At nighttime, Knuckles was at the top of the Crystal Brighthouse, at the balcony, looking at Maretime Bay with his arms crossed and a frown.
Maretime Bay. A peaceful town of civilized ponies, with the most delicious treats I've ever tasted. A place I'm glad I can call... home.
It was raining a lot lately, with thunders included, some even being red. Sonic, Tails, Sunny and Zipp left to search for the Chaos Emeralds at a place called the Starfall Islands several hours ago, and he was the only one left to protect Maretime Bay now, specially after the still very recent events with Dr. Eggman and his Death Egg Titan.
I am their guardian. I watch over the Crystal Brighthouse, my friends and every living thing here. That is to say: all the plants, animals and ponies. Hitch is busy feeling paranoid over Sunny's life, another attack by Eggman and taking care of Sparky; Pipp and Amy are worrying - way too much if you ask me - about Sonic's safety; Shadow and Rouge are touring Omega across Equestria; Misty is looking for a way to traverse Opaline's new and very powerful shield that protects her Castle, and Izzy is being Izzy... So I'm the only protection this town has.
Maybe Knuckles will never confess it, but he was worried about Sonic, Tails, Sunny and Zipp too. However, he learned a long ago to hide his emotions and focus on the task at matter. And right now, his task was to protect Maretime Bay at any cost.
Before arriving to Equestria, I watched over the Master Emerald on Angel Island, and every living thing there as well. Well, the plants and animals, at least. Any other kind of civilization is long since disappeared from the island.
Knuckles watched how Kenneth, one of the birds from Hitch animal crew, stopped by on the balcony and looked up at the sky, then flew away again.
I do things on my own, and that's just how I like it. I don't need anyone else to get by...
Or that's what I used to think.
Sometimes, I did accepted Sonic's help when I required it, or even helped him out. But it wasn't until I met Izzy that I realized how much I hated to be alone on Angel Island. Her cheerful attitude, her optimism, her ideas and invented words... she definitely makes me smile more than I have ever in my entire life.
Knuckles couldn't help but smile at the simple image of Izzy. She wasn't only a very creative unicorn, but she was also a pretty one. And the best part, at least for him, was that she was his girlfriend.
She's the best thing that could ever happened to me, and I wouldn't change that for anything... too bad I have a duty to fulfill back home. I'm the guardian of the Master Emerald, and the protector of Angel Island, that's my real job...
Sometimes... I wonder how things would be if I hadn't been given that responsibility. Why was I chosen for such a duty?
Perhaps... its karma...
Knuckles still remembered that story very well: how his tribe was cursed to protect the same thing that almost killed them in the past, way before he was even born.
Thousands of years ago, my ancestors attempted to steal a power that wasn't theirs.
He could remember those stories about Tikal trying to warn his ancestors about Perfect Chaos, but they were stubborn, and that stubbornness almost caused them to die. Yeah, they did became extinct now, since Knuckles was the last of his own kind, but that time it was extremely close to a point Knuckles could not exist today.
The question is... whose power was it originally?
The rain started to stop, and the skies cleared up to give space to the sun rays, which made Knuckles look up to the sky.
Who built that shrine to the emeralds? And where did they go?
Knuckles saw Kenneth coming back and tweeting at him, while Knuckles simply nodded to the bird and returned to the inside of the Brighthouse.
Knuckles approached Maretime Bay, and looked the whole town for a few seconds before starting to walk down the streets.
To protect this town and its people, I need to know every possible vulnerability.
As Knuckles walked down the street, he could see Rufus opening his Sunglasses Stand, the fillies Seashell, Glory and Peach Fizz running around as they giggled and Dahlia opening her Flowers Stand as well.
I've explored this place top to bottom, but I still manage to find something new everyday. New routes and secret passages, even ruins of what Equestria used to be thousands of years ago... And remnants of some group that came before.
Two earth pony foals where having trouble as they tried to reach on their ball, that ended up at the top of one tree. Knuckles, who passed by, simply punched slightly the tree, and the ball fell. One of the foals managed to catch it, while the other just cheered that the ball was back.
Then, Knuckles started to glide all around the skies of Maretime Bay with a smirk, until he got attached to a building and started to climb it with grunts.
