As of March 2021 All existing chapters (1-8 ) have been remastered for spelling, grammar, and some other minor issues. Hopefully this will improve the experience. - Sarilleny
Fractured Frequency | Tension
In the shadow of the Master Emerald Shrine, a lone figure stood before the steps of a small island cottage—his destination. His journey had not been a long one; however, it had been some time since he'd last ventured to this place. It seemed in his absence, the island had remained frozen—unchanged as ever he'd seen it.
He stepped up to the door and knocked. The entrance remained still for a long while as he waited. When his patience waned, he grasped the knob, and cracked the door open just a bit to peek inside.
"Hello? Anyone home?"
The doorway opened to a small kitchen. It was dim, lit only by sunlight streaming through the windows.
"Knuckles?" The intruder tried calling weakly, though he was rather certain of the owner's absence now. Pushing formality aside, he opened the door further, and let himself in. Moving towards the table, he carefully set down a small white package that he'd carried along, then veered towards the pantry. When a few moments scanning its contents produced nothing of interest, he progressed further into the house.
At the other end of the kitchen, a doorway led into a living room. Walking through, he noticed that the lights were off in this room as well. Three doors, one on per wall defined the extent of the building's reach. The door opposite him was an exit. In the door to his left he knew he was unwelcome. Instead he made his way to the right, into a second bedroom, promptly dropped his backpack on the floor, and flopped onto the bed with a sigh.
"Ugh, shoulda known he wouldn't be here." Sonic whined
Finding the Master Emerald unaccompanied in the first place had been a bit of a surprise. Sometimes it seemed the guardian remained a permanent fixture upon the shrine. Of course, he knew that not to be the case. The island was vast, and there was much he tended to.
"So, if I were Guardian Knuckles where would I be," he asked himself cheekily.
Weighing his options, he figured he could either wait there, at the cost of extreme boredom, or continue his search around the island. A simple choice really.
With that thought in mind, he stood, grabbed his bag again, and made his way back outside.
He took a familiar long route that ran him through Marble Garden and Hydrocity zones, then veered off all the way to the edge of Lava Reef, before returning to Mushroom hill, where he settled into a walking pace along an unfamiliar forest path. As he walked along, he was struck with how isolating Angel Island could feel. It was strange how empty it was. He was used to the rowdy atmosphere of Station Squareunguided—a great contrast to this environment. Even during his furthest travels, there always seemed to be few people scattered about the countryside. He wondered why he hadn't noticed it before, and pondered the thought for a while. Of course, it had been a long time since he had trekked this much of the floating sanctuary alone. Not since before his first tumultuous meeting with Knuckles had he really explored it unguided—and even then, he recalled, Tails had been with him.
Sonic continued along the path for a few minutes more, before a rustling sound from behind startled him. He turned with lightning speed, and was surprised to find the very Guardian he sought standing behind him.
"Geez Knuckles! How do you do that?"
In response the guardian only raised an eyebrow, expression remaining stoic, so Sonic continued.
"How do you always just knowwhen someone is here?"
"It's my business to know."
Sonic rolled his eyes. "Ever the mysterious guardian act." He replied, pulling air quotes.
Ignoring the comment, Knuckles changed the subject abruptly. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, obviously I'm here to see you Knux."
"Yes, obviously Sonic, so what do you want?" Knuckles replied with exasperation.
"What is that supposed to mean? What's with the attitude?" asked Sonic, feeling defensive abruptly.
"It means, you never come all the way up here, unless you need something so hurry up and ask, cause I'm busy."
'Busy,' Sonic wondered for a moment before replying. "Hey, that's not true at all. We used to hang out up here all the..." But when he realized what he was saying, he stopped short, reconsidering his answer. "Well... you know how things have been. Neither of us exactly had a lot of spare time during that last debacle. I didn't see you complaining then.
"Pssh, Wouldn't have been a debacle if you could ever just stick to a plan," Knuckles huffed.
Sonic didn't reply right away. A slow sort of dawning realization washed over him. "Oh, you've gotta be kidding me Knuckles," Sonic drolled exasperatedly raising a hand to his forehead. "Seriously? That's what this is about? You're still mad at me for that last mission?"
When Knuckles didn't respond right away, Sonic continued.
"It was three...almost four months ago! Ugh... you know what, I take it back. I DO remember the excessive complaining now. That situation was barely salvageable at best. We couldn't have done anything to save the rest of the intel."
"You don't know that!"
"Yes I do! If I hadn't taken that chance that I did, we would have made it out with nothing at all!"
