Chapter 17: Mist On The Mirror
Flickering shadows danced over the ceiling that arced over the large hallway and Knuckles himself threw a long shadow on the walls and floor that seemed to be creeping after him. The light from the small oil lamp in the guardian's hand wasn't enough to reach farther than ten meters in each direction of the path, but Knuckles knew his way.
The echidna hardly had an eye for the shadows looming in the corners. He wasn't one to be afraid of the dark and currently his mind was elsewhere. He was tired after a night with not near to enough sleep and hadn't really felt in the mood for breakfast.
After the bizarre nightmare he'd been unable to fall asleep for hours and when he'd dozed off still sitting in the break of dawn it had been just to dream something else weird and disturbing. And again, there had been Sonic in the dream. If that wasn't disturbing enough on its own, this time he'd been on the floor of one of the pale blue rooms in the underwater base, lying unmoving in front of the Master Emerald. There had been someone laughing and the Emerald had exploded. Knuckles had woken up then and decided he didn't feel like sleeping anymore this night if meant more weird dreams.
Instead, he'd taken a short walk around the temple and then sat in front of the Master Emerald for a while. Usually being there, feeling its warmth in his back helped to soothe him, but something about it still felt odd and he couldn't place it. But he was starting to think there was a connection and he wanted to find out what it was.
A few minutes later, Knuckles pulled himself out of his thoughts as he entered a large and wide room with high ceiling. He rounded it once, lighting the torches at the walls with the flame from his lamp, then he stood in the middle of the room for a moment. Most of the walls were covered from floor to ceiling with wooden shelves that burst with scrolls and books and even stone tablets. The air felt dry and tasted of the scents of old paper and parchment.
Angel Island's library was one of the things Knuckles considered most valuable out of all he possessed. Hidden in the dark silence of the vast system of underground tunnels, caves and chambers in the island's mountains, the library was one of the few rooms that Knuckles had found containing something more but rare furniture. Deep in the heart of the mountain, the library had survived wars, numerous times the island had fallen and other strikes of misfortune the echidna people had suffered throughout history. Even after their downfall and the fact that all but Knuckles were gone from the planet and island, in the old wooden shelves the knowledge of a long gone era had transcended. A good deal of the ancient parchment scrolls had not withstood the test of time and the ink writing on them had faded until you couldn't decipher it anymore and the pages of the old books were yellowed, sometimes as if glued together or they would fall out of their binding. But on the several thousand pages that were still readable, Knuckles felt a bit of the past had survived, a bit of his ancestors' spirit remained in what they had written down. Whenever he came here, it gave him the feeling of something almost like a magic spell lying over the place.
Slowly the guardian wandered along the shelves. Straying past a large collection on Echidnean history and a good amount of astronomy books, Knuckles found what he was looking for quickly and just a minute later he placed his lamp on a table in the middle of the room and sat down at it sorting through what he had found of his ancestors' studies in dreams and visions.
For hours the only sounds in the library were the occasional cracking noise from the torches and the sounds of pages turning and parchment shifting. Finally Knuckles sat back and rubbed his eyes. They were burning and tired and his neck ached with stiffness. Opening his eyes again, Knuckles looked down on the table and the paper spread over it through the blurriness the rubbing had caused in his eyes.
It wasn't fair to say he had found nothing, Knuckles mused. But he hadn't found too much helpful information either. One of the first books he'd opened still seemed among the most reliable sources of information to him, but it taught him little new. The most useful information Knuckles had gotten out of it was that recurring dreams, or recurring subjects in dreams, could be hints at one's inner fears or wishes but also caused by memories that had left a deep impact on the person. Knuckles could think of various examples for the latter.
He himself used to dream, just occasionally nowadays but more frequently when he'd been younger, of waking up in a dark place all on his own and searching the whole island for people he thought should be there just to never find them. He didn't know who they were. Maybe his parents. But although he didn't remember his early childhood very clearly, the echidna was rather sure that his nightmare of suddenly finding himself left alone on an empty Floating Island originated from something he'd really experienced when he was still to small for it to become a more clearer memory, one he could consciously remember. Since he could not, his subconscious mind sometimes remembered it anyway. But since his current weird dreams didn't really fit into the category of screwed up memory, Knuckles wasn't really any smarter than before reading about it.
