War of Chaos: Story of Knuckles the Echidna

By: Shadow the Hedgehog 2099

***Author’s Comments*** A couple quick things to note: the “War of Chaos” fan fiction is to be read under the preconceived notion that all the “Story” chapters occur at roughly the same time and come to the final chapter at the same time. Any time/space discrepancies are unintentional and unplanned, if one of those just so happens to occur between the different story paths, so be it—a wizard did it.

The rough-n-tumble red echidna, named Knuckles, silently scaled down the side of an enormous, snow-capped mountain. Swearing he had heard the voice of his friend, Shadow the Hedgehog, he decided it would be best to return to the city and continue his search for the fragmented Master Emerald there. It wouldn’t be too much longer, he told himself, for he had most of the enormous jewel reformed, and only a few pieces were still missing. Knuckles slowly made way down to the bottom of the mountain before deciding to first detour to his sea-bound island and see how things were there, so after finding a good wind, Knuckles adjusted his dreadlocks, and leaped into the air and allowed the wind to carry his lithe body through the air.

It was dead silent and he thought quietly about what had passed—what with the Space Colony ARK penetrating the planet’s atmosphere, and it mysteriously vanishing just as quickly—but he had no doubt Shadow was on the front line ensuring tranquility in his absence. Since childhood Knuckles had made himself belief he could trust no one but himself with his home island’s guardianship, but he actually felt a bond of trust with Shadow and his friends that was so natural, he knew it was no lie. Though it took the good majority of the day, Knuckles swiftly arrived at his home, Angel Island. He landed before the nearly-completed Master Emerald that had also regained quite a bit of its original luster. He beamed proudly as he rubbed his enormous mitt over the smooth face of the jewel before feeling a near-by presence that was familiar to him. It was no piece of the Master Emerald, but if nothing else it was worth looking into.

He eventually found the source of the energy deep in the caves around an icecap that somehow maintained itself, in spite of the islands subtropical and tropical environs. It was the red Chaos Emerald lying on top of some fresh snow. Knuckles chuckled, “Well! What’s a nice Chaos Emerald like that doing in a frozen dump like this?” he picked it up and wiped the white powdery snow off it and looked at it, “Good color choice too. I bet Shadow is looking for these things again. I suppose I’d ought to find him and give it to him… he knows what to do with this things more than I do,”

Knuckles once again took to the sky and in no time at all found himself in the city of Starmen.netville (which he time and again told Shadow was a very weird name) and began asking around for where Shadow had been. He got a few shrugged shoulders before a passerby informed him that he saw Shadow and his heavyset fiancée, Fiona, heading towards a new casino in the south end of the city. Knuckles took off like a rocket, eager to see his old friend again, but as he approached the casino (appropriately named “Casinopolis”) he picked up on a vibe from the inside that very well might have been another missing fragment of the Master Emerald. Excitement overtook him more than ever before as his friendly visit turned out to be true pay dirt.

He was suddenly taken aback as Shadow and Fiona left the building with Fiona holding the grey Chaos Emerald up above her head in victory. Knuckles snickered as his theory about them collecting the powerful stones turned out to be correct, but his laugh didn’t last long as Eggman flew down from the sky in his hovercraft, blew a smokescreen behind him and took Fiona’s emerald. Knuckles rushed forward as he heard Shadow and Fiona concocting plans to get back the stolen jewel, as he took out the red Chaos Emerald out of his glove. “Knuckles!” Shadow gasped.

“Hey, Shadow,” Knuckles smirked, handing the chaos emerald over to Shadow, “I just so happened to come across this beauty over in the Icecap on my Floating Island. I almost have all the Master Emerald pieces but I’m still missing a few. I figured you’d know what to do with this better than I would,”
“Thanks, Knuckles! We don’t have time to delay! C’mon, Fiona!” Shadow exclaimed, taking her hand and running in the general direction of Eggman’s flight path, “See you later, Knuckles, thanks again!”

