Chapter 6: The Floating Island
Knuckles lay flat on his back on top of the Master Emerald. It was one of his favorite places to take quick naps, since the Emerald kept him in tune with the state of the island and rejuvenated him at the same time. The Emerald glowed softly, letting its power soak through the island.
With a start Knuckles’ eyes shot open. “Someone’s here,” he muttered. “...and he’s not friendly.”
-
- *
Sonic hopped out of the plane as it’s engine slowly died down, followed closely by Amy. “Looks normal,” he muttered. “If Knux has gone crazy, his island sure hasn’t.”
Tails finished powering down the plane and climbed out. “Should we split up and look for him?”
Sonic shook his head. “Naw, that’d just make us more vulnerable. Let’s stick together; he’ll find us before we find him.”
They began walking down the nearest path in silence. An aura of tension hung in the air around them as they expected Knuckles to jump out and attack them from every piece of underbrush they saw. After a few minutes they relaxed a little, and even started to talk out loud.
“So what did you mean when you said you knew the Master Emerald, Sonic?” Amy asked.
Sonic chuckled. “It’s kinda hard to explain. It’s… Tails, you always seem to do a better job than I do.”
“Well…” Tails began. “The Master Emerald isn’t quite like the other Emeralds. They’re just normal, dead, and whoever wants to can just come along and use them. To an extent…” Tails trailed off but snapped back to reality a moment later. “But, with the Master Emerald, it’s… well… alive. It can think for itself, it can give or deny its power… There’s a whole story behind it; we should get Knux to tell it to us sometime.”
“The craziest thing,” Sonic added, “is that it can speak to you if you’re using it. You remember back when Chaos was trashing Mobotropolis?”
Amy nodded. “The Chaos Emeralds were dead, so you had to use the Master Emerald to become Super Sonic, right?”
“Right. And the whole time I was Super Sonic, the Master Emerald was telling me all this stuff about where to hit, what to do… it was the freakiest thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“And it’s like that with Knuckles too,” Tails said. “The best way to describe it is that he and the Emerald can read each other’s minds to a certain extent—”
Sonic held up his hand and froze. The wind was rustling the trees slightly. Sonic seemed intent on one particular sound.
“It’s just the wind,” Amy said before Sonic shushed her. Slowly he moved ahead on the path, listening carefully. Quick as a flash he pounced on a spot of underbrush.
“Is it Knuckles?” Tails yelled.
Sonic reappeared on the path. “Nope,” he said flatly.
Just then something jumped out of the brush on the other side and wrestled Sonic to the ground. Sonic yelled in resistance before he recognized his attacker.
“Kunx!” he said.
“You’re getting better,” Knuckles said with a smile. “But not quite.” He got off of Sonic and looked at Tails and Amy. “Brought everyone with you today?”
“Yeah,” Sonic said. “Robotnik’s being his usual self.”
Knuckles rolled his eyes. “Tell me about— wait.” He closed his eyes and held one finger in the air for a few minutes.
“He’s talking to the Emerald,” Tails whispered to Amy. Amy just stared at Knuckles in wonder.
Knuckles opened his eyes and began pacing, still in a trance. “Someone’s here, he’s not friendly…” he said slowly. Knuckles looked hard at everyone present. “Guard the Emerald…” His eyes fell on Sonic’s medallion. Sonic noticed this and grasped it for security.
“Which one…?” Knuckles continued. “There are five here.”
“Knux,” Sonic said, “do you have a Chaos Emerald on the island?”
Knuckles started for a second as he returned to reality. “What? Emerald? Oh, King Acorn gave me the red one to guard—” A look of horrible realization crept across Knuckles’ face. “... and someone is trying to steal it as we speak!”
“Where is it?” Sonic said quickly.
“One of the towers in Marble Gardens. This way, I know a shortcut.” Knuckles took off running, Sonic, Tails, and Amy in close pursuit.
“Why are we following him?” Amy asked Tails. “I thought he was the bad guy here.”