However, he noticed that, not so far from where he was, there was a raccoonicorn grunting and at the edge of crying as he tried to take something out of below a rock. Izzy, Hitch and Pipp where with said raccoonicorn, with Izzy trying to lift the rock with her magic, while Hitch - who had Sparky on his back and his usual animal crew - tried to use his earth pony magic as well, and Pipp... she was livestreaming.
Knuckles rolled his eyes at the last thing, and decided to glide and get near his friends and the poor raccoonicorn.
Izzy kept grunting as she tried to lift the rock with her magic, with no success. "Oh, come on!" she complained. "I can levitate lots of heavy stuff! Why is this rock the exception?!" she groaned.
"My magic isn't working either..." Hitch complained. "I'm sorry, little buddy. But we can't do anything else from here..." he said with guilty.
"Seriously, how heavy is this thing that our magic doesn't work?" Pipp complained, looking at the rock with a frown.
The raccoonicorn decided to not give up and kept trying to push whatever was down the rock, although he started to tear up a bit.
As the ponies watched at him with worry, Knuckles arrived gliding and landed behind. "Hold on, little guy. I'll help" he said with a smile.
"I was starting to wonder where have you been, Knux" Hitch said with a smile.
"Doing my rounds, as usual" Knuckles simply replied. "Stay back, just for precaution!" he instructed to his friends.
As the rest simply stepped back, he got close to the rock and smirked, cracking his knuckles with confidence. Then, he charged up his right fist with electricity and punched the rock, destroying it into lots of pieces. Knuckles smirk grow bigger, and Izzy behind was looking at him with a blush and sparkling eyes, while Pipp at her side giggled. But Knuckles smirk disappeared, once he saw the a tiny piece of the rock fell into the raccoonicorn head, who started to tear up again.
Knuckles panicked and smiled sheepishly at the raccoonicorn. "H-Hey! There-there!" he told the raccoonicorn, patting his head a little, which seemed to calm the raccoonicorn down. He then grabbed what was down the rock and extend it to the critter. "Here! This is what you were looking for, right?" he told him, now with a genuine smile that melted Izzy's heart as she smiled too.
The raccoonicorn grabbed what it seemed to be a mask of a weird creature and left. But as soon as he was gone, Knuckles noticed that there was something else down the mask: a grey gear with light blue lines around. He grabbed the gear and looked at it with a critical eye, while the others came close.
"A gear and a mask down a rock?" Hitch questioned with a raised eyebrow.
"That's both weird and new..." Pipp pointed out a bit concerned.
"Ooh! And it's glowing!" Izzy pointed out cheerfully.
Knuckles had a weird feeling about this gear, and then he noticed that, behind the now destroyed rock, there was an entrance to a cave that he never saw before. And judging by the quiet gasps of his friends, they neither.
"Okay, that it's definitely weird..." Hitch said, pointing at the cave. "I never saw that before!" he confessed.
Knuckles just frowned and decided to approach the cave with the gear down his arm. Izzy decided to follow immediately, and Hitch just rolled his eyes at Knuckles' explorer side as he followed as well, still with Sparky on his back and with his animal crew following behind.
"Of course we're heading to the scary and dark cave..." Pipp complained, following after her friends.
Once inside of the cave, Knuckles inspected his surroundings with a critical look, while Izzy hummed to herself and Hitch inspected the place as well. Pipp, on the other hand, decided to check on her phone to distract herself from... whatever this was supposed to be.
"Hmm... This is different" Knuckles pointed out.
And then, he gasped when he saw a weird broken structure. It was some kind of grey and rusty tower with a circular hole at the top, surrounded by muss and broken in half. Knuckles climbed the structure at one jump, while Pipp flew over it and Izzy used her magic to levitate both her and Hitch.
"It looks... old. Even older than those ruins at Canterlot" Knuckles said, pulling some moss away from the structure and revealing a hole to perfectly fit the gear. Knuckles looked at the glowing gear, and then at the hole. "I wonder..." he said, slowly approaching the gear to the hole on the structure.
"Wait, Knux! Hold on a sec!" Hitch said, trying to stop Knuckles from putting the gear.
Unfortunately for him, Knuckles already placed the thing, but absolutely nothing happened.
"Huh... that was pretty anticlimactic..." Pipp pointed out with a bored expression.
She spoke too soon.
