AN: Well all I have to say is I hope you enjoy this and please R&R. Oh I must thank Rocky the Echidna 24 for assisting me when I had writers block.

Disclaimer: I do not own any Sonic characters or the names of Sena, Ketru or Ali or some of the dialogue in 4 of the chapters they belong to Shadow-manic65. All the personalities, appearance and the goings on of the characters are my own creation.

Chapter 1

"Seasons come and go and change from winter to spring and as the children grow they defeat the two generations of Robotnik as the prophecy foretells. Gerald Robotnik and Ivo Robotnik. Everything is back to normal so they think, but in reality it is just the beginning. It will be a time of finding out new things and the reminding of old ones and going back to a time long forgotten…"

It was just another day of guarding the Master Emerald for the guardian Knuckles the Echidna. As usual he was sitting at the bottom of the steps to the Master Emerald shrine waiting to fight off anyone who would do harm to the Master Emerald. Still at least he had company. Usually he would be talking to Tikal. Tikal had managed to stay and be set free after everything that happened on the Space Colony ARK, but however today she was out shopping. Amy had insisted her buy a new wardrobe as hers were so '5000 years ago' and Tikal wasn't one to argue. She and Amy were rivals and she took it to mean that Amy was trying to find another reason to make her feel better about herself. So today all was silent as it always had been. Knuckles was talking to Vector on the communicator.

"Yeah Vex it's been very boring lately." Knux began, "We've finally been able to defeat Dr Eggman but not much has changed. Amy still chases after Sonic every time she sees him, Tails has been working on something in his work shop, Rouge is working on yet another mission for the president and Shadows helping her run Club Rouge while she's away. Espio's still here he says that he's had enough of you and Charmy going on about how this is the big one and wants a break. Quite frankly I agree with him and he needs one." There were muffled complaints from the other end of the communicator and Knuckles couldn't help laughing, "It's okay big guy you do what you want it's cool, well Tikal's actually gone shopping with Amy. Chaos knows why but anyway I can have a bit of peace on my own for a while." Knuckles then realised how tired he was after the night before. Tikal had decided to go somewhere on the island and as usual Knux had been up all night worrying. He yawned. "Anyway I'm bushed so I think I'm gonna get some shut eye. See ya Vex."

Knux then switched off the communicator and lay down asleep.

Meanwhile elsewhere two people were busy it seemed in dodgy dealings

"Ali are you having luck?" someone whispered into a communicator

"No and my feet are killing me. Are you sure this is the realm Sena entered Ketru?" the person named Ali replied.

"I'm positive. My spells haven't failed me before Ali and I don't think they'll start now."

"But we've been searching for a whole week, if she were here we would have found her by now."

"I know, I know but we can't give up now. I have four locator spells running, one of them has to turn up something."

"Are you sure she didn't backfire a spell or something?"

"Positive! She didn't have time. I don't even think she had the right ingredients."

"You know Sena. She's so powerful half the time she doesn't need ingredients."

"Don't worry we'll find her eventually." The one called Ketru seemed pretty sure of himself and as he finished his sentence the orb he was holding in his hand glowed green. "The orb it's glowing one of my spells has found her!"

"Yay finally where is she Ketru?"

"An island in the sky?" Ketru pondered and then realised, "Angel Island!"

It was a couple of hours later at least when Knux was woken by a rustling noise. He sat up sleepily and rubbed his eyes before looking around.

" What? Whose there?"

There was no answer but the rustling changed to a running noise. Knux then felt that something was wrong. He got up hastily.

"Show yourself you coward!"

Knux then heard a half-hearted laugh. He looked up to the top of the emerald shrine where he saw a woman with brown hair just below her shoulder blades wearing a black sleeveless top, black miniskirt, fishnet tights and knee length black boots with dangerously pointy heels that looked somewhat more like knives. She also wore a black fingerless glove on one hand and a dog collar like bracelet, a claw on her middle finger, a bracelet with a chain going into a ring and a strange henna design on the other. Her face was very pale and she was wearing black lipstick and had thick black eyeliner round her eyes. Although she looked bad news she also looked very young. She stood on top of the emerald shrine admiring the emerald. Knux saw she was about to take it. He ran as fast as he could to reach the top. When the woman saw him she smiled evilly. Knuckles was quick to confront her.