The other books and even more so the very old scrolls seemed hardly reliable to the echidna. Most of them dealt with the subject of interpreting dream images and symbols, assuming them either a downright foreboding of the future or at least a revelation of someone's mindset. Knuckles had checked out the things he remembered from his dreams. Apparently, seeing a hedgehog in your dream referred to losing one's soul. The book failed to mention if it meant a feral or Mobian hedgehog, though. According to the same book, dreaming about a friend signified good news though and Knuckles failed to see any connection. Interestingly the book didn't list 'Emeralds', but it mentioned dreams of gems as dealing with matters of spiritual protection, whatever that meant.
When Knuckles finally put the book away, he had found out nothing useful at all. Either, if he was to believe the book, he was having some serious problems, or, which he found more likely at the moment, the stuff written down in there wasn't much else but superstitious nonsense.
Tiredly Knuckles stood and put the scrolls and books back to where they belonged. Compared to them, even the most mysterious and bizarre writings on the Chaos Emeralds were enlightening…
He sat down again and his gaze wandered over to the wall where he kept everything about chaos. Theories, legends of past events involving chaos, works about the interaction between the Emeralds and their effects on chaos sensitive people…
Knuckles stared at the shelves. He was a chaos sensitive person for sure. The Chaos Emeralds… Perhaps there was still a chance to find out if it wasn't him loosing his sanity but the Master Emerald trying to communicate with him and his conscious self failing to understand it. Dreams were subconscious…
With a jolt the echidna stood, pushing the stool backwards so hard it toppled over and fell to the stone ground with a loud crashing noise. He didn't bother putting it back upright. He just picked his oil lamp and left the library in a near jog.
Ten minutes later, he reached what remained of the original Emerald chamber of Hidden Palace. For a long time, it had been the Master Emerald's hiding place, vault and temple at the same time. It had also hosted the Chaos Emeralds for centuries in the past, before they'd gotten lost long before Knuckles had been born.
The middle of the room formed a pedestal that had originally held the Master Emerald and was now empty. After Robotnik's attack on the Emerald chamber a couple years back, the Hidden Palace had been close to destroyed. The ceiling had come down and several of the carvings in the walls would never be readable again. After Sonic had defeated Robotnik and brought back the Master Emerald, Knuckles had restored the chamber as good as he could. The hole in the ceiling was gone again and the floor was tidy and spotless. For a few more months, during the winter that followed, Knuckles had kept the Master Emerald here again.
But everytime he'd sat guard under the gem, he'd been aware that Hidden Palace would never be what it used to before Robotnik came. It wasn't even that during strong rains drops of water leaked through the ceiling. A broken ceiling could be repaired. But the sanctuary had been breached. You could repair broken ceilings, but not broken sanctuaries.
So when the spring came Knuckles had searched around for a new place to keep the Master Emerald safe. He spent months in the caves and tunnels, digging the glaciers of Ice Cap and examining the blistering grounds of Lava Reef. In the end, he'd realized he was searching for something that didn't exist. Not on the Floating Island, nor anywhere else. Robotnik's robots had already been to all places on the island and as far as Knuckles knew he didn't seem to encounter any trouble going wherever else he pleased on the entire planet. He'd even been to space. After months of search, Knuckles had realized what generations of guardians before him had wishfully ignored: There wasn't any place in the universe where you could hide away something as powerful as the Master Emerald. Heck, to anyone blessed with just a bit of chaos sight it had to shine like a sun, and even to those who didn't belong among the few chaos gifted people, there was always technical equipment that could lead you to the Emerald. No, the Master Emerald, the center of the worlds system of chaos, could not be hidden away successfully.
Once he'd realized that, Knuckles had decided to double back and face the matter full forwards. What you couldn't keep hidden anyway, you could as well place where you had it better in sight and could see the enemies coming. During the next spring, the young echidna had taken on the work of restoring the original Temple of Chaos to a presentable shape. Originally, it had been built – thousands of years ago – as the place to host the Master Emerald as well as the seven Chaos Emeralds. It had served this purposed for centuries – until the chief Pachacamac had started the Great War and tried to take hold of the Chaos Emeralds. It had set the Chaos creature on rampage and wiped out nearly the entire clan. In the end, the temple lay in ruins, Tikal had sealed Chaos along with herself into the Master Emerald and very few echidnas lived on.
