Hey, everyone. If you're curious about what Joe looks like, I've had some artwork done for him. It's on my Deviantart page. I'm d2shield

Sonic and Sticks were locked in an epic game of tetherball, with Tails acting as the referee. Sticks grinned as she gave the ball one final hard smack, twirling it around the pole above Sonic's head. The rope of the ball wrapped around completely before Sonic could stop it.

"And that's game!" Tails declared.

"Aw man," Sonic scowled as crossed his arms.

Sticks put her hands on her hips, "Lighten up. You won last game, didn't you?"

"I was starting a streak. Now I have to start all over," the blue hedgehog complained. "Rematch?"

"Oh yeah," Sticks agreed with a nod.

Before another game could commence, Amy arrived on the scene, "Has anyone seen Joe? I was going to ask him to help me move some stuff around."

Tails answered her, "he's busy. He said he was gonna try and teach Knuckles math."

That made everyone present, including Tails himself, laugh out loud.

"Okay, seriously, what's he doing?" Amy repeated.

"That wasn't a joke. He really is trying to teach Knuckles math," Tails said more firmly this time. When everyone started laughing again, he frowned, "Just follow me."


When the group arrived, they found Joe and Knuckles sitting across from each other on a pair of stools.

"And that's the story of how 4 plus 5 equaled 9," Joe finished, with Knuckles listening intently.

"That was beautiful, man," Knuckles murmured. He sniffled and wiped his eye, "Especially 6's heroic sacrifice."

Joe sighed. "That should not have been as hard as it was."

The team was too stunned to say anything, staring at the two with their mouths gaping. Knuckles addressed them brightly when he noticed them, "Hey, guys! I learned that 4 plus 5 equals 9!"

"I don't believe it," Amy said. "So Knuckles can actually count to 9?"

"Not quite," Joe took the wind out of her sails. "Allow me to demonstrate." He walked up and pulled her away from the group, leaving three of them. Joe turned to Knuckles. "Hey, Coach, how many of our friends are in that spot?"

Knuckles took a good, hard look at Sonic, Tails, and Sticks, "Uuuuuuuuuuuuuh." Sonic opened his mouth, only for Knuckles to silence him with a hand, "Don't tell me! Uuuuuuh…I give up."

Joe gently nudged Amy back into the group, "Now how many are there?"

Knuckles eagerly raised his hand, "Oh! I know this one! There's four of them!"

For one final demonstration, Joe moved to the side by himself, "How many of me are there?"

The red echidna began counting fingers before eventually giving his answer, "Uh, as many as there are of me?"

Joe exchanged glances with the rest of his friends. "Close enough."

"I have no words," Tails commented.

"I do. I gotta test this out more!" Knuckles declared as he ran off.

Sonic put his hands on his hips. "Should we follow him or something?

"Eh, he'll be fine," Joe assured as he waved Sonic off.


"Let's see," Knuckles muttered as he looked around, with his gaze turning upward, "There's nine clouds in the sky right now." Then he looked at an album cover, "There's four guys in The Beatles." He looked at his hands, "And my hands have five fingers each. A bit unusual for a cartoon character, but whatever."

As the red echidna walked, he spotted a family of possums posing for a group photo. He immediately went over to count them. "Hey! There's four of you he-"

FLASH

"Get outta here, you weirdo!" the father yelled at him.

Knuckles hurried away from the chittering family. Next, he went to Meh Burger to see if there was anything to count. He walked up to a random table. "Looks like you got five fries on your plate."

"Uh, yeah, I do," the bear said warily. "Could you leave me alone now?"

"Sure thing. Yoink!" Knuckles laughed, stealing a fry as he left. Knuckles decided to go and rejoin his friends, bored of counting for the time being.

"So, what'd you get up to?" Sonic asked.

"I photobombed some guys and I stole a French fry," Knuckles informed him.

"Cool. So, you up for volleyball?" the hedgehog asked.

Knuckles crossed his arms, "Sure thing. First one to nine wins!"

And so, the red and blue heroes began their match. Knuckles managed to make the first score, "Alright! Four points!"

"Knuckles, that's not how-" Unfortunately, taking the time to correct his friend distracted Sonic enough for the red echidna to score another point.

"Five points!" Knuckles cheered himself on. Getting even more in the zone, he raised his hand and served the ball with intense speed, scoring a third point, "And nine points! That's game!"

Sonic balked at the statement, "Are you kidding me!?"

"Nope!" Knuckles said, taking his leave.

As his friend left, still basking in mostly-unearned glory, Sonic deadpanned, "I repeat, 'are you kidding?'"


"Knuckles, those aren't things you should go around touching," Tails said nervously.

Ignoring him, Knuckles continued sifting through the fox's gadgets, fascinated by the new way he could see everything. There were numbers everywhere. "Hmm, this one has four buttons. Interesting. Time to see what they do!"

"Careful! Those are power settings!" Tails' warning came too late, though. Knuckles hit one of the buttons, causing a laser to shoot out and bounce around the lab, stopping once it blew Tails' goggles off.

The young genius sighed in relief. "Looks like you had it on the lowest setting." He glared at Knuckles before snatching the gadget back. "You almost got me killed!"