"Who are you and what is your purpose to being on my island?" Knuckles almost growled.

"I am Dr Lumenor Zelda Kaigea Sena and my purpose to being on your island is to steal your precious gem Knuckles the echidna."

Knuckles was taken aback. How did this woman know his name? Knux quickly made this idea scarce as most people knew of the Master Emerald and it's guardian.

"Trying to steal my gem eh?" he replied to her statement cockily, "Well you might as well leave now I don't have enough patience to deal with weaklings like you, Luma was it?"

"Please." The woman said courteously before punching him sending him flying off the top of the emerald shrine, "Call me Dr Sena."

Knux then scrambled up he wasn't going to let her go without a fight. He watched as Sena took the Master Emerald from its place and shrunk it. She then took a mighty jump from the emerald shrine to where Knuckles had landed. A jump like that would have injured a normal person, but as Knux had just seen with her shrinking the emerald, sending him an almighty punch to powerful for any other human and knowing his name she might not be normal.

"Give me back the emerald!" He warned her.

"And if I say no?"

"Then we'll have to do this the hard way." Knuckles stood ready clenching his fists

"Or." Sena dealt another punch but this time weaker, "We can do this the not even worth my time way."

Knuckles ran forward and gave many very fast powerful punches. Somehow Sena managed to block them all she then leapt over his head before doing a flick kick making Knuckles fall flat on his face, but as he fell Knux kicked Sena in leg. That made her lose her balance and gave Knuckles chance top get back up. He stood over her as she fell but before she even hit the floor she sprang back up again. Knux tried to punch her the fastest he could but just like an agent on The Matrix she dodged them all. Sena then jumped up and drew her hands above her head again like The Matrix and Knux was made to freeze as Sena kicked him. That made him fly back against the wall of the bottom of the emerald shrine. Sena then used magic to levitate him. Knux struggled but it was almost as if he had been grabbed by the throat. Sena then glided over to him and punched him in the face many times. She then made a throwing motion with her hand and Knux went flying away from the emerald shrine and then hit the ground. The force of the impact seemed to make a small earthquake and Knux blacked out.

Sena went back to the top of the shrine she looked over the whole island and to the bits of the city she could see beyond. She felt the now somewhat smaller Master Emerald in her pocket and smiled.

"In a matter of days." She said to her self satisfyingly, "This entire realm will be mine."

The woman Sena then disappeared leaving Knuckles where he was and Angel Island falling into the ocean.

"Hey look he's awake!"

Knuckles woke up to find a very blurred face looking at him. The fuzziness soon faded and he was able to look at the face of…

"Tikal!" He exclaimed happily and almost in relief before looking around and seeing Sonic, Shadow, Tails, Espio and Amy also standing by him.

Knux then realised where he was as the smell of disinfectant flowed through his nostrils.

"Ack!" he went at the smell and wrinkled his nose

It was a hospital. While he'd been knocked out Tikal had come back from shopping with Amy and saw that Angel Island was no longer in the sky. She knew something had to be wrong. She was on her way to the emerald shrine and saw Knux lying there she had rushed him to the hospital as quick as she could as he was obviously in bad need of medical attention. Knux just lay there seemingly to be coming to term with things. One arm was in a cast his head was done in bandages and he couldn't feel his left leg.

"Knuckles I'm so relieved I thought I'd lost you. Are you okay?" Tikal said with a slight worry in her voice, as he'd been unconscious for hours.

"I'm fine Tikal I'll be alright." Knuckles assured her.

"Hey Knux what happened?" Sonic asked. It was weird normally it was about Sonic having something to do with Eggman but now it was quite different.