"Yeah, convenient that you only managed to get the info that was relevant to you."
"Err! Knuckles I already apologized for that! What do you want from me?"
Knuckles stared him straight down and replied, "I'd like you to tell me exactly what you need from me so desperately that you had to come all the way here to my island to bother me for it."
"I don't want anything from you Knuckles. That's not why I'm..." Sonic began, but he fell silent as something unexpected caught his eye, and he recalled exactly what had brought him there.
"Hey, what happened to your ankle? He asked, his previous chain of thought forgotten. He'd just noticed a bandage that tightly wrapped the echidna's foot. Looking up to meet the other's eyes, he received no reply, but in doing so began to notice the faded silhouette of bruises that were scattered across Knuckles' body.
"Geez Knuckles, you look horrible. What happened?" he asked suddenly concerned.
The echidna stared at him silently for a moment longer before replying, "It's nothing."
"Nothing? What do you mean nothing? Don't tell me you ended up like that from staring at the Master Emerald all day. Seriously. What's going on? Did someone try to take it? Did you get attacked?
"No Sonic, I didn't get attacked okay, just drop it."
"OK, so what happened then?"
"I said it's nothing! What are you doing here anyway," Knuckles asked exasperatedly, bypassing the question.
"You call that nothing." Sonic asked, pointing at his ankle.
"Look, it's just a bruise. I...tripped. Ok?" replied Knuckles, eager to change the subject.
"You tripped?" said Sonic giving him an incredulous look in reply.
"Grr, can you please just drop it Sonic? I don't want to talk about it."
"No Knuckles, why won't you just tell me the truth?"
"Why don't you just mind your own business?"
"Because you're lying."
—
Knuckles sighed, letting his aggressive stance waver for the first time since approaching Sonic. He had absolutely no desire to discuss this with Sonic, but was sure the incessant hedgehog wouldn't leave, let alone stop pestering him until he got an answer.
"..." He sighed again, and replied through clenched teeth, "Isortofslipeddownaravine..."
"Come again?" Asked Sonic confused. "You what?"
"I said...I... slipped...down...a ravine...OK?"
"WHAT!" Sonic exclaimed, unnecessarily loud. "Are you alright? When did this happen?"
"I said I'm fine Sonic. Please just drop it. It was like three weeks ago, ok? I'm fine."
Sonic remained quiet a moment before answering. Knuckles noticed a slight change in his expression during.
"Three weeks ago...? Knuckles, I called at least twice in that amount of time... So what? You just forgot to mention it? Are you crazy? Why didn't you tell me? Or why didn't you tell Tails? I know he called you too!"
"I said, I'm perfectly fine on my ow—" Knuckles began, but was interrupted.
—
"—Yeah, and what about the Master Emerald? Doesn't that make it a little hard to defend?" countered Sonic pointing at his friend's bandaged ankle.
Knuckles glared at him. "Watch what you say."
Sonic shot back a glare of his own. "Why should I when you're being stupid!"
When Knuckles spoke again it was with an edge of danger.
"Maybe you should leave Sonic... before I decide you're trespassing." He turned away from Sonic as though to leave.
"DAMN IT, Knuckles... I didn't come here to argue with you," Sonic yelled, anger blossoming.
"Yeah, well you can jus—" Knuckles began, turning back around, but he was cut off by Sonic.
"—Just SHUT UP, for a second, and listen to me! Why do you always do this Knuckles? I don't get it. What if something had really happened, like if Eggman had come up here, or someone else!" Sonic paused, trying to regain some composure. "Grr, LOOK..." He continued, a bit calmer.
"Look, I get why you're getting angry, but I'm not questioning your ability. Why do you take the risk? You say your duty is to this island, but what about to yourself?...I can't believe I called you twice, and you didn't say anything about this! Don't you trust me? I mean, ok, we both know I'm not the best-suited person to do your job, but I'd come if you needed help."
Sonic took a moment to consider his next words before continuing. "You know... you've saved my tail more times than I'd really like to admit, and through everything we've been through, I always know I can count on you to have my back. What I don't understand is why you don't let me, or anyone for that matter, do the same!"
Sonic paused, and looked the echidna straight in the eyes. He wanted to make sure he got through to his stubborn friend.
"Knuckles...just because you're the guardian of this island doesn't mean you have to do everything on your own... It's ok to ask for help. It's ok to want it... You don't have to be so... tough all the time."
For a moment they just stood still, intensely staring at each other. Sonic watched Knuckles closely, trying to read the subtle emotions that played over his face. The others stance falsely attempted to convey indifference, but Sonic could see through the façade. He wondered briefly if he had pushed the echidna too far, and sighed.