“No problem! Just keep your head on your shoulders!” Knuckles laughed as he stepped into Casinopolis. Knuckles wanted to help Shadow chase down Eggman, but he also couldn’t risk losing the signal on the Master Emerald by chasing the scientist of whom Shadow had far more experience against than himself, so he decided to let Shadow go his own way and cause some damage of his own. After scurrying through crowds and people trying to stuff free game tokens in his hands, Knuckles looked up at a tall statue of a man (presumably the man who built the casino in the first place) and noticed something shimmering on top of the statues head. Knuckles quickly scurried to the top of the statue and found exactly what he had hoped for—a rather large shard of his own Master Emerald. He took it in his large hands and immediately used his connection to the gem to send it back to the island.

He knew only a few pieces were left by that point, so he took off to hopefully find the next one as soon as he could. After a few more hours of fruitless searching, he was about to give up hope when a faint signal triggered in his mind. He followed it for a while, hoping it would become stronger and, much to his relief, it did. He suddenly found himself in the midst of the jungles in the west side of the Mystic Ruin area. “Call this creepy,” Knuckles muttered to himself, “I’ve never even been here before and yet… and yet I feel right at home…” Suddenly, he was shocked back to his senses as a loud, resounding CRASH landed not too far from him, so he ran to check it out. There, on the ground was a weakened Fiona the Hedgehog. “Fiona?!” Knuckles gasped, amazed Shadow wasn’t there to (try to) catch her. He gazed down at her as she opened her eyes.

“Oh! Knuckles!” Fiona exclaimed, pushing herself back to her feet wearily, “What happened?”

“I was about to as you the same question! Are you okay?” Knuckles asked with a shrug.

“I’m… I’m okay, I think,” Fiona stopped to recount what had just happened, “Shadow and I were after Eggman and this big laser thing… and the helicopter went down somewhere… Where’s Shadow?” she asked suddenly.

“Don’t know that one,” Knuckles replied, “You were the only one who fell here,”

“Darn it,” Fiona grunted, “I guess Shadow was sent in another direction then. Where are we?” she stopped and finally surveyed her environment. She was in the middle of a thick, lush jungle, with some strange rock formations around them.

Knuckles looked around, “I’m only here because I sensed a piece of the Master Emerald in the area. Finding you was sheer luck. Well… since you’re in the area anyhow, let’s go find the Master Emerald shards and then we’ll look for Shadow,”

“I… Uhh…” Fiona wondered, “I guess that makes sense. Maybe there’s a Chaos Emerald here too?”

“Maybe,” Knuckles shrugged, “I saw some old Echidna ruins over beyond that clearing. Let’s investigate them first,” Fiona nodded to the red echidna and they set off towards where Knuckles was pointing to. When they got there, they saw a large, beautiful temple sitting in the middle of it, but it had no obvious entrance. They shrugged to one another before climbing up a large staircase built into the side of the temple and walked around it to the back. Once there they found what looked like a type of trapdoor and they both went down it and into the rustic structure.

When they got to the bottom of the ladder that was built into the wall, they found themselves in an ancient Echidna armory. The two carefully looked around and up on a pedestal in the middle of the room sat a chunk of Knuckles’ Master Emerald. “Yes!” he exclaimed victoriously as he took it up in his hand. Just as he took it, a bright light enveloped the room and the two explorers found themselves in a black void. They looked at one another, then at their bleak surroundings and then saw an echidna girl walk from the shadows. She had a pink-tan type color with ancient marking across her spines and an old fashion of clothing.

“Who are you?” Fiona gasped.

“My name is Tikal, and I am one of the ancient echidnas who lived during the reign of our empire, well over 2000 years ago,” she explained, “And I have much to tell you and very little time to tell it all in, so please listen!” Fiona and Knuckles nodded to her, so she continued, “2000 years ago, the echidna people ruled most of this continent. When that wasn’t enough, they moved on to the conquest of an island just off the continent’s coast. When they got there, they found the empire in terrible economic condition, so they temporarily bunkered down and established a large, bustling town on that island.

“And I am the daughter of the chief of that town on the island. One day, when I was very young, I went off to the outskirts of town in order to play, and I found a most amazing treasure! I found the Master and Chaos Emeralds! They were so mysteriously beautiful that I was afraid to disturb their rightful places, but it was there that I met the Chao of the island. They were so cute I just wanted to play all day with them. With them was another creature—made entirely of water and having command over the water around it—was the creature we now know as Chaos,”

“Wait!” Knuckles exclaimed, “You met Chaos over 2000 years ago?”