Suddenly, the gear glow brighter, now in color red, and the tower started to react on a weird way. Knuckles and Hitch stood in fighting position, with Izzy, Pipp, Sparky and the critters hiding behind them. But then, all of their bodies started to glow on red as well.
"W-What's the meaning of this?!" Hitch cried out in panic.
"I don't like this! I absolutely don't like this!" Pipp cried out as well.
And in just a red flash, the three ponies, baby dragon, critters and echidna disappeared, while the tower shut down and the gear stopped glowing completely.
In a strange place, a tower exactly like the one found by Knuckles and company, just completely intact, started to glow in red, and the engage at the bottom shone brightly.
Then, Knuckles appeared in another red flash, screaming in panic, until he opened his eyes and realized three things: the first one, he was completely intact. The second one: the others were not with him. And the last one: he was on a new place.
"Huh? What was that?!" Knuckles wondered in shock, not understanding what the heck happened. As he turned around, he double checked that he was, indeed, on a new and unknown place. "What? Where am I?" he questioned.
Knuckles got down the tower and inspected around, looking at the sky thundering with red lightnings and finding himself on a rocky location, because he was seeing just rocky formations around.
"This isn't Maretime Bay..." Knuckles pointed out to himself. "Am I even in Equestria? This doesn't looks like my island either... And where are the others?!" he asked with concern. "Is this another one of your tricks, Eggman?!" he cried out with anger, standing to fight. "Show yourself!" he demanded.
Eggman surely did not appeared. What approached him, instead, were red sparkles and lightnings coming from the ground. He stepped back, still in a fighting position, staring at the red sparkles with a frown. And then, a weird, black creature with a red triangle eye showed up. But it wasn't one, it was many of them, at least 7 or 8. They were all taller, metallic and they all had some kind of weird swords as arms.
"Oh, an ambush, huh?" Knuckles retorted with a snort. "Your funeral" he stated with anger, charging up his fists with his own electricity.
One of the weird creatures jumped to attack him, but Knuckles charged up his right fist and yelled a warrior cry, punching the red triangle eye of the creature and destroying it in the process. The creature, now destroyed, fell backwards, but then another one came in and tried to hit Knuckles.
However, the echidna dodged the attack and punched the other creature in the eye as well, killing it immediately. More creatures approached him from behind, but Knuckles managed to destroy them by punching, Spindashing and kicking with electricity all around his body.
Finally, when a bunch more of those creatures approached even more, Knuckles charged all of his strength in just one fist, and then smashed the ground, splitting the ground in two and making the side were the creatures were standing fall to the abysm. One managed to save, but Knuckles threw a rock to its eye and it fell again, as the echidna cracked his knuckles with a smirk and turned around to frown again.
"Whoever is behind this better show yourself now!" Knuckles demanded with anger. "We'll settle this in a fair fight" he stated. "And after I win, you'll send me and my friends home! Got it?!" he requested and demanded.
However, he could sense a weird presence behind him, and he turned around... just to find a massive creature that seemed to be a titanic version of the creatures he just destroyed. The difference was that this creature had 3 arms instead of 2, and some kind of platforms attached to its head. But that wasn't all: Knuckles saw someone floating next to the titanic creature.
"Huh? Who the––" Knuckles muttered, trying to see better who was at the side of the creature.
A human-like girl was floating next to the titanic creature. She had a short hair, a very, very scary aspect and an aura that made her look intimidating. Knuckles yelled in fright as the girl pointed her palm to him and snapped.
The next thing Knuckles saw was... nothing.
After what it felt like an eternity, Knuckles woke up and gasped surprised. He was in some kind of spiky and red cage, in the middle of a desert.
Knuckles looked at his hands, at his entire body actually. He could still feel and touch himself... but somehow, he wasn't physically present at all. He was, somehow, transparent and digital, and he was panicking a lot. He looked up at the sky in anger, and then he remembered Hitch, Izzy, Pipp and Sparky. They were not with him when he appeared here, but he was sure that whoever trapped him there also trapped his friends.
Knuckles closed his eyes as some tears fell down, and he grabbed his head. Then, he screamed loudly, letting all his frustration out in that single scream. His curiosity got him there, and it trapped his friends too.
They were where they were now because of him.
I do things on my own, and that's just how I like it. I don't need anyone else to get by...
But sometimes.