"What the heck is taking that girl so long?" impatiently expressed Fang to himself.
Bark and Bean were sitting in front of the desk. Bark was still angry as Bean fiddled with one of the gems from Fang's treasure.
"Maybe she's hatching an intricate plan to escape the settlement, complete with explosions, double agents and a police dog...or maybe she's just in the bathroom."
"I didn't give her permission to go to the bathroom. You, Big guy! Since you care so much about her, go get her right away."
The big polar bear reluctantly obeyed, got up from his chair and moved toward the exit. But a knock from it stopped him.
"It's coming at last!" exclaimed Fang.
Before Bark could grab the doorknob, the heavy metal door flew through the air. Bark was able to stop it and with it he blocked the intruder's first blow, then the second, but by the third the door began to warp and by the fourth it had been completely shattered. The impact caused the polar bear to fall flat on its face.
"FANG, you filthy VERMIN!" shouted Knuckles in anger.
"What's that knucklehead doing awake!?" a terrified Fang asked Bean.
"Hmmm Maybe it's dinner time? I wake up in the wee hours too if I'm hungry," the bird replied without paying much attention to his surroundings, engrossed with the gems.
"SHUT YOUR YAPS AND FINISH HIM!" demanded Fang as he snatched the gems from Bean's hand.
"Ok, ok, I'm coming," Bean was saying as he stood up and materialized from the air an active bomb "It's Party Time!".
"No! No bombs here!" begged Fang.
"You are a very spoiled little boss. You know?. Sadly, this thing is already-".
The explosion was very large and mowing. Window panes were shattered, the canvas of several paintings was torn to shreds, and much porcelain was crashed. A huge gap had opened behind Fang's desk, now destroyed, and from the gap Fang hung precariously, five stories above the floor.
"Damned insane bird! My treasure!" wailed Fang between curses.
As the weasel tried to re-enter the office, Knuckles' foot stepped on one of his hands. Fang turned his gaze upward and saw the echidna's face directly, meeting it with a look brimming with the purest rancor.
"I already knew you were a rat, but even this what you've become is low for you, you wretch...".
"Someone, anyone, finish him off!" the weasel begged.
"No matter how much you cry, no one is going to-".
Bark's huge hand grabbed Knuckles by the shoulder and dragged him to the back of the room and proceeded to deliver several blows to his face. The echidna reacted to parry a few and counterattacked with a couple of blows to the stomach that made the bear retreat. Then he went to kick him, the height difference being considerable, Knux first ran towards the wall to jump from it and reach Bark's head. But the bear reacted fast enough to stop the kick with his hand, grab Knux by the leg and slam him to the ground twice before the echidna could break free and crash into one of the walls. Bark immediately went to wrap around the echidna as it rebounded and caught its breath. When it looked like Knux was at Bark's mercy, the echidna landed a right to the bear's jaw, stunning him, and continued to attack with all his might until he was able to subdue the bear.
Knuckles was about to give the last blow when he noticed something moving out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look behind him and found Fang trying to flee, crawling on the ground. The echidna let go of Bark and immediately went to attack Fang, but behind him Bark, regaining his composure, stood up and then imprisoned Knuckles in his arms.
"That's right, big guy! Crush him!" cheered Fang.
Bark began to strain to squeeze Knuckles tighter and tighter. The echidna was running out of breath.
"Hey Knux, catch!" shouted Sticks from outside through the office door as she tossed the echidna a bracelet with a reddish quartz gem stone.
Knuckles was able to catch the bracelet with his mouth, the quartz in the center of the garment began to glow and, suddenly, a reddish aura emanated from Knuckles like an explosion.
Bark let go of Knuckles, gripped by a deep, horrifying and inexplicable feeling of terror that was impossible to identify where it came from. It was a suffocating and paralyzing sensation, he could not resist it, much less run away from it. He was petrified as he watched the echidna in panic.
"What's going on!" cried a terrified Anne, who was accompanying Sticks and was on her knees on the floor, hugging herself tightly as absolute terror gripped her.
"You have no idea how much I hate this!" said Sticks as, with trembling hands, gripped by the same terror, she tried to put on a bracelet similar to Knuckles' but with orange tones. When she succeeded in doing so, Knuckles' reddish aura moved away from her, creating a sort of bubble. Sticks then hugged Anne so that the aura of terror would leave her as well. "You better finish this fast, I hate having to wear this trinket!" the Badger shouted, pointing to her bracelet.
