11. Testing a Weapon

Knuckles the Echidna stomped through the streets of Emerald Town. The little suburb was peaceful in the late afternoon light, but Knuckles was not. She did it to me AGAIN! WHY does she have to . . . ? But he knew why: she had to tease and embarrass him because that was what Rouge the Bat did, and he was, unfortunately, an excellent victim. He growled and raised a clenched fist, wishing that she were there so that he could whack her, although he knew perfectly well that he'd do no such thing, even if he could. Unless she actually did threaten the Master Emerald, he couldn't do much more than bluff and grumble, because he possessed an incongruous streak of chivalry that simply wouldn't let him attack a female without significant cause. And flirting didn't qualify, however much it made him squirm. "I should teach her that Knuckles doesn't mess around," he growled, then sighed. It wouldn't have been quite as bad if Sonic didn't insist on teasing him about it. Tails, at least, was young enough to miss half of the bat's innuendo, and Knuckles had a feeling he was missing a certain amount himself. Comes of being raised by a bunch of chao and old dead guys, he supposed. I wonder how Shadow manages with her? I'll bet old Gerald didn't include much on dating in his programming. Still, Shadow was a much faster thinker than Knuckles was, which was half the echidna's problem. Rouge didn't ever give him a chance to think! He'd learned (finally, Sonic would say) not to jump to conclusions so fast, but she skipped from taunt to helpful to tease so fast it made his head spin.

"Knuckles! We're here!"

"Huh?" He blinked over at Emerl, who had grabbed his arm. "Oh, we are." They were in front of Tails' Lab, and he had nearly walked past it. He jogged up the walk after Emerl who'd already done a Sonic-style sprint. He waited for Knuckles to actually open the door though. "Tails!" the echidna called. "We're back!"

There was a rustling noise and the little fox backed out of a cabinet, dragging a piece of fabric. "Hey, Knuckles! Emerl! Welcome back!" His hands were full, but he waved his tails in greeting as he piled the material on top of a workspace.

"I'm home, Tails!" cried Emerl, then folded his arms and looked sternly at the fox. "Have you been a good boy?"

Tails laughed, and answered, "Yup! How about you? Were you a good boy?"

"Heck yeah!" replied the robot proudly, rasing a fist.

"Knuckles!" The cub cupped a hand over his mouth. "What've you been teaching him!?" He looked at the robot, who had lifted a table by one leg and was looking at the bottom of it. "Looks like he's gotten a lot stronger." He muttered the last part - "But it looks like he's not getting much smarter." - but Knuckles heard him and bristled.

"Look, I was careful around him. Right Emerl?"

"Heck yeah! Knuckles doesn't mess around!" Knuckles groaned - when would he learn to watch his mouth? Thinking out loud was a habit he'd gotten into on Angel Island, where the chao didn't care what he said. It was a hard one to curb when he ended up around people.

"Knuckles!!"

Not wanting a lecture from a cub half his age, Knuckles changed the subject hurriedly. "H-hey, that reminds me!" He fumbled for the yellow Chaos Emerald shard.

"What?" asked Tails skeptically.

"We found this!" He held his shard out, and Emerl dropped the table with a crash and hurried over to hold out his two shards as well.

"That's a Chaos Emerald!" Tails reached a hand towards the glowing crystal, touching it lightly with one gloved finger.

"Well, a shard of one," agreed Knuckles.

"Let me see it." Tails glanced up for permission, then took his shard, inspecting it closely. Then he took Emerl's two shards and compared them to the first, holding a little gadget over them and staring up at his computer monitor. "If you could get two more shards of the same color, you could probably form a whole Emerald," he said thoughtfully.

"Two more, huh? Rouge said that the fake Emerls all had shards."

"That's it!" Tails typed something rapidly into his computer and the screen zoomed in on several glowing dots, then opened small windows beneath them, showing stop motion footage of several of the silver Emerls. "The fake Emerls are all powered by Emerald shards!" He had the air of someone who'd just worked out a problem, and Knuckles was pleased to have helped solve one, for a change.

"Yeah," he added, remembering what Rouge had said and suddenly realizing how two and two fit together. "Eggman tried to copy Emerl's technology." Emerl ran on Chaos Emeralds and Eggman experimenting with Emerald shards powering robots; even if Emerl hadn't stolen an Emerald from him, Eggman had good reason to want to track him down.