Logically, time had taken its toll on the temple during the long years it lay deserted, but putting a lot of sweat and effort into it Knuckles brought it back to a condition that at least spoke of its former glory within a couple of months. Ever since, he kept the Master Emerald there and he couldn't help but think it liked it there. It had felt different to him ever since he'd taken it outside, more vivid. But probably that was just due to the sunlight reflecting in it?
Anyway, nowadays Knuckles still used the Hidden Palace. It had felt wrong to him completely deserting it. Now, whenever had had some in his possession, he used to store the Chaos Emeralds in here. They lay on top of about chest-high pillars and twinkled in their mystic light as Knuckles approached.
At the moment the echidna had three of the seven miraculous gems, the green, the dark blue and the red one. The green was Knuckles' favorite of all seven. It came closest to the Master's feeling. Holding the power of life, it was always gentle and its light soft and warm. Touching it could let a comforting feel of inner peace wash over you. Still, Knuckles knew that Sonic's favorite Emerald was the dark blue one, the Emerald of speed, and the hedgehog used to expertly. Knuckles himself, while usually rather talented at chaos wielding, had never gotten much more but tingling fingertips out of it.
With the red Chaos Emerald however, Knuckles had a complicated relationship. In the old writings, it was described as a moody one, with fiery temper and always hard to see through, and Knuckles could only agree whole-heartedly. The red Emerald was the only one Knuckles had ever burned his fingers on. Mastering its elementary power of truth had been a hard lesson to learn.
There were however things you could only do really well with the Master Emerald and a Chaos Emerald together. Knuckles looked down on the red Emerald, for a moment taking in its glow. It was, in a way none of the others was, mesmerizing. The wicked one. But also the one with the greatest insight.
Carefully the echidna picked it up. "You need to help me," he said quietly.
The Emerald twinkled a little. At least it refrained from burning his hand. Knuckles supposed that was a start.
"This is not a Master Emerald you're building," Metal Sonic insisted and the glare of his ever glowing eyes seemed an even deeper shade of crimson to Tails.
"T… true." The young fox gulped, holding the half-finished piece of circuit board out at the blue robot.
Metal Sonic fisted a claw. "Explain," he hissed. "And quickly…"
"Yeah, sure," Tails hurriedly started speaking again. "You see, before we can build the Emeralds, we'll need to build the devices that help us doing that."
"What sort of device is that you're holding?" There was a subtle growl in the robot's metallic voice and it reminded Tails how very scared he was of him.
"Uh, it's a part of the unit that will supervise the growing of the Emeralds once we start, specifically the current we feed into the liquid." He pointed at the giant tank with the glowing fluids. It was a lot easier dealing with Metal Sonic and the entire situation if you kept your mind busy with technical details. "We can't 'build' a Master Emerald, or a Chaos Emerald. You can build a ring capsule and a Chaos Drive, but not an Emerald of any kind. They're crystals, and the specific structure that makes a crystal outstanding can only grow on its own. We will use specifically, fine-tuned currents to initiate and control the process of crystallization. You know, like when you put copper sulfate into water, put in a thread and over time bluestone crystals grow on the thread."
"How much time will with this growing process require?" Metal Sonic's arms folded, but he looked less like he was going to kill him right now.
"I don't know," Tails dared to admit. "I have never done anything as large and complex as a Master Emerald before. The fake Chaos Emerald I had grown took something around 40 hours until it was complete. I guess the Master Emeralds will take longer to grow… We'll first grow one to see how it goes and when it works we'll do the others."
"No." In spite of the moment of looking almost relaxed, now the robot's metal first slammed onto the working table. "No! You will grow all of my Emeralds at the same time. I want them at my service as quickly as possible!"
"But… you know how risky that is, right? We're working with amounts of energy nobody has worked with ever before!" For a short moment, Tails' worry to blow himself to bits with these fake Emeralds was bigger than his fear of Metal Sonic.