Knuckles scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Speaking of killing, why'd you put a laser in a boombox?"

"I think I was half asleep for that one," Tails admitted bashfully. He quickly regained his flare. "Anyway, you need to-"

"Sorry, already touching more stuff. Whoa, this one has nine buttons!" Knuckles observed, immediately pressing some without knowing what any would do.

With each button, the room flashed, causing the two occupants to look different in some way. The first made their skeletons visible through their skin. The second made the room look black-and-white like an old movie. The third one was just a strobe light. And the fourth one changed their fur color, with Knuckles turning green and Tails turning purple.

"No more lighting changes!" Losing his patience, Tails flicked off the machine and glared at Knuckles, "I think I'm gonna have to get rid of you by force." He pulled out a laser pointer and focused it at the ground.

The red dot instantly caught Knuckles's attention and he grabbed for it. Tails used this distraction to guide the echidna out of his lab. He sighed in relief. "Who knew Knuckles learning math would cause so much chaos?"

Unfortunately, Knuckles proceeded to cause trouble for other people throughout the day.

"Okay, boys, on three," Amy instructed. "One, two-"

"Five!" Knuckles declared. He lifted his side of the couch prematurely, so Joe lost his grip and dropped his end. It landed on his foot immediately.

"AHAHAHOW!" The token human fell on his back, rolling around while clutching his foot. "Son of a-"

"Language!" Amy interrupted as she went to help Joe.

One look from Amy told Knuckles that he should take his leave.

Knuckles caused problems for people other than his friends too.

The mayor was taking his time prepping for his swing on the golf course.

"Fore!" he called out as he swung his club. He and his associates watched as the ball landed just a few feet away from the hole.

"Did someone say 'four?'" Everyone turned to see Knuckles approaching. The red echidna set a golf ball on a tee and swung, managing to get a hole in one. "See ya!"

"Where'd that guy even come from?" a bear in the crowd asked.

Mayor Fink stomped his feet in frustration. "Forget where he came from! How dare he one up me!?"

Even the villains like the Lightning Bolts were forced to put up with Knuckles's new obsession.

"So I saw four rocks lying around and I thought, 'Wow, would you look at that.'"

"Why are you talking to us?" Dave asked over the echidna's rambling.

Knuckles continued on as if nothing had been said. "And then I thought, 'If there were five more rocks, that'd make nine rocks.'"

"We're enemies but you're just casually talking to us. Why are you talking to us at all?" Willy asked next.

And still, Knuckles went on, "And recently, I've been thinking, if four plus five equals nine, what would happen if I took four or five away from nine."

At that point, the weasel in the group couldn't take anymore. "Go away! Stop talking to us!"


"Alright, now that we're all here: Joe, I think you created a monster," Amy said from her spot at the table.

"I know. My foot's still hurting," the human pointed out. "Who knew basic math was dangerous?"

Sonic rested his head in his palm. "So what do we do? I was kinda hoping he'd forget this by now."

"We could just hit him over the head. That might work," Sticks suggested.

"Okay, that's one idea," Amy said, clearly hesitant. "Any other ideas before we resort to physical violence?"

Tails raised a hand. "We could give him something to occupy himself with, like a game or a toy?"

"Sounds good enough. Everybody, scatter and find something," Sonic instructed.


"~Knuckles, we have some presents for you~" Amy sang sweetly.

The red echidna tilted his head. "Really? Aw, you shouldn't have."

"We thought you could use something to go along with this new obsessi-I mean hobby," Tails corrected himself. He reached behind his back and pulled out a set of three poles on a piece of wood. On one of the poles were four discs stacked on top of one another, with the widest at the bottom.

"Whoa, a donut rack?" Knuckles guessed.

Tails shook his head, "It's a Tower of Hanoi. It's a game."

"There's a game involving donuts?"

That comment alone was enough to demotivate Tails. "You know what? Why don't one of you guys go next?"

Sonic walked up and held out a newton's cradle. "Take a look at this," he pulled one of the balls back and set the cradle into motion.

"Ooooh." Knuckles took the cradle and began playing with it.

Looking back at his friends, Sonic grinned, "Problem solved."

The rest of the gang held up three fingers each, wordlessly using said fingers to count down. When they reached zero, they pointed behind Sonic.

He turned around to see that Knuckles had already broken the cradle. Sonic rubbed his forehead. "Really should've seen that coming."

"Me next," Joe took the next turn and handed his coach a calculator.

"I spy three certain numbers on here," Knuckles grinned.

"Please be gentle with it," the human begged. He stepped back to see watch what Knuckles would do. As the seconds ticked by, he and his friends sighed in relief as Knuckles thankfully didn't break the calculator even though he'd repeatedly focused on 4, 5, and 9.

"I guess I won't be needing these," Amy said, looking at the dice in her hands. "What was your idea, Sticks?"

Sticks hastily tried to hide the big stick she was holding behind her back, "Uh, nothin'!"

Her friends glared at her for a second before deciding to just take their win and get on with their day.


Observing his monitor, Eggman pondered the footage he'd collected. "Hmm, it seems the muscle of Sonic's little group is a bit preoccupied. This gives me an idea."