“I don’t really know,” Tails answered. “I think there’s more to this situation than meets the eye.” He ran for a few more strides and added, “I just hope we all aren’t being led into a trap.”
-
- *
They stopped running at the foot of one of the tallest towers in the Marble Gardens ruins.
“The Emerald is at the top of this tower,” Knuckles said. “You should be able to get to it from that path over there. I’ll try climbing.”
“Don’t need it,” Sonic said quickly. “Tails, do you think you can lift me?”
Tails looked towards the top. “It’s a long way. If I drop you—”
“I’ll Chaos Control,” Sonic interrupted. “Just do it.”
“Good luck,” Knuckles breathed as he started climbing the tower.
“Hey, what about me!” Amy yelled as Sonic and Tails took off.
“Take the path,” Sonic said.
Amy stomped her foot in impudence. “Everybody always leaves me behind,” she muttered as she began running up the path.
Tails could see the platform first, and he nearly dropped Sonic in response. “Um, Knux?” he yelled down, “you are not going to believe this.”
“What?” Knuckles yelled back.
Sonic and Tails landed on the platform. Sonic yelled out a string of nonsense that was an obvious attempt to keep from cursing.
“Why do you insist on keeping me in suspense,” Knuckles muttered as he pulled himself onto the platform. “I do not think that…” He trailed off as he saw what Sonic and Tails had.
At the other end of the platform stood himself.
To all appearances it was a red echidna with a guardian crest. It sported fighting gloves and shoes identical to Knuckles’. But a close look at the eyes would have been disturbing at best, since while they looked normal at a glance, they lacked the depth that the eye of a living creature possessed.
“This cannot be real,” Knuckles muttered.
The other Knuckles held out the red Emerald in its palm as if to say, “Come and get it, if you’re tough enough.”
“Bring it on,” Knuckles muttered. He charged toward the impostor with one spiked fist forward. The impostor ducked and stuck out its foot to trip up Knuckles, but Knuckles dived over it and dug his spikes into the impostor’s back.
The impostor made no sound except the whirring of machinery. It reached back and flung Knuckles onto the ground. Knuckles just got up and looked the impostor straight in the eye. It took the challenge and started charging towards Knuckles, but as it approached Knuckles held out the red Emerald.
“Not today,” Knuckles said. He tightened his grip and yelled, “Chaos Spear!”
The force from the invisible energy blast threw the impostor off the platform and straight toward the horizon. Sonic started applauding. “That was smooth, Knux. Real smooth.”
Knuckles was still serious as he handed Sonic the Emerald. “Keep this safe. If that’s what I think it is it’ll be—”
“Look out for the missile!” Amy yelled from her place on a nearby platform.
A deafening explosion echoed through the island. The platform Knuckles, Sonic, and Tails were on began to tip over and fall. With barely enough time to think, Knuckles glided off and latched onto a nearby pillar while Tails airlifted Sonic to the place where Amy stood.
“It was a robot!” Sonic yelled in disgust. “Robotnik made a robot of Knuckles!”
“Should I be flattered?” Knuckles said.
The robot in question now hovered where the platform once stood and pointed its arms at Knuckles. Sonic, anticipating what it would do, grabbed his medallion and yelled, “Chaos Spear!” The robot was a little quicker this time, however, and dodged the energy blast.
The diversion was enough, though, to throw off the robot’s aim. The missile that had been intended for Knuckles flew into another pillar, causing even more damage to the island. It did allow enough time for Knuckles to climb to a surface where he wouldn’t be a sitting duck.
Furious, the robot sped toward Sonic, spiked knuckles extended. Its intent was to slice Sonic through the heart. What it got was direct hit from Amy’s hammer. The robot fell to the ground, and before it could get up Knuckles drove his spikes into its body, disabling it.
Tails ran up to it and examined the head. “I think there’s a flicky in here,” he said quickly, pulling off his gloves. “Do you have a screwdriver?”
“You’re the one with the pockets,” Knuckles said.
“What do you need a screwdriver for?” Amy said.