"Look, I'm sorry if I angered you, but you're my best friend Knuckles. We... you, me, the rest of our friends, we all of us go such long times without contact. I mean it's been almost four months since I've seen you, and yeah we spoke on the com-link, but that was like two minutes, and you didn't tell me what was going on anyway. It just worries me when you do this. When you shut yourself out. I don't doubt you Knuckles, but I don't want to find out too late that you took on something alone that you actually couldn't handle."
Breaking their deadlocked stare, he looked away, knowing that Knuckles wouldn't willingly back down first. He continued to speak. "Anyway, If you want me out of your way...I'll go." He turned back in the direction of the path he'd wandered onto, and started to walk away, but remembered something, and doubled back. "Oh, um... I... left a package for you back at your place...it's...well, just look for it when you get there, 'kay? It's on the kitchen table... Be seeing ya' then." Sonic reluctantly began his trek away.
It wasn't until he'd walked a good ten paces away that Knuckles finally spoke.
"Wait." It came as an uncharacteristically quiet response from the echidna, and was followed by an awkward silence. Knuckles quickly looked down at his feet frowning, when Sonic turned to face him. It seemed the echidna found himself momentarily speechless.
"Knuckles?," Sonic asked cautiously after moving a bit closer.
The echidna looked up and saw that Sonic was still waiting.
"...uh, look Sonic... you don't have to go... it... I just… I..."
Sonic knew he meant to make amends. That was all they needed for the moment.
"Red, no worries. Why don't we head back to your place. Is it cool if I stay the night?" Knuckles looked up and gave him just the slightest hint of a smile.
"Sure Blue. That's fine."
—
The walk to Knuckles' house was silent, but Sonic could tell the tension between them had dissipated for the moment at least. He observed Knuckles who walked a few paces ahead. His friend looked tired. Uncharacteristically so. The guardian he knew was proud, and stubborn, and did not let him get away with winning an argument so easily. Something was definitely up. Sonic couldn't tell just yet what the echidna was trying to hide, but he intended to find out.
TBC
Tension : a state of latent hostility or opposition between individuals or groups
NOTES
Ok, so I promised to be more forthcoming with this chapter. Where to start? Well I'm a huge Knuckles fan. Borderline obsessive maybe. (I like Sonic too...) So I think I have a very particular view of his character portrayal. I strongly dislike how he was portrayed in SonicX. The idea that he is just stupid and only worthy of comic relief really bothers me. Stubborn, yes. At times Naive, yes. But stupid? Absolutely not. I won't go into all the specifics of what I see in him. I hope the story will make that clear as it progresses. I suppose that also leads into the question of universe. Generally I lean toward the early Sega game universe, however I've taken some liberties with this story and borrowed various things from other universes as necessary. So overall it would have to be classified as AU. - That's it for now. A bit more at the bottom!
—
So how was it? Bit of a change from the prologue, no? I feel that you readers may be a bit confused after reading this. There was a lot of unexplained info flying around in this chapter, but things will get clearer down the line. I promise!
Some general info about this story... I've been working on it forever! Like two years now. My problem is that I don't tend to write in a linear fashion, so I have parts up to CH 10 written, but there are some gaping holes in-between. That is why I've started posting it. It forces me to fill the holes instead of editing and reediting the sections that are done! Because of that, some chapters will come out faster that others. The argument in this chapter was actually the first scene of this story to come into existence. It has been basically complete this whole time, but the opening of the chapter was a nightmare! I rewrote it about 8 times to get it to a place where I liked. So glad it's done and posted! Anyway that is why it took so long from prologue to ch 1. Ch 2 is mostly complete. Just a few adjustments really. I'll try to be quicker this time!
Thank you to my two wonderful Betas!
The first is my husband who has to constantly put up with me rambling about this story. (He's only half as interested in it as I am LOL, but he still takes time to read it and give me advice when I need it. )!
The other is Awdures! Thank you so much for your wonderful advice and commentary! I feel so much better posting this, knowing another Knuckles fan has read my work! ;)
If you haven't seen them yet, be sure to check out Awdures' fantastic stories. I recommend "Sojurn." It's one of my favorites!
Also thank you to my friend lpstribling for some lovely comments and advice!
And finally thank you readers, and especially reviewers! Spidesmi, speedy2009, Ellen17, thank you for your comments! Very motivational! (and Speedy- Im a big fan of " Diamond's Mystery" :)
Thanks!
- Sarilleny