A horrible new world

second chapter! god I'm so dumb! I don't even know how to edit my profile, all it says right now is metaldragon and the one story I have done. Hopefully ill figure it out soon because I've got tons of other stories I want to put on. The next probably won't be a tragedy but a romance. Anyway thanks to shadows dark angel for reviewing , I love your stories! There so funny! and I'm sorry that id didn't put this on sooner. Anyway , can some more people review please I don't mind flames but only if you have to. OK on with the story! I fixed the many spelling mistacks and added more detail , as I got a couple of complaints about it.

DISCLAIMER . I DON'T OWN SONIC , KNUCKLES , VECTOR or any other character mentioned. I only own jarula or jaws.

" Knuckles !"I whispered. He nodded and I froze in shock. It was indeed knuckles, but he looked so much older. His eye had dark bags underneath them and gave his face a shadowed look. His muzzle had a thick stubble growing from it and his fur was messy and unclean . Scars dotted around his body, including one that sliced across his eye. His muscle bulk had increased dramatically and they know bulged out of his chest, legs and arm. Yeah , that's right, arm. I looked across and saw it. Messily joined by an array of random wires, His right arm was completely missing, replaced by a sinister looking three fingered claw, which caused his arm to look almost like a skeletons. It particular evident when contrasted with his right arm, which was thick with muscle. His remaining hand had a cybernetic finger poking out through a hole in his glove. It separated his end finger and other two, making his hand look very strange. Last his head was partially covered by metal which replaced some of his lost skull , blasted away in an explosion I was later to find out. One of his eyes was missing, replaced with a red and black artificial one , which jerked and swiveled in its socket and made knuckles look like a demon . I couldn't believe it. Knuckles looked so awful, his darkened appearance make despair flood through my heart. His one eye narrowed and he said

" Sonic , a lot has happened and you must try to understand it all, we don't have a lot of time". I couldn't get a grip on myself. One of my best friends was now a cybernetic mess. My breath rushed in and out of my lungs. All atempts to calm myself failed as my eyes wondered from knuckles arm to his eye, which gleamed in the candlelight.

"Knuckles what... your face and arm... I ...I". I shock my head at my loss and forced out the words " what happened?". He growled to himself and said

"Long story short sonic, you've been in stases 11 years, a lots changed". I couldn't believe what he was telling me! 11 years! But knuckles looked really old, as if years of worry had aged him. Then I thought of something, but I was almost too scared to ask.

" what happened to everyone else?" I stuttered. Knuckles closed his eye and folded his arms. A look of faint pain appearing on his distorted face. He sighed and said

" Are you sure you can handle this sonic?". I thought about this, probably not, but I had to know at some point. Slowly I nodded, my vision completely back in focus. The room I was in looked like an abandoned hotel room, with outdated and dirty wall paper barely clinging to the sides and a foul stain splattered in the shadowy corner. It was completely bare except a small dirty bed that I was sitting on and a chair, which Knuckles took a seat on. " Well , it all started in the eggman's base" said Knuckles, his face screwed up in concentration, causing me to notice the wrinkles even more , as he tryed to remember the old events. He looked up again and I noticed that one of his dreadlocks was metal plated like his old friends julie-su. " well, eggman managed to capture you with a sleeping dart and was planning to make copies of you, so he put you into stases". Knuckles sighed, obviously the worst was yet to come. I trembled, what would this negative future have in store for me? "Gradually he made various models of you and used them to take over the world, we thought back as best we could, but over time each one of use fell". Knuckles strange face screwed up again and I could see new pain flooding into his eye. I braced my self for more , but didn't know if I could handle it. "Finally there was only four of us left, me, vector, shadow ... And rouge, we took the chaos emeralds that we had and headed towards the fallen angel island, where eggman had set up base around the master emerald. We managed to defeat him, but in the process freed his most powerful clone of you, which can use the power of the negative chaos emeralds". Negative chaos emeralds? That was news to me!

"What are they?" I predictably asked. Knuckles once again sighed. They say if you sigh you get old quicker, and right now I believed them.

" Eggman created them before his down fall, they are copies of the chaos emeralds, created from his hate for you and his jealousy, so, they came out negative and extremely powerful". Knuckles began to shake. I saw a tear forming in his eye, he reached into his jacket and produced a bottle, which he took a few gulps from and continued. I was shocked once more, knuckles was drinking! But then I saw sense, this world was a terrible one, how else could he quell his sorrows? I hoped that drinking was the only thing knuckles did...

