AN: Hey guys welcome to chapter 3 of The Gateway. I'd like to say thank you to all you who have been reading and to the one person who has reviewed. Anyway I know you want to start reading so to wrap up please remember to review when you're done thanks.
Sincerely Strikefence
Chapter 3: Arrival
Angel Island, Planet Mobius, September 28th, 2012
"Holy Shi..." Knuckles exclaimed as he dove out of the way.
The place where he was standing not two seconds ago was now a seven foot wide crater, and in the middle lay the figure of a human. Knuckles walked over and peered into the crater. For such a fall the human appeared nearly unscathed, with just a few rips in what appeared to be some sort of strange spacesuit.
Jumping into the crater Knuckles walked over and looked at the body more closely. Not knowing who this person was Knuckles just watched the body for a moment, but curiosity overwhelmed him and he found himself pulling off the human's helmet. Underneath he found the still breathing face of a teenage boy. Looking at his face Knuckles felt it safe to assume he was either fifteen or sixteen.
Well I can't leave him here can I? Knuckles felt himself thinking. At least not this close to the Master Emerald.
Knowing the right thing to do was to probably bring the teen somewhere safe Knuckles picked him up, hung his unconscious body over his shoulder like a potato sack and began the short trek to his hut.
Angel Island, Planet Mobius, October 1st, 2012
Ferris began to wake up slowly. At first he resisted, trying to coax himself back into dreamland, but he knew he would have to get up eventually, he needed to check on the lab.
Wait a second, I'm not in the lab! Ferris bolted up suddenly and was met with an annoying ache in his neck, back and head. Especially his head. After sitting up he immediately examined his surroundings. He was laying in a bed inside what appeared to be a large hut or shed of some sort. The be he was in was in the farthest corner from the door. Now sitting on the edge of the bed, Ferris looked at the large plasma screen television sitting on a table in front of him.
"Hmm, maybe I'm still on Earth," he reasoned with himself. "What're the odds that another dimension has plasma screens?"
Standing he found himself in the khakis and plaid buttoned-T he had been wearing under his NAPS suit.
"This is getting weirder and weirder" he said to the empty room.
Looking around he immediately saw his NAPS suit laying on a table with the helmet laying on top. Both appeared damage with the suit having several rips and the helmet having many scratches and a few cracks. Beside the suit he found his pistol and it's holster with the extra clips of ammo laying in a pile next to it. Quickly he strapped the holster to his belt and slipped the ammo into his many pockets. Realizing his suit would be more of a burden than a useful tool in this environment he left it on the table, telling himself he would grab it later once he figured out where he was.
Finally, he laid his eyes on the wrist unit. At first glance it appeared nearly unscathed, with a few scratches on the outer metal and a small crack in the corner of the screen. Quickly however he saw the return device, attached to the wrist unit, was damaged. The small white box had one side of it ripped open and it appeared that the inner components were damaged. Seeing this, Ferris concluded that if this was indeed a alternate dimension he would need to find some way to repair the R.D. or else he wasn't going home.
"Well at least I didn't rip my shirt," he muttered under his breath.
Exiting the door he immediately noticed the hut he had been in was in the middle of some form of forest. Moving his gaze to the right he saw a small path that lead through the trees. He decided to follow it, figuring that following the path was as good a idea as any. He then broke into a light jog down the path curious as to what he would find.
After jogging through the dense forest Ferris came out into a clearing. In the centre of this clearing sat the altar with large green gem he had noticed while watching the island from the blue light. Slowing his jog to a walk he holstered his pistol, walked up to the altar, and began to walk up the stone steps.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" asked a voice behind him.
Turning around Ferris was shocked at what he saw. Behind him in the clearing stood a short red figure standing at the edge of a small crater. The figure had something similar to dreadlocks coming from the back of it's head and only a white sideways crescent on it's red chest. It's face was also red with the exception of a peach covered muzzle around it's mouth and nose.
"What, are you going to sit there and stare at me? Do I have something in my teeth?" the red figure grinned, obviously amused with it's own joke.
Ferris managed to force out the main question on his mind, "Wh-what are you?"
The figure looked at him with a hint of surprise, "So I save your life and in return you act as if you're talking to an alien?"
By now Ferris had regained his composure and identified that this creature in front of him was intelligent and seemed at ease speaking to someone who wasn't of his own species, whatever that was.
"Please, humour me. And also do you have a name or something I can call you?"
"Of course I have a name..."
"And that is?"
The creature raised one of it's gloved hands in front of it's face and Ferris noticed for the first time how they seemed large in comparison to the rest of his body. As well as being unnaturally large each hand had two cone-shaped spikes protruding from the knuckles.
"My name is Knuckles The Echidna."
Ferris was slightly confused, "So is Echidna your last name or your species?"
Knuckles looked at the strange teen. He wasn't quite sure what it was but something made him very willing to answer these strange questions. In most cases he would have just blown him off but this human seemed to be honestly curious. Maybe he grew up in one of those anti-Mobian communities down the south, Thought Knuckles.
"It's neither, Echidna is my race"
"Oh so kind of like Caucasian and African," Ferris blurted out without thinking but was surprised to hear Knuckles' answer.
"Yeah pretty much."
Ferris' brain was running at a million miles a minute. What could it mean if this creature, Knuckles, knew what Caucasian and African mean? Could there be humans on whatever world this is?
"Hey Knuckles, two questions."
"I'm listening."
"Firstly, what planet is this? And secondly, are there humans here?"
Knuckles looked at Ferris incredulously. Was this teen crazy or was he just simply stupid? How could he not know what planet he was on? As well there were obviously humans here, he was one.
"We're on Mobius," he stated still confused, "and yes there are humans here."
Ferris was astounded, what were the odds that one species could exist in two different dimensions? Ferris sat down on the step and put his head in his hands. This was a lot to comprehend, and any regular person would probably be to shocked to even attempt to understand what he had learned.
Maybe I'm thinking this through to throughly, he thought to himself, Perhaps the easiest way to understand this is to just accept it.
Seeing the teen sit on the step Knuckles walked up and stood in front of him. This gave Ferris his first chance to assess the height of the Mobian. He was standing at what Ferris guessed to be somewhere around three and a half feet tall, and therefore was only about half the height of Ferris himself.
Knuckles looked over the Ferris with a worried look on his face. He wasn't quite sure what was up with this guy but the Master Emerald had shown him to Knuckles, a little later than he would have preferred but, the Emerald wouldn't tell him anything that didn't have any significance. Also to top it all off he fell from the flippin sky.
"You ok..." Knuckles paused implying he wanted a name.
The human looked at the red Mobian's face, "Ferris."
"...Ferris?"
"Yeah I think I'm ok."
Knuckles thought for a second. This human looked like he needed somewhere to think and he still wasn't sure if he could be a threat to the Master Emerald.
Looking up to the sun Knuckles spoke, "It would appear it's lunch time."
Suddenly a large rumble was emitted from the human's stomach, "It would seem my stomach agrees with you."
Knuckles chuckled and turned towards the forest path that had lead Ferris to the altar, "Follow me I've got some food in my hut."
He then began to head towards the forest. Ferris watched him begin to walk and unsure of what to do he followed wondering what in the world they considered food in this place.