"Hmm," said Tails. "And knowing him, he's probably going to come and try to take Emerl back!"

Knuckles grinned; here was a way he could definitely help, and show Sonic that the hedgehog wasn't the only hero in town. "All right, Emerl! Time to train!" No one knew fighting like Knuckles, and if a lot of his techniques were ancient echidnan martial arts, that meant no one alive was likely to know the countermoves, except Knuckles himself. He could certainly teach Emerl to defend himself against the phonies. "Come with me to the beach," he told the robot. "I'll make you strong enough to beat Eggman!" He headed for the door. There was no room in the lab for the sort of training he had in mind.

"Hey!" hollered the robot behind him. "Whaddya think you're doing! Don't go running in front of me!"

Tails shook his head as the door slammed behind the robot. "Nope, he's not getting smarter at all. . . ."

Knuckles picked himself up, brushing sand out of his fur. "Okay Emerl," he said, getting into fighting stance again. "I've been holding back up until now. But there's no excuse for me losing, even if I was holding back. It's about time we settle this once and for all! A no-holds-barred battle!"

It was, actually, a novel experience for Knuckles, fighting against a real opponent using echidnan techniques. He'd learned the skills himself from his dream guides, and practiced them on his own against dummies, or the phantoms that the Master Emerald produced, but the dummies didn't fight back and the phantoms - typically Sonic, or later Shadow - used the same techniques as their originals. So having his own moves turned against him was a challenge that positively thrilled the red Guardian. The downside of this was that he didn't really have very good counters to a lot of the moves; although he had been taught those as well, without someone to use the attacks against him, his timing tended to be off, and the robot somehow managed to duplicate those moves better than Knuckles could perform them himself. Which meant it could block his attacks as precisely as he could attack, and attack him back with the same precision, while he couldn't block those attacks effectively. Which was annoying, but not enough so to counter the excitement of having a genuine opponent at last. And Knuckles had been holding back some, remembering how easily the silver robots with their I-on-O marks had been smashed, but clearly Emerl was much better constructed, despite his age. So the Guardian curled his massive fists and sailed back into battle.

Emerl planted his metal feet and crouched slightly, catching Knuckles' fists as he approached and sliding sideways, letting the echidna's momentum carry him past. This time, however, Knuckles twisted himself, pulling a tight U-turn. He only half hit the robot, but at least he didn't end up face first in the sand again. And since it was a new technique - as far as Knuckles knew, he'd just invented it - Emerl wasn't expecting it either, and actually sat down himself. Knuckles lowered a foot to use as a pivot, and channeled the momentum of his glide through a fist a complete one hundred-eighty degrees to slam against the Gizoid's head. Emerl's eyes flickered and the golden form fell flat on the sand. Smiling grimly, Knuckles planted his fists on his hips and waited. A few moments later, the lights behind the blue optics flashed on again and Emerl jumped to his feet. "Not too shabby, but you're not gonna get past my guard again!" the robot declared. "Bring it on!" The echidna grunted acknowledgement, and considered a moment, then mentally reached for the Master Emerald. Suddenly he dropped, pounding a fist into the ground. He wasn't sure how well it would work this far from Angel Island, but he managed to raise a surge of sand. As Emerl flinched back, raising his arms to shield his face, the scarlet foe drove a spiked punch into his ribs, or what would have been ribs if robots had such things. Emerl retaliated by slamming his raised forearms down onto Knuckles' head, but barely brushed the crimson dreads - the echidna had been expecting such a move. He hadn't expected the robot to suddenly switch modes and wrap a pair of near-invisible tails around his ankle, tripping him into the beach again. Even as he tried to get up, a metal foot landed firmly on the back of his neck.

Knuckles went still; if Emerl had used full force, or even now if he leaned enough, he could snap the echidna's neck. However, the Gizoid instead twisted Knuckles' tail, then removed his foot, jumping up and down as his opponent got back on his feet. "I win, I win! I can beat anybody, so there! I can twist your kinked tail!"

"Hah hah hah!" growled Knuckles irritably. "You sure are a powerful, annoying, little kid!" He brushed ineffectively at his fur; the sand was clear through to his skin and itched ferociously.