“Yes,” Tikal affirmed him, “I did. Like the water itself, Chaos is ageless and, unless destroyed, will live forever. Back then he was a gentle, benign creature who protected the Chao from those who would hurt them. He was scared of me at first, but he became one of my best friends. One of my only friends, actually, as I was the only teenager in the entire village and I was afraid the little children might accidentally hurt the Chao, so I kept the place my own little secret hiding spot when I needed to think,

“But one day, a few of the villagers got curious as to where I went all day when I wasn’t at home or school, so they followed me to the Master Emerald’s shrine. They could feel the power pouring from the Chaos Emeralds, so they went to tell my father. They were sure that the emerald’s power would make the Echidna Empire invincible and bring us out of the recession our economy was in. That night, my father got a squad of men to go to the shrine and take the emeralds for their own gain. I tried to stop them, but their lust for money and power caused them to treat me like an enemy and nearly trampled me… But when they got to the Master Emerald, Chaos was there. He saw the pain they caused the little Chao creatures. He was filled with pain and sorrow and anger. So he absorbed the Chaos Emeralds and used that hatred to ascend unto a terrible monster: Perfect Chaos!

“Then, he used terribly floods and destructive attacks to reduce the planet to a world of water. We were lucky we built our temples to be water-proof for just such a flood, so the last remaining echidnas came together and we used what power we had left to seal Chaos into the Master Emerald so that he wouldn’t harm anymore people. The price was a high one—it cost all the remaining echidnas save for a few—their very lives,” Tikal sighed sorrowfully.

“And Eggman let Chaos loose out of the Master Emerald! That was what that slippery beast was that attacked me just before my island fell!” Knuckles exclaimed in fury, “We have got to stop Eggman!”

“Right!” Fiona agreed.

“Here, take this with you,” Tikal said as she held out the purple Chaos Emerald to Fiona, “If you keep this safe then Chaos won’t be able to unleash his full power and ravage the world again! Good luck you two!” Tikal then vanished back to the darkness from whence she came, and the two found themselves back in the armory. With haste, the two escaped the temple and hotfooted it back towards Fiona’s father’s hanger.

“Let’s go!’ Fiona exclaimed.

“You go on without me,” Knuckles told her, “I’ll catch up, but I have to make a quick pit stop before I do. Give the others my regards until I get there!”

“Right then! Thanks for the help, Knuckles!” Fiona exclaimed as she rushed inside.

“I can help as soon as the Master Emerald is back in one piece!” Knuckles grunted as he turned and went back after the signal he had picked up on before. After only a matter of minutes, he found himself next to a large river with a piece of the jewel washed up on the bank. The piece was large in size, leading Knuckles to conclude it would only be logical for only but one more piece to be out there, waiting to be found. “But where?” Knuckles sighed in frustration. Just as suddenly as he had asked, he saw a light from the shard shine right up as the Egg Carrier flew right over his head. After a moments hesitation Knuckles sighed again, “Had to be there, now didn’t it?!”

After finding no better way to get on board, Knuckles leaped to the top of two tall palm trees and roughly gripped their leaves—then dragged them to the ground where he locked himself down, then aimed, and let the trees whip forward violently, hurling him through the air and crashing down on an obscure, abandoned portion of the Egg Carrier’s deck. “That… actually worked!” Knuckles laughed, “I thought I was dead for sure but…” He then heard Shadow’s voice beneath the deck. “There!” Knuckles cried as he put his fist through the deck and leaped down to his awaiting friend.

“Knuckles!” Shadow shouted in relief, “Thank goodness!”

“Yep! I felt some of the Master Emerald pieces had been gathered up in this ship—so I came for them and lucky me, I found you too!” Knuckles smirked, “Let’s go scramble that Eggman!”

“Right on!” Shadow laughed as he and Knuckles leaped out of the hole that the red echidna had opened only to find Eggman, Chaos 4 and a very weary Ishntknew and Fiona. “Eggman!” Shadow shouted at the round scientist.

“I don’t have time for this!” Eggman yelled into the air as he rushed his hovercraft into Fiona, knocking her flat and causing her to drop her purple emerald and then Ishnt reached into his bag and took out the yellow emerald and they both were fed to the water monster. “Agh! Ishnt! You had an emerald this whole time?! Why didn’t you give it to me sooner?!” Eggman shouted in frustration.

