The Chaotix Crew
It had been a very rough time for the echidna named Knuckles, his first year after Eggman's death egg crashed onto Angel Island, changing his life forever. But even with his encounters with the heroic hedgehog and his companions, things were about to get even more eventful for the last echidna of Angel Island.
After his adventures off of the island, Knuckles was ready for ready for anything. But when Clutch the Opossum, a 'legitimate businessman' from Westside Island, flew a plane up to Knuckle's home, and brought a business proposition to the last echidna. The criminal /entrepreneur invited the now-famous echidna to come visit his new island amusement park, the Neutronic High zone, as a publicity stunt. Feeling he needed a break from his guardian duties and adventuring, took the shifty rodent up on his offer. The guardian found several islanders had already taken up Clutch on his offer, and a mix of animal folk from all over the world were there, enjoying the park. Despite his instincts screaming at him something wasn't right, Knuckles ignored his instincts, and try to enjoy the park.
What Knuckles found out, almost too late, was the park was a trap to lure unsuspecting islanders in to a trap. Clutch was working with Dr. Eggman, and the park was a cover to catch islanders for the doctor to experiment on, as well as dig up some mysterious ancient artifacts on the islands, called the Chaos rings. Escaping from a trap called a combi-catcher, The last echidna of Angel Island managed to free several other islanders who had come to the park;the music and money-loving Vector the crocodile, serious and stealthy ninja Espio the chameleon, childish high-flyer Charmy Bee, and the strong and angry Mighty the Armadillo. After liberating these others, Knuckles spoke to the entire group saying;
"My fellow prisoners, we have escaped from the traps Dr. Eggman has put us in. We are free to again do as we wish. But perhaps, together, we can take on the well organized plans of this madman, and make things a littler chaotic for him!"
The others agreed, and they all fought together to free all of the other animal folk on the island, and recovered the seven chaos rings. Along the way, two truncoat badniks tried to help the heroes, but only managed to slow them down. Using the sling rings- an ancient echidna set of energy tethers connected to two hanheld rings- the group except Knuckles split into teams of two, slinging their way through the evil carnival at the echidnas directions. As they worked together, the five of them found that they could accomplish far more together, than they could separately. And it was together they managed to fight their way through Eggman's badnik army across the island's many zones. In the end, they were confronted by metal sonic, who quickly absorbed all of the energy of the chaos rings. He transformed into a giant red form, later called Metal Sonic Kai, with a terrifying fanged together and under Knuckles's leadership, the team managed to bring the great giant down, destroying Kai's large body, dissipating the chaos ring energy, and reducing Metal Sonic back to his shriveled form.
"Hey man, we did it! we beat that big metal jerk!" Vector chortled. "That'll show Eggman who's boss!"
"Indeed, we have saved all of the islanders the doctor held prisoner here." Espio agreed. "We did a lot of good here today."
"Yeah yeah yeah!" Charmy agreed, bouncing around excitedly in the air. "We did it, we're heroes!"
"We were able to save my little buddy Ray from the combi-catcher, and that's good enough for me." Mighty pointed out. "Perhaps we could do more good as a team, than we could separately."
And so, taking their name from Knuckles's earthlier speech, the team became the Chaotix. After delivering Clutch to the authorities and dumping metal Sonic's carcass into the ocean (where Eggman would later recover him from), Knuckles took the group back to Angel Island, where they would operate for the next year as a team under the last echidna's leadership. Besides protecting the Master Emerald and Angel Island, the group would often act as detectives and mercenaries on the surface, defeating bad guys and helping those in were masny such cases they solved, and many such battles they fought.
One particular adventure was when Breezie the Hedgehog, a business woman who controlled several casino's and media outlets, acquired a chaos emerald. Deciding to try and make a profit off of the gem, Breezie announced the World Fighters tournament, a series of arena battles, with the emerald as the prize. Knuckles had himself and Espio enter the tournament, where they fought against the likes of Team Hooligan (a little gang of thugs put together by the jerk of a jerboa, Fang), and Metal Sonic. While all of the fighters were duking in out in the tournament, Charmy, Mighty, and Vector went after the emerald by fighting their way past Breezie's security systems. In the end, it was Metal Sonic that flew off with the Emerald, and Sonic who went up to fight Eggman on the death egg mark 2 and defeated his e-mech in battle. But the chaotix played their part in that battle, helping to secure another defeat for the mad doctor.
Another great adventure, was the Chaotix fighting an army of evil metal duplicates of sonic and his friends from the future. Called the brotherhood of Metallix, this force was metal sonic, metal tails, metal knuckles, Metal Amy, and an army of Mecha Sonics- all led by a large new version of Metal Kai- invaded the past to ensure their a long and complicated series of events, Knuckles and his Chaotix smashed the brotherhood of Metallix in a string of battles, erasing them from future existence entirely by changing the present.
"Man, it seems we're always helpin' everybody out, even if we don't get paid." Vector grumbled once. "Just once, when somebody offers reward money, I wish our fearless leader Knux would just take it!"
"What would we do with money up here on Angel Island?" Mighty asked his crocodile friend. "We have all the food and resources we need up here, and we're in this to help others, not just score a ring payday!"
His team Members were the oddest of friends anyone could have asked for; Mighty was a traveling adventurer, who had been along on what had possibly Sonic's second battle with Doctor Robotnik, where the mad doctor captured and tried to experiment on them. He was a peaceful, scholarly guy, who loved reading and training. But get him riled up, and his super strength could punch a hole through a mountain. Espio was a ninja and spy from the Sunrise islands to the far east; his ability to go indivisible to spy and stealth were a valuable asset to the team, as well as his cool and collected nature. Charmy, the lone survivor of a hive colony that Dr. Eggman had destroyed, the poor little guy was just a hyper and excitable kid. Vector was swift and strong, but made good leadership decisions on the fly, that made him the perfect second in command for Knux.