The short moment however lasted only until the robot's glowing optics drilled into his eyes and Tails could almost physically feel the daggers they shot at him. "No. You build them all at once. And now continue working, fox."
Tails didn't dare saying anything, so he just got back to putting together the device in his hands, trying to look occupied enough for Metal not to notice that he was working slower than necessary. He still hoped someone would come and get him out before he finished his work, before Metal Sonic got seven giant, powerful gemstones to use at his leisure.
Or before the craziness of building seven Master Emeralds in one place became their both doom. Tails had no idea how dangerous this plan really was, but he knew that Metal Sonic had not at all considered the consequences. The one fake Chaos Emerald he'd build a while ago had been able to greatly confuse the system of chaos energy the normal, real seven Chaos Emeralds formed. A system that was based on seven Chaos Emeralds and one Master Emerald controlling, connecting and balancing the whole thing. Tails was sure Knuckles would be able to tell him more about that, but one thing also Tails himself was sure about: Seven Master Emeralds would cause a lot of trouble.
And he was trying his best to delay the day this trouble came down on him.
He felt like he'd run for hours again. Probably he had, but one lost track of time so utterly and completely in this place without day and night that Sonic wasn't sure anymore. Moreso, he was beginning to doubt his own perception. Was this a dream? He almost couldn't tell the difference anymore.
Now merely walking, the hedgehog turned to look over his shoulder. Behind him was just a blank, open space, an empty plain. Just a minute ago, when he'd run through there, it had not seemed so barren. Was it changing its features as soon as he looked away? "Nothing new for a Special Zone.," the blue hedgehog mumbled. "Just that this one's a broken, stupid – ouch!"
Something hard uncomfortably hit his head and he ended up falling backwards, bruising his tail in the progress. Holding his head, Sonic turned back to the direction he'd been walking in. Something I maybe should have done anyway. It would have kept me from walking into some… wall? The hedgehog's thoughts faltered at the term. What he was sitting in front of was more than just a wall.
It was huge. Sonic stared up against it, one hand still on his head, but momentarily he'd forgotten about the pain. The wall, in lack of a better word, continued upwards as far as he could see. There seemed to be no ceiling, sky, roof or whatever. Just an empty space and the wall towering into it, glazing green and enormous.
Slowly Sonic turned his head. The giant wall went on to the left and right, also into what looked like infinity. The hedgehog shook his head. Just what is that thing?
It looked like glass. Green, shiny and polished glass. Sonic stared at it and when he looked back down at the spot on it that was directly ahead of him, a pair of green eyes stared back at him. Sonic blinked, needing almost a second to recognize the hedgehog that sat there on the floor, ears slightly lowered, holding his head and his quills messed up as his own reflection. The green tinted mirror image looked sheepish.
Sonic ran a hand through his spines, brushing them back into the streamlined shapes they usually were, and shot his reflection a grin. "Much better, huh?"
The hedgehog in the mirror grinned back and Sonic found his grin was kind of contagious. He crawled back to his feet and spent a few minutes smoothing down his fur. Vanity seemed pointless in a place with no-one but himself around, but he intended to find a way out eventually and then he wanted to look at least remotely presentable.
When he wanted to check his progress in the make-shift mirror he'd found and looked back at the green glazing wall, his reflection was waving at him. Sonic took a step back, closed his eyes, shook his head, then looked again. The hedgehog in the greenish mirror image stood and returned his stare.
I'm going crazy, I'm really going crazy…
Maybe I already am. Maybe this place doesn't even exist and I'm just seeing all this stuff.
No, wait. He reached out a hand and touched the glass-like wall. It felt real enough, hard and cool and smooth, like real glass. So, this is a real wall. … A real, weird wall. And this is a real reflection of myself. He hopped around, waved his arms and pulled faces, watching the mirror image doing the exact same things.
Awesome. Not completely nutty yet. Sonic sighed, looking along the wall, trying to decide which way to take now. He didn't want to go back… but in both directions it looked as if that wall was endless.
Maybe he could get through it somehow? He'd broken a wall in here before. Sonic grinned. Time for some action, then. He crouched down, curled up and started spin dashing on the spot, gathering some energy before pushing off and aiming for the wall. Well, aiming wasn't exactly necessary. That thing was impossible to miss.