" Any way" Knuckles continued "Shadow was captured, I don't know what happened to him... Vector is still here with me, we narrowly escaped and went into hiding "said Knuckles, who was taking another sip from his bottle. I noticed he had forgotten something, or left it out on purpose. Rouge. She and knuckles started of as rivals but they slowly became friends, I had no doubt that they had fallen in love in this strange future. But the question was, what happened to her? I saw Knuckles gulp down the rest of his drink. He grunted in frustration and smashed the bottle on the floor. He then started looking in his jacket for another. As he searched I saw his shoulders shake and tears form in his eyes. I knew what I had to do.

"Knuckles?" I asked tentatively. He grunted in response, so I decided to continue. "Knuckles? Rouge didn't make it did she?". No response, but I saw his hands start to shake rather badly and he couldn't grip his coat properly. He yelled and threw it into the air, then hastily tried to wipe away the tears. I walked over, put a comforting hand on his shoulder and said " don't worry It'll be all right". Bad move. When I said it I must have struck a nerve. Before I could react he grabbed me with his metal arm and hoisted me into the air by the scruff of my neck. His fist was shaking and his eyes twitched.

" Don't saw it will be all right because it can't!" He spat in my fast as he spoke, the actions of a lonely, angry and depressed man. " Everyone has said that it will be all right all of my life and were they right! No!" He ran over to the boarded window with me still in his grasp, smashed the boards and thrust me almost all the way out. What I saw then I will never forget.

The air was thick with smoke and grime. Grey dirty buildings were littered here and their and some were reduced to rubble. Lamps flickered on and of and nasty looking green and brown chemicals oozed everywhere, accationally letting out a hiss when they came into contact with something and melting it away . Robots protrolled the streets, their flash lights looking for... Something. Suddenly one of the flashlights locked onto a pile of rubble and the owner walked over. A small head appeared out of the rubble. The eyes of the cat widened in shock as he saw the robot approaching. He disappeared and then reappeared moments later, a male adult, female adult and two children in tow. I then realized that the pile of rubble was their home, that was all they had. But soon they were about to not even have that. The robot raised its laser and the cats ran, but to not avail. The laser hit its target and the family disintegrated in a flash. The robot moved of, searching for more victims.

After I witnessed that, I felt the most depressed I have ever felt in my life. Knuckles lowered me to the floor as silent tears slid down my cheek.

"You see sonic, everything is not all right" he growled sadly. I gulped, trying to force back tears, but I couldn't. I closed my eyes and tried to wish it all away. I banged my head as I tried to forget it all, but it was no use. I suddenly smelt alcohol and open my eyes to see knuckles holding a bottle in my face. I reached for it and almost drunk it when I realized what I was about to do and threw it across the room, where it smashed on the wall. Knuckles got up and stumbled over to where the alcohol was oozing over the floor. He stared confused at the running liquid before sighing and pulled something out his coat which he now had back on. I saw through the tears him lighting something, at first I thought it was just a cigarette but then I noticed it looked funny. I gasped.

"Knuckles? Are you on drugs? " I said staring at him in shock. He looked at me a little dumb struck for a second then hide the little stick. He looked highly ashamed although his expresion was now hard to tell. He cleared his throat and said in an emotionless voice

"I need to show you more sonic, your not from our time but your stuck here, so you might as well get used to it and help us, or you won't last a day"

I gulped again, Knuckles was right . I had to start fitting in or id be doomed. I couldn't go back, so I focussed on the future and said to my old freind

"So, what do we do now?" Knuckles ran his hand through his matted locks and said

" For now we just survive, so ill show you the rest of our hideout". He moved towards the door and led me out into a dirty hallway. I noticed that although their were electric lights the rooms were lit with dim candles.

" The power was cut years ago" Knuckles explained as if he read my mind " The area is no longer used by the robots except for the dumping of broken machines that can't be melted down" we entered another room then climbed down an unstable rope ladder. " We stay here because we can use the machines they dump as our own, but we have to be careful, over wise... Well you saw what happened to those cats...". We reached a door. Knuckles warned me that we would have to be very quick and then stared telling me about how it could sometimes take hours to wait for a group of robots to move away and make it safe. But come on! IM sonic the hedgehog! No robot is to quick for me! I grabbed knuckles real arm and sped out the door, through the street down another alley and by the solid door which knuckles said was the entrance to their hide out. Knuckles jumped to his feet when I realized him and said

"Oh , I forgot you could do that...". He cleared his throat and banged on the door. A light ran over us and the door opened, allowing knuckles and I to move in. The laser was probable a piece of stolen technology that knuckles 'friends' had stolen and altered to work as a security device.