Even though the battles and adventures, a few new members managed to swell the ranks of the Chaotix crew.
First, there was Ray the flying Squirrel. He was basically a sidekick to Mighty the Armadillo, that they rescued during their first caper at the Newtronic High zone. The shy little fellow worked as a messenger and courier for the team, as the overprotective Mighty would rarely let him enter a fight.
Then, there was Honey the Cat, a fashion designer whom the group had met at the fighters tournament. She had entered the tournament to promote her clothing line. She took a shine to Mighty, and decided to stick around with the team for awhile.
Also, there was the bandicoot girl, Tiara Bobowski. The daughter of one of the world's greatest doctors, Professor Gazebo Bobowski, she wanted to follow in her father's footsteps as a healer. The Chaotix ran across her, when they were hired to find a cure for the deadly Doom Virus. After helping Knuckles and his crew with their mission, she decided to stay with the crew as their doctor. She enjoyed caring for her teammates... especially Espio. Eventually, Knuckles found an old magical echidna scepter from Athair's apothecary for her to wield; one that a skilled physician like herself could use to heal wounds.
Life had changed so much for Knuckles; going from the sole inhabitant on his home, to sharing Angel island with seven other friends. It was hard for the guardian, at first; trying to remain stoic and stay off by himself at the emerald shrine, while his 'friends' were busy having a cookout nearby, laughing and joking among themselves. Where once he had an excuse not to venture away from the island for too long due to the master emerald's safety, he could now look towards one of his friends holding down the fort, while he was free to go down to the surface with the others. All this time spent with others; Sparring with Mighty, Sitting around and listening to tunes with Vector, gliding around through the trees on the island with Ray and Charmy when they explored; it was a very different existence than the one he had envisioned himself trapped in due to his guardian duties.
But it was not an existence without unhappiness and sorrows.
There were many villains that Knuckles and his Chaotix fought; the slithering crime boss Lord Sidewinder and his super powered criminal gang, the disease creating supervillain Doctor Plague (the one whose virus-causing schemes brought Tiara onto the team), and even Team Hooligan, the Chaotix's rivals on the dark side. But an old specter from Knuckles's past arose, as his childhood friend, Wechina, came roaring back into his life with an attack on Angel island, and an attempt to steal the Master Emerald. Dr. Zachery Finiteivus- a name and a person the last guardian did not recognize, began launching attacks on Angel Island. At first, it started with waves of guardian robots, gizord-like contraptions that the Chaotix could easily dispatch when they all worked together.
It was after two or three of these attacks, that Knux began to ask questions;
"These robots... I thought Eggman sent them, but the designs look almost... echidna-like." The guardian thought aloud.
"Awww, don't worry about it too much, Knux!" Vector reassured his friend, slapping him on the back. "The ol' doc just probably studied some more of your people's old tech!"
Knuckles tried to believe his scaly friends words were the truth. But on the fourth attack on the robots, a figure appeared leading the robots that shocked all of the Chaotix. A figure... that shook the guardian to his very core.
"No, no... this can't be..." the guardian muttered, too stunned to join his fellow Chaotix in attacking the robots. "I-I'm the last... I know I'm the last..."
"Hello, Knuckles." The albino echidna who stood before the guardian smiled, reveling sharp, pointed teeth. "It is so good to see you again, my dear old friend."
Knuckles only stared at him in disbelief. It was another echidna... even thought it was a very odd looking one. This meant... he really wasn't the last of his kind? The ramifications of this swirled around and around in his head, until Mighty yelling for his aid snapped the guardian back to reality. They managed to yet again drive off the robotic invaders from the island... but the knowledge of who was launching these attacks shook Knuckles to his very core.
Even as these attacks were ramped up by the pale echidna, things were worsening on the surface below. There were some cases the Chaotix were able to bust wide open; they teamed up with Echo the Dolphin, royal guard of the underwater city of Meropis, to save princess Undina from the pirates of the golden dawn. The Chaotix got a bit of a personal blow, when little Charmy's last friend from the hive, Bart the Bumblebee (Charmy nicknamed him 'Barfy') suffered from an overdose of an toxic flower nectar, sold to him by a dealer working for Clutch the Opossum. While clutch was able to bribe his way out of imprisonment, the actual dealer whop sold the poison to Bart did face justice, and get put away.
Knuckles would never forget the sight; of Tiara working frantically to save the little bee's life in her little makeshift clinic on Angel Island,while Charmy tried to talk to his dear friend.
"Bart? You ok, Bart?" The toddler bee asked, tears welling up in his eyes. "P-please get up..."
"I-I'm sorry, Charmy." Tiara told him, her eyes watering as well. "H-he's gone."
As Tiara covered the little bee's body up with a sheet, Knuckles couldn't figure out wither the other bee child or the bandicoot who had failed to save the little one's life was crying harder.
But as bad as things were for Knuckles and his little surrogate family, Dr. Finitevus was already out there, scheming and plotting to make sure that things were only going to get worse for Knuckles and his Chaotix crew.
"Bah! Those robots are useless in dealing with the guardian and his friends." The pale echidna muttered, scratching his chin. "If I want to take down the guardian and his friends, I'm going to need a fighting force of powerful deal with the challenge. It is time for Knuckles's Chaotix, to meet the power of Dr. Finitevus's Destructix!"