Emerl cocked his head and replied to the echidna, "I sure am!"

Knuckles growled and waded into the water, trying to rinse the sand out. Of course now I'll have salt in my fur, and that itches as well . . . . He wasn't really that annoyed, though, it had been the best workout he'd had in a while, even if he had ultimately lost.

A familiar and much unloved cackle rang out across the sand. "Hah hah hah! Well, Gizoid! I see that you've really started to grow up!"

"Eggman!" Knuckles whirled to face the human as he glided up in his Eggmobile. The small hovercraft made almost no noise as it slipped above the sand, but it blew up enough of a wake that Knuckles could just make out the silver forms behind it. Robots of some sort, he was certain, but he couldn't identify the type.

"Long time no see!" chuckled the Doctor.

Emerl tipped his head the other way, looking at the new arrival. "Huh? Who are you!?"

The human's eyes widened enough to lift his brows free of the dark spectacles he habitually wore. "Huh!? It's me! Doctor Eggman! You should learn some respect!" The brows lowered ominously as the doctor noticed Knuckles' smirk. "Enough! Get him, Phi #4! Capture Gizoid!"

Knuckles had been expecting that command, and now the two silver shapes stepped through the sand-haze; one took a guard position before the hovercraft, the other marched towards Emerl and grabbed its prototype by the arm. Emerl looked at the hand on his arm, looked at the blank silver face before him, then punched the other robot right between its black eyes. Knuckles let out a whoop as the Phi staggered backwards, and jumped forward himself as it hurled a familiar-looking bat-shaped bomb at the Gizoid.

Emerl blasted the bomb out of the air without apparently looking at it, and followed with a shot at the other robot's midsection. Phi took wing (it was most annoying, how they kept using body parts they didn't actually have, Knuckles thought) and avoided the Gizoid's attack but it put itself neatly in the path of Knuckles spiked fists as he glided in to join the fight. A neat blow knocked Phi back down where Emerl attempted to stomp on the other robot, then used Knuckles' ground punch move and rattled it badly - and literally. The echidna blinked as he straightened from his landing crouch, feeling the tremor through the ground. How did he do that? Surely the Gizoid doesn't have a link with the Master Emerald . . . or can he borrow mine? Can he fool the gem into thinking he's a guardian, or an echidna? He snorted and shook his head. That was clearly ridiculous. Tails had said that Professor Gerald had said that Emerl was a relic from the Babylonian days, and although the echidnas back then had traded with the Babylonians, they weren't the sort to trust allies very far, even before Pachacamac's reign. One might as well think that the Gizoid was part of the mythical Nocturnus clan, which had allegedly challenged Pachacamac and then vanished so completely that not even a relic remained. Knuckles doubted they ever had existed; certainly there was a complete lack of artifacts. And I should know, I've looked.

At any rate, Emerl had managed to break the other robot's right shoulder joint, and was now hitting it with its own arm while Eggman spluttered in fury. Apparently he'd been sold a faulty batch of steel, or something of the sort. Knuckles snorted, then grinned widely at the human, baring the longer canines carried by male dokan. "Did you think your robot could stop us? That Emerald shard is ours!"

The human glanced at the echidna, then looked back to the robots to see Emerl extracting a yellow crystal from the defeated Phi. He scowled ferociously while Emerl announced, "I'm feeling great!"

With a snarl, Eggman spun his Eggmobile around, calling Phi #5 to follow. "Darn! Retreat!" He darted away, with the robot running after him.

Generations of proud warriors demanded that Knuckles not let his foe escape. "I'm not letting you get away! Let's get him, Emerl!"

"Don't fall behind, Knuckles!" The gold and tan robot dashed off like a certain blue hedgehog, showering the echidna with a cloud of sand.

"H-hey!" Spluttering and trying to clear his eyes, Knuckles stumbled after the others. "Emerl, wait!" By the time he could see again, both robots and the Doctor were gone. Knuckles considered a moment, then scurried up the nearest palm tree and started a long shallow glide. Traveling from tree to rooftop to power pole, he worked his way in a straight line towards Night Babylon. Emerl had said that he and Rouge had found an Eggman base there, so rather than trying to track on pavement, let alone track a hovering vehicle, the echidna would try to head them off en route.