"I'm just about done," Knuckles replied as he settled the Meta-Quartz bracelet on his right wrist and calmly walked over to Fang.
The weasel lay in a fetal position on the ground, trembling and delirious, totally gripped by terror. Knuckles put a foot on him as he prepared his fist to strike.
"I will give you as a last consolation a quick end," sentenced the echidna as he raised his fist ready to deliver a withering blow.
"Knuckles!" shouted Sticks. "The bird!"
When the echidna turned to see what Sticks was referring to, he found that the deranged bird had summoned a bomb half the size of the room.
"Red Beast very Very VERY scary and very Very VERY bad!" the terrified bird stammered as it sucked a thumb. "Big-boom make Red Beast disappear!" it finished saying before dropping the huge bomb.
Then...
Although the rain had not stopped, it was gradually easing from an inclement storm to a simple heavy rain. In the middle of the courtyard there was a large hole that connected to the water tank, with a large funnel improvised with waterproof canvas fabric that efficiently redirected all the water that fell into the hole. Inside the house the floor was cluttered with pots, containers, cups and vessels of all kinds, all filled with water, some clean, others slightly cloudy from the mud.
While in the kitchen a small pot of chocolate was heating up, in the living room, lying on one of the couch with a towel around his shoulders and another over his face, was Knuckles, exhausted, but satisfied and calm. Amy granted him the honor of being the first to take a shower with the collected water, as a celebration. He had declined at first, but then the invitation became a demand as she expressed her displeasure at being around someone who reeked so badly of sweat, mud and wet dog. In the end it turned out to be a good idea, as the echidna was able to wash away his tiredness and worries with the water. He had for a moment the luxury of forgetting that the world was falling apart and filling his spirit with hope... But that feeling, that call, still remained.
The echidna leaned back in the couch and set his gaze in the direction from where "it" was calling him. It so happened that in that direction was that Indigo Orchid, still dewy from the recent watering it had received.
Knuckles began to rummage through his memories of Sally. There weren't many, he hadn't spent as much time with her as Amy or the others, but the little he had were pleasant and harmless, more in tune with what Amy claimed. No clue to explain why, when he last heard her mentioned while standing next to Sonic, the latter made a face he had never seen in the years he had known the hedgehog...
"Chocolate's ready!" the sudden appearance of Amy, wearing a sleeveless flannel, shorts and with a towel tied over her head, made Knuckles startle. "What? is it really that easy to scare Knuckles, the great Echidna warrior?".
"You didn't scare me, you just surprised me. They're two different things."
"Riiiiiiiight," the hedgehog let out a small giggle as Knuckles looked away to hide his shame.
Amy placed Knux's mug on the coffee table, a large mug with a marshmallow and cookie floating in it. Knuckles grabbed the mug and took his time to revel in the smell and warmth. He took a sip and a huge feeling of well-being spread throughout his body. He tried to control himself, but within seconds he was done with it all.
"If you want more, there's still left."
"It's Okay, I don't want to... Well, maybe later."
Amy gave a small laugh before proceeding to drink from her own cup.
"It looks like the tank is filling up at a good pace," Knux observed.
"Oh yes! I'm impressed. I think if the rain keeps up like this for a few hours, the tank will be completely full."
"Let's hope so. Although I doubt the water will be very drinkable."
"Don't worry about it! I asked Tails to install the filtering system, and as is his wont, he went a little over the top and practically invented a highly complex purification system. No matter how cloudy the water is, it will always come out of the tap pristine and totally drinkable. I believe it can even turn salt water into fresh and... even purify urine, although I prefer not to think about that too much."
"Wonderful. And how much water time would we have?".
"Hmmm, I don't know. Since it was automatically refilled from the spring... For the three of us, if we're thrifty enough, Six months, maybe?".
"We have to make it at least a year, we don't know when it will rain again...or if it will even rain again."
"What's on your mind?".
"We must keep the routine of saving. Do not drink so much water.
"Okidoki.
"Eat dry food as much as possible."
"Got It"
"Restrict baths to one per week."
"What!? dead first! At least once every two days!"
"Every 4 days"
"Every 2 and a half days!"
"That doesn't make sense. Three days. Take it or leave it."
"Ok, whatev!" Amy, sulking, focused her attention on her cup of chocolate. After a few seconds she looked at the orchid. "You won't say anything about my flowers?".
"No."
"Ok," Amy gave a small smile and continued sipping her chocolate.
Outside, the murmur of the rain continued to sound. From above, drops could be heard hitting the roof tiles. The glow of the afternoon sun glinted slightly through the clouds.
