Chapter 3

Blaze sat on the chair in front of her dressing mirror, one of her aides brushing her shoulder length locks. Her bright yellow eyes examined her reflection in the early morning light. If everything went according to plan today, she would never have to sit through this again. She smiled to herself slyly. It was flawless. Nobody would know what had happened. Doubt started to creep into her mind.

What about my kingdom? What will they do without a queen? Will they be able to take care of themselves? Blaze pondered this for a moment and decided that the kingdom would be able to govern itself without her there. Again, a smile crossed her lips.

"That's enough," she told her aide, who curtsied before placing the brush on the dressing table and leaving the room. Blaze studied herself in the mirror again, her keen yellow eyes taking in every detail. She was good looking and knew it. It was just too bad that no males ever approached her. They all seemed to be afraid of her power. But she didn't care anymore, she had her sights set on one man and one man only. Immediately she began to think about him, about his looks, his pleasant smile, his eager attitude. Shaking her head, she snapped herself out of her daydream and focussed on the task at hand; leaving the castle without arousing any suspicion. It would be hard, of that she had no doubt. Being under constant guard denied her any alone time. Even now, in her room, she appeared to be alone. But she knew that a guard stood watch outside her bedroom door. Like a jail warden. That's certainly how she imagined the castle, just one big jail cell. She detested it yet loved it at the same time. She could not bring herself to fully hate her home. It had been where she had grown up, after all. And also where she had many fond memories of her parents. Tears threatened to fall as her thoughts shifted to her parents. They had restored order to a kingdom in disarray when they had ruled. Was it selfish of her to abandon all of that on a selfish whim?

No, she thought, it's not. I want what's best for me and my kingdom. I believe that in my absence either they will appoint someone worthy as a leader, or take care of themselves. I have no doubt that there is a more fitting candidate out there somewhere.

Of course, she would have to leave all of her personal possessions behind as well. All she would be able to take with her was the clothes on her back and whatever would fit into her pockets. It was a tough decision to make, choosing what to bring and what to leave. Eventually she settled on taking nothing other than her hair band and a brush. Having her hair immaculate was an essential to her. Blaze walked over to the open window and looked out at a cloudy sky. Clouds made for a horrid journey because they usually promised rain. If she was travelling by foot, mud would spoil both her shoes and her clothes. She hoped it wouldn't rain.

Amy sat dejectedly in her chair. As determined as she came across, this was one battle she knew she was losing. Sonic was practically married to Mobius and its inhabitants, paying her very little heed, if any. About the only time he would acknowledge her was when she beat him about the head or mentioned trouble. It angered her. It depressed her. She was in love with the one person in her life who ignored her eighty percent of the day, every day. Perhaps it was time to admit defeat, to move on, although she knew she was too in love with him to ever forget about him. Absent-mindedly she ran her brush through her hair as she sighed deeply. Maybe she should call off the date after all. She forced Sonic into so much, it didn't seem fair. The only reason he humoured her was that he was afraid of hurting her feelings, she knew that.

"Right," she thought out loud, "Tomorrow I'm going to go over to Sonic's and cancel the date. Then he can get on and find those silly Chaos Emeralds of his."

Tears welled up in her eyes as she pondered it. She didn't want to let him go. But her clinginess seemed to keep him at bay. Perhaps there was a chance that if she let him go, he would come to her of his own accord. Forcing love never worked. She would just have to live without him unless he wanted to be with her. Setting her brush down on the dressing table, she fixed a smile to her face and wiped away her tears.

It's for the best, she thought. I love him but it is for the best.

Knuckles paced the floor in agitation. He hated it when things went amiss, and things couldn't be more amiss than now. From the corner of his eye he watched the Master Emerald as it pulsated and morphed into different shapes. It had never acted this way before. It was all because of that damned Eggman. Since the dimensional rift had occurred, nothing had stayed the same. It wasn't just the Master Emerald that was acting bizarrely, the whole of Angel Island was behaving in an odd fashion. Strange weather patterns, disappearing sections of ground, even trees bearing abnormally shaped or coloured fruits. Something was just not right and he, the guardian of the Master Emerald, protector of Mobius, had to rectify it.

Cautiously, he approached the mutating mass, watching as flares of what appeared to be molten emerald arced into the space surrounding it. It hurt his eyes to look at for extended periods but was so utterly mesmerising that he found he could barely force himself to look away. He extended an arm in an attempt to touch the emerald but as if by instinct, the liquid shied away from him. He took another step forward and extended his arm again. As if it sensed that he was a threat, the Master Emerald turned blood red and a flare arced from the mass and engulfed Knuckles' hand. He let out a sharp cry, expecting some sort of pain but instead the substance felt oddly cool against his skin. Backing away, he lifted his hand to his face in order to inspect it. The piece of the emerald now on his glove had turned a light blue. Without warning the blue liquid started to diminish and discomfort in Knuckles' upper arm alerted him that the emerald was penetrating his flesh. A faint groan left his throat as he struggled to shake off the blue mass but to no avail. Suddenly his head exploded in pain and he dropped to his knees.

