Knuckles the Echidna was sitting calmly on a white chair inside a lab. There was a large machine circling around his head which shined green light onto his face. It was emitting low levels of Chaos energy into him. He looked through the glass to see the audience of his little experiment. He saw a pink furred female echidna wearing a black top and metallic rings around some of her dreadlocks, Julie-Su. Knuckles saw she looked nervous, with a smirk he reassuringly winked at her. The machine made a final pass on Knuckles face, and he suddenly heard an alarm. Knuckles only remembered flashes of what happened next. He remembered the machine now smashed in front of him. Su was staring at him terrified, behind her a guard took out his gun. He then saw her lying on the floor of a destroyed room with blood on her head. Then a guard firing on him with an older purple male echidna wearing a grey uniform behind him. The gunshots did nothing to him. He pushed the old echidna out of the way and punched the guard through the door with incredible strength. He then saw the older injured echidna crawling over to Julie-Su and then stared up at Knuckles begging for something. After that Knuckles memories cleared, he was back to normal sitting next to the hospital bed of Julie-Su who was unconscious and heavily bruised. Then he got into an argument with the older echidna whose arm was broken. Then soldiers chasing him. Knuckles had become very used to that after the event.
Knuckles opened his eyes; he was sitting in the middle of a large dark room breathing heavily. It had been years since that event in the lab and it had been 158 days since his last incident. He was now living in a small flat in Emerald town, a small city on a continent south of the United Federation. Knuckles sat in the dark with his head lowered trying to control his breathing.
The next morning Knuckles was cooking bacon on a stove in his very small kitchen. He scooped up one slice and gave it to his pet red and blue lizard which waiting patiently next to him "Is it ready, Chomps?". Chomps happily ate the bacon not really caring if it was ready or not. Knuckles put the rest of the bacon on a plate and took it over to a chair that had a Portuguese dictionary sitting on the arm. He sat down and turned on the TV and listened to a cartoon. He ate a slice of bacon and opened up the dictionary "Hungary? Com fome. Com fome?" he asked Chomps.
Knuckles walked through the streets of the town wearing a stetson hat to help keep his face hidden. His first stop was a martial arts trainer near his house. He was a chameleon who was teaching Knuckles self-defence and how to better control his anger. The two were sitting opposite each other with their legs crossed "Vamos trabalhar em sua respiração". The chameleon pointed to his chest and breathed in "Aqui, emoção…. Um, Fear no good. So, emotion and control". The chameleon breathed heavily, and Knuckles copied. The chameleon nodded "Deve ser mais fácil pra você. Voce tem um diafragma" he gave a slight laugh. Knuckles kept copying him, "A melhor maneira de controlar sua raiva é controlar seu corpo. Controle seu pulso. Respiração". Knuckles did so when the chameleon slapped his face. Knuckles tried to ignore it and continued to breath, but he could hear his watch beeping "Breath" the chameleon told him before slapping him again. Knuckles held up his hand "Wait" he checked his watch, his heart rate was 146bpm. Knuckles started to feel afraid but not for himself.
Knuckles was now in a crowded locker room at a bottle factory. He put his bag and hat inside his locker when a Hawk walked past and pushed him. The Hawk and his four buddies laughed. Knuckles ignored them and took out a blue boiler suit from his locker.
Knuckles was now walking through the factory handing packages to people. He gave one to a female bat who he didn't notice continued to watch him as he walked away. Knuckles kept going when "Nakkuruzu!". Knuckles looked up and saw the owner of the factory, an elderly human man gesture for him to come up. The owner took him to one of the switches for the conveyor belts which was sparking. Knuckles took off his gloves and examined the switch. He opened it up and moved a few lose wires before pressing the start button which got the bottle moving again "I can make it work for a while but you need… ". He tried to think of the best word "Um novo interuptor". The human nodded "Eu preciso de uma nova fabrica". The two laughed as Knuckles put the switch back together. The human patted his back "Cinco meses você tem me ajudado assim. Você é muito inteligente para o trabalho diurno. Deixe-me colocar você na folha de pagamento". Before Knuckles could answer a spark from the switch hit his thumb causing him to bleed. A drip fell from his finger and through the grate the two of them were standing on. A grate that Knuckles realised was above another conveyor of bottles "No. No! Shut that off! Turn it off". Knuckles ran down desperately to the conveyor. The human was confused but ordered one of the workers to shut off the conveyor. Knuckles put his gloves back on and walked across the conveyor until he found a drop of blood between two of the bottles. Knuckles sighed in relief and wiped it away before nodding up to the human who told the conveyor to start back up. Knuckles walked away not noticing that another drop of blood fell into one of the bottles which was now getting filled with drink and getting ready for shipment to anywhere on Mobius.