"So...," Knuckles began to speak without looking at Amy, only at the orchid. "From Acorn...," he said at last.
"Yes... It was a gift, for my last birthday."
"And it means a lot..."
"Really a Lot, yes."
"Hmmm... Hey what's that weird thing you do with it? When you get lik…," Knuckles proceeded to do the worst imitation of Amy trying to do telekinesis. The pink hedgehog couldn't help but laugh.
"By Gaia, don't tell me that I really look like this!".
"You definitely do. What are you trying to do? communicate with her by telepathy or something?".
"No, knuklehead." Amy reached through the collar of her flannel and brought up a necklace.
The garment was simple in appearance, a chain of a very shiny metal and with light pinkish tones with a pendant that had the shape of a heart and a bouquet of roses. Each small rose had a shiny stone, and the largest rose in the center had a quartz.
"Is that...? What was his name again? Mate-a-croissant... Meet-a-crash..."
"META-QUARTZ, you big head! I can't believe you forgot about something so simple. Where's the Meta-Quartz Nicole gave you, by the way?".
"I had no use for it, so I threw it away."
"What!?".
"I'm strong enough without it. Plus, whenever I wore the bracelet, the Flikies and Chaos would run away, like they were afraid of me. It was very depressing, so I got rid of it."
"Only you are capable of such a brute solution! Sonic also had a strange thing going on when he wore his. I remember Rotor talking about it, he called it... "Zone of I-don't-know-what"... But anyway, Sonic knew how to control it. You could have asked him how he did it instead of throwing it away".
"Well, let bygones be bygones. Nothing more can be done.
"You get on my nerves!", Amy crossed her arms and started pouting. "You, Sonic and Tails are soooo lucky. You were able to control yours on the first try. Meanwhile I've been practicing for months and I still can't do the stupid practice bubble."
"Really? But it's the easiest thing in the world. You must be terrible.
"Shut Up!"
"And what do you need that Meta-whatever for? You're almost as strong as me and you've got your stupidly big hammer too."
"I don't want it for fighting."
"So?"
"I want to...," Amy was silent for a moment, a slight wistful air settling in her gaze. "I want to protect...".
"«Protect» What?"
"Anything, it doesn't matter. Just...," the hedgehog gave a quick glance at the orchid. "I wish I could protect what I love the most, so I wouldn't lose anything else...".
Knuckles stood watching the hedgehog closely, then focused on the flower.
"Ok," the echidna got up from the couch and approached the flower, carefully picking it up and carrying it over to the coffee table in the living room. "You want to make the bubble around the flower don't you? Try it now, let me see."
The hedgehog settled back in her seat, bent down to get closer to the flower, put her hands around it at a considerable distance and began to concentrate. It does seemed as if she was trying to lift the flower with her mind or speak to it by telepathy. The meta-quartz on her necklace glowed faintly and intermittently, like a poorly connected light bulb. Around the flower a sort of pinkish energy swirled, as if trying to form something, but failing at every attempt. Until for an instant, a thin-walled bubble appeared, only to immediately disappear completely, to which Amy gave up trying, exhausted.
"That was depressing," Knuckles joked.
"I don't understand what I'm doing wrong..."
"The lynx said that in addition to will you needed to have something on your mind. What do you think about when you try to create the bubble?".
"Well...in a bubble, right?".
"There's your mistake. When I first tried to make the bubble, I didn't think about just creating «a bubble», I thought about making the strongest bubble I could. I can't speak for Sonic and Tail, but I imagine they did something similar."
"Now that I remember...," Amy began to rummage through her memories. "Your bubble turned out to be so heavy that it crashed into the ground and broke it, Tail made a bubble that was lighter than air, and for a moment we thought Sonic hadn't been able to create one, but it was just that it was invisible because it was made of air."
"Exactly. Each of us had something different in mind and used different methods, but we still got the same result... more or less, you know what I mean. If you concentrate solely on creating a bubble, the moment you create it, your mind will assume you've done your job and give up, so it only lasts for an instant."
"So what should I be thinking about if not a bubble?".
"You already told me: Protect. So create a bubble capable of protecting what you love most."
Amy kept thinking, shifting her gaze between Knuckles, the flower and Knuckles again. She didn't seem so sure, but she had nothing to lose, so she gave it a try. She leaned towards the flower again and wrapped her hands around it, but this time she closed her eyes and concentrated on something else.