"What is it, Boss?" Cubot asked, scratching his head.

Eggman opened his mouth to explain but paused. "Oh, I think I came up with some bonus details for the plan. Get Orbot and start making preparations. This is going to be great!"


Knuckles kept entering and reentering the addition problem into his calculator. He was so enthralled that he didn't notice Orbot and Cubot sneaking up on him, wielding crowbars.

However, as Orbot swung his weapon, he was shocked when Knuckles casually ducked under it, despite appearing to not notice him.

He and Cubot shared a glance before Cubot tried his luck. He swung low, aiming for Knuckles's legs, only for the echidna to dodge it with a small leap all without looking away from the simple math problem he was repetitively entering into the calculator.

The two bots continued attacking for another minute, but Knuckles ducked, limboed under, or just sidestepped their attacks, all without so much as glancing at his attackers.

Eventually, they just lost patience. "Oh, nuts to this!" Orbot threw his hands in the air and began floating away. "This was supposed to be easy!"

Cubot looked at his friend before looking at the crowbar in his hand, yelling "You let us down!" at it. He threw the crowbar on the ground and floated after Orbot. "At least we know he won't focus on anything else."


Eggman floated into town on his Eggmobile. "Attention, townsfolk!" Once he had their attention, he continued, "Today is the day I finally take over your town!"

Skidding onto the scene, Sonic instantly gave a comeback, "Yeah, you wish."

"My wish is his command," Eggman boasted. The ground rumbled for a moment before a new robot burst out. The robot was brown and had big, mitten-like hands. Its head had a pentagonal visor for a face and its feet were spiked cleats. "Meet Earthbot."

"Earthbot?" Sonic repeated, unimpressed.

"Well, I wanted Earthtron, but that was already taken," Eggman admitted sheepishly, before straightening and using a more powerful voice. "Earthbot will destroy this town and there's nothing-"

"So, does he control earth or something?" Sonic guessed.

Eggman shook his head. "No, he uses his cleats to dig into the earth as he fights."

"Okay, for the record, that sounds really underwhelming," the blue hedgehog said while he crossed his arms. At that moment, the rest of the team, sans Knuckles, joined Sonic in confronting the new robot.

The evil doctor quickly regained his confidence, "Anyway, he's going to take you down."

"Dibs on the first hit!" Sonic called as he launched into a spin dash.

Earthbot stomped, sinking its cleats into the ground, anchoring it in place as it caught Sonic with one of its giant mitts. It balled its other mitt into a fist and brought it down on Sonic, flooring him.

"Oooh, that had to hurt," Joe commented.

"Tag in, guys," Sonic groaned.

Taking his cue, Amy and Joe went in and swung their weapons, only for Earthbot to catch each of them. Sticks tried to close in from behind, but the robot freed its feet from the ground and stuck a leg out behind it, forcing her stop before she could impale herself. To finish things off, Earthbot spun in place, pulling Amy and Joe along and slamming them into Sticks.

Tails tried his luck next. He dove in from above, wielding a wrench. Unfortunately, Earthbot caught him with its mitts, wound up for a pitch, and threw him at his friends, knocking them all over like bowling pins, sound and all.

"Hahahaha! There was even a bowling pin sound effect for that!" Eggman laughed.

At that moment, Knuckles wondered onto the scene, still playing with his calculator. He bothered looking up, failing to realize the situation they were in. "Oh, hey guys."

The echidna got a wakeup call when Earthbot hit him in the face with a palm thrust.

Getting the message that a fight was going on, Knuckles stored his calculator in hammerspace and threw a punch, which the robot caught. He quickly withdrew before his foe could counterattack. As he raised his guard, his eyes widened, "I just got an idea."

In his field of vision, numbers began appearing and disappearing until only three remained: 4, 5, and 9.

Knowing what he had to do, he moved in for the attack. First, he attacked with a straight punch, "Four!" Earthbot caught it while digging its feet into the ground. Knuckles yanked his hands away and punched the ground, "Five!" This caused a tremor that loosened the robot's cleats and threw it off-balance. "And now, punch number nine!" he called out, literally knocking the robot's blockhead off.

Grinning, Knuckles thrust his fists in the air, "Math is power!"

"I can't believe I just heard that from him of all people," Eggman said, visibly stunned. "Oh well, let's get this over with," he pulled out some notecards, "Okay, 'curse you all, I'll get you next time, yadda yadda yadda."

As he flew off, the team congratulated their friend. "I can't believe you used math to beat an enemy…Kind of," Tails smiled.

"Yeah, I can't believe Joe managed to teach you something like that in the first place," Sonic said, looking between Knuckles and Joe.

Joe grinned, "Sometimes it pays to spin an epic tale of loss and triumph."


The next day, Knuckles had assembled the gang for what he claimed was an important announcement. "So, I was thinking that adding four plus five or five plus four to get nine is pretty cool. But then it hit me: what if I did nine plus four or five? The possibilities are endless!"

His friends all stared at him dully. Slowly the group turned to look at Joe with silent accusations.

"I think I hate myself," Joe stated.

"We all hate yourself too," Sticks agreed.