“If the flicky doesn’t pop out in half a minute we have to take it out by hand or it’ll suffocate,” Tails said, feeling the head for a loose seam. “C’mon, that hammer hit had to do something to this— aha!” Tails pressed his finger into a small crack and felt with his other hand for his passcard. Working with all the precision of a thief picking a lock, he slowly nudged the card through the seam, trying to pry the skull off of the robot. After what seemed like hours, Tails finally managed to get enough of the metal to bend that Knuckles could get his hand under and peel it back.
Inside was a mess of wires and circuitry, centered around a glass tube holding a small bird-like animal. Its eyes were bulging and it was frantically kicking the glass. Knuckles seized the tube and threw it onto the ground, shattering it.
The flicky lay on its back for a few seconds breathing heavily, simply happy to get out of the tube. “Thank you so much!” it yelled.
“How was it being me?” Knuckles said casually.
The flicky rose and looked at Knuckles. “You? Honestly, I have no idea. The only thing I can remember are those infernal commands. ‘MOVE FORWARD,’ ‘BEND OVER,’ ‘SCRATCH YOUR NOSE,’ ‘BRING THE EMERALD TO EGG ROCKET.’”
“Egg Rocket?” Sonic asked. “Do you know anything about it?”
The flicky cocked his head. “Well… I seem to remember something about a launch Thursday and I was supposed to take that Emerald there… and that’s it.”
“That’s tomorrow!” Tails breathed.
The flicky cracked a smile. “Ah, don’t worry. You people can take on anything. And I’ve got the headache to prove it. Now if you’ll excuse me,” he said, turning to face the setting sun, “I’ve got a songbird back home calling my name.” With that, he flew off.
“Where’s the phone, Tails?” Sonic said. “Sal needs to know about all this.”
Tails felt his pocket and gasped. “It’s not there!” He frantically scanned the ground for it.
“Is this it?” Knuckles asked, holding up a small metal object.
“There it is,” Sonic said, running over to Knuckles.
A note was attached to the phone reading, “Thought you might need this. Next time don’t leave it in the plane. —A friend.”
“This ‘friend’ is starting to freak me out,” Sonic said.
“So you’ve heard from him before?” Knuckles said.
Sonic laughed. “Tails, you explain.” He opened up the phone and called Sally.
“Hey, I’ve been waiting for you to call,” she answered.
“Ah, well, we went out to the Floating Island to check on Knux.”
“And?”
“And it was a stinking robot duplicate of him running around all those places! He’s been on the island for the past week!”
“I thought it was something like that. So what about the Ice Cap Emerald?”
“Oh, snap, I forgot to ask the flicky. I think he already took it to Robotnik.”
Sonic could hear Sally groaning in the background. “Well, I still don’t think he has enough to launch that rocket thing.”
“Um… actually, the flicky that was in the Knux-bot said it’s being launched tomorrow.”
More groaning. “Well, I guess you know what you have to do. You’ve got what, five emeralds?”
“Yeah, five. Butt-nik’s got one, and our ‘friend’ has the other, right?”
“Apparently. Okay, I’ve done some investigating of my own, and Egg Rocket is at the same place it was the last time he tried to launch the Death Egg.”
“The old industrial area?”
“Exactly. I don’t know what time it launches, though. If you guys miss that rocket—”
“Then we’ll find some other way to get up there, Sal. I’ll hitch on the next supply vessel that goes up, I’ll find a rocket, we’ll do something Sal.”
“You can be so insane sometimes, you know that?”
Sonic laughed out loud. “Hey, a hundred miles an hour is where I’ll begin. You just take care of Bunnie, okay? By the way, how is she doing?”
“She’s doing fine. Charles and Alex are taking good care of her. She can move her new parts, but they have no sense of touch, so that’s going to take some getting used to.”
“Well, tell her I said hi.”
“Will do. Take care of everyone, alright?”
“No problem.”
“And keep a close eye on Amy this time!”
“Yes, ‘mother.’” Sonic hung up and turned to Amy, Knuckles, and Tails.
“Well,” he said slowly, “looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us.”