Sure enough, at Marks Crossing, only a few blocks from Night Babylon, he crossed paths with the others. This was a relief, as during his trip he'd had a chance to realize that Eggman had actually taken the Gizoid back, in essence. Eggman was not pleased to see him again. "So you've caught up with me!" he growled at Knuckles, as Emerl jogged to join the echidna ("Hey Knuckles! What took you so long?"). "You persistent punks!" continued the scientist, "Get them, Phi #5!"

The remaining Phi robot jumped into the air and glided towards Knuckles, spikes erupting from its own knuckles. Knuckles laughed as he caught it by the wrists and stepped out of the way. "You think you can defeat me with my own tactics?" he snorted. Emerl pulled out a bat bomb and lobbed it on the other robot. Unfortunately, he didn't aim very well, so the resulting explosion merely removed the three-pronged headpiece. It did throw the robot off balance, however, and Knuckles kept it that way with a solid punch. Emerl spindashed into the opponent and dented it severely. Knuckles repeated the punch and number five went down just like the others. Emerl pried out the shard and held it up triumphantly.

"Ha haa!" Knuckles cheered, while trying to figure out what to do about Eggman.

"Iyaaa!" crowed the robot back, which startled the echidna - that was an ancient echidnan cheer.

Must be an coincidence, he told himself. "Not too bad, partner!" He clapped Emerl on the shoulder with a clang.

"Partner?" The gold face swivelled toward him.

"Yeah, you're my battle partner," Knuckles told him, keeping his eyes on the Doctor. Eggman had a fist to his chin, staring vaguely at his control panel. He's plotting something. I'd better find out what he's up to. Emerl certainly wasn't vulnerable to the Phis, so there was no reason not to take him along.

Suddenly Eggman looked up at his enemies. "Aaarrgh," he cried, grabbing his moustache in both hands, "I've been defeated!" He let his moustache slip free as he stared around dramatically, then did a very bad imitation of someone getting a bright idea. "I must retreat to Gimme Shelter." He glanced at Knuckles and Emerl again, and repeated loudly and slowly, "THEY'LL NEVER FIND ME IN GIMME SHELTER, LOCATED IN NIGHT BABYLON!" Then he grandly and slowly 'raced' off in his hoverpod, leaving no doubt of the direction.

Knuckles and Emerl looked at each other. "Sheesh, why didn't he leave a trail of breadcrumbs, or something," grumbled the echidna. Then he frowned. "What's . . ." he started, pulling Emerl's head forward. He cut himself short as he identified the small metal receiver tucked under a horn. Had Eggman put it there, to listen to the people who picked up the Gizoid? Hmm. The Doctor clearly wants me to follow him to this Gimme Shelter place; he's probably trying to trick me again. We've got five of the yellow Emerald shards now, so we could head back to Tails' lab and see if he really can put the Chaos Emerald back together, but Eggman probably has more of those Phi 'bots in his hideout, so maybe we can go on and get those too! In fact, that's probably what he's up to; he's going to lure us in so that all the remaining Phis can jump us at once and then he can kick me out and keep Emerl for himself. But if we're expecting an ambush, he'll have a much harder time of it, and I'm not so easy to throw out as he seems to think. The echidna huffed, irritated that Eggman thought so little of him. One or two extra robots were hardly going to defeat Knuckles, since he'd already taken on pairs of the things with no trouble. So, we'll head on to Eggman's lair, and show him that he can't defeat an echidnan warrior so easily, AND reclaim the other Chaos shards as well.

He let go of Emerl's head. "We got the fifth Emerald shard, but we'll head back to Tails' lab later! We gotta catch Eggman! We'll get him this time!" That should ensure that the human was ready for them to arrive, so there'd be no doubt when Knuckles defeated him who was really the best.

"I'll make him pay!!" averred Emerl, and ran off in the direction of Gimme Shelter.

Knuckles groaned as he followed. "Do I really say things like that?" He ran after Emerl as the robot turned down an alley and ran through an open, battered-looking door in a brick wall. Knuckles had just time to realize as he ran through it that the inner walls were metal before a metal door slammed down from the ceiling, cutting off their escape. Automatically he braced for an attack, but nothing happened. Emerl wandered around, then poked a button beside a door in the opposite wall.

