I must do Something!
Why? Why did my people have to be consumed by War? Why wouldn't my father listen? Why must this tragedy occur again and again?
Forgive me, I should probably explain myself. My name is Tikal, and I am the princess of the Angel Island Echidna Clan. My people are an ancient and proud race of warriors, an order once dedicated to the to the protection of the innocent, and defending the weak on Mobius. In ages past, my ancestors defended the planet from such great evils as the invading Drakon Empire, as well as the mythical tyrant Mammoth Mogul. These ancient menaces once threatened our great planet, but my tribe stood bravely against them, reducing these powerful foes to nothing more than Legends that Mobian parents tell their children around their hearth fires. Even I am named after the first princess Tikal, a legendary ancestor who sealed the watery monster known as chaos to save the world.
We were once a just and proud people, doing right and shutting wrong, until the day that pride and a desire for power corrupted us. In the time of my ancestors, the ancients gave the Echidna tribe the seven magical gemstones known as the Chaos Emeralds, from which seven Warriors could draw great power to fight evil. But one of our ancient Chiefs decided he would wield all that power unto himself, and fused the seven Chaos Emeralds together to form the Master Emerald. The owl tribe, a noble group of Warriors who had broken away from the war like Babylon Birds (ancestors of those villains who today call themselves The Battle bird Armada) and stood by our side in the fight against evil. They saw how the wielding the power of the Master Emerald had corrupted our greatest chief into a mad God of destruction, who could vaporize whole armies with a thought. Realizing such power could not safely be wielded by one individual, the owls stole the Master Emerald from the corrupted chief, and took it to be hidden away on a distant world. Our people have been stuck in a violent and brutal war with the owls ever since, our numbers diminishing century after century, until only about a hundred of us remain in the small village clustered on Angel Island.
All of this lore was passed on to me by my grandmother, who taught me the stories and traditions of our people. She instilled a great love of the ways of peace into me, and I have desired nothing but to see our people return to their former glory. Sadly, my father does not agree. He still seeks to take down the last owl warrior, a female named Longclaw, who knows the secret of where the Master Emerald is kept. After my grandmother's passing, and my father's ascendancy to the chieftainship, he can now finally carry out his dark ambitions. My father is now searching the islands of Mobius for Longclaw's hiding place. I have begged and pleaded with him stop this madness, to leave the owl alone, and let her dwell in peace. But my father's Warrior's pride in vanity stand in the way of his common sense.
"Father please, don't do this!" I try to reason with him. "War and violence! Chaos and destruction! These are the very things our ancestors once fought against! Why can you not listen to grandmother's advice, and abandoned War for peace with the other tribes of Mobius?"
"Silence daughter, this is not a matter that should concern you!" My father told me in anger. "The matters of war, are for warriors to concern themselves with! Return to your weaving and basket making, and playing with the chao in the chao Garden, foolish girl!"
Every time we had these arguments, I would soak away in sadness. I knew my father would not listen as I was only nine at the time, and nobody in the tribe would listen to a mere child. All of the other children in the tribe had been lost when a terrible disease came through the previous spring. Only myself and a young boy my age named knuckles, the son of the widowed warrior Pakal, survive the plague. The men and women of the tribe were already lustily preparing to renew the population of children amongst us, but it was then that our spies had discovered the hiding place of the owl Warrior Longclaw. She had been seen living on South Island, in a peaceful Village. It was said she had taken a young blue Hedgehog orphan and his mustache faced uncle in, and was raising the Speedy young child as her apprentice. My father gathered an Attack Force to strike, and force her to tell our tribe the location of the master emerald.
"Father, leave her in peace, I beg of you!" I pleaded one final time. "Ask her where the emerald is, if you must have it. But please, do not start another War!"
"Nonsense, child! Longclaw's destruction will be our final battle, after which we will reclaim the Master Emerald. With its power, the ancient prophecy of the ancestral princess you are named for will come to pass, an Angel Island will rise above the clouds to float in proud Glory over the other nations of Mobius! It will be an end to the wars you so hate, my daughter, and you shall inherit my throne to rule an age of peace in Mobius overseen by the benevolent rule of the Echidna tribe!"
And so, my father and his Warriors took to the Seas and boats I riding in the prow of the lead boat at my father's side. Knuckles the young boy who had been the only other Survivor of a terrible plague months earlier, which it killed all of our friends, was left behind. Pakal told his son to stay behind, that now was not the time to honor our tribe, but that day would come. I did not know Knuckles very well, as we each had our own friends in the tribe in those childhood years, but I felt sorry for him as he stood forlornly on the shore watching our boats glide away.