He hit it spines first and for a second or two grinded against it before his own momentum and rotation bounced him back. He caught himself and skidded to a stop on his hands and knees, looking back up at the wall. The plain, shiny surface bore not a single trace.
The hedgehog narrowed his eyes. He'd have to try harder then.
Several spin dashes, homing attacks and flying kicks later, a defeated blue hedgehog sat on the floor again, glaring at the wall. It didn't break. He couldn't do a single bit of damage to it. Just how thick was that stuff?
With fleeting motivation Sonic got to his feet again. His head ached and the roots of his quills hurt from hitting the wall and bending against its resistance. In short, he wasn't keen on another attempt smashing through here. Not right now, at least. Instead, he knocked just careful knuckles against the wall in his way. It sounded dull. Not like he'd expect glass to sound. More like a rock of sorts.
Whatever. Sonic sighed again, scratched behind his ear, looking left and right before turning to the wall again, facing his reflection. "What do you think?"
Just as expected, the mirror image didn't answer. Instead, it blurred as someone has poured water over it, and then it was gone.
Sonic blinked, took a step away from the wall, and just continued to blankly stare at it. The reflection was gone. Like, really gone.
Maybe I'm dreaming. I must be dreaming. The hedgehog reached for his arm and pinched himself. Ouch! Okay, not dreaming.
He closed his eyes. Counted to ten slowly. Looked again. The reflection was still gone, but instead of it, the glazing plain color of the wall started to melt again, like the surface of a lake stirred by the wind.
Suddenly the green was gone and he could see through the glass or whatever it really was. It was like a window. He saw a city, with skyscrapers and street signs and cars. Then the image shifted again and when it stilled the buildings had toppled, water gushing out of broken windows. Between two of the buildings, the water stirred and a figure began to shape up from it, piercing eyes in a serpent-like head staring right at him. Sonic jumped when it lurched towards him, but the image blurred again and it was gone.
Gasping, the blue hedgehog stared at the back to normal, blank wall. What was that? Was that Perfect Chaos? It shows the past then? "Are you some kind of fancy crystal ball? Eh, wall?"
No new images turned up and nothing replied to his question.
Sonic frowned. He stood still and waited for minutes, but no new pictures showed on the wall and the hedgehog decided he'd wasted enough time here. On a whim he picked the direction to the left and began to walk alongside the freaky wall. Hopefully it would lead him somewhere.
Knuckles inhaled the cool air slowly, sitting cross-legged on the stony ground of the Emerald shrine's top. The red Chaos Emerald lay on the floor in front of him and to his left the Master Emerald was pouring its soft green light over the altar's summit.
The guardian deliberately held his breath for a second before letting it out very slowly and concentrated on relaxing his body and mind. If he wanted to tap into the Chaos Emerald's power, he had to clear his mind first. Given that he was lacking sleep and not entirely feeling himself that alone seemed a complex task to him at the moment. He tried to concentrate on what he'd seen in the weird dreams; he needed to be able to hold on to the pictures once he started.
With a brief gust the wind picked up, blowing Knuckles' dreadlock-quills to the side. For a moment he closed his eyes, listening to the sound of the wind until he felt he was ready to tackle the Emerald.
He opened his eyes and picked up the crimson glowing stone, holding it in his right hand. With his left, he reached for the Master Emerald and pressed his flat palm softly against its surface. A tingling sensation traveled from his hand through his body and the Chaos Emerald he held in the other hand suddenly felt a lot warmer.
Knuckles turned his eyes towards it, staring at the top facet. He didn't blink, just gazed at the glazing crystal. Finally its surface seemed to blur before his eyes and his gaze melted into what lay below.
Unlike the others, the red Emerald was a mess. Maybe it was the one that was most wicked chaos of them all. Beneath its surface the red glow seemed to consist of a thousand of strands of energy, crisscrossing crazily so they seemed to form a tight knot. Each strand was a way to take and if you followed the wrong one it would lead you on and on, ever further astray into a crimson labyrinth, until you'd get equally lost in the Emerald and your own mind.
Knuckles knew not to trust the gem. It knew the truth, in the chaos sort of way, gave you access to the truth inside of you. But it didn't do it out of kindness.