The meta-quartz in the center of the pendant began to glow faintly but uninterruptedly. The glow grew in strength until the other stones around it began to glow as well. The pinkish energy flowed orbiting the flower, like waves moved by the tide, becoming more and more tangible... until it disappeared completely.
Knuckles looked disappointed. He was about to tap Amy's shoulder to make her open her eyes until he noticed something forming around the flower.
They were like tiny flower buds that appeared levitating above the orchid and then opened like roses blooming and melted forming a layer of pink energy. In this way, other buds opened as they appeared, hundreds of buds orbiting the flower. Thus the bubble was completely formed, with thicker and more solid walls.
Knuckles gave a big smile, but remained silent. He waited a second, two, three, four, five...
"Is the bubble done yet? I feel like something happened, but..." the hedgehog muttered, as if fearing that if she spoke too loudly, her effort would go up in smoke.
"Open your eyes and see for yourself," Knux replied.
Amy slowly and carefully opened her right eye, when she could see the bubble relatively clearly she opened both eyes wide. She was about to scream, but restrained herself and was completely paralyzed. She waited a second, two, three...
"It's been formed for about a minute now. It's a done deal, you did it," Knuckles concluded.
"I DID IT!" the pink hedgehog shouted euphorically before grabbing the bubble in her hands and playing with it like a ball. "I really did it! I...!", at which point the bubble popped as ordinary bubbles do, Amy was fast enough to catch the flower in mid-air before it crashed to the ground.
"Wow, that's too bad! I guess a minute and a half is your limit for now," the echidna opined. "Well, I guess that's not bad considering that until recently you couldn't-"
The echidna was interrupted by a sudden hug from Amy.
"ThankYouThankYouThankYou THANK YOU, Knuckles!".
"H-hey, you did it all, I didn't..."
"Thank you anyway! from the bottom of my heart!".
"Okay, you're welcome. Now let go, you're suffocating me",
"Oh, sorry, sorry!".
They both returned to their respective seats, Knuckles trying to maintain his bad guy facade and Amy super happy, with restless legs. The hedgehog tried again to create another bubble but in the air. She did it without closing her eyes and it formed on the palm of her hand. Amy started fiddling with it and juggling until it popped.
"If you keep practicing you'll be able to create weapons like the ones Tails and Sonic had, bigger and stronger... like another hammer, I guess."
"I don't know, I like these bubbles - they're so pretty!".
"Well, you can do whatever you want. It's your power at the end of the day."
"Hey And did you create something?".
"I tried, yes."
"And what was it? I'd seen the one with Sonic and Tails, but I never got to see yours."
"Didn't Acorn say that has to be secret?"
"What's the difference? If you already got rid of your Meta-Quartz".
"You never know..."
"Can you at least tell me what you were thinking of when you invoked it?"
Knuckles was silent as he pondered. He looked at one of his fists and concluded:
"The Same as Always."
Maverick Lore:
[...] Many scholars of the [Acorn] Realm have turned their efforts to trying to decipher the enigma that is Chaos Energy. More powerful and erratic than any other type of energy, it has been found to be widespread throughout the world. It is, in fact, an essential part of life on the planet, one might almost say it is its fuel. Despite its anomalous characteristics, Chaos energy, like all energy, obeys the First Law of Thermodynamics, "It is neither created nor destroyed, but transformed"; flowing and transmuting over time, Chaos energy gives vitality to all living things equally. [...] But there are certain individuals who, naturally, seem to accumulate considerable amounts of this energy, as if it had a will of its own and chose them to guard it... metaphorically speaking, of course. These individuals are diverse and varied, ranging from complex, sensitive and reasoning organisms to unicellular microorganisms. This fact makes it extremely complicated to determine what causes such accumulation to take place, although undoubtedly one of the reasons is the proximity to known sources of large amounts of chaos energy (say, the Chaos Emeralds or the Mythic Master Emerald). Whatever the reason for the accumulation, it is a fact that those individuals who possess it, are endowed with abilities that are above average or already directly absent in the average individual, one of them being that phenomenon, sadly not very widely studied, that manifests itself when an individual with such characteristics comes in contact with a Meta-Quartz stone: The (tentatively) called Zone of Influence. [...]"
Excerpt from the Special Degree Work of Rotor The Walrus entitled: "On the Zones of Influence (Z.O.I.) and their spontaneous manifestation in living beings overloaded with Chaos Energy".
P.S: If you're wondering what this is, it's going to be a way to give lore and supplementary information without the need for a character to stop and give a Ted Talk about their powers like in Hunter x Hunter or Jojo's.