Just the usual Knux couldn't help thinking someone tried to steal the Master Emerald and she was a hell of a lot tougher than Rouge I can say that. Instead though he just said this.

"It's a long story." He then gave a slight puzzled expression. Long he thought it's not long at all.

Meanwhile on Angel Island Ketru was angrily pacing the emerald shrine. Obviously something had gone wrong.

"Great. The island's fallen into the ocean, the Master Emeralds gone, but worst of all we don't know if The Guardian is still alive!" Ketru raved

"Hey Ketru!" Ali who had wandered around hoping to find something obviously had. Ketru hastily rushed over.

"What?" he panted when he reached her.

"Look at this." She held out a notebook it had the words TIKAL'S NOTEBOOK KEEP OUT and a picture of her on it.

"Looks like this guardian has a friend." Was all Ketru said.

"I know her." Ali said puzzled and then sat down and lent on her arm thinking. She then raised her eyebrows smiled and then got up.

"Yes?" Ketru asked scrutinisingly

"Oh, she was meant to be imprisoned inside the Master Emerald or something." Was all that Ali said. Ketru though seemed satisfied.

Ketru then took the notebook off Ali and flicked through it.

"Hmm looks like there's poems in there or something. We must start a search she might know about The Guardian. Do you know where she lives?"

"No but how about we start at Night Babylon."

"It's as good a place as any. Maybe she knows something about this. Looks like we're going to Night Babylon. Come Ali."

Standing beside each other Ketru and Ali uttered some words and then disappeared.

"And that's it." Knux reached the end of his story.

"I thought you said it was long." Espio said eyebrows raised. Knuckles just ignored

"So what you're saying there was this thief on your island, and she nearly killed you in less than two minutes?"

Knuckles just looked at the floor ashamed. Inside he knew that Shadow must be laughing no matter how serious he looked on the outside. Well it certainly felt like that. "Yes." He finally admitted.

"Wow!" Sonic exclaimed, "If this girl could do this to Knuckles just imagine what else she could do."

"I'm scared Sonic!" was all that Amy needed as an excuse to move closer to Sonic.

"It's alright Amy." Surprisingly Sonic put his arm around her shoulder. You could tell that moment all feeling Amy had of being 'scared' had gone as she grinned. Sonic then removed his arm and Amy's face then sank. Knux laughed inside as he could see both Espio's and Shadow's eyes roll.

"Oh Knuckles, what kind of monster would do such a thing?" Tikal asked her brother caringly.

"Whatever we may be dealing with it maybe bigger than what Eggman could've ever dreamed of becoming." Sonic pointed out.

"I thought all this was over." Amy sighed. Knux smiled again as he thought the only reason she was saying that was because without Eggman she could spend more 'quality time' with Sonic.

"Me too." Tails agreed.

"Well I should be heading back to Club Rouge now." Shadow informed them all. "Call me if you dig up anything. Oh excuse the pun Knuckles."

"Will do Shadow." Sonic called as he exited.

Shadow made his way down the streets of Night Babylon. The gamblers paradise or in some cases Vector's second home. It nearly always seemed night but was always full of activity either way. In most people's cases it was the slots at Club Rouge. Shadow had managed to close it the sign OUT TO LUNCH was still on the door. It had obviously been noticed, as the street was empty. Sometimes Shadow didn't know how Rouge coped with all the business and go on missions for the president. The life at Club Rouge was to hectic and noisy for him. If it wasn't for the service robots Rouge had recently got Shadow could say after the first day the business he would have either left Club Rouge in ruins or shut it up till Rouge was back. Even though Club Rouge was obviously shut on coming to the entrance and getting out his keys Shadow was taken aback at seeing two people standing outside.

"Excuse us." Ketru began, "Allow us to introduce ourselves."

AN Well I know it may be a short chapter well in my case it is but I have written it into a play so I'm doing it scene by scene. I must say I enjoy the whole beating up Knuckles thing (though I suppose someone will definitely disagree cough cough Rocky.) Anyway I'll update ASAP and I hope you enjoy it and please review.