"Emerl, wait!" Knuckles got in front of the robot and jumped through the door, ready for an ambush. Instead it was a nearly empty hall, with pipes running along the ceiling and no sound except for distant clinks of metal on metal, and the faint hum of electricity. Then the echidna detected a faint, familiar chortle from an open door ahead to the left. Aha! He jumped through. "Is this the place!? Where is he?" Still no attack, no robots, no Eggman even, just an empty room.

"Gotcha!" Eggman's face appeared on a screen set into the wall, looking entirely too pleased. Knuckles stepped forward to challenge him, and every muscle in his body spasmed painfully. Not again! This is what he did to me in the palace! He tried to stagger back, and the electricity released him, but then grabbed him again.

"Argh!" He somehow got balanced. "W-what's going on? I can't move!" Even as he asked he worked it out. There was a wide metal plate on the floor that echoed one on the ceiling, and somehow the Doctor was generating electricity between them. Where the echidna stood, a black rubber disk was inlaid in the floor and ceiling. As long as he balanced on this tiny black spot he was safe, but moving into the space between the metal plates would shock him. But in that much it was an improvement over the prior situation in the underground palace, when Eggman had simply shocked him into near-insensibility.

"What's wrong, Knuckles?" asked the robot behind him.

"Don't come any closer, Emerl!" cried Knuckles in alarm. He tried to turn, and lost his balance, pain jolting through his body until he managed to get free again. The fact that the shock made his muscles spasm made it even more difficult. But he could see the Gizoid now, and Emerl was standing on a strip of rubber that made a three-foot black border around the edge of the floor.

Doctor Eggman, however was laughing his ugly head off. "Hah hah hah hah! You fell right into my trap, Knuckles!"

Knuckles was furious and mortified at once. He'd been prepared for an ambush trap, not a mechanical one, and had rushed in just like everyone always said he did. But he had thought it out! He'd expected a trap - just, not this one. "You tricked me!" he growled.

"Hah hah hah!" Eggman was enjoying this far too much, thought the embarrassed echidna. "I deserve an award for my acting!" Knuckles choked. Now that's too much - he actually thinks he fooled me with that? Of course no one will believe me if I say otherwise. He tried to lunge for the clear zone where Emerl stood and got zapped again. Somehow the electric field cut his momentum, or prevented him from getting any. He literally couldn't leave the spot. "And this ultra-powerful 'spiky rodent trap' I developed to catch Sonic works perfectly!" Eggman continued. Hmph. Some genius if he doesn't know the difference between a hedgehog and a mouse. "It works even better than I expected! It shoots electricity through your body so you can't move! So, no matter how strong you are, if you can't move, you can't escape! Ha ha ha ha!"

"What're you up to, Eggman!?" Knuckles demanded, getting sick of the laughter aimed at him. He was trying to figure out some way out of the trap, but coming up blank. Could Emerl throw him a line and drag him across, perhaps, even if Knuckles himself couldn't move? Although getting shocked the whole way across the floor wouldn't be much fun.

"What else?" asked the Doctor rhetorically. "I shall take Gizoid back and fulfill my plans to take over the world! Once I have Gizoid acquire my ultimate weapon, 'Final Egg Blaster', I can tell the world's governments and GUN that I'll be able to use it as my final weapon of destruction."

"What the heck is the 'Final Egg Blaster'?" asked Knuckles in spite of himself. It sounded like a sci-fi handgun that shot eggs at people. He couldn't quite see the GUN Commander yielding to that.

The human blinked, frowned, and replayed what he'd just said in his head. Then he said, with a scowl and a shrug, "Oops! It's still supposed to be a secret! Well then! I must return to complete my secret 'Final Egg Blaster', so you'll have to excuse me!" Then in a completely different tone, he said "I leave the rest to you, Chaos Gamma."

"If I win, you'll give me a Chaos Emerald, right? You promise?" It was utterly eerie; the voice was the same - produced by the same equipment - but somehow absolutely soulless in a way that the original Gamma had not been. The missing quality was one Omega did have, Knuckles realized, and Emerl, and even that Metal Sonic robot. What this Gamma's voice sounded most like, the echidna thought, was Shadow, when he'd been 'possessed' by Gerald's programming and trying to destroy the planet. The tall metal form clanked out of a dark niche on thin metal legs, then folded into a squattier stance that hovered across the floor, apparently immune to the electrical effect that was restraining Knuckles.

