was short moment of silence between them. "Good to see you."

"You too."

"So what's the big emergency Knucklehead?" Sonic asked as Knuckles, eventually, put his fists down in Metal Sonic's presence. The robot stood with his back to them, largely ignoring the Echidna's ravings. "Last time I checked Angel Island was official a no-tourists allowed destination, what you need us for?" The Echidna lead them all through the entangled jungle of angel island to where he and Rouge had been that morning, and to the partly concealed entrance to the chamber he had inadvertently blundered into. As soon as they lowered themselves through the small opening the ceiling, they were awe stuck by it's sheer size. Knuckles had put small burning blazers in various places to lit the interior, and it's true depth was revealed. It was like looking at the inside of a cathedral, with lancing pillars holding up a nearly collapsed ceiling, entwined with vines and other formers of creeper. As Chuck, with Metal Sonic's help, was lowered down into the chamber his jaw dropped.

"Astounding." He breathed, blinking several times as if he couldn't take it all in at once. "Archaeology isn't my field, but even so, I can see that this is remarkable." Knuckles, who had descended the pile of rubble that lead up to the hole in the ceiling, stood on the floor of the chamber, staring directly up a small, rectangular slab of rock placed upon a metallic pedestal directly in front of a collapsed construct that bore a resemblance to a shrine.

"I've been on Angel Island all my life, and I can tell you that there is nothing like this anywhere else on the island." He reached up and carefully took the slab, revealing it to have engraved writing on it. "The writing on this artefact isn't written in any Echidna language I know of. I'd like you to translate." The Echidna added, handing it to chuck, to gestured to Metal for a light source. The red glow from the robots eyes increased, illuminating the dark shadows of the underground colossal room. Chuck blinked in surprise as his eyes got a proper look at it.

"That's impossible." He muttered. "These are ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs."

"What dose that mean?" Chris asked Chuck sat down on the cold stone floor, placing the slab directly in front of himself.

"Angel Island is a land mass from Mobius, and yet here we have an artefact that could only have come from a civilisation that existed on Earth over five thousand years ago hidden inside it's depths." He paused, scratching his chin in puzzlement. "The odds of the ancient Egyptians and the lost civilisation of the Echidna's having exactly the same language are astronomically low."

Sonic, who had not been listening to a word any of them were saying, wandered the chamber trying to take in the details. It was then the large shape directly in the centre of the room caught his eyes. Turning and wandering up to it, he could see it was a statue of some kind.

"Who's big and ugly?" Sonic asked, looking up at it, putting his hands behind his back. Now that they had a better light source inside the chamber, the horrific demonic details on it became apparent. It was roughly humanoid, however a long tail swept from it's back, each side lined with curved spikes. Similar spikes ran along the outside of it's arms and legs, with four larger ones lancing out of it's back. It's hands and feet were cloven, with talons replacing the fingers and toes. It's face was hideous, with a skull like nose, large hollow eyes and insect like pincers where it's mouth should be. A pair of goat like horns curving out of each side of the head. It's body was completely made of muscle it seemed, able to put some of the body builders today to shame. It's sand stone base had runes carved into it's surface, all encircling the statue with artistic perfection. The gesture the statue seemed to be in was odd too. It's arms were outstretched, palms toward the sky, it's eyes gazing up at the sky lit sky above.

"That is Krish-kra-pal." Knuckles replied, looking back over his shoulder briefly toward it. "The god worshipped by my people eons ago." Sonic blinked, looked at the Echidna, then back to the statue.

"This thing?"

"Rather demonic looking isn't it?" Chuck added, briefly, scratching his chin as he stared at the tablet.

"Krish-kral…" Tails began, unable to pronounce it correct. "That's kind of a mouthful."

"It's his name in my people's ancient language." Knuckles explained. "Translated into English it means literally…all bend before him." Sonic gave an impressed whistle, putting his hands on his hips.

"I think I can translate this, it seems to be a religious text of some form." Chuck announced suddenly. "It speaks of the great Echidna Chieftain, Pachamac and his wars of expansion."

"And we all know what happened to him." Knuckles said. They had had all discovered for themselves some time ago what had happened long ago, when under Pachamac's direction the Echidna army marched on the Chaos Shrine, attempting to claim the Chaos Emeralds and their fantastic power as their own. And it was then that the mad guardian Chaos rose up and utterly destroyed them, but he didn't stop there. He absorbed the Chaos emeralds into his being and used their fantastic power to swallow up the entire Echidna civilisation. If it had not been for the courageous actions of the Chieftain's daughter, Tikal, Chaos would have destroyed the entire world in a blind rage. She sacrificed herself, entrapping both Chaos and her own soul within the Master Emerald. Bond for over 8000 years, until Doctor. Eggman learned of Chaos' existence and in a bid to take over Station Square.

"Well, we didn't know this." Chuck added, his finger tracing over the hieroglyphs. "Apparently, Pachamac was guided by Krish-Kral-Pal's High Priest on his destructive path. It seemed their entire religion was based on war and death."

"That was basically the teachings of Krish." Knuckles sighed. "From what I already know, He was a god of War and the Echidna High Priests were utterly devoted to serving his will. From documents I recovered from other ruins, it seemed to suggest that the Priests got their orders from Krish himself." Chuckled paused for a single moment.

"I find that highly unlikely, what's more plausible is that these High Priests are the true source behind the Ancient Echidna's love of conquest. They may have invented Krish to inspire people to them." Knuckles sniffed through his nose almost in protest at the comment and sat down on a stone slab, crossing his arms. "But is goes on to say, that part of their civilisation managed to survive the destruction of their empire, going on to…hold one a second…this part is hard to translate." Chuck narrowed his eyes, straining to read it. "To build a gateway to lead them back to their greatness." There was silence for a moment.