Ishnt shrugged, “I was keeping it as a just-in-case measure, Doc. I was gonna fork it over as soon as we had the other six, but desperate times call for desperate measures!”

Knuckles grunted, “That means your friend, Kindar, has the last one!”

Shadow nodded, “Yeah! But we have bigger issues on our hands!” Shadow then skated over to his tired-out fiancée and helped her to her feet.

“I’ll save Kindar,” Fiona tiredly whispered, “That’ll be easy—you guys need to fight Chaos!” Just as she said that, Chaos had just finished swallowing the two newest additional emeralds and shifted into a massive scorpion-like monster with a massive guillotine-tail and large blade-like claws. “I’m sorry I can’t help more,” Fiona whimpered.

“Get going! Save Kindar and get outta here!” Shadow grunted, pushing her in the general direction of the door as Knuckles and he went after Chaos Six.

“Oh! This is too rich!” Eggman laughed maniacally, “Crush them, Chaos!” Shadow and Knuckles confidently nodded to the other and began moving in towards the hulking monster together. “Where do you two think you’re going?!” Eggman laughed as his chair began shooting out strange bomb-like robots.

“Those things look kind of funny,” Knuckles commented.

“There’s smoke coming off of them?” Shadow wondered aloud, “Wait! That’s not smoke, it’s steam! They must be ice robo-bombs!”

“Ice?” Knuckles thought aloud as well, “Are you thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’, Shadow?” Shadow merely grinned as he leaped through the air and grabbed one of the ice bombs in mid-flight and kicked it into the open mouth of Chaos Six, and its entire body froze up.

“No way!” Eggman shouted, “I can’t believe this!!!”

“Now, Shadow!” Knuckles called out loud as both he and his hedgehog companion charged into the ice monster and broke it into pieces.

“No! My invincible Chaos creature got iced out of the picture?!” Eggman gasped, “Noooooooo! I was only a single emerald away from winning this time!”

Suddenly, the entire ship began to shake violently, “Hey! What’s going on?!” Knuckles gasped.

“This reeks of feminine mishap,” Shadow sighed, as he peered over his shoulder towards the door just as Fiona and Kindar (and her little bird friend) came running out of the passage. Kindar was carrying a piece of the Master Emerald, which she promptly gave to Knuckles. “Hey! The last piece! Thanks!” Knuckles grinned.

“What did you two do?!” Shadow grunted.

Fiona grinned innocently, “Well, we got into a little fight down there with Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts—and well, it was near the ship’s generator and…” she trailed off. Shadow and Knuckles stared at them, deadpan.

“No!” Eggman cried out, “It keeps getting worse! The power supply’s going haywire! I’m getting out of here!!!” Eggman turned his hovercraft around and attempted to fly away.

“You’re not going anywhere, Doc!” Shadow yelled out and began viciously skating at him.

“Shadow! Where are you going?!” Kindar shouted out. Just then, the shaking on the ship became all the more intense, so Kindar and Fiona made a beeline for the biplane and Knuckles, with the final shard of the emerald, leaped off the side and used his dreadlocks as wings and gracefully glided away from the falling Egg Carrier. He sent the jewel on back ahead of him as he made his long, noisy flight through rough air turbulence as the Egg Carrier slowly lost altitude and went crashing down into the sea below. He sighed softly as he continued his flight, finally relieved to be done with his mission of repairing the Master Emerald.

However, Knuckles was surprised to see his beloved Angel Island still in the ocean when he returned to the massive gem’s shrine. “I don’t get it!” Knuckles exclaimed, seeing the fully-fixed Master Emerald back where it belonged, “Every piece is in place and the Master Emerald still pulses with the same power it always has! What’s missing?”

“There’s no time! Knuckles!” he suddenly heard a girl’s voice cry.

Knuckles whirled around and instinctively asked, “Tikal?!”

There before him was the young echidna girl’s transparent existence and she said, “You must go back to the city! Chaos hasn’t been destroyed! He’s about to regain his full power! You have to go help and fight it!”

Knuckles confidently nodded without a moment’s hesitation, “Don’t you worry Tikal! I’ll help Shadow—and he and I will take down that monster before it gets the chance to hurt any more innocent people! We’ll stop that monster: Perfect Chaos!”

--To be continued…