"Of course! I promise!" the mad scientist assured the robot. "But be sure to bring the Gizoid with you! That Gizoid is not fully awakened," he added dismissively. "And since that rodent is incapacitated, there's nothing he can do to stop me." The screen blinked off. Knuckles growled and tried to lunge free again, with the same result. He'd hoped that the robot might be weakening the field by its presence, even if it was itself unaffected. And I'm NOT a rodent, I'm a monotreme. He vented an angry sigh. Sour grapes, Knuckles. You're temporarily powerless, so you try to diminish your enemy by attacking his words. What a warrior.

"Understood," said Chaos Gamma, gliding towards Emerl. "Power output max. Energy flow at one hundred-fifty percent. Initiating battle mode."

"Emerl, run!" yelled Knuckles.

Emerl gave him a truly Sonic-casual glance and said, "Don't worry about it, partner!" He followed with an equally Sonic-like spindash that brought him into the electric field as well, and struck sparks off the other robot. Gamma opened fire with some sort of projectile gun that brought home to Knuckles just how much danger he was in - if one of those bullets came his way, or ricocheted towards him, he couldn't even try to dodge. He was trapped in the middle of the battle zone, unarmed and defenseless. Merely attempting to raise his arms to shield himself triggered the electric field, which rendered him unable to even watch the fight. The only small consolation was that Emerl was as unaffected by the field as Gamma, so there seemed to be little chance of the red imposter actually winning. In fact, Chaos Gamma collapsed on itself and exploded very shortly.

Or seemed to. The explosion had flung various small metal bits towards the echidna, and his instinctive attempt to shield his face had re-incurred painful shocks. As he rebalanced, he heard the voice speak up again. "Auto-check start." He was dismayed to see that the 'explosion' had merely blown a small piece of shielding clear, and by the looks of it, that was a planned loss. "Recovery initiated," added the robot, "I cannot lose." Emerl stood watching as the red mech clicked and whirred, then rose on its stilt-like legs. "Power output at two hundred percent! Energy flow at two hundred percent! Initiating battle mode."

Again, Knuckles could do nothing but stand and hope nothing dangerous came his way, until Emerl sent the other robot weaving out the door. "Power output draining," slurred the defeated Gamma-imposter, it's mechanical voice wavering in pitch and volume. "Energy draining . . . . Battle impossible . . . ." And it was gone.

Emerl marched up to Knuckles and looked at him curiously. "Knuckles, you okay?" He appeared to be wondering why the echidna hadn't joined the fight.

"Great job partner!" Knuckles congratulated him.

"I'm invincible!" declared Emerl. Something in his tone gave Knuckles a slight qualm, but he ignored it, being more concerned with getting out of the doctor's trap.

"You said it!" he agreed - a bit too firmly, as he got jolted again. "Hey, Emerl, do you see a switch over there? If you can turn this thing off, I should be able to move."

Emerl obligingly went over to the console set under the viewscreen, and looked at the various buttons and switches. The first thing he pressed turned the lights off, but not the electricity. The second and third didn't seem to do anything, but the fourth - apparently a knob, since Knuckles could make out the twisting motion, gave the echidna more room to move, but didn't turn the current off. He got two steps before the shock made him yelp and stumble back. Emerl watched with interest. "Come on, Knuckles, is that all you got!?" he called. "How can you fight anything if you can't even shove out of that?"

"What!? I'll show you my true strength!" Knuckles eyed the distance to the black floor bordering the trap. That last one felt more like a forcefield with the shock secondary. Maybe I can push on through it. He crouched, focused, and hurled himself forward, straining against the invisible barrier and trying to ignore the shocks.

"Oh, I wonder if this is the right switch," the robot said suddenly.

The next thing Knuckles knew, he'd collided head-first with the wall. "Ouch!" He stood up, rubbing his neck. "Hey, you did that on purpose!" he accused the robot.

Since the Gizoid had no mouth, he couldn't smile, but Knuckles was certain that the golden robot was laughing at him. "Let's go!" was all Emerl said. "Stop wasting time!" He trotted out of the room.

Knuckles turned his head gingerly, decided there was no permanent damage, although his muscles were still twitching. "Hey wait up! If you keep talking like that, Sonic will smack you!"