Echidna! A voice screamed inside his mind. Echidna, you must relax! Relax or you will die!

Struggling against the throbbing pain in his head, Knuckles tried to relax. An attempt at drawing a deep breath was cut short as a wave of nausea hit him and he vomited.

Relax, Echidna, the voice called to him again, you must relax!

With great difficulty, Knuckles managed to relax. As soon as he did so the pain was gone and calm flooded his mind.

"Who are you?" he shouted.

No need to shout, Echidna. The voice now spoke calmly and gently. What you saw on your hand, what has penetrated both your flesh and your mind is my essence. Because of this I am able to communicate with you.

"Essence? What do you mean? Who are you?"

The sound of three pebbles clattering to the ground echoed in his head.

"Wha-What was that?"

My name, said the voice. You asked who I am and I gave you my name, Echidna.

"Giving me your name does not tell me who you are!"

Look to your left and you shall see me.

Knuckles looked left, at the pulsating Master Emerald.

"You're the Master Emerald? But how... That's impossible. An emerald cannot have an essence, that's just ridiculous!"

If an emerald cannot have an essence, how is it that I can control the power of my brothers?

Knuckles didn't need to ask, he knew what the voice was talking about. The Master Emerald had the power to counter the seven Chaos Emeralds.

Just as my brother once did, I can divide into different aspects of my self. What you see to your left is me without my essence, my mind. It is me yet it is not. Long ago, before you or any of your ancestors were conceived, there existed two beings, myself and my brother. Each of us could control the power of the other and as such we balanced each other out, two objects of equal mass on a scale. We took to experimenting upon one another to find out more about our existence. My brother split himself into eight pieces, one for each aspect of his self. I too did the same. We discovered that each aspect of ourselves had certain properties. When whole, one of us could control the properties of seven of the eight aspects of the other. We could not, however, control the eighth. This baffled us and we experimented for millennia to attempt to control all eighths separately. But we didn't know the consequences of our experimentation. My brother split himself into his eight aspects; will, space, time, earth, fire, air, water and life. As we had done many times before, I, as my entire self, subjected him to my power. I manipulated his will, I created space, I bent time, I created earth, I wrought fire, I manifested water, and I conjured air. All this we had done before but never been able to affect the other's essence, their life aspect. And so I strained with all my might and forced my dominance upon his life. We had no idea of the consequences of our actions, as I have said. His life force, his essence, shattered into millions of pieces and spread out amongst the rest of himself. I had created creatures from my brother's essence. But I could no longer hear him, call to him, be with him as a whole. The rest of himself became unbalanced and formed into what you now know as the Chaos Emeralds. But still there was imbalance. These emeralds were now just listless aspects of a former being but the absence of life in them threatened to cause them to implode. And so the Chaos Emeralds split again, formed seven twins to themselves. These twins are the Sol emeralds. In order to rectify what I had done, to make sure that the catastrophe would be averted, I took them and banished them. Within myself I created another dimension, using my aspects and basing their creations around what had become of my brother's. I banished the Sol emeralds to that alternate dimension so that they could not come into contact with their twins and destroy my brother completely. And for millennia since both worlds had existed unaware of the other, and it had been peaceful. But one came along that discovered the use of the Chaos Emeralds, discovered that by combining the power of the seven aspects of my brother he could become nigh on unstoppable. He does not understand this, nor do any that live or have lived. He is a creature borne from the eighth aspect of my brother, he is part of my brother's essence. As are all living creatures in this world, including you. This is how I can now communicate to you, direct from my essence to his. I find it odd that only that one has discovered the power of the Emeralds and how to control it. Yet, I suppose, he is not alone, for another in the other world has discovered the power of the Sol Emeralds. Both know how to harness this power to achieve results yet such actions are dangerous. Some time ago, both the Sol and the Chaos Emeralds were brought together in this world and imbalance was caused yet again. Even without my help, the situation was resolved and the Emeralds are now separated once again by the dimensional veil. But instability leaked into this world unnoticed. Unnoticed by all but myself. I fought hard against this instability and won. But at great cost to myself. As you can see, I have become unstable within myself. I fear that if left as I am, I may die. I do not want to die, Echidna. Do not mistake this for selfishness. I do not understand such concepts. I do not wish to die because if I do, so must my brother. And should my brother die then yourself, your friends and family, both worlds will cease to exist. One cannot live without the other. We balance each other out.

The voice inside Knuckles' head fell silent.