The echidna waited, patiently looking at the knot of chaos energy before him, felt the Master's pulse against his other palm. He focused on it until one of the strands briefly flickered in the Master Emerald's light, concentrated on it and began following it down deeper into the Chaos Emerald's red glow.
He progressed cautiously. The red Emerald's power granted you a look inside your heart and soul, if you wanted to into the deepest part. But going there was critical; the old legends told of those who had ventured too deeply and gotten lost inside their minds because their truth was too complex for them to grasp or too fascinating to let go again.
Knuckles didn't plan going that far. The strand of energy he'd picked stayed near the surface, like most others would do as well. He focused his concentration on it until the rest of the energy faded from his attention. As a distant echo he could hear the Master Emerald's humming.
Keeping a tight hold of the Chaos Emerald's guiding string of energy, Knuckles tried to bring the images from the dreams before his inner eye and after a second the memories flashed before him, bright and colorful and disturbingly alive. Knuckles forced himself to keep his stand and watch them all again, realizing he'd not forgotten so much even. Before they could fade from his memory again, he dived a little deeper into the Chaos Emerald's glow.
I know there's something to these dreams. Show me what they mean…. Please…
For a moment there was just a twinkle from inside the red Emerald.
Come on…
The crimson light seemed to brighten and the warmth increased to where it was almost painful. A picture of the Master Emerald flickered in midst of the redness.
Yes, I know, it has to do with the Master Emerald. What happened to it?
Before him flashed the picture of the underwater base as he'd seen it in his dreams, then of Sonic lying unmoving on the floor, then there was a bright green light and the images flooded Knuckles' mind more quickly than he could follow.
Stop! No, wait, just don't rush it like that. Just… let me see what is wrong with the Master…
The confusing blur of rapidly changing images vanished and instead he saw Sonic. He stood in front of what looked like a wall of sorts, consisting of some green crystalline material of dimensions that bordered on infinite. The blue hedgehog leaned against the wall with hands next to his head and his nose all but pressing against the wall as if it were a window he tried to look through.
Sonic… What are you doing there? For the moment Knuckles forgot what he saw was just a vision and that it wouldn't answer him. He moved closer, until he was next to the blue hedgehog, but his friend didn't notice he was there. He was now banging a fisted hand against the wall, ears flat against his head. He looked… frustrated, close to desperate even.
Knuckles felt a pang at seeing those drooping ears, but he wasn't given the time to find out what was wrong with Sonic. He was moving past him, closer and closer to the wall. It was as if it was pulling him in and the echidna would have closed his eyes had he been able to do so. As he was not, he was forced to just watch himself… not colliding with the wall, but phasing right through it. What had been a barrier for Sonic clearly wasn't a barrier for him.
He was moved out of the green wall and bright sunlight welcomed him. From atop the Emerald altar, Knuckles could overlook the lush green meadow and the colorful forest below. He whirled around, staring at the large, glowing green gemstone before him.
I… came out of the Master Emerald…
The Emerald flared, and from the center of its brightness a pair of green eyes stared at Knuckles with a look that was almost pleading. Then they were gone and the Master Emerald's image was gone and all Knuckles saw was the red glowing Chaos Emerald lying in his palm.
What…?
Knuckles stared down on it numbly. He felt drained now, during the first few seconds of being back to reality gravity's drag seemed cruel, his heart was thumping in his chest for reasons he didn't understand and his hands felt sweaty in his gloves. The echidna blinked strainedly; his eyes stung and felt dry and he had no idea how long he'd held them open. Only when he placed the red Chaos Emerald on the ground before him and let go of the Master Emerald as well he noticed the burn on his hand.
He shot the Chaos Emerald a glare it didn't seem to mind, but other than that Knuckles hardly spent any thoughts on the pain. Warily he looked at the Master Emerald. What I just saw… Does it mean that? But Sonic can't be inside the Master… can he?
Speedy's note: Apologies for the long wait, guys. There was work to turn in and stuff. And sleep to catch up on...
Oh, about the dream symbol things with Knuckles' old book, I actually researched some dream interpretation, way back when I first wrote this part. The books I had actually claimed seeing a hedgehog in a dream means you're losing your soul. O_o That was too rich to not include. ;)