What followed next was a time of sound and blood and fury, a time I tried to put out of my mind, to forget the pain that came when we arrived on South Island. I remember the attacks on Long claw, the owl getting her Young Apprentice safely through a ring portal, before unleashing her fury on the warriors of my tribe. That was the last day of the Echidna people, as despite her wounds Longclaw proved her warriors prowess, slaughtering all the warriors of my tribe, before expiring from her own wounds. I saw my father go down as the last Warriors standing to face her, having shot all his arrows into her before driving his spear deep into her heart with the last of his strength. My father breathed his last fell over dead, an inglorious end to the last chief of The proud echinda tribe. As I rushed to his side and wept over the remains of my foolish father, the dying long claw looked down upon me. But the owl owl, having suffered too many wounds at the hands of my father's warriors, collapsed. She let out a final sigh, as her spirit traveled to the next world.
"Oh father, why couldn't you have listened? Couldn't you see that this is where the path of Hayden violence leads us?" I sobbed, morning the passing of my people, the end of the proud of kidney race. "War for Conquest has brought us nothing but pain and suffering! I wish you could have seen that, and then I would still have my father!"
It was not long, before the other South Islander villagers came out and looked upon the grizzly site of the massacre. As the villagers approached my father's remains where I still lay weeping, I knew they would be angry at the destruction my people had brought upon their Island. I closed my eyes and prepared for the end, but a young rabbit woman in an elegant dress, handed her infant child to her husband, and came forward. To my surprise, she put her hands on my shoulders, and embracing the child of one who had caused their people so much pain and suffering.
"Do not be frightened, child. We will not harm you." She told me, in a soothing tone. "My name is Vanilla, what's yours? Are you hurt, little one? Have you eaten?"
And so, these South Island villagers, who had lost so much to my people's greed and ambition, showed me kindness and compassion. I used the mystical healing abilities My grandmother had taught me as the tribes shaman heal their wounds, and help them bury the Island's dead; who sadly included the little blue hedgehogs nephew. When I told them that my tribe had been entirely wiped out, the villagers took me in and raised me as one of their own. When I told them about knuckles, they returned to Angel Island and searched for him. But whether he had want you wondered away from the island or was hiding from The Strangers who appeared, they could find no trace of my fellow last echidna. Now, I have consigned myself to being one of the last few of my kind. Over the next few years, I tried to keep myself busy; helping the village doctor heal wounded and sick patients, helping the village women weave and gather crops. In time, I reached my 16th year; the age of adulthood for mobians of all cultures. It was then that I made a decision;
I must do something.
The Master Emerald was still out there, hidden away where someone could find it and use its power to cause great destruction. That Emerald was forged by my people, it is there for an Echidna responsibility. I became determined to go out and find that emerald, and prevent its power from ever being misused as my tribe had misused it in ages past. When I told my plans to several of the orphans in the village, would lost their parents during the Echidna attack, a bunch of them decided to band together with with me, and form a group dedicated to finding the missing Master Emerald, and bringing it back to Angel Island where it could be kept safely. These Brave teenagers; Vector the Crocodile, Espio the Chameleon, Mighty the armadillo, Honey the Cat, and the two younger orphans, Charmy bee and Ray the flying squirrel, have joined together with me as a team to find and secure this dangerous and Powerful artifact. We now travel the worlds by ring portal, working as mercenaries and detectives to fight Injustice and right wrongs across the zones of the mobian inhabited worlds. And we took a name befitting a team looking for the chaos emeralds; the Chaotix.
Along the way we heard the tails of the Brave Hero on earth, Sonic the Hedgehog who had defeated a cruel and evil scientist, and now protected the the Earth with a two-tailed fox and.. a male red echidna. My heart leaped at this news; the long lost fellow member of My Tribe.. could he still be alive? It had to be knuckles, I realized, and I had to find him and bring him home. Talking it over with Vector, who had become the default leader of our group, we decided to head to Earth and see if we could find my long lost fellow exhidna, who had perhaps recovered the Master Emerald. Perhaps, I could bring it and him home, and then at long last Angel Island would rise above the clouds, as spoken of in the prophecy my father held so dear. If this is so, I will then look across the stars and find any surviving echidnas who had been scattered among the worlds, and try and rebuild our civilization. And if chance comes that I become Queen of a restored Echidna society, I will rule in the ways of peace and justice as my grandmother had taught me.
Perhaps after thriving so long in war, we echidnas can thrive under true peace.