After crawling through some hand dug tunnels and being scanned a few more times, we reached an area that looked like a kind of meeting place cross pub. The room was dingy, lit by candles and a light which looked like it used to be a robots flashlight. A thick smell of smoke, alcohol and urine hung in the air. Random tables which non matching chairs were placed here and their and a few creatures sat at them, some drinking or smoking , other simply sitting their quietly, lost in their own heads . We reached a counter where vector stood. Behind him he had a few shelf's with boxes and drinks and a few pieces of broken machinery laid on them. When he saw knuckles he said

" Same as usual Knux?" Obviously not noticing a certain blue individual who happened to have 'died' eleven years ago. Knuckles cleared his throat rather loudly but vector had his eyes closed and his earphones were blasting some trash at full blast so he couldn't hear. Vector had changed too, although not as severely as knuckles had. Many of his teeth were chipped and a foul odor of weed smoke hung around him. His nostril had a ring pierced into it which connected to a chain, the hung under his chin and joined another piercing in his left nostril. His scales were dirty and burnt and his face was a little wrinkled with stress.

Vector , having not heard knuckles say anything, turned to the shelves and pulled of a couple of bottles, mixing the contents together. He slid over a foul looking mix of blue and drown liquid, which evidently knuckles 'usual'. Knuckles , who was getting a little impatient, grabbed his usual and threw it at vector, splashing his face.

" Arrgh! What the hell are you on Knux?" he yelled, tacking of his earphones and shaking the cheap beer of them.

" The same as usual but that's not why I came here" said Knuckles in his usual gruff voice that now had a hint of lowlife gangster. Knuckles gestured towards me and vector dropped his earphones in shock. His jaws hung open as he saw me standing their looking rather out of place.

"Holy shit! I thought you'd been clogged! Where the hell have you bin the last decade sonic!". I looked around helplessly and said

" Well I was locked in eggmans old base and placed in stases, knuckles freed me just today". Vector nodded in interest but then looked like he had figured something out. His eyes widened and he ducked behind the bar , re-appearing seconds later with a badly made laser in his hand. I had know noticed that the whole room was staring. Quickly they had all pulled out their guns , all of them aimed at me. Vector stuck his gun right on my chest and shouted angrilly at Knuckles

" WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOUR DOING! HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT HE ENT ANOTHER FUCKING CLONE!". He panicked and dug the gun into my chest even harder as I hoped he woud'nt shot. I looked helplessly at Knuckles, who sighed and shock his head.

" honestly vector" he said calmly with just a hint of anger " you've known me for what? 15 years? And you still don't think I have the sence to check if he was a clone or not?". Vector eyed me warily and said while not removing the gun from my chest

" so hes not a clone?" He asked stupidly. Knuckles did his own version of a frustrated glare at Vector and said

" no , he's not a clone". Vector let out a huge sigh of relief and lowered the gun. As he did so the whole of the room relaxed and gradualy I heard shuffles of gun holders being refilled. I hung my shoulders. Already this world was proving to much for me ... And I hadn't even been here a day.

Suddenly , my stomach rumbled. I realized I was hungry. I turned to Knuckles who was lighting another split and angrily said

" Hey can you not do that!" Knuckles looked at me a but dumfounded then shrugged and threw the stick away, killing its heat with a stamp from his black boot . Satisfied , I continued. " Any way, do you have anything I can eat knuckles?". Knuckles grunted and turned to vector

" Got anything?" Vector turned his headphones back on and yelled into a doorway that led to somewhere else

" Jaws! Get your ass here now!". A grunt could be heard and a smaller croc walked out, dressed in worn leather and had a tattoo of some kind of tribal markings covering his face like a mask. The smaller croc looked at vector and said rudely

" What!". Vector took of his earphones and said

" Hey! Take these and fix them... Um... hey don't go yet! Did you fix that laser?". The teen rolled his eyes and said with adolescent impatience.

" No". Vectors eyes burned in fury and he said

" Well hurry up and fix it, oh yeah and get some food". The teen grunted and said

"What for?"

" For sonic, that who". Jaws sighed and said

" Whatever". He turned to go and I turned to knuckles and said

" Who was that?". Knuckles , who was about to light another joint, he through it away again and said

" That was jarula, the guy who fixes all out broken machine parts and he's also vectors son". I nodded. I figured some of us would have sons or daughters, I wondered if anyone else's offspring were around here. Or if any of us had a chance to have a child. I wondered if Knuckles did and that was why he was so upset about Rouge. But I didn't want to ask that question right now. All I knew was my life would never be the same.

AUTHORS NOTE

OK , could you do me a favor and review? too long, too short, too sad anything. or you could say its perfect... whatever , I don't mind. oh and one more thing, could you tell me some streets names of drugs please. I need it for my story cozy I don't have a clue what their called.