"And?" Knuckles asked.

"Nothing, that's it."

"Hey, over here." Metal Sonic called up, catching everyone's attention. The robotic hedgehog was crouching beside a collapsed stone pillar and a pile of rubble that had stacked itself against the wall. A mess of vines had snaked down from the holes above and covered the wall, keeping it completely obscured.

"What is it?" Sonic asked, walking over. Metal Sonic was studying the floor just underneath the collapsed masonry.

"There's air passing through here." The robot replied, directing the blue hedgehogs attention to a small hole between a collapsed section of wall and an overturned pillar. "And my sensors tell me there's a hollow cavity just a few feet beyond." Chuck pushed his way to his feet, putting a pencil and notebook he was using to scribble notes back into his pocket.

"Another chamber?" He asked, seeing if there was nose wide enough to look through. There were a few, but the space beyond was too dark to see into.

"Possibly." Metal replied as he stood back up, raising his hand toward it. Chuck realized exactly what he had planned and jumped in, alarmed.

"Woah!" he exclaimed, pushing the robots hand down. "Hold on there! We can't be sure of the chambers stability, you could risk destroying what may be inside if you blast your way in, or worse you could bring the roof down on top of us." Faced with those options, Metal lowered his arm. "Let's try removing the rubble, nice and slow." Sonic cringed, hearing his least favourite word. It took another hour, but eventually they managed to dig a hole wide enough for Tails, followed by Chris to squeeze through, finding that were was indeed another chamber just beyond it. Metal Sonic quickly followed to allow them light inside the concealed room.

"WOAH!!!" Came the extreme exclamation from Chris on the other side.

"What's going on in there?" Sonic shouted through the hole, trying to stare into the thick of the gloom but could only make out the back of Metal Sonic's legs.

"This amazing!" Tails replied. "Get through here guys, you have to see this." Once they'd widened the hole large enough, the rest of them quickly followed. Compared to the colossal chamber outside, this one was by far smaller, but it's size was not the thing that interested them at once. At the far side of the room, revealed by the glow from Metal's eyes was an oval shaped edifice. It looked like it was made out of stone, but gleamed brightly like newly polished metal surface.

"What the heck is that?" Sonic asked as Chuck cautiously approached. The entire room seemed to served around directly to it, as it the wall was being sucked directly to a point behind it. Whatever this thing was for, it was clearly significant.

"I don't know." Chuck admitted. It seemed to be, and this is rough guess mind you, a door."

"Door?" Shadow repeated in confusion, looking at it himself with sceptical eyes. "Don't look like no door I've ever seen."

"Doesn't actually look like any door I've seen either." Chuck added, finding a short flight of stone steps leading up to it. "I'm not even sure what it's built out of. Let's go back outside before we damage anything impo…" Before he could finish his sentence, his foot pressed down on some sort of hidden level and the entire chamber groaned, literally groaned for all it was worth, the distant sound of thunder rolling in the background. The circle before them glared bright yellow for a spilt second, before their entire vision as engulfed by a blinding white light.

"What the heck was that?" Amy asked, rubbing her eyes, then suddenly becoming aware of a massive decrease in their numbers. "Sonic, Knuckles, Chuck, Chris, Tails?"

"I'm over here." Tails replied, pushing himself off the cold floor having fallen over in the confusion. "But no body else is." The glow from Metal's eyes had vanished, engulfing them in darkness, and so had the robot himself. All of them, apart from the two standing alone in the ancient chamber, had completely vanished.

"Shadow, get off my back!" Sonic exclaimed sharply pushing the ultimate life form off his quills with a sudden shove. Chuck pushed himself to his feet and began to dust himself off, but found a sudden flare of sunlight catching his eyes. Reality now kicking in, he discovered himself no longer inside an ancient chamber in Angel Island, but rather standing in the middle of grassy feign. The grass long enough to reach his waist. The distant outline of tall, snow capped mountains seemingly the only border this massive field had to his fright, and to the left a thick jungle curved down a hill that rose up out of the ground in front, preventing view of whatever distant place lay ahead. Shadow, blinking his utter surprise, stuck his head above the tall grass.

"What was that?" He asked, voicing the first question on everyone's lips.

"And how did we get here?" Knuckles added, voicing the second question. Metal Sonic rose causally off the ground, running a system diagnostic of his systems while the other pulled themselves together.

"Never mind that." Rouge began as he dusted herself off, her eyes narrowed in severe irritation. "I want to know just where HERE is."

"My systems must have been damaged." Metal Sonic muttered, although he was acutely aware no one was listening. "My cryonic register is telling me the current time is 11:09 AM, January 5th, 3444-BC." Chuck, as Chris rose himself, rubbing the back of his head, trudged his way through the long grass toward the top of the hill, hoping to get a better view of his surroundings.

"Hey, just where are Tails and Amy?" The human scientist pause to catch his breath once he reached the hills apex, then looked up to see a sight that both shocked the amazed him at the same time.

"I think you people should see this." He declared loudly, gesturing to the rest of them to follow him, his lab coat flapping in a sudden cold wind. They quickly followed him, Metal Sonic waiting several seconds before doing so. Once they reached his side, they could see what he was looking at. Below was a valley that seemed to stretch on for miles, mostly filled with a lush, never ending green jungle. Just before them however, sitting directly on a river was an ancient city. And it was a city they all new, for Tikal the spirit of the Master Emerald had granted them visions of this place when Chaos had been released to do Eggman's bidding. This was the capital of the Echidna Empire, the beautiful walled city Perfect Chaos had destroyed eons ago, standing there before them as if the disaster had never occurred.

Flip Card 1:

Name: Knuckles

Age: 17

Species: Echidna

Job Description: Guardian of Angel Island and the Master Emerald.